data.3news-bydate.test.rec.sport.baseball.104662 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
From: [email protected] (Sandra Vigil)
Subject: Re: Hispanic All-Star team
Organization: ESCA Corporation, Bellevue WA
Lines: 49
[email protected] (Antonio Pera) writes:
> Hispanic magazine(April 1993) had a couple of interesting articles about
>Hispanic players including its Hispanic All-Star team.
>Some of the major points are:
NPR's Morning Edition aired a report this morning (4/19) on
Hispanic/Latin American players in MLB and how they have many of
the same problems faced by black/negro/African American players
when they first entered the league. However, although baseball
has adjusted to the presence of black players, many Hispanic
players still labor under the stereotype of being "fireballs,
hot blooded, flashy". The report also emphasised that despite
the rantings (my word) of Jessie Jackson about baseballs
discrimination against black players in its upper echelons,
baseball has actually done much better by black players than
Hispanic players.
Another interesting point was the language barrier problem. The
reporter elaborated on an interview with Ruben Sierra which he
gave in Spanish to a Spanish speaking newspaper reporter with
the fact that there are maybe 2 major baseball writers that
speak Spanish, despite the fact that Spanish is one of (if not
the) easiest languages to learn, so easy that the author Cormac
McCarthy learned Spanish at age 50 in order to research his
book, _All The Pretty Horses_. Yet, few MLB organizations
employ Spanish speaking personel, one of the exceptions being
the Oakland A's.
Another point:
Nearly 90% of Latin American players have some African blood.
Yet, most report that they'd never really felt black until
playing ball in the US.
Ironically enough, it is the early presence of Latin American
baseball players in the Major Leagues that support the idea that
baseball was integrated before the arrival of Jackie Robinson,
as many "light black" or "brown", Latin Americans were
incorporated into baseball.
/S
--
"I did not know the cure for the disease -------------------
of images, but I believed in the healing | Sandra Vigil |
power of words and stories." | [email protected] |
- Until the End of the World -------------------