When Victims Rule (pdf)

MONEY, CLASS, AND POWER
viewer.” Both Berman and Firestone are also Jewish. [QUINDT, F., 1994, p. D1]
In 1990, Robert Irsay, then owner of the Indiana Colts (and also Jewish) made
the news for apologizing to another Jewish reporter, ESPN’s Fred Edelstein, for
saying, “Edelstein’s a little Jewish boy and he doesn’t know what he’s talking
about.” [SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 11-20-92, p. C2] For the roving
(female) reporter role on CBS’s 2000 NCAA basketball championships, we had
Bonnie Bernstein. [This is just the tiniest beginning of a story. See later Mass
Media chapter about Jews in prominent positions in the mass media. Also, see
http://jewishtribalreview.org/sports1.htm to read one Jewish online web site’s
listing of Jews in prominent positions in the sports world].
In 2000, Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker, represented by the Jewish
sports agency SFX, found himself in a kind of Jewish web, becoming America’s
nationally vilified scapegoat for political correctness when (Jewish) Sports Illustrated
writer Jeff Pearlman reported Rocker’s comments about New York City. He
didn’t like riding on the Number 7 subway train, Rocker told Pearlman, with
“some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS next to
some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time next to some 20year
old woman with four kids … The biggest thing I don’t like about
New York are the foreigners … Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and
Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How
the hell do they get in this country?”
These comments, excerpted from Pearlman’s story, were splashed across the
newspapers of America and Rocker made international news as a mindless
bigot. (Jewish) baseball commissioner Bud Selig fined Rocker $20,000, suspended
him for a month, and ordered him to undergo psychiatric counseling.
Weeks later Rocker passed Pearlman alone in a hallway, and bitterly yelled at the
reporter for betraying his confidence. Pearlman reported this incident too, and
Rocker was soon disciplined again and sent to the minor leagues.
Nat Hentoff (also Jewish) of the Village Voice was one of the few public
voices that addressed the earlier context of Rocker’s hostile comments:
“There was more to the Sports Illustrated interview than the parts that
led to [Rocker] becoming a pariah. But the full details of New York fans’
abuse of Rocker has been largely neglected by the media.”
Rocker complained in the original article of being spit at by New York Met
fans, he had bottles and batteries thrown at him, people screamed that they
copulated with his mother, and someone threw beer on his girlfriend. Emotionally
reacting to New York hostility with hostility, privately to the reporter,
Rocker came close to losing his baseball career. Conversely, when reporter
Pearlman was invited to speak publicly about the furor he had instigated, “he
ducked interview requests from the Ted Koppels and Larry Kings of the world.”
[CLIMER, D., 4-23-2000; MORGAN, M., 6-22-2000, p. D2; HENTOFF, N., 2-
8-2000, p. 39]
Jews have also long dominated the boxing world, as promoters, managers,
agents, and other entrepreneurs. “So many of the fighters, trainers, promoters,
and managers were Jewish,” notes Allen Brodner about the sport’s foundations,
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