New York Mets first baseman and outfielder Dominic Smith has already provided his thoughts about what happened to George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter movement. However, in a heartfelt interview with Steve Gelbs, in a clip released Thursday on SNY.tv, he went a little deeper and even told some ugly racist scenes he has had to witness.
“I just had to really get my words together because I’ve been through it and I see it on an everyday basis,†said one of the very best young players in the New York Mets roster. “It really means a lot to me that the world is taking notice.
“I’ve grown up in South Central L.A., close to Compton. My grandma grew up and lives still in L.A., in the city, close to Crenshaw High School where Darryl Strawberry went. I still go back to those places every year. It’s something that I noticed after I got drafted and traveled the world, got to see the world, and see how other people grow up and live. I saw how growing up in the inner city, we just didn’t have the same chance, the same opportunities.â€
Spring was rough for the New York Mets’ young hitter
Even during this year’s spring training, the Mets’ slugger had to tolerate both direct and indirect racism. He told a painful, ugly story about a trip to a restaurant in Florida with teammate J.D. Davis, in which they waited to hours and workers of the restaurant failed to provide a meal, or so much as a glass of water.
“Me and J.D. (Davis), we went to eat in spring training this year. We went to eat at a relatively close restaurant in (Port St. Lucie), and we sat there, ordered our food, we waited, nobody in the restaurant, waited 30 minutes, no food. More people come into the restaurant now, maybe about five, six, seven people come in, they order. An hour goes by now, still no food. Other people who came in maybe 15 minutes ago get their food. An hour and a half goes by, still no food. The restaurant’s not even packed. They don’t bring us bread, they don’t bring us water, they don’t bring us anything. So I’m like ‘J.D. are you seeing what’s going on?’ and in my opinion, people obviously can be verbally racist or show racism verbally as much as they did back in the day, but I feel like indirectly you can show some prejudice. And I don’t understand how I’ve been sitting here for an hour and 45 minutes, and people have been popping in and out for the last hour. We waited for two hours and I said ‘J.D., come on, we have to leave. I’m not waiting any longer.’ So we finally left, and I mean, they apologized on the way out, but in my opinion, I just felt like they didn’t want us there. They were staring at us crazy since we walked in the door, and that’s one little aspect.”
The Mets’ pinch-hitting star also told a story when he was driving his car this spring and another motorist honked and directed a racial slur at him.
“Another aspect, driving in Port. St. Lucie in my nice car. I’m driving down the street, and the streets in (Port St. Lucie), they have a lot of one-lane streets, so the street shifted off to a turning lane and a single-lane street. So as soon as it shifted off, I got in the left-hand turn lane. Somebody’s honking at me, honk, honk, honk. I pull up to the light and he pulls up next to me. I rolled down my window and he said ‘Turn on your f–king blinker.’ He was… verbatim, word-for-word he said, ‘You probably f–king stole that car, you n—-r ‘ to me.”
There has been no shortage of support for Smith. New York Mets’ teammates, such as Pete Alonso and Michael Conforto, often reach out to him to see how he’s doing. Smith says they want to learn and understand everything, the pain they have had to endure so far.
“I think, as a group, we don’t see skin color, complexion, anything like that. We treat each other with respect, and I guess (we’re) a brotherhood, really. We’re wearing Orange and Blue together, we’re brothers. So we’re going to battle with each there for 162 games so you’ve got to be able to trust each other. I think that’s the bond we built. Those guys are very understanding about the issues and struggles I go through,” Smith said.