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GlobalPost.com : Psychology of Bud Selig, Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner - Yes or No to Arizona Baseball Boycott ?? - 50% of players in the minor leagues are Hispanic
If 50% of baseball players in the minor leagues are Hispanic, then can Bud Selig betray them ?? - He is going to retire soon - Read on !
The Hispanic players in Baseball make up 30% of major league, but in a Major League Baseball All-Star Game the proportion of Latinos is much higher, 50% of players in the minor leagues are Hispanic - History of Race in Baseball
What would happen if an ignorant and foolish Arizonan Policeman takes a Latino Super Star in Baseball to jail ?? - Would we make some noise ??
GlobalPost.com
Opinion: MLB should pressure Arizona on immigration law
League should support Hispanic players in boycotting next year's All-Star Game if it is held in Arizona.
May 3, 2010
By Mark Starr - GlobalPost Columnist
Mark Starr is GlobalPost sports columnist. He recently retired after 27 years from Newsweek magazine and remains a contributing editor there. During his last dozen years at the magazine, he was a senior editor, the Boston bureau chief and the national sports correspondent and, for the last several, also served as editorial liaison with Newsweek's college publication, "Current." He led Newsweek's coverage at a dozen Olympics – with magazine, broadcast and online responsibilities – and has written an online column, "Starr Gazing," for Newsweek since 2001.
Opinion: MLB should pressure Arizona on immigration law
Some excerpts :
Still, that relationship may be less significant than that between baseball and Hispanics. This season some 30 percent of players on Major League Opening Day rosters were born outside the United States, most of those Hispanics, and they tend to be represented at the All-Star Game in even greater percentages. Having lost its historic claim as the national pastime, baseball has, in recent years, focused tremendous attention on the Hispanic audience, which is MLB’s fastest growing and, arguably, most passionate fan base.
More than 60 years ago, baseball — or at least the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team — struck a daring blow for equality when it summoned Jackie Robinson to the Major Leagues to integrate the game. It has been well documented that Robinson’s success on the field had repercussions far beyond baseball and was a critical precursor of the civil rights era that followed. Major League Baseball would ultimately make Robinson’s uniform number — “42” — the sole number retired from its game.
Baseball now has a chance to extend that commitment beyond its lip service to history. It can send a message to Hispanic players and fans that its concerns for them extend beyond the baselines and their contributions to MLB coffers. It can send a message to a divided country that justice is not an expedient to be ditched in complex and fearful times. And it can send a message to the world that our beloved games can be harnessed as a powerful force for communal good.
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Baseball is not football or even basketball, with their strong commissioners and centralized power. MLB has 32 teams operating as fiefdoms and a weak commissioner in former Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig. Selig has already announced that he will retire in 2012. And absent any significant action, the most notable legacy of his two-decade reign will be the failure of leadership in baseball’s steroids era.
Selig now has a chance to remedy that and he is in a unique position to fathom what’s at stake. He owns a home in Arizona and has been central in the game’s expansion there. He is also descended from European Jews so the implications of a government “show-us-your-papers” mandate must resonate loudly with him. Moreover, he is beginning to hear an echo in the public clamor. Diamondbacks managing partner Ken Kendrick is a major donor to the state GOP, the architects of the new legislation and protests have already sprung up outside the ballpark. (The team has issued a statement saying Kendrick personally opposes the new law).
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I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. All of us ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated, but this is not the case.
ReplyDeleteI know the proponents of this law say that the majority approves of this law, but the majority is not always right. Would women or non-whites have the vote if we listen to the majority of the day, would the non-whites have equal rights (and equal access to churches, restaurants, hotels, retail stores, schools, colleges and yes water fountains) if we listen to the majority of the day? We all know the answer, a resounding, NO!
Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics and do what is right, not what is just popular with the majority. Some men comprehend discrimination by never have experiencing it in their lives, but the majority will only understand after it happens to them.