Sixty years ago, Jackie Robinson became the first black player in Major League Baseball history. He broke the color barrier and started a chain reaction that resulted in racial sports integration.
MLB is honored Robinson this past weekend, and many baseball players have jumped at the chance of wearing No. 42 to personally honor the hero. Many baseball columnists have talked about this in many varieties from the dilution of the honor with so many players wearing No. 42 to the concern of so few black players in professional baseball. Is this low number destroying Jackie’s legacy?
But according to these figures, African-Americans comprised of only 8% of all major league baseball players. A racial divide seems more like a black hole.
But is 8% really a problem? It is for baseball because the talent then has to come from elsewhere. It really isn’t for blacks because there are other sports outlets like basketball and football. Racial discrimination isn’t much of an issue in sports as much as it was when Jackie played.
Jackie Robinson should not only be remembered for opening the door for blacks in baseball. He should be remembered for opening the door to all sports for all non-white races. And I don’t think he would be sad to see baseball only 8% full of blacks if he saw Wade and Shaq win last year’s NBA Final or LaDainian Tomlinson score 31 times.
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I’m still amused by this comment one my professors said in class. He was describing how the current two party polical system in America sucks. He said having to choose between two candidates who are, to some degree, the “same” candidate is stupid, after comparing and contrasting their ideologies.
“Great. Who were you going to vote for. Tweedly-dumb and tweedly-Kerry.”
Fun stuff…
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*** 9:42 AM Update ***
Funny video of a fan throwing a pizza at another fan. Read the story.
It’s pretty funny listening to the commentators laugh and try to investigate what happened.