Baseball and race- a discussion

[Inukchuk]

The four major sports are all dominated by blacks or people of African decent, for some reason they're very gifted people athlectically. It's just a shame that African americans ignore soccer and baseball......

LOL WTF??? Baseball is a one of the four major sports, so there goes that theory. And people have been fired from big-time sports jobs for saying variations of this: "for some reason they're very gifted people athlectically".

I thought hockey was one of the big 4, too...

[Matthias]

The four major sports are all dominated by blacks or people of African decent, for some reason they're very gifted people athlectically. It's just a shame that African americans ignore soccer and baseball......

LOL WTF??? Baseball is a one of the four major sports, so there goes that theory. And people have been fired from big-time sports jobs for saying variations of this: "for some reason they're very gifted people athlectically".

I thought hockey was one of the big 4, too...

My guess is he's replacing hockey with golf, although really he should replace it with Nascar.

In any case, it's interesting the reaction the resurrection of this thread has gotten. I don't know if anyone else remembers all the hubbub 2 years ago when the black representation in the majors fell to 8% but it was a major topic in the sports world. FWIW, the report that year also came out around the time of MLB honoring Jackie, so there were all those tie-ins at the time.

My take on it is two things:
1) It's pretty evident that today, more than ever, baseball is a meritocracy. If you're good, you play. If you're not good, you don't.
2) Although noone discussed it, the white representation in baseball is also on a serious decline. It's not that there was this period of integration and now we're trending back towards a period of segregation.... it's that blacks were losing representation in the majors to Latinos and Asians. So in a larger sense, MLB was just as integrated as ever.

I haven't been watching ESPN this week, but my sense from other popular press is that the percentage going up to 10% hasn't received 5% of the coverage as the percentage going down to 8% did.