Oh man. Can I get a :dips*** that points to myself??? LOL!!!

 

I was saying that there are many, many cases where people are talking about Shingo (not on this board alone, but in other areas) like he is the only person from another country. If the one comment had been about Maggs, I don't think anything would have been thought about the "foreign" aspect. But since Japanese players in the league are still somewhat new, there is a novelty to them that gets blown out of proportion, and quite a few seem to forget that a HUGE number of players in MLB are NOT citizens of the US.

 

I meant to offense to people holding green cards, unless it is an American Express.

I think it's funny that we treat Shingo as such a "foriegner", when in all reality he is no different than all of the other players out there that need a green card to play in the league. Magglio needs one, Sosa needs one, Jose probably does. But since Shingo is Japanese, he is an oddity. Sad really.

 

 

The gong is also wrong. Just plain wrong.

i heard shingo approved of it he was laughing when he ran in from the 'pen.

Personally, I think when they played Mr. Roboto that was more offensive. And to everyone in the stadium, not just Shingo.

Shingo's wife commented a few weeks ago when she was in town that Shingo NEVER got standing ovations in Japan...This type of fan support is all foreign to him, and he's really feeding off of it.

 

Keep it up, Sox fans!

It's a really great thing to see the fans and players feeding off each other. It's also really nice to see big crowds at the park again. Looks like Sox fever is slowly returning to Chicago.

The fact is, Shingo IS unique to the Chicago sports scene. And he's becoming a big part of the scene and the success of his team. It's a natural progression that his uniqueness as a Japanese ballplayer in Chicago is talked about. Look at all the hoopla that occompanied the successes of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideo Nomo, Hideki Matsui, etc.

 

Now you can also look back a few years and see that the same thing happened with the success of Fernando Valenzuela. He was unique in that he was the most successful Mexican pitcher in ML history. Then when Loaiza matched Valenzuela's 21 wins last year, he was honored by the Mexican president. Making reference to ethnicity of a successful athlete is not degrading or racist.

 

So if it's cool with Shingo that a gong sounds, so be it.

I would like to nominate this for pun of the year.

 

So true, so true.

 

And just for fun...