Writer May Wanna Sit the Next Few Plays Out

Dan O’Neill penned a column Sunday on NBC.com following Serigo’s latest choke job at the PGA Championship that is picking up some steam in the blogs today. This is partially because we’re often quick to jump on the mainsteam media, but mostly because what he wrote is profoundly racist-y (emphasis mine):

That's 41 down, one more to go for Sergio Garcia.

You remember the No. 42. That was the number of majors Phil Mickelson played in before he won the 2004 Masters. That's the amount of frustration, heartbreak and second-guessing “Lefty” endured before he got that Jackie Robinson off his back.

Let that last line soak in. Yes, that’s right, he just replaced the term “monkey” with “Jackie Robinson.”

Now, we can attempt to defend O’Neill by suggesting that he was merely using the name Jackie Robinson as a way of saying “No. 42,” but that doesn’t even make sense. “He got that No. 42 off his back”? Um, no. The saying is “he got the monkey off his back.” So, really, anyway you slice this one, it doesn’t look good for O’Neill. Whether it was ignorance on his part, or actual racism, doesn’t really matter at this point -- when you make “Jackie Robinson” a synonym for “monkey,” things probably aren’t going to end well for you.

(H/T: Dogs That Chase Cars and FanHouse)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.