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Blog*Spot ArchivesContactRichard Ceccarelli Josh Mandir |
Tuesday, April 20, 2004Is Baseball racist?Tim Keown thinks so. He seems to be very angry over the lack of African-American starters in the Majors Leagues. I must admit, I too was shocked by the fact that there are only four African-American starters in the Major Leagues (Dontrelle Willis, Jerome Williams, Darren Oliver and CC Sabathia), but I think Tim is looking for problems where they don't exist. In this day-and-age teams can't afford to ignore the best talent. He calls claims that Basketball and Football tend to lure away young black athletes "laughable." I don't know why he thinks the suggestion is so funny- it seems plausible to me. Football and Basketball whizzed past Baseball in the inner cities a long time ago (Alan Shwartz has some idea how to rectify the situation). He points out that Baseball has the highest (and guaranteed) contracts in the sports world, so surely everyone would choose baseball over Basketball and Football, a claim that I believe to be baseless. The real advantage Football and Basketball have is that they offer instant super-stardom. Let's walk down the street and ask the average person to name one collegiate football player. They'll probably be able to name several. Now ask that person to name one collegiate baseball player. Blank stares are all you're going to get. First pick in the last NBA draft? LaBron James, of course. First pick in the baseball draft? I didn't think so... Baseball just can't compete with that level of, yes Tim, instant gratification. |
