World Series Thread

[Manny Goes Boom]

ESPN's K Zone is WAY better, its actually OVER the plate.

[BoSox84]

Holy crap, WOW

[podsednik20]

wow Blum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BoSox84]

You Can Put It On The Board. Yessss 6-1

[Manny Goes Boom]

Buehrle...closing?

WOW

[BoSox84]

Not a whole lot of faith in Marte. I dont blame them

[podsednik20]

yes!!!!!!

[Manny Goes Boom]

By the way its going, Buehrle will just get an inning of work....DAMN!

[BoSox84]

Please let this be it

[Manny Goes Boom]

Marte in the on-deck circle?

[podsednik20]

1 down

[BoSox84]

He gone, 2 to go

[Manny Goes Boom]

Please no hawk references.

[podsednik20]

2 down

[BoSox84]

Gotta show some love to the hawkster. one out away from sleep

[Manny Goes Boom]

HELL YES!

 

Error Uribe!

[podsednik20]

Buehrle is coming!

[BoSox84]

NOOO, lets end this

[podsednik20]

I think Buehrle will finish it. Hopefully, lol

[Manny Goes Boom]

Looked like Alex Gonzalez...

[Manny Goes Boom]

s***!

[BoSox84]

YESSS, this series is close to over as well. Goodnight

[Manny Goes Boom]

Hahaha Yank fans said that too after the 19-8 game.

[podsednik20]

what a way to redeem yourself uribe!!!!!!!!!!. 3-0 Tomorrow hopefully it will end. . Welp Night

[podsednik20]

Hahaha Yank fans said that too after the 19-8 game.

But you see, the Astros are no redsox.

[Manny Goes Boom]

No dynamite for you Oswalt...

[riverside sluggers]

Changing diversity: Astros first Series team in half-century without black player

By BEN WALKER, AP Baseball Writer

October 26, 2005

 

HOUSTON (AP) -- Joe Morgan worries about the face of baseball. Watching the World Series, the Hall of Famer is troubled by what he sees. His old team, the Houston Astros, is down 3-0 to the Chicago White Sox, but it's not their lineup that concerns Morgan. It's their makeup. The Astros are the first World Series team in more than a half-century with a roster that doesn't include a single black player. Of course I noticed it. How could you not?'' Morgan said while the Astros took batting practice before the opener in Chicago. "But they're not the only ones. There are two or three teams that didn't have any African-American players this year.''

 

Morgan said it's a predicament and a challenge for Major League Baseball. While more players from around the world are making it to the majors -- Japan, Korea, for example -- the number of blacks is declining. "It's a daunting task to get African-American kids into baseball, and I don't see the trend changing,'' he said. The last World Series team without a black player was the 1953 New York Yankees. It wasn't until 1955 -- eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 -- that Elston Howard became the first black in Yankee pinstripes.

 

Black players accounted for just about 9 percent of big league rosters this season. "We know that we have to work to do,'' Commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday. "We'll continue to intensify our efforts. I'm very aware, I'm extremely sensitive about it, and I feel badly about it. But we need to get to work to change things.'' Astros general manager Tim Purpura agrees. "I think it's a huge, huge problem for baseball,'' he said. "The pool of African-American players just isn't there. And as baseball becomes more college-oriented in its draft, there aren't a lot of players to pick. The African-American athletes are going into other sports,'' he said.

 

The most recent survey by the NCAA, taken during the 2003-04 season, showed that only 6 percent of Division I baseball players were black. Half of the men's basketball players were black, as were 44 percent of football players. Houston has a half-dozen Hispanic players -- it was the first team to open a baseball academy in Venezuela, about a dozen years ago. Bench coach Cecil Cooper is black.

 

Outfielders Charles Gipson and Charlton Jimerson, both black, played for the Astros during the regular season. The White Sox have three black players on their Series roster: Jermaine Dye, Carl Everett and Willie Harris, along with coaches Tim Raines and Harold Baines. They also have eight Hispanic players and Japanese second baseman Tadahito Iguchi. "We're diverse because we're looking for the best in talent and character,'' general manager Ken Williams said before the Series started. "It just happened that way. I could care less what the makeup of the club is as long as it works as a whole.''

 

Williams is the only black general manager in the majors. A former big league outfielder, he joined the White Sox in 1992 as a scout, confident he could find players in the inner cities. After a year of trying, Williams felt as if he'd failed. Morgan is disturbed by what he's found, too. A two-time NL MVP, Morgan helped Cincinnati win two straight championships. In 1976, along with fellow black teammates Ken Griffey, George Foster and Dan Driessen, the Big Red Machine swept a Yankees team that had 10 black players on its roster. Just 10 years ago, Atlanta and Cleveland each had five black players when they met in the World Series.

 

In 2003, Derek Jeter and the Yankees lost to Florida. Jeter's father is black and his mother is white; the All-Star shortstop has said he considers himself both black and white. "There's a perception among African-American kids that they're not welcome here, that baseball is not for inner-city kids,'' Morgan said. "It's not true, and I hate that the perception is out there.''

[MC Hammer]

Wow why in the f*** does it matter what races are on the team!? If I were to look at an NBA team and say "Gee where are the white guys" people would say I was racist. But because a black man asks "Where are the black guys" it's all good and everyone just accepts it. I dont see why you need to have a player of every race on your team. You get the players you can get, and you put the best 9 guys on the field every day ... regardless of race JOE ... THATS THE f***ING POINT. We're not trying to look at race anymore, but every time we start to make strides some minority or minority group complains that there are not enough people from their race on a particular team, or part of a particular group. Guys if you want people around the country to look at a mans worth and not the color of his skin THEN SHUT THE f*** ABOUT ABOUT SKIN COLOR PLEASE.

[He Hate Me]

I gotta be honest, I noticed that also. You don't gotta get so mad about it MC, its something that really stands out. If you see a basketball team with 3 Asians and 2 Mexicans in the starting lineup, aren't you going to notice something also? Or an all white lineup, or how about a white cornerback or running back? I notice those things not because I am racist or anything like that, it's just because it's unusual.

 

I do think this issue coudla been approached in a much more uh "Sports Guy" way. Joe Morgan made it seem like a sin, even though theres less blacks in baseball overall. Simmons woulda made me laugh about it while not trivializing the issue.

[MC Hammer]

I gotta be honest, I noticed that also. You don't gotta get so mad about it MC, its something that really stands out. If you see a basketball team with 3 Asians and 2 Mexicans in the starting lineup, aren't you going to notice something also? Or an all white lineup, or how about a white cornerback or running back? I notice those things not because I am racist or anything like that, it's just because it's unusual.

 

I do think this issue coudla been approached in a much more uh "Sports Guy" way. Joe Morgan made it seem like a sin, even though theres less blacks in baseball overall. Simmons woulda made me laugh about it while not trivializing the issue.

I get mad about it because it seems like every week someone from a minority group makes a racist statement while trying to pin racism on someone else, and no one calls them out on it. Commenting the way he did made it sound like it's a shock that every team in the league isn't starting 9 black guys, or that it's wrong not to have a single black guy in your starting lineup. There are no rules legal or moral that say you have to have a player from every race on your team.

 

I love how Joe says "I noticed, how could you not" because I didn't. I honestly had no idea. Maybe thats because I'm not a racist, and I'm not constantly counting the number of players in my race that are on the field.

 

Selig saying that he has to work to change things makes ABSO f***ING LUTLY NO SENSE. What do you have to change? The point of the game is to put the best team together and win a championship, right? Not to make every race happy and make sure theres one person from each race on every team.

 

Why the f*** are we counting the number of black players on each team?

 

Baseball is perceived as an "inner city sport" are you smoking crack Joe? Isn't the league dominiated by latin players?

 

I'm starting a study right now where I will count all the white players in the NBA ... then complain that my race is being treated unfairly ... anyone want to bet that no one will give a s*** cause I'm white?