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I have quite a bit of respect for Orlando Hudson. He is a solid player and is willing to speak out on that which he holds true. Swamp All-Star, our own Keg, provides us with this story from the Los Angeles Times.

A brief excerpt:

On the night every player in baseball wore No. 42 to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in the major leagues, Orlando Hudson said that Robinson”would probably turn over in his grave” seeing how few African Americans are in the game.

Hudson, who is African American, said he has had black kids tell him, “Orlando, I can’t play that white man’s game.”

I don’t buy that at all. And one of my big problems with it is Hudson’s sweeping use of “they”. As in “They want us out. They want him out.”

Pretty much a standard conspiracy theory practice. As in “They invented bar codes to control people.”

Uh-huh. Yep. It was THEM! Remarkably, “they” struck again.

The best way to look at this is chronologically. Let’s say you are a young urban African-American born in 1985, which would make you 24 years-old now and at an age ripe for entering Major League Baseball. By the time you were old enough to develop an interest in popular culture (or be affected by it), Hip Hop was rapidly becoming the overwhelming force in music and fashion and it even had a dramatic impact on speech in many ways. Hip Hop artists were quickly becoming superstars. Artists such as Public Enemy’s Chuck D had significant impact how on the politics of society were viewed by his young target audience. And as was eloquently and stylishly stated by legendary Swamper Howard in the Swamp’s All-Time Boxing Draft thread, Muhammad Ali managed perhaps more than any athlete in US history to create a unifying link between culture, politics, sport and art. For our theoretical young African-American man coming of age in the 90s, the sights and sound of his world were best reflected largely by NBA players (like Allen Iverson; corn rows and tats; a very intentional look; a very intentional statement) and NFL players who exhibited the same emerging cultural themes.

Whereas the closest thing Baseball had to offer was Dontrelle wearing his hat slightly askew. Clearly this is not meant to be an all-encompassing generalization of African-American culture. Not in the least; far from it. But I would put to you that this particular phase within the culture does account for a significant drop-off in America’s Pastime among that particular demographic. Coupled with the recent “internationalizing” of the game, other sports have simply become more enticing to many of America’s youth.

If one were to employ a similar analysis to, say, International hockey, you’d see that the times can very often dictate success or failure; and change the face of a sport entirely. A decade and a half after the USSR collapsed, Russian ice hockey was in complete shambles; resources were simply unavailable for Russian youth and the nation temporarily lost its previously solid base of talent. As Russia began to reemerge, so grew the standard of their play. A very similar situation arose in Eastern Canada when, due to a severe economic downturn, parents could not afford to outfit their kids with hockey equipment. And another is happening in Eastern Canada today where the state of soccer is in disarray. Why? Not because any given segment of society is unwanted but rather because the kids just aren’t interested in it as much as they are interested in other sports. As a result, those provinces will never be represented by players on a national level.

To me, you have to look at temporal societal/cultural impact as the cause behind Orlando Hudson’s concerns. Any sport reflects the interests of those who may have been possible athletes at the time when those possible athletes were growing up. Times change. And times will keep on changing. And that which composes the lives of today’s youth will be reflected in tomorrow’s athletes and tomorrow’s games.

But as far as “they” being responsible, well, I think O-Dog is looking at the wrong “theys”.