* It’s obvious that when it comes to our major sports, baseball is not exactly first among equals for African-Americans. The numbers at the Major League level continue to decline. Here’s an interesting take by San Diego Padres second baseman Orlando Hudson, an African-American. “They feel like baseball is a white man’s game,” said Hudson. “They’re not playing hip hop. They’re playing Paul McCartney.”
That means there are a helluva lot of Hispanic McCartney fans. Who knew?
* We now know that Baylor’s undefeated and national champion women’s basketball team has been under NCAA scrutiny for the past three years. It has to do with impermissible contact with prospects–mainly phone calls and text messages. Frankly, it might be more noteworthy, although hardly a matter for investigation, to look at what highly-recruited, blue-chip “student athletes” are studying besides Hoops 101 in Waco, Tx. In Baylor’s case, all members of this year’s starting team had, coincidentally perhaps, the same major: “Health, Human Performance and Recreation.”
* Maybe Major League Baseball should actually do something meaningful about fans interfering with players trying to catch a ball in play. Baseball is the only sport where stands form literal boundaries with the field of play. Why not cover, say, the first two rows where there is the very real possibility of fan interference? Sure, these are pricier seats, but why further risk the integrity of the game or injury? Fans, as we know, will almost always yield to instinct–especially the ones wearing baseball gloves–and the lure of a souvenir. Just ask Matt Geiger.
* Of all the controversy surrounding the Miami Marlins so far, very little was made of having Muhammad Ali deliver the ceremonial first pitch in the opening home game. Parkinson’s disease has rendered Ali a sad shell of his former self. His tremors reduced cheers to silent winces from the crowd. A wave conveyed by scoreboard video would have sufficed. Ali deserved better, if not the Marlins.
The decline in the number black baseball players has more to do with the rise in popularity of basketball and football than anything else. Paradoxically, the number non-white players has probably never been higher, due mostly to the game’s reverence in Latin America. Anyway, Orlando Hudson is no expert on the subject. Yogi Berra probably explained it better years ago when he said: “If people don’t want to come out to the park, nobody’s going to stop them.”