Donaldson’s one-game suspension won’t fix deep issues
It was no decision at all, really, for Major League Baseball to suspend Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson for racist name-calling directed at Tim Anderson. For twice calling White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson “Jackie” and inspiring a pair of benches-clearing incidents between the clubs on Saturday.
The paper transaction came Monday, when MLB levied a one-game suspension, light punishment given the circumstances and context of league discipline.
The ramifications run far deeper, not only in the deep-seated racial conflict baked into the game but also the thinly veiled, coded language that frames so much societal discourse — a spectrum that ranges from bullying to virulent racism.
The Donaldson affair uncovered two of the more painful retorts that emerge following pushback against racism, discrimination and sexual violence — that hurtful speech was merely a “joke” and that the instigator was sorry only if the recipient was offended.
For the uninitiated, Donaldson and Anderson got sideways with one another during a recent fourgame series at Chicago, when Donaldson’s aggressive tag on Anderson knocked him off third base during a pickoff attempt. Anderson took exception as teammates, almost disinterestedly, vaulted out of the dugout and jogged in from the bullpen while order was quickly restored.
The vagaries of the schedule, though, placed them together again a week later at Yankee Stadium, when Donaldson twice baited Anderson with greetings of “Jackie,” an allusion to Anderson likening his desire to diversify the game with Robinson’s breaking of its colour barrier.
The context-free quote involved is far more widely circulated than the lengthy profile that accompanied it, and according to Donaldson he’d freely joked with Anderson about the shortstop’s aspirational comparison in subsequent years.
This is where the affair leans into personal recounting and interpretations, a process partially clouded by the fact Donaldson is baseball’s reigning agent provocateur, a slugger lauded for playing with an edge and often revels in teetering over it.
Donaldson, for sure, is an equalopportunity beefer, be it a batchucking incident starring Manny Machado, a “sticky-stuff” shouting match with White Sox ace Lucas Giolito or a screaming match with John Gibbons, his Toronto manager.
Yet a racially insensitive comment is not gamesmanship like a hard tag, or a heel turn by a spikes-high villain in a baseball movie. And there should have been little ambiguity after the aggressive tag in Chicago: Whatever the Donaldson-Anderson history, the upcoming series would not be the time for “jokes.” Nor would it be a time to poke the bear, to stir up and incite and, quite possibly, get into the opponent’s head.
Not by dropping a “Jackie.” Michael Hill, MLB’s executive vice-president of on-field operations, said that “regardless of Mr. Donaldson’s intent, the comment he directed toward Mr. Anderson was disrespectful and in poor judgment, particularly when viewed in the context of their prior interactions. In addition, Mr. Donaldson’s remark was a contributing factor in a bench-clearing incident between the teams, and warrants discipline.”
Donaldson, who was placed on the COVID-19 injured list by the Yankees, is appealing the suspension.
Perhaps that’s just a procedural manoeuvre to enable him to serve the punishment at an opportune time for his team. Regardless, if equating a person of colour with a noted figure sharing their lineage doesn’t strike someone as racist, a remedial course in human relations is necessary.