from Amazon
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Fastest white guy?
Ozzie Guillen believes it’s Peter Bourjos. Others might think it’s Brett Gardner. The first white guy to break 10 seconds is Marian Woronin of Poland in 1984. The two other white guys to break 10 seconds are Patrick Johnson (Australia) in 2003 and Christophe Lemaitre of France last year and this year. Koji Ito of Japan hit 10 seconds on the dot (though, the dot would be 2 or 3 decimal places).
The only good thing about pointing out that Bourjos is fast and white is that it shines a light on the accomplishments of others, and on the statistical oddity of it all. If that’s what it’s limited to, then I don’t have a problem with Ozzie’s declaration.
There was a time as recently as the 1980s where white boxers would be labelled “The Great White Hope”, which, today, seems outrageously racist and ridiculous to say, but back then, not many batted an eye.