"Sometimes it's easier to play on the road"

[Laura]

Pretty sad litany. Lots more in the article.

 

Bob Nightengale / USA Today[/url]"] The racist letters have come as regularly as the boos this season at the corner of Clark and Addison, part of the dramatic changes at Wrigleyville since Steve Bartman tried to catch that foul ball in the 2003 National League Champion Series.

 

No longer are the Cubs affectionately known as the "Lovable Losers." They are treated with the same disdain as any other underachieving major-market team.

 

Former Cubs center fielder Corey Patterson and former reliever LaTroy Hawkins last year received similar abuse to what Baker is getting. Cubs right fielder Jacque Jones, who had a baseball thrown at him during a game, recently got a threatening early-morning phone call.

 

Hawkins, now with the Baltimore Orioles, had Major League Baseball security open much of his mail last season when he was with the Cubs. He was stunned by the hatred. ...

 

Patterson, now performing the way the Cubs long envisioned but doing it in Baltimore, says: "There's only so much you can take there. You have the manager and general manager saying, "Don't worry about it,' but unless you're going through it personally, how can you not worry about it? You can only be so strong, so tough."

 

"When the Red Sox won the (2004) World Series, everyone just assumed it was our turn," Cubs closer Ryan Dempster says. "People got pretty upset and frustrated with us when the White Sox won the ('05) World Series.

 

"You hate to say this, but sometimes it's a whole lot easier to play on the road."

 

Despite the rash of injuries, Hendry has yet to determine whether Baker and his coaching staff will be back.

 

"I don't play the excuse game. Nobody cares about excuses," Hendry says. "But Dusty shouldn't be sharing a higher percentage of the blame than anyone else. In reality, there is enough blame for all of us. I was the one who brought Dusty here. I have to bear the responsibility of the operations.

 

"If we're not winning when my contract is up (after the 2008 season), I should get whacked myself."

 

Don Baylor, who managed the Cubs from 2000-'02, remembers the hatred. He, too, was subjected to racist letters, just not to the extent that Baker is facing.

 

"I've talked to Dusty, and he's suffering," Baylor says. "It's a tough place to play, a tough place to manage. It's like they bring that hatred to the ballpark.

 

"They say that Cubs fans are great. Define that for me. Is that throwing things on the field, showing disdain for your players? Is that your definition?

 

"When does it end?"

[Mark_R]

That is pathetic. Why must people be so ignorant?

[Dirt Dog Sparly]

Ive said it before and I will say it again. Its idiots that make livin hard. Give the rest of humanity a bad name. :cry:

[abuck1220]

i'll be the insensitive one and say i bet this is probably overblown. they make it sound like baker's walking into a klan meeting everyday. 99.9% of the people booing are booing because you suck at your job, not because you're black.

[Tracer Bullet]

I would imagine that this kind of stuff happens to other teams too, but this crap makes me embarrassed to be a Cubs fan. I hate people sometimes.

[Jerry Mumphrey]

They tried being "good" fans for the past 90 years, Don. Let's just make sure to separate the issues of Cub fans really starting to get pissed off, and high-profile black Cubs reporting racist hate mail. Dempster gets booed just like Latroy did when he blew so it doesn't seem like there's overwhelming bigotry in the stadium. Management is clueless and waaaay behind the curve in constructing a winning team, which has the very knowledgebale Cub fan base growing irate. The fact that a few people may have written letters to the Cubs containing the n-word is something completely different and I suspect it's just as likely to have come from unsavory Sox fans. Let's just be careful not to equate booing a lousy team with racism.

[Tracer Bullet]

i'll be the insensitive one and say i bet this is probably overblown. they make it sound like baker's walking into a klan meeting everyday. 99.9% of the people booing are booing because you suck at your job, not because you're black.

 

I think your percentage is a little high. Of the 40,000 people at any given game, I'm guessing more than 40 are booing at least in part b/c Dusty's black.

 

Dusty deserves to be booed, b/c he sucks. He doesn't deserve racist letters or phone calls or any of that other crap.

[abuck1220]

how many of these articles need to be written anyway? we get it...some people in chicago are racist. but i'm pretty sure dempster and rusch have been booed just as much as hawkins and jones. enough of this pity party for this crappy team and crappy organization. add racism to the list of the cubs' excuses...

[jjgman21]

hey, the latest excuse by proxy from the sports media....it's the fans' fault.

 

the Cubs problem can be broken down into three seperate catagories:

 

the GM didn't get the players the Cubs needed

the manager didn't manage the players he had well enough

the players didn't perform as well as they should have

 

I'm really getting sick of the national sports media seemingly doing everything they can to direct blame away from Baker. sure, three years in a row he has not had his 'horses,' but he also managed his team to 10-15 fewer wins than the roster he still had should have been able to produce for three years in a row, all while failing at his alleged strengths, attracting talent and keeping a clubhouse in order through a 162 game season.

[jjgman21]

how many of these articles need to be written anyway? we get it...some people in chicago are racist. but i'm pretty sure dempster and rusch have been booed just as much as hawkins and jones. enough of this pity party for this crappy team and crappy organization. add racism to the list of the cubs' excuses...

 

I don't see this as a Cubs excuse. I see this as a writer's excuse and him going out to find the information to back his case.

[cubfan1955]

Maybe I just don't hang with racists because I've never heard another Cubs fan say that he dislikes a player because he is black. It's always because a player just isn't good in that persons opinion. I think if a black player gets booed a lot of people just assume it is because he is black. That's the easy excuse anyway.

 

That said, no one should ever send hate mail of any kind for any reason. I really don't get what anyone would get out of sitting down and writing a hateful letter to a player. Even if it's just to tell him he sucks without even mentioning race. Does the letter writer think it will serve as motivation to play better?

Edited August 21, 2006 by cubfan1955

[BeerHere]

Dempster gets booed when he fails too. I don't know if he gets hate mail or anything like that, but the fans are booing for poor performance. The Latroy Hawkins situation must be compared to the current situation with Dempster. There are certainly clods in every crowd, but if Hawkins or Dempster do what they're paid to do, no boos.

[Rob]

You know what I'm starting to think?

 

I'm starting to think there hasn't been more than maybe one or two racist letters for any of those guys.

 

Society is getting to the point where it isn't necessary to drop an "n-bomb" to be accused of racism.

 

I'm not so naive as to believe that there haven't been any truly racist letters received... but I am beginning to think that if somebody writes Dusty a letter and calls him a s***head, they're trying to spin that into "He's hated because he's black." instead of the more accurate "He's hated because he sucks"

[cubsjunky95]

What I can't understand is why this guy thinks that fans will continue to support trash. Cubs fans have been waiting a long time to see their team make it to the promised land and what are we supposed to do sit around and smile and be happy because our team was out of the playoff hunt in May? I'm black and I cannot stand Dusty Baker and his inept managerial skills but does that make me racist?

[YearofDaCubs]

hey, the latest excuse by proxy from the sports media....it's the fans' fault.

 

the Cubs problem can be broken down into three seperate catagories:

 

the GM didn't get the players the Cubs needed

the manager didn't manage the players he had well enough

the players didn't perform as well as they should have

 

I'm really getting sick of the national sports media seemingly doing everything they can to direct blame away from Baker. sure, three years in a row he has not had his 'horses,' but he also managed his team to 10-15 fewer wins than the roster he still had should have been able to produce for three years in a row, all while failing at his alleged strengths, attracting talent and keeping a clubhouse in order through a 162 game season.

That does seem to be the new trend. It's the Cubs fans faults for everything!!

[CuseCubFan69]

My question is do other players from other teams get hate mail like that?

[thedaymen]

Maybe I just don't hang with racists because I've never heard another Cubs fan say that he dislikes a player because he is black. It's always because a player just isn't good in that persons opinion. I think if a black player gets booed a lot of people just assume it is because he is black. That's the easy excuse anyway.

 

Don't you remember all the times Sosa was booed back when he was hitting the hr's. We just couldn't stand that he had the audacity to challenge a white-boy like McGwire. Cubs fans really rallied around Mark in 1998 and let Sammy have it.

 

But our inherent racism isn't all bad. It helped Todd Hundley feel right at home when, as a fanbase, we all supported him through his struggles soley because he was white.

[FergieJ31]

i'll be the insensitive one and say i bet this is probably overblown. they make it sound like baker's walking into a klan meeting everyday. 99.9% of the people booing are booing because you suck at your job, not because you're black.

 

I think your percentage is a little high. Of the 40,000 people at any given game, I'm guessing more than 40 are booing at least in part b/c Dusty's black.

 

Dusty deserves to be booed, b/c he sucks. He doesn't deserve racist letters or phone calls or any of that other crap.

 

I think his percentage was about right - maybe even a tad low. It only seems like more than 0.1% of the fans are racist because they are much louder, figuratively and literally, and much more offensive.

 

Like many of the good fans here on NSBB who are in the Chicago area, I've been going to Wrigley for many years. There definitely has been a big change in the past few years. The obnoxious fans who boo incessantly and scream obscenities tend to be "loyal" fans since 2003, or 1998 in some cases. Of all the long-time fans I know, not a single one is among the haters.

[stitchface]

the problem with this article is that it mixes too issues - one being racist fans who definitely exist but are a minority and the second being fed up fans who do not want to tolerate poor performance anymore. I think a response to this article is warranted.

[YearofDaCubs]

i'll be the insensitive one and say i bet this is probably overblown. they make it sound like baker's walking into a klan meeting everyday. 99.9% of the people booing are booing because you suck at your job, not because you're black.

 

I think your percentage is a little high. Of the 40,000 people at any given game, I'm guessing more than 40 are booing at least in part b/c Dusty's black.

 

Dusty deserves to be booed, b/c he sucks. He doesn't deserve racist letters or phone calls or any of that other crap.

 

I think his percentage was about right - maybe even a tad low. It only seems like more than 0.1% of the fans are racist because they are much louder, figuratively and literally, and much more offensive.

 

Like many of the good fans here on NSBB who are in the Chicago area, I've been going to Wrigley for many years. There definitely has been a big change in the past few years. The obnoxious fans who boo incessantly and scream obscenities tend to be "loyal" fans since 2003, or 1998 in some cases. Of all the long-time fans I know, not a single one is among the haters.

Haters? I don't think so. It's a fans right to boo and considering how bad this team is, rightfully so.

[gflore34]

Unfortunately, there are racist fans every where it's not exclusive to Chicago. As for the rest of the article, it reads as yet another thread amongst the many lame excuses the Cubs have thrown at us for not winning.

[CuseCubFan69]

I think it's time to play the Lee Elia rant now. God, that was classic.

[UMFan83]

Just an example that Chicago isn't the only city called out for being racist

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin06232004.html

[fromthestretch]

How is it that some people in the media bash Cub fans as a group for filling Wrigley every game and being too supportive of a team that consistently loses, while at the same time, others in the media write about how Cub fans are too negative?

 

Seriously, every team has problems with its fans at some level. Idiots who write racist hatemail, people who throw things at players, morons that run onto the field, etc....these people do not represent the majority of any team's fans.

[daske17]

How is it that some people in the media bash Cub fans as a group for filling Wrigley every game and being too supportive of a team that consistently loses, while at the same time, others in the media write about how Cub fans are too negative?

 

Seriously, every team has problems with its fans at some level. Idiots who write racist hatemail, people who throw things at players, morons that run onto the field, etc....these people do not represent the majority of any team's fans.

 

How long before these sorts of stories affects the Cubs' ability to get higher-profile free agents who aren't lilly white?

 

I can't help but think that as soon as Dusty is given his walking papers, these stories are going to become more prevalent because he's going to use that as one of his excuses for not being able to succeed in and why no minority players should choose the Cubs as their preferred free-agent destination.