Mariners, Please Take Out The Trash: The End Of Steve Clevenger

If you had forgotten, the Mariners, Steve Clevenger is a racist. Less than two weeks ago, Clevenger publicly tweeted that the protestors which had taken to the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina to speak out against excessive police violence after the murder of Keith Scott should be, “locked up behind bars like animals” and he called the Black Lives Matter movement and President Obama, “pathetic”.

The lastest (yet, not shocking) revelations of the Mariners, Steve Clevenger’s racially insensitive comments don’t bode well for the back-up catcher. His former team, Adam Jones distanced himself as far as he could from the former Baltimore Oriole. Jones was quoted in USA today as saying:

“I know him personally. I’ve never seen him say this. It’s not going to change anything about me or how I feel,” Jones said. “I don’t think we ever were friends. We were teammates, acquaintances. That’s what 99 percent of people you come across (are.) I played with a lot of people. To say I’m friends with most people I played with, that’s not true.”

Jones’s comments are of particular interest because, a couple weeks before this incident, he called baseball, “a white man’s sports”.

Unfortunately, the Mariners organization’s pathetic reaction to Clevenger’s unbelievably offense tweets, reaffirms Jone’s statement. After all, over half of the league is white, so they are needed in order to keep this game afloat.

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As for Clevenger though, we have not heard from him since he “apologized,” not for saying what he said, but for offending people for saying it.

With the season over, his loss of only $30,000 or so dollars and two weeks of games- remember, Clevenger is on the DL anyway- the Mariners initial suspension is up. Now, the organization must make an important decision on what to do with Clevenger, understanding that the league is watching.

It doesn’t help Clevenger’s case as an activist looking to better all communities when there is no evidence on the surface during his stints in Baltimore or Chicago- two of the most contentious communities for African-Americans and police- that Clevenger has done anything to help mend the relationship between these groups.

It’s one thing for a person who is not living in these communities to not feel responsible for mending these relationships. But, for someone who has spent most of his life in cities where he has surly seen the trials and tribulations of African-Americans in the inner cities, it is shocking that he would not try and make a difference, especially after becoming a professional baseball player with influence.

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His lack of effort to help change these relationships over the past several years speaks to how he truly feels. With all the evidence against Clevenger, it’s hard to see how he is not a racist. Hopefully, the Mariners see that this is a man that will never change and that he should not be rewarded for being so insensitive to his teammates, the organization, and the league.