Sportsiology

Last week, the MLB announced that 27.7 percent of the league’s 846 players were foreign born. This number is up from the previous year but not as high as the all-time high in 2005. This percentage leaves many people confused. While the percentage of foreign born players, such as those from Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic has risen, the percentage of African American players has gone down. According to the last analyzed census, African Americans and Latinos were about equal in the population (12.3 and 12.5) respectively, yet African Americans were down to 9 percent in the MLB in 2009. Latinos were 27 percent. What does this mean for baseball and African Americans? Does this speak to the globalization of baseball and the draw of the MLB to baseball players all around the world? Or is this a matter of institutional discrimination where the discrimination against African Americans is built into the baseball system because the Latinos, who are often immigrants, do not have the power to fight against the oppression they might face?