You can't take blacks out of baseball, as it was so eloquently put it in Mississippi Burning, "I love baseball, you know it's the one time a black man can swing a bat towards white people and not get killed?" :rofl:
nobody understands what he meant. SI had an article a few months back (maybe a year ago or so) about how few american black kids are getting into baseball anymore. Most inner-city black kids are gravitating to football and basketball. Guys like Cliff Floyd and Dontrell Willis are actually pretty rare, the majority of black baseball players are from South America now. http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/sports/14552.php
For a white guy to come on and say the game needs more whites WOULD BE racist, because the mlb is a majority white league. Wanting an increase on 7% is a lot different than wanting an increase on, whatever it may be, 60%.
Morgan is commenting on the effect instead of the cause. What he should have said is "I wish more black players were developed enough to be drafted". The draft is a business it should be based on production not ethnicity.
When you look at the big picture, only 8% of all MLB players are black. That number is getting lower each year and MLB is trying to present a more diverse face to the public. Its hard to attract Black people to a sport that doesn't have black players. Hockey is a great example of that. There are more Black fans of Soccer. I would say JM isn't being racist by his remark, but as one of the few remaining Black representatives of MLB players and a HOF, his POV is a valid one and needs to be addressed. NBA is almost all black. So is the NFL. for MLB to become all Latino is just another form of self segregation and needs to be addressed in all sports. Not just MLB. JMHO
That theory comes into question when you look at the NFL and NBA where the overwhelming majority of fans are white yet the majority of players are black.
You're right, but what do you think the reaction would be if a commentator said the NFL needs more white players?
That's just the fans attending games. I know lots of blacks who follow the NBA but never go to games. I don't know how this ties into anything we're discussin' here, but black people do tend to fill out boxing arenas.
I wouldn't say "overwhelming." Like Cakes says, a lot of blacks watch NBA and NFL games at home, and are part of the fan base without spending the (high) cost of event tickets. I would imagine the proportion of black NBA fans are slightly higher than the proportion of blacks to other races in this country. Whites do watch NBA games even though whites are in a distinct minority there, but is it really the same thing as blacks turning from baseball because the numbers of black players are diminishing? It may be a case of confusing chicken and egg, because the lack of black fan interest in baseball may be reflected in fewer black baseball players, and not the other way around as Morgan seemed to posit it, but whites watch basketball, or listen to rap music, in large part because it's cool to do so in white culture. Do blacks have the same willingness to embrace a sport where they are a rapidly diminishing minority? Given their historic experience in American culture, I can well understand them turning away, and I think the sport is poorer for it.
I know that i just don't believe it should work that way. Oh so if a white guy came out said said the NBA needs mroe white players it would be ok? B/c I remember Larry Bird 2 years ago saying something similar and he got roasted for it and he didn't say the BA NEEDED more whites he just said he thought sine the fan base was mostly white he thought fans would want to see a few more white stars and that's very different from saying the game would be more exciting if the league added more white players.
