Jackie Robinson Day: Could be Much More

[barrysloate]

All excellent ideas, but myths are part not only of baseball but of our culture at large. Jackie is a great symbol of a major shift in American acceptance; Oscar Charleston was a great player but is not well known to most baseball fans. Nothing wrong with telling his story, and the stories of other great black ballplayers who toiled in obscurity. But the myth is still very important.

And let's tip our hat to all of the baseball announcers who yesterday had to broadcast games and identify the players when every last one of them was wearing #42. That was no easy task.

[dnanln]

While it is great to see 42 on everyone's back, I agree we should forget the other pioneers. It was very nice to hear on ESPN radio today, one of the commentators praise Larry Doby and his accomplishments.

[Fred]

Forget the pioneers? Just kidding - I know what you meant in that last post.

I think it would be great to see Jackie Robinson day include other Negro League pioneers that played well before Jackie.

What would have happened if it were Larry Doby to break the color barrier? I guess it would be Larry Doby day and everyone would be wearing number 14.

[ghostmarcelle]

Here's my Billiken Charleston

[jerseygary]

I also agree Jackie Robinson Day could be so much more. However I don't like it that they stretched it across two days this year, it kind of dilutes the whole thing to me. Anyway, here is a card I did for Robinson on my website, showing him with Montreal in 1946.
[IMG][/IMG]
My Baseball Card Project:
www.infinitecardset.blogspot.com

[packs]

I love that they do Jackie Robinson day and have all the players wear number 42. However it always really annoys me how the focus every Jackie Robinson day is on "Why aren't there as many African Americans that there used to be in the league?" and then the announcers harp on it for the next 45 minutes. Why not keep the focus on the great talent that IS in the game? Especially with the emergence of some great young African Americans in the game like Ryan Howard, Jason Heyward, Adam Jones and Andrew McCutchen.

[drc]

Baseball has a very large minority population, it's just it includes Hispanics and Asians. The percentage of American blacks amongst Americans MLB players is larger than the percentage of blacks in the US population (Obviously, the Venezuelan, Mexican, Japanese etc population in MLB will by definition have and always have 0% black Americans, so it's silly to use them in the race-national percentage calculation. Of course it would be silly to say "How come there are no African-American players amongst the Japanese population?!?" but this is what some critics in essence are doing. MLB has a much much larger percentage of foreigners than the NBA, so it's impossible for the MLB to have a larger percentage of black Americans amongst the total playing population. Comparing the number of black Americans to the total playing population in the MLB versus NBA is thus comparing comparing apples to oranges.)

What bugs me when they compare blacks in MLB versus NBA is they never say "Why are there so few Hispanics in NBA? Is this lack of Hispanics a sign of race problems in the NBA?"

The total population in a sport can be no higher than 100%. If there are 50% Hispanic in the MLB (made up number), it's impossible to have 75 percent black like the the NBA. And I am assuming none of these critics are suggesting the MLB should be purged of Hispanics or that there be a quota on how many Hispanics or Asians be allowed to play baseball.