mhendo
May 11, 2020, 3:01pm
21
RickJay:
When the media tells you so and so is a blue collar, gritty ballplayer, they’re 98% full of shit. They’ve just taken a guy - and it’s always a white guy - and decided to anoint him a special hero so they can tell a narrative. It’s horseshit.
RickJay:
And yet it always is. I would guess terms like “hard working,” “Gritty” and “Blue collar” are applied to white guys a hundred times more frequently than to white guys or Latin guys. I’m not saying YOU personally do, but it’s sure how the media like to play it.
I cannot remember the last time a black MLB player was characterized as gritty or hard working, though of course most of them must be. I am sure I could dig up an example but it’s astoundingly rare. The narrative tends to be about their talent, and if they’re too gritty people say they have attitude problems…
Thanks for saving me a bunch of typing. The old Fire Joe Morgan blog used to do a great job of pointing out this type of bullshit.
D_Odds
May 11, 2020, 4:17pm
22
Me too. I need to learn that if a thread title references a Yankee, I’m better off checking who is the OP, because these threads are shite. And I say that as someone who grew up on Phil Rizzuto, Bill White, and Frank Messer calling games on WPIX.