June 6 - Where Are They Now? Wednesday - Political Correctness Police

This week’s WHERE ARE THEY NOW? WEDNESDAY (WATN) is the POLITICAL CORRECTNESS POLICE.

You know who you are. You ran Don Imus out of town. You jump at the chance to play the RACE CARD and forward your own racist agenda.

A baseball executive, Al Campanis, was fired because of “racially insensitive" remarks about blacks in 1987. Per Wikipedia:

“Campanis' infamous remarks took place on the late-night ABC News program Nightline, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's Major League Baseball debut (April 15, 1947). Campanis, who had played alongside Robinson and was known for being close to him, was being interviewed about the subject. Nightline anchorman Ted Koppel asked him why, at the time, there had been few black managers and no black general managers in Major League Baseball. Campanis' reply was that blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager" for these positions.”

Elsewhere in the interview he said that blacks are often poor swimmers "because they don't have the buoyancy."

I’m not sure if blacks lack buoyancy or not. They probably lack the desire for competitive swimming. I can’t recall any black Olympic swimmers from the US or from an African nation.

The reason I want to locate the Political Correctness Police is that earlier this week Gary Sheffield, Detroit Tiger player, said something in the same context as Mr. Campanis. The only difference in their statements is that Sheffield is black.

In the June, 2007 issue of GQ Magazine, Sheffield was quoted saying that there are more Latin baseball players than black players because Latinos are easier to control.

“What I called is that you’re going to see more black faces, but there ain’t no English going to be coming out. ... (It’s about) being able to tell (Latin players) what to do — being able to control them,” he told the magazine. “Where I’m from, you can’t control us.” He went on to elaborate, "They have more to lose than we do. You can send them back across the island. You can’t send us back. We’re already here.”

You look beyond Sheffield’s obvious ignorance, you see truly racist remarks. If a white player or executive would have said the same statement, they would have been learning Japanese at this point. Because they would have only been able to be part of baseball in another country.

Sheffield should know that less and less blacks are playing baseball at the Little League level, the high school level, and the college level. These are all feeder players that may eventually play Major League baseball. Less input means less output.

Sheffield is an equal opportunity offender. When he played with the Dodgers, Sheffield was quoted about teammate Shawn Green missing a game with the Dodgers because of Yom Kippur during a crucial pennant stretch: "Religion is an important thing as long as you worship the right God."

So Mr. Jackson and Mr. Al Sharpton must be vacation this week and unable to get emails or voice mails. Clearly they would want to be the first to demand justice for Mr. Sheffield’s racist remarks.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?