What's My Name Fool? Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Introduction

  CHAPTER ONE - It All Starts With Lester Rodney

  CHAPTER TWO - Jackie Robinson and the Politics of Stealing Home

  Roots

  Turn the Other Cheek

  The Jackie Robinson Behind the Image

  “White Man’s Negro”?

  CHAPTER THREE - Rumble, Young Man, Rumble: Muhammad Ali and the 1960s

  Boxing

  “King of the World”

  Nation of Islam

  Vietnam

  Down Goes Ali

  CHAPTER FOUR - The 1968 Olympics Raise the Bar

  Lee Evans Keeps on Pushin’

  John Carlos Endures

  Grilling Big George

  I Wish My Brother George Was Here: The Evolutions of George Foreman

  CHAPTER FIVE - “We Really Just Hate to Lose”: Unions and Sports

  From Cowhide to Pigskin

  An Interview with Marvin Miller

  An Interview with David Meggyesy

  Jabbing Back: The Eddie Mustafa Muhammad Interview

  CHAPTER SIX - In the Shadow of Ali: Sports, War, and Resistance Today

  The Utterly Un-Lonesome Death of Pat Tillman

  Hold the Booyah: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East!

  Are We Ready for Some Football?

  Carlos Delgado Stands Up to War

  The Iraqi Soccer Team Kicks Back

  “D” Was Never So “Smooth”

  CHAPTER SEVEN - Gone with the Wind? Sports, Racism, and the Modern Athlete

  Barry Bonds vs. Boston

  Alabama’s Crimson Past

  Redskins: Time to Change the Name?

  The Results

  What’s the Matter With “Leon”?

  USA Basketball in Black and White!

  Rasheed Wallace: The Messenger and the Message

  Fight Night in the NBA

  Out of the Darkness: From Miners to Fab

  When Chickens Roost: Why Rush Was Flushed

  CHAPTER EIGHT - Taking Care of T-C-B: Sports, Sexism, and Gay Bashing

  …in Numbers Too Big to Ignore?

  “Mia Culpa”: The All-Too Quiet Retirement of Mia Hamm

  Harassment and Violence Against Women: The Case of Katie Hnida

  Homophobia: Navratilova’s Chromosomes Are Just Fine

  Track and Field, the Color Line, and “Racey” Lacey O’Neal

  The Legend of Billie Jean

  Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom

  Out at the Ballgame: Sports and the Gay Athlete

  An Off-Field Obituary: The Death of Reggie White

  CHAPTER NINE - Games That Bosses Play

  Olympic-Sized Horror in Greece

  Stadium Swindles

  Why Did Devin Fowlkes Have to Die?

  Maurice Clarett and the NCAA

  Maurice Clarett Gets ESPN-DED

  Steroids and the Glory of Competition

  Michael Jordan Inc.

  Why Can’t Kareem Coach?

  Don’t Let Them Break You, Barry!

  CHAPTER TEN - Stir of Echoes: A New Sporting Resistance?

  A Real Web Gem: Fans Push Spiderman Off Base

  Charles Barkley: The Round Mound of Sound

  Carl Eller Enters the Hall of Fame with Purpose

  Ricky Williams: No More Running

  The NBA’s Etan Thomas: “I Am Totally Against This War”

  Adonal Foyle: Rebounder for Reforms, Master of the Lefty Layup

  Toni Smith: Standing Tall

  Afterword: We Are the Greatest

  ALSO FROM HAYMARKET BOOKS

  ABOUT HAYMARKET BOOKS

  About Dave Zirin

  Copyright Page

  Praise for Dave Zirin andWhat’s My Name, Fool?

  Dave Zirin is an angry young man, and he’s not bashful about telling you why—no quarter asked, no holds barred. In his new book, What’s My Name, Fool?, he calls out the many inequities he sees on the level playing fields. It’s good to read such an impassioned critic taking sport to task in a manner we haven’t heard in some time.

  Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, National Public Radio’s

  Morning Edition, and HBO’s Real Sports

  The sports industry has long needed an alternative voice, someone to rage away at issues of money, race, and celebrity. Dave Zirin is that voice.

  Lester Munson, Sports Illustrated

  I am a baseball fan, and I love this book. It is so refreshing to have a spor tswriter who writes with such verve and intelligence, who also has a social conscience, and who refuses to keep those parts of his life separate. This is a rare contribution to social history, something I have been looking for, a sports history that understands how the issues of race and class are inextricable from the world of sports.

  Howard Zinn, third baseman, switch hitter, historian

  Out from the greed, myths, freeloading, cover-ups, censor-ships, and gouging of big time commercial sports comes the clear voice, honest pen, and vigilant eyes of David Zirin. Put this book down only to pray, eat, and sleep.

  Ralph Nader

  Dave Zirin is that rarest of commodities in spor tswriting: an original voice. His writing reveals the ever present but ignored bridge between sports and struggle. What’s My Name, Fool? will be loved by both athletes who hate politics and activists who hate sports. As for progressives who are closet sports fans, finally here is a book for you.

  Mary Ratcliff, editor, San Francisco Bay View

  Dave Zirin approaches sport and its integral role in society with a keen political eye. He is perceptive, forceful, and analytically on target. This guy throws strikes.

  Michael James, Athletes United for Peace

  In What’s My Name, Fool? Dave Zirin proves that he is the only spor tswriter working who can stand tall where athletes and ideas meet and deliver a knockout.

  Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Light Heavyweight champion

  and founder, J.A.B. boxing union

  Dave Zirin is one of the brightest, most audacious voices I can remember on the spor tswriting scene, and my memory goes back to the 1920s.

  Lester Rodney, Daily Worker sports editor 1936-58

  Dave Zirin has an amazing talent for covering the sports and politics beat. Ranging like a great shor tstop, he scoops up everything! He profiles the courageous and inspiring athletes who are standing up for peace and civil liberties in this repressive age. A must read!

  Matthew Rothschild, editor, The Progressive

  Dave Zirin’s inspiring account of sports nonconformists, from race rebels to antiwar athletes, is a halftime speech for radicals. This book is a left uppercut to the solar plexus of the sports-industrial complex.

  Andrew Hsiao, former sports editor, Village Voice

  Dave Zirin is that rare thing—a writer who combines a passion for sport, deep knowledge of its history, and a fearlessly radical critique of the role the rich and powerful play in it.

  Mike Marqusee, author, Redemption Song: Muhammad

  Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties

  At BlackSpor tsNetwork.com, we had been looking for writers who could deliver sharp and insightful stories that speak first and foremost to African American sports fans. Dave has continually delivered thought provoking ideas that offer a unique difference from the mainstream sports landscape. A rare talent indeed!

  David Cole, CEO and publisher, Black Sports Network

  Dave Zirin’s What’s My Name, Fool? is an absolute treasure. Agree or disagree (and I often disagree) you always walk away thinking about what you read—and how many sports colum- nists can you say that about?


  Bill McCaffrey, Inside Sports, Maryland Public Television

  Dave Zirin is America’s best spor tswriter.

  Lee Ballinger, Rock and Rap Confidential

  Dave Zirin has unique wit, vast sports knowledge, and delightful candor. It is refreshing to see someone who can cut through the fluff and get to the heart of any sports issue. You want sports with an edge? You picked the right book.

  Ed DeMayo, CEO, Basketball.com

  Zirin doesn’t get bogged down in heavy theorizing. He writes with compassion, humor, and a saber-like sharpness that deftly shreds owners and mainstream spor tswriters alike.

  Jeffrey St. Clair, co-editor, CounterPunch

  Dave Zirin is one of the few spor tswriters who is both original and real. Zirin goes beyond the front page and the overdone and instead delivers to his readers interesting stories with a unique perspective.

  Mario Scalise, Chicago Sports Review

  Dave Zirin shows us not only that sports can be a window through which we can examine the complex workings of race and class in this twisted, commercialized culture, but that it can also be a site of resistance. If I was a religious believer, I’d say that Dave Zirin is the second coming of Lester Rodney, but I’m not, and, besides, they’re both Jewish. But I have no doubt that Rodney’s spirit fills Zirin’s soul. Lucky us!

  Peter Rachleff, author, Hard-Pressed in the Heartland

  Zirin with a pen in his hands is as graceful and potent as Tiger with a golf club or Bonds with a bat. He hits hard, and he hits with meaning and purpose. In the train wreck that is contemporary sports commentary, Dave Zirin is the ambulance that arrives to clean up the mess.

  A. Lamont Germany, Producer & Host, SportsRap, WEAA

  88.9FM Baltimore, MD

  Sports in the U.S. today is big business, and no one exposes the powerful interests who use it for profit and propaganda better than Dave Zirin. He identifies with and gives voice to those athletes and players who have become symbols of resistance.

  Phil Gasper, contributor to International Socialist Review

  and CounterPunch

  Dave Zirin loves the essence of sports, but he hates the corporate stench. He explains both with a clear, concise, caring, and wise style that is well worth reading.

  Michael Albert, ZNet

  In the tradition of Lester Rodney and Ralph Wiley, Dave Zirin bridges the gap between social issues and pop culture with a smooth blend of radical passion and street smart prose. He’s the thinking man’s sports fan and the sports fan’s thinking man.

  Mickey Z., author, The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the

  Lies Behind War Propaganda

  With unusual flair and acuity Zirin trains his eye on the political dimensions of sport, beautifully illustrating its potential to transform culture. When it comes to the intersection of sports and politics, Dave Zirin is the wittiest and most engaging essayist writing today. This book belongs on the shelves of all sports-lovers who believe that athletes are people, too.

  Bryan Sacks, publisher, Breakaway Monthly

  Dave Zirin is the rare writer who treats athletes as citizens, not as spectacles. Worldly but not cynical, political but not preachy, never sentimental and frequently hilarious, Zirin’s columns show a side of sports that the owners and the marketing execs do not want you to see.

  Chris Toensing, editor, Middle East Report

  When it comes to the politics of sports, I’d read this book first. With passion, insight, and incredible humor, he cheers ath- letes struggling to make sports democratic and fair, and makes clear which owners and institutions need to be benched.

  Clay Steinman, professor, Media and Cultural Studies,

  Macalester College

  To Michele:

  Through upturns and downturns, you are my heart.

  Acknowledgements

  What’s My Name, Fool? could not have been completed without the creative, emotional, and financial support of the following people. First and foremost, thanks to the good people at Haymarket Books: Anthony Arnove, Julie Fain, and Ahmed Shawki, for believing that a book on sports was worth their time and energy.

  Eternal gratitude to Elizabeth Terzakis—editor extraordinaire—who had the task of ironing out every disturbed, nonsensical metaphor and disciplining me to limit the erotic references to Dick Cheney. Any sentence herein with a modicum of grace is the result of her efforts. Anything crude, offensive, or nauseating is present over her objections (or behind her back).

  Thanks to Dao Tran, Eric Ruder, David Whitehouse, Paul D’Amato, and Virginia Harabin for their invaluable help in the production of this book.

  Thanks to Michael Ceraolo for checking on the fact checkers.

  Thanks to my mentor and friend, Dave Meggyesy, for his support and guidance.

  Thanks to Mike Marqusee for writing Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties.

  Thanks are due as well to Annie Zirin, Jason Yanowitz, and Michele Bollinger for enduring some of the early drafts.

  Thanks to my parents, Jane Zirin and Jim Zirin, for their ceaseless support.

  Special mention to everyone who has ever kept sports fun: Arya Shirazi, Damian Smith, Lute Breuer, Ed “Pop” Bollinger, John Coursey, the “Care Bears,” Dave Ashton and Nico Berry, “The Don” Rob Scavone, and Keeanga Taylor.

  Finally, endless thanks to Nick Chin, my former co-editor and comrade at the Prince George’s Post.

  And last but never least, to Sasha Jane Truth Zirin, my miracle baby. Thank you for putting a smile on my face that may require surgery to remove. Anyone who doesn’t like this book has made my baby cr y. Just consider that, when you start reading. ◆

  Foreword by David Meggyesy

  Dave Zirin is one of our most talented and progressive young spor tswriters. Zirin understands better than any other spor tswriter I know the connection between the world of sport and the larger political and social matrix of our culture as we roll into the twenty-first century. His writing reminds me of Bob Lipsyte, former sports columnist of the New York Times.

  Zirin is an avowed progressive, a lover of sport, and a talented and committed journalist. He traces his historical sports writing roots to Lester Rodney, former sports editor of the Communist Party’s Daily Worker. Few people know Lester Rodney’s columns in the Daily Worker generated necessary public awareness about the racist nature of Major League Baseball in its exclusion of African-American baseball players. There is little doubt that Rodney’s campaign paved the way for Jackie Robinson’s entry into the Major League. Parenthetically, the Boston Red Sox eighty-seven-year curse had less to do with Babe Ruth and more to do with a racist franchise that refused to employ African-American baseball players until 1959—Willie Mays for example. During Rodney’s time—and to some degree this continues today—baseball journalists were nothing more than public relations flacks for their respective teams andDavid Meggysey is a former NFL linebacker and the author of Out of Their League.

  Major League Baseball itself. Zirin, like Rodney in the 1940s, breaks the mold and consciously connects the dots between sport and the larger issues of class, race, gender, money, and politics from a progressive perspective.

  Sport and society walk hand in hand through our lives and the historical time in which we live. In the late 1960s, the Athletic Revolution (so named by the late Jack Scott), Harry Edward’s Olympic Project for Human Rights, and the late Leonard Schecter’s writings in the now-defunct Look magazine began to critically examine the role of sport in society and the values embedded and expressed in sport. Along parallel lines, the athletes—myself in football, Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Olympic track and field, Muhammad Ali in boxing, and Billie Jean King in women’s tennis—not only made the critique, but brought it home to our respective sports.

  For myself, it was becoming involved with the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, petitioning my Cardinals teammates to protest the war, being benched for my “political activities,” quitting the Cardinals, and writing Out of T
heir League. When Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists on the victory stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, they were protesting racism and African-American poverty. Billie Jean King became a giant protesting the exclusion and second-class citizenship of female athletes and founded the Women’s Sports Foundation.

  In the 1960s, when I was becoming, as we used to say back then, “radicalized” and “unchaining my brain,” I was playing football for the St. Louis Cardinals and attending Washington University’s sociology graduate school during the off-season. The connection between my insular world of professional football and the larger political world was becoming evident. It was not a pretty picture. When the NFL would not honor the assassination of President John Kennedy by canceling the following weekend’s games, NFL owners’ greed trumped moral considerations of respect and tragedy. In the middle and late 1960s, the NFL’s support of the Vietnam War, with its jingoistic pro-military Super Bowl halftime shows, disregarded half the country’s opposition to the war. The NFL was in the “selling the war” business.

  I was also becoming aware of the issues of racism and professional athletes’ “economic slavery” on the St. Louis Cardinals. On the Cardinals and other NFL teams, African-American football players were “stacked” in certain positions—running back, cornerback—and denied access to others—quar terback and linebacker. NFL teams had virtually perpetual rights to players’ services. Free agency, the right to seek other employment upon contract expiration, did not exist. They had you for life, we used to say.