baseball demographics

[accesscrimea]

In Europe we see some basketball and the odd snippet of football but hardly ever any baseball. So i was wondering what the demographics are? is it black dominated like the other sports? Are certain positions more white, like in football, and certain more black?

 

[Van_Slyke_CF]

Since you are asking again, accesscrimea, I'll respond.

From some sources I just checked out, the 2009 Opening Day MLB rosters were:

60.4% white (Non-Hispanic)
27% Hispanic (White, Black and all shades in between)
10.2% American blacks-the highest percentage in many years
2.4% Asian

 

[j41181]

Unlike NBA, were the Non-Hispanic Blacks will remain the constant majority (73-77%), the MLB's Non-Hispanic Whites will continue to decline. It will fall past 60% anytime, and to 55% in a few years.

Edited by: j41181

 

[accesscrimea]

Did i ask before?!

I dont understand what exactly you mean by the hispanic category - Im currently staying in Spain and everyone here is hispanic (ie - of spainsh speaking heritage) - and white too!

are the blacks more successfull in baseball in any particular position(s)?

 

[white is right]

Positional players. That's why it seems like there are more Black players. Even back when Black players made up 25 percent of major league rosters they were an unbalanced percentage of players.

 

[Bear Backer]

Did i ask before?!

I dont understand what exactly you mean by the hispanic category - Im currently staying in Spain and everyone here is hispanic (ie - of spainsh speaking heritage) - and white too!

are the blacks more successfull in baseball in any particular position(s)?

Hispanic in America is a bit of a misnomer. The majority of so-called Hispanics in America and MLB are actually Mixed race White/Amerind. In MLB particular, there are also a lot of even mixed race White/Black players that are falsely labeled as Hispanic because they come from Latin American countries. It has been kind of a dirty secret that MLB and the diversity mongers have used to imply that there are not enough Blacks playing the game. In reality, probably a good 25% of all major league players are black, whether they are in fact American born or Latin American born.

Blacks are generally middle infielders and outfielders in MLB. Counting blacks who are classified as Hispanic, they make up roughly 38% of all starting Middle Infielders (2B/SS) and around 25% of all starting Outfielders. Blacks are the most heavily pushed in Center Field. Edited by: Bear Backer

 

[PhillyBirds]

Blacks are generally middle infielders and outfielders in MLB. Counting blacks who are classified as Hispanic, they make up roughly 38% of all starting Middle Infielders (2B/SS) and around 25% of all starting Outfielders. Blacks are the most heavily pushed in Center Field.

Right you are. Shortstop and center field are the two most athletic positions, and are generally occupied by the "superior" affletes. I took a closer look at this phenomenon a little while back, if you're interested. (Warning: Numbers. Lots of them).

 

[Alpha Male]

10.2% American blacks-the highest percentage in many years


From center stories on ESPN to the MLB pumping millions into inner city baseball programs to develop and recruit future talent - I guess all that whining and complaining about not enough blacks in baseball has finally paid off.

Now, if we had a unified white activist group - like everyother minority group in this country - that promoted our goals, we could make a strong case for the white runningback, receiver, and cornerbackin the NFL.

 

[whiteathlete33]

10.2% American blacks-the highest percentage in many years
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>From center stories on ESPN to the MLB pumping millions into inner city baseball programs to develop and recruit future talent - I guess all that whining and complaining about not enough blacks in baseball has finally paid off. </div>
<div></div>
<div>Now, if we had a unified white activist group - like everyother minority group in this country - that promoted our goals, we could make a strong case for the white runningback, receiver, and cornerbackin the NFL.
</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>

Blacks are only 12 % of the US population so what are people complaining about. Does every single major sport in the US have to be 80 % black?

 

[accesscrimea]

ok well as long there arent white people who are been termed as ´hispanic´ - ie - non-white, then thats ok with me.

10.2 percent is about the proportion of blacks in the country as a whole, so at the moment that is about right...but as everyone is saying that seems set to change...

 

[FootballDad]

While sitting down for breakfast at my hotel, I was skimming through the USA Today CasteSports section, and happened apon this predictable, yet outrageous article on how US blacks are lacking in beisbol. It cries about how US blacks only make up about 8% of the players. Oh, and Caribbean blacks don't count, as according to Tori Hunter, they're not really black. Huh? Of course, now that I've seen this article, I'll be waiting with baited breath for the corresponding USA Today articles on the dearth of white players in the NFL and NBA........

 

[Freethinker]

The only saving grace of the article is it mentions the percentage of white Americans is down too. It then touches on D1 baseball programs giving out such few scholarships.

 

[Don Wassall]

Like the sprouting of weeds as the weather begins to warm, you know it's almost baseball season when the annual whining about the lack of American blacks in the sport begins.

From the article: Baseball spends $8 million to $12 million a team, Boras says, scouting and developing players in Latin America countries. Yet that same amount might be better spent in the USA, the committee says, developing American kids.

That sounds great on the surface, but one word was left out: to be accurate it should read "developing black American kids." I've never once heard or read of anyone advocating developing White talent in this country. The baseball "academies" and various programs designed to encourage kids to play the sport are always in the inner cities

And Torii Hunter is clueless: "As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us," Hunter says. "It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?'

Bag of chips? A bag filled with hundred ounce bars of gold maybe. Manny Ramirez and the rest of the "dark faces" make just as much if not more than their American counterparts.

The real thrust of these articles should be: Given that baseball isa sport that requires a wide set of athletic skills, particularly in the area of hand-eye coordination, and blacks just aren't very good atbaseball in spite ofvarious forms ofaffirmative action designed to prefer and develop them over Whites, why then are they so wildly over-represented in basketball and football when Whites have proven over and over that they are the world's best and most rounded athletes and also are "interested" in playing those sports?

 

[FootballDad]

I notice that the last line of the article is a quote from Scott Boras, a big-money agent, when he's talking about how money is invested in overseas markets to develop talent, when it would be best used domestically in "inner city (read: black) programs" because, and this is the key line, "We lose this game if the best athletes are not playing baseball." Because everyone knows that blacks are the best athletes, according to this doofus. Makes my blood boil to read that comment.

 

[FootballDad]

Oh, I can't seem to find the "opinion posts" at the bottom of this article anymore, either. Before I took off to earn a living for the day, I wrote a short, but pointed comment about the article and about how whites are discriminated openly in football and basketball. It must have gotten ugly, because the comments are nowhere to be found!!

 

[Skipperron]

I love how they always split the black players from the black hispanic players, thus insuring that it will seem like there are far less blacks in the game. If you add the Afro-Americans (sic) with the black latino or hispanic players you get a much truer picture of the "color" of baseball. And it is changing. I am a Pirate fan so Of course I pay attention to them. Just a couple of years ago their lineup was all white with ONE black on the roster. (Not counting pitchers). Now they will enter the season with 4 of the eight starters black, plus a few on the bench. AND..........by June or July Alvarez will come up and the white player Andy LaRoche will go or sit. And soon Tabata will come up and Jones or Clement will sit or be traded. And then a somewhat white catcher Jorge Sanchez will come up in a year or two and Doumit will be gone. That means an all black or Latino lineup. I am counting Iwamura as dark skinned type as well. He is Japanese but very dark skinned. This is what is meant to happen to all of baseball. Even though most college players and high school players are white, they somehow keep drafting the black ones. And that is also why teams are spending so much in Latin countries, stocking up on black players.

 

[Don Wassall]

Torii Hunter (why the hell are there two i's in his first name?) is taking heat, not for his racist assumption that blacks are better baseball players than Whites, but for offending hispanics:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/35802036/ns/sports-baseball/

 

[Van_Slyke_CF]

Gary Sheffield did this crap a few years ago and Torii Hunter is picking up where Sheff left off.

Torii: If MLB teams are trying to get Latin Americans because they're cheap, why did the Twins sign hotshot amateur talent Miguel Angel Sano to a $3.5 million bonus this offseason?

Why has my favorite team, perennial losers the Pittsburgh Pirates, invested several million in a new facility in the Dominican Republic and big bucks elsewhere throughout the Caribbean to find and develop more talent?

The simple fact of the matter is that black Americans turned away from baseball a few decades ago and they're interested primarily in basketball and football. This has nothing to do with some sort of grand conspiracy by MLB. If anything, MLB this decade has gone to absurd lengths, led by Bud Selig, to kowtow to blacks and exaggerate their contributions to the game over the past 6 decades.

Times change and the interests of young people do as well. How about the surge in talented white Americans in soccer and so many winter sports, for example? I'd say there's been more than a few who've done so over the years because they knew they wouldn't get a fair chance in football and basketball.

There's a big difference between the discrimination white men suffer through in football and basketball as opposed to blacks' declining participation in baseball simply because they don't like the sport anymore.

If you don't like it Torii, retire and devote the rest of your life-and considerable financial resources-to improving the participation and skills of blacks in baseball.

But I suspect that you, along with Sheff and racist Joe Morgan, just like to talk to hear yourselves talk, but don't want to do what's necessary to change what you perceive to be such a big problem. Edited by: Van_Slyke_CF

 

[Van_Slyke_CF]

How does Torii Hunter feel about MLB's RBI(Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) Program? I'm not going to look up specifics, but I bet MLB has spent a pretty penny on it so far. And I doubt the program's intentions are to help make more white MLB players.

The Pirates have made a commitment to facilities(Josh Gibson Field) and training for young black kids in the Hill district of Pittsburgh. I guess Torii is unaware of this as well.

I see lots of white men drafted each year from baseball hotbeds in Florida, Texas, and California.

But how about areas of the country where the population is predominantly white and the kids don't get much of a chance for real baseball instruction? MLB couldn't open some acadamies there, especially in places where indoor facilities would be beneficial?

Torii Hunter needs to shut his trap.

 

[Van_Slyke_CF]

And while I'm on the subject, let's not forget about Gary Sheffield and the HOF a few years down the road.

Sheff undoubtedly believes since he went past 500 HRs last season that he's a cinch for Cooperstown.

Gary Sheffield has admitted to making throwing errors-or essentially throwing games-to get him out of Milwaukee many years ago.

Sheff, also an admitted drugs cheat, has no right to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hopefully this site will still be around when Sheff becomes eligible and we can do our little part to keep the facts fresh in people's minds to try and keep him out.Edited by: Van_Slyke_CF

 

[Europe]

No more foreigners in American sports. Why should we have our jobs stolen by these people? There are American kids who can't play in MLB because of all these Latin players. Do they expect me to pay money to make these idiots rich?

 

[foreverfree]

Josh Gibson Field? Guess they couldn't name it Judy Johnson Field because Wilmington, DE's MiLB park beat'em to it!

(Johnson, who grew up in Wilmington, played for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and natch, his larger than life statue is outside the stadium, while the namesake of the stadium itself, the Caucasian Wilmington mayor Dan Frawley, must posthumously settle for a plaque on the outside wall.

)

Torii, Torry, Tori. (The black Hunter, the black Holt, the Jewess Spelling) Sounds like a flick about Pearl Harbor.

John Edited by: foreverfree

 

[Europe]

Ozzie Quillen says that in ten years Americans will need a Visa to play baseball in America because the latin players will have taken over by then. Why do people support this? It is a disgrace to have all these foreigners here. This makes me sick to my stomach.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/35802036/ns/sports-baseball/

 

[Deadlift]

The Cincinnati Reds had barely any people at their games last season. I see that they signed an Afro-Cuban pitcher for a bunch of money.

Hopefully, the seats will remain barren this year!

 

[Skipperron]

Good thread and right on the money. I read a lot of fans sites and they constantly harp on the fact that their teams need to sign more hispanics, sign more asians, sign more foreigners. Never sign more americans, unless of course it is Afro-Americans.