by Matt Barr

Folly go lightly

My sense after 35 years on this marble is that when someone says "I don't use that word lightly," in reference to the word "racist," it's because they've used the word lightly. Someone called Mike Claiborne seems to be the perfect example.

[Bob] Feller talked about players not knowing the fundamentals, then said, "A lot of the players coming from the Caribbean, they don't even know the rules." He continued by discussing how hype and entertainment, including music and manufactured noise, have become commonplace at modern ballparks.

Claiborne then interrupted, asking Feller to clarify his comment about Caribbean players -- which came in the same week a talk-show host in San Francisco was fired for talking about "brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly."

Several times, Claiborne asked Feller to specifically explain which rules he was talking about.

Dullard. I don't know if this Mike Claiborne person has kids, but any parent is familiar with the technique of drilling the child on specifics they can't supply in order to demoralize them into admitting they're lying. (Alternatively, Claiborne might have been actually interested in knowing what particular rules Feller meant, in which case I doubt Claiborne keeps many listeners interested enough to sit through entire interviews.)

I'd like to think if I were an anonymous, fungible sports talk show host in some minor midwestern city interviewing an 86-year-old great Hall of Fame pitcher, I would refrain from using that technique; in fact, I'd like to think I would not immediately think he must be a hate-filled, disgusting person whom I need to badger into admitting his transgressions. But there's ratings to think about, I guess, so:

Feller became irritated with Claiborne trying to pin him down and finally said, "If you don't be quiet, I'm going to cut this off."

Claiborne shot back, "You can cut it off right now as far as I'm concerned, you racist." Feller hung up.

In an interview, Claiborne said he had no regrets about using the word "racist."

I'm quite sure he didn't, in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which I for one am reading about on a baseball blog that may for all I know be more widely read than Claiborne's little show is listened-to.

"I don't use that word lightly," Claiborne added. "I think its a wretched word to use in our society. ... I just felt the direction he was headed certainly gave me all the indication that that's what he was, and that's what he is."

Feller, who is from Iowa, told the Des Moines Register after the fact that he meant Caribbean players having trouble with the rules is "probably a language problem." He added: "I'm anything but a racist. I played with Hispanics and blacks and men of all races ever since I was a little boy out on the farm."

Claiborne said this is the first time someone other than a member of the media hung up on him during an interview.

I'm going to guess that's because nobody cared enough. Later, Claiborne referred to Feller on the air as an "asshole," for which no discipline is planned. An asshole, for a remark about Caribbean ballplayers? Probably not:

Claiborne said this is the first time someone other than a member of the media hung up on him during an interview.

"I've been doing this for 25 years, and I've talked to thousands of people and I never had" this happen, he said. "Maybe I ask the right questions, or not enough of the wrong ones....

"I was not necessarily angry with Bob Feller but more disappointed that a guy of his stature would have such an attitude about this subject. And the way he ended the interview I think was more disappointment -- he just hung up."

Pity party for Mark! Or Mike, or whoever.

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