Friday, July 13, 2007

Gary Sheffield: It Ain't My Fault, Blame Everyone Else...

Some find Sheffield’s rants amusing. Some even find them enlightening, enriching, and important (I’m looking at you, Michael Wilbon). I find them disgusting and offensive. In my view, Sheffield is only one step below Barry Bonds in the “’Da Man Is Keeping Me Down” hall of fame. Today, he has blurted out another one of his race-relation revelations. He accuses Joe Torre of racism, picks at the slavery-era scab of where a multi-racial individual’s place within the spectrum of “blackness” resides, and, predictably, takes no responsibility for any of the negative perceptions that surround him.

In 2005, Gary Sheffield told us that the Yankee clubhouse had no camaraderie, yet, in the same breath, said that he didn’t trust his teammates and would never want to hang out with them. Now he tells us that he was mistreated by the Yankees in general, and by Joe Torre in particular. Gee, Gary, if you’re always so honest and no-holds barred with your thoughts and feelings, how come you never spoke up about Torre’s alleged mistreatment of you when you were on the Yankees from 2004-2006?

Why do I get the feeling that this is just one more in a long line of perceived slights coming from the mouth of a man that hates everyone but himself and his money? After all, as Gary so indelicately informed us a few months ago, all of baseball is out to get him because he’s black. If it were up to baseball, there’d be no African-Americans in the game at all.

But I don’t want to go out on a sour note before the weekend. I’ll give Sheffield credit for using Bill Clinton’s “definition of is” argument. If steroids “are” only defined by the location of their injection, Sheffield just uncovered the great steroid loophole that’ll save him and everybody else associated with the BALCO scandal. Who knew that such a stupid individual could pull a legal end-run on Congress, Commissioner Selig, and Sen. Mitchell?

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