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From Slate:
Seventy years after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball, the game has yet to embrace black culture.
By Lawrence Ware
… A 1960 piece in Sports Illustrated noted that Latin players were considered “hot dogs.” The definition, according to SI: a “player who calls attention to himself, either through his actions or his attitude.” The magazine also quoted an anonymous white player. “You automatically assume any Latin is a hot dog until he proves himself otherwise,” he said.
Nearly 60 years later, that belief is still all too prevalent. In April 2015, Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig told the Los Angeles Times that he was going to try to stop flipping his bat into the air after he hit home runs. “I want to show American baseball that I’m not disrespecting the game,” he said. Yet, the Cuban star also added, “If it’s a big home run or if I’m frustrated because I couldn’t connect in my previous at-bats or if I drive in important runs for my team, I might do it. You never know.”
If you added Yasiel Puig’s IQ to Pedro Guerrero’s IQ, would you need 3 digits?
It’s painful to hear a star player with a buoyant personality declare that he’ll try to fit in by curtailing his natural exuberance. Why did Puig feel that kind of pressure? Because white players like Bud Norris, who now pitches for the Los Angeles Angels, say things like this: “We’re opening this game to everyone that can play. However, if you’re going to come into our country and make our American dollars, you need to respect a game that has been here for over a hundred years.” In other words, you can play in our country, but you must adhere to our (largely white) expectations. When you hit a home run, lay your bat down gently. Smile if you want … but don’t show any teeth.
It is a form of cultural colonialization to allow a player to display his athletic brilliance but to prevent him from bringing his culture to the game. …
Jackie Robinson may have integrated Major League Baseball 70 years ago, but it was, and continues to be, a white man’s sport.
Here’s a picture of Yasiel Puig standing at home plate celebrating what he expected to be his home run in the 2013 playoffs, but the ball didn’t actually go over the fence:
Strange stuff like this happens to Puig all the time.
Last year the Dodgers demoted Puig, who appeared to be on the cusp of superstardom in 2013-14, to the minors for a month to teach him a lesson about maturity. So far this season he’s pounding the ball, so maybe they finally got through to the big Cuban.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
Ichiro Suzuki is not white, or black or Hispanic and he is certainly not a hot dog. He plays the game and respects the game, actually 2506 MLB games to be precise over 17 seasons. He has 1397 runs, 3031 hits, 114 HRs, 760 RBIs, 508 stolen bases and a .313 lifetime average. Those are HOF numbers. I know Japanese are reserved but you don’t need to shout “Hey look at me” for the fans to notice. I am waiting for a black concert violinist to flip his violin after a solo and call for applause. But, you know, the story is from Slate.
Funny backstory here, as the notoriously segregated Slate is apparently trying to procure SWPL-friendly Black Content on the cheap by recycling Lawrence Ware’s freelance article that’s been kicking around the nets for at least a year:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/15/baseball-race-and-cultural-colonialism/
And Ware got hired by OK State’s Philosophy Department as an “Institutional Diversity Fellow” (nice subtle stigma there) so being a full-time Slatester would likely be a demotion.
“It is a form of cultural colonialization to allow a player to display his athletic brilliance but to prevent him from bringing his culture to the game.”
Leftists don’t understand what “colonization” means, do they? Also, isn’t the immigrant player the cultural colonizer in this case? As in, he “colonizes” the game with his own culture by refusing to assimilate, and thereby moves the norms associated with the game away from the customs it has traditionally held to.
In other words, they're trolling you.
OK, baseball is ‘racist’ because baseball frowns on blacks demonstrating their Racial Difference of ‘buoyant’ style’ to celebrate the ‘athletic brilliance’.
So, blacks ARE differently in an innate way.
So, if blacks are better at sports, that means Racial difference.
If blacks feel this natural uncontrollable urge to jive and shuck, that means Racial Differences.
Of course, there was a time when whites insisted on this. So, they had minstrelism where blacks were ALWAYS shucking and jiving.
Then, blacks said, ‘that is racist and blacks are capable of poise and dignity, just like white folks’.
Now, blacks say, ‘how dare white folks impose culture of poise and dignity on us? we is naturally wild and crazy and we wants to jive and shuck when we hit the ball. shoo’.
How did Blazing Saddles ever get produced?
I've always liked it, from way back when, but damn...
I think I'd rather live IN the Blazing Saddles world than this one...Replies: @Desiderius, @Buffalo Joe
Doesn’t this anecdote suggest that the simple fact of enforcing Western, and in particular Anglo-Saxon, norms of sportsmanship causes a falling into line of people who non-sports constituencies in society encourage to act out in the most outrageous ways possible?
Contrasting to the NFL, perhaps the least sportsmanly professional sport in America, can one imagine an American pro-tour golfer kneeling against overt symbols of the United States to further his stardom?
They never stop, they never give up. Always some opportunity to guilt trip whitey and redouble the demand that whitey give blackie special dispensation and extra attention.
Thankfully, baseball owners and executives are smart enough not to listen to these liberal sports writers. The MLB is kind of a safe space for white nerds, which keeps the league going strong.
It’s early, so the sample size is small, but Puig’s batting average remains a pedestrian .265, but his OBP and SLG is back up to his ROY/All-Star levels thanks to his increased walks and xtra base hits. Interestingly his WAR (increasingly the defining baseball nerd metric to rule them all) is still minuscule:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/puigya01.shtml
OT:
This article is about a 9.5/10 on the iSteve-o-meter in terms of iStevish themes. Sample Quote:
😉
“People don’t think it be like it is, but it do.”
One shouldn’t begrudge them this, but the black chappies clearly love being black and talking about being black and reveling in the blackness of black performers, artists, & athletes. I haven’t seen as much of the world as ol’ Ponce de Leon, but I have run into many a dark johnny who couldn’t tell Bing Crosby from Bon Scott but who, at the same time, could name every session musician who’s snuffed a Newport in Detroit.
They don’t even know they’re beyond parody now, right?
Also, at what point do people just start realizing accommodating Lefty Goodthink isn’t worth it and we just start wholesale kicking them out of society?
“Liberia II” for black apologists and blacks is looking like a better and better idea to me.
OT, with respect to the post awhile ago about Boyle Heights:
My sister is a typical Jewish liberal who is heavily involved in the art gallery scene. She told me she went to visit a new gallery in Boyle Heights and had to cross a Hispanic picket line; she was greeted with verbal abuse. She’s for diversity uber alles, but surprisingly came down on the side of the whites moving in. I was pretty shocked to hear that.
White men are not allowed to determine or enforce norms, anywhere, period.
Nothing new about that.
I took that sarcastically and hope you weren't serious. But you never know.Replies: @Desiderius
The translation of “all too prevalent” is “true”.
There are very few Asians in the MLB and no one seems to care.
I wonder if there will ever come a time when Asians form a substantial percentage of MLB players. Especially if the Tiger Moms ever become Soccer Moms.
a chinese guy in MLB... whoops
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kingman
These private coaches, BTW, have to have pretty impressive resumes in order to command the high prices and attract clientele. Former Div 1 college or AAA players are the norm with former major league journeymen not uncommon.
These pieces aren’t meant to withstand reasoned analysis. They exist to comfort the wicked and afflict the virtuous. Primarily, they serve to earn controversy clicks, though definitely not by being “controversial” in the Current Year sense.
In other words, they’re trolling you.
So, blacks ARE differently in an innate way.
So, if blacks are better at sports, that means Racial difference.
If blacks feel this natural uncontrollable urge to jive and shuck, that means Racial Differences.
Of course, there was a time when whites insisted on this. So, they had minstrelism where blacks were ALWAYS shucking and jiving.
Then, blacks said, 'that is racist and blacks are capable of poise and dignity, just like white folks'.
Now, blacks say, 'how dare white folks impose culture of poise and dignity on us? we is naturally wild and crazy and we wants to jive and shuck when we hit the ball. shoo'.Replies: @guest, @MBlanc46, @SCG16121
They have it that blacks’ penchant for shucking is not natural but cultural. Everything racial is actually cultural. All non-white racial characteristics are very nearly admirable by definition, unless they can be traced to the malign influence of white culture, which bears the mark of original cultural sin.
I wonder if there will ever come a time when Asians form a substantial percentage of MLB players. Especially if the Tiger Moms ever become Soccer Moms.Replies: @Broski, @johnd, @Hodag, @old okie, @Buffalo Joe
Tiger Moms don’t seem to be into sports. They like classical instruments and systematic cramming. There’s a synchronicity between the two. For sports, ballet?
(different Anon)
How did Blazing Saddles ever get produced?
I’ve always liked it, from way back when, but damn…
I think I’d rather live IN the Blazing Saddles world than this one…
The fact that few are now going about it that way indicates that fighting prejudice is not their first priority.
Somewhat predictably, at least two of the major 20th-century black music genres (jazz and hip-hop) are largely about show-offy solos.
A black conductor came through my nearby orchestral hall recently, managing to raise black attendance from its usual zero to nine or so. He was very animated and sweaty afterwards, but I don’t know if I should attribute that to blackness or youthful exuberance.
How did Blazing Saddles ever get produced?
I've always liked it, from way back when, but damn...
I think I'd rather live IN the Blazing Saddles world than this one...Replies: @Desiderius, @Buffalo Joe
If one actually wants to fight prejudice, that’s how you go about it.
The fact that few are now going about it that way indicates that fighting prejudice is not their first priority.
Wait. Is acting black nature or nurture?
I wonder if there will ever come a time when Asians form a substantial percentage of MLB players. Especially if the Tiger Moms ever become Soccer Moms.Replies: @Broski, @johnd, @Hodag, @old okie, @Buffalo Joe
particularly japanese on the east coast, red sox, yankees, maimi…koreans everywhere else
a chinese guy in MLB… whoops
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kingman
So tired of the Jackie Robinson talk this week. He wasn’t really all that good of a baseball player. Why don’t we celebrate the first black in the NFL, NBA, like we do MLB? Probably because it’s considered a white mans game unlike the aforementioned and it took a little Jewish shortstop embracing poor Jackie in front of 58,000 lunatic racists in the polo grounds.
While the standards of behavior in baseball were established by white players, they aren’t the only ones who enforce these standards on the field of play. Remember Jose Bautista’s imfamous bat flip against the Texas Rangers two seasons ago…His behavior was regulated by Rougned Odor, a Venezuelan, with a right hook to the jaw. Sure it was after a dirty slide, but as it is well known, baseball players don’t forget. Any excuse will do. But of course, articles like this avoid any depth of analysis in order to make their point.
Baseball is far less white than it was in my youth. A year or two ago, for example, I think five of the nine regular starters for the Tigers were Venezuelan.
But this is hardly the issue. Baseball is not so much racist. It is MILITARIST. Sponsored by the CIA/Military, it is ever more and more singing the praises of the Armed Forces, who of course ‘defend’ America. Most sickening of all are the new khaki uniforms they make every player wear on I forget which day–Veterans? About half of MLB isn’t even American! And seasons, I’ve noticed, are now called ‘campaigns’. I could go on.
Professional sports are entertainment but we Americans love to pretend it is always about something else and so players at UMiami used to dress in army fatigues because football is war.
Some too serious men shout “respect the game” if a player makes a basket in the final seconds of the game when his team is up by ten or more points, as though scoring a basket is against some mythical norm.
I do wish that Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer beat the stuffing out of Tiger Woods when he won the Masters by more than ten shots.
Mick would be a happy man today if Jack and Arnie had rushed the green after the final hole out and beat the crap out of him because Tiger “does not respect the game.”
And don’t even get me started on Usain Bolt who should be beaten with a hurdle for what he does to other runners – constantly showing them up…
One of my favorite players – when he has with Seattle and they were coming to town, I’d make a point to see those games just because he was playing.
Uh, because only 8% of MLB players are American blacks? And perhaps because the fan base enjoys/expects players to be a little more restrained than your typical NFL receiver or NBA player?
I would also think that the expectations of how a player conducts themselves is a derivative (partly) of the expectations placed on them by the household they grew up in, and baseball is still largely a game taught to sons by their fathers, whereas basketball and football players often learn the game in the street or rec leagues where demonstrations of masculinity are key to status and not getting your ass kicked.
In my experience (n = not very many), women are much more comfortable with personal inconsistency than men are. My wife, for example, has no problem railing against the rubberneckers who are holding up traffic and then slowing to a crawl herself when she approaches the wreck.
I’d also like to remark that baseball has already changed far too much for old crusty baseball ‘purists’ like me. We’re not a breed that likes endless–especially ridiculous–change. It has to be super fast and loud these days. It was slow, quiet, magical when I was a kid making a yearly pilgrimmage to the old Tigers Stadium for a glorious doubleheader with the Royals, who was my favorite team at the time. The dank, musty smell of the place, the coolness of the corridors surrounding the stands where the hot dog vendors were. The lovely organ. The likes of Gates Brown, Mickey Stanley, Al Kaline, Ron Leflore roaming the outfield. It was a child’s paradise. We would get cheaper seats–obstructed view, behind one of the hundreds of steel columns–often way down the left or right field line, then my brother and I would wander down somewhere near home plate, not many rows back, and settle in to enjoy the game close up. My dad was content to keep score.
All gone! Now every player, of necessity of course, must have a blaring personal theme song when he comes to bat. There’s endless noise and distraction between innnings, like stupid games in some theme park beyond the outfield stands. Then the endless pitching changes, and on and on. Perhaps one of the worst things is replay, not because it makes things fair, but because gone are the old Billy Martin or Earl Weaver-style arguments with umpires. Gone too is Ron Luciano, RIP. So why not complain about bat flips? It’s a start.
Black players who make millions playing a game are still victims.
I wonder if there will ever come a time when Asians form a substantial percentage of MLB players. Especially if the Tiger Moms ever become Soccer Moms.Replies: @Broski, @johnd, @Hodag, @old okie, @Buffalo Joe
The All-Star shortstop of the World Champion Chicago Cubs, Addison Russel, is half Philippino.
Not those who use passive voice, no you’re not.
Nothing new about that.
Baseball isn’t that ‘uptight’ about players displaying emotions or some idiosyncrasy. Back flips, basket catches, weird batting stances or rituals, arguing with umpires etc. became the ‘trademark’ of many players. As the game and its rules are ancient and immutable some respect for the form and tradition is necessary. It isn’t the NFL or NBA where film from a game from 50 years ago would be almost unrecognizable to modern audiences.
It is also the case that baseball is very strict on personal integrity. That two of its greatest players, Pete Rose and Joe Jackson, are banned from membership in its Hall of Fame over some ancient scandal marks the distinction.
I agree. I thought Bautista's bat flip was appropriate--he was just really fired up. Just a couple of nights ago Andrew Romine, a utility player for the Tigers, hit his first grand slam and flipped the bat. Wouldn't anybody?Replies: @ben tillman
I wonder if there will ever come a time when Asians form a substantial percentage of MLB players. Especially if the Tiger Moms ever become Soccer Moms.Replies: @Broski, @johnd, @Hodag, @old okie, @Buffalo Joe
Here in North Dallas my son plays on a select baseball team. We have an asian player who is definitely tiger momed – private hitting, fielding and pitching lessons. He is not the only one.
These private coaches, BTW, have to have pretty impressive resumes in order to command the high prices and attract clientele. Former Div 1 college or AAA players are the norm with former major league journeymen not uncommon.
….Also, gone are doubleheaders, a very sad thing and all for mammon, and most importantly, each team itself changes often quite drastically every year. How are you supposed to care? What, are you simply to be loyal to the team logo? (I know, it’s the CITY you’re supposed to be loyal to.) I loved the Royals for the players, mainly George Brett, but also Freddy Patek, Frank White, Hal MacRae, Amos Otis, Willie Wilson. I love the Tigers now (especially this year as for once they more or less kept the team together) for Miggy, VMart, Kinsler, Verlander…
What, all on his own? Wow!
Arc, The man can really play the game, so focused. He is the best bad pitch hitter I have ever seen, golfing a low outside pitch over the first baseman’s head into shallow right and ending up standing on second.
Broski, I agree about the un-sportsman actions of NFL players, but some of that relates to the fact that in many games a player makes one or a best a few plays and they want their face time.
I didn’t think not flipping your bat was so much a “white” thing as it was a role model thing. Lots of kids play baseball, and being that they’re kids, they have pretty poor spatial awareness. So you don’t want them chucking a metal bat every time they hit the ball with all those other children hanging around. This is much harder to teach if their professional sports role models are doing it.
Lord Jeff, The bigger problem now is that telling the truth has become “fake news” to the left.
Johnny, and that is why, when the camera pans the crowd at a MLB game, you see very few black faces.
I wonder if there will ever come a time when Asians form a substantial percentage of MLB players. Especially if the Tiger Moms ever become Soccer Moms.Replies: @Broski, @johnd, @Hodag, @old okie, @Buffalo Joe
JW, It takes so long for most players to develop into major leaguers.The current Buffalo Bisons roster, Toronto’s Triple A team, has an average age of 28. The Yankees’ two top pitching prospects aren’t slated to reach the majors until 2020. So, maybe the Asians prefer to stay home and be a star in their own countries
So, blacks ARE differently in an innate way.
So, if blacks are better at sports, that means Racial difference.
If blacks feel this natural uncontrollable urge to jive and shuck, that means Racial Differences.
Of course, there was a time when whites insisted on this. So, they had minstrelism where blacks were ALWAYS shucking and jiving.
Then, blacks said, 'that is racist and blacks are capable of poise and dignity, just like white folks'.
Now, blacks say, 'how dare white folks impose culture of poise and dignity on us? we is naturally wild and crazy and we wants to jive and shuck when we hit the ball. shoo'.Replies: @guest, @MBlanc46, @SCG16121
“[W]hen we hits da ball….”
How did Blazing Saddles ever get produced?
I've always liked it, from way back when, but damn...
I think I'd rather live IN the Blazing Saddles world than this one...Replies: @Desiderius, @Buffalo Joe
Anon, Don’t know how old you are, but the old Amos and Andy shows were comedy gold but you will never hear or see one . People don’t understand parody or satire any more. Bill Maher and John Oliver are considered to be comedians, and that says a lot
At one the Amos & Andy radio show was well liked among blacks. I vividly remember a poster at the Rexall Drug Store at 125 Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem proudly showing their sponsorship of the program.
Buffalo Joe:
At one the Amos & Andy radio show was well liked among blacks. I vividly remember a poster at the Rexall Drug Store at 125 Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem proudly showing their sponsorship of the program.
Our lily-white suburban little league team coaches didn’t allow any hot-dogging. People seemed better-behaved and less likely too need to act out. We could appreciate a great performance by an opposing player, along the lines of “can you believe the arm on that center fielder” or similar observations.
‘White men are not allowed to determine or enforce norms, anywhere, period.’
I took that sarcastically and hope you weren’t serious. But you never know.
It is also the case that baseball is very strict on personal integrity. That two of its greatest players, Pete Rose and Joe Jackson, are banned from membership in its Hall of Fame over some ancient scandal marks the distinction.Replies: @daniel le mouche
‘Baseball isn’t that ‘uptight’ about players displaying emotions or some idiosyncrasy. Back flips, basket catches, weird batting stances or rituals, arguing with umpires etc. became the ‘trademark’ of many players.’
I agree. I thought Bautista’s bat flip was appropriate–he was just really fired up. Just a couple of nights ago Andrew Romine, a utility player for the Tigers, hit his first grand slam and flipped the bat. Wouldn’t anybody?
No, he was helped by Moses Fleetwood Walker.
Hotdogging is essentially about gratifying one’s ego at the expense of others, so yes, all players, not just whites, notice it.
But what white player ever “regulated” by means of a right hook? I think Odor’s antics are remembered by most fans as something far more infamous than Bautista’s bat flip.
Anyway, you cite another very good example of baseball’s “cultural difference” — a difference I view as rooted in human character.
Most players who are ever going to be major leaguers have gotten there by 25. If that’s the average age of the Bisons then that means most of those guys are never going to be real major leaguers (regulars), or they’re already has-beens.
Richard, Buffalo has Chris Coghlan the 2009 NL Rookie of the year. These guys rise and fall with regularity.
I took that sarcastically and hope you weren't serious. But you never know.Replies: @Desiderius
Among 27-year-olds, he’s likely serious, and right.
Yeah, Coghlan’s a has-been. He’s not developing. He’s on the way down. It’s a category error to cite the average age of the Bisons as having anything to do with the length of time it takes to become a major leaguer.
Trammell and Whitaker were together for 19 seasons, debuting 40 years ago this September. There are usually 1 or 2 players that a team will keep around for the entirety of their careers, though it is rarer today than during the eras you refer to.
“Moses Fleetwood Walker”, yeah, I remember that name. Without looking it up, he played for some Michigan team and Cap Anson had something to do with the color line being drawn.
Does the author of this piece seriously think Bob Gibson would have tolerated anyone flipping his bat after hitting a homer off him? Gibson once said about Babe Ruth’s called shot, “If anyone stood at the plate and pointed to where he was going to hit my next pitch, I would have drilled him in the head, in one ear and out the other.”
Any sport not dominated by People of Color is not a legit sport. FACT
The game is doomed anyway, at least as a major sport. my lady friend’s son and his friends have no interest in it at all – they’ll play football and soccer but the only game they can be bothered to actually watch is basketball. When I do go to the park, the attendees are generally older people or people with kids – and the kids are playing in the Park in the Park setup at Petco while their parents drink beer and watch the game on the screen. they are missing the crucial 18-40 demographic in the seats that would show there’s some future for it.
So, blacks ARE differently in an innate way.
So, if blacks are better at sports, that means Racial difference.
If blacks feel this natural uncontrollable urge to jive and shuck, that means Racial Differences.
Of course, there was a time when whites insisted on this. So, they had minstrelism where blacks were ALWAYS shucking and jiving.
Then, blacks said, 'that is racist and blacks are capable of poise and dignity, just like white folks'.
Now, blacks say, 'how dare white folks impose culture of poise and dignity on us? we is naturally wild and crazy and we wants to jive and shuck when we hit the ball. shoo'.Replies: @guest, @MBlanc46, @SCG16121
Yeah but the SJWs won’t admit that they are implying racial differences.
There were several “Cuban” players who would qualify for affirmative action today in the major leagues prior to Robinson, but the refusal to allow American blacks was what counted back then.
And yes, my understanding is that Cap Anson refused to play against Moses Fleetwood Walker and
so began the lily white nature of baseball. I think Walker had a brother who played briefly as well.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a movement to have Anson removed from the Hall of Fame. I probably shouldn’t have said that.
Still a white man’s sport? Is that why it is the most popular sport in Taiwan?
Most minor league players are filler.
Triple A teams have a lot of veterans who can adequately plug a hole on the big team’s roster while a starter is hurt, but are unlikely to to ever make much of a mark in the majors: Replacement-level players. Double AA often has more of the exciting young prospects.
I agree. I thought Bautista's bat flip was appropriate--he was just really fired up. Just a couple of nights ago Andrew Romine, a utility player for the Tigers, hit his first grand slam and flipped the bat. Wouldn't anybody?Replies: @ben tillman
No.
thanks for the insight, it was truly illuminating
The poster boy for such a player. Three cups of coffee in San Diego, San Francisco and Boston.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=lancel001ric
336 home runs in the minors/Japanese league.
Of course you would. You would need the digit we call the index finger, and the digit we call the middle finger, and one called the thumb. And a Big Chief tablet and the 8-box of Crayolas.