Letters to the Editor
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@arsene
You wrote:
"If Barry Bonds is to have an asterisk over his name, then every single white baseball player who is loved and respected without question and who played before blacks were allowed into the major leagues SHOULD ALSO HAVE AN ASTERISK.
The likes of Babe Ruth benefitted from that era's race-based apartheid system: the Negro leagues were full of brilliant, talented players who were not allowed to compete with whites. Joe DiMmaggio once said the most talented players he ever saw at the time were in the Negro leagues.
Players like Babe Ruth had the privilege of not competing against a complete pool of available talent. White players benefitted from this racial apartheid---their fame is far more tainted than Bonds' ever will be."
The problem with this reasoning is twofold really. First, you're conflating "active cheating" with "an advantageous situation". As much as you may not want to hear it - Ruth had nothing to do with segregation, it was simply the time in which he played.
The second, and far greater, issue with this reasoning is that it assumes that ALL players from the Negro Leagues were on par with Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. That there was no such thing as a journeyman black pitcher, that had the leagues been integrated all teams would be stacked with three ace fireballers and three sluggers of African descent. And the history books would be bereft of all white ball players, that Mantle, or Williams, or Snider or Spahn never woulda had a chance in the face of the far superior black talent.
Pardon me if I'm overstepping here, but this kind of reasoning veers dangerously close to "blacks are naturally better athletes" which, if I'm not mistaken, is sickeningly racist.
and besides, you can make almost as many arguments the other way that prove just how asinine this line of reasoning actually is. Off the top of my head I could say "and besides, Bonds benefitted from playing in an era where he knew the dangers of smoking. If Ruth had known that smoking kills you and severely limits your lung/muscle capacity, he'd probably have hit 100 more homeruns."
(i'm being facetious of course, i'm just trying to illustrate a point)