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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2007 > October > 14
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Dusty Baker, the Reds and Race
Well, Cincinnati Reds fans wanted a big-name manager and now they have one.
Turns out, plenty of them seem to have wanted a big-name WHITE manager.
Or, at least, not this black manager.
Saturday night the Reds signed Dusty Baker to a three-year deal — making him the first black manager in the history of baseball’s oldest franchise — and by Sunday morning the move was being met with some very nasty venom on internet web sites and call-ins to talk radio shows.
Baker — who’s had 10 winning seasons in his 14 years as a big league manager in San Francisco and with the Chicago Cubs, who three times was named National League Manager of the Year — was being painted as a racist by several callers to Ken Broo’s Sunday morning show on WLW.
They kept pointing out his 2003 comment about — and I’m paraphrasing here — whites not playing as well in the sunshine and heat, not like blacks and Latin players, so he’d like more night games at Wrigley Field.
One caller — who kept saying Reds management was condoning a racist by this hiring — said although he was a longtime fan, he would no longer come to games, bring his business clients there or spend any money on the team until Baker was gone.
“I don’t support racists,” he kept saying.
I don’t seem to remember this outcry from most Reds fans when owner Marge Schott made some of her infamous comments.
That race so quickly jumped into the thought process here makes me question what’s really going on here.
If you want to rip Baker for the way he handled pitching phenoms like Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, I’ll buy it. Or knock him for his teams coming up short in the post-season.
I’ll even give a nod to anyone who believes Pete Mackanin deserved a shot at somehow getting this under-achieving Reds’ bunch to finally perform after seven straight losing seasons.
But to turn the whole argument on race, makes me wonder just who the bigot is here.
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