In a show of ignorance that should get anyone forever barred from the field of sports journalism, Wiley makes this assertion:
QUOTE
It is usually the American-born blacks' records and place that are resented instead of celebrated. For example, it's the stolen base that is denigrated as a weapon by baseball sabermaticians like Bill James, at precisely the time when a Rickey Henderson steals 130 bases in a season. There are sour grapes when a baseball man uses stats to tell you a stolen base isn't important. Any time a baseball manager will give up an out for a base, as with a sac bunt or groundball to the right side, any time a base is so precious, then it goes without saying that the stolen base must be important. Not the CS, the caught stealing, or stats of success rates, but the stolen base itself.
So much so wrong.First: Wiley flat out states that Bill James must be racist because he thinks the stolen base is unimportant. Wiley displays so little knowledge of baseball that he totally dismisses any other reason for this. For example, the sac bunt (which James is not a huge fan of either, but you'd never know that from Wiley's writing) does not result in the loss of the baserunner if it fails. The stolen base does. James says that this risk of getting caught rarely outweighs the benefit of the extra base. That's racist? It is to Wiley. (And, if white folks don't like the stolen base because it's the domain of black players, then please explain the disproprtionally high value attached to the stolen base in that favorite side game of white baseball fans: fantasy baseball.)
And he charts the denigration of the stolen base with the rise of Rickey Henderson. Does Wiley know who held the record before Rickey? Does the name "Lou Brock" ring any bells? I believe that Mr. Brock, like Mr. Henderson, is African-American. And right after Brock broke the record, we had the golden age of basestealing, with teams running the bases in record numbers throughout the 70s and 80s. Anyone remember Whiteyball with the Cards? It wasn't called "Whiteyball" because of white ballplayers. It was Vince Coleman and Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith (and Tommy Herr, too) stealing bases and advancing runners. And except for Herr Herr, what was the skin color of those other three, Mr. Wiley?
And the whole idea that a rcord is denigrated, and the skill devalued, because the record is held by an African-American, what about the home run, Mr. Wiley? All time record? Hank Aaron. Skin color? Black. Single season record? Barry Bonds? Skin color? Black. No signs of the end of the "chicks dig the longball" era, especially since all those racist sabermetricians denigrated by Mr. Wiley loved the home run-based Earl Weaver redux offense being run by the Oakland A's. And who's the A's best player? Why it's brown-skinned Miguel Tejeda, isn't it Mr. Wiley?
You know, I don't see a single number in Mr. Wiley's column to indicate whether the number of African-Americans is on the decline in major league baseball. Perhaps it is, but with more Latin players (many of whom are darker skinned than U.S. born African-Americans), are the number of black players, en toto, higher or lower, don't know. Are the number of African-Americans higher or lower than the total percentage of the population? Wiley not only does not have the stats, he's completely uninterested in anything other than his bald assertion of racism.
Is it too much to ask that a sports columnist have some facts before he makes a serious charge of racism? It's columns like this that devalue the whole idea of lingering racism in our society. To casually link Bill James calculation that the stolen base is useless to racism is to completely misunderstand what racism truly is. I would have thought that an African-American journalist would have understood.