Eric McErlain has his thoughts on Dusty Baker:

What we have here is what's commonly known as a gaffe. Baker should be allowed to apologize and move on -- something Campanis (whose record as a player and a scout marked him as anything but a bigot) should have been allowed to do after his infamous appearance on Nightline so many years ago.

You know, I'd like to agree with Eric. I've had a few e-mails saying that Dusty shouldn't be punished for this, that it's not so bad. But there is a history of people in baseball being punished for exercising their rights to free speech. Al Campanis, Marge Schott and John Rocker were each punished for saying stupid wrong things. But it was easy to punish those people. Campanis was a minor figure in baseball. Schott was a horrible person who was easy to dislike. Rocker pissed off New York. None of them should have been punished by MLB, other than the commissioner pointing out how stupid and wrong their comments were, and how he hoped they would learn something about a subject before talking about it. Then, if the fans want to punish these people by booing or not showing up at games, or if other GM's want to avoid trading with Campanis, that's fine. Let the market decide, if you will.

But MLB does punish this type of speech. And since they do, they should punish Baker, or announce that they have a double standard. I would love to see Selig come out and say that the three offenders above were treated unfairly, and the commissioner's office would no longer take action against speech. But until then, Dusty needs to be suspended, just like the rest of the bigots who shot off their mouths.

(Yes, I'm talking about two wrongs making a right. This is one of the few cases where I think it applies.)

Update: Here's a 1997 article from Salon in which Dusty talks about race, and he's really very positive about it. The article points out what a multicultural person Dusty is. Makes you wonder why he would make the remarks he did.