Baseball darkest moments?

Racism was absolutely a permanent condition in this country from when the first slaves came off from the boat. And the Constitution counted slaves as 3/5 of a person. And "Normal society" back then meant, "The (insert derogatory word that rhymes with trigger) better know their place, or we'll show them with a rope."

Yes, there were a handful of blacks in organized baseball in the 19th century. And they were treated horribly. Frank Grant, a star second baseman in the 1880s had to shift to the outfield because he kept on being slashed with spikes on purpose by runners sliding into second base.

 

You should read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." He makes a strong argument that black and white and Indian all got along well in the lower income class, until the rich landowners (the ones who put the 3/5 clause on the books) promoted policies that turned the various factions of the lower class against each other instead of against the rich themselves, who knew they could be overtaken in a heartbeat if the poor ever rose up in revolt.

 

I have read Zinn's book, and it occupies a nice place on my shelf. My favorite part is during a late 1800s railroad strike in Pennsylvania, the powerful railroad interests had the leaders arrested, only the juries were all sympathetic to the strikers and acquitted them, which when you think about it, was pretty dumb of the railroad.

 

Steroids/HGH, Black Sox, Strike...

Take your pick, but Pete Rose might need to be mentioned along with the trading of Frank Robinson at the prime of his career.

I think coke is overrated because probably just as many players drank their careers away than snorted it up their nose.

 

Rose thing matters little to me, because it doesn't really sully a baseball memory nor tarnish anything that happened on the field.

From the fans' viewpoint . . .

As a player, he tried every inning, tried to win and broke the hit record.

As a manager he tried to win every game.

Yes, there was this nasty matter of betting on his team to win . . . . but it's not anything that conjures up dark memories for any baseball fan.

"Hey, what's Pete doing keeping that starter in so long? He's going to ruin the guy's career."

"Ah, Pete don't care about that. He just needs to win this game 'cause he's got $50K riding on it."

Could that have happened? I suppose. Did it? Not to my knowledge.

 

Rose doesn't bother me that much because anyone who ever watched him play knows that he never tanked it. That's not to excuse what he did...

Most of the best players in the last 20 years are strongly suspected of using PEDs, if they weren't caught outright.

A-Rod
Bonds
McGwire
Palmeiro
Giambi
Clemens
Pettitte
Sheffield
Sosa
Canseco

But other than that, baseball's last 20 years have been fantastic.

 

That's all good and well, but they are other players that had amazing careers or are having good careers and are not suspected of steroids,

Thomas
Griffey
Halladay
Delgado
Chipper Jones
Guerrero
Pedro
Randy Johnson
Schilling
Maddux
Glavine
Smoltz

The list goes on and on, it's a shame that PED's were never banned a long time ago, but Selig is in charged, what do you expect.

 

I would be amazed if Johnson didn't juice the last third of his career.

 

Johnson all but admitted to taking something.

 

I'm glad to see that you know for sure these players weren't juicing. The last 20 years were a far more level playing field than people are wanting to admit.

just to clarify, I have no idea if these players juiced or not but I'm not naive enough to make it a statement of fact. How many times to people have to get burned before they stop assuming one way or another.

 

Where did I say these players didn't juice?

I said here is a list of players who have not been suspected of taking steroids. There's a huge difference.