Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Minorities who are in the minority are dominant in professional baseball.
More than 70 percent of the Major League ballplayers are white, and some of them are the best players in the game like Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Matt Olsen and Gerrit Cole, to name a few.
Minority players represent about 15 percent of MLB rosters. Among the very best of them are Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., Mookie Betts, and Rafael Devers.
Judge has been compared to Babe Ruth after breaking Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 2022. Ohtani, the Japanese superstar, is in the conversation for greatest player of all time because he has hit and pitched at an all-star level in his five seasons with the Los Angeles Angels.
Yes, longevity is required to get into those discussions. But Acuña of the Atlanta Braves has set a new record by hitting 20 homers, stealing 40 bases and driving in 50 runs before the all-star break. Never been done before by anyone in the 148-year history of the professional game.
Acuña, the current favorite to win MVP in the National League, is also batting .337 and has an OPS (one-base and slugging percentage) of 1.014, both second in the NL. As a four-time all-star, he is acquiring that longevity.
The Venezuelan is also the fastest man in baseball, at least out of the batter’s box. Recently, he hit a hard ground ball to shortstop, where it was fielded cleanly and fired to first, arriving after Acuña had already crossed the bag. That seems to contradict the geometry of the game, but google the play, and see for yourself.
The race issue in baseball is easily explained.
Most white youngsters grow up in places where the national pastime is one of the most popular games, and Little League, Pony League and semi-pro diamonds are plentiful. Football and basketball are also popular, but whoever wants to play baseball can join a team.
Conversely, American Black youngsters are more likely to grow up where there are more basketball courts than baseball fields, and they idolize NBA players over Major Leaguers.
In Cuba and small Latino and Hispanic countries, baseball has always been the most popular sport, and it is no surprise those kids get discovered at a very young age and get their chance. There is nary an MLB team without one Latinx starter.
Japan has long been a country where baseball is as popular as it is in America, and the best of those players make it to the Major Leagues. Some of them endure and others flame out and return home. Ohtani is the exception and could go down as the best player in the history of the planet.
Featured image via Associated Press/Sue Ogrocki
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
