Leonard Pitts, Jr., in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 2, 1998:

One hesitates... to distract from what Sosa and McGwire have accomplished. They are said to be good guys—decent, caring and humble in welcome contrast to the swaggering malcontents we've seen too much of in sports lately.

On the other hand it is, perhaps, useful to remind ourselves that even in our oldest and noblest major sport as played by men we like and respect, there is in the national psyche something small and un-evolved that gravitates towards a white man for no better reason than that he is white.

In a very real sense, Mark McGwire had Sammy Sosa beaten before either of them ever picked up a bat.

This, too, is as American as it gets.

The Washington Post echoed the sentiment:

For all that is inspiring and wholesome about the home run derby, it also illuminates the eternal American dilemma of race. It is McGwire who has the overwhelming advantage over Sosa in the competition for the public's heart. (Internet search engines find McGwire's name more than twice as often as Sosa's.) Is that because the Cardinal is the better slugger, or is it a matter of color, ethnicity and language?

Sosa, a native of the Dominican Republic, has expressed gratefulness for his success and love for the country that made it possible. He later beat out McGwire for National League MVP status.

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Letter to the editor, the Boston Globe, December 3, 1998:

I found your characterization of Rita Hester ("Stabbing victim a mystery to many," Metro/Region, Nov. 30) degrading and potentially misleading.

Throughout your coverage of the incident you refer to Hester as "he" and a transvestite. If Hester was known socially and to neighbors only as a woman, it is not likely that she was a transvestite but rather was probably a transsexual and should have been referred to using female pronouns.

A significant number of people live as the opposite gender and are socially perceived by all they meet as that gender. To reduce Rita Hester's life and dignity to the level of "a man in women's clothes" is disingenuous and disappointing.

A little more sensitivity to the hardships these people face would have reflected far better upon your journalistic integrity than the rather voyeuristic portrayal that did appear.

—George Kierstein
Cambridge

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After Howard Stern decided to spank the backside of one of the guests on his CBS television show with a dead fish, Dawn Carr, campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, publicly condemned the action, commenting that it "shows a sad disrespect for life, certainly for the lives of those fish."

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