I’ve long said that Bud Selig should be banned in the “best interests of baseball” because of, but not limited to:
[ul]
[li]Making the all-star game determine home field advantage for World Series. At least if you’re going to do that, all free substitutions back into the game, as it is, the managers are, literally, leaving all-stars sit on the bench in case they need them for extra innings. [/li][li]Moving ‘his’ team to the NL & then moving the Astros to the AL & his interleague play, which now happens all the time instead of being something special. [/li][li]But his biggest, ‘boneheadedest’ move is the celebration of Jackie Robinson day. I know many player’s jersey #s, I know more players names. It a really @#$%ing stoopit idea to put every player in a jersey with the same # & no name on the back of their jersey. [/li][/ul]
I was watching a game during a pitching change; including the manager & the infielders, there were six guys on the mound, all with the same #, four of which had their back to the camera, which means I had no clue who I was looking at. Why not put both teams in Brooklyn Dodgers uniforms to make it even more confusing! :smack:
You want to honor the guy, great; just don’t do it so half-assed!
You’re right, they should have put “Robinson” on the back of every #42 jersey.
Really man? One out of every 162 games each year you have to pay extra attention to the announcers, so we can honor one of baseball’s and the Civil Rights Movement’s most important people, and this is some sort of tragedy?
/thread over.
Agreed, and the OP is an idiot, at least about this issue.
I don’t get the OP’s objection to the 42 thing.
I have to admit though that I do find **Selig covering himself **in Civil Rights glory has become tiresome from time to time. One sometimes gets the sense he’s desperate to establish his civil rights bona fides. I like the April 15 day, I don’t need to hear and see Skeletor every year prattle about it.
I thought every team retired the number 42.
Yeah, I have no issue with everyone wearing 42 one day of the year.
Also (and this is more controversial), I think Selig is likely going to be remembered as a pretty good Commissioner when all is said and done. Baseball is very financially prosperous, in a way that no one would have even thought possible after 1994. Even before that people were thinking that baseball may fall behind basketball in popularity - no one even entertains the idea anymore. Whereas baseball used to be thought as vulnerable, now it’s a solidly entrenched #2 (to American football, of course) and makes money hand over fist.
They did, but the commisioner’s office made a special exception in honor of Jackie Robinson Day starting in 2007. Otherwise, no current or future player can wear 42 as his regular uniform number. Mariano Rivera was the last player to wear #42 as he had it before it was universally retired.
Just pretend its Mariano Rivera day and move on.
All the players should wear #42 for every game of the season. It’s the only way baseball can atone for its racism.
Atoning for Bud Selig will require an even bigger commitment.
Every day is Mariano Rivera Day!
I totally understand the significance of the breaking of baseball’s color barrier and that Robinson took a whole lot of crap with more grace and dignity than most of us could summon. But it seems like MLB does an awful lot of patting itself on its back about the history. Congratulations, guys, you were slightly less racist a bit earlier than the rest of the country. And how come they never mention Larry Doby?
“MLB spends too much attention on its Civil Rights history, but needs to draw more attention to this other Civil Rights figure as well.”
Sure, that makes sense.
OP…perhaps I’m missing something but why exactly does a single day in MLB honoring someone bother you? Are you opposed to civil rights? Do you not like Jackie Robinson? Is honoring a former great somehow offensive?
What exactly is your argument or concern here?
And the designated hitter rule, amirite!?
This is the second thread where you’ve tried to play this game. Really, cut the shit. Nobody this side of the Klan is against honoring Jackie Robinson. A couple of people think this is a weird way to do it, both because it looks odd and dilutes the message or Robinson’s historical impact. He wasn’t everybody; he was a singular (and sometimes very lonely) figure. It’s a little bit like the way people talk about MLK. He deserves acclaim, but in the process of making him a universal figure the edges have been sanded off and I think that means people lose sight of the particulars of what he stood for and how he did so.
The league did this in 1997.
I don’t think it sands off the edges, Marley. I think it’s a solid effort to give every player an opportunity peek behind the curtain, and walk in Jackie’s shoes for a bit - even if it’s not even a glimmer of a shadow of the real thing. Plus, the players then get to keep the jersey, and use it either as their own memento, or they can donate it to a charity or something.
Robinson was the first black player by his lonesome and we know what kind of awful racism he faced. I think it took years off his life. I’m not sure you can transmit anything meaningful about that experience by having an Everybody’s Jackie Robinson Day since that’s almost the exact opposite of his experience. Yes, he’s someone who deserves recognition from everybody. But particularly in a time when fewer black kids are playing baseball, I think it meant more when Ken Griffey Jr. and a handful of other guys were wearing that jersey. It’s not something I’d lose any sleep over, but I think it’s sort of confused.
I was unaware that asking someone what they were intending by making a posting a violation of this board’s rules. If I intended on calling someone a racist, I would do just that; I wouldn’t beat around the bush.