"My Skin is Against Me": Critical Race Theory & Baseball, Part II. C. "Color Blindness"

C. " Color Blindness"

            Color blindness does not solve this problem, it exacerbates it.  By baseball implementing "color blind" hiring practices, it ignores the underlying institutional racism.  When it comes time to hire a new commissioner, a list of 24 white names does not seem out of place.  These are all "qualified candidates", many of whom have worked alongside Bud Selig for years.  Even the "non-executive types" on Stark's list are white.  He  mentions Joe Torre and Tony La Russa as two possible candidates, calling them "the face of the sport" from the "icon division".[i] 

            Major League Baseball purports to have a "Selig Rule", an affirmative action policy that "requires clubs to consider minority candidates" for management and executive positions.[ii]  This policy, claimed to proceed the National Football League's "Rooney Rule", is credited with increasing women and minority employment in Major League Baseball front offices from three percent to eighteen percent over the past fourteen years.[iii]  The six-fold increase appears less impressive when considering that women and minorities represent roughly 70% of the United States population.[iv]

            Even if the "Selig Rule" is an effective non-color blind approach to front office hiring in baseball, the institutional racism still permeates.  After the hiring of an African American, cries of "reverse racism" ring throughout the sport.[v]  This forces the African American hire to try and outwork everyone else because his job and the hiring policy are on trial.[vi]  Failures of African American hires, although commonplace for white males, are  overly analyzed and then purported to vindicate the common practice of hiring white men. 

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[i] Id. 

[ii]Richard Justice, 'Selig Rule' first of its kind in sport, MLB.COM (Aug. 26, 2013, 9:33 PM), http://mlb.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20130826&content_id=58500104&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb.

[iii] Id. 

[iv] White American, Wikipeida, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American, (Last visited March 3, 2014).

[v] Powell at 224

[vi] Id,  See Infra Note II D.

"My Skin is Against Me": Critical Race Theory & Baseball, Part II. B. General Managers and Ownership

B.  General Managers and Ownership

            This reluctance is grounded in negative stereotypes of African Americans in positions of leadership, as opposed to history.[i]  In the 1930s, when Major League Baseball was teetering on collapse, Negro Leagues were thriving.[ii]  Owners and executives of the Negro League teams crafted innovative promotions and fostered an exciting brand of baseball in order to keep fans coming to games.[iii]  Despite such examples, very few African Americans have been given the opportunity to be general managers in Major League Baseball.  With such a small sample size, success stories seem rare and thus advance the faulty stereotypes associated with African American general managers and owners .[iv]  However, in a recent, rare instance of opportunity, Kenny Williams, a young African American general manager, bucked the negative racial stereotype when his Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 2005.[v]  The World Series win was the first for the White Sox in decades and Ken Williams was the only African American general manager in Major League Baseball at the time.[vi]  Despite this, the story of Ken Williams was not featured prominently in the media.[vii]

            Normally, young general managers in baseball who have any amount of success are branded as gutsy, innovative geniuses.  In fact, when Sports Illustrated released their top 10 general manager/executives of 2000-2010, both Theo Epstein and Billy Beane made the list.[viii]  Absent from the list (and the "honorable mentions") is Kenny Williams.[ix]  Despite not winning a World Series or even a pennant, Billy Beane came in 10th on the list.[x]  In fact, Billy Beane's successes with a limited payroll were deemed special enough to have a book and Oscar-nominated movie made about his executive managerial style and philosophy.[xi]    

            Even in the 21st century, Kenny Williams and other African Americans are viewed differently in baseball circles due to the color of their skin.  The foundational idea of Critical Race Theory is that racism is normal in everyday society.[xii]  This racism is embedded in our culture and seems natural.[xiii]  "Colorblind" laws and policies that treat whites and blacks equally do not cure societal racism that lies beneath the surface.[xiv]  It is presumed that racism no longer exists in America because instances of overt racism are rare and therefore societal racism proceeds as usual.[xv] 

            Similar institutional racism has existed in baseball for many decades.  Shaun Powell explains institutional racism creating a "cement ceiling" for African Americans in leadership positions in sports.[xvi]  First, Powell notes that blatant racism is not the reason for blacks holding so few positions of power in sports.[xvii]  Like Critical Race Theory explains, society no longer tolerates blatant racism, but is blind to institutional racism.[xviii]  There are not company-wide memos advising against hiring African Americans.  Stated differently, "There's no Oz wearing a white hood, hiding behind a curtain, preventing black folks from all the good jobs."[xix] 

            Powell describes a "buddy-buddy system" wherein whites in power hire other whites whom they know and trust.[xx]  Because of racial divides growing up and concurrent advancing through the ranks of a baseball organization, white executives are more likely to hire other whites they know as coaches and executives.[xxi]  In this vein, the white executive is not overtly discriminating based on race.[xxii]  However, due to a history of whites hiring other whites because of familiarity or a supposed "limited pool" of qualified minorities, African American candidates are passed over and a cycle develops.[xxiii] 

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[i] Shropshire, supra, at 24.

[ii] Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns (Hereinafter "Baseball"): 6th Inning (PBS television broadcast 1994).

[iii] Id.

[iv] Powell, supra 221-222.

[v] Id.

[vi] Id.

[vii] Id. 

[viii] 2000s: Top 10 GMS/Executives, SI.COM, (Dec. 22, 2009 12:15 PM), http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/magazine/specials/2000s/12/19/top.executives/index.html.

[ix] Id. 

[x] Id.

[xi] Moneyball, IMDB.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/?ref_=nv_sr_1 (last visited March 1, 2014).

[xii] Critical, 3.

[xiii] Id. 

[xiv] Id. 

[xv] Id. 

[xvi] Powell, at 207.

[xvii] Id. at 211.

[xviii] Critical, 3.

[xix] Powell, at 212.

[xx] Id. at 214

[xxi] Id. at 212

[xxii] Id. 

[xxiii] Id.  See Infra, Note II D. 

"My Skin is Against Me": Critical Race Theory & Baseball, Part II. A. The Commissionership

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.

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[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).

"My Skin is Against Me": Critical Race Theory & Baseball, Part II. Baseball's White Elite

II. Baseball's White Elite

            An examination of front office roles in baseball presents and applies many of the core Critical Race Theory tenets that will be discussed throughout this article.  Critical Race Theorists theorize that racial progress is controlled through white elites.[i]  One theory, interest convergence, supposes that "white elites will tolerate or encourage racial advances for blacks only when these also promote white-self interest."[ii]  On the other hand, many Critical Race Theorists put forth that whites in power aim to control the pace of racial progress.[iii]  By doing so, white elites can ensure they maintain their own current position while stabilizing society through appearing as being progressive.[iv]

            While Critical Race Theory examines and critiques American society as a whole, the theories can be fairly applied to baseball as well.[v]  Sports, especially baseball, are a microcosm of society.[vi]  A former commissioner of  Major League Baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote "It has long been my conviction that we can learn far more about the conditions, and values, of a society by contemplating how it chooses to play, to use its free time, to take its leisure, than by examining how it goes to work."[vii]  In some fashions, baseball has been ahead of American society in bringing about racial progress.[viii]  Major League Baseball recently received an "A" for its racial hiring practices[ix] and professional baseball integrated seven years before Brown v. Board of Education.[x]  Unfortunately, facts such as these allow for Major League Baseball to appear as being progressive on racial issues.  All the while, professional baseball continues to be controlled by wealthy white men.

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[i] Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, 1-4 (Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic eds., 2013).

[ii] Id. 

[iii] Id. 

[iv] Id.  (this is also a "critique of liberalism", another tenet of Critical Race Theory)

[v] Kenneth L. Shorpshire, In Black and White, 16, (1996).

[vi] Id.

[vii] Id.

[viii] Id. at 17.

[ix] Charles Hallman, Major League Baseball earns top grade for racial  hiring practice, MSR Online, http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/2012/10/17/major-league-baseball-earns-top-grade-for-racial-hiring-practices/ (Oct. 17, 2012).

[x] Shropshire, supra, at 17. 

"My Skin is Against Me": Critical Race Theory & Baseball, Part I. Introduction

"My Skin is Against Me":  Critical Race Theory & Baseball

By: Eric Proctor

I.  Introduction

 “My skin is against me. If I had not been quite so black, I might have caught on as a Spaniard or something of that kind. The race prejudice is so strong that my black skin barred me.” -Bud Fowler, 1895.[i]

         It is often said that baseball is America's game.  We invented baseball and have watched it evolve from pick-up games in the Elysian fields to a multi-billion dollar industry.  Or so the story goes.  Baseball's history mirrors America's history.  And much like America's history, baseball's history is scarred with segregation and continuous mistreatment of African Americans.

            For decades Critical Race Theorists have pointed out the effects that institutional racism has on African Americans as a whole.  Through legal scholarship, social science studies, and storytelling, Critical Race Theorists point out instances of racism and suppression that are inherent in American society.  In this regard, baseball and its history again parallels America.  Baseball is a sport that has been and continues to be controlled by white elites.  This control is exemplified by a race-based critiquing of baseball's power structure and  the dominate narrative of baseball's history.

            Part II of this article discusses baseball as a structure in which white owners and front office executives maintain power and control over baseball.  Part III tells a counter narrative to the white-dominated narrative that permeates in the telling of baseball's history.  Through this examination, Critical Race Theory, which critically examines race relations in America, is also shown to be a useful tool in analyzing race in America's favorite past time. 

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[i]Brian McKenna, Bud Fowler, Society of American Baseball Research, http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/200e2bbd (last visited April 14, 2014).