Official Blog Nemesis: Jay Greenberg of the Post

“Mathews died in 1899, 12 years after the end of his career, unable to blame relief pitching for his premature demise. Life was simpler for pitchers then, without Scott Schoenweis, without African-American players, without puffed-up substance abusers uncounted numbers of which Glavine has gotten to tap weakly to second over 20 seasons.”

--New York Post Colum, “Another vintage Glavine outing,” by Jay Greenberg

Ok, I was originally just going to let that speak for itself but, damnit, why does that asshole have a job? I understand that he is trying to make a point-- a lot has changed in baseball, some good, some bad—but the syntax is blatantly racist. He put the integration of baseball as the middle item on a list along with a god-awful relief pitcher and steroid cheats.

Probably, if I had the patience to deal with the Post’s crappy search engine, I could find some glowing piece by Greenberg about the Jackie Robinson anniversary. Probably, you could talk to him every day, or know him for half of your life without hearing him come out and say that he thinks that the integration of baseball was the start of a decline of which steroids is only a continuation. Probably, he doesn’t admit that he thinks that to himself. At the same time, that is what he thinks, and no denial and no apology can really answer this reflexive admission.

It was Greenburg, by the way, who wrote a column demanding Milledge’s head after “Bend Ya Knees-gate.” Milledge was/is partners in some music venture and put up a “raunchy” rap single on his web-site. The song was far from tasteful (and quickly taken down), but not much more offensive than a whole lot of other popular music. And if respect for women in hip-hop is a concern of yours, a relatively inoffensive, unreleased single by a minor league-baseball player seems like an odd place to start.

Greenburg’s column on Milledge was called “The Last Straw,” which some paranoid Mets fans might interoperate as a disparaging reference to another brilliant, troubled, African-American ballplayer. While he never mentions Strawberry by name, he does bring up Allen Iverson’s rap music and Kobe’s rape trial as arguments for trading Milledge. I wonder why he left out Brett Myers, a Phillies player who got in legal trouble last year for punching his wife in the face outside of a stadium? Probably didn’t have space…