Antone had it right in post 6 above.

I’d bet anything that the growth in Latino players far exceeds the decline in African-American players. The growth in Asian players is also significant in the last 20 years.

If baseball recruits more African American players and fewer Latinos, is that discriminatory or anti-discriminatory?

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From the article:

The greater problem is that our cities have become shells of their former selves.

Maybe that’s the case in most cities, but from where I sit, New York City is a far better place to live in than it was in from 1970-1990, or so. Well, maybe this modern fiscal crisis brought on by the national recession will bring it back down some. We’ll see.

I hate thinking about things like that; drives me nuts.
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Look, you can do all the recruiting you want, but if African American kids would rather play and work harder at football and basketball, there’s not much anyone can do about it.

Also, seems like he should have wrote this last season since there were only 4 on the team: Derek Jeter, Milton Bradley, Grady Sizemore, & Russell Martin and three of them were bi-racial.

FYI: We missed Torii Hunter since he was injured, so that makes it 11 African-American All-Stars.

Corey wrote:

antone wrote:
What century are you living in? There’s still no leagues for them to keep their interest or for that matter in some cases no fields for them to play on and there are plenty of basketball courts around.
this 1, and i’d bet i’m younger than you. I played stickball growing up, it’s quite cheap, you don’t need a league, just a few guys (at least 2 others) and your set. I didn’t need leagues to keep my interest, why does anyone else? You don’t need a glove, and tennis balls are cheap as all hell.

That may be true but I just don’t think playing stickball is going to equal playing baseball in high school and then getting drafted and going to college…there needs to be some structure in place so that kids can go on to play in highschool after getting developed in a league setting.

Another thing is…I bet a lot of baseball programs get cut when the schools/cities are trying to meet their budget.

FWIW, there’s a stickball league in the Bronx

http://www.coolinyourcode.com/ny-emperors/

and, you don’t need a sandlot for stickball. You can play in the street, or as I did against the wall of my school.

antone wrote:

What century are you living in? There’s still no leagues for them to keep their interest or for that matter in some cases no fields for them to play on and there are plenty of basketball courts around.

this 1, and i’d bet i’m younger than you. I played stickball growing up, it’s quite cheap, you don’t need a league, just a few guys (at least 2 others) and your set. I didn’t need leagues to keep my interest, why does anyone else? You don’t need a glove, and tennis balls are cheap as all hell.

Good point, Raf. History does affect perception.

Raf wrote:

I could be wrong, but I doubt the NHL has the history that MLB has WRT race.

Steve Lombardi wrote:

say that when the media comes after him on this matter?
Also, just for the record, you could say that the NHL is in the same boat with MLB here – but, there, no one seems to care about it.
For some reason, it seems OK to come after baseball on this – but not so much the other sports. Perhaps that’s the price of being the National Pastime?

I could be wrong, but I doubt the NHL has the history that MLB has WRT race.

Oh, sandlots, now, there’s a real issue today…

http://waswatching.com/2008/07/20/so-long-sandlots/