This Is Sure to Anger the Entire Boston Area
FOX’s Ken Rosenthal penned a column last night that basically boils down to this notion: The Red Sox are too white and this could hurt their ability to acquire big name free agents in the offseason. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but this graph is a decent summation of his point:↵↵⇥Yet, fairly or not, [Manny] Ramirez’s messy divorce with the Red Sox could raise suspicions that the team prefers a certain type of player — unassuming, conformist, white. The current makeup of the team’s roster might create similar notions, even as the Red Sox say that nothing could be further from the truth.↵↵Based on Boston’s rich history of racism -- which may or may not be bygone, depending on who you’re asking -- this is a particularly inflammatory topic Rosenthal is raising. He makes it clear that he’s not suggesting that the Red Sox are intentionally filling their roster with white dudes, but nevertheless, the notion that minority players wouldn’t want to sign with Boston feeds the perception that Boston is a racist city. ↵
↵Aside from the fact that a baseball writer/TV personality shouldn’t be dabbling in race relations, what makes bringing up this topic confusing is that almost 1/3 of the Red Sox 40-man roster is minority. That doesn’t strike me as a particularly Caucasian-heavy roster. And it didn’t seem to strike Rosenthal himself that way five months ago when he wrote this:↵
↵↵⇥The Red Sox are a better example of a melting pot, but they are not just a cultural melting pot. The Sox are a blend of players young and old, gifted and ordinary, wealthy and hungry. The pieces — from Manny Ramirez to Dustin Pedroia, Daisuke Matsuzaka to Jonathan Papelbon — could not be more disparate. But somehow, under the leadership of manager Terry Francona, they all pull toward a common goal.↵↵So, basically, the Red Sox traded Manny, lost Julio Lugo to an injury, and all of sudden they “look very white” and can no longer be called a melting pot? That seems a bit drastic. Although regardless of whether the Red Sox are or aren’t diverse enough, the fact remains the same: If minority ballplayers consider Boston to be a racist city, they aren’t going to sign there, no matter how many African-Americans or Latinos are in the starting line-up.↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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