S.F. Sensitivity Police Strike Again

[toetoe]

KNBR radio host Larry Krueger was suspended for an insensitive comment; a generalization. Fine, but racism? Oh, how the Frisco folk love to bandy the word. Here's Larry after the seemingly hundredth pathetic show put on by the SF Giants: " ... and I'm sick of Caribbean players not taking a pitch, not working the count, swinging at everything, letting pitchers off easy," or something to that effect.

Of course, Felipe Alou went wild, saying nothing had changed forty-plus years after he broke into the league. The funny thing is that earlier in his show, Larry said Felipe's brain had turned to Malt-O-Meal. I winced at the personal attack, but Felipe's subsequent behavior proved it correct! Larry apologized to Felipe personally, but, in full CYA, the station suspended Larry for a week.

Now, the statement is far too general, but is based on at least two players, presumably Caribbean, who DO swing at almost everything. He was distraught after an ugly 2-1 loss, and he overdid it. Felipe, just seek him out, tell him that was ugly, and let's move on. No, you have to rant about racism against "Latins," a term I can not narrowly define, and a term Larry did not use. Barry Bonds and J.T. Snow are American. Same race? I don't think so.

I think Vladimir Guerrero thinks he knows what "Latino" means. He chose Anaheim and a lesser contract because he preferred a "Latino" owner. I must go before I spit out the "r" word.

[kenwoodallpromos]

So are you saying all Latins are from the Carribean area? A lot of racial or nationalist names are not technically correct anyway.
FYI- some Carribean players are not "Latino" but black.
I just think the less a person has to be categorized the better.
Felipe had some player years with good batting averages and some not too good. Matty swung bet of the 3 Alous. Jesus was pretty consistant I think. All 3 had a good eye for the strike zone I think.
Felipe's son is doing well with the Giants.
The Giants TV announcers have already given up on the season and are no good. Just BS talk.

[toetoe]

Ken,
You can say that again. Well, maybe not. Sorry, an ATTEMPT at humor.

As to Krukow, Kuiper, et al., they are part of Larry Krueger's problem. They're not the worst homers around, but it's all rosy glasses and happy talk with them.

That fateful night, he said he couldn't take one more live shot of a kid in the stands with ice cream on his face, apparently a Fox Sports Net specialty.

Larry does taped interviews all the time, and some live. He had owner Peter Magowan on the phone (no relation to no-guts Bruce) and Peter dared to assert that the Giants' lineup was as good as the Yankees.' What hurt most was that Greg Papa, who was in the studio with Larry, AGREED. This is a guy who does the Raiders' games and refers to Al Davis as Mr. Davis, and he's serious.

The Yankees get a slight advantage for having the D.H., but their lineup is too good for the Giants. The Bay Area folks concentrate on perceived slights and "ethnic" slurs and offending segmaents of teams, and deny anything is amiss with their on-field product. They have Pacific Boondoggle Park, complete with McCovey Cove, Krispy Kreme and garlic fries. It doesn't get any better for them.

[kenwoodallpromos]

Their new right fielder can't play the ball!
In the 40 years I followed the Giants, they rarely had a slam-dunk closer. Oakland has 2 in the Hall of fame. Usually the managers havve left the pitchers in too long, but Alou is ok at pulling them. They should have gotten Eric Gange from LA. The worst combination is no HR + no speed like now.

[toetoe]

Now an AP story:
" ... suspended for racial(?) remarks, ... calls Latin (WRONG!) players brain-dead, ... ."

It goes on to say that F. Alou called a meeting with all the Latin (there's that word again) players. The "non-Latin" black and white players don't deserve the benefit of Felipe's wisdom? Then it reports that Felipe said, "It's not my problem. It's someone else's problem to address(!). Sounds like you've already addressed, redressed and undressed the "problem," O Wise Felipe.

Then the AP say that Cream Of Wheat has a black man named Rastus serving white children on the front of the box!

Then this. The verbal bashing was still available on the KNBR website, with the C-word edited out!

Even by America's low standards, sports people are SO-O-O stupid and ignorant. At least if you are a person of color or gender, you can claim some kind of expertise in race. What a crock.

Two quick sports stories:
1) Big ado about NCAA team names (Seminoles, Redskins, etc.) One Indian man calls up and says he has a problem only with "Redskins." Okay, I believe him. Then he says it's like calling a black person the N-word. What, nincompoop? Is it like Satan, it must not be spoken? From now on, it's the Washington R-words to me.
2) Gary Sheffield indirectly claims that he, not DJet or ARod, is the Jankees leader. Is he an R-word, hating the "Latin" man and the half-white man? Is he trying to put them down? Shall we demand an apology?

Thanks for the forum. I'm afraid they are shredding my e-mails at KNBR.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I checked MSN's Encarta and the words I looked up all said "Warning- word is (or sometimes is) offensive" including redneck.
But since my grandmother was full Italian, I am of Latin(o) ancestry!

"3. somebody speaking Romance language: somebody who speaks a language derived from Latin, especially somebody living in Latin America or southern Europe".

[toetoe]

Italians, descending in tail-male and tail-female from the people of Latium;
French;
Spanish;
Portuguese;
Basques, I think; and Romanians, I think.

It's a wonderful muddle, great to study, just rotten to exploit when taking offense.

[toetoe]

Ken,

Dagoberry, a mule racing on the fairs, is pronounced DAG-o-berry, short 'a.' Isn't that nice?

[kenwoodallpromos]

Sorry, you lost me. Im only 25% Italian!

[Tor Ekman]

Well I guess we better disinter Billy Martin and publicly flog his corpse, since he always preached that Hispanic ballplayers were all first pitch fastball hitters and he would get downright apoplectic when an opposing Hispanic hitter went deep off a first pitch fastball thrown by some young Yankee reliever - I, on the other hand, enjoyed it immensely.

[toetoe]

Day-go is a perceived derogatory term for eye-tal-yans, although you guys throw it around a lot.

[toetoe]

OK, let me tie this into the 'Worst Call Ever?' thread. We get Andy Rooney to call a race. At the half-mile pole, he muses, "Didja ever wonder why the Caribbean jockeys go for the lead right outta the gate?" ...