The Toronto media made this into the largest sports story in Toronto since... well...I guess when the Jays won back to back World Championships(I just realized how sad it is that it's been 20 years since Toronto had some serious sports news). It was a big deal as he clearly offended Gays, but you could see during the press conference that he obviously had no idea that this could happen. As Yunel, and many other Latino's on the team stated, "Maricon"(English translation "Faggot") was a word that they use all the time, that has no derogatory meaning towards gays in the context they use it in. It was a mistake that he sincerely apologized for, but Toronto has yet to get over this. People 1 month ago were calling for Yunel to be released, traded, sent down, benched, anything really that would get him to not play, and they continue to do that to this very day.
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| Young,centre, getting escorted by NYPD. |
This wouldn't be a problem in my eyes at all, if these same people calling for Yunel's release weren't cheering for Delmon Young when he hits a homer or drives somebody in. In case you don't know why Delmon Young doesn't deserve to be cheered for, here's a quote from the NY Post on April 28th of this year.
"Detroit Tigers slugger Delmon Young went on a drunken, anti-Semitic rampage outside a posh Manhattan hotel yesterday — shouting “f--king Jews” at a group of tourists before throwing one to the ground, sources said."How in their right mind can anybody criticize Yunel to the point where they want him to lose his job, yet still cheer for this Anti-Semitic and abusive player? How can so many people have the audacity to pretend like nothing happened with Delmon Young and the Jews? That is the most hypocritical thing you could do.
It's not a coincidence that the Yunel story came out on the Jewish new year. It was a test for humanity to see how far we have come since Young did what he did. I think it is quite obvious that most of you just put an act on when the Yunel story came out. Because if it wasn't an act, and you actually cared that he insulted a large group of people, you all wouldn't be so forgiving when it comes to Delmon Young. I know from my feed on twitter that most of you reading this did in fact criticize Yunel to a great extreme, and yet, for the past 2 weeks, you have all been cheering on Delmon Young like he did nothing wrong. The guy was drunk, said derogatory statements against Jews to a bunch of tourists and Jews, and physically beat a Jew up. How in any way is writing a word on eye black without knowing what it means in American society worse than that? We are in the year 2012.Both acts are not acceptable.
What Delmon Young did was out of pure hatred, and he took it to an extreme by not only saying what he felt, but also by abusing somebody. Yunel offended people without even knowing what he did could hurt somebody. Those two things are not even close to comparable. But yet, according to so many of you, Yunel did something worse than Young. Delmon was arrested for hate crime. That's bad.
Next time Delmon Young does something remotely good on the diamond, think about how much of a hypocritical jerk you would be if you cheer for him. I don't hate Delmon Young. That would make me as bad as him. Yunel Escobar doesn't hate gays. Delmon Young hates Jews.
Go ahead. Cheer for Delmon Young. Just don't ever, ever think about booing Yunel Escobar for what he did.EVER.
Comments are welcome below.
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I'd like to thank Isaac Boloton( @IsaacBlueJays) for giving me the idea for this article.
Amen!
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