Gary Sheffield and Clinton Portis have both been taking some heat for comments that they made recently. Sheffield got off the now infamous “Latin players are easier to control” blast while Portis dropped this nugget about Mike Vick’s dogfighting problems, “It’s his property; it’s his dogs. If that’s what he wants to do, do it.” Sheff tried to shed some light on where he was coming from while Clinton is singing a completely different tune.
Sheffield and the Tigers were getting ready for last night’s game against the Rangers when Sheffield offered this explanation:
“Every Latin player, you can’t control. I’m just saying from a whole grand scheme of things, they have more to lose than we do. You can send them back across the island. You can’t send us back, we already here so there’s a lot of factors involved that you look at. I’m not talking about them as, you know, you can tell them what to do and they are going to be ‘Yes sir, No sir.’ Nah, that ain’t how it works. I’m just saying from a grand scheme of things.”
I had a feeling that was the direction Gary was gonna go with his point and I agree with him to a degree. The fact that a team can tell a Latin player “get your shit together or we’re sending you back” is pretty powerful. Carlos Guillen agrees:
“I’m happy he said it. It’s the truth.”
Guillen’s take is similar to Gary’s.. He believes that MLB has more control over the Latin players due to the threat of being sent home. Education is also a factor to Guillen because U.S. players typically graduate high school and may attend college while many Latinos leave school at the age of 16 to sign with a team.
Clinton Portis has changed his name to the running back formerly known as the dog fight supporter. He claims to have studied up on the subject and now has a different take:
“A couple of weeks ago, when I made those comments, I didn’t understand the seriousness behind it. I didn’t know it would affect that many people, didn’t think what I said was that offensive. But after doing research and seeing how serious people take this, I shouldn’t have made the comments.”
I want to believe Clinton but this sounds a little like “they” got to him. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he was embarrassed for Portis when he made his original comments in support of Vick. Then a statement was issued for by Portis shortly after his poor choice of words to calm the outrage but it didn’t work. He now claims to have seen the light:
“I had no idea the love that people have for animals or didn’t consider it when I made those comments. I’m not even a pets man. I’ve got a fish — that’s the easiest thing to keep up. I’ve never been into dogs, never dealt with dogs, don’t like playing with dogs. But at the same time there’s a lot of people who are crazy over pets.”
I’m not a big pet person myself, and I would probably go the fish route too, but making dogs fights isn’t only wrong, it’s dumb. I’m glad to see Clinton, or somebody close to him has figured out the right approach to the situation:
“From now on, I don’t comment on nobody.”
We’ll see about that.
Sheffield clarifies comments. Courtesy of Detroit Tigers.com
Guillen: Sheffield’s right. Courtesy of Mlive.com
Portis changes dog fighting stance. Courtesy of Sports Illustrated.com
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