Torii Hunter Called Bud Selig’s Bluff About April 15 Number 42
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What Torrii Hunter said last year before April 15 is well worth mentioning again this year and each year until things get better here is Torrii Hunter last year
As presented in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, “This is supposed to be an honor, and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you’ve got entire teams doing it. I think we’re killing the meaning. It should be special wearing Jackie’s number, not just because it looks cool.”
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“When you have a team that doesn’t have any African American players on the team, and then everybody on the team wears it, yes, it’s watered down, because they don’t have blacks to represent Jackie Robinson over there,” Hunter said.
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Not only is it ridiculous it is an OUTRAGE that a team the Houston Astros without a single African American player nor manager or coach for that matter EVERY MEMBER OF THE TEAM WORE #42 LAST APRIL 15. At best that is a very BAD joke.
Actually the worst conceivable INSULT TO JACKIE ROBINSON. Short of lynching him. Image Robinson alive today seeing an MLB team WITHOUT even one African American on it. Just the way Baseball WAS before he entered the Majors on April 15, 1947. Does anyone really think that Robinson would have anything to do with that team. Or allow everyone on the Houston Astros to get away with wearing his number 42.
Well Torrii Hunter is very much alive and in return for that very logical comment he was hounded and get this called a RACIST
Now in 2008 it is the Colorado Rockies with the “distinction” of having NO African American players on their roster. But thank God for small favors. The entire Rockies team will NOT wear # 42 Tuesday just 3 players one from the Dominican Republic, another from Venezuela and a White Guy Matt Herges. And ready for another SMALL favor ? Among the 21 coaches and team staff yes there is ONE African American Glenallen Hill the First Base Coach. Will he be wearing # 42 ??
{snip}
(Posted on April 14, 2008)
Has Baseball Lost the Meaning of Jackie Robinson Day?
Yahoo! Sports, April 13, 2008
In 2007, Ken Griffey Jr. asked permission to wear No. 42 on the annual Jackie Robinson Day. Commissioner Bud Selig loved the idea and invited other players to join in. On some clubs, one player wore No. 42. On other clubs, several players did. On still others, every player did.
This is what Los Angeles Angels outfield Torii Hunter said, to USA Today: “This is supposed to be an honor, and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you’ve got entire teams doing it. I think we’re killing the meaning. It should be special wearing Jackie’s number, not just because it looks cool.”
What upset Hunter, he says now, was this: The Houston Astros had no black players on their team last April, and yet the entire team wore No. 42. Said Hunter: “That got it away from, ‘OK, we don’t have any blacks,’” he said. To Hunter, a roster with no black players did not represent the progress for which Robinson stood, and baseball celebrated according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
{snip}
Comments
Why are they retiring ANY number for all teams? For the team he played for, fine otherwise no. There are many beloved players on all teams. To single out one higher than any other is a mistake.
Posted by at 6:21 PM on April 14
The Houston Astros and Colorado Rockies both made it to the World Series with no black players. Both teams were almost all White. Black announcer Joe Morgan was not happy about it and made a fuss. Maybe that is why the Astros have black players and I believe a black manager. On a sidenote the Whitest team in Major League baseball is the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers. The most White big-city team is the Chicago White Sox. The most anti-white teams are(drumroll) the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers. Big surprise there!My source is www.castefootball.us
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 6:49 PM on April 14
When dealing with blacks, you can’t win. You can’t even break even.
You give them what they ask for and they complain it wasn’t what they meant. How about we pass a law; only American blacks can wear 42. Will that make them happy? How about we stop the world until we put an end to racism and white supremacy?
Pointless, pointless, pointless…
Posted by sbuffalonative at 7:23 PM on April 14
Major League Baseball is an excellent example of how “diversity” destroys character.
The act of enforced integration itself is a form of debasement.
So it’s not at all surprising when these players act without “honor.”
P.S. I don’t know about you but I literally get sick to my stomach everytime I hear that some ugly dreadlock-wearing mulatto named Man Ram (or whatever) has just broken a batting record once held by the likes of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Ted Williams. Literally sick.
Posted by Zane Smith at 8:27 PM on April 14
Yeesh. Instead, this guy should be dancing a jig because idiot Whites are honoring his black brother. What a farce!
Posted by Renae at 8:29 PM on April 14
this sport use to be called Americas pastime, now i call it “MINORTY” wackball, most of the NY mets are black Latinos obviously that speaks for their intelligence
Posted by enraged at 9:07 PM on April 14
Hey, Torrii (the spelling of this guy’s name changes every season), how’s about we retire Larry Bird’s #33 in the NBA and hang it in every arena?
Once a year it could be trotted out so that all-African teams would have to wear it to show solidarity with the White “cause”.
After all as a White man, I think the NBA disrespects Bird and other great Whites (Cousy, West, Barry, et. al.)by fielding teams that are almost all-African.
Gee, if that happened I might watch a game. On the other hand, when was the last time the NBA REALLY played basketball? The so-called “dream teams” regularly get their butts kicked by Argentina, Lithuania, and even Greece. GREECE!
Posted by Annoyed In Illinois at 9:14 PM on April 14
Witholding loans from Blacks? Racism. Giving loans to Blacks? Racism. Not honoring Jackie Robinson? Racism. Honoring Jackie Robinson? Racism.
It’s always the same story. That’s why everything must be lowered to the lowest common denominator for people like Torri Hunter to understand.
The truth is that if it weren’t for White people, he would be naked and chasing gazelles with a crudely made wooden spear in the African bush.
Posted by at 9:45 PM on April 14
I think we ought to apply that same analogy to Martin Luther King Day. If it’s not appropriate for White ballplayers to wear Number 42 in honor of a Black player, is it really appropriate for us as Whites to be celebrating a Black holiday on MLK Day? What did MLK ever do for us?
Also note that Torii Hunter has nothing to say about Black over-representation in the NFL and the NBA. Once again, it’s a one-way street.
Posted by Carl Loerbs at 10:10 PM on April 14
The purpose of organized baseball is to make money and play a game, rather to honor some “legacy” someone may or may not have left.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:29 PM on April 14
the Astros have a black asst Gm and a black manager….just another example of a black jumping on the ‘victim’ bandwagon now that conspiracy theories by blacks are about to become the latest post election fashion this fall…
Posted by toonces at 12:22 AM on April 15
I am from Romania. Who is Jackie Robinson? Who cares? I don’t. Instead, I have a better question. How are the Whites going to survive in America in the 21st century? Are they? Do they even want to? I know I do. Not just me too. There are others. But Jackie Robinsons? I don’t care.
Posted by at 12:57 AM on April 15
At least no one’s baggin’ on Jackie Robinson himself. He’s up there with the Tuskegee Airmen as a genuine 20th century African-American hero that everyone can admire.
What a rarity: A black man who handled racist taunts from a small number of loutish white people without becoming an exponentially bigger racist himself. Maybe an important part of his legacy should be the realization that the vast majority of white people wanted him to succeed!
Were he around today, he’d likely tell all parties concerned to get over it and get a life!
Posted by Kevin at 1:24 AM on April 15
“Both teams were almost all White. Black announcer Joe Morgan was not happy about it and made a fuss.”
I can believe the enlightened made a fuss about it. You can bet that if two all black teams made it to the world series it would be something we’d all have to celebrate.
Posted by at 10:15 AM on April 15
You’re damned both ways when dealing with angry blacks like this writer. If the Astros had not worn the number, he would immediately leap at the chance to call them “racists” (Aside: Does this word have any meaning after being overused for so long?).
Hunter and the writer are both high level imbeciles for implying that there is a nefarious reason why some teams don’t have black players. MLB is a highly competitive business and as a result teams simply hire the best players they can find. Don’t these two resentful clowns realize that the black rate of participation in baseball has plummeted? Most black kids nowadays gravitate toward football and basketball. In fact, if anything blacks get an extra long look by scouts and managers because of their reputation as good athletes.
Posted by at 11:56 AM on April 15
Geez, what’s a guy to do? If you don’t wear the number for the day, the press will have a field day analyzing your reasons: Is he a closet racist? Is he ignorant of jackie’s accomplishment? Does he get along with his black team mates? Etc. Etc. Etc.
If you do wear the number for the day, bigmouths like Hunter say you’re demeaning its significance, or you’re only wearing it for show.
How can you do the right thing when all the choices are wrong? Go figure.
Posted by Wotan at 12:17 PM on April 15
It bears mentioning that Jackie Robinson was politically a very conservative man. He railed at the idea of getting any advantage or any treatment other than that due a big leaguer. In the larger scheme of things, he was greatly bothered by the behavior of his “people” and lefty libs who fawned over him.
As they say, the likes of him shall not this way soon pass.
With the preponderance of sports libs, however, they’ll regularly trot out his uniform, sing platitudes to things he didn’t believe in, and stack the racial deck that Robinson wouldn’t have played.
I suppose we can almost look at Jackie Robinson as the
anti-Martin (Michael) Luther King.
Posted by Annoyed In Illinois at 4:09 PM on April 15