Name-Calling Directed At Sox's Tim Anderson Is No Laughing Matter

CHICAGO — Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson may consider himself a modern-day Jackie Robinson, and has said as much in describing his desire to change a game that has become too boring for his liking.

But when it comes to others addressing him as such — and in the inappropriate manner that New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson did over the weekend — it crosses a line that can’t be ignored.

On Monday, Major League Baseball agreed and suspended Donaldson for one game and fined him an undisclosed amount of money for “inappropriate comments” in which Donaldson referred to Anderson as “Jackie”.

Sox manager Tony La Russa characterized the comments as racist — an accusation firmly denied by Donaldson, who said his name-calling of Anderson was simply an inside joke. Yet no one, including Yankees manager Aaron Boone, found it remotely funny. Anderson’s teammates quickly and literally came to Anderson’s defense in a bench-clearing confrontation brought on by Donaldson’s comments that only fueled Anderson and the Sox the rest of the weekend and likely beyond.

Sox closer Liam Hendriks had a couple of choice words for his former Toronto teammate Donaldson and called “complete and utter” BS on Donaldson’s claims that he was simply playing off Anderson’s words in a 2019 interview with Sports Illustrated. He claims to have called Anderson "Jackie" before this past weekend, referring to an inside joke between the two ballplayers.

Baseball officials didn’t buy that explanation either on Monday. No matter Donaldson’s intent, “the comment he directed at Mr. Anderson was disrespectful and in poor judgment, particularly when viewed in context of their prior interactions,” Michael Hill, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of on-field operations, said in announcing the discipline.

Anderson has his own style of making the game enjoyable, and that doesn’t sit well with everyone. In the 2019 SI interview, Anderson said that like Robinson, he wanted to change the game to inject more fun into a game that, to many, has become stale and unwatchable.

Anderson admittedly considers the comparison to the barrier-breaking Robinson as being “hug,e” but added, “But it’s cool, man, because (Robinson) changed the game and I feel like I’m getting to a point where I need to change the game.”

While the one-game suspension and fine may seem minor (and Donaldson has appealed), baseball’s swift action sends a game-changing message that inappropriate comments that border on racism cannot and will not be tolerated — nor should they.

Anderson — who put an exclamation point on the Sox’s series victory over the American League’s best team in New York with a three-run home run Sunday night — is going to continue to ruffle feathers. Even as he circled the bases Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, he gestured to booing fans and held one finger over his mouth as he headed for home in a not-so-gentle reminder to Yankees fans that they could keep their feelings to themselves.

Anderson is going to play the game his way and has been punished for directing some not-so-kind words of his own to an opposing pitcher who didn’t take kindly to one of Anderson’s trademark bat flips after a home run. Anderson in the 2019 interview admitted to calling the pitcher — who is white — a “weak-a--- N-word," which drew Anderson a one-game suspension, making it seem baseball officials are going to hold everyone to the same standard no matter who they are.

While it’s clear that Anderson has his own definition of how baseball should be played in the modern day, holding his reference to baseball’s past against him won’t be tolerated. Baseball made that clear on Monday. And while Anderson has surely been called worse during his lifetime than the one-word descriptor Donaldson used over the weekend, he doesn’t deserve the disrespect that he got.

The lesson is one that Anderson has now been on both sides of in a game that now includes its share of one-upmanship and flamboyance. But baseball officials have made it clear that words (and names) matter and that no one is going to be allowed to disrespect other players in any way.

Inappropriate inside jokes or not.