Why does USA Today push the "African Americans in baseball" theme

If you changed "African-American" to "minorities" then the article would have to become a celebration of the diversity of baseball.

The whole premise is stupid. In these surveys players like Jason Bay are classified as white even though he's Canadian yet David Ortiz is categorized as Dominican not "black". Jacoby Ellsbury - white even though he's Native American. The whole thing is crap.

 

I really do not think equipment is the barrier. There are plenty of companies and people willing to donate equipment to poor teams.

I think the bigger issue is getting enough parents to coach the teams.

 

And it's part of every employee's performance review as well.

Which is why, when a Gannett paper does a story on diversity, they have zero credibility on a legitimate issue. You always have to think, "Are they doing this because this is an important issue, or are they doing it because a corporate report is coming up and someone needs to show something for their performance review."

 

Nah. You'll always have the dads (or at least we do, but in the inner cities I suppose that's probably a bigger issue).

MLB and manufacturers will pick their spots for good pub, but they aren't going to do it wholesale throughout enough leagues to make a dent. Say they give four bats per team to a little league consisting of three divisions and a total of 20 teams -- their cost on that is going to exceed $5,000 per league. Multiplied by the number of leagues they'd need to outfit ... they're not going to be buying that much goodwill.

 

Yeah figure MLB is made up of roughly 40 % minorities.

It's a greater % than the country as a whole.

 

If you backed out the number of foreign born players from total MLB numbers then I'd guess the remaining percentage of African-American players would represent a greater percentage than in US population as a whole.

The whole thing is crap.

 

I don't know if it's crap -- there has been a decline in participation and interest in the black community, and 10 years ago it was worth wondering why. But now it seems like each story is just minor incremental advance of the same thing, the kind of evergreen "anniversary" story that doesn't shed much new light.

Also this doesn't seem to tie in to any greater theme about the game itself getting worse or having trouble attracting customers. Business has never been better.

 

Many surveys say that homosexuals make up 4% of the US population. When will USA Today argue that the gay man is woefully underrepresented in MLB? Hmmm?

 

Where's the white cornerback story?

 

I wonder if it isn't classic globalization in that owners are seeking cheaper labor markets? Why do 28 clubs run academies in the Dominican compared to, what, three urban youth academies that are centrally operated? In addition to more full baseball scholarships, I'd like to see MLB clubs devote more resources to their own backyards. Maybe there can be incentives for signing kids from your own market?

 

Again - you can only buy a 59 Fiddy MLB cap if you play in a certified league. That will get then in.

 

American kids have to go through the amateur talent draft, no? I believe that's also part of the reason why you see so much much poured into the DR, scouting in Korea, Japan, etc. Up until this year, there was no cap on how much money you could spend on those players. Now that there is a limit of something like $5 million a year (or so, not sure of the actual number) on international signings for each team, it'll be interesting to see if it'll have a ripple effect on some of those academies.