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You wanted more? You get more! Amy K. Nelson delves into the "complex" world of Luke Scott, and-- like a great actor or a writer for a corporation that makes its bones making nice with professional athletes and blunting unpleasant truths-- she doesn't judge. Come get some:
The reason I'm even here at this shooting range in late February during baseball's spring training, holding this gun, is that Scott is the left fielder for the Baltimore Orioles, and I'm trying to understand him better. Scott is one of baseball's most complex characters. His questions about President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship put him in headlines during an otherwise-quiet offseason. He speaks bluntly and with heavy opinions. He's fluent in Spanish and loves Latin culture, but in the clubhouse, he'll make potentially inflammatory comments to a Latino player who is his best friend -- throwing plantain chips at him to keep him in line. He wears religion on his sleeve.
Given all that, the simple assumption is that Scott is a right-wing nut, a borderline racist and a loudmouth redneck ballplayer who should keep his mouth shut.
But it's not that simple. Luke Scott will require a deeper line of thinking. |
Like Gandhi! Or Rasputin! Only not faggy!
"People who tell the truth, they're very easy to … their actions prove it. Something as simple providing a birth certificate. Come on. … There needs to be accountability for the truth. I don't care if you're the president of the United States, you need to be held accountable."
Scott is certainly not alone in those views, and he received a lot of support for expressing his opinion. But negative reaction cascaded, too, with some bloggers saying that evidence Obama was born in Hawaii is overwhelming and that Scott must be a racist or a moron, or both. |
Some people say I was born in New York City at St. Luke's-Roosevelt, went to P.S. 116, then graduated from Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School in 1995, third in my class. Other people swear they saw me emerge from a chrysalis with the "Houses of the Holy" album cover airbrushed on its hull in 2004. Who is right? We may never know.
The day before going to the shooting range, I mention to Scott that I want to explore his relationship with the Dominican Republic-born Pie, because it's a part of his life that few outside the clubhouse seem to know about.
He smiles.
"Felix is my friend," he says. "I give him a hard time. The reason why I give him a hard time is because there are certain people you deal with and you go up and talk to them, and it doesn't work. They don't understand.
"I tell him about some of the ways he's acted: 'Look, you're acting like an animal, you're acting like a savage.'"
Scott turns to his locker and pulls out a bag of plantain chips.
"So I throw bananas in his helmet. Here are my banana chips to remind him that whenever he acts like an animal, 'Hey, that's what other people are thinking. They're just not telling you, but that's what they're thinking about. And I'm telling you so that you're aware of that so you can make a cognitive decision to not behave like that.' I would want someone to tell me that instead of letting you making a jerk of yourself." |
So, does Pie line his shirt collar with Red-Hot, or nut-based allergens?
If Scott loves America, not far from his heart is South America. He grew up around Spanish speakers in Florida, fell in love with the Latin culture after playing in Venezuela in the winter leagues. He grew fluent in Spanish once he became roommates with Taveras in the minors.
He says he feels he has more in common with Latino players.
"That's why I never did well in the minor leagues with my American teammates, because a lot of these guys were high draft picks and got a lot of money and were used to Mom and Dad taking care of them," Scott says. "They'd leave trash everywhere and didn't do their dishes because they were used to someone cleaning up. That's fighting grounds for me. I'm gonna punch someone's face in because I'm not cleaning up after anybody, so I lived with Latins my whole minor league career."
Humberto Quintero, the Astros catcher, was teammates with Scott in Houston and said he, Scott and Taveras would get three rooms on the road that all connected with Scott's in the middle. He loves Scott, says he helped save his career in 2007 after Quintero needed to lose weight. Scott, a health nut, cut out red meat and taught Quintero how to eat and cook well. Quintero lost 20 pounds. As Scott called Taveras and Pie, he also called Quintero "savage" and "animal," and he, too, laughs when asked about it.
"He's not racist; he's a good friend," Quintero says. "I give it right back to him, too." |
Okay, so he's not an uncaring redneck ignoramus... he's a paternalistic redneck ignoramus, determined to combat clubhouse "savage"ery. He's like a man on a mission!
Amy Nelson must have fantastic calf muscles, because she seems to live on tiptoe.
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