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Sheffield Says Latin Players Easier to "Control"

Batty31 Jun 03 2007 05:09 PM

Sheffield says Latin players easier to ‘control’ Tigers DH says that's why there are fewer African-Americans in game MSNBC News Services Updated: 12:49 p.m. ET June 3, 2007 Major League Baseball has more Latin players than African-Americans because Latins are easier to control, Detroit Tigers designated hitter Gary Sheffield said in an interview with GQ that appears in the June edition of the magazine. "I called it years ago," Sheffield said, the magazine reported. "What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out." Sheffield went on to say that MLB picks Latin players over equally talented African-Americans because they're easier to control, the magazine reported. "It's about being able to tell (Latin players) what to do. ... Being able to control them," Sheffield said, GQ reported. "Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man. These are the things that my race demands. "So if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys." Only 8.4 percent of major league players last season were African American, the lowest level in at least two decades, according to a study by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. As recently as 1995, 19 percent of big leaguers were black, according to Richard Lapchick, director of institute. Nine percent were black in both 2004 and 2005, and the current figure is the lowest since at least the mid-1980s, he said. Sheffield also spoke about Barry Bonds' pursuit of Hank Aaron's home-run record, and whether Bonds and McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame. Sheffield, who has had a stormy relationship at times with Bonds, said commissioner Bud Selig should be in attendance when Bonds breaks Aaron's career homer record, the magazine reported "It ain't easy what (Bonds is) doing," Sheffield said, GQ reported. "To not acknowledge it, you're basically calling him a liar out loud; you're buying into all these stories that's written. And Bonds was hitting home runs before all this started." Sheffield also said Bonds and McGwire "absolutely" belong in the Hall, the magazine reported. "The numbers don't lie," Sheffield said, GQ reported. "It's just as simple as that. And it wasn't illegal at the time. You're who you are until you get caught, and that's the way the game has always been." McGwire failed by a wide margin to make the Hall of Fame on the first ballot this year

metirish Jun 03 2007 06:54 PM

Gary Sheffield is a total wanker,if he knows African American players that are better than some Latino players but are sitting at home because they can't be controled then fucking lets have names.....and I assume he knows enoough to bump that 8.4% up. His book must not be selling.

Nymr83 Jun 03 2007 07:05 PM

Elijah Duk.. oh, wait, no, he's under contract.

Edgy DC Jun 03 2007 07:37 PM

]"It ain't easy what (Bonds is) doing," Sheffield said, GQ reported. "To not acknowledge it, you're basically calling him a liar out loud; you're buying into all these stories that's written. And Bonds was hitting home runs before all this started." Shef, you're a source for a lot of those stories.

Frayed Knot Jun 03 2007 07:41 PM

I (we) have been hearing from Sheffield for nearly two decades now and he has never once made sense to me !! By this point, whenever he speaks, all I hear is like it's the parents from 'Peanuts': Wah-wah-wah Wah-wah-wah, ... One could ask him to actually NAME the black players who are sitting at home having been screwed out of a job due to their inability to be controlled even though superior to current white & Hispanic players - but it's not even worth it. By mid-week he's going to be either claiming he was mis-quoted or denying he ever spoke to the writer in the first place.

OlerudOwned Jun 03 2007 07:45 PM

Sheffield swears to god that he saw an antenna poking out of Carlos Guillen's cap.

Edgy DC Jun 04 2007 08:45 AM

What a trip. CLEVELAND - Gary Sheffield came out firing Friday. First, the Detroit Tigers designated hitter said that umpires have been missing pitches on him all year, that major league baseball is trying to silence him and that while he plans to restrain himself, “they’d better restrain themselves.” Then, after learning that major league baseball suspended him for three games for his Thursday night confrontation with umpire Greg Gibson, Sheffield took aim directly at Gibson. “Umpires do lie, too,” said Sheffield, who appealed the suspension and was in the Tiger lineup Friday night. “(Gibson) just told a bald-faced lie. He ‘s a bald-faced liar.” Sheffield’s problems with Gibson began in the fifth inning of Thursday night’ s 11-5 Tiger loss to Cleveland. Sheffield disputed two pitches that Gibson called strikes, then threw his broken bat handle to the ground while running to first base. Gibson, believing that Sheffield had thrown the bat handle at him, quickly ejected Sheffield. Sheffield was still hot Friday, and not just at Gibson. “This is an ongoing thing I’ve dealt with all year,” Sheffield said. “I’ ve not said one word. But before I even swing the bat, it’s two strikes. (Pitchers) aren’t earning strike one. “It’s almost impossible to know when to swing...For a guy that walks 100 times (in a season), I don’t get calls.” Sheffield said that he simply reached a boiling point with Gibson. He said the boiling point came earlier because he’s a DH, and thus doesn’t think about anything but hitting. He also said that baseball doesn’t want him to speak out. “Basically, they want me to be on the field with handcuffs, and duct tape on my lips,” Sheffield said. Friday, Sheffield’s lips were hardly sealed.

iramets Jun 04 2007 09:07 AM

I will pay a lot of money to see Sheffield in manacles with his mouth taped up. I don't even require a ducking stool. Just him, all Bobby-Sealed up.

MFS62 Jun 04 2007 09:09 AM

If they're so easy to control, how come they're all"first ball, fastball" hitters? Later

metsmarathon Jun 04 2007 09:11 AM

from 2001 to 2005, gary walked on average 84 times per year, never reaching 100 in one of those seasons. last year, he walked only 13 times, but was injured. however, his 13 walks in 39 games comes out to only a 54-walk pace. this season, however, he's on pace for 102 walks, so maybe he is getting a few calls...

metirish Jun 05 2007 09:50 AM

Bondy has an interesting take on things. ] Sheffield grinds wrong ax By FILIP BONDY DAILY NEWS SPORTS COLUMNIST Tuesday, June 5th 2007, 4:00 AM Gary Sheffield Tigers manager Jim Leyland pushes Gary Sheffield away from home plate umpire Greg Gibson after an altercation on May 31. It is a great, unfortunate irony that in order to debunk Gary Sheffield's latest pop-sociology theories, we must find and cite Hispanic ballplayers who are nearly as big a pain in the neck as the former Yankee. This isn't easy, but suddenly necessary because Sheffield has claimed in an interview with GQ magazine that the main reason there are so many Latino players in the major leagues, and so few African-Americans, is that teams believe Hispanics are easier to control. Major league club officials supposedly don't want to deal with real, contentious black men like Sheffield sees himself. "Where I'm from, you can't control us," Sheffield said. "... These are the things my race demands. So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys." This is utter nonsense, a sweeping generalization of the sloppiest sort, and it feeds dangerously into the whole immigrant worker paranoia that permeates our country: They're taking our jobs because they do what they're told! Sheffield might have made his point very effectively and specifically, without the racial stereotypes, by stating the obvious: The Yankees preferred Bobby Abreu's quiet singles to his own loud homers, and are paying a price for it in the standings. But Sheffield is Sheffield, an erstwhile steroid confessor who swings his bat like an ax and speaks with the same absence of nuance. So he has dragged an entire race into his own grudge work, and there is a need to put out an APB for thorny, surly or rebellious Latino types. Nobody has to look hard for these mischievous guys. Manny Ramirez is up in Boston, heeding nobody and nothing but his own enigmatic brain signals. Alex Rodriguez, a Sheffield ally, is in the Bronx, making headlines of the best and worst kind. Guillermo Mota is on the Mets after getting busted for steroids, a problem that has become a silent epidemic among young Hispanic players. There you go, Sheff. Latinos can be a headache, too, just like a lot of white and black players, and Asians too - hey, remember Hideki Irabu? The trouble with such ignorant ramblings from Sheffield is that they obscure some real and troublesome issues about blacks and baseball. There is understandable concern about shrinking numbers of American blacks in the sport. And while MLB hiring practices have improved vastly in recent years under Bud Selig, still only two GMs of color in the leagues are making all these personnel decisions. In this regard, Latinos and African-Americans are in the same charter boat, adrift in the same choppy ocean. "We agree on the issue of diversity in baseball," said Lisa Navarrete, VP for National Council of La Raza, the Latino national civil rights and advocacy organization in Washington. "He's targeting the wrong culprit, the players themselves. Then he resorts to the stereotyping that he himself is trying to fight. I don't want African-Americans to be stereotyped. Plenty of players belie Sheffield's characterizations. It's unfortunate, because at the end of the day, the situations faced by Latins and African-Americans have more in common than they are different." Navarrete, a Yankee fan who lived for some time in New York, pointed out that there is great range of Hispanic players, "from the Zen of Bernie Williams to Manny Ramirez, who you can never call docile." Again, there is no denying that baseball is in a real crisis when it comes to the number of African-Americans coming into the game. Richard Lapchick's 2006 study out of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports found that only 8.4% of players were African-American, the lowest number since the 1960s, while 29.4% were Latino. At the coaching level, however, African-Americans made up 16% of the workforce while Latinos comprised 13%. This is a direct statistical rebuff of Sheffield's theory. If white GMs were more comfortable with Hispanics, that hiring bias would certainly be quite obvious in the coaching ranks. After all, coaches don't have the same impact on results as players. If the hirer believed that Latins were more cooperative than African-Americans, he would lose little ground in the standings by ignoring the latter group almost entirely. Sheffield is welcome to his opinions and is more than likely to continue issuing them. But if he has a beef with the Yankees, he should say exactly that. They done him wrong, at least in his mind. This has nothing to do with A-Rod, Manny or an imagined race of do-gooders. fjbondy@netscape.net