Hey look! Something about race

[Adam]

https://theundefeated.com/features/this-isnt-the-baseball-i-grew-up-watching/

[floplag]

What a shock!!!!!

Also i think largely unfair and myopic.  

The loss of many of those athletes of all colors is due to the rise of and faster money with the NBA and NFL.   The bottom line is that since the 50s-ish our best athletes for the most part are not playing baseball anymore.  

[Blarg]

The Angels lead all of baseball in stolen bases with 115. About a third of the 1985 Cardinals that only had two guys with less than 30 stolen bases, the catcher and first baseman Jack Clark.

[Angel Oracle]

1980s were crazy speed demon days, led by Henderson, Raines, and Coleman.    The 1985 WS was the ultimate speed demon series (Cards/Royals).  Although the 1983 WS (Phils/O's) was the polar opposite, featuring pitching and power. 

But even 1975's Halos team stole 220 bases, granted they were terrible at batting them in. 

[CanadianHalo]

20 minutes ago, floplag said:

What a shock!!!!!

Also i think largely unfair and myopic.  

The loss of many of those athletes of all colors is due to the rise of and faster money with the NBA and NFL.   The bottom line is that since the 50s-ish our best athletes for the most part are not playing baseball anymore.  

Hm I don't think it has anything to do with the money, the reality is baseball is tough to sell on young athletic kid. Baseball is very slow and most athletic kids rather play something fast paced. 

As much as a lot of you old farts hate guys like Bryce Harper, he's good for the game and helps sell baseball to young kids.

Bryce is cool in a sport that typically doesn't get associated with the word cool.

[floplag]

1 hour ago, CanadianHalo said:

Hm I don't think it has anything to do with the money, the reality is baseball is tough to sell on young athletic kid. Baseball is very slow and most athletic kids rather play something fast paced. 

As much as a lot of you old farts hate guys like Bryce Harper, he's good for the game and helps sell baseball to young kids.

Bryce is cool in a sport that typically doesn't get associated with the word cool.

i love Harper myself, i think showing emotion and intensity are lacking in too much of pro sports these days. 
You probably have a point for a lot of them, but I still think money plays a role as well for some.  

[DMVol]

1 hour ago, CanadianHalo said:

.....As much as a lot of you old farts hate guys like Bryce Harper, he's good for the game and helps sell baseball to young kids.

Good at selling the game to young white kids....young black kids are going to follow NBA and NFL players, as long as those leagues are dominated by black players...

[AngelsLakersFan]

Quote

As the number of black players has declined, so has the art of the steal

wow how racist

[CanadianHalo]

5 minutes ago, DMVol said:

Good at selling the game to young white kids....young black kids are going to follow NBA and NFL players, as long as those leagues are dominated by black players...

Can't say I disagree with that

[Angel Oracle]

NFL could fall on lean times in 10-15 years though, if concussions get anymore out of hand.

[mtangelsfan]

Somebody better tell Trout to stop making over the wall catches.

Apparently that's just a black thing.

[VariousCrap]

2 hours ago, floplag said:

The loss of many of those athletes of all colors is due to the rise of and faster money with the NBA and NFL.  

 

I'm a huge boxing fan and I've read countless articles about why there are no great American heavyweights anymore and the number one reason given is that those who would be great heavyweights are all playing in the NFL and NBA.

[UndertheHalo]

24 minutes ago, mtangelsfan said:

Somebody better tell Trout to stop making over the wall catches.

Apparently that's just a black thing.

Didn't you know ? 

Trout is actually a black dude in white face.

[DCAngelsFan]

10 minutes ago, VariousCrap said:

 

I'm a huge boxing fan and I've read countless articles about why there are no great American heavyweights anymore and the number one reason given is that those who would be great heavyweights are all playing in the NFL and NBA.

Well, I'd put that slightly differently - those would-be great (African-American) heavyweights spent their youth playing basketball and/or football, but may have topped out at high school - they might've been great heavyweight fighters, but that doesn't mean they reached the NFL or NBA instead.     

Have seen a lot of AA kids whose athleticism might have let them reach lofty heights in sports like baseball or soccer, instead invest their time in basketball or football, and perhaps their gifts just weren't "right" to be the tiny, fractional percentage that make the pros.   I mean, imagine if Mike Trout's passion was soccer?  His "career"  would probably have ended when he graduated high school.  

But you can't make kids love the game.  I remember DC converting all their urban football and soccer fields to baseball diamonds in an attempt to convince MLB that it was a baseball town -  but if you paid attention, you'd realize those diamonds remained embarrassingly empty year-round - the kids played basketball, football and soccer  (primarily South and Central American kids.)  

[VariousCrap]

5 minutes ago, DCAngelsFan said:

Well, I'd put that slightly differently - those would-be great (African-American) heavyweights spent their youth playing basketball and/or football, but may have topped out at high school - they might've been great heavyweight fighters, but that doesn't mean they reached the NFL or NBA instead.      

Good point.  I didn't mean to imply that they all made it to the pros or anything.  I think the point the articles I read were trying to get across was that young black athletes would prefer to try to make it in basketball or football rather than boxing.  They actually have a better chance at making it and they can possibly get a college degree out of it.

[DCAngelsFan]

1 minute ago, VariousCrap said:

Good point.  I didn't mean to imply that they all made it to the pros or anything.  I think the point the articles I read were trying to get across was that young black athletes would prefer to try to make it in basketball or football rather than boxing.  They actually have a better chance at making it and they can possibly get a college degree out of it.

I figured that's what you meant - just gave me a chance to raise an issue I always found annoying - the number of AA kids whose athleticism would have let them go far in those "other" sports, but who didn't have the "right" gifts to excel in their preferred sports, still choosing to chase the NBA dream, even though they were never going to be taller than 5'9".

Compared to boxing, however, pretty much every other sport - including "golf" and bowling - offers better opportunities for college.

 

[krAbs]

...*resigned sign*

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

4 hours ago, floplag said:

What a shock!!!!!

Also i think largely unfair and myopic.  

The loss of many of those athletes of all colors is due to the rise of and faster money with the NBA and NFL.   The bottom line is that since the 50s-ish our best athletes for the most part are not playing baseball anymore.  

The NBA has so much fewer available positions, compared to baseball. Plus just because you're a black man doesn't mean you're necessarily 6'6" or taller. A 5'6" person can play baseball. The way things are going football's future may be limited, with the head injuries. How long before high schools will ban the sport?

[ten ocho recon scout]

5 hours ago, CanadianHalo said:

Hm I don't think it has anything to do with the money, the reality is baseball is tough to sell on young athletic kid. Baseball is very slow and most athletic kids rather play something fast paced. 

As much as a lot of you old farts hate guys like Bryce Harper, he's good for the game and helps sell baseball to young kids.

Bryce is cool in a sport that typically doesn't get associated with the word cool.

Funny enough, the partner im working with today coached harper in travel ball.

I think that is a huge reason baseball is becoming "white". The days of getting drsfter because you were a good high school player are slim. The kids who become standouts are mostly doing travel ball....which isnt cheap at all.