Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

LAS VEGAS - NOVEMBER 04: Former baseball player Sammy Sosa (R) and his wife arrive at the 2009 Person Of The Year Honoring Juan Gabriel held at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino on November 4, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Retired baseball slugger Sammy Sosa has caused quite a stir stemming from his recent appearance at an awards ceremony.  Sosa’s skin tone, which for most of his life had been a chocolate shade of brown, has morphed into almost  a Michael Jackson-like, shade of pale.

The Dominican Republic native left the major leagues in 2008, after playing 18 years.  During his career, Sosa hit 609 home runs, elevating him to being one of the game’s all-time leaders in round-trippers.

That slugging history has been severely tainted by revelations that he used performance-enhancing steroids while playing in the big leagues.

Could his steroid use have altered his complexion?  Perhaps.

According to the website, medicinenet.com, with regard to possible side effects from anabolic steroid use:

Notify your doctor if you develop: vomiting, skin color changes…

Obviously, it would be a shame if Sammy Sosa’s alleged abuse of steroids may have led to his new coloring. However, those familiar with attitudes related to race in the Dominican Republic, would understand how he may have become a mental victim to the cultural norms of a Caribbean island, infamously known for marginalizing its darker inhabitants.

There are skin-bleaching procedures that Sosa may have used to lighten his skin.  In a society where people casual cruise tanning salons, adjusting one’s skin shade is fairly common.  Yet, Sosa seems to have changed more than a shade or two (or three…).  If purposefully done (his hair texture and eye color have also been visibly revised..), he’s sought out to erase any physical connection he’s had, to what were once his African-descended features.  To think that, during his 1998 battle with Mark McGwire for Roger Maris’ single season home run record, I’d hear some African-American women refer to Sosa as “fine.”

For Sammy Sosa, this might be one helluva game-changer.

Cliff Lee pitches at the first game of the 2009 World Series at Yankee Stadium in New York City (Jim McIsaac/Getty)

Watching the Philadelphia Phillies’ Cliff Lee, effortlessly mow down the fearsome New York Yankees line-up during last night’s inaugural game of this year’s World Series, was incredibly nerve-wracking for me.  Why?

I’m unfortunately, a lifetime New York Mets fan.

The dilemma: I don’t know which team to despise more.

The dreaded New York Yankees, are of course, the Mets’ crosstown rivals. Yankee Stadium is forbidden territory for a Mets fan — sort of like Area 51. Even though the Yanks play in the South Bronx (not as cool a fact as it used to be…), they represent the “city” in “New York City”:  tall buildings, overpopulated streets, broken escalators at the 53rd Street subway stop, and unbearably long lunch lines, just to get a chicken gyro at a corner stand.   And, Kate Hudson attends Yankee games, now.

We Mets fans are suburban, working-class, Queens and Long Island types. Who needs “Fifth Avenue” when you have “Jericho Turnpike”?  We take pride in losing playoff contention in September, comparable to the way churlish Yankee fans go on and on about their dumb championships.  I’ll take the Mets two championships over the Yankees garish, twenty-six titles, on any day.

Screw the Yankees.  I hope they get swept.

Then we have the Phillies:  the Mets’ Eastern Division rivals.  The Defending World Series champions.  In 2007 and 2008, my Mets squandered first-place leads to the Phillies.  In response to the repeated collapses, Phillies’ pitcher Cole Hamels labeled the Mets as “choke artists.“  The Phillies seem to have a faux “swagger” to them.  Especially infielder Jimmy Rollins, and outfielder Jayson Werth.  C’mon, how much serious “swagger” can come out of Philadelphia, anyway?  A city where visitors line up to see a tourist attraction with a crack in it.

Screw the Phillies. I hope they get swept.

Now, it is obvious even to me, that someone has to win this thing. No matter how painful it will be, either the Yankees or the Phillies will rise out of this showdown as the victor, and champion of the entire baseball galaxy.

To that, I say: “screw the World Series.”  Hey, I won’t get swept up in it…

Image via Wikipedia

The Associated Press is reporting that a traveling manatee is stuck in a New Jersey tributary”

“The gentle sea cow has been known to marine scientists for 10 years as he made his way up and down the East Coast. He has recently been spotted in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland.

But on Friday he was huddling near an outfall pipe at an oil refinery in Linden, the only place he could find warm water.”

Hip Hop medical icon, Dr. Dre

Over at the website TheRoot.com, writer Kyle Coward states the case that many of the top performers from the Hip Hop music industry, should guide the American public through the health care debates by utilizing their gift of rhyme.  Coward goes on to assert:

This is why I ask the MCs of the world—mainstream and underground, major label and independent—to please heed hip-hop’s responsibility for being a vessel for socio-political enlightenment, and break down some of the more byzantine aspects of this health care reform business. If hip hop is the no-nonsense voice of the people, then perhaps they’ll give me some real talk on the issue

Neat idea.  I think we’re at the point where Lil’ Wayne may be better equipped to explain single-payer coverage, or co-ops far better than any Democrat or Republican.

Or, seminars on pain management from T-Pain?

Just imagine how much more energetic all the town hall meetings would be if they featured DJs,too?

If the crowd gets a tad too rowdy during one, Sen. Arlen Specter could shout to DJ Clue.  Clue could then deftly drop the needle onto the Mobb Deep classic, “Shook Ones,” to get the assembled hyped to the point of distraction.

Taking Coward’s cue, and recognizing my own deep, social responsibilities to inform (I am an Hip Hop elder statesman, you know…), I’ve written my own rhyme about health care reform.  I will use my  current “nom de Hip Hop.”    I now go by the emcee name, “Elliot Spits Sir.”

Here it is:

“DEATH PANEL” by ELLIOT SPITS SIR (aka “The Hard Boiled Egg”)

Turn my mic up, soundman…

Get it right, dude or you’ll get sprayed,

No masquerade, when you’re laid,

Out on the gurney, y’all have no mercy

Was I caught with a bullet from the trig? Nah…

Won’t get vexed ’cause I’m covered by the Cigna…

Wait! Doc says my wound’s too much to handle,

My dude, do I now have to get the DEATH PANEL?

DEATH PANEL…what?…DEATH PANEL…uh…DEATH PANEL…yeah!!!

Kennedy, Jr. recounted a special moment, recalling his father’s support during his bout with bone cancer as a child:

But today I’m simply compelled to remember Ted Kennedy as my father and my best friend. When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with bone cancer and a few months after I lost my leg, there was a heavy snowfall over my childhood home outside of Washington D.C. My father went to the garage to get the old Flexible Flyer and asked me if I wanted to go sledding down the steep driveway. And I was trying to get used to my new artificial leg and the hill was covered with ice and snow and it wasn’t easy for me to walk. And the hill was very slick and as I struggled to walk, I slipped and I fell on the ice and I started to cry and I said “I can’t do this.” I said, “I’ll never be able to climb that hill.” And he lifted me in his strong, gentle arms and said something I’ll never forget. He said “I know you’ll do it, there is nothing you can’t do. We’re going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day.”

Sure enough, he held me around my waist and we slowly made it to the top, and, you know, at age 12 losing a leg pretty much seems like the end of the world, but as I climbed onto his back and we flew down the hill that day I knew he was right. I knew I was going to be OK. You see, my father taught me that even our most profound losses are survivable and it is what we do with that loss, our ability to transform it into a positive event, that is one of my father’s greatest lessons. He taught me that nothing is impossible.

While the Senator led a rich, accomplished and complicated life, there wasn’t anything complicated about the love that he had for his children, and judging by the sentiments expressed yesterday, the love that they had for him.

A report released this week revealed a slight drop in national SAT scores in 2009, as opposed to scores recorded by students in 2008.  2009 scores also showed a growing gap between groups based on race, ethnicity  and income:

The differences in total SAT scores by ethnicity was most extreme between Asian students (who had an average total score of 1623 out of a possible 2400) and black students (who averaged 1276, a four-point drop). Puerto Rican students averaged 1345. The national average was 1509. Top score is 800 in each of the three SAT sections.

Total scores also dropped two points for white students (who averaged 1581) and Mexican and Mexican American students (who averaged 1362). They increased two points for American Indian or Alaskan natives (average score 1448).

Typically, concerns are voiced over why African-American children do not keep pace educationally with white children.  However, why is it that we don’t expect them to achieve at the highest level — in the way we now expect Asian-American children to perform in school?  Shouldn’t the best performing students set the standard for all?

In 1983, African-American representation was off its peak of the near 30 percent in the late 1970s, but it was still a lot higher than the 8.2 percent rate in 2007, the lowest since 1959, when Pumpsie Green’s debut with the Boston Red Sox integrated every major-league team.

That rate is up above 10 percent now, but baseball is in full throttle pushing programs to fight the decline of African-American representation. It has an Urban Youth Academy in Compton, Calif., to give top inner-city players travel-ball-type exposure, runs an RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities)program to encourage urban kids to play ball and presents an annual Civil Rights Game (Chicago White Sox vs. Cincinnati was this year’s), all in an attempt to make the sport more relevant to a community that once embraced the sport so tightly, so much so that Jackie Robinson intergrating the majors in 1947 is as much or more a civil rights touchstone as an historic baseball event.

Bob provided a link to a Baltimore Sun op-ed by Mark Anthony Neal, which analyzed some of the reasons behind the decline of African-American participation in all levels of baseball.  That piece included my own observations about the decline:

One explanation is that many poor youth are simply challenged by the lack of available space and equipment to play baseball. Longtime music executive and baseball fan Bill Stephney suggests another reason for the diminishing presence of black baseball players. According to Mr. Stephney, baseball lost legitimacy in black communities when black fathers became marginalized in those same communities.

There is merit in Mr. Stephney’s observation. Unlike basketball, which youngsters can learn by watching older youth play the game, the game of baseball requires a certain level of organization and instruction that, very often, only adults can provide. Indeed, my own father sparked my interest in baseball as a youth; I can’t imagine I would have become interested in the sport without his involvement.

In a nutshell…well,  a ball-park peanut shell at least, I am part of a currently-dying, unprotected species:  the African-American baseball fan.  I played Little League and high school baseball.  I even played “pick-up baseball” — impromptu games at local parks, and in the streets with any kids we could find. In Hempstead, Long Island during the 1970s, those kids were mostly African-American.

Pitcher Jim McAndrew of the 1970 New York Mets, poses with Ted Stephney (left), anf his sons Daniel (lower left), and yours truly (lower right in tight Mets jacket)

My late father, Ted, worked in the photographic editorial department of the magazine, Sports Illustrated.  He took me to my first Mets game when I was five years old.  His father William (my paternal granfather, of whom I am named after..), during the 1940s, used to take him to see Negro League games featuring the New York Black Yankees, at Yankee Stadium. Black folks would fill the seats for those contests.

My maternal grandfather, Bernard Bonilla, was also a big baseball fan.  He was New York City-bred, of Afro-Cuban heritage.  To this day, my mother Estelle, goes to more Mets games than I do.  One of Bernard’s grandsons turned out to be a pretty good ball player himself: my cousin (former all-star and 1997 World Series ring-bearer), Bobby Bonilla.

From left to right: Michael Mays (son of baseball legend Willie Mays), "Bobby Bo," Robert Clemente, Jr. (son of the Pittsburgh Pirate legend), and the Hard Boiled Egg.

When fathers began to massively disappear from the African-American families in the mid 1980s, so did the game of baseball from those communities. Beyond playing the game, fathers pass along the appreciation of baseball tradition: the history, the stats, team loyalty, tossing the ball, going to see the pros play. You still see this tradition passed along in the suburbs, while five-foot weeds grow on once-active diamonds in urban neighborhoods.  I attribute African-American fatherlessness largely to short-sighted public policy, but that is for a future post.  In Indiana, roughly 80 percent of African-American children are born to unwed moms.  To be honest, the loss of baseball appreciation is probably the least important casualty arising out of this environment.  Plus, other sports have gone through racial and ethnic shifts.  The NBA used to be filled with names like Red Holtzman, George Mikan and Bob Cousy.  We didn’t lose any sleep over basketball’s metamorphosis. But if you saw Willie Mays play centerfield, Lou Brock steal second base, Dwight Gooden throw a rookie fastball, or Hank Aaron launch a grand-slam,  a traditional demographic of potential great players are unfortunately being disconnected from a game based on tradition. For true fans, it is disturbing.

The issue is not one of race, and is much more demographically-nuanced: many of the Caribbean, Spanish-speaking players who have been imported into Major League baseball, are of African descent (what we Americans have historically referred to as being “black”).  In fact, most of them share a West African/slavery lineage, that puts them genealogically closer to most black Americans, than President Barack Obama’s background.

Major League Baseball has been aggressively addressing all of this for some years through its “RBI” (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) program. I am currently working with the Newark Bears, an independent, minor-league team that proudly traces its history to the Negro Leagues.  They are committed to rebuilding baseball in Newark, New Jersey and urban communities, as well:  the kind of urban communities where the success of programs like Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West, were once unremarkable.  That’s the way it should be.

The policeman did (according to the professor…):

‘…not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’ request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’ home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates .. As Professor Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch.”

The professor said (according to the policeman...):

“This is what happens to Black men in America…I’ll speak with your mama outside!”

Who should we believe here?  Who MUST we believe here?  Do African-American males face levels of law enforcement abuse far and above any racial, ethnic or gender classification in this nation?  Absolutely…

Are the intensified levels of law enforcement abuse heaped upon Black men, also complicated by a culture that accepts, and at times, celebrates Black male defiance, music video gangsterism and “‘hood” criminality?  I think so…

Without a specific video clip, or audio tape of the recent incident between famed Harvard professor, Dr.Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge, MA police sergeant James Crowley, we are all left with highly subjective assumptions about what really went down.  Those assumptions are commonly formed by the accepted classifications we rely upon: race, class, ethnicity, gender, political persuasions, etc. Like a schoolyard kickball game, you have to “choose” which “team” you’re on, to discuss.

So we have “Rashomon” in full effect (..named for noted 1950 Akira Kurosawa film, in which the plot revolves around conflicting witness recollections of the same crime).  Without proof, police abuse can become a Japanese thing that you can’t understand.

Perhaps it is best to rely on cases of Black male law enforcement abuse where the evidence is substantial.  The catalogue for these instances keeps growing. Like, the Ryan Moats case of earlier this year.  Moats, many will recall, was the Houston Texans NFL player, who was stopped by  a Dallas, Texas patrolman, while rushing to see his dying mother-in-law in the hospital.

Moats’ mother-in-law passed away as he argued with the young officer, who later resigned from the Dallas police force.

Nor, can we forget the case of Robbie Tolan, the promising minor league baseball player, and son of former star from the 1970s Cincinnati Reds’ “Big Red Machine” days, Bobby Tolan.  The younger Tolan was shot in the chest while in his family’s driveway by a Bellaire, Texas (a suburb of Houston) police officer, who had suspected him of possible car thievery.  It turned out that the car had belonged to the Tolan family.

So, there is no need to go back and forth about the seriousness of police abuse.  Police work is incredibly difficult, and is  becoming more and more dangerous.  However, law enforcement abuse also undermines the very respect that it demands for maintaining public civility and safety. For clear evidence, as a television sportscaster used to say regularly:  ”Let’s go to the video tape…”