Strange Fruit, Pt. 4: Congratulations, Cub Fans

In today’s Sun Times, Gordon Wittenmeyer pulls the curtains back from the dark underbelly of Wrigley Field: the bleachers, that last bastion of beer-fueled bigotry. We’re often sold a bill of goods about the bleachers, that they are some idyllic sun-drenched playground. But nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that bleachers are the largest beer garden in the city, a place where women are freely groped and insulted, and a place where racist taunts are carried to the players’ ears by the summer winds. And now Wittenmeyer’s told the world: Milton Bradley says he’s aware of Wrigley Field’s reputation for fans who not only boo their own players, but also have a history of getting racial. You want to boo, boo. That’s fine. It’s stupid, but it’s harmless, But if you’re going to get on a player, keep it between the lines. There’s no need to get personal or racial. Unfortunately, the fucking simpletons in the Wrigley bleachers can’t even control themselves to that degree: Cubs outfielder Jacque Jones and pitcher LaTroy Hawkins said they were the targets of racist taunts and fan mail. Jones also said in 2006 that he became the victim of racial slurs and threats on his cell phone when the number got out. Former Cubs manager Dusty Baker said that same season that he received enough threatening, racist mail in Chicago that his wife and young son no longer would attend games. I hope you’re happy, Cub fans. I hope you’re happy with the reputation you’ve created for yourselves. A manager’s wife and child so feared for their own safety that they would not attend games. Think about that for minute. This isn’t Selma in 1956; this Wrigley Field in 2006. Generally considered by players among the roughest crowds in baseball for their habit of booing players on the home team, crowds at Wrigley and Boston’s Fenway Park also are considered among the worst by African-American players for a racist element comprising at least vocal minorities. Besides Jones’ experiences, another black former Cubs outfielder who declined to be identified said in a private conversation during a recent spring training that the Wrigley crowd might have been the worst he’d experienced for racist taunts. The worst. How does that feel, Cub fans? ‘‘I’ve heard that from a lot of the players who played there,’’ Cameron said. Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter said that was one of the reasons he had the Cubs on his no-trade list for years while in Minnesota. So, in addition to being a vile, reprehensible act, your racist taunts may end up costing the Cubs a shot at a big-name FA. You’re actually hurting the team, Cubs fans. I know Hunter would look real nice in between Soriano and Bradley. Now, I know what you’re probably saying: “It’s only a few neanderthals that fuck it up for everyone.” That’s likely true. Probably 99.9% of the crowd at Wrigley on a given day harbors no racist tendencies. You’re exactly right to point out I may be making a sweeping generalization of the same type that lies at the heart of any form of hatred or bigotry. But the fact that these cretins represent a vocal minority, the fact they they represent such a problem, tells me that the fans around them aren’t doing anything to stop them. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. It’s time to take a stand. If you’re sitting next to one of these idiots and s/he starts with the racist shit, tell them to shut the fuck up. If they persist, get an usher. That’s what they are there for. And they are all too happy to take care of shit like this. In his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr wrote: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea ... I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. Today, baseball will celebrate the integration of the game. It is an ultimate shame that in 62 years of integrated baseball, we still have to deal with this kind of bilious hatred. It’s time to rid the ballpark of this drunken, bigoted detritus. It’s time to stop pretending that it doesn’t happen. It’s time to stop saying “well, I’ve never heard happen when I was there.” Wrigley didn’t get a reputation among the players because of people like me writing things like this. It got this reputation by being home to a vocal minority of racist cretins and a whole host of silent enablers. Solidarity is not discovered by reflection, but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people. Such increased sensitivity makes it more difficult to marginalize people different from ourselves by thinking, ‘They do not feel as WE would,’ or ‘There must always be suffering, so why not let THEM suffer?’ ~Richard Rorty