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Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Is Chase Utley really black?
I have this bias when it comes to the media: I believe the media has a bias where overachievers (the hustle guys) are disproportionately white, and underachievers (the lazy guys) are disproportionately not white. They are effusive in their praise of the hustling white guy (over credit him) and condescending of the lazy black player (overly discredits him).
Chase Utley would seem to be the ideal hustling white guy, a player even better than what he is. The guy IS a superstar, one of the best players in MLB. Add in his white skin, and the guy should be thought of as the best player in baseball ("the great white hope"… how utterly ridiculous that phrase sounds in an age of race-enlightenment). As Erik points out:
In the past five years (including this season), Utley has been worth 37.5 wins above replacement, 2nd only to Albert Pujols, who has 39.5. That’s just freakishly impressive, and yet Utley has never finished above 7th in the MVP voting in his career.
The recipe for his overachieveness was there when the non-white (and hustling!) Placido Polanco was pushed out to make way for Chase Utley. And yet, the media bias didn’t happen. The black Jimmy Rollins and the black Ryan Howard get the lion’s share of the fame from the media.
Maybe I’ve been wrong about my bias regarding the media bias. Maybe it’s not skin-related. Maybe the media simply has no idea how valuable Chase Utley is, and how Ryan Howard is not, because they have a bias even stronger than skin color.
As I noted elsewhere, if I take the opposite position in my hypothesis, and I sound just as “right” in my conclusion, then I’m guilty of being a gasbag. If the media really is skin-biased, then how to explain the non-exposure of Chase Utley?
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