A. The Commissionership
Major League Baseball has never had an African American commissioner.[i] In fact, no one other than a white man has
ever served as commissioner.[ii] And unlike the United States, who finally
elected an African American president in 2008, Major League Baseball seems to
be content with another white male replacing Bud Selig at the end of his
commissionership tenure in 2014.
Jayson Stark, a popular baseball writer for ESPN,
speculated as to who he believes will be in contention to serve as Major League Baseball's next commissioner.[iii] The list of 24 names ranges from current
general managers to former president George W. Bush.[iv] However, the otherwise encompassing list lacks
the name of a single African American.[v] Here, two tenets of Critical Race Theory
become entangled with baseball and its history.
First, Critical
Race Theorists believe race is socially, as opposed to biologically,
constructed.[vi] Ian Haney Lopez, a leading voice of the
Critical Race Theory movement, explains the lack of biological evidence of
race:
"There are no genetic characteristics possessed by all
blacks but not by nonblacks, similarly, there is no gene or cluster of genes
common to all whites but not to nonwhites.
One's race is not determined by a single gene or gene cluster, as is,
for example, sickle-cell anemia. Nor are
races marked by important differences in gene frequencies, the rates of
appearances in certain gene types. The
data compiled by various scientists demonstrate, contrary to popular opinion,
that intragroup differences exceed intergroup differences. That is, greater genetic variations exists within the populations typically labeled
black and white than between these
populations. This finding refutes the
supposition that racial divisions reflect fundamental genetic
differences."[vii]
Because
of the lack of biological race attributes, racial stereotypes are created,
molded, and changed over time as society sees fit.[viii] These stereotypes are molded by negative
images in society.[ix] For example, during Reconstruction, society
conveyed blacks as scary, primitive, and powerful.[x] Whereas, during slavery blacks were portrayed
as docile and content.[xi] These stark differences in the images of
certain time periods reflect not only that society creates racial stereotypes,
but that society changes them when needed.[xii]
Baseball has created and molded a stereotype of the
African American athlete with no genetic basis whatsoever. The socially-created African American in
baseball , like in many other sports, is
a fantastic athlete on the field but limited in terms of leadership positions.[xiii] The stereotype persists that African
Americans are not organized or intelligent enough to make the tough decisions
that leaders need to make.[xiv] Such ideals are often not seen as blatant
racism and are thus allowed to perpetuate the stereotypes attributed to the socially
created African American sportsman.[xv]
Kenneth Shropshire
outlines three examples of prominent sports people expounding this stereotype.[xvi] In each example the speaker assumes that they
are professing a color blind fact that listeners know to be true, when in fact
they are exhibiting deeply held racism.[xvii] Additionally, each speaker implies,
incorrectly, there is a biological fact underlying each racist statement, thus
the social construction of African Americans in sports is further exemplified.
First, Al Campanis, at the time a Dodgers executive,
explained that it was not prejudice to say that blacks lacked the necessities
to be managers, either on the field or off.[xviii] Then, in an attempt to clear things up,
Campanis described blacks as being "wonderful people", "gifted
with great musculature", and "fleet of foot".[xix] Second,
Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder attempted to explain African American's
athletic success as biological:
"The difference between blacks and whites goes all the
way back to the Civil War when, during the slave period, the slave owner would
breed his big black [man] with his big [black] woman so that he could have a
big black kid--that's where it all started.
The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be
that way because of his thigh size and big size. [They] jump higher and run
faster.
All the players are black; the only thing that the whites
control is the coaching jobs."[xx]
Shropshire notes that many
commentators defended Snyder's comments.[xxi] Finally, Marge Schott's vile, purposeful, and
openly racist comments are quoted, compared, and contrasted against those of
Campanis and Snyder.[xxii] Although Schott's comments are more extreme
than the others, they share commonality in that the speaker believes the
listener to be of the same mind set.[xxiii]
Although comments such as these are seen as overtly
racist today, a glance at the current power structure of baseball reinforces
their core message, that many believe African Americans to be incapable of
properly owning or running professional baseball organizations. In addition to the lack of a prospective
African American commissioner[xxiv],
there are currently zero African American general managers in Major League Baseball.[xxv] Further, there is not a single African
American principal owner of a Major League Baseball club.[xxvi] These facts provide evidence that whites
control baseball's front offices and that they are reluctant to hire African
American general managers or sell clubs to African American owners.
[i] The Commissionership: A Historical
Perspective, MLB.COM, http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/mlb_history_people.jsp?story=com
(last visited March 1, 2014).
[ii] Id.
[iii]
Jayson Stark, MLB's next commissioner?, ESPN.COM
(May 8, 2013, 2:23 PM), http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9236590/mlb-next-commissioner.
[iv] Id.
[v] Id.
[vi]
Ian F. Haney Lopez, The Social
Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication and Choice,
29 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1
(1994).
[vii] Id.
[viii]
Id. at 245.
[ix]
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Images
of the Outsider in American Law and Culture: Can Free Expression Remedy
Systemic Societal Ills?, 77 Cornell
L. Rev. 1258 (1992).
[x] Id.
See also, W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America
(1935).
[xi] Id.
[xii] Id.
[xiii]
Shaun Powell, Souled Out? How
Blacks Are Winning and Losing in Sports, 210 (2008).
[xiv] Id. at 222.
[xv] Shropshire, supra, 21-24.
[xvi] Id.
[xvii]
Id.
[xviii]
Id. at 22.
[xix] Id.
[xx] Id. at 23.
[xxi] Id.
[xxii]
Id. at 24.
[xxiii]
Id.
[xxiv]
See Supra, note II.
[xxv] List of Major League Baseball General
Managers, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_general_managers
(last visited April 13, 2014).
[xxvi]
List of Major League Baseball Principal
Owners, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_principal_owners
(last visited April 13, 2014).
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