When nursery rhymes get racist

I don't consider myself to be a racist. I teach 130 inner-city students on a daily basis, so even if I am a racist I'll have a serious race card to throw back at your accusation.

That being said, what the fuck was that at the end of Rev. Lowry's Benediction today during the Inaugural Ceremony? I've italicized the part I found particularly distasteful:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

So, first and foremost - - what's with the rhyming? This is the inauguration of the President of the United States of America and you're reciting sing-songy rhymes?

Furthermore, this is the inauguration of the first black president (in case you haven't heard) and the benediction is being read by a Civil Rights leader who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King. This is the best you have? MLK had a dream and you have thinly-veiled, racially charged nursery rhymes?

And finally, let's paraphrase the part in italics to really drive this point home.

When black will not be asked to get in the back - - absolutely. Great point. I'll be bold and tell you that I think separate but equal is just plain wrong. But I think we dealt with this from a legal standpoint decades ago. Not saying everything's cool now, but I don't think we still ask black to get in the back do we?

When brown can stick around - - I'm not really sure I get this. I'm guessing this might mean let's stop deporting illegal Mexican immigrants? Either way, that sounds like a bad idea and you hurt your meaning by forcing the rhyme.

When yellow will be mellow - - are we somehow forcing Asian people to stress out? Are they forcing themselves? Why do they need to mellow out? Have they gotten too worried about bird flu? Does global warming seem all too menacing? Are they worried Jack Bauer is coming back for them? What's wrong with the Asians?!

When the red man can get ahead man - - not a bad point. We probably still owe the "red men" (please don't tell the NCAA I just said that). But I still owe Mohegan Sun. Let's call it even.

And when white will embrace what is right - - Oh of course! It's alright guys, we're gonna pin this one of the white people, continue to go about your business. Nothing to see here! And what's with the phrasing? How come every other color is getting a leg up here from the Almighty and whites get stuck with another boring responsibility?

This seems like rhymey bullshit to me.

Don't Hate the Player...

I just watched the Tuck Rule game from the 2002 AFC divisional round on NFL Films Greatest Games.  I imagine I don't need to say much about the game; it's pretty infamous.  I hate the Pats and am indifferent to Jon Gruden, but it's a hell of a game to watch.

Right up until the end.  In this particular rehashing of the game, NFL films spent a lot of time getting reaction comments from the players involved, and one of them made me fly off the handle.

Eric Allen, then Raiders cornerback, argued something like (and I'm paraphrasing here) when you battle the game out for four corners in the cold and snow, and then you send an important, game-changing decision like that upstairs, to people who've ever played the game, sitting in their air-conditioned booth, away from the field that's just wrong.  It makes me so angry I could puke right on your head, sir!

This is moronic.  You decided to play the game!  This ruling about the tuck being an incomplete pass was not a new rule!  In fact, it cost that same Patriots team a win earlier in the year when Vinny Testaverde did the exact same thing Brady did.

And don't argue against instant replay: that wasn't new either.  Instant replay was instituted prior to the start of the 1999 season.  No surprises that in the AFC Divisional Round a very close call would automatically go to the booth with less than 2 minutes remaining.

Arguing that going to replay was imprudent is fucking pathetic.  It's the exact same thing the Gore camp pathetically argued about the Electoral College when they lost.  It's tantamount to complaining your controller is broken when you clearly just suck at Madden or FIFA.

Am I going too far to equate this to the Dred Scott ruling?  "Not only are you not not free right now, D-Scott, you don't even have a right to be in this court right now, homeslice.  You lose.  Twice."

Grow up, Eric Allen.  Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Rebuttal

In response to your latest ALOTO post (that's A League of Their Own for those of you who don't habla acronyms), I could say a number of things.

I could say that you're a no talent hack who is merely causing trouble. But I won't say that.

I could say it was obvious from your ramblings that you haven't seen the movie, and all of your references could easily be found on Wikipedia or IMDB. But I won't say that.

I could say that you clearly don't understand the filial bonds between teammates and the competitive nature between siblings which belies your claim that your family exists or loves you. But I won't say that either.

Instead, I'm going to ignore your ALOTO comments altogether and simply say this:

Charlie Conway was the most important player on the Ducks.

The Shwam: Great at middle names, really awful with first names

In general, Chris Berman needs to go away, and it's for failed efforts such as this:

During Monday NFL Countdown, Berman tries to make a witty observation that next weekend's AFC East games will involve "Bills" all over the place with playoff implications. (Not that any of these will be any newer in Week 17 than they were in Week 1, but let's let the schmuck have some fun). This will be decently interesting if he can pull it off. Let's see:

The Buffalo Bills. Check. Playing against Bill Belichick, head coach of the Patriots. Check.
Bill Parcells, current Executive Vice President of the Miami Dolphins. Check. Playing against Eric Mangini, head coach of the Jets. What's that, Big Guy? Not seeing a Bill there.

Could have gone with Bill Calahan, Offensive Line Coach and Assistant Head Coach for the Jets, but that's kind of a stretch. Unfortunately, there are no other Bills associated with the Jets. Not a one. What should Berman do?

Is it:
A) Find another name that all 4 organizations share
B) Stop trying to be kitschy and just report the fucking sports news like you're paid to do
or C) Turn the linkage into a very clumsy allegory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of Christian fame compared to the Parcells coaching tree that has taken root in the AFC East?

Of course, Berman chose C. (If you couldn't tell, I was pulling for B).

Fire Bill Conlin?

So Bill Conlin has decided to weigh in on the Raul Ibanez signing. He says a lot of stupid things. Here's the second half of the article, FJMed. The first half was mostly Ponce de Leon references.

Never mind that righty-swinging Pat Burrell averaged 141 strikeouts during his nine seasons here and never struck out fewer than 120 times. Is that the kind of consistency you're happy to have? In seven seasons as a regular player, the late-blooming Ibanez has averaged 93 strikeouts.
Seriously, why do people keep harping on strikeouts? They really aren’t worse than any other out. I get that it can be frustrating to see Burrell jump back from a pitch down the heart of the plate for a called third strike, but that doesn’t make it any more of an out than a fly ball to right field. Yeah, Ibanez has struck out fewer times than Burrell has, but I’ll take Burrell’s .367 career OBP over Ibanez’s .346. Despite striking out less, Ibanez doesn’t get on base as much as Burrell does. Seriously, strikeouts aren’t relevant.

And he has a better career average vs. lefthanders, .268, than Burrell does against righthanders, .251.
Um, this might be a dumb question, but so what? Burrell’s role wasn’t really ever to hit righthanders; against a RHP you would count on Howard and Utley for the majority of the offence. Burrell was there to provide balance when the team was facing a lefty. The more apt comparison would be Ibanez’s .268 career AVG against LHP against Burrell’s .276 AVG and .410 OBP against LHP.

However, I'm not going to buy into the Phillies' claim that Raul hits lefthanders better than he hits righthanders. His .305 average against lefties last season appears to be a statistical anomaly and should be discounted. Plus, he won't have a book on many National League pitchers.
You’re absolutely right, this is without question an outlier. I appreciate your statistical acumen.

The best news? He has faced Mets ace Johan Santana 34 times and has a .353 average.
Oh. Forget that last thing I said. Come on, you can’t really be saying that this is going to continue. It’s another anomaly, a small sample size. Even the most optimistic, diehard Phils fan has to expect some regression here. He’s not going to keep hitting over .350 against Johan.

Manuel will be juggling his lineups at a time when the National League is a little short of quality lefthanders. Santana has been something less than advertised - very good, but not exceptional
I may be wrong here, but I would say that when a pitcher leads the league in ERA, IP, and ranks second in strikeouts he has been exceptional. Yeah, he only had 16 wins, but wins are a terrible measure of a pitcher’s performance. Jamie Moyer and Aaron Cook also had 16 wins, and they’re not that good. You can’t hold the Mets’ bullpen against him.

- and the Mets' bullpen is heavily righthanded with Scott Schoeneweis and Billy Wagner out of the picture.
I just wanted to take a minute here and say Fuck You to Billy Wagner. He’s an asshole.

Only four of the 24 winningest pitchers in the National League last season were lefthanders. Santana and Moyer were tied for most wins with 16, followed by Cole Hamels with 14 and former Phil Randy Wolf with 12. Does Wolfie scare you?
Again, just to reiterate, wins are stupid. Randy Wolf is not the 4th best LHP in the NL. And no, he doesn’t especially scare me, especially considering he doesn’t so much have a team right now. I am scared, though, by some of the LHP that some of the better teams in the league, and teams in the NL East, have: Santana, obviously, Clayton Kershaw, Andrew Miller, Jeff Francis, Scott Olsen, even Ted Lily. These pitchers give their teams a good chance to win against us, even when their ace, like Billingsley or Nolasco, isn’t on the mound.

Ryan Howard hit more home runs off lefthanded pitchers last year (14) than did any righthanded hitter but teammate Jayson Werth, who blasted 16. MVP Albert Pujols hit 11. Sleep easy.
Werth absolutely kills lefthanded pitching, there’s no doubt about that. But Ryan Howard, while he’s hit a lot of HRs against lefties, only has a career OPS of .786 against them. That’s pretty miserable.

Chase Utley batted .277 against lefthanders last season, despite the hip injury that restricted his swing. And guess who was No. 3 behind Howard in homers off lefthanders? You'd be right if you said Utley, with 13 bombs.
Yeah, Chase Utley is the man. Considering offense, defense, and the value of his position, Utley is the best baseball player in the world right now. This doesn’t have anything to do with, well, anything else, I just like saying it.

So let's not fly into a forum and chat-room frenzy over all this Phillies' lefthandedness. Think of all the righthanded pitchers who will have to face a lefthanded gantlet when Utley is back in a lineup that will include switch-hitters Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, Utley, Howard and Ibanez. That's a six-pack of dynamite.
I counted the names in this paragraph four times trying to figure out who the sixth person he was referring to is. There isn’t one. Unless dynamite is commonly sold in six-packs, and I just had no idea this was a common expression, this maybe isn’t the best metaphor.

Manuel will have some flexibility. You could see a lineup against a lefthanded starter that opens with the World Series alignment that flipped Victorino and Werth in the Nos. 2 and 6 holes. Ask CC Sabathia, now in Yankees pinstripes, how that worked out. With Werth establishing himself as a certified power threat, Charlie could bat Shane No. 2, Utley 3, Howard 4, Werth 5 and Ibanez 6.
I guess I could live with that. Still though, I would have rather had Delmon Young. Whatever.

And please don't start with, "Don't tell me they're gonna pay $10 million a year to a No. 6 hitter." The Phillies just got through paying $14 million a year for a guy who hit .257, struck out a ton, clogged the bases, hasn't driven in 100 runs since 2005, has never scored 100 runs, and is a seven-inning player.
This last sentence is what motivated me to write this. Yes, Pat Burrell was making too much money. But after that, everything else falls apart here. Clogged the bases? Yeah, damn, I hate when baseball players get on base. That never works out. Like, in Game 5 of the World Series, when Pat led off with a double, clogging up the bases. Who cares that it led to the run that won the World Series, he’s slow. The purpose of baseball is to score runs, and you need to get on base to do that. As for not driving in 100 runs since 2005, is it maybe possible that there is a correlation between that and hitting behind Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, who both have been consistently driving in triple figures? When Ryan Howard is clearing the bases 45 times a year in front of him, the RBI opportunities just haven’t been there for Pat. As for this seven inning player nonsense, Ibanez is just as bad a fielder as Burrell; it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Bruntlett filling in defensively to protect late leads.

Yeah, I don't think that this was the best move the Phillies could have made. It kills me that they're giving up their first round pick in the next draft. There were better options out there, be it moving Jason Donald and someone else to get Delmon Young, or signing Juan Rivera, who I think is going to put up some pretty big numbers this year. Whatever, with Utley coming back healthy, Cole Hamels having emerged as one of the most dominant big game pitchers in the world, and Brad Lights Out Lidge, I'm still feeling good about the Fightins.

Also, I do really like reading Bill Conlin, and I don't want him to get fired. Titles are really hard to think of though. Eh, blame.