Color me skeptical. I might end up owing Chris Bosio an apology (or the Detroit Tigers a shaming) in the long run, but the idea that the one time in which a professional sports team was actually quick to cut ties is the instance in which they were unprofessional in their investigation seems at least mildly far fetched. If anything, organizations typically tend to defend themselves from the top down for too long, so the thought of the Tigers' GM, Assistant GM, and Manager all sat down and unanimously sided with a paranoid clubhouse attendant over a pitching coach due solely to the contextless utterance of an animal seems a little odd. Speaking extremely generally, older (predominantly white) men who make their living in baseball don't exactly have a storied history of being too sensitive in regards to racially charged innuendo, and there was apparently nothing hung about the jury of his own peers that found him guilty of crossing the line. Now, I'm not calling Chris Bosio a liar, but I do feel inclined to look into the functionality of his family life after he swore on the graves of his dead parents (RIP) that all he did was allude to the primate-like facial features of one of his white players. If not because he was given free reign to retroactively put harmless words in his own mouth then because he clearly doesn't know how nicknames work...
As it turns out, there is a benefit to the internet's endless desire to be in the know. It might illicit angry, un-nuanced mobs on damn near a daily basis, but at least it stops the (allegedly) guilty party from influencing the public by speaking their side of the story first. I only wanted to know exactly what the "insensitive comments" were because I'm a nosy and intrusive sports fan that has been made to feel entitled to such information by too much time on Twitter. However, if I did know then I would probably have a much firmer grasp on which party to hurl insult after insult at right about now. It's really tough to believe that a low level employee was just going about his day, heard the term "spider monkey" off in the distance, automatically assumed the absolute worst, and managed to convince the ENTIRE organization that one of their coaches was an intolerant asshole. That said, when you let said coach craft his personal account (that's currently not even being backed by the person he was supposedly talking to) around a charge as vague and benign as being "insensitive" then it's pretty easy for him to sway the court of public opinion in his favor. It's innocent until proven guilty, and if the prosecution has a case then they really should have already laid it on the table. If not because sports fans want to know how inappropriate the verbiage has to be to get you canned with the quickness then because, more likely than not, it would preemptively make any sort of defense look both dumb and discriminatory. UPDATE: ...there it is, and with it goes Chris Bosio's employability...
"Bosio called the attendant, who is African-American, a “monkey,” according to four team sources. The remark was directed toward the young man, who was collecting towels from the coaches’ room at the time, during a post-game gripe session in which Bosio was lamenting about a pitcher. During this exchange, Bosio made a derogatory comment about one of the Tigers pitchers and then gestured toward the attendant before adding, “like this monkey here,” the sources said. The attendant pushed back at Bosio for the comment, and an additional team employee witnessed the exchange. Bosio was provided an opportunity to apologize to the attendant after his outburst but declined to do so, according to multiple sources." (h/t TheAthletic)
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