Raceball?

The World Series begins tonight. The Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies, last teams standing after 162 regular season games and three rounds of playoffs, will play a best-of-seven set for the ultimate goal of every professional athlete, a championship. My New York Mets, who peaked too early and ended their season with a whimper, will watch. As will the members of the other twenty-seven teams that didn't make it to the Fall Classic.

Of minor note, and probably of no note absent an article by Ben Walker of the Associated Press, is that there will be no US-born black players playing in this World Series. First time since 1950, he reports.

It being 2022, where identity politics, equality-of-outcome, and race quotas are de mode, the writer presents this as a failure of sorts, and notes several sources who say the equivalent of "more needs to be done" to increase the number of black players in the game. RTA here.

As reported, 38% of MLB players are 'people of color (PoC).' 7.2% are black. For reference, about 42% of Americans are PoC, and 12.7% are black. This suggests that most of the PoC in MLB are hispanic. Everyone who follows baseball is nodding at the veracity of this conclusion.

Can we argue that PoC are underrepresented in MLB from these numbers?

Do we then conclude there's some sort of problem at hand?

Might we be inclined to assume some nefariousness at hand?

Or, do we look beyond the article for potentially relevant information not presented therein? Such as America being 7% asian, but MLB only 2%. Such as the NFL being 58% black, less than 1% hispanic, and way less than 1% asian. Such as the NBA being 73% black, 3% hispanic, and less than 1% asian. Hockey, the "fourth sport" in America, is 97% white. To round out the team sports, Major League Soccer, a US-Canada league, is 32% hispanic and 24% black.

Here we divide people into two types. Those that see systemic racism in any outcome that doesn't match overall demographics, and those that recognize that cultural diversity in America produces diverse outcomes, no "systemic racism" necessary. Do I need to point out the popularity of basketball among black youths? That so many of their sports heroes play hoops? That Latin America has a huge baseball culture? That Minnesota, the hockey capital of the US, is much more white than the southern states where football reigns supreme?

Furthermore, it's not as if MLB is the premier sports league in the nation. The NFL (58% black, remember) is the top sport in the nation, with almost double MLB's revenue. MLB is second, with the NBA a close third. The NBA has, however, displaced MLB as the second most popular sport league.

Here's a fun fact. 48% of college football players and 58% of college basketball players are black. Again, 12.7% of the nation is black.

So, I ask, what's more likely? That pro baseball's underrepresentation of blacks is some sort of problem, or that black kids tend to prefer other sports? That the color barrier Jackie Robinson broke is being slowly re-erected, or that baseball isn't the only game in town any more? That the people who yell loudest about "diversity" don't actually understand what the word means?

What of the non-black PoC in baseball? Do they matter less than blacks? Does the over-representation of latinos in MLB not signify anything to the social justice set?

The broader lesson is that equality of outcome is a perverse goal. It requires the subordination of individual's preferences and buries diversity of desire in order to please some (probably white and well-to-do) bean-counter's quota obsession. Absent specific and credible allegations of race-based exclusion (which I haven’t seen or heard), the lack of black players in this year's World Series is merely a curiosity. The reasons for it are far more likely benign than anything else.

This lesson extends beyond professional sports. Be suspicious of anyone who alleges racism (or sexism or other bigotry) at the root of disparities in race-representation in professions. Ask for proof other than "outcome," because "outcome," as we see in sports, is often explainable without shoehorning racism into the tale.

Does racism still exist in America? Only fools and liars would say 'no.' But, if we are to combat it, we really should focus on where it actually exists, instead of this "under every rock and behind every tree" excess.

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A footnote. You may scratch your head at the photo of the Houston Astros that leads this column, noting that a couple of the players appear black. If so, ponder this quote from the blog-stigating article:

Many Afro Latino players embrace Black identity, yet perhaps not for the same reasons that Black U.S. players do. Race and skin color hold a different currency in places like the Dominican Republic, Panama, Cuba and Belize.

Does that sound like the author is suggesting black latinos don’t count as “black?”

Do I offer the author the Golden Shoehorn award?

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Peter.