- Yet another movie about Jackie Robinson arrived as baseball held its annual commemorative celebration of No. 42, but officials of the game are fretting over the fact that only 8 1/2 percent of current major leaguers are black.
Given that African-Americans only constitute about 13 percent of the U.S. population, and that rarely do we have any industry or school system or community population that correlates exactly to the whole country's racial or ethnic makeup, baseball's somewhat smaller black cohort hardly seems like an issue to agonize over.
Nah. College musicians get credit for taking music classes -- not for performing. College athletes should get some sort of credit for practicing and learning health and all that, if they're majoring in sports education or something relevant. They shouldn't get random elective credit if they're trying to become business majors; that's counter-intuitive and will actually accomplish the opposite of what this article wants.Two suggestions: Athletes should get academic credit for playing on a team, no less than collegiate musicians get credit for music courses, or, say, collegiate journalists earn for taking courses where they can get credit for covering the athletes who don't get credit for doing what the journalists get credit for writing about.
And this too: For every athlete a college gives an athletic scholarship to, it should match that by giving an academic scholarship to a classmate from the same school. Then, we would have more than 2.8 percent male black student-athletes, and more young black men who could grow and strive, and be well-educated, like Jackie Robinson, the man.
I love this, as long as it's implemented fairly.
I liked the second suggestion too. I'd be all for that! It could have a real and tangible impact on a community.
Jackie Robinson Day is a day I look forward to every year as a baseball fan. I love seeing every player wear 42, a number retired across all of baseball to preserve his legacy, and remembering the place the sport has had in American culture over the years. this year, the 8.5 percent mark is one that has been mentioned a lot as being the lowest percentage of black ballplayers in decades. what I've wondered but haven't seen addressed anywhere this week is whether or not that percentage has been affected, at least to some degree, by the increasing number of Hispanic players. I haven't seen data on the exact percentages of Hispanic players over time, but one would assume that their growing presence has partly accounted for lowering percentages of other demographics. more Hispanic influence is something I'm excited about. in the World Baseball Classic, for example, the team from the Dominican Republic was an absolute powerhouse. to watch them play and then see footage from their home country, with its beautifully-kept baseball fields amid shoddy and precarious power-lines, was striking. that said, I would love to see the 8.5% rise again. sports can have a significant impact on the individuals in the poorer communities the article mentions, which is why a number of baseball players are involved in RBI, or Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities.
The reason the fields in the DR are well-kept is because MLB teams and crooked independent contractors have year-round camps, where players are purchased at paltry sums for consideration by teams in the States. It's not clean. My team, the Chicago White Sox, were involved in a really bizarre embezzlement scandal a few years ago, in which the director of operations for the Latin camps was siphoning off money intended for player payment. It's a loose system - if you can even call it a system - and if American players were treated similarly there'd be public uproar. Here's a really good read, amongst many. I've read dozens over the years, and there's at least one or two published every Spring when a Hispanic player storms the Grapefruit or Cactus League with video game numbers.
The reason the fields in the DR are well-kept is because MLB teams and crooked independent contractors have year-round camps, where players are purchased at paltry sums for consideration by teams in the States. It's not clean.
No, it isn't, but at least it's an outlet for some few. And in no way does it strike at the root cause of the issues places like the DR have, but most if not all Hispanic players who make it big give back heavily to the communities they grew up in (Clemente, Rivera, probably not Manny). So that's something.
No amount of "giving back" is going to turn the tide of crooked dealings with baseball's slave masters. I don't know that there's a good answer other than more transparency in the process and oversight, but like any problem, throwing money at it won't make it go away.
I spend a lot of time on hubski replying to myself and deleting my posts hours after I publish them. I'm beginning to feel like the Grandpa Simpson of the site. So a few additional things: Manny Ramirez spent hardly any time in the DR. He qualifies for playing on their team in the WBC, but only just barely, by birth rather than breeding. I won't say he's pulled a Mike Piazza, but I'd expect him to "give back" to Washington Heights, not Santo Domingo (which, however, it should be noted, he doesn't). I'm also not completely ignorant, and do realize my call for 'oversight and transparency' in the process of hiring children to play baseball rings a biit schoolmarmish. There is a "way that things work" in the world and if that machinery includes keeping baseball fields spruced up amidst shanty towns, so be it, it's better than nothing, etc. Those kids are protected from a lot of the harsh realities of their surroundings - if they're talented. But many aren't, and they're not paid well or even fairly for the hours they put in, and their studies suffer, their social lives are incredibly narrow-to-nonexistent, and are you sensing any similarities to, oh, say, basketball recruiting in America's urban centers? There's dignity at the end of a movie like Sugar, and that's nice, but it's also a fiction. The reality for Hispanic baseball players deposited into American life after busting out of pro baseball is a lot more like the end of a documentary, Hoop Dreams. (I'd post links but I'm typing from something that isn't a computer.)
It's exactly the same problem -- but, like you say, what's the solution? I don't think anyone wants those inner city YMCAs the NBA recruits from to shut down ... countless players point to them as life-savers and outlets and everything. Guys think of their first basketball coach as "dad" because they didn't have one. It just sucks that it's the best we can do, but trying to get really good at basketball is more interesting than learning to write well.and are you sensing any similarities to, oh, say, basketball recruiting in America's urban centers?