Thursday night, the Indiana Pacers took Tyler Hansbrough. Though this was right around Tyler’s projected draft position, the various friends I was watching the draft alongside — not to mention the thousands of wise-ass commenters in the Ball Don’t Lie live blog — let loose with the derision. “Oh, come on. Really? Hansbrough? Wow, good luck Pacers.” And so on.

Then, when late-working roommate Paul finally got home from his backbreaking white-collar job, and he was informed of where Hansbrough was drafted, he said: “By the Pacers? Ha. Figures.”

Paul and I went to Indiana University together, and maybe you have to be an outsider living in the state for a while to see this — locals always denied it, of course — but there’s no question that the more traditional types in the state prefer white basketball players, or at least the kind of basketball played by players with traditionally “white” games. They value “shooting” and “defense” and “hard work” and “back cuts” and they hate “thuggery” and “headbands” and “flashiness” and all of the other little code words that people associate with race and basketball. The root cause is the culture and demographics of the state, and part of it can be blamed on Hoosiers. Part of it can be blamed on Bob Knight and Gene Keady. And part of it can be blamed on Larry Bird, whose transcendent white-boy basketball game kept this conversation alive well into the early 90’s. In an NBA obsessed with race, or at least with limiting the liabilities race presents, it still exists.

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I sat in Wrigley’s bleachers several times last season, and never heard even a hint of racism. I have friends that have watched games in them far more often than I, dating back a few years, and I’ve never heard anything of the sort. But, there are 81 games there a season. Our ears can’t hear everything.

And that’s where Gordon Wittenmyer’s story in the Sun-Times comes in today. Wittenmyer chronicles what is apparently pretty well known throughout MLB: Wrigley’s bleacher patrons, besides being drunken and rowdy, are also kind of racist. So much so, that Torii Hunter decided to completely rule out the Cubs and put them on his no-trade list while in Minnesota. So much so, that several African-American players throughout the last few years have heard things directed at them, and have received calls and mail with racism dripping from them.

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