COLUMN: Almonte’s fastball throws civil rights a curveball
By now, you’ve probably heard about Danny Almonte, the Dominican little-league pitcher from the Bronx in New York. Almonte’s team took third place in the Little League World Series a few weeks ago, thanks in large part to his pitching skills.
Almonte allowed just one run this season. Not just one run in the playoffs or one run in the championship game, we’re talking one run all season long. Period.
The kid struck out nearly every batter he faced, drawing comparisons to Arizona Diamondbacks‚ ace Randy Johnson. He threw a no-hitter in one World Series game fanning 16 of the 18 batters he faced.
Almonte had the baseball world wrapped around his pitching arm, and he was only 12 years old.
Or, at least he was at the time. My how things change.
Documents have surfaced over the last few weeks that show Almonte is really 14 years old. Suddenly, what were once masterful pitching performances from a sure-to-be major leaguer have become nothing more than manipulative, unethical attempts to win it all.
It is the Little League equivalent of the Black Sox scandal of 1919 when eight Chicago White Sox players, including the infamous “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, were bribed to throw the World Series.
Yet, with all the newfound documents and evidence proving Almonte is 14 years old, his parents still insist he’s only 12. In fact, cries of racism have popped up in Almonte’s defense.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Racism? Seriously?
People can’t honestly think this story would be any different if it were a white kid from Beverly Hills who cheated his way into the league by lying about his age.
Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look at the Black Sox scandal again. The eight players involved were all white men. They were banned from baseball for life. No one let them off the hook because they were white. They paid holiest of prices for a ball player. Their greed cost them their careers. It’s been roughly 80 years since the incident, and “Shoeless” Joe is still banned from the Hall of Fame.
And he was one of the more talented players of all time.
So, the idea that a kid of some other ethnicity would have gotten away with cheating is silly. No one is trying to strip Almonte of his accomplishments because of his skin color.
I realize I’m treading on some touchy ground here, but the cry of racism in the Almonte case doesn’t hold water. It doesn’t even hold Jell-O. What he and his co-conspirators did was wrong, regardless.
I’ll be the first to admit racism is still an issue. It exists in many forms. There are times when minorities are denied equal rights simply because they are minority, and that’s sick and wrong.
But playing the “race card” – as some people call it – seems to be a growing trend in our society. The number of people who try to use racism as a scapegoat for everything bad in their lives is growing exponentially. As a result, the real cases of racism aren’t being taken as seriously.
People hear allegations of racism and think, “Here we go again. It’s another Danny Almonte trying to blame the world because he got caught cheating.”
That’s greatest injustice behind playing the “race card”: It cheapens the legitimate allegations of racism. It’s just like the story about the boy who cried wolf – I’m assuming we all know what happened in this story, so I’m not going to waste the space explaining it.
People tried to play the race card in defense of O.J. Simpson during his murder trial in the mid ’90s. What Simpson was accused of doing was wrong, regardless of his skin color. He was accused because there was sufficient evidence showing he might have done it, not because he was a minority.
Not everything is an issue of race, as some people would like to see it. If anyone dares to contest such allegations, he or she is labeled a bigot for the rest of his or her life. Who wants to take that chance? So, everyone stays silent and the “Danny Almontes” of the world get their way.
That’s not America. That’s not what makes this country great. If we truly want to end racism in this country, then the “race card” needs to be taken away from the “Almontes” of the world and reserved for actual instances of racism.
Until this happens, the real cases of racism will always go unnoticed, drown out by allegations like Almonte’s, and racism in this country will never be eliminated.
Casey Hobson is a senior majoring in journalism. His column appears every other Wednesday. You can e-mail him at hobsonhut@hotmail.com