Baseball - Game of Immigrants

bedir than average · 04-01-2008, 08:35 PM

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Major League Baseball a melting pot

28% of players on opening day rosters were born outside of the USA. In the minors that number was 47.8%.

The Mariners have 8 nations represented, overall 16 nations are represented.

Every year this story gets published, and it has me wondering. Is this greatness? Or is it just a lack of perspective since the NHL obviously has a gob of players from outside the USA/Canada?

With the World Baseball Classic about to make its return and future regular season games in Europe can baseball pass basketball as the world's second most popular team sport?

jtur88 · 04-05-2008, 03:58 PM

The first immigrants were in the 1870's, when there were Irish immigrants playing in the National League. For a century, the only immigrants in baseball were people who grew up in the US, but were born in the old country before their parents immigrated (Bobby Thomson, Elmer Valo). Washington recruited several Cubans in the '50s, and still could barely keep out of the cellar. There had previously been a few players who grew up in Latin America (Dolph Luque, Alex Carrasquel), but in general, foreigners were pretty well ignored by baseball before the '50's. Breaking the color bar helped to make the Clementes and Marichals more welcome on MLB rosters, as they no longer had to pass a skin-color test.

The turning point may have been the great Canada/Russia hockey series in about 1972 (I forgot the year), when it became apparent that North America's pro sports leagues were not the only competition in the world, and athletes abroad were worth looking at.

LongtimeBravesFan · 04-05-2008, 10:14 PM

On the Fox broadcast today, they mentioned the Braves had players born in nine differant countries. Although they did note that counted Puerto Rico as a seperate country, when in fact its residents are American citizens. It also counted the USA as one of the countries.

Puerto Rico does compete as a country in Olympic and other such events.

04-01-2008, 08:35 PM	#1 (permalink)
bedir than average Administrator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Starbucks Posts: 8,256	Baseball - Game of Immigrants The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Major League Baseball a melting pot 28% of players on opening day rosters were born outside of the USA. In the minors that number was 47.8%. The Mariners have 8 nations represented, overall 16 nations are represented. Every year this story gets published, and it has me wondering. Is this greatness? Or is it just a lack of perspective since the NHL obviously has a gob of players from outside the USA/Canada? With the World Baseball Classic about to make its return and future regular season games in Europe can baseball pass basketball as the world's second most popular team sport? __________________ US Men's National Team World Cup Qualifying \| Democracy in Sports Meets My First Campaign "You're only so sure you're right because they're so sure you're wrong." Orson Scott Card in Xenocide

04-05-2008, 03:58 PM	#2 (permalink)
jtur88 Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Texas Posts: 7,701	The first immigrants were in the 1870's, when there were Irish immigrants playing in the National League. For a century, the only immigrants in baseball were people who grew up in the US, but were born in the old country before their parents immigrated (Bobby Thomson, Elmer Valo). Washington recruited several Cubans in the '50s, and still could barely keep out of the cellar. There had previously been a few players who grew up in Latin America (Dolph Luque, Alex Carrasquel), but in general, foreigners were pretty well ignored by baseball before the '50's. Breaking the color bar helped to make the Clementes and Marichals more welcome on MLB rosters, as they no longer had to pass a skin-color test. The turning point may have been the great Canada/Russia hockey series in about 1972 (I forgot the year), when it became apparent that North America's pro sports leagues were not the only competition in the world, and athletes abroad were worth looking at. __________________ ------------------ When people ask what I hope to see before I die, I answer that I've already seen too much.

04-05-2008, 10:14 PM	#3 (permalink)
LongtimeBravesFan Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 4,158	On the Fox broadcast today, they mentioned the Braves had players born in nine differant countries. Although they did note that counted Puerto Rico as a seperate country, when in fact its residents are American citizens. It also counted the USA as one of the countries. Puerto Rico does compete as a country in Olympic and other such events.