Race Baiting Part 2

One thing I have always liked about Andy Dolan's Desipio web site is whenever he links to a Jay Mariotti column he labels the link as"Mariotti puts down the doughnut to". Well, surprisingly,to borrow Dolan's phrase and alter it slightly, Jay Mariotti lets Homer Simpson, Chief Wiggum and Jim Hendry steal the last 3 doughnuts in order that he write what may be his best column ever, or at least his best Cub column. I, along with many others, normally don't like Jay Mariotti, but I have to admit he was right on the mark today. Jay hits the mark by calling Dusty Baker out on his use of racism as his excuse for failure as the Cubs manager, and reminds everyone about how Baker has simply been incompetent. I highlighted this part of the article in particular:

But only Dusty opens his mailbag and reads it, perhaps because he can't look in the mirror and acknowledge he has failed. I don't condone the horrible letters, of course, yet I must ask why Baker is perpetuating the same story.

The hardest task for a public figure is to embrace the ordinary world and ignore the random crackpot. Baker hasn't been able to do that, probably because he wasn't prepared for Cubbie angst after a long, warm relationship with San Francisco fans and media. I was subjected to national attention after Ozzie Guillen, the White Sox manager, referred to me as ''a [bleeping] fag'' in late June. My mailbag, so to speak, was a hodgepodge of reaction. There was a fair share of hatred, mostly from Sox fans who defended their maligned manager and weren't sophisticated enough to grasp what Guillen had done wrong. A handful of goofs stooped low and fired homophobic and ethnic slurs. But refreshingly, I found the majority of non-Sox fans to be focusing on Guillen's ignorance -- and questioning why some members of the Chicago media would defend him. If I shared Baker's mind-set, I'd be dwelling on the homophobic slurs. Instead, I'm pleased by the sizable numbers of intelligent people who saw the episode for what it was.

Just as the goofs don't reflect the big picture in the Guillen flap, a few wicked letters don't represent a bigger problem of racism in Cubdom"

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Good work, Jay Mariotti. Good work, Jay.