Buck Showalter, 2015 Topps Heritage #229

Every time Buck Showalter opens his mouth, he just makes me like him more. He's just mastered this blend of self-effacing folksiness and wisdom, and it's a joy to listen to him. In yesterday's post-game press conference, Buck was asked what his advice would be for the black youth of Baltimore. Instead of staring at the questioning reporter as if he or she had sprouted a second nose, the O's manager responded thusly:

“A lot of times, you hear people try to weigh in on things they really don’t know anything about. I tell guys all the time — I’ve never been black, OK, so I don’t know. I can’t put myself there. I've never faced the challenges they’ve faced.

So I understand the emotion. It’s a pet peeve of mine when somebody says, ‘Well, I know what they're feeling, why did they do this, why doesn’t somebody do that?’ You have never been black, so just slow down a little bit.

I try not to get involved in something that I don’t know about, but I do know that it’s something that’s very passionate, something that I am, with my upbringing. It bothers me and it bothers everybody else, but can we understand — we have made quite a statement as a city, some good, some bad. But now, let’s get on with taking the statement we've made and creating a positive.

We talk to players — I want to be a rallying force for our city, and that doesn't mean necessarily playing good baseball. There are some things I don’t want to be normal, you know what I mean? I don’t. I want us to learn from some stuff that’s gone on, from both sides of it.

I could talk about it for hours, but that’s how I feel about it.’’

Imagine if the mayor of Baltimore had reacted with that sort of perspective and empathy rather than tossing around incendiary terms like "thugs".