Doug Gottlieb: “I hadn’t heard that Tim Anderson had called himself the ‘next Jackie Robinson’. I Googled ‘Tim Anderson’ and ‘Jackie Robinson’ and it turned out there was an article in 2019 where he says ‘I consider myself the new Jackie Robinson, and I’m going to bring fun and excitement back to the sport.’ If you called yourself the ‘new Jackie Robinson’ in 2019, and earlier this year you reiterated that you’re the new Jackie Robinson, and then someone else calls you ‘Jackie’, there is zero chance that I’m going to side with you. NONE. It’s never been used in a negative connotation, ever. No one in the history of earth has ever uttered the word ‘Jackie Robinson’ in a negative connotation in talking about baseball, or a baseball player. Here’s the other thing: who the hell is Tim Anderson? I’m more offended that he considers himself the ‘new Jackie Robinson’ and he actually says that, and wants to make Jackie Robinson’s career about ‘having fun.’ Jackie Robinson was a lot of things, but you know what he’s not known as? He was not a guy who brought ‘fun’ to the sport. I don’t know what I’m more offended by, the fact that I’m supposed to believe that a guy calls himself something, calls himself the same name this year, then someone else teases him with it, and suddenly that is racially derogatory, or the fact that he made himself synonymous with one of the ten most impactful players of all time, and completely mis-associated what that guy is known for and what he should be compared to.”
Dan Beyer: “This has obviously now transcended the playing field. The ability to just be like ‘you know what, my bad’, that’s the point of where we need to be at. ‘Hey Tim, sorry.’
Gottlieb: “But why is it ‘his bad?’ It’s not. He didn’t say anything wrong. What is Josh Donaldson really apologizing for? How is calling someone – who calls himself the ‘new Jackie Robinson’ – ‘Jackie’, how is that so offensive that it goes up to the level of needing to apologize? What is offensive about something he called himself and something that is not generally seen as an offensive term? Sometimes you just apologize and move on, but it’s really, really, really hard to shed any sort of racist logo. By apologizing you're admitting that it can be taken as having some sort of racial [connotation]. You’ll get people now who will forever label him a ‘racist’ and that’s so unfair.” (Full Audio Above)
Listen to Doug Gottlieb explain why he doesn’t think Josh Donaldson should have apologized to Tim Anderson for his ‘Jackie’ [Robinson] comments, as the developing feud between the two All-Star players has become the biggest story in baseball.
Check out the segment above as Gottlieb and co-host Dan Beyer get into a heated debate on whether the remarks should be deemed offensive and ones that would warrant a suspension or even an apology.
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