[BostonGuy]

I appreciate the time you've taken to dissect my post, although I take issue with your line-by-line response. I see it frequently here, and elsewhere on the net, and I find it to be something of a cheap response. For example, when you take me to task with the line "for the third time," you make it sound as if we have exchanged that argument in three rounds, when in fact you have found three similar statements all intended to make one point. Plucking several lines out of context and hammering them is not good debate, it is pedantic.

Clearly this is something we are not going to agree on. I believe any further arguments on my part will be summarily dismissed, as you studiously pick certain statements to refute, and ignore the rest. But I appreciate the exchange never the less (and I do mean that, no sarcasm intended).

[Dr. Frank fan]

Yes, sorry about the line by line thing, looking back I see what you mean. I shouldn't have done it and it detracted from the numerous valid points I made in my post. Including, ironically, the one which I was repeating (namely that the onus is on you to substantiate any inequity you claim exists, not the other way around).

The fact remains however that neither you nor anyone else has given any reason whatsoever to believe or even pay attention to the statement "qualified blacks are currently hindered in baseball", except of course for vague feelings and baldfaced assertions and hunches and innuendo. The evidence just isn't there. That being the case, it's a non-starter to begin with, and I just resented attempts to base a discussion on what is a wholly unsubstantiated claim as if it merits being dignified with a response.

It's kind of like going up to someone and saying to them, without any evidence, "I think you might be a wife-beater. I would like to discuss this." Then when they object, and even show you that they're not beating their wife right now, and look-- they didn't yesterday when a home movie was taken, etc., you say "these few examples alone are not enough to prove you are not a wife-beater". They object to the slander and innuendo and you say "hey relax, I didn't say you are a wife-beater, I qualified my claim, I said I think you might be a wife-beater". And any and all attempts to elicit actual proof of the alleged wife-beating in question are met with utter and complete silence, the responses instead quickly shifting to superficial aspects of the accused wife-beater's argumentation style (such as the fact that it is pedantic or haughty or employed a hackneyed annoying internet convention....).

Can you see why behaving in such a manner can tend to tick a person off? ;)

If you can give me an objective, empirical reason to believe that there is a systematic racial problem with baseball hiring (not rooted in your own hunches), then go ahead and do so. Otherwise, ask yourself just what the heck were you talking about, and attempting to base a discussion on? Your personal feelings and beliefs on the subject?

But those are elements of your autobiography, not statements about professional sports.