Posted on 04/26/2015 5:53:31 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
White Sox Hall of Famer Frank Thomas responded to Rock’s commentary Thursday on Fox Sports 1’s “America’s Pregame.” He believes Major League Baseball has a responsibility to get young African-American players back into the game.
“Major League Baseball has got to take initiative and put academies in the inner cities across America,” Thomas said. “(They) do it in the Dominican Republic, (they) do it in Venezuela and as soon as Cuba is open, they’re going to do it in Cuba because those kids play baseball 24/7.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Why is it, that a black guy that speaks Spanish isn’t black?
I once saw Willie Horton break a bat on a check swing. That guy was strong!
Willie Horton and Jack Wood talking about race in baseball but neither one seems too interested in talking about race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfDDZ_R99mE#t=126
Nailed it. The skillset for baseball at the highest level isn’t nearly as generally dependent on size and pure raw athletic ability as football and basketball at the highest level.
Freegards
Last I knew MLB still had the RBI program to revive baseball in inner cities. I would think this would include blacks but I guess they need it to be only about them.
I met Frank Thomas on Rush Street in Chicago in my younger days. Damn he was huge. Of course he was with Mags Ordonez (who’s 5’8”) looked like Mutt and Jeff.
Why not put Private Schools in the inner cities so blacks can get an education so they can be something... like a doctor or an architect or a conservative talk show host...
It is not only in the inner cities where Little League is dying. It is dying everywhere. The sport is in free fall with the young generation. I say this as someone who played the sport at a high level. The reason is the sport has changed dramatically at the youth level from my days. When I was young I and my contemporaries played at the local level with all the other kids. The good players and the bad players together within our local town league until we reached HS. I remember registration day when our parents would sign us up for the sum of $10. Today, starting at the age of 8, the better kids whose parents are willing to pay from $1,000 to $4,000 a season leave their local town league to play so-called “elite” baseball on club teams. The local town league, the Little League, is left with the bad players and a very few good players from families of modest means. Believe me, it is no fun to play baseball when most of the players can’t play. So the poorer kids who are good athletes drift away to other sports, like basketball, football, and soccer, where money needed to play at a good level is not excessive. In my area baseball has replaced lacrosse as the sport for rich kids. Lacrosse has become a sport for the not rich kid believe it or not, 30 years ago it was the rich kids game. Hockey in Canada is also experiencing this trend. Because of the costs to play, hockey had become the rich kids game in Canada. In the last NHL draft, a huge number of the kids drafted come from the upper middle class or higher. It has been stated that soccer will replace hockey in popularity in the next 20 years because of this trend.
Probably why pretty soon most of the players in the NHL will be Russians, Swedes, Finns and Czechs.
Nail on head. I played baseball at a high level, and believe me some of the dumbest people I have ever met were a majority of my teammates, coaches, and managers. I mean box of hammers dumb. Some of the dumbest go into coaching at the HS level, or with private academies. The smarter players I played with got real jobs after their careers ended.
I can agree to that.
My daughter plays on a 10U(9&10yr old) travel team. It costs a lot more than a $1000 a season. This season could cost us as much as $5000 to $6000. She will end up playing an 80 to 100 game schedule. Not everybody has the time for that I know but even in our county rec department it is still competitive even though most of the good players have left for travel ball. Rec ball is $35 for a 10 game season.
I do think the fatherless family is more of a contributing factor. Fathers tend to push kids into sports more than single mothers have the means to.
There is one big problem with Thomas’ statement: If MLB put these things in the inner city, they would be robbed. Cubans and Dominicans behave themselves. Feral American blacks? Not so much.
Can’t get to the article. Keeps asking me to sign up and when I click “not now” I’m launched to some page where I can’t find a damn thing while ads keep popping up and rearranging the page. Hell, that’s exactly why I ignore The Blaze and Breitbart links. Frustrating...
I’ll match skill sets any day. MLB athletes are just as talented if not more. Raw strength does not count for as much. If it was so easy you’d have more players like Bo Jackson playing in both leagues but they do not. I dare say standing in the grass on 3rd and taking a hard liner off of the bat of an Adam Jones, Giancarlo Stanton, or some other power hitter and reacting to it and making a catch is just as hard if not harder than a receiver running a pattern and knowing the ball is coming. Same said about hitting a 96 mph fastball that moves during it less than half second journey to the plate. I doubt 1% of NFL’ers can do it.
In the end it is apples to oranges.
Little League is also dying because they are letting girls play and moving toward the everyone gets a a trophy pattern.
And kids who understand manners and sportsmanship. Every boy on my son’s 15u travel team is a gentleman and has the utmost respect for their coaches, the game, and other adults and players. A fine group of young men. I’d rather my son be around that all hours of the day than 10 minutes in a football locker room with the common thugs that frequent there.
I sent it to you in a private message. I don’t think the entire article, though short, can be posted.
The skill set for baseball at the highest level is much harder to acquire and execute than that of the other major pro- team sports. Part of the problem MLB is dealing with today is the sport looks so easy to play in an era of instant media gratification but in reality is so difficult at the pro level.
Freegards
Watching “Plays of the Week” on the MLB channel is an excellent focus on the higher skills set. The game appears so routine until you see a guy making a catch or throwing someone out in the blink of an eye after a hard, diving catch. The accuracy of an outfielder throwing the ball on a line 280 feet or so to the catcher is a feat.
Right, the rare play that actually looks spectacular is not the norm, even though the ones that look routine are also incredibly difficult at times. Then there’s the thing about say a fielder that rarely attempts spectacular diving plays simply because he gets such a good read off the bat and takes good routes and has range. But the one that is diving all over the place gets heralded only because he has to dive for balls all of the time.
Freegards
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