Sports in America are a funny thing. Average Americans who love
sports are often dismissed by their betters in academia as rednecks
and worse; especially the few yahoos who get carried away when
their teams win it all. Unless of course, these celebrations take
place in inner-city areas where the populace is assumed to be
merely venting frustration at cruel Republican repression.
Angered by their inability to court the NASCAR dads they so
thoroughly disdain, liberals urge us to embrace soccer, a sport
whose rabid and often racist supporters make American fans look
genteel by comparison. It is comical that they think that should we
ever truly take the game seriously — committing our best athletes
and becoming a major force — the rest of the world would love us
more. Forget George Bush creating terrorists, how about the U.S.
winning the World Cup?
No, we will stick to baseball. It was famously said by historian
Jacques Barzun that “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of
America had better learn baseball.” This was true for many years
and hopefully will be again, but not until we are rid of blights on
the game like foul-mouthed White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and his
ilk.
Most baseball writers, at least those at the major dailies, are
just as liberal as their political counterparts. Sports
Illustrated gushed over the fact that after the Sox captured
the World Series trophy, Guillen took it “back to his native
Venezuela in a jet furnished by President Hugo Chavez.” Hugo
Chavez!
Until very recently, these writers were enjoying a love affair
with Guillen. His machismo and quotability were the toast of the
baseball world. Why? His speech is vulgar and overflows with all
the latest obscenities so loved by the intelligentsia; a kind of
cuddly Latino Lenny Bruce. An example of his keen stylings so
admired by the press, are the
kind words he had for former teammate Magglio Ordonez:
He’s a piece of (expletive). He’s a (expletive), that’s
what he is. He’s another Venezuelan (expletive). (Expletive) him.
He has an enemy. Now he has a big one. He knows I can (expletive)
him a lot of different ways. He better shut the (expletive) up and
play for the Detroit Tigers.
While it’s always been true that most baseball men have been known
to wrap their tongues around an obscenity or two, it’s most likely
that these words were used off-the-record as modifiers and not
central to a highly public press conference. Interestingly, one of
the above modifiers was the word “Venezuelan,” which would have
been a no-no had it been uttered by a white manager.
But no matter; this crudity was of course viewed as part of the
package liberals assume must accompany Latino immigrants to this
country and so must be applauded. That is, until he brought it to
bear against the unassailable. Speaking tenderly of Chicago
sportswriter Jay Mariotti, with whose column he took exception, Guillen said, “What a
piece of (expletive) he is, (expletive) fag.”
Gone was the air of impermeability that had shielded him from
the poison pens of the politically correct, as he was damned with
predictable outrage. Even the usually spineless Bud Selig weighed
in with the following: “Baseball is a social institution with
responsibility to set appropriate tone and example. Conduct or
language that reflects otherwise will not be tolerated. The use of
slurs embarrasses the individual, the club and the game.”
So Bud Lite is fine with the gansta rap behavior exhibited daily
by many ballplayers and celebrated gleefully by ESPN. He’s
unconcerned with the soft porn ads of MLB sponsors which are shoved
nightly down the throats of our children on TV. And he doesn’t seem
at all fazed by the reprehensible language that flows like a
torrent from the mouths of Guillen and others in full public view:
unless it’s directed at homosexuals.
As Mr. Barzun pointed out long ago, America’s culture and
baseball are deeply intertwined; the one has always influenced and
reflected the other. If the drug-enhanced, egoistic, sex-driven,
unsportsmanlike and utterly uncivil manner in which the game now
conducts its affairs continues, then woe be to the great game of
baseball and our good country.
