Jemele has a point

If you're going to throw race into this, and I'm not against that, you have to meet a standard that Jemele does not.
Saying she's heard some talk show hosts and others defending Ankiel is not good enough.
We need names, links or specific instances.
I've not heard a single person defend Ankiel. Not one. Doesn't mean no one has, but if somebody has, I'd like to know who. The reaction to Ankiel has not been as profound, but then, the average person does not know who he is.

 

Of course, she wouldn't.

And she's been doing a bang-up job, for months.

But this was awful shit, and one (only one, now) step backward.

Hopefully, it'll be an isolated incident.

 

I've followed her career. It isn't and it won't be.

 

Whoever this Hill lady is and jdv do have one thing in common.

Apparently, neither one know the difference between racist and biased.

 

I laughed out loud at that

 

I really hope Jemele reads this and will consider all of this constructive criticism because she really missed the point on this one. And the comment trying to justify Vick supporters is beyond ridiculous. I expect better than that from her.

Comparing Bonds and Ankiel is ridiculous. Competely different backstories and completely different situations. There are way too many variables there beyond color, but she just quickly dismisses them all as if they are nothing. Why? Because they don't fit into her argument.

And Ankiel has not gotten a free pass. The story has faded fairly quickly, in part because he stopped hitting home runs. But the better comparison for Ankiel would be Gary Matthews, Jr., who faced a similar situation back before the season. This is a guy coming off a career year who got big money to play in a bigger market, yet that story faded just as quickly. Of course, other than the color of his skin and his baseball bloodlines, Matthews has more in common with Ankiel than Bonds as a player -- former prospect resurrecting his career after previous failure.

The question is whether she intentionally ignored Matthews because that story counters her argument or if she just forgot about him. Either is a fairly significant failure in this column.

Oh, and JDV...please work on your reading comprehension. Hill's main point was about race. It wasn't nearly as in line with your arguments as you think.

 

I know absolutely nobody that thinks Rose should be back in baseball and I'm surrounded by die-hard Reds fans. This column is some piss poor journalism. Based on unsupported self-serving generalizations that tend to be ...umm, wrong; lame comparison analogies between things aren't comparable; and intentionally ignoring the glaringly obvious flaws in her argument. I'd like to know why the guy who started this thread thought it was good work.

 

That would be wrong. They hate him because he's a world-class asshole.

 

Sad to see how Page 2, which once boasted Ralph Wiley and Hunter Thompson, now settles for mental midgets such as Hill, Simmons and Scoop.

 

I know it has been mentioned, but Bonds was covered for seasons at a time. He was not a two-week blip on the radar. That should account for a lot. If Glaus next season somehow makes a run at Hack Wilson's RBI record, trust me, it will be a media frenzy.

I think it is worth noting that "Race should be injected into a conversation judiciously and sometimes, slowly." was the first sentence of her column, but the first word she typed was "race." That's real "slow."

 

What the Bonds and Ankiel cases have in common is far less than what is different about them, and this column selectively focuses on the things that fit the argument the column is trying to make. It's built upon a shaky premise, so it has no foundation to support it.

You can have a strong opinion and still be fair, but you can't be unfair and have a truly strong, meaningful opinion.