Every player in Major League Baseball wore No. 42 on Tuesday night in honor of Jackie Robinson. It was a day for the league to commemorate its greatest hero and pat itself on the back for preserving Robinson's legacy.
"All of our players league-wide will wear No. 42 to celebrate the man who helped change the future course of our game and more importantly our country," commissioner Bud Selig said.
But a cloud hung over the celebration: The percentage of African-American players in MLB is as low as it's been since 1958, at around 7.8 percent. Between 1972 and 1996, that number never dropped below 16 percent, according to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Since '96, it has steadily declined.
Selig will have you know that he is disgusted by this, and that he is taking steps to address it. He recently commissioned an 18-member "On-Field Diversity Task Force" to evaluate the issue.
I can already imagine what this task force will reveal: That the percentage of African-American players has declined because MLB has not done a good enough job promoting the game in the "inner cities." That it's declined because college baseball programs offer fewer scholarships than college football and basketball programs. That it's declined because baseball equipment is too expensive.
What MLB won't suggest is that the decline of African-American players is directly related to the rise - and exploitation - of Latino players. It is no coincidence that, while the percentage of African-American players has fallen gradually since 1996, the proportion of Latino players has risen from about 20 to 27 percent.
In the '90s, MLB teams began to follow the national trend of outsourcing labor by building "baseball academies" across Latin America. Scouts arrived in search of the highest-quality cheap labor, most of which came in the form of impoverished young men.
The story we tend to hear is that baseball provides these men an escape from poverty. Yes, some of the richest players today are from Latin America - Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera - but less than three percent of prospects from Dominican academies will ever reach the majors.
Last year, Ian Gordon of Mother Jones examined MLB's "Dominican Sweatshop System" through the lens of YewriGuill?©n, a shortstop at the Nationals' academy who died of a disease that was seemingly disregarded by the organization.
"Guill?©n's death is the worst-case scenario in a recruiting system that treats young Dominicans as second-class prospects, paying them far less than young Americans and sometimes denying them benefits that are standard in the U.S. minor leagues," Gordon writes. "MLB regulations allow teams to troll for talent on the cheap in the Dominican Republic: Unlike American kids, who must have completed high school to sign, Dominicans can be signed as young as 16."
In 2000, Dick Balderson - then the vice-president of the Rockies - spoke of teams' "boatload mentality." "Instead of signing four [American] guys at $25,000 each," he said, "you sign 20 [Dominican] guys for $5,000 each."
Since then, league executives have taken minor steps forward. In 2009, current Mets general manager Sandy Alderson compiled a report on the league's Dominican operations and called for several structural changes. In 2011, international signing bonuses reached record highs. But in 2012, MLB restricted teams' international free-agent budgets to $2.9 million.
The system of exploitation of Latin American ballplayers continues to thrive. It may not be evident when all we see is David Ortiz smashing home runs at Fenway Park. And it may not be evident when MLB treats the anniversary of Robinson's debut as baseball's end-all triumph over racism.
But 67 years after Jackie made history, the playing field of America's pastime remains unequivocally unequal.
Aaron Leibowitz is a senior who is majoring in American studies. He can be reached at Aaron.Leibowitz@tufts.edu.
