It's a Double Standard

First appeared on July 9th, 2008
in The Lebanon Reporter

When was the last time you smacked your boss in the face for telling you no? When was the last time you walked into his office and grabbed him by the throat because he had the nerve to ask you to do your job? If you really had done either of these recently I’m guessing you would have already skipped this column on your way to the classifieds.
On June 25th Houston Astros Pitcher Shawn Chacon really did attack his boss when he physically assaulted the teams General Manager Ed Wade. Chacon was suspended immediately by the Astros and released a day later.
For many the attack conjured up images of basketball star Latrell Sprewell in 1997, choking and striking then Golden State Warriors coach PJ Carlesimo. For his actions Sprewell’s contract was voided and the NBA suspended him for 82 games. After all the dust had settled, Sprewell didn’t suit up in an NBA game again for over two years.
With all this in mind, the real story few seem to care about happened four days after Chacon was released when the mercurial Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez shoved Jack McCormick, the teams traveling secretary, to the ground. According to reports Ramirez asked McCormick for tickets just minutes before a sold out game was set to begin. When McCormick couldn’t come up with any empty seats, Ramirez took it upon himself to assault a man twice his age. And who can blame McCormick, I’m sure “knowledge of Jujitsu” wasn’t part of the job description when he signed on.
To this point the Red Sox have done nothing to discipline Ramirez. The outfielder did issue a public apology but is that really enough? Shawn Chacon is out of a job. Latrell Sprewell didn’t work for two years. Obviously I‘m not equating the three incidents, I wasn’t present for any of them. I am however wondering why the Red Sox did nothing to show the baseball world that their locker room is not in fact full of knuckle dragging Neanderthals whose gut reaction to frustration is to hammer someone over the head with a club while grunting “ME ANGRY!”
What’s the real difference in this double standard you may ask? Chacon was a right handed pitcher who had only won 2 games all season and was carrying an ERA so swollen it dwarfed the goiter on Aunt Eula’s neck. Ramirez on the other hand is a future Hall of Famer who has hit over 500 home runs in his career. Chacon’s contract paid him 2 million dollars a season while Ramirez’s is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million. After some basic math it becomes fairly obvious which of the two is more important to their team.
The real injustice here isn’t just the disrespect the Red Sox have shown Jack McCormick. The real issue is the message the Sox are sending to young fans. By not disciplining Ramirez at all the franchise, and Major League Baseball for that matter, have basically said that if you are really good at what you do then it is acceptable for you to treat people like something you would scrape from the bottom of your shoe with a plastic butter knife (see Scat).
It’s the age old debate: “Are professional athletes role models?” and I say yes. Like it or not some kids hang on the every word and deed of these guys. Ramirez doesn’t need to be released, but the Red Sox and baseball commissioner Bud Selig have done the culture of our nation itself a great disservice by letting him walk despite his unacceptable behavior.