Major League Baseball (MLB) will celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s entry into the major leagues on April 15, 2007, which ended the ban on integrating African-American players. However, how much MLB has built on the symbolic legacy of him, as a civil rights hero, since he enjoyed full integration in 1959, is debatable.

Because it’s been documented, and especially over the last 10 years, as the 2007 baseball season kicks off, that MLB has much more in common with US-based multinational conglomerates than it does with the idea of ​​inclusion, where the Bottom line profits dictate company policy.

Ironically, MLB will also host an exhibition game on March 31, 2007 in Memphis, TN between the world champion St. Louis Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians. It is hailed as the inaugural “Civil Rights Game” in the city where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Yet despite Commissioner Bud Selig’s interest in diversity in MLB, there are few African-American bosses. in baseball. national stadiums. Although MLB argues that this is not necessarily the case, it denies even keeping such statistics.

This could also explain why MLB does such a poor job of marketing to the African-American community, since it seems like MLB just doesn’t find it valuable. Because as overall profits rise, “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” In turn, why have a civil rights game if there are no African Americans in the house?

There have only been 12 African-American MLB managers in the history of the game. The most at any time was 6 in 2002. Today, after the 2006 layoffs of Frank Robinson from the Washington Nationals and Dusty Baker from the Chicago Cubs, Willie Randolph from the New York Mets and newly named Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers remain the only African-American coaches in the major leagues.

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson became Major League Baseball’s first African-American manager in 1975 and was involved in nearly every facet of the game for 51 years, from player to coach to manager to vice president of operations at the MLB field. Most recently, he was the manager of the Montreal Expos followed by the helm of the Washington Nationals, where he led the transition of the two organizations for a period of 5 years.

Frank Robinson was unceremoniously fired as manager by the Nationals’ new front office last fall, but at least he was promised a community outreach position he wanted so badly. The Nationals’ front office, which gained ownership of him in large part because of his promise to MLB to involve the African-American community, opted to relieve Robinson entirely of his services.

But Frank Robinson has spoken repeatedly about keeping the game alive in the African-American community, in addition to outspoken Hall of Famer Joe Morgan and current Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter. Yet MLB talks only in platitudes about diversity, glossing over downtown and working-class neighborhoods, seemingly looking for talent everywhere but there.

Like their own establishment, baseball owners have invested in multimillion-dollar academies and facilities primarily in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. But now it is going even further into mainland China and even Ghana, following its interests in Japan and South Korea.

MLB has only one Youth Urban Baseball Academy in the entirety of the United States, located in Compton, CA, which opened in 2006. MLB donated just $1 million towards the project which sits on the grounds of Compton Community College which furnishes its operations buildings. Hardly what one would call a triumph for inner-city youth in what Bud Selig describes as the “Golden Age of Baseball.”

“China is the most important country for the game of baseball as it seeks to develop around the world,” according to Randy Levine, president of the New York Yankees. He led a contingent to mainland China on behalf of the New York Yankees and MLB in February 2007 to contract with the Chinese Baseball Association to develop baseball, initially by building fields and funding little leagues and teams. The goal is to eventually provide an academy. Meanwhile, the New York Mets and MLB sent a group to Ghana to formally introduce baseball to West Africa.

But don’t mistake such proposals for a goodwill ambassador tour, as MLB, which remains the only professional sports organization in the US with a wide-ranging antitrust exemption, no longer does anything without regard. the proverbial ball of money. It’s cheap baseball, bypassing America’s local kids. It obviously has no qualms and no obligation to develop an American program, investment, or facility, for example, for every offshore program, investment, or facility built.

In 2006, more than 23% of the players on Major League Baseball rosters were made up of foreign-born players, which has more than doubled since 1990. Foreign-born players do not include those from Puerto Rico or other US territories or possessions US parents. The Dominican Republic enjoys the largest number of foreign-born Major Leaguers or approximately 1 in 7 in 2006, followed by Venezuela. Mexico, Canada, Japan, Panama, Cuba, Colombia and Taiwan accounted for only half of those in the Dominican Republic.

All major league teams have academies and/or share facilities primarily in the Dominican Republic with a few remaining in Venezuela, where construction has slowed due to civil unrest. But in its latest coup, MLB got an even bigger break with the federal government in a recent change to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was barely publicized. As amended by the US Congress in 2006 and signed into law on December 22, 2006 by President George W. Bush, it is known as the “Competition Act of 2006” or the “Creating Opportunity for Professionals , entertainers, and minor league teams through legal entry.” Law of 2006″.

The legislation changes the visa status of foreign-born minor leaguers to allow them to use P-1 visas, previously reserved only for major leaguers, and an update to H-2B visas, generally used by temporary workers born abroad in many industries Previously, each team was limited to 26 H-2B visas per season for its minor leagues. The major leagues have no numerical limitations with the P-1 visa, valid for a period of 10 years.

Since more than 40% of minor league players are foreign born and most of them are from the Dominican Republic, this will allow for a continuous source of Latin American players. MLB foreign academies house, feed, educate and teach athletic skills to boys ages 10 to 16, who are then allowed to sign minor league contracts. In the US, a player must be 18 years old to sign a minor league contract and must then go through the draft system.

Dominican youth have the opportunity to benefit from more than just baseball skills, but also preparation for life in the United States. They are given the opportunity to at least temporarily leave a life of depravity. Likewise, statistically very few of these youngsters make it to the major leagues, and even before their new visa status, hundreds of minor leaguers were brought to the US each year just to be relieved of their services. Hundreds of Dominican players never return to their homeland either, remaining in the US as illegal immigrants, surviving primarily in the informal economy of New York City.

What MLB no longer finds becomes disposable. Unfortunately, these disposables are people; from retired players who never benefited from the lucrative contract, true ambassadors of the game like Frank Robinson, young African-Americans, and even foreign-born players who aren’t big league material.

It has been said that Latino players in the Dominican Republic sign contracts between 5 and 10 cents on the dollar compared to their US counterparts. And with approximately 400 Dominican players signed each year to minor league contracts, MLB can celebrate its unimpeded flow, as well as its surprisingly cozy new relationship with the US Congress, which it lobbied along with the US State Department. USA

It may be beneficial to MLB as employers seeking cheap labor and even to those other employers willing to hire them for wages below market value, should these minor leaguers remain in the US illegally after their release. dismissal from their respective clubs. Their visas remain valid only as long as they are employees of MLB and its minor leagues. In addition, there will now be more H-2B visas available each year to those multinational corporations seeking low-wage labor in other industries. And the US Congress gets a feather in its cap from some of its biggest donors.

But it’s still a loss to communities across the US that fund box stadiums, unable to afford tickets for their families, for games played on the backs of many exploited athletes who never make it to the big leagues. and at the expense of our own children, who have limited resources, are not even encouraged to play baseball by their biggest speculators.

Because there is a condition in the immigration law that both the US Congress and the MLB conveniently ignored. Policy developed in 1998 by the US Department of Labor and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, now the Department of Homeland Security, granted MLB its visa program, contingent on foreign-born players only take positions on a team that could not be filled by US citizens.

Obviously, the US government and MLB have come to the conclusion that playing baseball should be listed among those “jobs Americans won’t do.” Terribly convenient, but sad for the game of baseball to no longer be considered an equal opportunity employer. Happy civil rights game, commissioner!

Copyright ©2007 Diane M. Grassi