When I was first made aware of Gary Sheffield's comments on Latinos and Blacks in baseball, last Sunday, via this post by Erin of Blue Thoughts, I commented that I wasn't going to chime in on the bashing of Shef (even though I am a Latino) until I heard the context of the comments. After all, it seemed pretty clear that his comments were lacking context, and being reported as such I was a little suspicious. I wrote that I would pobably like to read the GQ article first before passing judgment on Shef. Erin agreed, since "...ESPN didn't have every quote..." that content was hard to gauge.
The Starting Five had a solid piece on it this week, as they always do. You can count on them to provide an alternative view from the mainstream press (and the blogosphere, which too often just mimics the press) - in this case everyone bashed Sheffield as racist and ignorant. The Starting Five tried to provide some context to his comments, and what, in fact, he was trying to say (again, because the comments were reported as such, it was hard to tell what he was specifically trying to address, as I wrote in my initial comments on Blue Thoughts).
The context, as they saw it, and has Shef later clarified, seemed to revolve around Hispanic players being used to "outsource" or better yet "cheaply replace" African-American players. This is a common complaint among African-American baseball players, going back a long time - just read D-Wil's piece at TSF to see some other notable black players who have said similar things over the years and more recently.
Less than a decade ago (1998), African-Americans constituted 20% of MLB players. Now that number has been halved in under 10 years. In that time span, white players have remained the same (60%), while Latinos have jumped up from 20% to 30%.
Now it seems like more players are coming out to "defend" Sheffield's comments. For example, Latino Carlos Guillen had this to say about his teammate's comments:
"I'm happy he said it," Guillen told The Detroit Free Press on Tuesday. "I'm glad somebody spoke up."
Looks like the media jumped the gun again, eh? Now, this ESPN article I found via Our Book of Scraps suggests African-American baseball Torii Hunter also seems to agree with Che-ffield (and TSF's) assessment of the situation in MLB:
"You can go to Latin America and get that same talent as a black player in Compton and if he's in Compton he gets drafted in the first round he's going to get two million dollars," Hunter said on Fox Sports Radio. "If he doesn't pan out, you're out two million dollars but if you go to the Domincan, Cuba, or whatever and you can get a guy for two thousand dollars and he doesn't pan out you're only down two thousand dollars. I do agree that, you know 10 years from now you'll see no blacks, at all."
I haven't fully formed an opinion on the matter yet. I know this issue of "outsourcing" (MLB is investing in Latinos and, to some extent, Asian because they are cheaper than investing in Americans) isn't just related to African-Americans in MLB - it also effects whites (though not so much, because they have a cheap farm system available in the college system, as D-Wil pointed out - hence, their numbers haven't dropped in the last 10 years). And it really effects, as much, if not more than African-Americans, Puerto Ricans.
Puerto Ricans are seeing their numbers in MLB decrease. Remember, like African-Americans, Ricans are U.S. Citizens, and subject to the draft. They cost more money to develop than other Latinos do. Just a decade ago they were the dominant Latino group in the majors; now they trail Venzelueza and DR, and other foreign countries (Japan, Mexico, Cuba) are catching up quickly. The same excuses you hear for decreases in African-American players - "no interest", "would rather player other sports", etc - are being heard on the island, too... check out this Baseball Musing post, or this USA Today article.
Again, I'm not entirely sure what to do here. It's clearly a capitalism/globalization type of problem. Not unlike GM moving their factories overseas, leaving behind lots of unhappy white people in Detroit, or a million other examples involving minorities in this country and across the world, if there is a way to make money, or save a buck, big business will do it, regardless of the social cost. And just like those kind of discussions, the solution comes down to this: do you want to continue supporting the capitalism system, knowing all the social injustices that it brings rise to every single day, or do you want to change the system? Do you think the system can be fixed with a bandaid here and there, or are you going to do some wholesale change?...
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Good suggestions, Jordi. I could see both of those happening.
Or baseball could bow to outside pressure, and institute a world draft. Which would also help "poorer" teams compete, too (note teams like the Pirates and Royals supposedly aren't able to afford to sign the top free agent Asian and Latino players, or invest as heavily in Latin America).
I think what we can gather from the publicity Shef's comments have generated is that this is a major issue in baseball that is under-reported, but that won't be going away anytime soon, either. Again, the African-Americans players have been speaking out about it for a while now, and pretty soon Puerto Ricans might start wondering where all their players have gone, too.
And your point about the Negro Leagues and segregation is on point. In fact, that may be the number one reason segregation in MLB ended - not because of the social pressures, but because of cheap, easily available, easily "controlled" major-league-level talent that was available. Makes you think....
If you want to see the number of African American players rise, then MLB is going to have to open "baseball schools" in urban areas in the U.S.
The problem isn't necessarily the influx of "cheap" Latin players, the problem is that baseball is atrocious in urban areas in the U.S. It's a combination of the facilities and the level of competition. In baseball, more than other sports, no matter how good you are, you rarely progress unless you play against other good players regularly.
I also think kids don't play enough baseball to really get good at it, this goes back to facilities. Too many teams, not enough fields.
If MLB went into the urban centers, fixed up some parks, provided instruction, and ran elite leagues for kids and teenagers, and these leagues were seen as a pipeline to the majors, you'd see the athletes migrating back to baseball.
By the way, this goes for kids of any race/color. The state of baseball in urban America is dismal no matter what color your skin is. I think baseball in America would take a giant step forward if kids everywhere had the chance to play it at at least a somewhat competitive level.
As things stand right now, baseball is king in Central America, that's just not the case in our own cities.
Yeah, Brian, but that is the point. Because of the influx of "cheap Latinos", MLB no longer invests in "urban centers". At one time those centers produced African-American stars, right? I recall not too long ago Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis came out of the same hood - Compton, right? Or Crenshaw? Whatever, somewhere in LA.
So what happened to those parks, the ones that now need to be "fixed up"? What happened to the "instruction" and "elite leagues" that once produced Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry and Chili Davis? And Kevin Mitchell?
MLB stop investing in them, and instead invested in "cheaper Latinos". And, if you read the two links I sent about PR, it appears the same is happening to Puerto Rican players, too.
Excellent points, all.
Brian and SML, you two are not necessarily in disagreement, you know that, right? Brian, you are correct to say that big business (government, too) has divested from the inner-cities. SML, you are right to point out that ONE reason for this is the availability of "cheap, malleable" Latino players. Just two sides of the same coin, that is, if we were dealing with something 2-dimensional. But what we've really got is a kind of octogon - a complex, multi-sided beast that will not go away, and that will not be easy to solve.
And, yeah, SML, I was curious to read your response as well - don't ya love being the spokesperson for all Latinos? No pressure!
SML -
Interesting take (so far). Definitely awaiting your definitive opinion once the GQ article comes out. You have to wonder if there was ever a time in the 50s and 60s when white ballplayers said the same thing about players from the Negro Leagues. Eventually, I think what you might see happen is, as I mentioned over at TSF, independent "minor league" teams springing up in urban America, and then they could "sell" minority youths to MLB through their representation. Sort of a finders fee type of thing.
Or you might see independent baseball factories south of the border who train and represent kids before MLB can mold them. As it is MLB built a pipeline, as Branch Rickey did with the many minor league teams he created way back when. They will continue to use that pipeline until something or someone cuts it off.
Is it fair? No. But it may just be good business.