If you're rich, you're a rich [n-word]," he said. "If you're poor, you're a poor [n-word]. If you're smart, you're a smart [n-word]. At the end of the day, they still look at me as a [n-word]."

That was the, um, highlight of Mayweather's press conference in advance of his bout with Juan Manuel Marquez in Vegas. Seems he's not too pleased with coverage of investigations into his role in a recent shooting, as well as multiple run-ins with the IRS. He says none of this would be an issue if he were white, and he uses Oscar De La Hoya as a totally illogical example.

This country needs to be more positive," he said. "We're already at war. We're in a recession, we're at war and we continue to be negative. The fans in the UK showed me more love than in my own country. That's crazy ... Sometimes I'll sit back, I'll be in my theater sometimes, and I'll think: 'Imagine if I was the same fighter that I am, and I was the same person that I am, and I was from another country. Can you just imagine how big I'd be?'

"But I wouldn't change my life for nothing in the world. There's nothing like being young, black and rich. But there are certain things you think about. If Floyd Mayweather was white, I'd be the biggest athlete in America. The biggest, the biggest. I know that for a fact."

That's funny, because the biggest athletes in America are Tiger Woods and LeBron James. And the last time a boxer was the biggest name in sports, it was Mike Tyson.

Not content offending the majority of potential PPV buyers, he turned to the team broadcasting the fight.

Larry Merchant don't know nothing about boxing," Mayweather said. "What's that other guy's name [at HBO]? [Emanuel Steward]. He's an Uncle Tom.

Silly Floyd, don't you know America moved past racism completely and forever on election day?

Mayweather Lashes Out At Perception [ESPN.com]

Reporter David Waldstein cites a Oakland-Toronto series in May 2001, during which Tejada and Blue Jays third baseman Tony Batista, a friend from the Dominican Republic, both hit well. Tejada went 4 for 10 with three home runs; Batista, 6 for 13, with a home run.

More significant in the eyes of some of the players was an incident in the second game of the series. Tejada did not get to an easy ground ball Batista hit off reliever Mark Guthrie with the Athletics leading, 8-2. When the inning was over, A's players fumed on the bench.

Tejada, now 35, said his teammates were skeptical because Batista dropped a foul pop-up he hit in the previous game.

Lacking any hard evidence, Waldstein places the accusations in the mouths of some of Tejada's former A's mates, whose suspicions were further aroused in July 2001 when Tejada "failed to catch what appeared to some as a soft line drive off the bat of Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Adrian Beltre," a teammate of Tejada's in the Dominican Winter League. By the middle of the month, some A's players had grown so wary of their shortstop that manager Art Howe was forced to shake himself from his seasonlong nap and convene a team meeting:

Not surprisingly, several people who attended the meeting, in the A's home clubhouse, described it as contentious and ugly. Frank Menechino, an A's infielder at the time, said the veteran Ron Gant took control at the first hint that it might turn nasty.

"I think Ron Gant calmed it down before it snowballed into anything big," said Menechino, now the hitting instructor for the Class AA Trenton Thunder. "Like: ‘Hey, man, we can't worry about what the other teams are doing in this league. But we can't pull the Dominican guys out of our team and suspect them of anything until we catch them.' He basically calmed everything down. Everything was fine after that. I seriously can't prove, say, yes or no, that guys were doing it. But who knows?"

[...]

Johnny Damon, who played for the Athletics then, absolved Tejada by saying observant opponents had been interpreting Tejada's inadvertent cues.

"Miggy was telling guys there was no way he would be doing it," Damon said. "I think what we concluded was that the hitters were seeing him move on certain pitches. That happens, you'll see a young player move closer to the hole on a fastball away, you'll see him creep a little toward the hole. I think that's what it all came down to, Miggy not being able to hide the extra steps. But it seemed like all the Dominican guys were killing us."

And with that last bit, the team meeting sounds less like an airing of well-founded suspicions than an exercise in a sort of clubhouse McCarthyism. There's a persistent and especially odious stereotype in baseball that suggests Latino players lack a certain loyalty to their teams, that they act as a sort of free-floating junta within the game. Many years ago, the former Giants skipper Alvin Dark famously questioned their "mental alertness," adding, "You can't make most Negro and Spanish players have the pride in their team that you can get from white players," and, "One of the biggest things is that you can't make them subordinate themselves to the best interest of the team." (This has a political corollary in the longstanding notion that minorities, and especially blacks, are insufficiently patriotic.) Nearly a half-century later, you find no less than Keith Hernandez accusing the Mets' Latino faction of conspiring to get Willie Randolph canned. There's a vast and fetid history of this, and it has never been more than a lot of racist hooey, and so forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of a Times story whose every paragraph rings with echoes of Alvin Dark.

Friendship or Betrayal From Inside the Lines? [New York Times]

Yeah, so it's not exactly Voltaire. If you don't care to watch the whole Mac-manipulated ouevre, Martellus Bennett and his brother (Seahawks DE) Michael Bennett engage in a series of slightly-very-racist eating contests. Round 1: Fried Chicken. Round 2: Kool Aid. Round 3: Watermelon…and so on and so forth.

Honestly it's really more uncomfortable than offensive. The problem isn't so much MartyB doesn't know how to handle touchy racial stereotypes as that he seems generally oblivious. (What can I say? The man likes his chicken.)

Anyway, should you want something slightly more deft to cleanse the palate:

And perhaps less relevant, but probably the funniest thing I have ever seen:

Video: Martellus Bennett Black Olympics Leave Bad Taste [You Been Blinded]

Martellus Bennett Invents Black Olympics - Yikes [Sports by Brooks]

Davis, who is black, made an ill-advised turn on pit road that caused Gaughan to slam into his back bumper, creating major damage to both cars. Berry jumped out of the pit box to chase Davis back to the garage, shouting a stream of profanities along the way, and at least two witnesses say they heard a racial slur in there somewhere. (Take a guess which one.)

It's probably not news to anyone that NASCAR is dominated by Southerners who have a slightly different perspective on race relations than a elite, Northern liberal like myself. When people are angry they sometimes say thing they normally wouldn't—it doesn't appear that Berry said the slur directly at Davis as he chewed him out back in the garage, so yay for sensitivity—and the complex racial history of blah blah blah.... Berry's a jerk, Davis is taking the high road, and life will go on on the racing circuit. I'm sure Davis had heard a lot worse—and will hear plenty more before his driving career is over.

Crew chief suspended for using racial slur [AP]
NASCAR suspends crew chief after confrontation, use of racial slur [That's Racin']

The Vancouver Grizzlies moved from Canada to Memphis seven years ago, and evidently, some people are still bitter.

Like this guy, Mark Hasiuk, a columnist from that rain-soaked city. Hasiuk calls anyone associated with the NBA every bad name in the book - except, perhaps, child pornographers - and takes the League to task for not helping to improve life in Black America. Because, obviously, that's what the NBA was created for.

The NBA is America at its worst.The once proud league, which peaked 20 years ago during the Bird/Magic/Jordan era, has morphed into a reality TV show, where money and image trump teamwork and athletic achievement. Players like Allen Iverson—perhaps the greatest basketball talent of his generation—spend more energy producing sneaker commercials than winning basketball games. NBA players wear saggy shorts, roll in posses and cuss on camera. Television ratings have dropped steadily since 1996. Basketball icons such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the late Red Auerbach have denounced today's players, calling them "thugs" and "bums."

[...]

To be fair, the NBA, like other professional sports leagues, is a business. And it's not responsible for the endemic problems of black America. But considering basketball's influence on black popular culture, the NBA has a responsibility to produce a "positive" product, not the ghetto garbage we see today.

I'd love to hear about once incident in the NBA this year that would qualify as "ghetto garbage", whatever that means.

You know, it's not very often that a writer is able to reveal his hideously racist side, all the while claiming to be looking out for a particular race's best interests. And manages to do it all within the same column, no less. Bravo, Mr. Hasiuk. You schmuck.

NBA: a ghetto gutter run by money grubbers [The Vancouver Courier]
Vancouver Columnist Calls NBA 'Ghetto Garbage' [NBA FanHouse]

Pretty much everyone agrees that Buffalo coach Turner Gill—who was interviewed for the job—is infinitely more qualified to run a football than "5 and 19 Gene." (And Tommy Tuberville is probably still more qualified than both of them, but that's another story.) Yet, Gill did not get the job and in case you hadn't noticed ... Gill is black.

Now we're not saying that the powers that be at Auburn chose Chizik over Gill simply because Gill is African-American and the school is located in the heart of the Old South. Everyone else will say it for us. In fact, some are even claiming that Gill's biggest strike against him was not his own skin color, but that of his wife, who is white.

ESPN.com football writer Mark Schlabach told "Outside The Lines" today that two other SEC coaches told him, straight up, that Gill would never get the Auburn job, because he's married to a white woman. Charming.

Auburn alum Charles Barkley added his own fuel to fire when he called out his alma mater for their choice of Chizik. He spoke to Gill about the job and claimed that Gill was concerned his marriage would be a factor before he even took the interview.

"We talked about the whole race thing in Alabama," Barkley said. "I told him it's there and it's going to be anywhere you go. I told him you can't not take the job because of racism. He was worried about being nothing more than a token interview. He was concerned about having a white wife. It's just very disappointing to me."

Barkley also pointed out that when Auburn hired a new basketball coach back in 2004, he suggested three African-American coaches who had taken their teams to the NCAA tournament, but they chose the only interviewee who had not—noted-white man Jeff Lebo.

"I think race was the No. 1 factor," said Barkley ... "You can say it's not about race, but you can't compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume."

Racism charges aside, is there any doubt that Auburn AD Jay Jacobs does not have a single clue remaining? He played dumb and professed to be shocked when Tommy Tuberville "resigned," but the misguided hiring of Chizik away from a horrible Iowa State makes his judgment even more suspect.

Not that things are any better up in Ames. Even though most Cyclone fans are probably happy to see Chizik go, at least one Iowa State player is a little miffed at his former coach. Freshman wideout Darius Darks (shown here taking a strong stand against "bitchassness") took his complaints to the most obvious forum—Facebook—where he posted some homemade videos (already removed) of himself chewing out his mentor.

"A lot of people asking me what I'm going to do with coach Chizik leaving. I understand business is business, but this man lied," Darks said in the video. "At a team meeting he was sitting there saying 'I told your mother, Jerrod Black, and I sat on your auntie's couch, Darius Dark, and I told her I would take care of you while you was up here at Iowa State.' Where's that n—-- at now? Auburn University."

In the second video, Darks introduces Jeremiah Schwartz, who was a freshman running back from Florida who played for the Cyclones in 2008.

"Let me explain something really quick," Schwartz said in the video. "Rule one: Don’t f—- with a Florida n—--. Rule two: Don’t lie to your team. Rule three: Respect rule two."

Darks then ended the video by putting on a Michigan State jersey. Seriously. Hey, don't bring them into this mess!

Outside The Lines: Behind The Times [OTL]
Lobbying for Gill, alum Barkley says Auburn should have hired black coach [ESPN]
ISU football players post video in reaction to Chizik leaving [Iowa State Daily]
ISU Players Not Taking This Chizik Thing Very Well [SbB]
Chizik Speaks!!! [Online Sports Guys]
Gene Chizik, meet Auburn's finest torches and pitchforks [Dr. Saturday]
Charles Barkley Comments on Auburn Hiring Gene Chizek: It’s About Race [Midwest Sports Fans]

"all the hunters gather up, we have a #$%&er in the whitehouse"

Kudos to Buck for putting symbols over the deplorable word (he probably wasn't censoring "butler") but the damage was already done. Word got back to Longhorns coach Mack Brown who immediately booted him off the team. Burnette has since taken down his Facebook page, but before he did, he left this contrite message to all those offended:

Clearly I have made a mistake and apologized for it and will pay for it. I received it as a text message from an acquaintance and immaturely put it up on facebook in the light of the election. Im not racist and apologize for offending you. I grew up on a ranch in a small town where that was a real thing and I need to grow up. I sincerely am sorry for being ignorant in thinking that it would be ok to write that publicly and apologize to you in particular. I have to be more mature than to put the reputation of my team at stake and to spread that kind of hate which I dont even believe in. Once again, I sincerely apologize.

Well, it is an apology and not the old "dressed as a drunk guy who was drawn on for Halloween" excuse, but it's still a little shameful that some of Buck's takeaway was that it's not "ok to write that publicly," but whatever. He'll be a better person after this. Hopefully.

Texas Lineman's Facebook status gets him booted off the team [World of Isaac] (via Sports Inferno)

"I’ve harped on this before, but we need to play local football," Lewis said. "When you play teams from out of the area that you don’t really know, it’s good in some situations and bad in others. ... When we stay local, we all know each other, our programs and our personalities. We know what we’re getting. We get along with each other and like each other, and we play great football. We need to play local football."

Ho-ly shit. It sure sounds as if the school's principal, the man charged with guiding hundreds of young minds, believes that a school like Dunbar (98% African American) should stick to playing against their own kind in their own city while his school plays against neighboring facilities with which he's more "comfortable." It certainly is sad to think that an educator such as Principal Lewis could possibly believe that the solution to problems such as these is for seperate communities to remain closed off in their own insular worlds.

If anything this situation goes to show how important it is for members of different communities and cultures to interact with one another in an attempt to put this kind of ugliness behind us as a society. If Israeli Jews and Arabs can come together on the soccer field to develop a common bond with a goal of future peace you would hope that a couple of American high schools separated by less than 150 miles could get together for a game of football.

Football controversy a missed opportunity
Racial Prejudice Pops Up in an Arena Normally Free of It
It's Been a Swell Week for Racism In Sports
Dunbar's Jefferies Is a Leader of Men

Unless you were away from civilization for the past few days, you're probably up to speed on the Josh Howard National Anthem fiasco. Mark Cuban took down the infamous post featuring crazy emails from crazy racists, but blatant racism reared its ugly head yet again this weekend in the world of sports.

This time, the madness took place in Cumberland, Maryland, during a high school football game between Fort Hill and Dunbar, which, according to KOGOD "is the school that has produced Vernon Davis and Joshua Cribbs recently. Plus about half of the Illinois football team." And this is their story:

Leading 14-8 midway through the third quarter last night at Fort Hill in Cumberland, Md., Dunbar Coach Craig Jefferies said he pulled his team off the field after Crimson Tide players were subjected to repeated racial epithets.

"They were trying to upset us, calling my guys the N-word. I had one guy in tears. I had to take him off the field," Jefferies said, adding that as he walked with his team to the locker room he was verbally accosted with slurs. He said the team was forced to stay in the locker room for 30 minutes while police established a secure path for the team to board its buses.

Classy move by the coach to pull his team, even though they were leading the game by a touchdown. Sometimes victory just isn't worth it if you must endure sub-human behavior to get it.

Dunbar Quits Game, Cites Racial Taunts [Washington Post]

"I called it years ago. What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out. ... [It's about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do — being able to control them," he told the magazine.

"Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man.

"These are the things my race demands. So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys."

I don't believe that the front offices of Major League Baseball are above trying to take advantage of anyone, but at the same time, the notion that all Latin ballplayers are pushovers ... well, teammate Carlos Guillen might disagree. Anyway, I hope Major League Baseball keeps pissing Sheffield off ... at this rate, sometime in June he'll be accusing Bud Selig of murdering Anna Nicole Smith.

Gary Sheffield's Got A Theory [Signal to Noise]
Sheffield has theory why fewer blacks play MLB [ABC13]
Gary Sheffield Will Rip The Lid Off Of It [Deadspin]