-Robby

http://tinyurl.com/2m5nhj

It doesn't look good, given the stereotype of African Americans and watermelon. The image was posted by CJ without comment, so it's a little hard to know what to make of it. Perhaps it was innocent or an inside joke, perhaps more malicious.

CJ's a pretty prolific and open guy in terms of his writing on different internet sites, and I haven't seen anything that would make me think that he's a racist in the past. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not in the place to do that since I'm white and it's not my position to say what is and isn't offensive to black people. Maybe he can shed some light on it. In any case, this looks like something that might have to be addressed, since he's posting on an official MLB blog.

Good job guys...

First off, they bash B-Mac and basically describe him as egotistical because he has "World Series rings" on his page.  Those are LSU football national championship rings. They are just looking to attack him for anything.

I don't know CJ's view on people of other races, but I would be willing to bet that he's not a racist, and I think he will (probably very elogantly as per the norm), explain the meanings of this picture as soon as he sees this topic.

Give me a break.

To Al; being a dedicated fan of your team doesn't necessarily entail the privelage of said character assassination of an opposition player.

To my fellow LSB posters;  Honestly?  Get over yourselves.  You trash people all the time for things they've said, their political views, their social preferences, and pretty much whatever doesn't fit within the majority viewpoint held here.  I speak from personal experience.

1.) interacting with your fans
2.) doing so as yourself, and not an alter-ego (although i wouldn't blame you if you did or do so in the future)
3.) conducting yourself with class on this issue today

Its rare when athletes take the time out of their schedule to interact with fans. I can't tell you how much a player such as yourself would be appreciated in Chicago. I also believe you when you say your comments were not done under the guise of racism. However, i think you're also right to be more cautious, as there are people who will overreact or jump to conclusions, particularly on sensitive issues such as these.

Part of the power of this medium is its interactivity and its responsiveness to developing situations. However, this power carries with it a price: things are published unedited and unchecked. As such, you can post something that has implications you did not realize, and it also means people can put together stories about you that don't "check out." Fortunately, the power of the medium balances this somewhat (for example, read the comments at Al's site).

I hope you continue to post on sites such as these, and that more athletes do so in the future.  I also hope you're more careful in the future, because otherwise the nature of this medium may discourage you from participating further.

A lot of people here are assuming Al is doing this to be a glory-hog. While that may be the case, to accuse him of that is very similar to Al accusing McCarthy and Wilson of racism (although i admit one set of accusations is far more serious than the other one). Its just as possible that Al is doing this because he is simply over-reacting, or misconstrued Wilson's intentions, or is biased based on his own experiences as a site administrator, or a number of other reasons.

I've been posting at Al's site for a long time, have met him in person, and post at other Cubs blogs that have a strong distaste for Al's site. Given all that background, i believe that the most likely explanation for Al's story is this: Al is very PC, and posted his story with primarily good intentions. He does not tolerate insensitive remarks of any kind on his website, and is intolerant of slanderous remarks about players and managers... and i think he was both concerned with the carelessness with which the picture was posted, and the potential implications for the two Rangers involved.

IMO, Al made some errors in judgment in the process of posting the story. However, i would ask all of you to realize the best defense of Wilson and McCarthy is that one has to make a set of assumptions about Wilson and McCarthy before accusing them of racism. Likewise, i hope you realize the same rationale applies to Al when he is being accused of trying to draw attention to his site. One has to assume things about Al to make conclusions about his intent in posting the story in question.

Basically, it seems that CJ is a good guy that made a mistake in a post that people assume was racist/insensitive/etc. I would argue to all of you that Al is a good guy that made a mistake that people assume was inflammatory/self-promoting/etc.

1) Thank you CJ, for clearing up the idea behind the actual picture (even though I didn't see it). I didn't think you were trying to be racist, and it's really sad that that is the immediate conclusion that some people jump to. Sometimes, people like to project what they are or what they fear onto other people.

Anyways, I hope this doesn't cause you to stop interacting with us LSB users, but I can understand if you would hesitate to be as open as you have been. Whatever path you choose to take, I'll be behind it.

2) To those reasoning Cubs fans who came over from BCB, thank you for taking a reasoned approach to this. It's much easier to discuss some things when all parties aren't reflexively defensive about things.

However,

A) Al has still not changed the title of his thread (nor it seems the content). Maybe it's impossible to change the thread title. (I don't know how their software works). I HAVE seen Adam change the content of the post, yet Al still hasn't even stated in the MOST PROMINENT PART THAT  he has come to the conclusion that no racism was involved (or that the main thrust of his post was that Professional Ballplayers shouldn't post on MySpace).

In fact, CJ not only apologized about posting something which some people found offensive, but posted his rational for why he did so.

If I were Al, I'd be AT LEAST be changing (or updating) the content of what I posted, because 1. his suppositions have been shown to be flagrantly wrong, 2. it would show that he was more concerned about what he says he wanted to target rather than what other people say he'd want to target, and 3. it would be a good thing for him to do morally.

B) No one (including Al) has really responded to the point against Al at BCB about how he might be showing quite a bit of hypocrisy.

Also, how the heck can a photograph be racist?

Does the photograph judge us only by our skin? Does it discriminate based on that skin? Will it refuse to take our picture if we are of another race?

C) Even though I don't agree with a lot of the name-calling that's been going on from some users of this site, I can understand the anger in it.

A major-league baseball player has given us LSBers unparalleled access to himself, including taking the time to reach out to this community and befriending us.

And now he's seen as being attacked as a potential racist just because he made a mistake in judgment on posting something (at which a large plurality, if not a majority, of people would likely not take offense).

Not only that, but we might LOSE that access and friendship with that major leaguer because some guy posted on a blog that racism was occurring (from the ever-sentient photograph) without even thinking about checking in with the player or other team sites, and well, I know that I get a little irritated.

Let's put it this way. Let's say that Rich Hill had become a solid fixture in the BCB community. He's extremely open to questions and will respond honestly to things that people say or ask him. In fact, he pretty much treats the community as if he were one of the community.

Then, let's say that Adam had found a potentially offensive photograph on Hill's personal website.  And instead of checking with BCB or Rich Hill, he paraded that photograph in his post as offensive (whether due to ageism, racism, or whatever) and then chastises the Hill as well as bag on another Cub player.

Then after getting the information cleared up, he STILL hadn't changed his post to reflect the new information that he's garnered.

I think you BCBers would be feeling something similar to what a lot of us LSBers are feeling now.

3) What is up with the people who feel the need to denigrate another group just to feel better about themselves?

It happened on both this site and the BCB site, where people felt the need to label the other site as a bunch of idiots and their own site as the one which is more "unbiased."

Grow a clue, people. There are people who are very thoughtful, rational, and intelligent on BOTH sites. There are also people who don't add much to the conversation and are just knee-jerkers on BOTH sites. When you can understand that, you might have just graduated from being one of those knee-jerkers to someone who contributes to the conversation.

BTW, not all of us Rangers fans are Texans, and quite a lot of us don't- and didn't- want Bush for President.

Req

I think you're handling it the right way (measured responses).

In the future, I think you have to be extremely careful about anything and everything you put on the internet.  Think two, maybe three times about it, then post.  Obviously, YOU enjoy doing what you're doing with the fans and that's what counts, so I hope this doesn't make you stop.

To the Cubs' blogger, here's a big "fuck you".  CJ Wilson has never hid himself or his writing from the public.  His thoughts are out there all over the place.  Had you bothered to do even a minimal amount of research about him, I think you wouldn't known he's not a bad guy or a racist that needed to be "exposed".  Ridiculous.

Like it or not, CJ's name has some notoriety now that he's a MLB player.  Whether that fame is directed to only die hard Ranger fans or fans throughout the country is totally up to him, as well as whether that fame can last for 15 minutes or 15 years.

That being said I truly hope you maintain your presence here and Jamey's site as its great reading your posts.

My suggested answer to all of this?  Pretty simple:

• 95 MPH fastball blown by the hitter for strike one
  
• Nasty sinker down and in for strike two
  
• Hellacious slider fanning the hitter, getting you, your desired Save winning us the World Series in 2007