His presence is very important to the Detroit lineup. Not only is Sheffield their #3 hitter, but, according to the Detroit Free Press, the Tigers were 2 games over .500 when Sheffield struggled the first four weeks of the season (hitting only one homer in that period); when he was healthy, they were 18 games over .500 over the next 2.5 months while Gary blasted 22 homers during that period.
Sheffield's importance in baseball is probably underestimated. He's been the a middle of the lineup hitter (#3 mostly) on the Tigers, Yankees, and Braves for the past 6 seasons. His teams have made the playoffs the previous five seasons, and only the Yankees' 2.5 game lead stands between the Tigers and the playoffs this season. He was also the big hitter on the Dodgers and Marlins teams prior to the Braves, including the Marlins 1997 World Championship team.
As Eno points out, it's pretty well known that Sheffield gets a bad rep because of his "big mouth". He'll comment on any topic you ask him about, and he's pretty opinionated on issues. He took the blunt of the bad publicity that followed his comments about baseball and it's shrinking African-American population, which he sees as being out-sourced to Latino players, but... since then, he's been backed up in part by Torii Hunter, Carlos Guillen, and most recently Jimmy Rollins:
"The black player today pretty much has to be a superstar. The role player, the guy off the bench, baseball's not looking to black players in those positions. Baseball has to take the blinders off."
Quote found via The Starting Five.
Sheffield's famous quotes were indicative of a cultural clash going on in America. 34% of blacks in America (according to this survey by Pew) believe immigrants take jobs from Americans. That's more than whites (25%). It's interesting to note that in the same survey, blacks were less likely than whites to believe Hispanics increase crimes or go on welfare.
In other words, there is evidence that the African-American community is worried about losing jobs to less-costly immigrants. This belief obviously has also spread to MLB... after all, Sheffield said he thought owners were turning to Hispanics to replace African-American players. Jimmy Rollins did not say that outright, but one could interpret his comments to basically mean that he believes Latinos are increasing being used to fill role player roles, not blacks.
It's a debate that been around for years, actually. Only now Hispanics and other immigrants are being introduced into the mix. I can remember reading in the Village Voice many years ago a piece on the "12th man" in the NBA, who was almost always a white player, because (white) fans wanted to root for that guy more in blowouts than a black player. Here it is, in fact - from 2000. It produces some interesting numbers - once you get out of the starting lineups, and the 8-man rotation, into the deep bench, you see a higher% of white players. I don't know how much the numbers have changed over the past 7 seasons - I imagine the foreign influx has had an impact - maybe I'll do an update of this article once the season starts. It'll be interesting to see if the foreigners have taken jobs on the bench away from white players.
*******
Finally, just to touch on McNabb's comments: I'm not sure how much I agree or disagree with him. Jack Cobra has an excellent post that delves into the larger issues. Depressed Fan has a post that kinda backs up McNabb's point with some numbers. Are social conscience issues now becoming the hallmark of the Blogs By Fans network?!? Add to the bizarro-ness of this is that D-Wil of The Starting Five (and MC Bias) are not supporting McNabb too much, because they feel this is just a convenient ploy by McNabb to buy some time as the Eagles are 0-2 and he's in danger of being tossed aside.
My thoughts: His words ring with truth, but because he might be self-motivated, I'm not sure how much to buy into it. On one level black QBs are treated differently from white QBs - D-Wil alludes to this in the comments - from an early age they are coached different, he writes - told not to waste time scanning the field for second and third options, but to run. In terms of media coverage, it's hard to say honestly. Peyton Manning, Rex Chapman - they have or still get negative coverage. Vince Young received negative review at the draft from scouts, but at the end of the day he's gotten more positive coverage as a quarterback ("he just wins games") than Matt Leinart has so far....
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I'm not sure you actually meant Rex Chapman or Rex Grossman, since Chapman got into trouble for some controversial slurs.
Grossman, my bad!
Brian: Very good point.
I think your points on Shef and McNabb can be intersected. I haven't taken the time to read what everyone else has written, so I don't know if anyone has said this, but as in baseball, there are not many African American back-up QBs. Charlie Batch in Pittsburgh is all I can think of now that David Gerard is the man in Jacksonville. I could be wrong, I haven't perused any rosters, but the wily old veteran back-up is usually a white guy. Not that there is anything wrong with that. After all, we didn't start seeing an influx of black QBs until Culpepper, McNabb, and McNair came into the league. I'm pretty sure Cunningham and Warren Moon played the back up role for a bit and Quincy Carter was a back-up before he was cut. Perhaps as more black QB come into the league will see more back-ups as the numbers correct themselves. Kinda like black closers in baseball. Not too many of them either.
I don't understand the waffling on McNabb.
Is he off to a bad start this season? Affirmative.
But did he speak the truth? Affirmative.
Well then, aren't we obligated to support a truth which is pervasive and may be universal, in spite of any circumstances which are clearly localized and specific?
Why should truth be obfuscated by zero wins and two losses? Because it's somehow "self-serving?" Indeed, truth can be like that. In fact, truth SHOULD be like that!
I agree that he did speak truth: there is a difference in how black QBs are treated than whites - they are coached differently, and treated differently by the media, too... and therefore fans. Fans expect black QBs to be able to elude the rush, to be able to be "athletic", and pretty much every stereotype associated with black QBs. They hold them to a higher standard, and have less patience with them.
But there is a standard for all QBs that is often very impatient (unless you are talking about Favre)... Chad Pennington's been a winner here whenever he's been healthy, but the media and the fans are clammoring for Kellen Clemens already. Eli Manning has been called a bust many times over, and since his rookie year has been subjected to "Big Ben won a Super Bowl and was drafted 7 picks later", which now includes "Phillip Rivers lead the Chargers to a 14-2 record" tacked on to it.
Even Joe Montana was kinda pushed aside by the media and fans that wanted to see Steve Young.
My point being that, as the football cliche goes, "The most popular player on the team (by fans) is the backup quarterback".
That being said, the fans in Philly (and media) have been harsh on McNabb, who has had a Hall of Fame career, and done more to bring Philly its first title in 20+ years, than anyone short of AI in the city. He should at least be given some breathing room to recover from his injuries and get back to 100% before they push him out the door in Philly. But McNabb knows he won't get that chance - Philly isn't patient, and it is a mini-Boston (racial issues galore... as I wrote over at Free Darko last week, "Philly has gotten more and more racist over the past 10 years, as is often the case when a city with a large black population gets an increase in crime. The white community that doesn't flee to the suburbs blames the black community (instead of their political institutions or what have you), and becomes even more racist. See Brooklyn during the crack age.").
So McNabb is trying to buy time, or maybe burn bridges so he can get a new start somewhere else? I don't know, but my point was that he's never been one to speak out before on these kind of things, so his comments are probably serving some sort of purpose.
But yes, you are absolutely right - even if that is so, truth is truth.
Here's another issue with McNabb: When Sheffield spoke out, it was clearly truth. The media tried to make him look like a fool, but soon enough support from players came out for his comments - Hunter, Guillen, Lofton, now Rollins in effect. Will former and current black QBs come out and support McNabb's comments? I'm not sure they will. Maybe. But if not, then that means one of two things (IMO) - either they feel the NFL will blacklist them or something, so they don't want to risk supporting McNabb (unlikely - McNabb's not going to lose his job or get blacklisted or lose endorsements over these comments), or they just don't agree that much with him. They might feel that, like I hinted to earlier, all QBs are under a ton of pressure in most cases (Brett Favre being one obvious exception), and subject to an unfair amount of criticism from media and fans.
I do agree with his points here - from McNabb's blog:
"Black quarterbacks have to deal with different things than white quarterbacks. If you don't think that's true than you are naïve. Peyton, Tom and Carson to name a few, have never been asked what it's like to be a white quarterback. They probably have not been told that they should have
scrambled more. I bet Fran Tarkenton, Steve Young, Jake Plummer, and Doug Flutie have never been told by a member of any racial consciousness organization that they don't play the quarterback position white enough."
Now that's truth.
I never really put together a strong opinion on what McNabb is saying, and still don't, which is why I come off as waffling. I agree with certain aspects of his comments - the quoted ones above, the fact that from an early age black QBs are coached differently than white QBs. But overall I just don't think it's that big an issue... maybe if other black QBs came out and supported his comments, I'll be more inclined to agree that it is a problem....
The Eagles were 0-1 when McNabb made the comments, the loss wasn't his fault and he wasn't taking heat for it. I don't see how the comments were a way to create an excuse for himself, unless he knew they were going to lose on Monday night.