Mr. Sheffield on Race Relations

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

By D.  W. O’Dell Race is always a touchy subject. No one in the public eye can make the smallest commentary on race relations in America without feeding a firestorm of controversy. That’s why it’s nice to read the well-thought out opinions of a perceptive social commentator like Detroit outfielder Gary Sheffield. In an interview with GQ Magazine, Sheffield gave his opinion on the reason why African Americans currently make up only about 8.5% of the ranks of major league baseball players 50 years after Jackie Robinson integrated the game. Sheffield’s cogent analysis was that players from Latin America were more prevalent on big league rosters because owners were “able to control them.” As for African Americans, Sheffield said, “You can’t control us.” Point one: Latin players are controllable? That’s replacing one stereotype (the hotheaded Latin) with another. Ozzie Guillen is the outspoken manager of the Chicago White Sox - does anyone think he’s controllable by White Sox management? Juan Marichal once took a baseball bat to Johnny Roseboro’s skull - was he controllable? Is Manny Ramirez now the poster boy for affability with management? There is absolutely no reason to think that players of Latin origin have any greater inherent tendency to do what management asks of them than players from anywhere else. Point two: African American players can’t be controlled? Does this mean they aren’t good teammates? That they won’t follow the manager’s direction when he calls for a bunt? African American pitchers will throw whatever pitch they want to throw, no matter what the catcher calls for? That they won’t obey curfews, will hang out in strip clubs, and get into street brawls? That’s a great self-image for an African American ballplayer to have. Who wants a bunch of loose cannons on their teams, doing whatever they feel like? But maybe he means something else. Something that’s not a derogatory characteristic. So what is the genetic basis for this “uncontrollability?” Why do African Americans possess it, but not Caucasian, Latin or Asian players? Could Gary Sheffield, noted geneticist, please identify the gene for uncontrollability? Point three: Owners care about this? The bottom line is that sports is a meritocracy. Would an owner really rather have light hitting shortstop Jose Oquendo on his team over Barry Bonds? Yes, there was a gentleman’s agreement not to allow African Americans to play in the majors, but once the color barrier was broken even the teams that favored it the most - the Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees - eventually had to sign African American players in order to compete. The only color owners care about is green, and winning equals money. Okay, maybe owners will always sign a better African American player over an inferior Latin player, but is race a factor if they are equally talented? Sheffield is quoted as saying, “[I]f you’re equally good as this Latin player, guess who’s going to be sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys.” Wait a minute...in the first sentence, the players are equally talented, but in the second, the African American player is now superior. Which is it, Mr. Sheffield? Point four: Baseball is not slavery. Owners may own the teams, but they haven’t “owned” players since the development of free agency in the 1970’s. If Owner A has a roster opening and fills it with a controllable Latin player, the African American players in his minor league system are still going to be around; he isn’t “sent home” as Mr. Sheffield said, he’s sent to a team in the minor leagues. And there’s always going to be Owner B who won’t mind signing some “uncontrollable” African American players if it gives him a competitive edge on the playing field. So, even if Latin players are more docile, and African American players are all uncontrollable, and ball club owners tend to prefer docile players to uncontrollable (I almost wanted to use the word “uppity”) ones, players are still relatively free to market their skills, and there will always be someone interested in signing players that have talent. The reason for the diminishing number of African American baseball players has been the subject of much speculation for many years now. The facile explanation is that basketball requires less expensive equipment and is therefore more popular among poor, inner-city youth. This overlooks the fact that most African Americans aren’t poor and don’t live in inner cities. Also, the Dominican Republican city of San Pedro de Macoris is far poorer than all but the most desperate of American slums, yet fifteen current major leaguers come from that one city. If poverty doesn’t stop them from pursuing baseball as a career, why does it stop our poor kids? I don’t know the reason for the declining population of African Americans in major league baseball. Maybe American kids have more athletic options than kids in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, or Japan. Maybe the skills possessed and developed by African American kids are more greatly rewarded in other sports. Maybe other major sports (basketball and football) reward young players with big contracts more quickly, whereas baseball requires its recruits to toll as underpaid players in the minors for several years. There probably isn’t one answer. And if there was one answer, I am sure it’s not that Latin players are more controllable, and therefore more desirable to employers, than African American players. Gary Sheffield is a great ballplayer and probably a first ballot Hall of Famer. But as a sociologist, he leaves something to be desired

 

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