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boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/279/Lobel_was_the_bearer_of_bad_news_Su.shtml

I wonder what Antoine's mail is like.


>Say this about Bob Lobel: The Channel 4 sports anchor has a way of
>breaking stories.
>
>On Sunday night's ''Sports Final,'' he aired an interview with Mo Vaughn's
>mother, Shirley Vaughn. Lobel had talked with both Shirley and Mo's
>father, Leroy, at Jacobs Field in Cleveland. One of the nuggets generated
>from that session was the ugly specter of racism.
>
>According to Mrs. Vaughn, her son receives a fair amount of hate mail but
>doesn't see all the bad stuff; his parents screen his mail before turning
>it over to Mo.
>
>The examples Lobel recounted on air were horrid. One suggested that Mo's
>mother was a whore. Another advised Mo to get his ''black [vulgarity] out
>of town.'' The most painful one was written around spring training, when
>Leroy was ill. The letter, Shirley told Lobel, stated the illness was good
>because ''it would be one less [racial epithet] around here.''
>
>Lobel did not produce the letters - Shirley said she threw them away - but
>it was just as well.
>
>For his part, Mo has not mentioned the hate mail. He has charged that the
>Red Sox don't respect him and that they hired a private detective to
>follow him, but the fan support, he has said, has been great. After
>Saturday's final game, he said, ''Even in the bad times, it's been good
>times.''<P>
>
>Channel 4's Steve Burton told Lobel that the hate mail represented a small
>percentage of everything Vaughn receives.
>
>But hate is still a part of the world. Lobel held up a humorous bumper
>sticker with the slogan ''Not in our Lifetime'' next to a Red Sox logo,
>but it just as easily could have been used in reference to the elimination
>of racial prejudice.

>This story ran on page C05 of the Boston Globe on 10/06/98.



Paul M.