{"id":12713,"date":"2013-04-10T16:31:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T16:31:47","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-04-10T16:31:47","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T16:31:47","slug":"mlb_commissioner_bud_selig_digs_deep_to_figure_out_why_more_african_americans_don_t_play_baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/04\/10\/mlb_commissioner_bud_selig_digs_deep_to_figure_out_why_more_african_americans_don_t_play_baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Commissioner Bud Selig Digs Deep to Figure Out Why More African-Americans Don\u2019t Play Baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball… Did you hear this? They\u2019re gonna launch an investigation to find out why blacks are not playing baseball. They want to find out why.<\/p>\n

Apparently major league rosters — they\u2019ve done research out there — and they have found only 7.7% of major league players are African-American. There are a lot of Dominicans and Latin-American players, but African-Americans are only 7.7%, and there are some teams that don\u2019t even have one. Of course, this is the anniversary year of Jackie Robinson breaking down the race barrier. So they\u2019re all wringing their hands over this, and launching an investigation to try to figure out why young African-Americans don\u2019t want to go play baseball.<\/p>\n

Why, instead, are they playing football or basketball? In a related study, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association has decided to study why a dwindling number of white guys play basketball. Only kidding about that. That is not happening. The National Football League, Major League Baseball, the NBA, none of them are commissioning a survey to find out why so few Asians participate in their sports. Only Major League Baseball is digging deep to find out why African-Americans are choosing not to play baseball.<\/line><\/p>\n

In the story on this, on the second page of the story, whoever writes the story, there is a theory espoused. The theory is that with all the concussions happening in football, African-Americans might all of a sudden decide to quit playing football and start playing baseball again. Now, there are probably a whole host of reasons why African-Americans aren\u2019t playing baseball. One would be Michael Jordan. Another would be Tiger Woods. They\u2019re all doing something else. Charles Barkley.<\/p>\n

The role models for young African-Americans are not playing baseball. In addition to that, you can\u2019t just go out and play baseball. You\u2019ve gotta get a big field and you\u2019ve gotta go out and you have to find somebody that\u2019s got a ball, and then you\u2019re gonna lose that ball when somebody fouls it off into the gutter or it\u2019s gonna get dirty. Everybody\u2019s gotta have a glove. Everybody\u2019s gotta have baseball shoes. You have to have a mitt. You\u2019ve gotta find a diamond and all this.<\/p>\n

Then you\u2019ve gotta find a reasonable number of guys that also have a bat and also have access to gloves that want to play with you. Basketball, you don\u2019t need anything. You need a ball, a hoop, and you can go out there by yourself and start shooting around. Football, you also need some other people. But you can get two guys out there to toss a football around and they can pretend. Baseball is a little bit more involved. I\u2019ll never forget when I was a kid playing baseball.<\/p>\n

We couldn\u2019t find diamonds.<\/p>\n

I mean, every kid in the world played; it didn\u2019t matter who. We\u2019d play with one ball until it was so dirty we couldn\u2019t see it any more then we\u2019d go to our parents and beg for a new baseball, and they always held out. We didn\u2019t get a new ball until the one we were playing with was either falling apart at the seams or just knocked lopsided. And then finding a diamond was tough. It\u2019s a small town, too, but finding a place to play was tough. Still, we did, but…<\/p>\n

Boy, getting a new baseball!<\/p>\n

You take it out of the box, and you smell the rawhide. The smell of a new baseball when you\u2019re a kid, and it\u2019s brand-new and it\u2019s white, doesn\u2019t last long. Then you go to your major league game and you want to know, “How does every ball stay white? Why don\u2019t their balls get dirty in the big leagues?” Then you learn there\u2019s 60 of them for every game. None of that seems to have any magic for kids today. I remember flying back to New York after Rush to Excellence Tour in the late eighties, early nineties.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We were in our arrival route over New Jersey. It\u2019s a Sunday afternoon in the spring or summer. I\u2019m looking out the window and there are countless baseball diamonds with nobody on \u2019em. I was thinking how, as a kid, I would have killed for diamonds that looked like that to play on, not just some grass field where we had to mark off bases and so forth. We even played during the rain. We did the rainout business, and we had a guy whose dad gave us a fake tarp to put on our little field when it rained.<\/p>\n

We had our ground crew. We did the whole thing. I\u2019ll never forget it. One of my first big, real crushes was not making the high school baseball team \u2019cause I thought I was a lock. That was one of the greatest learning experiences I\u2019d ever had. I thought I was a lock, and I didn\u2019t make the first cut. I went home and told my dad. I said, “Does the coach not like you or something?” He said, “Hey, son, don\u2019t lay this off on me. You\u2019re the one that got cut. You\u2019re the one that may not be good enough. Did you try as hard as you should have?”<\/p>\n

I thought I did.<\/p>\n

Anyway, who cares? Okay, 7.7% are choosing to play, others aren\u2019t. So what? They\u2019re finding other things to do. I wonder… No, I better not offer that as a partial explanation. Never mind. (long pause) It may not just be baseball that young people are choosing not to engage in, because there are other opportunities, including doing nothing. (interruption) Well, tell me. What\u2019s the deal? (interruption) What do you mean, “Everybody knows the deal”? I don\u2019t know what it is. (interruption)<\/p>\n

Well, okay. Okay. (interruption) Is that what it is? (interruption) Is that what it is? (interruption) Are you giving me the thought in young black neighborhoods? Is this what\u2019s…? (interruption) Okay, here\u2019s what Snerdley is saying. Snerdley says, “Baseball, that\u2019s…” Did you say “Latin-American guys”? (interruption) “Spanish guys play baseball. Football is black guys. Football or basketball, that\u2019s black guys.” Right? “Hockey. Hockey is white guys.” (interruption) “Boxing is mostly Spanish guys now. There are still some brothers in boxing. So it\u2019s just the way it\u2019s evolved, and it ain\u2019t cool to play baseball because Spanish guys play it.” Okay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball… Did you hear this? They\u2019re gonna launch an investigation to find out why blacks are not playing baseball. They want to find out why. Apparently major league rosters — they\u2019ve done research out there — and they have found only 7.7% of major league players are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMLB Commissioner Bud Selig Digs Deep to Figure Out Why More African-Americans Don't Play Baseball - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/daily\/2013\/04\/10\/mlb_commissioner_bud_selig_digs_deep_to_figure_out_why_more_african_americans_don_t_play_baseball\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"MLB Commissioner Bud Selig Digs Deep to Figure Out Why More African-Americans Don't Play Baseball - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball… Did you hear this? 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