Race Baiting Animal Hating Columnist Plays Race Card

There was a day when only HHR paid attention to the Trentonian. Today, Deadspin beat us to the punch, splashing the following graphic up...


The Trentonian's LA Parker writes bi-weekly columns often focusing on matters of race in New jersey's capital city. He makes his living on race-baiting and penning pieces pretending Trenton isn't a crime, drug and gang-riddled hellhole.

In response to his paper's unconventional Vick headline, Parker found the need to show the world he is a less rational, poor man's Rev. Sharpton with an angry, ignorant piece, "Condemnation of Philadelphia Eagles' Michael Vick shows racist America placing pets before blacks."

Parker writes:

Get ready to count your losses, Eagles fans, because your team has no shot this year without your black Negro, dog-killin’, prison-serving quarterback.

Yeah, you’re reading it right.

The Vick description occurs because despite time served for whatever crime he committed in a dogfighting scandal, despite community service, and despite a thousand repentances, he never will receive forgiveness by PETA-peddlers (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) nor the millions of Americans who place poodles before humans, especially black homo sapiens.

America, land of the free and home to Native American genocide, slavery, gender persecution, segregation, and a litany of other indiscretions that affected millions, appears hell-bent on repeatedly lynching Vick, retelling his dogfighting connection until he screams Uncle Tom.

He goes on. And on.

Read the vile here.

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Yes We Can!: Phil Jackson Calls for Suppression of Ethnic Voters

LA coach wants to change the system to keep THOSE people out of the voting booth.

From SLAM Online (via Bunch) Phil Jackson Unhappy With All-Star Voting:

"That Chinese fan group, they vote for the Houston team because of Yao Ming and their relationship to Houston. It’s all skewed."

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Nationals Take a Positive Step Towards Racial Progress

This week, the Washington Nationals finally broke down the social stigma that has plagued them for years, and became the last franchise in Major League Baseball to hire a white manager.

Before giving the nod to (white) Jim Riggleman, owner Ted Lerner was long criticized for his strong opposition to hiring Caucasians to manage his squad, despite having no issues signing physically-talented whites to play on the team.

An anonymous source close to the team stated, "Lerner just doesn't believe that old white men have what it takes to coach this young, inexperienced franchise. I really feel the only reason Riggleman was even considered was due to pressure from the League, the Players Association and the Congressional White Caucus. "

Another official pointed out the fact that Lerner goes so far as to mock whites by having interns dress as stereotypical caricatures and run the bases for fans' amusement during every game. "Whites are good for entertaining the masses, not managing small-ball. The Riggleman move shocks me."

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Reggie Lewis' Widow (Sorta) Defends Accused Racist Officer Fingered by Obama

At the end of his listless press conference on health care/insurance reform last night, President Obama took time to address a recent incident in which an African-American Harvard professor was arrested for breaking into his own home (he was locked out and "jimmied" his way in; a burglary report was called in).

"I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that he Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home... "Separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-American and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. "That’s just a fact. That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made."

As Obama and the arrestee fan the racial flames here - Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. apparently cried, "This is what happens to black men in America!” - police report tells a different story (The Boston Globe had a link to the pdf posted, but has since removed it, but a copied account can be found here).

Sgt. James Crowley flatly refuses to apologize for any alleged racism on his part, “I just have nothing to apologize for. It will never happen.”

According to the Globe, "it was not the first time he had a memorable encounter in the line of duty with a prominent black man. Nearly 16 years ago, as a Brandeis University police officer, Crowley desperately tried to save the life of Reggie Lewis after the Boston Celtics star collapsed while practicing in the school gym."

Crowley was a certified emergency medical technician when he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Lewis, to no avail, after the player’s heart stopped on July 27, 1993. In a Globe interview later that day, Crowley said he rushed to the university’s Shapiro Gymnasium, confirmed that Lewis had no pulse, and frantically tried to revive him.

“I just kept on going,’’ he said. “I just kept thinking, ‘Don’t let him die - just don’t die.’’’

Coming to the Sergeant's defense is the late Celtic's widow. From the Boston Herald:

Yesterday, Lewis’ widow, Donna Lewis, was floored to learn the embattled father of three on the thin blue line of a national debate on racism in America was the same man so determined to rescue her husband.

“That’s incredible,” Lewis, 44, exclaimed. “It’s an unfortunate situation. Hopefully, it can resolve itself. The most important thing is peace.”

Perhaps the real issue is that Obama, the noted basketball nut, begrudges Crowley for not doing enough to rescue the superstar back in 1993:

...he [Crowley] still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.

“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.

Who knows.

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"'78": Boston, Busing, Baseball and Bucky Fn Dent; Q&A with Author Bill Reynolds

In the Spring and Fall of 1978, Red Sox fans saw their beloved team lose a 14-game lead over the hated New York Yankees, which included a four-game sweep at Fenway by the Yanks and forced a one-game playoff for the AL East title. Fans were fixated on the October 2 game, which would go on to earn light-hitting shortstop Bucky Dent his endearing (and enduring) profane nickname. The city was also burning under the national spotlight over the politically and socially volatile issue of forced busing over which the otherwise liberal-minded city and its residents became viewed as racially hostile as the Deep South.


As violent protests raged, though eventually subsided even as the issue persisted, baseball served as a unifier, an escape.

In Boston, where politics and baseball are inherited religions, author Bill Reynolds takes us back in '78: The Boston Red Sox, a Historic Game, and a Divided City, and examines the dual relationship of the city with its communities and its team during the tumultuous era.


HuggingHaroldReynolds: Was your intention to write a historical/social issue piece or a baseball book? Where did the idea come from to marry the two?

Bill Reynolds: My idea was to write what I hoped would be an interesting book, one that used a great baseball game as the thread to get at larger issues. I’ve long believed that sports are not an island unto themselves, but an integral part of the culture. The idea came from going to a Red Sox game a couple of years ago and speaking to some fans – one at about 40, the other in his early 30’s, and both from New England – who had no idea that the busing crisis had ever existed.

HHR: The busing order came about in '74, and you go on to characterize the '77-78 school year as "relatively tranquil" - why then draw the parallels between these two particular events - busing & the '78 playoff game? Why not, say, the '75 Series?

BR: I liked the fact that even though things are starting to quiet down, the furor over busing and the ramifications of it remain. I also liked the fact that it had already gone on for four years, and felt like in ’75 it had just been a year.

HHR: Save a few Bill Lee quotes and a random PSA or two, the players were both physically disconnected and vocally silent on the busing and race issues and accompanying violence. Given the view of Red Sox baseball as an escape from these harsh realities, were the players better served remaining politically neutral despite local volatility?

BR: Even though with the exception of Bill Lee the players avoided speaking about the issue, busing was like the elephant in the clubhouse, to the point that for several of them it took over a decade to speak about it, specifically for Jim Rice, Luis Tiant, and Fred Lynn. I’m not surprised, though—busing and race was such a volatile issue then that there was no way they could win back then by commenting on it.

HHR: How at fault were politicians and community leaders, many of whom have gone on to successful political careers - others who saw their aspirations extinguished, in stoking the fires?

BR: I feel that that many of the political and community leaders also were caught in a no-win situation, especially Mayor Kevin White, who had national aspirations and saw them blown up by busing. The issue was simply too ugly and too divisive to have any political figure emerge from it unscathed, regardless of where they were on the issue.

HHR: In 2004 Barry Bonds noted his unwillingness to play in Boston because it was "too racist," and an article as recent as last year MLB analyst and scribe Ken Rosenthal highlighted the team's current lack of African-Americans (while reminding us of the Sox's notorious racial history). How much of the recent perceptions are based on the city's past as opposed to present realities? Has the city actually come that far?

BR: I think those perceptions are all based on the past. In the past decade you can make a case that the three most popular players in Fenway were Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz, and that the perception of Boston as being a racist city is also in the past. That doesn’t mean race is not an issue in Boston, but then again race is an issue in America, and I don’t think Boston is unique in this regard.

HHR: After years of his coming up short, what are both your professional and personal thoughts on Jim Rice finally gaining enshrinement to Cooperstown. Which was a bigger factor that held him back - his perceived attitude amongst sports writers or his lack of coming through in any notable big, clutch moment?

BR: There’s no doubt that Rice’s miserable relationship with the media through the years didn’t help him, but he also never had those huge signature moments in his career that arguably would have gotten him inducted earlier.

HHR: Can you elaborate on the notion that fans can cheer on players of different races and nationalities, when they perform for their respective teams, but still hold a NIMBY view of others when it comes to their communities?

BR: I think that’s the nature of fandom and, on a deeper level, the more we get to know people the less we are bothered by race, and we feel we know athletes.

HHR: Can baseball really serve as a healing salve for social issues?

BR: Sports can help be a healing salve for social issues, in that they can bring people of different races and backgrounds together for a while in a common cause, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to eradicate all the problems.

HHR: What have the lessons of '78 taught the city of Boston and the country as a whole that watched the actions transpire?

BR: That’s a great question, and one I really don’t have an answer for. I do think, though, that one of the lessons learned from Boston’s busing tragedy was that nobody won, that all the years and all the hate and all the violence and in then end everyone lost. Maybe that’s the enduring lesson.

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Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?

Barkley Ignores NBA's Racial Discrepencies

As Sir Charles spent the week lamenting the College Football coaching hiring system, noting that only 4 1-A coaches are of African-American descent, he remains ominously quiet on the racial barriers in the sport in which he made his millions.

Estimates show that NBA head coaches are about 80% white. Conversely, African-Americans make up between 75-80% of NBA players.

This trend begs a few questions:

• How are whites qualified enough to coach, but not play?
• Are talented whites being overlooked as players simply because of their skin color?
• Are NBA scouts and executives are judging players solely on the criteria of a player's physical ability to perform on the basketball court?
• When, in today'sAmerica, did we find it acceptable to judge people based on their physical characteristics?
• Why does the media ignore this blatant racism and player profiling?

Until the Commish steps in and a hiring quota is set up to better represent white players in the NBA, fundamentally sound, scrappy cauchies will continue to be passed over for African-Americans with big up-sides.

This is unacceptable.

America's white youth, like this guy (though able to box out and bounce pass with the best of them), are being institutionally denied a chance for NBA stardom.

Jayson Williams to Use Mark Furhman Defense

According to the AP via Philly.com, based on an appellate court decision, former NBA "star" Jayson Williams "can use details about a racial slur uttered by an investigator in the manslaughter case" against him.

Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter in 2004 but convicted on four counts of trying to cover up the 2002 shooting of a hired driver at Williams' Hunterdon County mansion. The jury deadlocked on a reckless manslaughter count...

The appeals court rejected prosecutors' arguments that the documents were irrelevant to Williams' pending retrial since the officer wasn't scheduled to testify and the information couldn't be used to attack his credibility...

The dispute over the slur has caused Williams' retrial, originally scheduled for January, to be pushed back.

NFL Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month with Special Promotion

A Cowboy fan taking advantage last night of the NFL's month-long promotion of immunity for fans caught illegally sneaking into stadium.

Gramatica bros. said to be inquiring whether or not this applies to them.

Jeff Garcia on the League's outreach efforts: "Oh Jesus Christ."

Today Must Kick Off "National Offensive T-Shirt Week"

Yeah, the Jersey City Colored Athletics shirt seemed a wee bit inappropriate.

Well, the fine folks at Google infiltrating our email must've taken note and are trying to pawn off "Horry Kow" tees to us.

Click to enlarge...


Let us know what you think in comments.

Which do you find more offensive/inappropriate?

The Jersey City Colored Athletics

The majority of the HHR staff was born and raised in the Garden State, and none of us can remember this team.

Driving the LPGA Over a Cliff

If true, this certainly must qualify for one of the most bone-headed sports management decisions of the century:

“Report: LPGA will suspend memberships if players don't learn English”

Disclaimer: this is the LPGA we’re talking about. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s the major women’s professional golf tour in America. The same ones that bring you too much of this and not enough this.

The gratuitous skirt shots aside, I do have to confess to being somewhat of a golf nerd. I play a lot of it, watch a lot of it. And I can appreciate the fact that these women are really, really, really good. But I don’t understand - at all - what speaking English has to do with winning golf tournaments.

You see, the LPGA is dominated at the moment by Lorena Ochoa of Mexico. She’s basically the Tiger Woods of women’s golf, minus the global popularity and billions in the bank account. She pretty much wins every tournament she enters. But, on the odd chance she does not win, it’s a pretty sure bet that someone from South Korea will. American women, for now, are the perpetual runners-up.

Not that it bothers me - and let’s be honest, it can’t bother too many people because NO ONE is watching anyway. But pidgin English apparently doesn’t work for the LPGA, or more importantly, their corporate sponsors.

I can’t believe anyone at the LPGA with a brain would come close to being associated to a report like this, let alone lend a quote for attribution. Then again, there’s a reason LPGA ratings are in the toilet, and it’s clear with leadership like this they are going nowhere too soon.

-Posted by Rev. Shaw Moore

MLB.com INSIDER Mocks Orientals

Shocking language in today's newsletter reeked of bigotry (Click to enlarge)...

"Araysing?"


"Raysayers?"

Herro? Anyrone? Rooks rike they might as rell crose.

ICYMI: Spun to Death

In case you missed it, the Spanish Hoops Team sings:

We Chinese
We Not Nice
We Do Pee Pee
In Your Rice.

We Chinese
We Play Joke
We Do Pee Pee
In Your Coke.

This news was brought to you without entrée, preference or forethought.

Mr. Wong Wins at Torry Pines

Photo: Eduardo Contreras/Union-Tribune

Eugene Wong won the Junior World (15-17) title at the Torrey Pines South Course on Friday.

He's a young kid, so we offer him some free advice courtesy of Al Czervik. No offense.

McCain Ad Reaches Out to New York Mets

...calls Minaya's boys "God's children."

Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?

On the heels of the news that Charles Barkley just settled his $400K debt with the Maloofs, Sports Illustrated ran a piece on him in their SI Players section this week titled "The Escape Artist," which profiles how he "continues to emerge unscathed from the kind of controversies...that would deal death blows to the images of most public figures."

While omitting the 1991 "spitting incident," the piece notes his reference to Conservatives as "fake Christians," his description of Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as "race-baiters," his telling a reporter "This is why I hate white people," the categorization of the Washington Wizards as the "dumbest team in the history of civilization," the time he put a dude through a plate glass window, and, naturally, the aforementioned gambling debt.

The closest the author gets to explaining Sir Charles' "handy Teflon coating" is simply his "wit and refreshing candor", his disarming honesty, and his unwillingness to "back away from inflammatory comments by claiming he thought they were off the record."

The piece notes, "Even though all around him broadcasters are taking career hits for saying the wrong thing -- just ask Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus and The Golf Channel's Kelly Tilghman, to name a few -- Barkley continues to thrive."

Limbaugh and Imus have made careers off of their wit and candor. Yet, their paths were veered off course by their infamous one-time, on-air gaffes for which they were canned and condemned. Tilghman was splashed across cable and the internet, called upon to be fired (by, among others, Sharpton) and went on a public apology tour.

But why not Chuck?

SI calls this double standard the "...Charles standard, reserved for public figures who have the courage to say what they think, the integrity to stand behind it, the humility to freely admit their mistakes, and perhaps most importantly the sense of humor to make it all palatable to the public. At the moment, that club appears to have only one member."

His inflammatory comments, while humorous, are more or less as offensive as anyone's. And yet, his unapologetic attitude for them is seen as a positive, if not refreshing, trait.

Is Charles that disarming or is it the color of his "handy Teflon coating" that makes him different? Maybe the media is simply afraid to call out a large black man, out of fear of their own condemnation.

When Politics Reflects Sports

...we come down much harder on sports.

Geraldine Ferraro is to Rush Limbaugh as Barack Obama is to Donovan McNabb.

From ABC News' Political Punch:

Clinton campaign finance committee member, former vice presidential candidate, and former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-NY, told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Ca., that, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Is she saying that the public "has been very desirous that a black [presidential hopeful] do well?"

For some reason I don't see Walter Mondale's former running mate getting as much flack for this as the overweight pundit did.

MLB Umps Feeling Inquisition Pressure

World Umpires Association (WUA) is irked by MLB's gestapo-like investigation into its members' backgrounds.

Lamell McMorris, a spokesman for the WUA said, "Major League Baseball's security staff is essentially defaming umpires in their communities by conducting, strange, surreptitious and poorly-executed investigations resembling that of secret police in some despotic nation."

Among the investigators' "strange" inquisitions noted by the WUA, "neighbors of Greg Gibson and Sam Holbrook -- MLB umpires who live in Northern Kentucky -- were asked if the two men are members of the Ku Klux Klan."


In addition to eye tests, word is MLB will soon be using a Barcelona-based PI team to go into synagogues and weed out and convert Jewish umps.

Go Away, Stephen A.

Please. Just go away. Seriously. I know its so redundant to rip this guy but I just can't take it anymore.

Maybe it's because this afternoon I finally swore off Eskin for good and, as such, forced myself over to ESPN Radio just in time to catch the end of his show.

Now he's on Sports Center and he just dropped this one...

(Bonds) "is targeted more than the average white athlete would be. Reality."

Granted, the anchor totally baited him towards commenting on race, but seriously, does he just not get it or is he too wrapped up in the parody of himself?

His biggest argument was comparing Barry to McGuire, and questioned the timing of the investigation in that people ignored the PED problem when Big Mac was setting the season HR record. He conveniently forgets the color of the guy going toe-to-toe with McGuire.

STOP FN YELLING.

I can't take it.

Croatian Nazis

I hate Croatian Nazis.

Croatian football fans 'used Nazi symbols' during matches

Gruppenfuhrer, get that blogger's plate number. We're gonna kill that son of a bitch.

The f*cking nazi party.