FanGraphs Audio: Jeff Sullivan Analyzes All Baseball
Episode 516
Jeff Sullivan is a senior editor at FanGraphs. He’s also the nearly willing guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio after the jump. (Approximately 55 min play time.)
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Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
I was at first thinking that Ichiro being a 5 win player was a slight exaggeration.
As it turns out he was a 6 win player.
Ichiro! was great. Man, did we not appreciate him enough.
I don’t know, I am a pretty casual baseball fan, but the impression I always had was that he was great. Got on base a lot, got lots of hits, played good defense. That was my understanding of him.
I mean he was not Babe Ruth.
He’s one of those guys who has become “so overrated he’s underrated” among the sabermetric community (for lack of a better term.) People look down on him because he’s a singles hitter who’s entire fame was based around batting average and stolen bases, two very un-saber statistics, but I think people tend to forget just how valuable he was for a while.
Hey, lookit! Less than negative wins!
Lookat?
The ignorant race banter is getting a little out of hand in these recent audio chats (Sullivan, Perry). “listen to Eric Thames’ voice and be surprised by the way it sounds …”
C’mon guys. If you’re going to come off as Archie Bunker at least be funny in your off hand stereotypes. Yup, althetic black guys are supposed to talk with slang and quote Jay-Z lyrics.
Spot on baseball commentary Jeff Sullivan. Next up, Jimmy the Greek Analyzes All of Baseball.
John Lackey also has a funny voice. But we weren’t talking about John Lackey. Why look for reasons to be upset?
So the fact that an African America player has a voice/accent that is not typical for African Americans is not notable?
You need to step out of the racial sensitivity hyper chamber. If you meet someone who is big and husky and then has a tiny squeaky voice it is noticeable and worth commenting on. Even more importantly people will comment on it. Similarly if you meet someone in a business suit, who speaks with uneducated slang, people are taken aback.
To use a real example I have a tall blonde Scandinavian looking friend who is a descendant of the former upper class in Puerto Ric, and was raised there. He sounds like some crazy mix between Sean Connery, an Italian, and a 10 year old. Everyone comments on his voice and accent. Are they all racists? No.
People detect patterns in the world, when those patterns are broken it is noticeable. Not every generalization made on the basis of look or skin color is some invidious tendril of racism. Sometimes it is just people being people.
Frankly the current world where everyone must always bend over backwards and walk on egg shells all time is the racist one. Opinions like yours prevent people from treating others the same as they would normally because they are so afraid of having some comment construed as a faux pas.
Eh, all three comments have useful insights and are expressed cogently and with restraint. So hooray for all three comments being useful and restrained when touching on a tricky subject.
My own take: “It’s notable, because you wouldn’t expect that from someone who’s black!” isn’t on the same par as a lot of the awful race-informed nonsense out there. No one gets their NAACP card revoked over such a comment.
But it’s also a reminder that white is the default category in America. We ~do~ hold whites-commenting-on-blacks to a higher level of scrutiny than blacks-commenting-on-whites. And rightly so, because there is so much more baggage there. There’s a long and not-pretty history of thinking northern white-dialect = intelligent while southern dialect (white or black) and African American dialect = not intelligent. So yeah, there’s some thorniness in (indirectly) saying “he doesn’t sound black” (or “he doesn’t sound Southern, for that matter…) because for whites, “sounding black” historically has meant “sounding uneducated.” It risks being an (unintended) backhanded compliment, the way Biden’s complimenting of Obama as “articulate” in the 2008 primaries was loaded with more baggage than the surely well-intentioned Biden meant. It’s similar to a guy expressing surprise when a woman throws well.
Chris Rock basically got it right – sometimes the people who have the most, have to say the least. It’s a small price to pay.
http://youtu.be/fVIs0D2acgw
+1
Thank you for making my point Transmission.
To Jeff’s point about being upset, I unfortunately don’t wrap myself in blissful ignorance, nor do i live in our society with blinders on. I use sports, specifically sports analysis, as a respite from stereotypes and privilege.
An off handed comment about an African American male and how his voice sounds surprising is laden with unnecessary meaning, regardless of how naive one is when discussing African American traits.
Carson,s Johnny did a pretty solid explanation of the comment. I’m black and thought nothing of it when I was listening. I don’t understand how that could have been interpreted as racist.
Wow you need to get laid
does this iPod broadcast promise conversation on or about volcanoes?
Shocker, to be revealed in next week’s first ever FanGraphs Audio Visual Podcast: Jeff Sullivan is black.