equal time Phil Mushnick I’ve been branded for life and no amount of evidence can change it By Phil Mushnick Published May 7, 2026, 7:57 p.m. ET Defensive end Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets dances in celebration after making a play against the Los Angeles Raiders during a 1983 game. Focus on Sport/Getty Images Well, it’s official, I guess. I’m a born and raised racist. It’s all over the internet. Again. So it must be true.
Recently, readers and friends have sent me a copy of a column authored by a person who has discovered indisputable proof that I’m a racist. Seizing upon columns I’ve written in which I attested to my childhood adoration of Whitey Ford as my favorite baseball player since the time I was 7, the author reasoned that this was clear evidence that this was hard evidence that I’m a white supremacist.
Would I have been a fan of Blacky Ford? Years later, I became a fan of the Yanks’ Roy White, who is black, but that was likely more a case of my white — if one counts Jews as white — privilege.
The author did not include any of my work in which I wrote of my adulation of Roberto Clemente, Elston Howard and Ernie Banks, but whatever, I’m a racist. It’s now a fact, matter of public record.
