By Josh R:
The sports world has been dominated by news of what Donald Sterling said to his girlfriend (not his wife even though he is married) about African Americans. Now I know that Sterling is an owner of an NBA team and this is a baseball blog, but there are some topics that transcend sports, and this is one of those.
In an era of sports where players of different races are honored for the sacrifices they have made in the past to make the games they played better, it is sad to see a person like Sterling come out and have such contempt, and really hatred, toward another group of human beings.
What is even sadder to me is that most people don’t realize that racism is still present in sports today. Whether its golfers making comments about Tiger Woods early in his career, football players instantly being labeled as thugs because of the color of their skin, or the lack of minorities in coaching and front office positions, racism is still in sports.
I know a lot of people look to baseball and how the league honors one of its greatest heroes, Jackie Robinson, each year, but behind that there is still a lot of prejudice and even racism.
Look at coaching staffs all across baseball. You will see a lot of white coaches but not a lot of minorities.
There are still scouts and other influential people in baseball who look down on players just because they are from Central America. Some people even believe you can’t be a championship team if you have too many players from Central America because they are a cancer. There are still individuals who don’t think minorities should coach or be in the front office because they aren’t smart enough to handle the pressure.
I wish that this type of thinking were in the past, and that great coaches would be seen for their abilities and not their skin color. Someday in my lifetime I hope to see that. Until then I will just keep looking back at the heroes of our great game of baseball regardless of their skin color and hope that their example of determination and talent will help raise up the next generation of players the right way.