Great White Father

Some things that happened yesterday:

1. Derek Jeter hit a home run for the third consecutive game in Chicago.
2. 38 year old Derek Jeter became the oldest shortstop to hit at least ten homers in a season, passing Pee Wee Reese who hit ten in 1955 for Brooklyn at age 36.
3. The Major Baseball League (MBL) suspended yet another player born in the Dominican Republic for 50 games: Bartolo Colon, a pitcher with Oakland.
4. It was announced that Roger Clemens will start a minor league game in a couple of days and there is legitimate speculation that the Houston Astros will sign Clemens to pitch at age 50.

Colon tested positive for testosterone, same as fellow Bay area Dominican San Francisco Giant  Melky Cabrera who was suspended for 50 games August 15, 2012.  So what's the box score on 50 game suspensions?  Something like 12 of 21 are Dominicans?

Wikipedia:

Of the 67 players suspended, 29 were from the United States, 20 from the Dominican Republic, 11 from Venezuela, three from Cuba, two each from Puerto Rico, and Mexico, and one each from Australia, Colombia, Japan, and Spain.

Including minor leaguers, only 43% are from the Unites States.

Radical Baseball: Born In The USA – 75%. May 23rd, 2012:

In 1960 MLB discovered the Dominican Republic ... (since) 1986 Dominican Republic has been second only to the USA in supplying players to MLB.

The MBL treats the Dominican Republic like a colony.  Why isn't there more concern about this arrangement, which culminates with Dominican players being discarded disproportionately?  Star players, especially those born in the USA, are pretty much immune from detection and even more so from punishment.  See:

Wednesday, April 25, 2012 I ask again: Is Jeter Juiced?

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 More on possible steroid use by Nolan Ryan.

Nolan Ryan, like Roger Clemens, is a good old boy from Texas.  Some members of the House of Representatives were fawning all over Clemens when he testified before a committee hearing on the use of performance enhancing stuff.  At that same hearing Sammy Sosa played the Dominican card to his advantage by suddenly losing his well demonstrated ability to speak English and hid behind an attorney.

By the way, Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin used according to Wikipedia:

Galvin was the first baseball player to be widely known for using performance-enhancing drugs. In 1889, over 100 years before the current steroid controversy in Major League Baseball, Galvin openly used the Brown-Séquard elixir, which contained monkey testosterone.

Any call for Galvin to be deducted from the Hall of Fame?  No?  Because it was not against the rules in 1889?  James Francis Galvin was born Christmas day 1856 in St. Louis, MO.

There's plenty of hypocrisy to go around but let's start with MBL commissioner Bud Selig, the Great White Father in this scenario.  Allan Huber Selig was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not in Altamira, Puerto Plata like Bartolo Colon.  Colon and Cabrera wandered off the reservation and Selig's organization punished them according to the peace treaty.  It's all according to the rules but there's something disturbing in all this, including the juvenile attitude about baseball, which is very different from our attitude toward football and basketball.  Maybe it confirms that baseball is in our culture much more deeply than we realize, even if the national pastime is past its time.