The first nominee for the 2010 Tim Hardaway Sensitivity Award…
March 10, 2010 by
John Stansberry
…is Anaheim Angels slugger Torii Hunter. The nine-time Gold Glover took part in a roundtable discussion put together by USA Today concerning the state of baseball.
In the course of weighing in on the development of African-American baseball talent in this country, Hunter dropped nuggets like this concerning his perception of Latin America players:
“People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they’re African American,” Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter says. “They’re not us. They’re impostors.”
“As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us,” Hunter says. “It’s like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It’s like, ‘Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?”
In a roundabout way I get what Hunter’s trying to say, but now that it’s out there in print, I doubt he’ll be invited over to Francisco Rodriguez’s house for Venezuelan food.
Current MLB players like Hunter can lament the lack of homegrown baseball talent (regardless of skin color) all they want, but the fact is that baseball’s popularity has dimmed in the last 30 years.
America’s youth once flocked to baseball diamonds, but now their pursuits involve things like football, poor standardized test taking and keeping teen pregnancy levels at alarming levels. They just don’t have time for baseball anymore.
Hunter will be a strong contender for the Tim Hardaway Sensitivity Award, named in honor of the man who brought us this:
David on Wed, 10th Mar 2010 5:23 pm
Tori Hunter is almost as smart as George Rogers.
Kevin on Sat, 13th Mar 2010 10:09 am
Why do the sports writers focus on racial candidates for head coaching jobs, when they should talking about the sports kids are playing and why. In this case baseball and kids don’t like how long the game is, when they can play soccer. Just today I read a ridiculous article that Auburn must hire a “Black” coach for the vacant headcoaching job. The only comment on the article was spot on. It said that “As usual, wrong again.
Auburn needs to hire the best coach it’s willing to afford regardless of race.” Why is RACE even mentioned when it comes to sports. Torii Hunter, first needs to learn how everybody else spells Tory and second, understand that professional athletics only hire best talent. Period, regardless of race…. If he wants more “Black” talent in baseball then he needs to promote little league baseball himself by spending some of his millions to give back to the game that has given him so much.