My latest at PJ Media:
Not content with adding a section of race-baiting, victimhood propaganda, and Communist agitprop to its website last year, Major League Baseball this year moved the All-Star Game out of Atlanta for the crime of asking for ID’s to vote. And so it comes as no real surprise that Baseball Reference, the principal online repository for nearly 150 years of baseball statistics, has now begun rewriting its own history to remove player nicknames that don’t suit woke sensibilities. What’s next? Adjusting each year’s World Series winners based on the political preferences of each team’s players? In this age of absurdity, anything is possible.
Baseball Reference has the lifetime year-by-year statistics for every man who has ever played Major League Baseball, including, up until recently, Chief Bender, Chief Meyers, Dummy Hoy, and Nig Cuppy. You won’t find those players in their database anymore, however; you won’t find them at all unless you know their given names, as now they’re listed as Charles Bender, Jack Meyers, Billy Hoy, and George Cuppy.
That’s progress, right? Why should these men continue to be referred to by these demeaning nicknames, right? Well, the main reason is because that is really how they were known when they played, and that matters. History is not what we wish it to be; it is what it was. It might be nice and woke to claim that the South was shamed out of slavery by critical race theory education in public schools, and so no Civil War was necessary, but that’s not what happened, and to change the record of history to suit modern sensibilities is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes.
Controlling the past means revising it. In 1984, Winston Smith’s job is to change the content of old newspapers so that history always reflects and confirms the current situation: “For example, it appeared from The Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother’s speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened.”
In baseball, what actually happened is that a hundred years ago and more, some players were known by nicknames that many people would find offensive today. And this was not simply a matter of minority players having to endure the unkindness of their peers and the fans, as the Baseball Reference wonks might have us believe. The totalitarian revision of Baseball Reference is not yet perfected, and so still bear uncomfortable traces of the sensibilities of earlier ages. As of this writing, the statistics of Dummy Hoy, who was called that because he could not hear or speak, still link to the Society for American Baseball Research’s biography of the man, which notes that Hoy “referred to himself as ‘Dummy’ and politely corrected those who, for whatever reason, called him ‘William.’”
There is more. Read the rest here.
Aussie Infidel says
Seems as if MLB is run by woke fools – a bit like Islam.
“And if you do not agree that Islam is a religion of peace, I’ll kill you!” – Ali, the woke jihadi
Giacomo Latta says
Muslims are not woke; they are muslims. It is the university ”educated” unbelievers who are the woke. But muslims like the help and will appreciate as long as it keeps on coming.
Rob Porter says
I’m amazed at these white players. How stupid can they be? Even before a Formula 1 Grand Prix race nowadays, you see some drivers ‘taking he knee’. Thank goodness some do not.
freedom says
A.I.
I’ve been around enough Aussies during my life that unlike G.L. I get the irony in your antithesis ………you guys make me laugh.
gravenimage says
Very funny, Aussie Infidel!
Bruce 'Pilgrim' Stanton says
My call sign or nickname when I was a Navy pilot was ‘Pilgrim’. It was not a call sign I picked for myself, but was given to me by the A7 Squadron VA-192 when a lieutenant told the squadron after he met me that he thought my call sign was Pilgrim.
When I discovered my new nickname, I thought about it briefly and decided not to fight the assignment as the squadron could easily come up with something objectionable. So, Pilgrim I became.
I suppose in these days there are a bunch of people in Massachusetts who would be offended that I go by the call sign ‘Pilgrim’, but I don’t care. And that’s the way it is.
Pilgrim
Daniel Silvan says
Thank you for your service.
Bruce 'Pilgrim' Stanton says
Thank you, Daniel.
gravenimage says
+1
Spiro says
One swaby to another
Fair winds and following seas
CVS 15
Bruce 'Pilgrim' Stanton says
USS Randolph CV-15. I served with an officer who flew S2s on Randolph until going to Test Pilot School and transitioning to A7Es.
Donovan Nuera says
Time for MLB fans to BOYCOTT the crap out of the season and get Commissioner Ted Manfred, another Hahavahd Law School grad, fired. (I looked him up in wikipedia and I noticed that the authors, in the last section talking about the stupid Atlanta All Star game removal, had said Stacy Abrams was AGAINST the moving of the game; she had supported moving of the game but then the MSM changed her speech a little to show she did not want it moved as she noticed that black business owners nearby would lose millions of revenue with the game in town, )
Wellington says
No society in history started out egalitarian—with full women’s rights, no prejudice against ethnic minorities, no slavery or some kind of indentured servitude, no inequality under the law even in highly non-diversified ethnic societies (e.g., traditional Japan), no tribal rivalries whether among American Indians, sub-Saharan African societies, etc.
But now in the West, and with particular attention here to America, we have had over the past half century or so a monumental movement to be more inclusive than any other society in history—anywhere on earth, any time. But what do the woke, ignorant and stupid Left demand? Why, they want groveling by Western society all the while overlooking the still massive transgressions against portions of humanity in such places as China, the Islamic world, the sub-Saharan African world, et al. The pernicious nonsense which is critical race theory, which is just Marxism reconfigured from a socio-economic sphere to a racial one, stands as a case in point of how wretched Leftism in America has become.
Reminds me here of something I learned about 18th-century France going on a half century ago as a history major, i.e., it was PRECISELY because French peasants were far better off than Prussian, Russian or other peasants that, to a fair extent, the French Revolution transpired as it did. Put another way, the most advanced societies can expect more trouble, not less, PRECISELY because they are more advanced. And I would add here that French peasants in the 18th century hardly compare to minorities in America during the past half century, the latter making far, far more strides than such peasants did. Not even a close call.
You’d think that reason and knowledge would lead to an appreciation of slow and gradual change for the better in the most advanced civilizations on earth, but mankind is in a rush, often a very destructive rush, so many times and this results in the societies leading the way to a better future being targeted as the worst societies by many lesser folk, as here in America with a monumental disgrace such as BLM and its tacit defenders in the Democratic Party and MSM (and by that monumental hypocrite as well, the ultimate holier-than-thou, one Mitt Romney).
Just, as an overall historical and geopolitical example confirming what I have averred, compare America to Saudi Arabia. Proves my point easily I would argue.
Conclusion: Man is pathetic most of the time; man is a collective idiot most of the time. Doubt me? Well then, just look at the Democratic Party and the MSM here in America for confirmation of this. These two rotten entities, aided by many RINOs I might add, want to destroy what the Founding Fathers of America constructed, and proving, I will state again, that America was founded by geniuses and is now largely run by idiots.
James Lincoln says
Wellington says,
“…the most advanced societies can expect more trouble, not less, PRECISELY because they are more advanced.”
Very interesting point.
Countries can become “overdeveloped” and lose their original sense of purpose. Look at Sweden. The country has been “overdeveloped” for too long – and now they are facing their biggest threat in modern history from islamization.
Pathological altruism, virtue signaling, political correctness, globalism, etc., will kill their country – without a single shot being fired.
And also…
Compare and contrast the United States in the postwar 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s with what we have right now…
gravenimage says
Baseball Rewrites Its Own History to Make It Woke
……………….
Just appalling–we are reaching Soviet levels of rewriting history now. And I can remember when Baseball was considered an honest, apolitical game.
Also note that Chief Bender was *proud* of his Ojibwa heritage, and was known by the Ojibwa name “Mandowescence” as a child. Chief Meyers was also proud of his Native American heritage and encouraged others to play sports.
Dummy Hoy is credited with developing signals for safe and out calls, central to baseball. The term “dumb” was often used for deaf-mutes at the time, and was not necessarily pejoritive. And far from being a “dummy” in the insulting sense of the word, he was actually very intelligent, and was called Dummy by colleagues who loved and respected him.
James Lincoln says
Are there any professional sports that have not become “woke”???
Right now, the only sports that I watch are those of the military academies – and PGA golf tournaments…
E T says
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire:
There was, however, no simple overriding cause for the destruction of so great and complex an empire as Rome. Twelve underlying causes of disunity which brought about its actual downfall, among which were the concentration in power of the hands of one ruler for whom there was no constitutional form of election, a widening gap between rich and poor, a pampered soldiery, defence cuts and a run down of military force in spite of massive taxation and a failure of this army to meet its commitments, suppression of the middle classes while the rich pursued a life of luxury and avoided shouldering the responsibilities of government, the alienation of a bureaucratic central government from the people and a breakdown of law and order.
It was such internal weakness which reduced Rome’s resistance from external aggression. While we should delude ourselves into thinking that any society can exist without some form of internal conflict we must recognize that when these become too marked they undermine the whole fabric of society. This is the fate that overtook Rome. Some have drawn parallels with contemporary Western civilization and its potential for decline.
gravenimage says
Internal weakness and societal collapse were certainly major factors–as was the invasion of barbarians. Lots of grim parallels today.
Yaakov Holansky says
We’ve already experienced the rewriting of history by a sitting President when Barak Hussein Obama had WhiteHouse.gov remove and insert a frame of the President that never occurred in a News conference but he was caught!
Savvyone says
Oh, you mean our first Muslim President? I am waiting for his book of that title.
Joe Scott says
Another bunch of sad Bastards
Bikinis not Burkas says
What about the name I chose for the net?
GFF says
Mr Spencer’s reference to ‘1984’ (George Orwell, published 1949) is apposite.
How can we learn from the past if the past institution/constitutions and individuals were never, ever, in error? We acknowledge our mistakes – supposedly we learn from them, but to expunge them from history, to rewrite our collective/diverse histories would surely be the greater error.
Phil Copson says
Interesting – so Biden will henceforth be referred to as “The Commander in…..what ? “
spiro says
Can’t be chief ?
IanB says
Chaff
gravenimage says
🙂
E T says
Crime