I could understand Cobb. Ty Cobb had what the black ballplayer had. The black ballplayer had to get out of the cotton field. He had to get out of the celery fields, and this was a vehicle to get him out. This was the same thing with Cobb. Cobb had to get out of Georgia. He had to fight his way out and this was why he had this great competitive spirit. And so what he’s saying against blacks was the same thing that I think every poor white man had against blacks. Because we were competition to him.
Buck O’Neil
The left keeps insisting that we have to be hiring based on race in everything from police to orchestras so they “better reflect the communities they serve”.
What if we did this to the NBA & NFL or even MLB?
Think about that for a second.
The reason why breaking the color line in baseball was wrong wasn’t because a “black” men per se were being excluded from the game, it was because baseball players who were as good or better than the current players on the field were excluded that’s a big deal in baseball as Buck O’Neil the great Negro league player and manager put it:
For Jackie to play in the major leagues, that meant that one white boy wasn’t going to play. We had played against these fellas and they knew that we could play. And they knew if we were allowed to play, a lot of them wouldn’t play. See?
By an odd coincidence as the final teams in the league integrated and the white population of the league dropped to 82% in 1961 expansion in MLB took place with two teams added in 1961 and 1962 meaning there were 100 new major league jobs to the system and in 1968 when the white population of the league was down to 73% expansion happened again and another 4 teams (and 100 jobs) were created. (Note non-black “latinos” were not excluded from the majors but at 0.7% of the league the year Jackie Robinson debuted they constituted a nominal figure of about 4 players over a 16 team league)
Around this time Football began to overtake baseball in popularity and accordingly the best black athletes began migrating to that sport and as Basketball increased in popularity again black athletes moved in that direction in a big way.
in 2017 only 28% of the NFL was white and nearly 70% of the league is black (with Latinos and Asians at less than 2%)
In the NBA for 2017 the figures are similar with a slightly smaller white population (20%) a slightly larger Latino population about 5% and over 70% of the league consisting of black players.
Oddly I don’t hear anyone arguing that since the black population is about 12% that whites are unfairly underrepresented in the NBA or the NFL. We don’t see people insisting that that cause for this discrepancy is “systematic racism” Yet the same people who scream that because the number of black coaches is closer to the actual black population of this country as opposed to the percentage of blacks in the league don’t find it odd that those same coaches and the front offices seem to be signing black players way out of disproportion to white ones.
The simple fact is this. We have, thanks to the efforts of actual civil rights leaders (as opposed to the demagogues of today) reached a point where the primary question as to the signing of a defensive back or a wide receiver or a quarterback or a center in the NBA or a center fielder is the skill set of said player rather than their race (and occasionally the price see Cam Newton NE Patriots).
This is as it should be.
So when the racial demagogues start demanding quotas in all kinds of fields tell them you’ll consider it as soon as those same demographic quotas are applied to the high paying jobs in the NFL/NBA & MLB
Two closing thoughts:
As of 2016 the Demographics of MLB are 63.7% White, 27.4 % “Latino” 6.7% black (lowest since 1957) and 2.1% Asian. However I suspect this reflects black athletes gravitating more toward the NBA & NFL. I don’t know why black players are less interested in MLB as it’s a much better game and I would further submit and suggest that with guaranteed money, longer careers and less prospect of serious injury it’s a better choice and smarter choices for the best athletes out there. Plus you don’t have to play in the rain or freezing conditions but it’s not my call.
I haven’t included the NHL in these figures because while the NHL integrated in 1958 with Willie O’Ree joining the Boston Bruins (Ironically the Bruins integrated before the Red Sox) and while we’ve seen black superstars (HOF goalie Grant Fuhr who played from 1981-2000 comes instantly to mind) there just doesn’t seem to be the same interest in the game among the black athletes or the black community which more than anything else is the reason for the 90% white demographic of the league.
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