With offbeat personalities and a penchant for improvisation, Jazz musicians have been misunderstood for decades despite creating music which stands the test of time. Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk left a body of work that has matured over the years, creating fans of all generations. The Miami Marlins already have their choice of the new generation, but it seems some in the organization have tuned out.
Jazz Chisholm has been Don Mattingly’s best player and the only reason worth watching the Marlins over the first quarter of the season. He’s the Bleek Gilliam from Spike Lee’s “Mo Better Blues” of baseball these days. However, after last week’s well -chronicled, 90-minute, private team only conversation, it’s clear that perception carries more weight in the Marlins clubhouse than performance.
There’s something to be said when a team is struggling and they call a meeting to air grievances. It’s another thing altogether when the most productive player is at the epicenter of the controversy. In this case, when parts of the team don’t fit, that has more to do with management than the employee.
Chisholm is balling out for Mattingly, but his teammates are clearly hating on him. He’s the only reason to watch anything going in the National League East division’s bad fish isle. When fish goes bad, it stinks, which is why they are struggling to stay out of last place.
Jazz was reportedly criticized by his teammates for bringing more attention to himself in an hour-and-a-half session to purge the Marlins of what ails them. Mattingly reportedly was – at the very least – concerned about the team talking privately about Chisholm behind his back, so he brokered the meeting to clear the air.
Heyman also reports that some in the generationally divided clubhouse see Chisholm as a “Dennis Rodman”- type character who is constantly bringing attention to himself, which doesn’t endear him. However, Rodman is a Hall of Famer who won five NBA titles and is considered by many as the greatest rebounder in NBA history. So if that’s the case, Chisholm could be the fish that saves baseball in south Florida. Baseball needs some attention in Broward County and a player with all that Jazz should be a perfect fit.
Miami won four straight games after the meeting and suddenly all is wonderful in Crockett and Tubbs’ old neighborhood — at least temporarily. The success is, however, misleading because they “own” the Washington Nationals and caught the Houston Astros in the midst of a slump.
These are no longer the days of romance and reverence that defined the game of yesteryear. Fans are not returning to the ballpark in droves following the shutdown of the pandemic. Young fans aren’t developing a reverence for the game that created a base to sustain itself as an entertainment product for years to come. Jazz Chisholm is a five-tool player who has must-see talent and should be appreciated. He can turn the masses of fans dressed as empty seats into paying customers who buy overpriced concessions at the stadium if the Marlins franchise catches his vibe.
Tuesday night’s matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals was supposed to be a regular opportunity to watch MLBbro’s Mookie Betts and Josiah Gray face off in the nation’s capital. Unfortunately, especially in the wake of the Tim Anderson/Josh Donaldson incident over the weekend, we ended up with much more.
The game itself was an exciting contest; at least until the second inning. After both teams combined to score five runs in the first, the Dodgers proceeded to score five more of their own over the next two innings. Betts alone was responsible for all three runs the Dodgers scored after he parked this 2-1 pitch from Gray into the left field seats for his first homerun of the night.
Betts finished the game 3-for-4 with two home runs, four RBI and a walk – a continuation of his latest hot streak. Mookie has been scorching, and his manager has taken notice.
“Over the last 30 days, it’s as good as anybody on the planet right now,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “It’s as good as I’ve seen him. He’s scoring runs at a crazy clip. He’s on base. He’s slugging at a ridiculous clip, too, and he’s playing Gold Glove defense. He’s making the game look a lot easier than it is.”
The numbers back up every word of Roberts’ statement. Over his last 15 games Mookie is slashing .339/.431/1.221 with seven bombs and 17 RBI. After starting the year with no homers, Mookie now has 12 and is SLUGGING 1.000 over his last seven games headed into Monday night.
That should have been where this story ended. Mookie got the best of his matchup with Josiah, and the Dodgers took care of business on the road.
However, what happened next had us wondering if this is 2022, or 1922.
Now, Josiah Gray didn’t have his best stuff on Tuesday and that was obvious. He was pulled after giving up five hits and seven earned runs against the Dodgers, his third consecutive start giving up five or more hits and at least three earned runs. But even as Gray has worked to regain his early season form, no performance warrants what happened to him next.
Gray took to Twitter after the game to expose an anonymous account who decided to let Gray know just how he felt. (WARNING- language used may be found offensive)
Originally I was going to say that this type of verbal abuse is unbelievable in 2022, but it’s time to cut the fluffy rhetoric and be real.
This isn’t surprising at all. No matter how many brands decided to pander in order to sell the Black community more merchandise, the underbelly of racism that drives this country is prevalent throughout MLB fandom.
Racist fans have gone unchecked for years in this game. As we continue to champion diversity and emphasize the growth of the game, this is simply unacceptable.
Baseball’s historic underbelly of racism and prejudice reared its ugly head in the Bronx on Saturday. That New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson would mock shortstop Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox only personifies the stench beneath the surface of America’s national pastime.
Anderson was offended that Donaldson would refer to him as “Jackie” on the base path which is disrespectful to any Black baseball player in 2022. When he doubled down by claiming that he was referring to the White Sox shortstop’s reference to himself in a 2019 Sports Illustrated story, it was an arrogant condescension to a time that Major League Baseball has been trying to live down for the last 75 years. Donaldson also admitted on the record that he’s used it in the past when referring to Anderson and didn’t know what changed.
In true Jackie Robinson fashion, Anderson got his retribution using his immense talents. It was part of a five-run explosion in the 8th inning enroute to a 5-0 White Sox win over the New York Yankees and new team comedian Josh Donaldson.
With a 2–0 lead in the top of the eighth, Anderson stepped to the dish with Andrew Vaughn and Reese McGuire on base. TA smoked a Jonathan Loáisiga slider over the rightfield wall and had a message for Yankee Stadium.
While rounding the bases, Anderson put his finger to his lips and shushed the booing crowd. It was also a shoutout to the big guy upstairs who made all of this possible for Black and brown and Latin players — Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. The big hit is all the more special for the White Sox and Anderson, who have been at the center of controversy with the Yankees this past week.
Obviously, Donaldson hasn’t seen the George Floyd video. He just left a franchise that plays in a state that just won a World Series but treats an HBCU female lacrosse team like criminals during a traffic stop while suppressing its voters.
In the context of trash talk on a diamond during the politically correct counterculture society of today, Donaldson now finds himself at the top of the lineup of the game’s new form of racism. Donaldson may not have recognized how his statement exemplified white privilege that still exists in baseball during a postgame interview on YES Network where players like Anderson are often left feeling isolated as the only Black American in a professional workspace.
It was both shocking and enlightening. Perhaps it was the smirk on his face when he says he’s not a racist but was only making a joke while in the sanctity of the Yankees clubhouse. That act may have worked in Atlanta, it won’t play well in New York.
Anderson had previously said he feels he is still facing some of the same cultural biases facing Black American baseball players that Robinson faced when he broke the color barrier in 1947. You have to wonder how his teammates Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton feel about Donaldson’s in-game sense of humor, trash talk, or euphemism their new teammate freely spits like shells from sunflower seeds.
Donaldson is either socially tone death or culturally insensitive by using Robinson’s legacy as trash talk during a game and trying to brush it off on TV afterwards with a surfer dude grin. When a player with Donaldson’s game is so cavalier about using this type of reckless reference and there are no consequences, MLB’s true commitment to diversity will take another beanball to its reputation.
This is not a good look for the game. It was an unnecessary storyline during the national TV broadcast for a league that is still struggling to fill seats in the pandemic era. It should’ve been just about the Yankees meeting the White Sox with the best record in baseball. Suddenly, Anderson’s field of dreams walk off when the teams met last July, was a lost memory also.
In the aftermath of his poor choice of words concerning Marcus Stroman’s Du-rag, Bob Brenly recently took a leave of absence from his job as Arizona Diamondbacks broadcaster.
Jala Norman suggests that the situation would not have occurred if MLB had more Black and Brown people announcing the games. As far as media diversity is concerned, baseball is Swingin’-N-Missin’
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