From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Morgan vs Sandberg
Date: 27 Jan 93 15:54:06 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
NNTP-Posting-Host: gondolin.pubs.stratus.com

In article <1k68udINNm82@lynx.unm.edu> kbos@carina.unm.edu (K.  
Mitchell Bose) writes:
> Good.  It is insulting.  However, I don't think he was insulting  
you, or calling
> you racist.  It's simply that Sandberg _is_ a TWG (Telegenic White  
Guy), and so
> gets a lot more press than someone who is a minority and plays  
catcher in
> Seattle or somewhere.  He's articulate, fairly charismatic, plays  
on a team with
> a superstation, and plays a visible position.
> 
> And he's white.

While I think race sometimes enters into it, I don't think this
is prevelant as several people have implied.  I think
"telegenic" IS a bigger part of it, but this is NOT limited to
white players.  Look at Kirby Puckett. Or in basketball, look
at Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and a few others.  All are
good in interviews, smile well, and look good on TV.  (For a 
really egregious case in basketball, look at Scottie Pippin:
a good forward who a number of fans seem to consider a 
superstar and one of the best forwards ever. Why?  He's
very telegenic, and seems like a nice guy, and thus people
inflate his value.)

> 
> >One would think that in a sports group, and especially in r.s.b.,  
judgment  
> >of a player based on his whiteness (or shade thereof) would not be  
> >rampant--nor do I think it would be tolerated by this group if  
someone  
> >actually professed such a belief (which neither I nor anyone else  
in this  
> >thread, nor in other threads I recall reading, has done).
> 
> Why?  The point is, it's rampant in baseball.  CIP: Steve Garvey  
vs. Tony Perez.
> Perez was by far the better player, but everywhere I saw papers  
(except in Ohio,
> of course :), the discussion was all about why Garvey didn't get  
in.  But, Steve
> Garvey was a white los Angeles first baseman with good Triple Crown  
numbers.

I think the other part of it is that Perez was one part of the
Big Red Machine, and as such didn't stand out as much as Garvey
did in LA.  When a team has four or five superstars, any one
of them doesn't get as much attention as the superstar on
a team that only has one.  This is compounded by the fact that
Garvey played in a bigger media market: players from New York, LA,
and Chicago almost always get more press and are better known
than players form Cincinnati.

By the way, I don't deny that racism is involved sometimes. I
just don't see it as the primary issue in a lot of these cases.
I think I became somewhat sensitive to this growing up in
Pittsburgh and listening to people claim Pirate fans were racist
and that's why the Pirates didn't draw more. (This at a time
when there were big groups of followers for Clemente, Stargell,
and others. This at a time when Franco Harris and Joe Greene
and other Steelers had legions of fans behind them.)  I always
thought this was an explanation that those who really didn't want
to try to figure out the real answers resorted to.

--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball