Before yesterday's game, Jim Bowden put his foot in his mouth by saying this about a possible strike:

[quote]"If players want to strike, they ought to just pick Sept. 11, because that's what it's going to do to the game," Bowden said. "I don't think there's going to be a work stoppage. I don't think anybody's that dumb."

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Now that is melodramatic, to say the least. But here's where it veers into tastelessness:

[quote] "If they do walk out, make sure it's Sept. 11. Be symbolic. Let Donald Fehr drive the plane right into the building, if that's what they want to do."

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After the game, the Reds released a statement from Bowden:

[quote] "Earlier today while speaking to a group of reporters, I made a horrible comparison between baseball's labor situation and the tragedy of 9/11," the statement said. "I regret making such extremely insensitive remarks, and I apologize to anyone I may have offended. I am truly sorry."

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What an idiotic thing to say. Vodka missed in with his Gatoraid ?

Mixed in, LOL

I bet if poor Marge Schott had said something like that she would have been suspended, again. Don't get me wrong, I didn't always agree with what the woman had to say when she was majority owner of the team, but I think that her having bigger balls than most of the other male owners in baseball threatened them, and they pretty much forced her out. Like Marge, Bowden does not think before he speaks, and it gets him into trouble.

He should have to pay a major fine which will then be given to one of the reputable victim's assistance charities. A suspension gives him some time off without pay-big deal! At least with the fine, a little bit of good can come from these moronic statements.

One difference between this incident and Fraulein Schott is that she rarely, if ever, bothered to offer up an apology for her seemingly endless string of idiotic comments. No contrition what so ever. Maybe that's where Gamblin' Pete is taking his cue from!

Big deal. I thought it was a little over the top, and perhaps in bad taste, but her's entitled to say what he wants to say. You have to watch everything you say, make sure you have at least one US flag on your vehicle and on your house, or you'll find out REAL fast how tolerant some people really are/aren't. It happened, let's make some kind of effort at getting on with our lives. It took the story of the 9 coal miners in PA to put something else on the front pages of the NY papers besides poor NY. I live here and I'm tired of hearing about it 24/7. I haven't forgotten about 9/11, and I know I never will. Sorry to rant. Pete

People are still grieving over the deaths of people in that trajedy, and the memory of those two planes crashing still does bring out strong emotion. It hasnt even been a year yet. And for something so serious and traumatic and world changing to be used as an analogy for something as trivial in comparision as a baseball strike is a big deal in my opinion.

Pete I understand what you are saying about people being allowed to say what they want, the right to say even the most stupid or insensitive things.

But imagine if Bowden had drawn a parallel between baseball and the Holocaust? Or perhaps baseball and slavery? Would you advise the offended Jews (along with countless other groups exterminated) or blacks to "make some kind of effort at getting on with" their lives?

I was down near the WTC that morning. I saw people jumping to their deaths. I knew a firefighter who died. I also knew a former coworker. My life goes on. I don't sit balled up in a corner sobbing. People have gotten on with their lives. Jews and blacks don't sit and dwell on the Holocaust and slavery everyday. But you don't forget. And you don't let someone dismiss your pain by drawing comparisons to, of all things, baseball!

First off, all the previous posts have made valid points. There are two dymanics here, one of Bowden's speech and one of rememberance.

On the subject of Bowden's remarks, the crux of the situation is that he was speaking in his capacity as the GM of the Reds, and by extension a senior management figure in the MLB world. And he spoke to assembled national and local press, on the record, not in a bar or private home where off-the-rec would be presumed. Notwithstanding how any person hearing his words feels about the politics or governmental effects of the 9/11 acts, a negative reaction is wholly understandable because of the great loss of human life. That WILL take time to heal, how long no one may be able to say for a while.....

[quote]Originally posted by George_vikingfan:
But imagine if Bowden had drawn a parallel between baseball and the Holocaust? Or perhaps baseball and slavery? Would you advise the offended Jews (along with countless other groups exterminated) or blacks to "make some kind of effort at getting on with" their lives?

I was down near the WTC that morning. I saw people jumping to their deaths. I knew a firefighter who died. I also knew a former coworker. My life goes on. I don't sit balled up in a corner sobbing. People have gotten on with their lives. Jews and blacks don't sit and dwell on the Holocaust and slavery everyday. But you don't forget. And you don't let someone dismiss your pain by drawing comparisons to, of all things, baseball!

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Bowden can say whatever he wants to, but his comments were intemperate, idiotic and myopic, and show zero sense of scale or sympathy with the horrific losses that occurred on 9/11, not only in the New York metro area, but also in the Washington area, Pennsylvania, and by extension, across our nation. Some people may have gotten over it but as a report this spring demonstrated, many New York area children are suffering from traumatic stress syndrome, and for all the shattered families and friends, as well as the witnesses and survivors, the grimness of that day and its aftermath will not subside easily. The scar in the earth where those majestic towers stood remains--it is just that, a huge, open wound. Moreover, the New York Times was as recently as last week still running the faces and names of those lost--some 11 months AFTER this catastrophe.

George, I understand your point, but I ask you please not to toss out analogies to Jewish or Black suffering. Please--Jews have suffered through over a thousand years of various forms of oppression, the most organized and extreme of which was the Nazi Holocaust, and the legalized enslavement of Black Africans, which continues to this day in Islamic Sudan and Mauritania, goes back more than half a millennium.

Many people make light of slavery as it if were benign, but the fact that it has directly affected not only the lives of the enslaved peoples' descendants (this includes not only Blacks but also Native Americans), as well as the descendants of the slavers in almost EVERY country in the Americas, for example, should point to the fact that asking for more sensitivity is not merely being "politically correct," but historically and socially more aware and conscious.

No, Jews, Blacks, Armenians, Miskito Indians, and all the other people who have suffered tremendous horrors don't dwell on them every day, but as you say it is also very important NEVER to forget the horrific things that happened, because that kind of amnesia allows it potentially to occur again, just as we remember the greatest of human triumphs with the aim of never forgetting the best that human beings are capable of.

[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: fantomas ]