Gary Sheffield: Cultural Relativist

Gary Sheffield has an interesting take on the reduced number of African Americans in baseball today.

"I called it years ago. What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out. … [It's about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do -- being able to control them," he told the magazine. "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."

To recap, the presumably white management wants players who will do as they're told and who don't want to be "treated like men", latin players don't stand up for themselves and are easily controlled, and black players will not be told what to do and demand respect. Nice job, Gary. You've managed to play into the stereotypes of three racial groups in the space of a few paragraphs!

I wonder if Sheffield is even aware of how negatively he's portraying African Americans. I'd guess "no".