Yeah, thats what the inner cities need....baseball academies. Meanwhile, American kids get worse and worse at science and math, are forced to learn to pass a test instead of creative thought processes, and all the engineering jobs get outsourced to other countries. However, more inner city kids get to hit a ball with a stick.
Interesting. My store carries many of the less expensive bats for all leagues. The buyers aren't sending the high dollar bats to us, besides the $300 dollar stealth.
Well, maybe you should pave the way. See if you can get Lockheed Martin to open up some engineering academies. BTW, part of the Compton program is having free tutors on hand to help kids with their school work.
Exactly, because it has never been shown that kids that participate in extracurricular activities do better in school. http://www.iastate.edu/~rhetoric/105H17/rhollrah/cof.html http://discover.concordia.edu/pagecommunity.cfm?page_ID=66 http://msucares.com/news/print/commnews/cn01/010917.html
I think this is key. Now, I'm just thinking aloud and I want to throw out some thoughts and questions to see if we can dissect and discuss some of the underlying issues. It seems that we tend to overlook is poor white populations or poor hispanic populations. Notice how we've been focusing on more affluent white communities (The Woodlands) and comparing it to poor inner city areas. I can support reaching other socioeconomic groups by establishing leagues or academies or things of that nature, but to simply suggest that all effort be spent based primarily along racial lines is not only an insult to the people we're trying to 'help' but is intellectually dishonest, as well. For example, I guess we're saying that there is *enough* white kids playing baseball, so our "quota" has been reached and we don't need to establish funding to poor, rural communities that may be primarily white. But wait... maybe the argument, when it's all said and done, is that it's a social travesty that there is a sport, ANY sport, lacking in black representation. Whether it be baseball, soccer, etc... Because there's this big elephant in the corner of the room that nobody wants to talk about: The assumption that blacks are better athletes than any other race. I read ArtV's post and he mentioned that black teams routinely "creamed" his primarily white school in all other sports and I'm wondering why? Are we talking about a genetic difference that equates into superior physical performance? Does that mean, for the most part, that kids from other races are going to be fighting an uphill, genetic battle the older they get when they try to compete in football, basketball, track, and baseball? And if that's the case I guess I can see the argument behind manipulating, cajoling, and marketing a sport like baseball more fervently to the black community. Because we want to see the best athletes, right? And backing into it, we can deduce (if one was to presume black athletes ARE superior) that *any* sport comprised of mostly non-blacks must be considered lacking in athletic quality. I'm really just interested in other opinions.
I'm not sure anyone's opinion is strictly we need more black players and that we ignore socioeconomic influence on baseball. Everyone above has stated that the reason why baseball inherently discriminates against African Americans is because it is prohibitively expensive to participate in. The costs of little leagues, equipment, etc.. all put an undue burden on all poor people regardless of skin color. The key however is that we need to acknowledge that this effect does disproportionately affect African Americans. African Americans have a disproportionate number of individuals in poverty and conseuently this hits their community harder. One can't simply examine socio-economic status without acknowledging that it has a racial element to it. No one is arguing that these baseball academies should prohibit poor white people from participating. Rather, we focus on African Americans because as a group they are affected the most by this type of economic discrimination. Thus the two concepts aren't mutually exclusive. Targeting baseball academies to help give access to the poor also helps African Americans get into baseball. I think genetics aren't really the big issue. Also, ArtV nailed it when he talked about the economics of baseball. Baseball is the one school sport where the student's family ends up purchasing all the equipment. School's provide virtually nothing. Any debate about the disparity between schools has to acknowledge the pseudo-segregation that exists today. Segregated schools may have been prohibited but by and large we still have schools that are almost entirely white or entirely black or even entirely hispanic. And you also must acknowledge that the resources between these schools vary tremendously. I know here in Austin that if you go to a predominately white high school like Westlake or even some of the schools in Round Rock, you see great facilities, staff and resources both from the schools and the families. On the flip side, Austin's east side has virtually nothing. Schools are underfunded. Facilities are old or simply dont exist. The school I used to volunteer at didn't have baseball facilities. And yes this school was also predominately African American. Anyway, school inequalities is a debate for another day. That's why baseball debates should come down to money and resources. Top high school baseball coaches don't coach at these underprivelged schools, they coach at schools that have money. Genetics are irrelevant to this debate. We want more access to baseball. That's all.
Uh...yeah. To develop skills in basketball, you just need a ball, somewhere to dribble and something to shoot at.
Wouldn't the demographics of poor people, poor neighborhoods and poor schools include the Latinos on roughly the same scale as Blacks? If so why, the popularity of baseball (and soccer) among them? I think it involves more than economics and ability/space/equipment to get together for a game. I think a lot of it has to do with your peers. I suspect Blacks see Blacks excel at basketball on the college and professional level and (as a group) not near as much in baseball. The opposite with Latinos. They see their "group" excel at baseball in the professional level and very few excel in basketball. In that sense, each group tends to gravitate to the sport that they see themselves in. On a related note, the USA could seemingly dominate the rest of the world in hockey and soccer if we would develop minority players more in each sport. Not to say that they are any more athletically gifted in either sport than the current players, but there is a vast untapped pool of potential.
I know; I just meant to underscore your thoughts to those who were reacting negatively to what I perceive as a good thing.
There is not homogenous group of "Latinos". Baseball is huge in the Carribbean, as you know. Mexicans do not embrace baseball at near the same level, not even close. Outside of Panama, Central Americans do not play baseball much at all; same with S.Americans outside of Venezuela & Colombia. Baseball is not extremely popular in Houston's Latin community.
Are African Americans really underrepresented in MLB? The numbers provided show that they make up 6.3% of all players. What percentage of the population that players are drwan from do they comprise, surely not much more than 6% considering the fact that none of the nations that have MLB players have African-Americans. It seems like we are seeing problems when in fact MLB is the only of the big 3 sports where African-Americans are not OVER represented. This arguement would play a lot better in auto racing, golf, or tennis. On a side note, how are players like Derek Jeter counted? Is he an African-American player? Does he count as half an African-American player?
Once you get past Little League, nobody really cares about baseball. In high school, football players and basketball players get the most run, not baseball players. In fact, I don't remember much interest at all in our high school baseball team. Not many people showed up to the games, whereas football games were packed, as were basketball games when we were winning.
Did you high school baseball team suck? This is Texas (football country), so baseball games back at my h.s. didn't attract 5,000+ like the football games (didn't even *seat* that many), but the fans came. And the press. Of course, they kicked ass every year, too.
I went to school at Kempner, and I think the girl's softball team generated more interest than baseball.
Strange thing There are studies now saying that White kids are being stirred away from basketball I remember them mentioning it on a sports show Rocket River
Why the hell does everybody have to bring up race in sports. There are not enough blacks in golf, tennis, chess, backgammon, horse shoes. WTH!!! Who gives a damn if Blacks don't make up the majority of every sport. And why is it only limited to blacks. Why don't I ever see more asians on Cold Pizza discussing why there aren't enought asian coaches and GM's!!! Or Native Americans, or Hispanics, or Middle Easterns. I am SOOOO sick of hearing people b**** and complain about there not being enough minorities ( which really means blacks) in coaching postions and in other non-mainstream sports. I have an idea....lets just hand sports over to minorities and pull out whites all together..cause there is just too many white people in sports today. By the way, your either African or American....f%*k all this politically correct crap. What ever happen to the great "melting pot" Amercia was supposed to be. So much for "color-blindness"!!!!!!
