Some spectators, including us at The Playhouse, found it a bit odd when Joe West ejected Tim Anderson the last game of the White Sox-Royals series. Some spectators, such as Jason Benetti, found their cholesterol at a higher level than before. Typically, when one has a hard projectile thrown at them with a velocity over 90 miles per hour, as happened to Timmy, it is the person throwing the projectile who gets punished. Instead, Tim Anderson, who did not attempt to fight back in the benches clearing altercation, was ejected and is now serving a suspension. 

According to Major League Baseball, the reason for Anderson's suspension is his usage of the N word during the incident. This brings many issues to the forefront, such as the implication that any word could have a more severe punishment than a physical act of violence, but the most polarizing point surrounds Anderson, an African-American, being disciplined for using a word which many people feel he has a cultural right to use. The Playhouse agrees that Tim Anderson and all black athletes should be able to use the word without facing the same consequences Caucasian athletes would face for the same language, but it is not a debate we care to get involved in to the point of contributing an argument. In fact, The Playhouse thinks that question is secondary to the question that our society should be asking. The most pressing question goes as follows:

Does Sammy Sosa have an N-word pass?

We encourage all our followers to share their voices in the comments, but not before we tell you what the right answer is. 

Both possible answers to this question have their merits. Some might think Sammy ought not to say the N word because of his modified white skin, and some think he never had a right to say the word because he has always been Afro-Latino, as opposed to African American. Some will say Sammy used to have a right to say the N word but lost that right when he bleached his skin, signifying a divorce from the black community.

Others think he always had an N-word pass because some people view the black community as consisting of all black peoples, not just African-Americans. Some will defend his N-word pass as still valid with white skin, because ethnicity and culture transcend appearance. After all, Sammy has experienced the real effects of racism, especially when he first moved from the majority-black Dominican Republic to the majority-white United States of America. White members of the baseball media criticized Sammy early in his career for perceived disrespect of the game's historically white culture when he brought with him the signature flair of Dominican baseball culture.

The Playhouse sees it as an inalienable truth that Sammy Sosa has a valid N-word pass, but not because of any of the reasons stated above. Sammy Sosa has a right to use the N-word, not because of its history as a black word, but because its history as a gamer word. 



The foremost members of the game community, which AJ Styles assures us is a real community that exists, have all come to the public consensus that the N-word is valid in the context of heated gaming moments. The Playhouse, having never left the Columbine social sphere of 1999, is afraid of video games and therefore does not know what a heating gaming moment is, but we can only assume it refers to any instance in which someone plays Sammy Sosa: High Heat Baseball. If someone is allowed to say the N-word during play sessions of the 3D0-developed Playstation classic, then surely being the titular star of the game would give someone the right to the say the word in any context for the rest of their lives.