Posted on 04/11/2016 11:54:19 AM PDT by C19fan
y instinct, honed reflex and general contrarianism, I root for all “flashy” “showboats” who are “disgraces to the game.” It has been this way since I left Boston at age 10 to move to North Carolina, a state with no notable baseball team save the minor-league Durham Bulls, who, at least when I was growing up, seemed more a Hollywood relic than a ball club. Freed from having to like the Red Sox, I began to root for Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics, mostly because I liked how deeply he squatted while taking a lead off first base. He seemed as if he were taunting the pitcher. As I grew older and started feeling alienated from my white classmates, I gravitated toward athletes who, in some way, flouted the white, stoic traditions of American sports — Allen Iverson, Ken Griffey Jr., Rasheed Wallace, Pedro Martinez. I felt as if this was a moral choice.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I agree with most of the comments here but I wanted to point something out. If the author wants to find someone to blame, look at the very liberal NCAA.
As schools are forced to limit men’s scholarships due to title IX the NCAA caps the number of baseball scholarships at 11.7 for DI and 9 for DII teams. DI limits rosters at 35 and only 27 can be on scholarship.
If all scholarships were divided evenly (they aren’t, some positions are more important) then everyone of the 27 would get a 43% scholarship with 8 players getting nothing.
A lower income kid is much less likely to get college paid for in baseball than football or basketball. Add that to the fact that DI talent level players are recruited from top travel teams (which are very expensive), and it is no shock that most American players are going to be white and from middle or upper class families.
LOL!!
Even basketball is going the way of the private club teams like baseball has on the youth level. Today’s typical NBA player is a lot different than the generations before. They may look the same, but today’s African-American player is more likely to have come from a middle or even upper middle class background than his predecessors did.
Tell Dusty Baker that he’s playing in a racist game. I’d like to hear what he has to say about it.
Well he is the guy who said that blacks and Hispanics have an advantage because they naturally handle the heat of summer better.
LOL! I forgot about that!
The cap on scholarships is due to baseball not being a revenue producing sport. When the typical Div I games admission price is $0, there is not going to be many scholarships given out. Even the big conference schools try to recruit from within state. They can get three in state players for the price of one out of state player.
Every week they discover another way to prove that the country is racist.
It’s like there will always be a black center fielder in Washington. Hope Revere isn’t injured as much as Span was, especially last year.
Freegards
That’s what I was thinking.
And they left out the ironic “unbearable whiteness of hockey”.
.
Not one smile.
I think there was one black guy that played in major league baseball about 40 years ago. I don’t think there have been any since then.
Very good observation. With the bottom line in their minds, teams started creating baseball schools in Latin countries back in the late 50's. The schools taught ABCs in the morning, and baseball by pro instructors in the afternoon. The schools were placed in these countries because they could get a legal signature by a 16 year old boy for a pro contract that was binding. they would train him from early age to that point of 16 after being hand selected, and then spend a little more time before bringing him to the US to compete professionally in minor league ball with a straight shot to the big club. Then, in many cases, when he wanted comparable money to the other players around him, he would be released and another young brought up for the cheap price. The most name schools are located in Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. Baseball was and is a business first. Another problem is their competition with basketball and football concerning education. Baseball in college doesn't supply the high scholarships the other two sports do. So the path for a college education is paved in other directions by the money trail. And there have been more than a few athletes saw the inside of a classroom on the first and last day of the semester or quarter to get the study material, not used, and find out their grades, maybe. red
We know the outcome of that already, they would rebel and state that talent outweighs racial equality. Only when it favors blacks will they demand quotas.
Re: “8% Black”
From memory - more than 10% of all MLB players come from the Dominican Republic, more than any other country except the USA.
D.R. shares a 100 mile border with Haiti.
At least 50% of D.R.’s population has at least some African blood.
I read through the reader comments for this article, and was pleasantly surprised to see that even readers of the New York Times seem to agree that it is one of the dumbest articles ever written.
MLB is only 50% European white with 25% Hispanics, compared to the NBA which is 75% black. No articles for that. Never mind the nation overall is over 50% European white but only 12% black.
PC race baiters are the most racist bigoted loudmouths on the planet, bar none.
Not to mention the arrival of more Asian players. Many of the younger players for the Minnesota Twins are Hispanic and Asian.
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