I think you hit the idea square on the head. I also agree that people have a right to speak freely and have society at large brand him an idiot. Selig overstepped his bounds and pandered to public opinion. Something he is quite good at it.

Tempest in a teapot; I wish Ortiz didn't think in such terms and I wish Rocker thought at all; but Rocker's suspension was as stupid as Marge Schott's, and the Ortiz quote won't make the list of the 100,000 worst things said in Boston in the week...

I think the only thing Ortiz is guilty of is making a joke of poor taste. He shouldn't have said something like that in front of a reporter.

Now, let's all leave him alone, because he is on my fantasy team, which is getting raped nearly every week.

David and I don't really disagree very much about this whole matter. I have updated my originbal post at Pesky's Pole to respond to what David says here. To read it, just click on my link below..

"By the way, I think that this also shows the negative influence of hip hop on baseball. I mean, who else talks about "raping bitches" in David Ortiz's world? This didn't happen when organ music was the soundtrack of baseball!"

Yes, let's put the blame on urban black culture, which must be the ONLY placd David Ortiz has heard misogynist language in his life, and harken back to the days of "pre-hip hop" baseball when sexist comments were never made.

This drives me crazier than Ortiz's original comments; its unfortunate he said what he did, but sexist language runs rampant in sports, from the big leagues down to beer softball leagues comprised primarily of pot-bellied middle aged white guys.

I don't think the "heat of the battle" should have anything to do with this. Would it be OK if Rocker was talking with a teammate in the bullpen just before entering to pitch against Manny Ramirez and said "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna strike the ____ ____ out on three pitches!" Is that OK? I don't think so... he's psyching himself up or whatever, but in a ridiculously insensitive way.

If you want to argue whether or not each player "meant it", I can understand that. But I don't think context should really play a factor here. Is someone who rapes or abuses others when drunk somehow less guilty than someone who does it when sober?

Well, you still look like a crass a-hole either way...

If everyday clubhouse dialog was made public, I'm sure this Ortiz comment (while not one that he's probably proud of) probably wouldn't rank in the top 10,000 of most offensive things said.

If this stuff bothers you (not calling out anyone in particular), you might consider just eating the sausage - and avoid watching the sausage being made.

To Rick Duncan: Agreed, they are both offensive statements, however, it seems, as David says, that Rocker was serious and Ortiz was not. Big big difference. Ortiz statement also shouldnt be really taken out of its' context, within the context it fits, though still quite offensive. I further agree Ortiz' statement shows the influence of rap music and rap talk generally, unfortunate and deeply rooted at this point in the sociiety.

Rick Duncan: I don't think you quite understand Pinto's comments if you think the two of you essentially agree. You may agree on the appropriate consequences for unpopular (and usually deservedly so) speech by ballplayers, but you miss the difference. Whether or not you think Rocker really meant what he said, he was not speaking metaphorically. His speech was presented as if he meant what he said. Ortiz's comment was an extravagent metaphor, incapable of being understood otherwise.

I completely agree with adwred's post, and I actually find Rick Duncan's comment about the "negative influence of hip hop on baseball" pretty damn offensive.

Who else talks about "raping bitches?" You're kidding me, right? I guess in Duncan's world, something THAT crude and tasteless only happens in the urban black culture and is only conveyed through hip hop music. This never happened in the 40's and 50's, right?

And anyway, who is Duncan to assume what culture or persons Ortiz was influenced by? Is that something that can just be assumed because the color of Ortiz's skin is black, and, hey, all black people are influenced by hip hop?

Just an ignorant, ignorant statement.

Daniel might be right. I think I recall a Brahms concerto with lyrics about "raping bitches" so maybe David was influenced by classical. Or perhaps Gospel?

This never happened in the 40's and 50's, right?

Um ... yes, actually, I don't think that Mickey Mantle walked into the dugout and said he was going to rape anyone's bitches.

Well somebody once quoted Joltin' Joe saying "look at the cans on that tomato"...

Off-hand I can think of rape being featured in the works of Mozart, Shostakovich and Britten, and it seems to me that it was widely reported that Mantle's locker room talk featured tales of shooting beaver -- take the shooting literally, and it is a gross and violent image. He didn't mean it literally, of course, but neither did Ortiz. Mantle was referring to actual women -- Ortiz was just employing a rape and pillage metaphor for beating the other team, in which no women were actually involved.

Its always too easy to think that because styles change, everything is worse today.

Rick. Get some help. Really.

I'm gonna try to exhibit some restraint here. If you're foolish enough to believe misogyny didn't exist before the advent of the hip hop culture, circa the mid-1970's, or that hip hop artists are the only ones who are saying things like "rape bitches," you're deluding yourself, as you are if you believe 50's athletes such as Mickey Mantle never told misogynistic jokes.

As far as your comment about Brahms concertos goes -- again, get some help.

There was plenty of misogyny half a century ago, but it was not stupid, violent, and crude.

If I told a psychiatrist that I was seeking help because I thought that "look at the cans on that hottie" was not the same sentiment as "let's go rape some hos and bitches," I hope he would refuse to charge me. Professional ethics, sense of proportion, ya know?

I think what Ortiz was doing was correcting the Chevy Chase quote from Three Amigos. Upon meeting El Guapo he tries to blend in by remembering the times that they "raped the horses and rode out of town on the women." Of course, El Guapo was supposedly Mexican, which is the same Latin America that Ortiz came from, so maybe that is the degenirate idea stemming only from dark skinned people that could make Ortiz say something like that.

One last comment, sorry. Maybe people here haven't recognized that the trope "burn their villages, kill their men, rape their women" is extremely familiar and an old one. It comes in many variations. Ortiz didn't make it up, and neither did some rapper. Sometimes it is used seriously about war, usually as a description of what the evil enemy plans to do. (And sometimes the enemy is evil and will do so.) Other times it is used seriously as a metaphor for domination in some other form of competition. And other times it is used humorously as an example of over the top rhetoric about competition. Ortiz, from context, seems to have been doing a combination of the latter two, with an emphasis on the third.

To see this as equivalent to Rocker's comments, and the disparate treatment of the two comments thereby as evidence of rampant political correctness, is misguided.

Personally, I happen to enjoy a good old-fashioned rape. Kickin' and screamin' are the sounds of joy to my ears. The sounds mean I'm raping correctly. I love rape.

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Kraus