Page 2 article on Jenks

[Wedge]

Isn't Alan Grant the same guy who called Ricky Williams a "breathe of fresh air" and wrote about 20 articles calling Notre Dame racist for firing Ty Willingham?

 

You are correct, sir.

[tonyho7476]

Bobby should just say 'I'm not racist, I hate everyone'

 

Seriously, if a person did have these views, but kept it to themselves, then who cares. As long as he doesn't come out and call Kenny GM a n####r...who cares?

[Goldmember]

topic purged and reopened. this time, leave out the slurs and bickering...

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52229

[WCSox]

I'd love to see Bobby and his ethnically-diverse teammates kick the crap out of Grant for this.

[Steff]

topic purged and reopened. this time, leave out the slurs and bickering...

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52229

 

 

 

How about putting my points back.

 

I'd love to see Bobby and his ethnically-diverse teammates kick the crap out of Grant for this.

 

 

For what...? For asking some questions based on rumors that came from Bobby's own actions...??

[Steff]

Someone want to answer me?

 

 

Previous to, and in the middle of all the bulls***, there were several good points made and I think they should be put back.

 

And why is there a link to the zero tolerance thread? If someone breaks the zero tolerance rule they wouldn't be here to read it... right?

[RibbieRubarb]

I agree...

Weird.

[Steff]

I agree...

Weird.

 

 

 

I got an answer. I suspect you already know what it is... <_>

[longshot7]

Well, I heard somewhere that Jonathan Papelbon eats newborn flesh.

 

what's wrong with that?

[chitownsportsfan]

Typical. If a white person is a victim of discriminitory remarks, he's supposed to let it go. If it's a black or as we have recently seen, a homosexual, then the whole damn world wants to decapitate whoever said the remarks.

 

It's about context YASNY. Sure, a black guy can say, "well that Bobby Jenks he's white trash". But that comment does not have roughly 800 years of slavery and oppression behind it. Bobby's in the historical elite race (and gender no less), no ignorant comment from a minority is going to change the hisorical and largery still intact socio and political stratification of the western world into white and "other".

 

If Bobby comes out and calls a black man "a monkey" than that comment is a symbol of oppression. Not only a symbol, but a literal effect.

 

It might not be fair, but when a historically oppressed group makes a prejudiced remark, it just doesn't carry the same weight as if an Anglo-Saxon made it.

 

I'm fine with that.

Edited July 13, 2006 by chitownsportsfan

[mr_genius]

Because in our country's relatively short history white people haven't been discriminated against

 

 

Maybe the irish have, but they deserved it

[Rowand44]

It might not be fair, but when a historically oppressed group makes a prejudiced remark, it just doesn't carry the same weight as if an Anglo-Saxon made it.

 

I'm fine with that.

Which is completely dumb considering none of us had anything to do with them being oppressed. Whatever, part of this thread should probably be moved to the fillibuster if we're going to keep this discussion going.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Rowand44

[South Side Fireworks Man]

Typical. If a white person is a victim of discriminitory remarks, he's supposed to let it go. If it's a black or as we have recently seen, a homosexual, then the whole damn world wants to decapitate whoever said the remarks.

 

So true.

[Queen Prawn]

Maybe the irish have, but they deserved it

 

 

Excuse you?!

[hammerhead johnson]

TO THE FILIBUSTA.

[Queen Prawn]

Is that anything like, "TO THE BAT CAVE!" lol j/k

[South Side Fireworks Man]

... A black man or a homosexual walking in an unfamiliar neighborhood hear those words and they immidiately fear for there safety...

And how safe would a white person feel walking in a black neighborhood and hearing words like, "hey cracker" or "redneck" or "white trash", etc.?

 

Any word that lumps a group of people together and has negative stereotypical connotations, ie hillbilly = ignorance, is discriminitory. One discriminitory term should not be more acceptable than another.

Thank you.

Edited July 13, 2006 by South Side Fireworks Man

[Pants Rowland]

And how safe would a white person feel walking in a black neighborhood and hearing words like, "hey cracker" or "redneck" or "white trash", etc.?

 

I actually bike to work from Oak Park to the West Loop everyday. The ride in is usually quiet but the ride home down Washington can get a little tense from Laramie until Austin. I am too highbrow to be white trash but "white boy" is sometimes a term of endearment that I hear. Not a really comfortable situation but I would not put it on par with the organized, institutional racism that became entrenched in our society since the slave trade was revived in the 1500s.

[southsideirish71]

Maybe the irish have, but they deserved it

 

What good are the Irish anyways. Thats why god invented Guinness, to make sure that the irish would never rule the world.

[Pants Rowland]

It's about context YASNY. Sure, a black guy can say, "well that Bobby Jenks he's white trash". But that comment does not have roughly 800 years of slavery and oppression behind it.

 

800 years? If I am not mistaken, the Moors of northern African were dominating a good chunk of the Iberian Peninsula in 1200 AD and Europe was still in the dark ages. This was well before the Age of Discoveries which preceded the colonization of Africa and the ensuing slave trade. Sorry to be nitpicky, but I think 400-500 years is plenty of time without having to exaggerate the years of oppression.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Beltin'Bill

[WCSox]

For what...? For asking some questions based on rumors that came from Bobby's own actions...??

 

And which of these "actions" contributed to the rumors of Bobby being a white supremacist? The fact that he lived in rural Idaho, drove a pickup truck, and listened to the Charlie Daniels Band? Or the fact that somebody heard him use a racial slur? Because if he did use the term "dirty Jew", he MUST be a white supremacist! :rolly

 

I love this quote....

 

AG: Yeah, I always know when I'm talking to a racist. There's a feeling I get at the base of my spine. It's when the white person you're talking to does his or her best to mask the translucent vapors of condescension swirling about their heads.

 

In my experience, racists can be identified by the way that they use the race card to tear down those that they don't like.

Edited July 13, 2006 by WCSox

[South Side Fireworks Man]

And which of these "actions" contributed to the rumors of Bobby being a white supremacist? The fact that he lived in rural Idaho, drove a pickup truck, and listened to the Charlie Daniels Band? Or the fact that somebody heard him use a racial slur? Because if he did use the term "dirty Jew", he MUST be a white supremacist! :rolly

Don't these things set off your "white supremacist radar"???

 

 

In my experience, racists can be identified by the way that they use the race card to tear down those that they don't like.

 

Right on.

Edited July 13, 2006 by South Side Fireworks Man

[gojimthome]

For your reading pleasure...

 

Loaded Gun: Great arm, but Jenks no angel

By By Tom Friend

 

 

This article appeared in the June 9, 2003 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

 

The best arm in the minor leagues -- that'll be the curse of him. What you have here, when it comes right down to it, is a boy who can throw heat ass and do little else. A boy who won't stop drinking, won't stop cussing and won't pay his own bills. What you have here is a 10th-grade education and a 100 mph fastball and a major league organization blinded by the light. It can't end well.

 

The speed gun shall set you free, or at least get you drafted out of the wilderness, and that's why Bobby Jenks stands before you today in a baseball uniform. His handshake will break your hamate bone, his slacks need to be let out at the calves and when scouts are asked to compare him to somebody, they say Curt Schilling or Paul Bunyan.

 

Oh, and they say Sidd Finch, too. Bobby Jenks' story reeks of prize-winning fiction, except it turned very real a couple years back when he got into the self-mutilation. In a drunken stupor one night, he took a lighter and burned the backside of his pitching hand, opening a wound the size of a silver dollar. He then torched his left hand and the underside of both forearms -- before passing out -- and when he showed the gore to his agent's girlfriend a few days later, she went upstairs to cry.

 

He told his employers, the wishful-thinking Anaheim Angels, that he'd fried himself lifting the engine out of his car. They bought it, just like they bought it the first time they laid eyes on the 12-to-6 break of his curveball. These Angels ended up taking him in the fifth round of the 2000 amateur draft, even though his GPA as a high school senior was nil. They took him even though he'd been an absolute nobody eight weeks prior, and even though he gripped the baseball like a freak.

 

They took him even though the gossip scared them to death. They took him even though scouts were saying that Bobby Jenks was a heavy drinker (true), that he was in special ed (true), that he was a white supremacist (not true), that he'd grown up in a rundown Idaho log cabin (true) and that his penis was pierced (apparently not true).

 

They took him even though he took a lighter to himself, and that's why some baseball people believe 22-year-old Bobby Jenks, a can't-miss Double-A pitcher, might miss after all.

 

"From the neck down, he's a major leaguer," says a part-time scout for the Phillies, Dave Ryles.

 

From the neck up?

 

"Maybe a Little Leaguer," says Ryles.

 

Which brings us to the obvious question: If this is the best arm in the minor leagues, why did he set it on fire?

 

***

 

His ex-agent says Bobby Jenks used to call him D.J., short for Dirty Jew.

 

The agent says Bobby would say it casually on phone messages -- "Call me back, D.J." -- and while Bobby denies it, it's a window into the mystery of a backwoods pitcher.

 

He was raised by a tormented father and a restless mother, and if this won't explain the baggage of Bobby Jenks, nothing will. The father's name is Robert (Big Rob to his pals), and when Big Rob was in the 11th grade, his widowed mother ran off to Vegas to marry one of his 22-year-old buddies. "I needed out," Big Rob says. So he joined the army and, upon discharge, became a roofer in Sylmar, Calif. By that time, Big Rob and his girlfriend, Carla Stage, already had a son named Bobby, and even when she gave him two more sons, Big Rob still wouldn't marry her. "Maybe I'm just chicken," he says. But Big Rob didn't run, even though he could barely support them all on his 20 grand a year.

 

A former high school catcher, Big Rob tried turning his big-boned boys into pitchers. But while driving to the parks in Sylmar, Big Rob grew appalled by the number of blacks and Latinos on street corners. "You never knew if a gang of 20 Mexicans would jump you," Big Rob says, "but I don't want to get racial." About the time Bobby turned 13, Big Rob was looking for a change. A buddy offered him a roofing job in virtually all-white northwest Idaho, and Big Rob told the family to start packing. "I had to get the boys out," he says. "It was almost like we were minorities."

 

They settled in Spirit Lake (pop. 791), where there happened to be swastikas painted on signs 15 minutes up the road. At the time, the Aryan Nations compound was in the nearby woods of Hayden, and the Jenkses felt they were guilty by association -- like everyone else in town. On their way to ball games, the family couldn't help but drive by the guard tower and the signs that read, "Trespassers will be shot." And even though that tower isn't there anymore, Bobby's career has been shadowed by it.

 

"Sure, if you wanted to be a skinhead, they were right around the corner," says Big Rob. "They've got to be somewhere. But it wasn't our deal. Our deal was baseball."

 

But if Bobby wasn't in class, he couldn't play ball. A teacher at Lakeland High, Jana Hawn, found him to be learning disabled and placed him in special ed, which helped get him eligible for his 10th-grade season. But the stigma of special ed "just made things worse," according to Carla. Bobby refused tutoring, and Big Rob and Carla blew off their parent-teacher meetings with Hawn.

 

Their home was the talk of the baseball team. His teammates heard Bobby was living in the woods with no running water, and it wasn't far from the truth. The cabin Big Rob rented -- for $375 a month -- was 20'x30', built in 1948 and never modernized. "Looked like it was made of Lincoln Logs," says a neighbor, Joe Hawkins.

 

Inside, the linoleum floor was gashed, cabinets were rotting and the ceiling had soot from cigarette smoke. The only source of heat was a wood-burning furnace. Carla would periodically bolt for LA, "'cause the cabin had me miserable." Meantime, the constant snow meant Big Rob couldn't do any roofing seven months out of the year.

 

Liquor became his recreation, and both he and Carla were picked up on DUI charges. Carla tried to help the family by working as a checkout clerk at Miller's Food City for $6 an hour. But she couldn't keep the job. "She's the only lady I've ever had call in sick because she got hit in the head with a can of green beans," her former boss, Kevin Miller, says. "They'd been drinking and playing poker, when a friend's wife chucked a can of green beans at her. That family, they'd work hard every day, drink hard every night."

 

By his last two years of high school, Bobby had grown into a 6'3", 260-pound power pitcher, but nobody's eligible with a nonexistent GPA. "I could read -- I wasn't dumb by any means," Bobby says. "Just didn't feel like raising my hand in class." He dropped out, grew a beer gut, got into fistfights with Big Rob and began striking out 15 batters a night in American Legion ball.

 

Still hadn't seen a speed gun in his life.

 

***

 

What you have here is a complete accident. One coach calls another coach, who calls another coach who's looking for Connie Mack League pitchers. Next thing you know, Bobby Jenks has a ticket back to civilization.

 

The Connie Mack coach we're talking about, Mark Potoshnik, invited Bobby to Seattle for a look-see, and when he saw Jenks' tailing fastball, he said, "That's serious heat ass.''

 

A light went on in Potoshnik's head: Get this big bear drafted. All he had to do was enroll him in a Seattle school and invite 30 teams to a workout. So, eight weeks before the draft, everyone from the Mets to the Marlins showed up at Potoshnik's Northwest Baseball Academy. Out walked Bobby Jenks, staring down the barrel of 20 speed guns.

 

"We crowded behind home plate, and his first pitch sails six feet over the catcher's head," says Ryles, the Phillies scout. "It almost hit the Mets scout in the face, and the Mets guy stumbled over a couple bats and everybody laughed. And poor Bobby thought they were laughing at him. He was almost in tears." Says Bobby: "I was like, 'Crap. I almost killed a guy.' "

 

Fortunately, the next two pitches were straight -- and 96 mph.

 

"They were almost pushing each other out of the way to talk to me," Bobby says. The Angels and Phillies were two of the teams that decided to take a closer look. Ryles and his boss, Bill Harper, visited the cabin, but left depressed.

 

"Well," says Ryles, "we had Bobby fill out a questionnaire and it looked like third-grade scribble. Words like 'coach' were misspelled, and his phone number was backwards. We couldn't read it. We saw this word, 'scrow,' and said, 'What is this?' and he said, 'My grade-point scrow.' My little sister, when she was in third and fourth grades, wrote better than he did. You felt sorry for the kid."

 

The Phillies pretty much ruled Bobby out that day -- figuring he was too immature to handle pro ball. But Matt Sosnick, a San Francisco-based agent, was there for damage control. Sosnick was the only agent to have recruited Bobby at the cabin. Well aware of the nearby Aryan Nations compound, Sosnick blurted out then that he was a Jew. "Doesn't bother me," Bobby said, and hired Sosnick on the spot.

 

Turned out, Angels scouting director Donny Rowland wanted to pick Bobby in the first two rounds. "Had he gone to high school, he might have been the first pick," Angels scout Jack Uhey says. But Uhey knew teams were afraid of the gossip and assured Rowland he could have Bobby in Round 5.

 

Bobby spent draft day with Sosnick in San Francisco, and when he heard his name called by the Angels, he broke down. "My chance to start over," he sobbed. Back home, Big Rob was behind on rent and on the verge of splitting up with Carla. But Bobby was done with that drama now. When the Angels offered him a bonus of 175 large, he wouldn't even let Sosnick negotiate. "They could've had me for free," Bobby says.

 

He signed the contract at his favorite restaurant: Hooters.

 

***

 

Only a couple of dozen pitchers on earth can hit triple-digits. They include Randy Johnson, Billy Wagner, Armando Benitez. And Bobby (Nuke) Jenks.

 

He was nicknamed after Bull Durham's scatter-armed Nuke LaLoosh at rookie ball in Butte, Mont., where he admits he "couldn't hit the barn in front of me.'' One night, he threw 95 pitches in three innings. But the Angels tolerated it because he had the strongest hands they'd ever seen. They took one look at his self-taught curveball grip (he doesn't touch the seams) and were amazed by the spin. "His curveball might be better than his fastball," Angels GM Bill Stoneman says.

 

The mantra soon became best arm in the minor leagues -- although this was before anyone had seen him with a beer buzz. Several teammates recall an incident in 2000, in which a bartender refused to serve an inebriated Bobby any more alcohol. They say Bobby's response was to throw a shot glass through the bar window, although he says someone else threw it.

 

At instructional league in the fall, Bobby was drunk in the hotel pool. He hurled a basketball at a teammate, and it skipped up and nearly hit a coach's baby. The Angels sent him home. That was the winter Bobby burned his pitching arm. Even though he regrets it -- " 'Cause of one dumbass night, I got scars the rest of my life," he says -- it was a warning sign. "I don't know if Bobby can go out and have an occasional drink without wanting to have four or five," says Big Rob.

 

The Angels weren't giving up. By the end of 2001, Bobby was promoted from Class-A Cedar Rapids to Double-A Arkansas, where he didn't throw a fastball under 95 in a playoff win against Round Rock, including a four-pitch sequence of 100, 100, 101, 99.

 

The Angels credited his progress to Bobby's shotgun marriage that year. In February 2001, he'd met Adele Romkee at a Seattle hamburger joint, and four months later they were pregnant and married, in that order. Bobby had done what his father wouldn't do -- commit. Adele was bright, two years older, middle-class and willing to take care of him. "Bobby's kind of like having another kid," Adele says.

 

He'd earlier had his Ford F150 repossessed, but now he had Adele to pay the bills. And because of their baby daughter, Cuma, Bobby had a reason to stop carousing. Rowland, the Angel exec, thanked Adele profusely that summer.

 

"Bobby comes off harder than he really is," Adele says. "He painted our baby's room, put the crib together. If you're on Bobby's good side, he'll do what he can for you."

 

But in 2002, in Arkansas, the bad side returned. Bobby kept bringing beer onto the team bus, against club policy. In June, manager Doug Sisson finally suspended him and two teammates. Bobby's response to Sisson was, "This is fin' bulls. We're fin' men." Their argument moved from Sisson's office into the clubhouse, where Bobby admits, "We were close to coming to blows."

 

The Angels sent him back to A-ball and offered counseling (which Bobby refused). Bobby reacted by firing Sosnick and hiring power-broker agent Scott Boras. Bobby told Sosnick that Boras never would've let the Angels demote him; Sosnick claims four Angels executives called to tell him he was better off without the kid.

 

"Imagine being in the top five in the world at what you do, and your demons are so terrible that your ability is dwarfed," Sosnick says. "That's Bobby Jenks. The worst thing that could happen is if he gets to the big leagues. If he gets to the big leagues, he'll free-fall. He can't handle success."

 

Jenks' response to Sosnick is, "Enjoy the view when I get there." The Angels expect Bobby there as well. "To my knowledge, he's not been involved in anything illegal," Stoneman says. "We've got a young guy who's done some immature things. But nothing to the point that I would say it's time to throw in the towel."

 

What you have here, remember, is a pitcher who still childishly stares down umpires. A pitcher who's been 30 pounds overweight every spring, who whispers "fastball away" to hitters he's facing, who cusses opponents for trying to bunt. What you have here is a pitcher who's about to name his first son Nolan. A pitcher who dominated last year's Arizona Fall League with a 1.08 ERA, but has a career ERA in the 4's. A pitcher who's walked 19 hitters in 23 innings while striking out 27 at Double-A this season. And a pitcher who offends teammates out in public. According to Arkansas catcher Ryan Budde, Bobby drank 15 to 20 beers at a charity golf outing in April (Bobby says it was more like three or four), then began hurling his clubs down the fairway after bad shots and shouting at teammates teeing off. Says Budde, "I hate to say it, but he needs to grow up a little more. When it's his turn to pitch, and he hasn't been out boozing, he can be pretty good. But you never know what you're gonna get with Bobby."

 

What you have here -- what you've always had with Bobby Jenks -- is a case of the arm wagging the dog. Except now the arm's hurt. Bobby Jenks is on the shelf for a month with a sore elbow, and he hasn't had this kind of pain in his arm since he took a lighter to it. He's lost sleep over this -- can it all go poof that fast? -- and he ought to be losing sleep.

 

Because Bobby Jenks without his arm is ... Big Rob.

 

Yes, ESPN hates the s*** out of Bobby Jenks. Yet another reason for us to hate the s*** out of ESPN.

[bmags]

is it just me or didn't the guy say he wasn't a racist in the article.? Still terribly written and a horrible pointless article. Like alan grant just got out of creative writing.

 

That would be a terrible idea... just let this stuff die...

 

sure he might make some money... but if there is any truth behind the rumors, you can bet your ass the muck rakers will find it.

 

Bottom line is Bobby is damn fine ball player, living in a very diverse city, playing in a very diverse club house, and his superiors are a Latino, an African American, and a Jew. Any racist views he may have had are obviously in his past... he should just continue to let his actions speak to his defense... and this crap will just die.

Hunter S. Thomson and Bill Simmons are the only writers I liked...

 

great post through and through tealeaf

 

RIP hunter!

[mr_genius]

wow, horrible article.

 

basically trashed the guy for having a learning disability (among other things).

 

yea, no way this kind of journalism would be tolerated/printed in ESPN magazine if bobby wasn't white.