Berardino: Blacks on MN Twins as '42' opens

[Seth Stohs]

Blacks on Minnesota Twins as '42' opens: 1 player, 0 coaches, 0 support staff - TwinCities.com

 

The Pioneer Press's Mike Berardino penned a tremendous article on the lack of African-American players and personnel on the Twins and even throughout their minor league system. Aaron Hicks is the lone player on the big league roster, with no coaches or front office personnel.

 

Brandon Boggs is in Rochester. Antoan Richardson is in New Britain. Cedar Rapids has an all-African-American outfield when they play JD Williams, Byron Buxton and Adam Walker from left-to-right. Niko Goodrum plays shortstop. Tyler Jones pitches. At Extended Spring Training, I believe the lone African American is Josh Burris.

 

In terms of coaches, only Riccardo Ingram and Tommy Watkins are African-Americans.

 

There are some great quotes in the article from Terry Ryan about wanting to bring in more while at the same time needing to try to sign the best players regardless of ethnicity.

[70charger]

I am not touching this with a ten foot pole.

[TheLeviathan]

I'm sure this is towards the bottom, but how is it relative to other teams? Baseball has been trying for years to get more black kids into baseball, but it's just got so many inherent disadvantages to other sports for those kids that I'm not surprised that pursuit has been a struggle.

[Mike Sixel]

I have never seen evidence this team is racist, not like the wolves at all.

[Bojangles]

Absurd. I hope that article gets him a lot of clicks because I can't see what else it's good for.

[Thrylos]

I think that there are couple of issues here (and I am talking about the methodology not about the premise and/or the reasons.)

 

- I think that as long as the government officially separates "race" from "national origin", the Latino black folks should be included in the stats. As a matter of fact, with the open definition of the term, if they are from the Americas (which includes Dominican, Venezuela, Colombia, Puerto Rico etc) and black, they are "African American". And sometimes it gets really really interesting on how to qualify this. A couple of examples with former Twins' players. Chili Davis: born in Jamaica, came with his family as a kid in this country and they settled here. He became a US Citizen as a kid and was drafted from a US high school. Is he an African American? David Ortiz & Tony Oliva: Amateur free agents from Dominican and Cuba and then became US Citizens after living for a while in this country. Are they African Americans? Not? Magically became African Americans when they got naturalized? The line is way way too thin. And there are a lot of Latin Americans who really feel discriminated upon, when the world "American" is applied to denote "US Citizens". Extremely ironic since the guy whom the world originated for (Amerigo Vespucci) landed on the West Indies and Brazil and not on the Potomac

 

- My gut feeling is that this is more of a supply situation vs. demand situation. So I'd love to see them have a baseline of how many black (African American/Whatever) kids play varsity baseball in the US in high school and in College (as % of total) vis-a-vis the 70s and 80s. I suspect that they are fewer and that this is the root cause for that difference in the majors now vs. the 70s and 80s.

[lightfoot789]

African Americans are African Americans. Just because a person from the DR or Cuba is dark in complexion doesn't make them African American (even if they become U.S. citizens). Ortiz and Oliva aren't confused about their heritage. If people want to know if a person is African American - Just Ask Them - They'll tell you . Best way to find out. I thought it was a very thougt provoking article. Baseball is probably not much different than most folks work places. Very few African Americans and not much daily thought about how isolated those individuals may feel at work. Not saying that makes folks thoughtless - It's just the probable reality of life and the work place.

[lightfoot789]

I was going to mention "Mention" too. I find it amzing that so many college teams have less than 1 African American on their teams. Most college coaches probably want to make sure that those individuals that they do scholarship (AA) have plenty of contact and associations with white players in their high school years. Comfortability is every Coach and Employers main interest. Will this minority candidate fit in to my everyday world. "Change is good until it causes me too much change" - That's where the world has to change.

[Seth Stohs]

Mention got released a few weeks ago.

[johnnydakota]

So no one thinks the Twins are not lilly white leaning , run by goose stepping neo type people?

After finishing as the worst team 2 years running they fire 2 coaches , and 1 is black and was one of the most revered coaches on the team....while the clown posse was kept in tact....

[kab21]

Where is the dislike button?

 

I predict this thread will be locked by tomorrow. It's too bad because the article was well written and researched. It's newsworthy because of the movie and there simply aren't very many African Americans in baseball at any level.

 

Hicks says it best in the article.

 

"It's pretty much where your friends go," Hicks says. "It's all about the people you're around. You have football, you have basketball, you have track. Those sports are black-dominated. It's hard to go away from those."

[benhertz]

How many Redheaded-Americans are on the Twins?

[raindog]

It's shameful that people can't talk about race like adults.

 

While the title of the article was a bit "link-baity", the rest was excellent. Nowhere did Berardino demonize the Twins for not having enough black players. It's just something that's a problem, and is worth talking about. Eight teams opened up 2013 without an African-American player on their 25 man roster! You can tell it bothers Terry Ryan and he would like to see it change. It's not something that has happened by design.

 

I do find it crazy that there isn't an African-American on the coaching staff, mostly because Jerry White seemed great.

[Willihammer]

 

While the title of the article was a bit "link-baity", the rest was excellent. Nowhere did Berardino demonize the Twins for not having enough black players. It's just something that's a problem, and is worth talking about.

 

What exactly is the problem?

[Twins Daily Admin]

First, please keep in mind that this is a hyper-sensitive subject. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. But if you don't think you can keep a respectful tone, if you find your emotions running high, please think twice before you post.

 

My sense is that baseball is less "white" than it's been for years with all the latin players that are in the big leagues. Does anyone have any statistics on that?

 

The question that everyone seems to be wrestling with, but nobody is stating, is whether baseball has factors in place that discourage African-Americans from playing baseball? And if so, what are they? One concern is that maybe baseball is too expensive with traveling teams and such.

 

Or, do African-Americans just find inspiration in a different area or sport? Perhaps this isn't so much a problem of baseball integrating as baseball just no reaching people the way it used to.

[JB_Iowa]

Wasn't it just a few years ago when there were several articles about the Twins having more African-Americans on their team than many other teams? I think it was when Torii Hunter (after he went to the Angels) made some comments about racism -- and the Twins had Denard Span, Delmon Young and Orlando Hudson on the major league roster.

 

I'm concerned about the lack of minority players in baseball in general because it means that the sport is missing out on some of the best talent but I'm not sure that it is a problem the Twins can solve.

 

I have more concern over the "0 coaches, 0 support staff figure". I am not accusing the Twins of racism. My concern is actually broader than that. It just seems like the Twins are very much an "old boys club" -- and that tends to lead to the promotion of people who are "like you". I appreciate that Deron Johnson has moved up in the organization and the presence of coaches Watkins and Ingram (and there may be other African-Americans of whom I am not aware) but overall, despite the coaching changes (and minor league management changes) made this off-season, I continue to see the Twins as "stale".

 

Yes, you want to reward people who are loyal to your organization but opening up the organization to new talent and ideas -- even at the highest levels -- keeps an organization from becoming moribund. (And a nice benefit of doing so is that it provides expanded opportunities for minority hiring).