Hunter's mouth gets him in trouble - Adding to the list of bizarre things players have said and done away from the playing field, is Los Angeles Angels outfielder Tori Hunter. Known by players and fans alike for his courageous body of work in the charity field, Hunter is seen as one of the nicest guys in all of baseball. Not to mention he's a pretty nifty player on the field as well both offensively and defensively as he 3-time All-Star and owner of nine consecutive Gold Glove Awards. Also worth mentioning is his newest piece of hardware, the Branch Rickey Award he obtained in 2009. The award given to most outstanding player in recognition of their exceptional community service. But something Hunter recently said to the media, has stirred up quite the controversy.
In a USA-Today hosted committee, a discussion was brought up involving the decreasing number of black players in the Major Leagues and the many dark-skinned latino players that are often categorized as blacks, a topic Hunter had quite an outlook on. "People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African-American. They're not us. They're impostors. Even people I know come up and say: 'Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?' I say, 'Come on, he's Dominican. He's not black.' ... As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us. It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?' ... I'm telling you, it's sad."
After taking heavy fire over the internet for his questionable comments, Tori said he meant no harm or disrespect to Latin American players. And after his firestorm of criticism, Hunter looked up the definition for the word that raised the most eyebrows -- 'impostor'. "I'm not going to apologize," Hunter said in a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon. "I told the truth. I'm sorry if I used the wrong choice of words. It wasn't a racist word. I can't believe people take that as racism. Maybe it was the wrong word, but I do too much in the community to make this one word ruin anything."
Honestly, I don't think Hunter is racist, but there's no denying his choice of words were rather shitty. Thankfully guys like Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and former Angel teammate Vladamir Guerrero agree with me and think his use of the word 'impostor' is what sent the internet into a rage. But I'm sure there's still an amount of ball players out there that regardless of what Hunter says now, are still gonna continue to take what he said the wrong way. And I wouldn't be too surprised if the first pitch Hunter seen by Mariano Rivera (just an example) was a fastball aimed at his cranium.
To young blacks, the truth is baseball no longer has the interest nor the type of black iconic figures to look up to that sports like football and basketball have nowadays. In basketball you see guys like Kobe and LeBron that kids in high school look up to as role models and things they wanna grow up to be. Blacks in baseball aren't necessarily the last of a dying breed, but it's going to take a lot more than guys like Ryan Howard and a bag of peanuts to get black kids to want to put on a glove and some batting gloves rather than put on a pair of Jordan's and want to shoot a 12-foot jumper.
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