Both of you are right on different levels. I think the idea of race is an arbitrary and generally useless one. What is called race is sometimes culture, sometimes it's nationality, sometimes it's language. So, one bi-racial person (Derek Jeter or my own kids, for that matter) is called African American for certain purposes, but Tony Parker isn't because he was born in France. Carlos Lee is Hispanic because he was born in a Spanish-speaking family, despite his Chinese last name and heritage. When a person has an Irish and a German parent, they're not forced to choose between those cultures, so I generally ignore racial catagories.
But my point this time has to be made using race because as one of you said (I think it was A-Rod), I want the best athletes playing baseball and too many of the best black athletes are playing other sports. So, I'm concerned about a lack of black baseball players because I want athletes playing baseball, not because I need to see players who look like me. I never had and never will be a racial bean-counter.
I think all of us would love to add Dontrelle Willis to the Astros' pitching staff, not because we think we lack black pitchers, but because we lack pitching depth and want someone who can help us win. That's my entire point here. Too many Dontrelles are opting for basketball and football and I want to do something about that, if possible.
Thanks for all the contributions to this thread. It has been respectful and enlightening.
I agree about this thread, a lot of good posts.
Like you and apparently a lot of other people, I grew up with the game,
on my own terms. Parents were peripheral to my playing, and to the development of my love for the game. My pre-adolescence in the 1970s sounds a lot like yours, whenever it was, and a lot of other people's - we'd play in the neighborhood schoolyard with a tennis ball (after breaking several windows with the real thing), and then sometimes for no particular reason I can recall, we'd play on a
cul-de-sac in our neighborhood. 'The Circle', we called it. The concrete circular
cul de sac was the infield, with home plate at the top of it, facing the surrounding houses. A home run was if you hit it on someone's roof, and we had various and sometimes
ad hoc ground rules for if you hit one into someone's open garage, under Mr. Dean's Mustang, etc. The people whose homes suddenly became our outfield fence didn't seem to mind for the most part. Some even pulled lawn chairs out into the driveway (on the field of play, by the way) to watch.
But the main thing I remember is playing intensely for most of the day, on the street or in the schoolyard, and then mid-afternoon somebody's mom would come out there and tell us it was time to wrap it up, because we all had our various Little League practices/games to go to. We hated that. Organized ball was a drag compared to playing in the neighborhood. Like probably every other kid, I remember to this day some great catch I made or timely hit I got in the schoolyard, that no one except my friends and playmates saw or knew about. I remember those much more clearly and warmly than anything good I intermittently did in LL and Babe Ruth and high school.
Parents like to say kids are cruel to each other. In some cases, yes; but I also think by and large, maybe since they are only playing for themsleves and not through someone else vicariously, kids are often more democratic than their parents are. In our neighborhood games, we let any kid play, regardless of ability. Sometimes we just wanted them to fill out a side, or because they had a really nice bat, but still, they got to play. Being in the game increased one's chance of doing something outstanding, and along with my own backyard exploits, I also remember very well some of the great plays that came from seemingly unlikely places. I'll never forget this one kid named Steve. He was kind of slight, and not naturally athletic. We called him "Curtis" because he wore glasses and had a round face and looked very much like Curtis Mayfield. Anyway, he was a lefty swinger who usually just dribbled the ball to the first baseman; but I will never forget the day my team was winning by a couple with the other side in their last at bats. Two guys on and Steve/Curtis up. We figured we had it won; but then he got hold of one somehow, and drove it deep into right center, driving in the tying runs. Then he scored the winner when the next guy hit one back through the box. He was just clutch that day, and I'll never forget it. He probably won't, either. I haven't seen him in twenty-some years, but if I ever do, his hit is probably one of the first things we'd talk about.
Something like that wouldn't have happened in organized ball, because he would never have been allowed to bat in that situation, if he got to play at all.
As far as getting inner city kids back into the game, I believe a common denominator of some of the baseball "hotbeds" over recent decades -- Mobile, Alabama in the '50s and '60s, Tampa in the '70s and '80s -- was an outstanding municipal program of available fields and equipment and instruction. Maybe people should start in their own towns on that level. Sometimes it is easier to change things in one's own back yard than it is to change the world.
