The Red Sox are mighty white
By adamg - 5/12/09 - 6:53 am
Dan Tobin analyzes the Red Sox, concludes that while they are not the whitest team in baseball or even the American League East, they are trending away from minority players:
... The days of deciding not to sign Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson for racial reasons are behind us, but the franchise that was the last team in baseball to field an African-American player now fields zero African-American players. A city with a troubled racial past, from Charlestown busing of the '70s the Celtics of the '80s, now fields a whiter than average baseball team. It's not panic time, but it’s still slightly troubling. ...
Comments
Yeah? And?
What is the blogger trying to say? That current management does not try to draft and develop the best players but the best white players? Has the blogger been paying attention the last decade or so?
Why does not the blogger go into the possibility that in the African American community, baseball is not a high priority?
And wtf with the Mark Teixeira comment? Portuguese people are not "white" now?
Hispanic Players
African Americans make up only 12% of the general population as of the 2000 census. Likely even less in 2010. With 30 players on a roster, that would be 3-4 players to be representative of the population.
But that's not the talent pool. African Americans are underrepresented, as are whites and Asians. Hispanic players - particularly black Hispanic players - are overrepresented relative to their prevalence in the general population.
So he's saying "no African Americans = racist" when a typical team sampling randomly from the talent pool by lot would likely not contain more than one African American on average.
He's also conveniently ignoring the long history of the Sox recruiting Dominican players, most of whome are of African ancestry. Convenient.
"Hispanic players -
"Hispanic players - particularly black Hispanic players - are overrepresented relative to their prevalence in the general population."
That's not quite true, as the "general population" of the talent pool is not the "general population" of the United States. It's a LOT easier to get a work visa for a Dominican shortstop than a Dominican restaurant owner or Dominican cab driver.
In other words, you can't compare it to the general population of the US. Because the available workforce has little to do with US borders.
Old threads
Die hard.
it's also a lot easier to stroll into citizenship
That's not quite true, as the "general population" of the talent pool is not the "general population" of the United States. It's a LOT easier to get a work visa for a Dominican shortstop than a Dominican restaurant owner or Dominican cab driver.
It's also a lot easier to basically get handed citizenship. I've known multiple immigrants who either brought enormous scientific contributions or founded small, successful businesses (the backbone of America's economy, not big business, or sports) and yet have had endless trouble even getting green cards- and waited a decade or more for citizenship, endured countless interviews, payed thousands to immigration lawyers, dealt with INS fuckups.
Meanwhile, a bunch of cheating druggies like David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are handed citizenship on a fucking silver platter and held up as "the American dream":
Let me fix that for you, John Shattuck: "especially when he pops some drugs to cheat."
Manny Ramirez has had a green
Manny Ramirez has had a green card since long before he was a famous baseball player. And once you have a green card, citizenship is just a matter of time, and taking a test.
Muck raking troll
This guy is a troll basically. There are fewer African Americans in the MLB overall, a point which he ignores. Are the Red Sox supposed to put extra effort into signing minority players? I'd guess that the most popular player of the team over the past run of success was David Ortiz, but sure Dan, we're all rooting for the team to become whiter.
I see that he also mentions the Celtics of the 80s, but fails to point out that that the current version of the Celts is a dominantly African American team (this is irrelevant to me, but apparently Dan is very interested in racial quotas).
If this article made any less sense, I'd look for Bob Halloran's byline.
African-Americans have
African-Americans have largely opted out of baseball while white Americans are slowly quitting on football (and are long gone from basketball) in favor of baseball. I share Tobin's reluctance to embrace change but it is what it is. It might horrify Tobin to learn that the Patriots have consistently been one of the whitest teams in the NFL this decade. They have a meager four Super Bowl appearances and a mere three Lombardi trophies to show for it.
Be careful of small numbers
Across each team you are looking at only about 30 players to measure against. For most statistical means 30 is typically just barely a sample size where you can get meaningful data. There are all kinds of things at play here - if the sox hired just 2-3 "non-white" players - we'd be right in the middle of the pack.
Bottom line - the sox are challenging for the lead of the AL east and they've beaten the Yankees every time out - and they are an incredibly exciting team to watch with their late game fireworks. As a fan that's all I care about - they win and it's often in entertaining fashion (and hopefully all are off the juice!)
I think if the author wants to look at racial disparity - check out the stands - I attend about half a dozen games a year and by the end of the season could practically count the number of minorities I see in the stands on my fingers and toes. As a previous poster stated, maybe baseball just isn't very popular in the black community these days and that's a greater explanation.
Red Sox
Maybe the reason you see so little Minorities (why are we the Minorities?)is because historically the Red Sox had some of the most racist players in the league, i.e., Ted Williams; not exactly a good mentor for little Black boys. They also have not been known to treat their "Black" players with the same respect shown to the white players. Trust me, the Red Sox, is a reflection of the sentiments felt in Boston. Nothing has changed.
Ya know, Williams and the Yawkeys have been dead awhile now
Did you notice that five of the starting players last night were minorities?
Ted Williams? Racist?
Show us some proof of this ridiculous assertion.
For your information, Williams was of Hispanic ancestry. I've heard stories of him lobbying FOR inclusion of black players, most especially Satchel Paige. If you have something aside from ignorance to offer, let's hear it.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Perfidious Nonsense
When anyone starts casting aspersions upon a sporting team, trying to prove that the racial make-up of said sporting team has to do with an agenda by ownership, they had better be willing to bring the meat to the table. Unless they have definite proofs concerning racist intent, it is entirely worth ignoring.
The difference between the Red Sox of the 1950s, and the Celtics of the 1980s, and Red Sox of today, is that the Red Sox of the 1950s were a team in decline.
The old Red Sox team record kept getting worse until, in the 1960s, they were arguably the worst team in the league for a stretch of four or five years. This happened precisely because they studiously avoided availing themselves of the wealth of talented black and other minority ballplayers available, while most other teams increased their edge on the Sox by dipping into that pool. Easily identifiable as racist because of the cause and effect.
On the other hand, what the Celtics of the 1980s and the Red Sox of today - as well as the Celtics of today, since they represent the opposite end of the white/black spectrum - have going for them, in defense against any racist intent on their part, is success on the playing field. In athletics, race is simply not a factor unless the ignoring of one race, in favor of another, is causing your team to compile a worse record than they could have if they had chosen differently-colored talent.
In other words, unless you can name some black players that the Red Sox should have on their roster; who were or are available within the Red Sox range of finance; who would be appreciably more talented than the corresponding white player currently on the roster; and would not disrupt or otherwise adversely impact the team chemistry; then you have no argument that holds water. You are arguing for quotas that have no basis upon performance, much as you accuse the supposedly racist ownership of doing.
(In the above paragraph, replace "white" with "black" and apply to the current Celtics squad. Just as silly.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The numbers are a starting point...
...rather than the conclusion.
Tobin did his homework: Instead of stopping with his anecdotal observation, he compared the number of minority ballplayers on the Red Sox to numbers on other teams, and the Red Sox don't come out looking so good on that scale.
The inquiry doesn't stop there, however. The next question is to ask why the numbers seem to be trending in that direction, and we're far from clear on that.
Three observations:
1. The current Red Sox leadership is not the old one. John Henry has publicly stated that the Red Sox lived not under the Curse of the Bambino, but under the Curse of Jackie Robinson. These guys aren't the Yawkeys.
2. This probably wouldn't be an issue if the Red Sox didn't have such a shameful, sorry-assed record on race. Jerry Gutlon's "It Was Never About The Babe" and Howard Bryant's "Shut Out" tell much of the sorry tale. Rosters fluctuate, but what allows any observer to detect the whiff of a "trend" is a legacy of past practice. Historically exclusionary institutions inherit their past.
3. Even this debate is couched in the Boston of the 1970s and before. Why are we talking only about African American ballplayers? Major league baseball has been infused with Latin and Asian players at a time when the pool of Black players has diminished. (Baseball just isn't that popular a sport among younger African American men.) But here we go again in Boston, talkin' diversity in almost purely black and white terms.
Preliminary verdict? It's an interesting observation, and it deserves attention.
Why?
Why is it an interesting observation and why does it deserve attention?
1) This is a key point. This is a different organization which owns the same property. It's less relevant that say, a comparison between what Paul Celucci did as governor compared to Deval Patrick.
2) Again, if it's a different ownership group, why is the past relevant? If the Yawkeys (or their trust) owned the team or if the new owners were a spin-off of the previous regime, this would matter, but they aren't, so it doesn't matter.
3) Good point and one not made by Tobin. Why don't Dice-K, Oritz, etc... 'count' towards Tobin's agenda? You think it's a 'interesting observation'- why do you think we should talk about diversity strictly in terms of race?
The Red Sox pursue a strategy of focusing on college ballplayers because they believe those players more consistently pan out in the major leagues than non-college players. More of the college players tend to be white. Do you think the Red Sox should abandon this successful strategy to pursue racial inclusion?
Red Sox and diversity
Vaughn, I have several responses:
1. Where in my comment did I say "we should talk about diversity strictly in terms of race"? I wonder if you're imputing to me some of your own baggage on this issue, because if you read my comment carefully I'm not making any such claim. I was only responding to the topic of the main post, which is about race and the Red Sox.
If you want my broader views on diversity, I'd include considerations such as socioeconomic class, personality, religion, sex and sexuality, and all sorts of other categories. But those factors aren't what we're discussing here.
2. Nowhere in my comment did I even hint that the "Red Sox should abandon this successful strategy [of pursuing college players] to pursue racial inclusion." But now that you bring it up, let's look at the record: Ortiz, Manny (enhancers notwithstanding), Pedro, and Dice-K are among the keys to the Red Sox resurgence who did not go through the college pipeline. In fact, take away the first two guys and you have a team as lovably frustrating as my dear Cubs and no World Series championships to speak of.
So while it's true that the colleges will yield a lot of good ballplayers (Pedroia and Papelbon, for example), so will other sources. And in reality, no team worth its while is completely abandoning one source of players for another.
3. Indeed, if you look at the success of the Red Sox during the past six or seven years, it's in part because they abandoned the very exclusionary recruitment practices that, for decades, self-selected them out of a market of incredibly talented ballplayers. Tobin is merely sending out a note of concern that this progress -- which simultaneously resulted in championship teams and a more diverse roster -- shows an early sign of reversing. Let's hope it's just that, but there's no harm in his raising the issue.
OK
Of course there's 'no harm'- Tobin is just blogging about what he thinks. I lumped some of your points in with his, but your conclusion was that this was an interesting point and that is what I don't understand. He's lumping the current ownership/management in with that of the racist policies of the previous owners- how does that make sense? They are as unrelated as I am to the people who previously owned my house (who BTW weren't relatives).
There are many valid and interesting ways to analyze the issues of race in the city of Boston, but the Red Sox aren't one of them, any more than the Cs or Patriots are.
.
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the darker the redsox got, the more successful they got.
the darker the redsox got, the more successful they got. hmmmm. i wonder if those same dark-skinned men would've been welcome to sit down to dinner in a typical new england home prior to 1990...
"Interesting observation"? No, it isn't.
It's bean-counting, and that's all. It's someone making the most obvious of observations, and doing the simplest math possible, to conjure up some grand theory which smacks of evil and blah blah blah. I'm with Suldog on this one-- if one is going to point accusatory fingers on a charged issue, one needs to have evidence to back it up, or one needs to shut up; the more charged it is, the more evidence they need to have. I think this is fair and reasonable, really.
I'm reminded of a comment you made on a thread a while back in which Emerson's student newspaper brought up the Holocaust in a story about a Boston city councilor's call for the enforcement of a housing rule which prevents more than X number of unrelated people from living together-- a rule which applies to more than just students, but is generally referred to in stories about the "student problem." Regardless of where one stands on that issue, comparing the councilor to Hitler was asinine and wrong. (The fact that he's the son of a Holocaust survivor makes the whole situation uglier, but the idiocy of the Emerson kids still stands).
Not every idea and not every person that rolls down the Pike deserves consideration and debate; some ideas, and some people, like the Emerson writer and the various people who allowed that to be published, are just dumb. On the bright side, the next time I have some stupid idea, I know where to go to get support.
Abusing statistics
Yikes, this article is what happens when you give a loaded gun with the safety off to a toddler.
Let's start with the statistics he used to show Heightened White Boy Activity (HWBA):
* 20/31 fielded players were white. Ok, so far so good.
* 12/17 batters were white. Ok, well, that's only the offensive half of the team...but ok.
* 803/1275 plate appearances were white. Um, so what? You already talked about the batters being white. The fact that the percentage is LESS for PAs than batters tells you what? That non-whites pinch hit more? That they bat higher in the lineup regularly? This number is meaningless.
* 206/285 innings pitched were by white guys. Again, so what? So are our starters whiter than our bullpen? (yes, by a mile) If you have 5 white starters and all of them pitch 6-7 innings per appearance, your IP HWBA is already going to be *starting* at 67-78%! Comparing to other teams, if they have even ONE non-white starter, that's 20% of their total starter IPs and it'll instantly swing that percentage a LOT.
* 30/32 games were started by white guys. Sure, and you're talking about FIVE guys on a team of 25! It just so happened that Matsuzaka is injured to start this season and his replacement in the rotation is *Jamaican* (see how hard it is when you try to make things about skin color?). So 30/32 should really be 26/32 since Masterson's 4 starts are by a Jamaican.
Again he goes back to PAs and position players (aka NOT pitchers!) to rank the teams. How stupid! Why do pitchers suddenly not count? Could it be because there are only 2 white guys in our entire bullpen?? (3 if you count the recently called-up Bard who hasn't even stepped onto an MLB field yet due to yesterday's off day)
This whole article simply cherry-picked numbers that don't make any sense, didn't even make any excuse for why he called Masterson "white" when he's Jamaican-born, and then concludes that the team needs to pick players because of their ethnic makeup rather than their talent? In what sporting world is that ever true?
If we analyzed the race of
If we analyzed the race of the posters on this site, what would we find? I suspect this site would make the Red Sox look like the Nation of Islam.
Not quite that bad
But don't think it isn't something I haven't thought about.
How does the league look as a whole?
Is it the Red Sox, or is it the league.
That said, how do the input pools look - college teams, farm teams, little league participation. It is difficult to field a disproportionate number of minority players relative to the general population if those people are not represented in the talent pool that pro teams draw from.
That's without getting into the whole "what race is David Ortiz" question - afrocarrib, black Hispanic, etc. That can get stupid right quick.
Blacks outnumber whites in the NBA and are disproportionately represented in the NFL. African Americans make up only about 8-12% of the population of the US - a declining percentage because the increase in US population has been driven by high birth rates among Asian and Hispanic immigrants. Maybe, just maybe, other opportunities have improved and sport isn't as heavily emphasized? Anybody know about that?
It's the league
They outnumber whites in the NFL by roughly 2-1 and probably close to 4-1 among starters. Black males - broadly defined - make up about 14-15% (after crudely knocking off a point or two to limit to non-Hispanic blacks) of the male population 15-24, whites about 60% (but it's down to 53% among newborns, if I remember correctly, and will become less than 50% any year if one factors in births of children with white moms but non-white dads).
African-Americans aren't bowing out of sports, they're just more focused on basketball and football than in the past while track & field, boxing and baseball have been losing ground.
One factor that throws the proportionality completely out of whack is that foreign players have uncapped access to baseball's farm systems which greatly inflates the share of Hispanic players (Europeans have similar access to ice hockey's farm system which puts American players at a tremendous disadvantage since they have to compete against players who went pro in their respective national leagues before playing in the U.S. I suppose Congress views baseball and ice hockey as jobs Americans don't want).
Come on...
The Red Sox may be getting more white, but so is baseball as a whole.
I guess the blogger thinks that Theo, Henry, and Werner have no issues with minorities (Lugo, Matsuzaka, Okajima, Delcarmen, R. Ramirez, Saito) or even dark-skinned minorities (Ortiz), but American black men specifically. Thats why they traded Coco. I guess thats plausible.
Ok, sarcasm over.
Theo and the baseball operations folks spend their time looking for ways in which the baseball market undervalues players. Thats what they've been doing for some time now. It's where players like Ortiz, Youkilis, Bill Meuller, and Kevin Millar come from. To think that the race of a player enters into their decision is lunacy. Since the baseball operations people don't give a rat's ass what color their players are, so long as they get on base, I don't think we need to worry about the Red Sox. Tom Yawkey is not walking through that door. If the post had been about the lack of African-Americans in baseball in general, the blogger would have a point.
And an additional note
regarding Coco Crisp. They traded him to Kansas City for Ramon Ramirez, a darker-skinned Latino - who happens to be a freaking awesome relief pitcher. What does Tobin think about that? Is the team like, 2/3 excused for the trade of Crisp, or does he think that they would have preferred to get back someone lighter-skinned than Ramon, but weren't able to find a suitable trade partner? ;-)
Tom Yawkey has been dead for
Tom Yawkey has been dead for years. The Celtics are mostly black - does that mean Celtic management is anti-white, or is it just a matter of fewer whites in the NBA as a whole? I can't even believe I'm dignifying the insinuation with a comment. John Henry is not Marge Schott.
Uh-oh
Masterson just threw at Torii Hunter, a black man on the most non-white team in baseball (according to Dan's analysis). He must be a Klan member.
I find how "white" a team is far less intersting to discuss than how "non-white" a team like the angels are. After all, this country is mostly "whites" (including "hispanic whites"...really whats the difference? we're talking about skin color here...) make up 73.1% of america. How is it that the majority of americans are white, yet the majority of professional athletes on so many teams arent? That would be interesting.
12.4% of americans are "black". That makes it not really statistically significant if a team has no blacks, right?
Right on. Seriously, some
Right on. Seriously, some people are just so consumed with race. These are the same people who want to live in a post racial society yet bring it up constantly. I am black and can not stand things like this.
Meanwhile ...
Is that a Bruins game or a White Pride rally? Even the ice is white!
Only eight black bears in history.
funny
wikipedia says the black bear is the most common type of bear in North America.
Willie O'Ree
The first black player in NHL history played for the Bruins.
I always found it interesting that the Bruins and the Celtics (first black player drafted in the NBA, first all-black starting five, first black head coach) led the way in their respective leagues, insofar as breaking down certain racial barriers, while the Red Sox were dead last in their league. Just an interesting tidbit.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Liberal Guilt
"But in the course of arguing, she raised a point that just won’t go away: the Red Sox were getting uncomfortably whiter."
It is only uncomfortable if you are saddled with liberal guilt. Get a life, dork.
And what's it called when you deny that there are race issues?
Conservative privilege? I think whatever-you're-doing-there also needs a term.
I don't feel any guilt connected with it, but I'll say that I am uncomfortable when an organization is much whiter (or straighter, or upper-classer, or maler, or or or) than the general population. It makes me wonder what's going on in the organization that's making minorities feel unwelcome. Why are people who have to worry about whether "their kind" will be fully welcomed choosing to work or socialize or do business elsewhere?
From my own perspective, I've worked and socialized a few places where the crowd there is extremely straight, and there's always been a reason for that. It's never been outright inappropriate treatment, but I'll eventually discover things like bosses who can't accept that a client making unfounded complaints about me might be doing it because he's homophobic, or someone who schedules a major event on the same day as a major regional LGBT event not because they hate teh gays, but because no one in power bothered to check event calendars other than for their own demographic's events. Even if people aren't intentionally being heterocentric, I'll usually move on to somewhere where LGBT folks are more included. Hence the previous place staying really really straight. I'm not a token, and I'm not obligated to stay there and make the place diverse when I'd be more comfortable somewhere else. When we're roughly 10% of the population, yet a company has 0 of us, it pretty much indicates that people have chosen to move on, or not to bother in the first place.
So yes, when I go somewhere and there are few or no non-white people, I want to know why.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
talking about it is important
Okay, having posted on this topic before, let me reiterate: I'm not persuaded that the current Red Sox leadership is racist or discriminatory. However, I think it was better than not that the original poster raised the issue of declining racial diversity on the team's roster. He also put together some stats to support his point, even if some might disagree with his approach.
It is disturbing that people are so dismissive of, and even hostile towards, someone even raising the issue. The Red Sox have a long and shameful history on race, historically supported by a devoted fan base that for decades apparently looked the other way when it came to this matter. I believe that the Red Sox have turned an important corner on race, but it's the team's own history that justifies our continued attentiveness to it.
Thank you to Eeka for raising points based on her own experience. As only the second person of color ever tenured (2000) at my institution in its 100+ year history, I know what it's like to look around and wonder why there are so few people of color around. Those of us who continually see the vestiges of Boston's intolerance have reason to keep our antennae up for signs of exclusion.
Yeah, I've never understood that
People have a hard time distinguishing between systemic racism (and other -isms) and outright hatred and bigotry. A lot of people deal with the systemic stuff by telling the victims that they're bigots for being so focused on race or religion or whatnot. Part of white privilege is not having to think about race.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Why it doesn't make sense
"I am uncomfortable when an organization is much whiter (or straighter, or upper-classer, or maler, or or or) than the general population."
When the organization is selected based on a criteria not evenly distributed among all other criteria in the general population, then it's stupid to be uncomfortable about it.
The Red Sox are selected based on cost, athletic prowess, availability, and positional need. None of these things are correlated with race or anything else in a way that suggests that any aberration from the general population racial makeup is in any way a bias with the team's management. In fact, the original post this is all based on doesn't even *mention* what the general population's racial percentages are and barely even pays lip service to what the league's racial balance is. The argument that the Red Sox should somehow reflect the racial makeup of the populace or any other particular racial makeup is absurd. Unless you can show what used to happen, where non-white players are at the top of their game, available, and affordable, AND turned down for a white player who is worse, harder to get, or costs an extravagant amount, then it's just nonsensical to discuss the racial makeup of the team as if you're rooting out some sort of bias. The only bias the Red Sox have is good baseball.
In journalism, this is one of
In journalism, this is one of those articles that gets pulled out of the files and repeated over and over again. No need to be creative when you can just repeat the same old tropes.
They used to write such articles about the Jews controlling finance. Funny, you don't see that one any more.
It wasn't repeated
You (and everyone else here) are commenting on a year-old article!
That's the point, isn't it?
That's the point, isn't it? Whether it was written yesterday, a year ago, or 10 years ago, it's an old premise and no longer stands up to scrutiny.
Maybe baseball is just boring
... and not very good exercise either.