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| 13th July, 2007 - 2:05 pm | Newsday - Gary Sheffield asserts black and white players are treated differently under Yankees manager Joe Torre, says Derek Jeter "ain't all the way black," and denies he ever has used steroids because "steroids is something you shoot in your butt" in an eye-opening interview with Andrea Kremer for the next edition of HBO's "Real Sports," debuting at 10 p.m. Tuesday night.
In a copy of the interview made available to Newsday late Friday morning, Sheffield begins by saying, "I tell myself every offseason I'm not going to say anything crazy. I'm just going to have a peaceful season . . . Can't do it. I'm cut from a different cloth."
And how.
In the middle of the interview, Kremer reports that Sheffield believes white and black players are coached differently, then asks him to name teams on which they are not coached the same. He immediately answers: "The Yankees."
How so? "I know when I was there the couple of blacks that were there, every one of them had an issue with the organization," he says. Kremer asks him whether by "organization," he means George Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman or Joe Torre.
"They had an issue with Joe Torre," Sheffield says. "They weren't treated like everybody else. I got called out in a couple of meetings that I thought were unfair."
Kremer presses for details and he says, "He had a message to get across to the whole team, so he used me to get the message across."
And he never did that with white players? "No . . . I'd see a lot of white players get called in the office and treated like a man. That's the difference."
Kremer asked Sheffield whether he believes Torre is a racist. "No. I think it's the way they do things around there. Since I was there I just saw that they run their ship different."
Kremer points out that the Yankees' most prominent player is black. "Who?" Sheffield says. Derek Jeter. "Derek Jeter is black and white." Kremer then confirms that Jeter is half black and half white. "Exactly," Sheffield responds.
Kremer asks what the significance of that is. "There's really no significance. You just ain't all the way black," he says.
Asked whether he ever discussed the subject with Jeter, Sheffield says, "Derek Jeter used to come to me and try to tell you what Joe Torre is all about, he's a good man, he's this, he's that, but like I tell Derek Jeter, that's you. It's one thing that they treat you a certain way; you don't feel what other people feel." [READ] |
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