Previously on this blog I wrote about focusing exclusively on the positive aspects of baseball. I need to take a quick break from to briefly comment on the most recent column from every Brewer fan's favorite sportswriter, Jeff Passan:
The greatness of Miguel Cabrera will get its due. In five years, or 10, or 25, or 100, when we’ve rid our minds of the telenovela that is Alex Rodriguez’s life and forgotten that Ryan Braun, who wasn’t even raised Jewish, used anti-Semitic charges to smear an innocent man, Cabrera's amazing 2013 season will be appreciated for what it is, which is potentially one of the best hitting seasons ever.
White it's true Ryan Braun does not identify himself as Jewish, (as his mother stated in 2007) Passan is horribly off base in deciding the conditions of ethnicity. The implication that Braun is not Jewish because he was not raised Jewish is not a particularly accurate thought process, and I'm not sure why he or his editor thought it worth the risk to offend readers to take a potshot at Braun. After all, how you identify yourself is, you know, kind of a personal thing. To set forth such criteria as basis for gratuitously expressing your indignation at Braun is just stupid, regardless of how deserving of scorn you think he is.
This also illustrates how the self-righteous, vitriolic rhetoric of some sportswriters following the Biogenesis scandal have made their work unreadable. If Passan, like me, took 30 seconds to research Braun's heritage he would have written something less inflammatory, such as "Ryan Braun, who doesn't even consider himself Jewish." Better yet, he could have written nothing and simply referenced his recently discredited allegations. But why should somebody concerned with Miguel Cabrera's 2013 season being overshadowed do that?
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