Blacks vs Latinos in Baseball

Gary Sheffield made some "controversial" comments about why there are more Latinos then blacks in the major leagues.

According to Sheff, it's because Latinos can be "controlled" better than black players. Here he is implying that blacks are more confrontational and have more attitude, are uncoachable. He's black, so I guess he can say that and it can go by the boards without it being an issue.

As for the Latino part, he claims that the language and other factors like poverty play a major role. It's really an illuminating article, since a lot of what he's saying, while "controversial" to the mainstream (anything said with any degree of certainty about any particular race is now considered politically incorrect) media, makes a lot of sense.

He goes on to say:

"It's not that they can control us; maybe when we come to this country, we're hungry," Guillen told the newspaper. "We're trying to survive. Those guys sign for $500,000 or $1 million and they're made. We have a couple of dollars. You can sign one African-American player for the price of 30 Latin players. Look at how many Latin players have won Cy Youngs or MVP awards the last couple of years, how many Latin players have been in the All-Star Game; it's quantity and quality."

This is something I've said before about making it in the big leagues: many Latin players are playing for their families well beings, to get them out of poverty in their countries of origin. Think about the motivation and dedication a person is infused with when this type of stuff is on the line. This isn't poverty like the poverty we see in the US, this is third-world, heavy duty, real poverty.

Sure, there are a lot of poor blacks in this country, but as Sheff points out, there are more baseball camps being launched internationally than here in the US.

I commend him for saying what he believes in an era when no one says anything mildly controversial.