New York Newsday columnist Les Payne once wrote in a column that Larry Bird was overrated as a player, and simply was not as good as many of the black stars in the 1970s and 1980s in the NBA.
He later admitted that he was writing for a reaction more than speaking the actual truth, although he did believe that Bird was put on a higher pedestal because he indeed was the rare white player with fantastic skill and championship rings.
Payne writes this week “there seems to be a move afoot to drive African Americans off the rosters” of Major League Baseball franchises.
This too should get quite the reaction.
If KFNS’ Kevin Slaten should read this, he’ll openly question Payne’s intelligence, call him a racist and say this is exactly why no black person should be hired for any job, anywhere, anytime. Now, that’s rational thinking, isn’t it?
Unlike the Bird statement, Payne backs up his column with facts this time.
The New York Times reported in 2005 that the four teams that ended up in the ’05 College World Series – Texas, Florida, Arizona State and Baylor – had only four African-American players. By contrast, the teams in the final four of the NCAA basketball finals had more than 10 times as many black players.
Writes Payne, “The thinning of the black baseball roster is attributable in part to a disparity in athletic scholarships that attracted more middle-class white students while steering black talent away from the American pastime.
“While college baseball programs generally offered athletes only partial scholarships, football and basketball had full-expense grants that disproportionately attracted black athletes, many of whom were the first in their family to attend college.”
Like many a fan and St. Louis American baseball columnist Alvin A. Reid, Payne says, “The dwindling number of black Major League players is alarming.”
In 1995, for example, black athletes constituted 19 percent of major league players, according to a study by the University of Central Florida. By 2004, the number of African-American players was only 9 percent.
The Cardinals would have only one black player, Junior Spivey, on its roster. And if he boots a couple more ground balls this week, the 2007 Redbirds could look a lot like the pre-1947 Cardinals when the season opens on Monday in Philadelphia.