The Gantt Report - After I graduated from Journalism graduate school, my first job was as a sports reporter for The Associated Press in New York and Atlanta.

There were Black sports writers before me that covered one or two sports but I was the first writer for an international news service to cover every sport that I was assigned to cover.

Because of my sports news background, it is easy for me to get upset about how today’s Black athletes are hated by the imperialist press.

Who are perhaps the two most hated athletes? If you said Barry Bonds and Michael Vick you may be correct.

White reporters say, “Barry Bonds used steroids.” However, the white sports journalists cannot point to a failed steroid test or an eye witness that can confirm steroid use.

Let’s jump to Michael Vick. News reports claim Michael Vick had a bottle with a hidden compartment that contained marijuana. Well a test of the bottle was negative for drug contents. Klansmen masquerading as sports writers, and incompetent and cut former teammates, also say Michael Vick is in the dog fighting business.

Well, bottle tests were negative just as in the case of tests for steroids. Vick admitted he owns a house where pit bulls were raised but said he was not directly related to dog fighting.

Should Bonds and Vick be persecuted because of false, uncorroborated allegations or should the biased sports writers be fired for lying?

Do sports writers lie? Yes! Can I prove it? Yes to that question too!

On my first AP assignment, I was sent to cover the New York Mets. At the time an aging Willie Mays was playing for New York. I was told by my coworkers to stay away from Mays because he was a “bad guy” and “mean” to sports writers. To make a long story short, I sat on May’s chair in front of his locker while interviewing another player, I caught Mays approaching his locker out of the corner of my eye and was scared to death. Mays strolled up, shook my hand and told me he was glad to see a Black writer and said he would help me in any way he could.

Other “bad boys” like Reggie Jackson and Vida Blue were also very helpful to me but distrustful of some other reporters.

I’ll put it like this, white reporters sometimes have problems with athletes that “act” Black just as I had problems talking with racists at the Augusta National Golf Club in 1973.

If you want to know more about why Black sports stars are treated in a certain way, follow the money.

White writers loved Michael Jordan until he started to make more money than whites in the NBA. MJ was doing the same things all of his career but we didn’t hear about the adultery, womanizing and gambling until he started to demand the salary he thought he deserved.

Now, what baseball player has made more salary money than anyone else in the history of major league baseball? You got it, Barry Bonds. And, who is the highest paid player in the National Football League? Right again, Michel Vick.

No athlete, or person, is perfect. If you dig deep, you can find something on anybody and everybody. When I was a sports writer, I didn’t see any steroid use but I saw plenty of performance changing substances. I saw alcohol use, I saw amphetamine use, I saw marijuana use, I saw cocaine use, I saw domestic violence, I heard racial slurs and a lot more stuff.

But I was told by my supervisors “not to print alcohol arrests” and other “personal” stuff.

Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player that ever lived. Don’t worry about home runs. Look at batting average, stolen bases, walks, gold gloves and the rest. At the same time, Michael Vick holds quarterback records that will never be broken. He’s a Pro Bowl player that has led his team to conference championships.

What is being presented as sports facts are merely opinions. Bonds and Vick are not bad guys.

Sports colonialists and their dark-skinned neocolonialists should pick up some Gatorade and put down their “haterade”! Give Bonds and Vick a break and perhaps the benefit of all the doubt surrounding false, unfounded allegations against them. (Gantt’s new book “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” is coming soon. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net)