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Torii Hunter called black Latino baseball players "impostors".

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fishwater99

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Jun 4, 2007
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"People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African-American," Hunter said. "They're not us. They're impostors. Even people I know come up and say: 'Hey, what color is <font color="#225fb2">Vladimir Guerrero</font>? Is he a black player?' I say, 'Come on, he's Dominican. He's not black.' ...</p>

"As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us. It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?' ... I'm telling you, it's sad," he said.</p>

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/news/story?id=4983236
 
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Eureka Dog

Redshirt
Feb 25, 2008
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Torii should've spent February doing a little reading... in the subjects of history and logic.

To his credit, at least he is correct that skin color, heritage, and labelsdon't necessarily go together.
 
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tossedoff

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Feb 23, 2008
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But many people don't want to recognize a major problem in the lack of black baseball players...baseball is, more than most, a father/son sport.
 
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Todd4State

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Mar 3, 2008
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The fact of the matter is most black kids would rather play basketball or football. There are several reasons why.


I think he did touch on it a little bit. No matter how wrong it came out. If you're an MLB team, why would you sign a guy that in his heart of hearts wants to play basketball, but happens to find a niche in baseball and does it for the money, when you can a comparable athletic talent in the Dominican for about 10,000 dollars where they love baseball?

And for the record, the Dominican is starting to have less and less influence. You're starting to see more and more prospects from Venezuela, Japan, and all over the world. The Dominican won't dry up, but it's not the only place MLB is getting talent.

I think another big part of the equation is how baseball handles their player development. In football and basketball, even though you have to go to college, there is instant gratification even though they aren't legally paid by anything other than scholarship money. You go to Kentucky, you are a star, and then you transition to the NBA and are still a star. Same for college football. Your face is on TV if you are a great player. Think about some of the top MLB prospects- not a whole lot of people know who Jason Heyward is yet, or Austin Jackson, and then Stephen Strasburg is probably the best well known. Compare that to Tim Tebow- and he's a big time project as far as the NFL.

In baseball, college baseball isn't even in the same stratosphere as college football and basketball, and if you sign out of high school, you have to pay your dues all the way up to the Big Leagues playing in towns like Yakima, Washington and Des Moines, Iowa. And then you are paid peanuts to do so. In football or basketball, you get a big fat signing bonus and go straight to the pros in most cases, or in basketball you can go to Europe and get paid well to.

And yes, MLB has not promoted themselves all that well to inner city kids across the country. Equipment is expensive, in addition to the other factors that I mentioned.

Baseball has become, and has been for a long time a white collar sport. That's just the way it is. I enjoy it nonetheless and think all of the "We need to reach the inner city" people are panicking a little too much. There are always going to be black baseball players. Yes, do thinks like RBI to try to sell the game to inner city kids, but don't act like the game is going to shrivel up and die because there aren't scores of black players. That's ridiculous, and reverse racist in a way.

If anything I said is deemed as racist, believe me that was not my intent.
 
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cps36

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Jul 14, 2008
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Baseball takes a lot more of a "push" shall we say to excel at an early age. This push usually doesn't come from a group of kids who all love baseball and play it everyday, no usually it comes from the parents of the child. So you do have a point.
Basketball, a sport that more African-Americansexcel atthan Whites, can be played alone. A child can escape his or her home life and shoot hoops as long as there is a hoop and a $20 basketball. No need for a $200 bat, a ball, a 350-375 foot field, cleats, glove, huge lights, etc. Basketball can be played for a lot less money.

Now we can get into a socio-economic discussion about the earning disparities of single parent homes vs. two parent homes, but I'd say availability of the sport speaks more to the issue at play in the lack of Black Baseball players. </p>
 
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