Outta the mouths of boobs: Rocket’s Asian misfire
By The Heckler
Boy, you just gotta love a redneck like the Rocket, eh? ‘Cause that’s what all people from Texas are, right?
This good ol’boy, straight from deep in the heart of the yellow rose state, let fly with some truly off-color comments recently in regard to the World Baseball Classic and – more specifically – the fans of both the Japanese and Korean contingents.
In an interview reported by the Associated Press, Clemens (in-between feigning interest as to an inevitable return later this year) commented on the recent World Baseball Classic by relating a story of his own, specifically in regard to his desire to have his dry-cleaning returned by a certain day (and presumably by a dry cleaner of Asian descent).
“They said, ‘You’ve got no chance,’ they told me,” Clemens stated. “I said, ‘I’m going to get it tomorrow, right?’ And then she goes, ‘No chance, we’re going to the game.’
“None of the dry cleaners were open, they were all at the game, Japan and Korea,” he said. “So we couldn’t get dry cleaning done out there, but I guess the neatest thing about them was there were about 50,000 of them at Anaheim Stadium, Korea and Japan.”
Yikes.
Twist that stereotype around for a moment and insert African-Americans or Hispanics into the demographic, add in a few lingering blanket notions about these ethnic groups, and what kind of reaction do you think you would have? One with ten-times the backlash, that’s what kind of reaction – with names like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton no doubt crawling out of the woodwork again to rail against these ignorant and off-base comments.
But who will stand up for the Asian community? That remains to be seen.
But you can count The Heckler, for one.
Forget the fact that – obviously – not all dry cleaners are Asian, let alone that there is even 50,000 in California of that ethnicity, let alone that 50,000 turned up at the Anaheim Stadium to see the games - this crack speaks to another just-under-the-surface racism that exists even today in Major League Baseball – the obvious bias against Asian ballplayers that is only now, after decades, finally beginning to be chipped away.
What team wouldn’t like to have a ballplayer like Ichiro or Hideki Matsui on their teams? None. But that’s the easy angle.
The Korean and Japanese teams twisted their Anglicized counterparts into human pretzels during the course of the tournament (not to mention their Latino brothers, as well) prompting even the mighty Alex Rodriguez to state, “All you have to do is look at TV to see this is a success . . . The intensity is unbelievable, like the World Series. And for many countries it is.”
Both teams, made up of few actual major leaguers, played with a spirit and will-to-win far beyond anything you’ll see around any American or Canadian ballpark – at least until August when the games being to truly matter. For Japan to claim the ultimate prize speaks to not only their passion, but their talent as well.
Yet don’t hold your breath looking for a flood of Asians to come to North America to sign contracts with teams in the MLB fold.
“Too small,” they whisper. “Not strong enough. No power pitchers. No chance to succeed at the MLB level.”
Tell that to team Cuba, or any of the other teams beaten by these no-names. They would testify first-hand as to the validity of those inaccurate stereotypes. Little ball wins games - period. Yet we still have little chance of seeing something similar in the “big leagues” anytime soon, depriving fans at a real chance of seeing how wrong these misconceptions really are.
Perhaps a better bet would be trying to coax Roger Clemens into stepping out of the 1970’s (with such a bigotted remark, it’s best not to jump ahead too soon). It’s no “Ancient Chinese secret” that the Rocket comes out looking nothing like the sure-fire Hall-of-Famer he now stands to be, but instead, as an ignorant ass who – frankly – should know better.
Sources:
http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/news_story/?ID=161306&hubname=