Originally Posted by BishopMVP
(I do find it funny that I'm the one arguing less racism here since my original comment was was pointing out that Mike Cameron's race wouldn't help him amongst the vocal portion of the fanbase, but...)
For the record, in my experience the age thing and where someone grew up is more important than the town rich older people have moved to. Concord is clearly a racist town (against black and hispanic people) on some level, albeit improving, especially given that a certain part of the growth in the 70's/80's between the 95/495 belts was in reaction to school busing - when I was in a 1200 person HS (99-03) I could count the non-METCO black kids on my hands. But A) very few people I knew in HS or from college have ever said or meant anything racist (while I have seen it numerous times at bars or parties by idiots my age from a Revere or Plymouth or Billerica) and B) on the specific point I've just never seen it in my town (or the neighboring ones) against people of Asian descent, who are actually over-represented (while I have seen it numerous times by older bigots from Concord or other rich "white" towns against black and/or hispanic people, and even jewish ones). Or heard about it from any of my asian friends, while I have heard stories from black, hispanic and jewish ones, although hey, YMMV and all that. Self-segregation in housing and the social scene definitely occurs, but it's hard for me to classify that as racism as I've been to predominantly asian, black, hispanic and jewish events and not felt uncomfortable.
It'd also be intriguing to break down the Wes Welker/Randy Moss (or Manny/Jason Bay, which would belie miked's point, or Bonds/other alleged sterois users nationally) dynamic and see how much race has to do with it vs. "high-paid star"/"scrappy underdog" or "answers questions"/"is a dick, particularly to the media", but I have no desire to listen to any idiot who thinks Randy Moss is a worse player for the Patriots than Wes Welker when a large part of Welker getting open is because Moss is double-teamed every play, and lastly let's not pretend the scrappy white underdog is a Boston invention (see: WS MVP David Eckstein, etc). (Also FTR DT, as much as Southie is the go to stereotype, it's actually gentrifying really quickly - just as poor/blue collar white people were pushed out of the North End - between Asians spreading out from the South End and yuppies who want an easy T ride to downtown without the exorbitant costs of the city itself/Cambridge/the outer green line.)
Oh well, let's focus on what's important here - the Yankees just added an SP who averaged 200+ IP and 200 K's a year for the last decade (who will be Type A after the year) for a 4th outfielder and a (very good) single-A pitcher. Plus it probably opens up LF in NYY for Holliday if they want that, and some speculate the $8m in savings for ATL will be used to sign Jason Bay, bumping our compensation for Wagner down to the 2nd round (although we don't lose the Braves 1st-rounder). Let's hope Vasquez regresses hard on ERA - 4 of his last 6 years were 4.42+ - and he did have his worst season in 11 years when pitching for the Yankees previously, but there's very little to like here from a 2010 Red Sox (or Rays/any other AL contender) perspective.
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