SECTION 331

Today I learned that there are a lot of angry people on the internet. At least one of them dropped by today. Had this person talked to me about his or her disagreement in a polite manner about the content of a previous post – and also not taken pretty much everything I said about cultural differences and turned it into an argument about racism – perhaps there could have been some polite discourse, and they might have even taught me something in a constructive way. But that wasn’t this particular individual’s style. I went from openly and honestly stating my doubt regarding cultural differences being entirely to blame in the situation with Johjima (in the original post*), to being called “ignorant” and a “racist”, and being told that I had no integrity. All this over an opinion, which I backed up in my original writing. My words were twisted, this person took every reply I bothered to type out of context to fit their personal bias, and then pulled the “I-can’t-make-you-fight-with-me-so-I’m-taking-my-toys-and-going-home” bit, which I’ve seen enough on music message boards to last me a lifetime. I won’t even go into the fact that apparently I’m deluded because I don’t really want to discuss the remotest possibility that racism might be involved in the world of baseball – that was going down a whole other path that I refuse to deal with here, and was only part of the Lombard-Street-like insanity of replies I received. This person also claimed to be “in the industry”, and if my blurry memory serves, may actually be someone who talked on Lookout Landing about being an employee of SafeCo Field. I have to wonder how this person’s employer would feel about them going all Looney Tunes on a blogger for an opinion and a very clearly stated unwillingness to commit an act of libel online?

I obviously cannot always make people understand where I’m coming from, or my relationship with the game, and this sort of thing is bound to happen. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long. But I absolutely won’t deal with it here. Today, I got suckered into trying to have a civil debate with someone who had no intention of having any sort of pleasant discussion and instead decided to attack me; I should have known better, and should have waited until I got home to deal with it, but every once in a while I slip, it’s human. However, this has made me realize that I need some guidelines for people who are not frequent fliers here (and I love all 5 of you) about what we will NOT be talking about, and I see that now places like USSM and Lookout Landing have these guidelines for a reason. I am not banning this reader, because I actually did attain something, in the form of a 19-page article on racist issues in the MLB – even when someone is trying their damnedest to be your enemy, you can still learn something from them.

But this is the last time we will be discussing it here**, and if there are any further comments made attempting to start serious discussion about such things, they will be deleted. Baseball is a game; its ups and downs are my escape from daily life, and when the real life issues of the world impose, I’m afraid I’m going to have to make like Carlos Silva and balk. My blog, my rules; new page will be up soon; I promise, they’ll be pretty easy rules to follow.

*All comments have been deleted, even mine.

**And it’s also not up for debate here or anywhere else.