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After Ken Griffey asked permission to wear #42 on April 15, the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the majors, there has been a rush to grab the number. (If you really like the idea, visit this guy's site.)
Other players will be announced in the coming days, but I'm not going to stay up late looking for the announcements. I'm guessing Mariano Rivera will wear #42 that day for the Yankees.
Players I'm guessing would also wear #42 would include Preston Wilson, Dontrelle Willis, and C.C. Sabathia, all of whom have been speaking out recently about opportunities for African-Americans in baseball. Sabathia later asked Barfield to wear #42 since he was not scheduled to pitch that day and Sabathia felt it should be displayed on the field, see the link above. Presently, the Braves, Rockies, and Astros have no African-American players on their 25-man roster.
(This will be updated as the comments will show.)
I have the perfect guy in mind:
http://tinyurl.com/2catuy
The Robinson thing was the double super-secret bonus of said tattoo. I got it because of a guy even whiter (globally) than me who wrote some books I like to think influenced my personality as I came of age in the magical 80's.
Geeks know.
Sorry about that Mark, I didn't see the name of Latroy "Screaming line drive" Hawkins on the roster I was checking.
Or I was falling asleep.
http://tinyurl.com/2bt2nh
Is it socio-economically based? Is it a "marketing" issue?
Or is it also that there is a stronger drive to play ball in the Dominicans?
It's not as if African-Americans are being systematically kept out of the sport. It's just not as popular as other sports.
The demographics of sports participants, including baseball, has changed a lot throughout out time.
We need more Irish guys back in the game! More Germans!
Couldn't it just be that it was the previous decades that were the anomaly, and we are now heading towards a more natural equilibrium, where the demographic distribution of Americans in MLB reflects the demographic distribution in America as a whole?
The latter.
You were not alone in missing my talk.
I only had about 20 minutes or so to talk. I talked about "Ball Four" and its better predecessor "The Long Season".
Also "The Glory of Their Times."
"The Southpaw," which is my favorite baseball novel of all time.
I reviewed the various bios of Jackie Robinson that have come out. My favorite is "Baseball's Great Experiment" by Jules Tygiel.
I also discussed "Moneyball" and mentioned how it was really a book about how a business operation with limited revenues succeeds by trying to figure out the most efficient way to marshal its resources, although most in baseball didn't like it because "that's not how it was done."
I will have another talk in October. Then it will just be me for 45 minutes.
Unplugged.
I shall be making better plans for Bob Unplugged.
And does nobody else really think Ichiro should wear #42 for the Mariners? I mean I can understand if Rhodes has been saying he wants to, but I think it's kind of missing the point for him to wear it when there is another MLB demographic pioneer ON THAT TEAM!
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