WWJD

I know where you are there.

 

Just for the heck of it - there are 246 foreign born players in MLB this year. That leaves 504 roster spots (using your 750 number). Also using your number that 68 are African-American players - that means 13.5% of the US born players are African American. That means that percentage is almost exactly in-line with the percentage of the general population of the US that is African American.

This argument about not enough African Americans is bogus at best and racist at worst. What are blacks supposed to be nothing but the athletes?

 

So African-Carribeans are not of African descent?

You're going to have a hard time convincing them they are not black and that Jackie Robinson's MLB debut means nothing to them or their careers.

 

It's that lovely idea that if 60% of the arrested are black in a town made up of 60% blacks, is it racial profiling?

 

Most schools in my area have 90 percent white baseball teams and 90 percent black basketball teams.

I did a story on one of the schools, and one of the black/brown (whatever) players mentioned that he and all his friends played baseball growing up until about 8th grade. Once they got to HS, it was football and basketball. Why? No one could give me a good answer.

 

I believe it was Corey Patterson who made the point that MLB is spending all of its money in the Latin American/Carribean countries, and not spending anything (or barely anything) in the inner cities of the U.S.

 

AND THAT IS TRUE

 

Just another case of MLB holdin' the brown man down.

 

Let's do ourselves a favor and reframe the debate about nationalism, not racism, since nobody has any interest in including obvious men of color (Ortiz, Sosa, Clemente) because they were born outside the U.S.

Truth is, baseball has done a terrific job of spreading roots across Central America. We're even playing games with Cuba. And there's a World Baseball Classic, because of which Dice-K nows plays in the U.S. If anybody honestly feels like baseball is shutting African-Americans out, they're nuts.

It's a total non-story from baseball's perspective. If you want to track down all the reasons African-Americans aren't in the Big Show, go ahead. Here's what you'll find: Millions and millions of African-Americans migrated north from the 1940s-1960s to leave ag-based states in the south for manufacturing work in Northern cities. They clustered in city housing neighborhoods because real estate agents used to red-line back then and get away with it. These neighborhoods lacked fields. After a generation passed, African-Americans began to play the sport of Magic, Michael, Moses and the Doctor, partially because concrete made a nice spot for a basketball hoop. Mix in AAU, ESPN, the tennis shoe explosion, and voila.

 

ESPN did a story last night on how many of the baseball rosters for historically black colleges have as much as half filled by white players.

Debate all you want, but I could not care less if the rosters were all black, all white, all hispanic or anything. I really don't think or care about the race of players. I try to teach my kids that there are a lot more important ways to judge a person than how much pigment a person might have on their skin. Sometimes the racial bean counters drive me crazy.

The same people me complain about the number of blacks in MLB couldn't care less about the number of whites in the NBA. I couldn't care less about either one unless somebody could prove to me that somebody was denied a roster spot because of their race.

 

From MLB.com story:

Patterson said that there's really no way for modern players to understand the atmosphere Robinson lived in, but he briefly touched on another social issue facing the game. When asked about the dwindling number of African-American players in Major League Baseball, he opined that it's really a function of a few factors.

"Just to name a few, I think a lot of African-Americans grew up wanting to play basketball and football," he said. "I think that MLB needs to do a better job of scouting African-Americans in the city instead of putting all the money into the Latin places. They could do the same thing here. But I'm not going to blame Major League Baseball.

"It has to be a two-way street. As African-Americans, we have to be willing to accept the game. And MLB has to be able to reach out and find a happy medium. I think it's not either side's fault."

 

So? It's the No. 1 sport there. Are you saying we should reject a guy like Ortiz, who's played baseball since he was six, in favor of some kid we have to teach to play baseball at 13?

Again - are you seriously saying MLB has a bigger obligation to poor African-Americans over much poorer Latin Americans? Is that the implication?