If I Were a Sports Talk Radio Host...

I would spend 4 hours talking about Torii Hunter. I would talk about Torii Hunter because he said (amongst other, really, really stupid things) that dark skinned Latinos are "impostor African-Americans" and that there are more Latinos than African Americans in the MLB because they will work for a "bag of chips".

To be fair, I can understand how someone can get caught up in the moment and say something stupid that gets printed, either out of context or not, and might not actually mean what they said. But to follow it up later by saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "It was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean to offend anyone. But I meant what I said, and I'm more upset that everyone got offended because it is true."

I'm not really here to argue whether what he said is true or not, or whether I agree with his sentiment. Whether the racism of the American baseball fan has caused them to assume that anyone that isn't white is black, and to assume that there isn't a problem of getting young African Amercians to embrace the game instead of basketball or football (which is what I think Torii meant).

It was just a brazenly stupid thing to say in the politically correct world we live in. One thing that I am interested in is what is going to happen to Mr. Hunter. Because this seems at least somewhat similar, at least in a racial context and on a stupidity level, of what John Rocker said to SI in the late 90's. And he was pretty much blackballed from the league within a year (it didn't help that he got hurt and then couldn't throw a strike). I firmly beleive that nothing will happen to Torii because I think there are a lot of pepole that will excuse unintentional (or not) racism from a person of color, but will not excuse it from a white person. Perhaps because many non-white people have been victims of overt racism themselves. I'm not sure. I'm also not sure why a minority player would attack other minority players. I found that strange. Maybe he thought he would get away with it?

Lastly, Torii somehow found a way to make me like him less, and I didn't think it was possible. First, he played for the Twins. Then, he would dive for routine fly balls in center field for no reason. Then, he complained about Prince Fielder's "atom bomb" celebration, and untucking his shirt like he was some sort of authority on the matter. And now this.

Stay tuned. I hope Ozzie Guillen has something to say about it, because Ozzie Guillen is the only person on the planet with less of a filter. (Ed. Note: If you read further down in the linked story, Ozzie didn't disappoint. Maybe Milton Bradley has something crazy to say? John Rocker?)