↵You see guys like Jermaine Dye without a job. Guy with [27 home runs and 81 RBIs] and can’t get a job. Pretty much sums it up right there, no? You’ve got some guys who miss a year who can come back and get $5, $6 million, and a guy like Jermaine Dye can’t get a job. A guy like Gary Sheffield, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, can’t get a job...We both know what it is. You’ll get it right. You’ll figure it out. I’m not gonna say it because then I’ll be in [trouble].
↵
Orlando Hudson Blames Racism For Jermaine Dye’s Unemployment
↵So spoke Orlando Hudson on Monday, perhaps deliberately doing so just three days before Jackie Robinson Day, when baseball celebrates integration. It’s pretty clear to what Hudson was alluding: that the color of a player’s skin can affect his signability. But is there any evidence to back this assertion? It’s very difficult to say.
↵Certainly, the market is changing, with teams increasingly unwilling to overpay for players on the downside of the aging curve - Dye is 36, Sheffield 41. Some players simply misjudge the market - Hudson among them, having turned down a long-term offer from the Diamondbacks, to sign for much less with the Dodgers in 2009 - and that’s a color-blind.flaw. A myriad of factors work into any player’s value, but any team that, consciously or not, used race as one, would be putting itself at a competitive disadvantage.
↵
Really, when we have precisely one African-American senator, sports would seem one of the less racist areas of society, if anything. Still, Hudson added ominously, "I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff to say after I retire.” Can't wait, Orlando.
See More:
