Giants’ Alou Draws Line on Racist ‘Sports-Talk’
Marcos Bretón

You know it's a cursed San Francisco Giants season when their best back-to-back wins of the year are drowned out by the racially tinged rantings of a radio talk show host, the now-suspended Larry Krueger, who raved on KNBR that he'd tired of "Brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly."

Wow. It seems Giants manager Felipe Alou, who is Dominican-born and proud of it, dislikes pointed critiques of his players when they suggest stupidity from a single region - the Caribbean. In this case, Caribbean means Dominican, Venezuelan, Spanish-speaking, foreigner and Latin.

Alou, who has never been the pugnacious type, is going ballistic now in ways that shouldn't be misinterpreted. He isn't overreacting to the words of one misguided guy. Alou is fighting back because he can. Somebody pushed him, so he's pushing back. He's refusing to go on KNBR until the station that's carried Giants games forever - and owns a piece of the team - gets his "don't mess with me" drift.

"We cannot pardon this," Alou said to me during a telephone interview. "I would say it's been 40 years since I heard words such as these. (KNBR) is failing to recognize the seriousness of this offense. It's like they don't want to understand the gravity of what was said. It's not important to them."

KNBR has suspended Krueger for a week without pay but has said it will not fire him. To Alou, that is a "slap on the hand."

OK. None of us should get caught on the race card merry-go-round because this isn't about whether Krueger is racist or not. That's a non-issue. Krueger's mouth diarrhea has no bearing on legitimate racism in the real world, has nothing to do with farm workers dying in California from heat stroke this summer. That rattles humanity.

This is about power, plain and simple. It's about a new day in U.S. baseball where the Latin boys aren't so happy-go-lucky anymore. They simply make too much money now, dominate too many performance categories and occupy too many All-Star game roster spots to take garbage from Krueger or anybody else anymore.

And it's no coincidence that Alou is throwing down the gauntlet because the man is a towering figure in Latino baseball. No lie. I've written two books on the subject, interviewed hundreds of current and former Latino players, traveled all over baseball trails of the Caribbean, and there is no man in uniform as revered over there as Felipe Rojas Alou.

That's because for much of his managing tenure, Alou was the only Latino manager in baseball. And as a player, he was a pioneer of the Latin baseball explosion we see today.

Indeed, about a quarter of all big leaguers are Latino now - while half of those are Dominican - and it was Alou who put his country on the baseball map, leading to Miguel Tejada, Albert Pujols, David Ortiz, Manny Ramírez, Pedro Martínez, Alex Rodríguez and many others.

Ozzie Virgil is credited with being the first Dominican in the big leagues, but he went to high school in the U.S. before joining the New York Giants in 1956. Alou was the first go straight from the island to the big leagues with no English immersion in between, becoming a Giant in their inaugural San Francisco season in 1958.

By then he had been segregated with other black players in Southern stops of the minor leagues, endured racial slurs, and even saw his last name stolen. He is really named Rojas, but baseball officials became confused by the Alou on his birth certificate (his mother's maiden name) and mistook it for his last name. He couldn't speak enough English to correct the mistake and so Alou he became.

Then he played in a racially divided Giants clubhouse where Spanish was banned for a time by then-manager Alvin Dark. He managed in the minors for years, constantly passed over for a big-league job, while stiffs like Buck Rodgers got hired ahead of him. Then he listened as the epithets directed at his people morphed into subtle code words, such as when Mike Piazza suggested in 1997 that diversity was a detriment on the heavily Latino Los Angeles Dodgers.

All the while, in a half century of baseball for the now-70-year-old, Alou never got bitter and never quit. That counts for a lot.

But when Krueger spoke in anger on the radio, Alou heard the echoes of his segregated early career; of Dark's divided clubhouse and of the subtle put-downs suggesting that Latino players are dumb or non-competitive. Poor Krueger didn't know what he was stepping into.

"(Krueger) insulted the entire Caribbean and he's getting another chance," Alou said. "I don't know what kind of man he is, but I know what he is capable of doing."

Krueger, who has apologized but declined to speak of this incident, was wrong on many levels, but most of all for singling out a particular group on a team where whites, blacks and Latinos have been equally miserable. Why identify the Caribbeans?

Krueger would have never said: "I'm tired of watching brain-dead white players hacking at slop." And he would have never said that about African Americans either.

Earlier this month Randy Winn, the newest Giant, made the last out in 4-3 loss to Colorado by swinging at horrible pitches. The Rockies reliever had already hit one Giant, almost hit another and almost hit Winn as he batted with the bases loaded in the ninth. But Winn got himself out to end the game.

Why didn't Krueger say he was tired of "brain dead-black players swinging at slop?" Because he'd be fired right now instead of suspended for a week without pay. He may get fired still, a shame considering he is talented and as good or better than anyone in the sports talk radio wasteland of Sacramento. Some might say Krueger is being whacked by the PC police, but that's short-sighted.
"He picked on the wrong guy," Alou said. "He didn't know who I was but I think he's gotten to know me a little better now."

(Marcos Bretón is a sports columnist with The Sacramento Bee. He may be contacted by email at Mbreton@sacbee.com)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
08/14/05
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