Gary Sheffield thinks he has a handle on why there aren't more African-American baseball players at the big league level. He said as much in the latest issue of GQ magazine.
My take? The black major leaguers must be where all the black GMs and black managers are.
Baseball hasn't been a forerunner of civil rights, that's for sure. Doesn't mean that its been against them, of course, but nor have they been a standard bearer.
MLB missed out on some pretty darn good players in the 1920s and 1930s -- black sluggers and pitchers who surely would have found their way into Cooperstown as big leaguers, had more than just the baseball been white, back in the day.
Even after Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947, baseball took its sweet time, as other teams responded to the Brooklyn Dodgers' groundbreaking move like tortoises moving uphill. The Boston Red Sox didn't employ a black ballplayer until the 1960s were almost upon us, for goodness sakes. When Hank Aaron was on the verge of breaking Babe Ruth's career homerun record, the treatment he received from his fellow Americans was hideous.
Today, there are two managers, out of 30, who are of color: Ron Washington (Texas) and Willie Randolph (Mets). There's one GM, out of 30, who is black: Kenny Williams (White Sox). This isn't an anomaly; MLB has always been this way. Never have the numbers ever been much different than they are currently.
Sheffield, I can tell you, is all about the truth. He'll patiently talk, even when he's hitting .120, which he was when he and I spoke for 15 minutes at his locker before a game in April. He doesn't go into hiding when things aren't going well on the field. He doesn't say things to make headlines or because it's good copy. He says it because he believes it.
For example, when I asked him what his initial thoughts were upon finding out he'd been traded to Detroit, he didn't give the stock, "Oh, it was great because they're the defending AL champs and it's a great baseball city, blah-blah" reply.
"My first thought was that it wasn't a good fit," Sheffield told me.
No?
"I asked my agent, 'Where am I gonna play?' They already had a starting outfield. And I didn't want to be a first baseman again," Sheffield said, referring to his ill-fated stint at first last season with the Yankees.
It was only after manager Jim Leyland soothed Sheffield's concerns about being a DH that the slugger grew to like the idea of being a Tiger in 2007.
There's no bullshit about Gary Sheffield. What you see is what you get. He gave us his ideas about why MLB isn't all that black-friendly. Not all of it do I agree with, but the facts are there: the percentage of black players and managers and executives are shamefully low.
And the problems pre-dated straight shooters like Sheffield, by decades.
But they're not all that closer to being solved. Not by a longshot.
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BTW, if you're wondering why baseball is given the short shrift at "OOB", it's because I write about it exclusively at my other blog, "Where Have You Gone, Johnny Grubb?" Check it out sometime, if you haven't already!
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