http://economics.about.com
I always love how the Star does stories on how awful corporations are for hiring child labor, but they *never* mention how during the 1980's (and earlier I'm sure) they were recruiting 8-12 year olds to be paperboys for well below minimum wage. I started working for the Star just a couple weeks after my 8th birthday.

Not only do I wonder about the paper's agenda, but just how ethnically diverse is the Star sports desk?

It's a lot whiter than the Blue Jays, I can guarantee.

Mike

http://economics.about.com
Another point: If having an ethnically diverse team is so important, why do the Leafs and Raptors draw so well?

Despite the fact that Toronto has a huge Serbian and Croatian population, they've never had a good Serbian or Croatian player on the team, despite there being quite a few of them in the league. There's a lot of Turkish residents in Toronto. Why don't they have a player like Mehmet Okur or Hidayet Turkoglu? Other than bench player Mamadou N'diaye, do they have **anyone** not born in the United States?

Mike

The Star is (seemingly) trying building an image as the source for challenging social norms as a mainstream media outlet. They laid into the police first, then to the province (for the Don Jail) and are now on to the Jays (though in my eyes the first two are FAR, FAR more valid).

But I'm slightly confused by this because if you look up and down the Jays starting lineup you've got far more visual minorities than you have sitting on the bench (and the highest paid player, by a landslide is not white or even North American). Off the top of my head I believe the split is 5-4 (white to not-white), though I believe that is the extent of position players of colour (I can't think of anyone else that falls into the category on the bench and I haven't openned today's paper). I think the Star would be hard pressed to write a column challenging the Blue Jays on the deployment of their players who fall into the category of racial minority (writing an article that the claims there is a glass ceiling in the Jays' system) because of the way their playing time is distributed.

Last time I checked, JP was being critiqued harshly by his many critics for not looking at players enough and going on statistical out-put. I'm usually one to claim that systemic racism is everywhere (and I do believe that to a large extent) but I don't believe there is a disadvantage to Japanese or Dominican players (just an example) when guys are drafted with emphasis placed upon their OBP or OPS (unless one is to argue the players are more likely to strike out because of racist tendancies by the bulk of umpires, but I'd want to see stats on that ;-).

Sure a Japanese player might boost your fan-base, but it would only be in a minimal way, and because of the system we do live in, the majority of Canada's racial minority finds it harder to make enough money (because of systemic opression) to attend more than two or three games a year (family of 4 is looking at atleast $70.00 plus parking).

Wow. The world on a whole will probably always lack racial harmony and tolerance, but hopefully as years tick by, things will evolve for the better for everyone. Myself, I have a real problem with anyone in any scenario stirring the racial pot, seemingly to fit their own agenda. Where did this blitz come from, and why was there a need for it in the first place? Having to listen to Pedro Martinez make his annual racist rants in conversations that didn't even warrant it's inclusion is one thing, but a media campaign by a newspapers another.

Gordon Edes tried this investigative "race" journalism earlier this summer in Boston and I don't believe it was recieved well at all -- even by his peers -- i'd like to think the rest of the Toronto media would frown on this as well.

If the '03 Blue Jays would just give up and go into the toilet, maybe the local media would be happier. Must be tough writing about having a team in contention for the first time in a decade.

http://economics.about.com
I'm surprised the Toronto Star didn't suggest this as the Jays' new slogan:



Mike

I guess I did this in reverse order, but now that I've read the article I think it's even more rediculous and something that was crafted to prove the Star is not on a witch-hunt for the cities "finest". It's such a stretch that I'm thinking there was some desperation factor in proving this.

...The professor should resign, or at least promise never to talk about economics again, ever, not even at a party.

We're leaving soon for a family gathering, so I don't have time to express all my thoughts about the Jays' philosophy, which is already working and will pay more dividends in the future. They have cut back on international scouting because it's not cost-effective. The best Asian players have always signed with the richest American teams, and the Jays simply can't compete for the next "sure thing" (shortstop Kazuo Matsui). Nobody in the Star ever praises J.P. for avoiding the hype around a certain $32 million Cuban reliever, and the financial catastrophe such a mistake would have been in Toronto. The needle-in-a-haystack approach to scouting Latin American teenagers has also been abandoned as impractical, but that's hardly racist -- Ricciardi has made similar cutbacks in the budget for finding longshot Canadian high schoolers.

Using the perverse "logic" that winning doesn't matter and fans attend baseball games to see their countrymen, regardless of ability, show up on the field, the Jays need a token Canadian more than anything. Free Stubby Clapp!

You know, I doubt most baseball fans even think about race when the players on the field. Then again, I'm Chinese and there are no Chinese players in the big leagues right now (until Bruce Chen catches on with his 20th team). Perhaps I should not be so presumptuous as to speak for others but as Shane says, I wonder how many people actually think about the racial distribution of them team before they read such an article. The Star is creating an issue where one does not exist.

Then again, along with that Red Sox article, I remember an article in the LA Times earlier this year saying that the Angels were the team with the fewest minorities in the majors. And they're the world champions! What kind of example does that set? If you look at their roster, they have six minorities: Garret Anderson, Ramon Ortiz, K-Rod, Benji Gil and the Molina brothers. (I guess Chone Figgins just got called up so it's actually seven but he's only up because of Fullmer's injury). It's funny Coach mentions the Jays new Latin scouting approach under Ricciardi - the Angels, widely criticized for abandoning Latin America, are now getting back in the last few years and they demonstrate that it really is a crapshoot. The thing is - most Latin hitters will not have the hitting approach that teams like the Jays, Red Sox and A's want since they supposedly believe they can't walk their way off the island.

The Jays have Delgado, Stewart, Wells, and Hudson in their starting lineup alone! Then they have Escobar, Lopez, and Acevedo. By my count, the Angels are just as "white." In fact, if you look at most teams, the distribution is similar. One place where affirmative action (regardless of your views on the issue) isn't an issue has been on the playing field. Race and criminal record just aren't concerns for a majority of professional teams so long as they can put the best guys on the field, floor or ice.

This has to be one of the worst articles ever written (by a mainstream media outlet). I don't understand it at all, it has no premise, basis, analysis, or conclusions. It really doesn't even really offer an opinion. It just takes thinly veiled potshots at Riciardi. It's written solely for the purpose of artificially creating a media 'firestorm'. Fortunately the article is so poor that it probably won't even manage to do that.

As much as I'm bothered by the article, your above allegation that the Star is even whiter than the Blue Jays is without merit. The fact is the Jays' roster, compared against other Major League rosters, is the whitest. The Toronto Star's writers are just as white as any other Canadian newspaper's. I don't think you can use that line of reasoning as a retort.

I actually have a friend who pointed out the Jays' proclivity for white guys over a year ago and I've been watching J.P.'s moves with a certain racial curiosity ever since. So it was with a kind of stunned recognition that I saw the front of the newspaper this morning. Having given the issue a lot of thought before today, I was, though still unsure, unwilling to pass final judgement on the subject and condemn this front office for being racist. The Star, it seems, lacks my patience and understanding of sample sizes.

I read the article and my feeling is this: the paper latched on to some numbers, threw them out in an attention-grabbing headline, and then proceeded to hand-wave their way through the actual articles. The Star saw some smoke, got excited, and then, on close inspection, couldn't even find any embers. But boy oh boy that smoke looked great so it went on the front page anyway. There is nothing -- nothing -- in the comments of Ricciardi or Godfrey or Bloom to indicate some insidious plot to bleach the roster of this baseball team. Every action the team has taken is defensible from a rational baseball management standpoint (acquiring the inexpensive but effective bench, drafting from U.S. colleges, ignoring Asia free agents, etc.).

The Star, though it will claim otherwise, is not about objective and motive-free reporting; it's about selling newspapers. I'm almost embarassed to say it, but I bought one today.

I had like a 2000 word response to these articles all ready to go, went to preview it but forgot to put my name and it erased when I hit back- but most of my points have since been made anyhow.

The one thing on top of everything already mentioned is the certain smugness Baker takes in addressing this somehow as an issue only affecting the Jays. The Raptors and Leafs do not suffer the same attendance problems largely due to the corporate influence on season tickets, something is vastly different for an 81 home game baseball season. In terms of affordability the Jays provide a much fairer opportunity to attract minority fans out to games, especially if you want to link the economic prospects of the minority fan supporting the minority player (I strongly suspect on average a Swedish immigrant going to see Mats Sundin play is more secure than the Mexican fan coming out to see Juan Acevedo, as ridiculous a comparison as that is)

I also don't see any mention of the troubles the Argos have had and will have drawing fans as the season continues despite the fact that tickets are cheaper than Jays tickets and the team is at least half African American. The correlation simply doesn't exist with the exception of rare occurances (Yao, Matsui)

Finally, isn't it somewhat racist to try and attract fans based on the nationality of the players? Shouldn't there be an outrage that ads might target the Japanese community when Ichiro or Matsui come around, praying on their nationalistic pride rather than love or interest in the game to boost revenue? Ideally they're trying to promote the game through the stars, not the other way around.

These articles have left me deeply troubled about the quality of coverage devoted to Toronto sports. Most people already knew Griffin was an idiot based on the article criticising him on ESPN.com a few weeks ago, but the foundation of these stories is really grasping at straws.

P.S. It's funny how the Star also made a comment today about how the Raptors screwed up by not taking Canadian Carl English instead of the unknown Dutch guy in the second round of the draft when they basically lampooned the Jays for doing the same thing with Latin players.

How lame.

It would have been nice for Baker, Griffin et al to mention that the Jays Care Foundation, among its many charitable projects, helps to restore baseball parks in the inner city of Toronto (as part of "Field of Dreams"). The fact is, the Jays continue to reach out, connect with, and influence all parts of the community, irregardless of their own racial makeup as a team.

The one issue that is barely touched on in this thread is that newspapers are a business. Toronto has three dailys I believe. The Star slightly left of centre, the Globe, generally small l liberal and the rag the Sun, stars and strips type right wing (which Canadian can actually read that shite and consider themselves to be serious functional members of society).

Each of these papers coo's to its constituents. It isn't so much about the accuracy of a piece but what will fly for their public and what will be sometimes contraversial.

The Star piece today actually hits both of those marks.

I envy you folks in T.O. You shouldn't forget how lucky you are to actually have newspaper competition and a divergent range of opinion and views at your finger tips.

Most Canadian cities have two dailies. Some one daily. Think about how you would rage then if your paper doesn't reflect your view.

Here in Vancouver we have two dailies. The Vancouver Sun and The Province. Both owned by Izzy Asper. If you know anything at all about how he runs his papers and what he has done in our market, taking the news outta newspaper, twisting fact with philosophical opinion, his; then you would understand why I have so little sympathy for your respective rants.

Journalists here are not allowed to put a picture of Yasser Arafat in the paper if he is attending a meeting or making a speech.

Long live journalistic freedom and the diversity of opinion. Something you all get to enjoy but most of us are green with envy.

On the mertits of the story, I hold most of the same views of the contributors to the thread. But I think the larger issue here is not just one story which prickles a bit. We need to raise our voices against the continuing bombardment of the corporate message which infects us all to the point where we rage against a discussion which should always merit this discussion.

I don't even know where to begin.

This is simply appalling journalism. So many important stories to be written about the Blue Jays, and so many important stories to be written about race in Toronto, and this is what the Star produces. Tabloidism.

Okay, here's where I can begin: somebody please tell me the point of the main article. Are the Blue Jays actively avoiding non-white players? Is that the thesis -- is this what the Star won't directly suggest or accuse? Are JP Ricciardi and his staff employing race-based methods in player evaluation and selection, which would explain why they have "the whitest team in the majors"? Because that is, without any question, the subtext of the piece: they're getting rid of all the blacks and Latinos, and they're bringing in whites, and they can't or won't explain why; what else is the reader to conclude in this day and age?

The Star offers no theory of its own; it simply "lets the facts speak for themselves," and then waits for Ricciardi to offer a defence of an accusation it won't make itself. That's cheap and unprofessional. If the Star thinks Ricciardi is intentionally assembling a white roster, then it should say so; if it doesn't, then what else is this but innuendo and thinly disguised character assassination? Rick Reilly approached Sammy Sosa and said, "Take a steroid test and prove you're clean": Sosa declined and Reilly vilified him. The Star approaches JP Ricciardi with race statistics and says, "Provide an explanation and prove you're not racist"; Ricciardi declined -- how can you defend a non-existent policy? -- and here's the result. A newspaper's job is to inform and educate, not to insinuate and mislead. This article has cast a cloud over a good organization and led hundreds of thousands of people to believe something the Star would not come out and say. How is this anything but tabloidism?

Now I want to talk about the substance of the article. Very few actual statistics are provided to illustrate the central claim of "whitest team." The article says the Jays started the year with the fewest non-whites of any major-league club (6/25). Fine; how many are on the next-whitest team? Seven? Nine? Ten? If the Jays had headed north with Corey Thurman instead of Mark Hendrickson (never mind that Hendrickson was readier for the big leagues), might the Jays have been only the second-whitest team? We'll never know, because the Star didn't supply a chart telling us what the numbers were. The article says the Expos had the most non-whites on their opening roster. Fine; how many? What's the ceiling on this room the Star is building? We'll never know, because the article didn't tell us. And oh yeah, how is the Star classifying race? What does it do with with players of mixed heritage? Is Alex Rodriguez white or Latino? And why Opening Day rosters, and why just 2003, and why just 25-man rather than 40-man rosters, and why such an incredibly small and exclusive sample size? If this is as big an issue as the Star implies it is, why are we only getting a microscopic amount of evidence? The Star might say "the facts speak for themselves," but it doesn't give us all the facts we need. Is that because the facts don't further the implied thesis, or because this is lousy journalism?

The article is all over the place, and several statements undermine others. On the one hand, we have this:

The Jays in their glory years were a haven for players of Latin American descent...

[T]he Jays aren't really seeking the best players available, many of whom happen to be non-white.

Okay, so blacks and Latinos and Asians are good. You win more ballgames with them. But:

Despite being the most homogeneous squad in baseball, the important fact remains that the Jays are winning and contending for a playoff spot.

many of the white players Ricciardi imported, such as Eric Hinske, Frank Catalanotto, Greg Myers, Tom Wilson and Mike Bordick, are resounding successes.

Okay, now they're saying it's the white players who are good. You win more ballgames with them. Which is it?

And how about this?

That nearly all of those new players are white will be less interesting to some GMs than their average salary of only $642,000 (U.S.) compared to the $2.5 million being paid the average non-white who left the team.

So the whites who arrived are cheaper than non-whites who left. Okay -- since cheaper players are usually not as good as more expensive players, doesn't that imply that Ricciardi has added lousier players than the ones he jettisoned? And if so, how does that square with the other statements about the greater value of non-whites, or with the team's winning record? It doesn't, you see -- none of it does, because the room that the Star is constructing is made of walls that don't fit together, assumptions that contradict one another.

By the way, let's go back briefly to "the most homogenous squad in the majors." I thought "homogeneity" wasn't the issue here, "whiteness" was. A roster of 19 Latinos would be extremely homogenous, wouldn't it? But that's not the point of this article.

And while I'm at it, could someone explain this one?

A less obvious issue, one bound to generate heated debate, is whether Toronto has somehow gained an advantage by bucking baseball's diversity trend — and whether others will copy this model and change the demographics of the game.

I'm sorry, but this looks to me like "whites equal wins." Is this the Star's theory? Is it Ricciardi's? Is it anyone's? If not, what is it doing in the article?

I need to spare a word here for the "stunned" Peter Donnelly, Director of the Centre for Sports Policy Studies at the University of Toronto (I would, in all seriousness, love an explanation of what "sports policy" is). Donnelly says:

"You're talking about the most multicultural city in the world .... So, there's a responsibility there and it probably makes marketing sense to reflect your community."

Hold on -- a responsibility to whom? Of what? Donnelly moves straight into marketing, but that's not a responsibility issue, that's a business issue. What, exactly, is the responsibility to which Donnelly refers? Is it to field a team of players of similar diversity as the city in which it plays? As Mike has already pointed out earlier in this thread, why is this not an issue for the Leafs, or the Raptors, or the Argos? Why is this not an issue for Toronto City Council, or the Ontario provincial government? And if this is the responsibility, what precise duty -- moral, legal, ethical, social, any kind -- underlies it?

The worst part is, the classifying of race, the division of people by skin colour, was done by the Star. I look down on that field and I don't see blacks, whites or Latinos; I honestly don't. I see ballplayers, with skill sets and personalities distributed utterly without regard to ethnicity. I see people doing their job, and doing it very well at the moment. Carlos Delgado is as invaluable as Felipe Lopez was useless; Vernon Wells is as great as DeWayne Wise was lousy; Eric Hinske is as reliable as Billy Koch was maddening. The Star brought race into this, and it's the Star's obligation to tell us why, straightforwardly and courageously. Instead, the Star throws a few select numbers out there, gives it an inflammatory front-page headline, and then ducks and covers. I call that unprofessional, and worse.

Race in Toronto is an important, ultra-sensitive topic that desperately needs serious investigation and intelligent treatment; this article is poorly researched sensationalism.

I was flabbergasted and insulted by this article, and was going to rant about it on here, but so many people have brought up so many good points, I don't think I could add a thing to the argument. I'll just say that I agree with pretty much everything that was written here. I wish the Jays would send the Star a message and revoke their media passes from them at least temporarily, to show that a blatant witchhunt such as this will not be tolerated.

Long time lurker but you guys are a way overboard in blind fan loyalty.

No the Jays should not revoke anything. They should invite the contributers to the story into the clubhouse and speak with the players, coaches and management both on and off the record.

If as we believe that the Jays position is completely defensible then they have an obligation to defend it.

Denying access would only further exasperate the damge done to the Jays squeaky corporate image. Image is huge in the baseball business would.

If I were the city editor I would have sought the opinion of Joe Morgan. Maybe we should back troll for Morgans opinion on this matter generally.

The Star will pay for the headlines but in small bites.

I do however find it completely outragous that we all swallow the big lies, lying down. For example, " this war is not about oil". Give your head a shake men.

Even if the story goes overboard, what harm is there in a little scrutiny. Newpapers, if they are serving the publics interest must be a watchdog and not a lap dog. And the Star has proven it ain't no toady lap dog. The press today has no balls. Absolutely no balls. If its going to upset the owner or an advertiser they kill stories. Without any doubt the Jays are big advertisers in the Star. Lets see what their repsonse is there. We know they won't pull their ad's because, this is business. They Jays are business.

Let the Jays respond. It is encumbent on them. If there is any niggling truth then let them deal with it. And let us get off our high horses and get our feet back on the ground. Out!

I think the Star is right to bring up the fact that the Jays aren't particularly diverse, and that the ethnic makeup of the team is quite different from what it was ten years ago. It's an interesting point.

Sport, as much as any other field, has become strenuously anti-racist during the last couple of decades, to its enduring credit. There are some significant strides left to be made, particularly with regard to the treatment of Latin American prospects (particularly in the Dominican). Generally, though, I trust the players to be pretty vocal if anything were actually amiss.

The Star, for reasons we've discussed before (having to do with them being in direct competition with Rogers in a number of areas), appears to be eager to paint the Blue Jays in a negative light at every possible opportunity. I don't think this article really does this... what we have are some bizarre and completely unfounded theories by an academic that the lack of diversity is hurting the Jays at the box office. Other than that, that's it. If it's innuendo, it isn't very good.

Remember that this guy, Peter Donnelly, doesn't follow baseball - he wasn't aware of the composition of the Jays roster - and so, I would venture to say, doesn't understand it.

I'd say this article can be safely ignored.

Craig B. I think you captured my feelings on the stories merits in a proverbial nutshell. Big Business. Well stated.

I don't think the article is a big deal, though I do find it shoddy, tenuous, trashy writing. I find it interesting that FOUR such articles happened to find their way into the paper on the same day. If I didn't know better, I'd say Star Sports got directions from above to launch some sort of campaign. At the very least, Griffin and Baker collaborated to produce articles that compliment one another. That just seems a bit odd to me.

I think the Jays current management strategy does lead to more white players drafted. Because minority college baseball players are relatively few, this is pretty much self evident. Does this give them a responsibility to abandon a business plan that fits their budgetary constraints though? Certainly they can't afford to outbid other teams on top international free agents.

Perhaps by instituting a world wide draft and furthering the control of slot bonuses for draftees, this will become a non-issue for the Jays and the rest of MLB. However, the Jays are one of probably fewer than 5 organizations who are following this cost-effective strategy to such an extent. It's not surprising that they would be an outlier compared to most baseball teams.

Craig, I have to disagree -- I don't think the article can be safely ignored, because it won't be. It's a front-page banner feature on the most widely read newspaper in Canada on its most widely read day of publication, and it treats a complicated, hot-button issue in a careless, drive-by fashion. It requires public refutation, or at least public contradiction, even in a venue this minor. I know I have a reputation for hammering the local journos for their shoddy baseball analysis, but BB is one of the few places where counter-cultural Canadian baseball viewpoints can be heard. And really, I wouldn't mind the Star bringing up the racial composition of the team, if the article (a) tried to take a serious in-depth look at both the reality and perception of race and sport, which this article certainly isn't, and (b) had something to actually say, not just innuendo to cast.

I like how the article refers to 'a study conducted by the Star.' This makes it sound like it was a big research project. When I here a study I think of university researchers, statisticians, and maybe a few test tubes. Maybe instead of calling it a study Geoff Baker should have been more honest and stated, "so I was wasting time poring over the opening day rosters on MLB.com..."

Seriously, what constitutes a minority? Does he tell us that much? Is Carlos Tosca a minority? He's Cuban but he looks whiter than many North Americans. Does Geoff Baker or some journalism student with a summer job at the Star have the ability to tell me the definition of minority? Clearly in this "study" some guidelines were followed. I guess it's too much to let us in on this vital piece of information.

Or how about this little tidbit from the article:

"That nearly all of those new players are white will be less interesting to some GMs than their average salary of only $642,000 (U.S.) compared to the $2.5 million being paid the average non-white who left the team."

Someone should scold the bad Blue Jays for exploiting cheap white labour. J.P. (an Italian who may or may not be a minority) often refers to his players as "dirtbags." This is deplorable. I think Geoff Baker should go on the road to the Blue Jays sweatshops in Syracuse, New Haven, and Dunedin and get to the bottom of this.

By the way, I'm a Latin American whose skin is not very dark and not very light. I have a year round tan. Am I a minority? Maybe I'll ask Geoff Baker.

"It's a front-page banner feature on the most widely read newspaper in Canada."It is read in Toronto.
Come on Jordan, that a bit of stretch, the intonation here is that this paper is read cross country and has influece on public perception in Halifax and Vancouver. I'd say you as they are are playing fast and loose with the facts as well.

It just ain't so. Toronto may indeed seem like the centre of the universe but it just isn't, sorry. People read their own dailies. I happen to click into waymoresports cuz I follow the leafs and jays.

Out in the rest of Canada we couldn't give a shoot about what happens in Gotham other than the scores. Be assured this won't be a topic in Vancouver today and the Jays image is not besmurched.

I think we should look at Craig's comments and fill the in with Roger's and leave this on context.

Its just a crappy story in a T.O paper, so what.

Goodness.

I am embarassed that this was published in the city I was born in.

I'am a non-white,non Torontian BJ's fan for several years now ( pre-World champs era ), I love JP even more than I used to love Pat. He has done wonders. In a previous commentary ( few days ago ) I wrote that one of the few mistakes made during the offseason was to choose Sturtze over Loaiza ( even if his coaches reported about some improvements ) because: one he scouted Sturt and two Loai being a head case. This last statement is very often made for latino players and that to me implies misunderstandings from cultural differences and other shortcomings. But I do admit that as a bussiness plan it is easier to scout, sign, manage and play with a more uniform cultural, racial menagerie. Hope that this not again misunderstood as my previous comment, and I do support JP's work: financially A+, putting a good batting lineup together 1000 ops+, but regarding pitching 4.5 era+ ( below league average)...
By the way, Service a white guy is pitching very well today...

The NHL must be a racist organisation - there's hardly a visible minority in sight!;-)

It is a disservice to classify people according to race. Do you hear me TORONTO STAR? You are the ones creating problems by writing useless article about a the "racial" composition of a baseball team.

The world is not divided into blacks/whites etc. It is divided into poor people and rich people. It's irrelevant what colour those people are unless they are being disciminated against on the basis of their ethnic affilliation.

Various people suffer from lack of opportunities mostly because they are poor. The Star should deal with the real issue - namely poverty.

The Star should deal with the real issue - namely poverty.

Geez, I dunno, wouldn't that expose them and their Liberal chums for the double-talking hypocrites they are?

(Ducks)

OK, seriously. I understand Jordan's point, which is that the Toronto-based, Toronto-centric national media will not be able to leave this alone, and so will (by beating a non-issue to death) create the perception among people that there's something to all this. Also, the Jays don't draw their fans from the rest of Canada... they draw them from Toronto (at least the fannies in the seats) and if some people gain a negative impression, it's going to sabotage the momentum that the team is building.

(Incidentally, is it any wonder that the article's appearing now, instead of early in the season when there were also few minority players? Only now have the Jays built up a little momentum with the public.)

I just think - like many of you - that thoae worries are ill-founded. People are used to seeing these issues brought up and are used to evaluating them on their own terms.

J.P. (an Italian who may or may not be a minority) often refers to his players as "dirtbags."

Heh. Good thing they're white; the first guy to refer to a player of colour as a "dirtbag" is heading for some SERIOUS bad P.R.

...Loai being a head case. This last statement is very often made for latino players and that to me implies misunderstandings from cultural differences and other shortcomings.

Jabonoso has a point here, which is that unconscious perceptions of players - as well as the way they carry themselves - will cloud out judgments of their play and their attitude to the game.

the Star didn't supply a chart telling us what the numbers were

Actually, it looked like on TV that there were some charts in the paper that aren't on the web site. Maybe someone could scan them in and post them for us?

http://economics.about.com
And oh yeah, how is the Star classifying race?

This is actually a larger problem than you might imagine. There is absolutely no consensus in the social science community about how to define race. Depending on the definition you use, there's anywhere between 3 and 63 different races on the planet. What bugged me is this:

A study by the Star has found that this year's edition of the Blue Jays had the fewest number of visible minorities

By whose definition? And why is Acevedo considered a "visible minority" and J.P. Riccardi not? I think Avecedo looks a lot more WASPish than Riccardi personally. But Acevedo is from Mexico and the Star heard there was dark skinned people there, so...

Mike

Mike,

There's also the biological definition, which implies that the human race isn't divisible into races. It's well known that the genetic differences between individuals classified in one race are larger than the differences between typical examples of 2 or more "races".

Actually, it looked like on TV that there were some charts in the paper that aren't on the web site. Maybe someone could scan them in and post them for us?

Yeah (sue me, I'm a Star subscriber), there's a chart on the front page of the Sports section breaking down all the teams, based on opening-day rosters:

14 non-whites: Expos, Rangers
13: O's, Royals, Giants
12: Braves, Chisox, Rockies, Marlins, Dodgers, Cards, M's
11: D-backs, Cubs, Yanks
10: Mets, Pirates, Rays
9: Tribe, Twins, A's, Phils, Padres
8: Reds, Tigers, Astros, Brewers
7: Angels, Bosox
6: Jays

How is this statistically significant? Somebody's gotta be last, right? The Jays are one of 12 teams in single digits ...

At least from now on whenever the topic of which major league city has the worst baseball media comes up over on Baseball Primer, somebody can post a link to this article and end all debate. We win!

Lefty, perhaps another way I could have stated it was: "the paper with the highest readership in Canada," which the Star is: it dominates the GTA market, which has more eyeballs than any other Canadian region. Granted that the Star isn't read by anyone in Calgary or Halifax (or even much here in Ottawa), still the market penetration is tremendous -- and as Craig says, it's concentrated in the area where the team draws its most immediate fan base.

In terms of wider impact, the Star story was the second item on TSN SportsDesk's 11:00 pm EDT edition, which I think is still the most-watched sports highlights show in Canada (Delgado, when speaking about the story, referred to it as as s*** more than once). I imagine it was similar on SportsNet, unless the corporate decision was made to downplay this story at Rogers. No doubt the CBC will get hold of it at some point; there's something to look forward to.

Ironically, we rented To Kill a Mockingbird tonight, still the best movie ever made about lawyers, and a film that says more about race in one scene than the Star could hope to in a month of Saturday editions. I'll now do my very best to shut up about this issue going forward. Thanks kindly.

The only lawyer lesson I drew from that movie is the need to explain to a client the process for appealling racist decisions that will inevitably be rendered by hick juries. I always thought Atticus Finch messed up that part.

"Not only do I wonder about the paper's agenda, but just how ethnically diverse is the Star sports desk".

Well I hear there's a guy named Jayson Blair formerly of the N.Y. Times who'd fit right into the Star's corporate culture.

Actually the Star isn't a corp. its a trust and a one off paper.

Jordan, I do know your frustration and basically agree with your points its just that I see much more injustice in Canadian dailies every single day and I thought all of this was just a wee bit over the top.

Cheers

Lefty, I'm not sure what you're talking about exactly...

Torstar Corporation, a public corporation, owns the Toronto Star.

Baker defends his piece on the front page of the Sunday Star, while presenting the reaction from the Jays' management and players. Oddly enough, the headline says the team attacked the newspaper.

Richard Griffin, ignoring more than 100 e-mails to the editor, almost all of them critical, implores us this morning not to "shoot the messenger," in a column that's an even bigger waste of space than yesterday's. How's this for convoluted thinking?

Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi along with Oakland's Billy Beane and other new-wavers believe in building offence through patience at the plate and taking no chances on the bases. That's a pre-WWII style of play. Under those criteria, Jackie Robinson could not have played in the majors.

Earl Weaver managed before the war? Baseball's segregation was due to an emphasis on OBP? The things you can learn on a Sunday morning from an irresponsible dinosaur who only opens his mouth to change feet.

Griffin and Baker probably genuinely believe that their stories aren't implying that the Jays are racist, but a headline such as "Whitest team in the majors" sure gives that impression. They are being extremely disingenuous, at best, if they do not realize this.

And it's very strange to call the Jays very white, when (a) they're managed by a man born in Cuba, and (b) they have four black players in their starting lineup, two of which are the best on the team and among the very best players in baseball, period?

It's true that (a) Ricciardi (and Beane, his mentor) are focusing on college players, (b) fewer college players are black and Hispanic, and (c) there are fewer black players in baseball than there used to be. But the economic benefit gained from signing cheap college-based players with high on-base percentages will disappear over time, as more GM's value such players more accurately.

If the Star wants the Jays to become more ethnically diverse, why don't they buy a part of the team and increase J.P.'s payroll, so that he can go out and trade for, say, Bartolo Colon?

Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi along with Oakland's Billy Beane and other new-wavers believe in building offence through patience at the plate and taking no chances on the bases. That's a pre-WWII style of play. Under those criteria, Jackie Robinson could not have played in the majors.

Does Griffin actually watch the games? The Jays don't steal bases, but they're quite aggressive on the basepaths. And Jackie Robinson would have been a great player in any era - he was an outstanding hitter, had patience at the plate, and was an excellent defensive second baseman. In the dead-ball era, he would have been another Eddie Collins.

I am trying to figure out the Star's motivation here. Are they just trying to stir up trouble in order to sell more papers? (With this reader, that just backfired - I will no longer buy a Star as long as Griffin and Baker are the Jays' columnists.) Are they trying to mess up Rogers' media empire, since they're employees of a rival media conglomerate? Are they just trying to draw attention to themselves? What are they hoping to accomplish?

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Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi along with Oakland's Billy Beane and other new-wavers believe in building offence through patience at the plate and taking no chances on the bases.

Wait a second. Yesterday it was that they were building around college players. Which of course contradicts this:

Jackie Robinson could not have played in the majors.

Robinson was a star college athlete.

Robinson was **40th** all-time in OBP. It's the *only* career stat he's in the top 80 in. He does not rank in the top 100 all time in stolen bases.

Robinson *didn't* take chances on the bases, as shown by his 197 steals to 30 caught stealing.

If anything Robinson is a JP/Beane/SABR style superstar.

Mike

One more thought (one breakfast later :-) ): If the Jays do promote Corey Thurman, Alexis Rios, or Guillermo Quiroz, the Star writers will give themselves credit. Sigh.

Did anybody find it ironic that the Sunday Star front page story was about the average Canadian family, and the accompanying photograph was of a Caucasian family?

The story itself is quite feeble, drawing vapid conclusions about what is average based on aggregate stats collected by StatsCan. What exactly is the point of finding a family who falls smack-dab in the middle of most measurable quantities reported by StatsCan, anyway?

I suppose being a white immigrant whose mother tongue is neither English nor French, and whose favourite sport is not golf, that I must therefore be, what - abnormal? un-average? :-)

Isn't the whole point of Canadian multi-culturalism that such classifications as "average" can no longer be made, because of the great diversity in which we live?

Perhaps I've missed the point of the article...

I think todays piece by Griffin was ordered to try to answer some of the criticism the Star received. The headline was probably written first "Story is not about racism" and Griffin was told to write a piece about it. Baker could not write it as it was his name on the original story.

Much of the story was not about racism, but when the story gave JP's race stats for his trades and player moves, it implied racism. I think most of the Star's readers thought the story was about racism.

I think the Star thought they would get a better reaction, with at least some voices supporting them. They have not found any. As a result they are in full retreat now.

Mike: Robinson was a star college athlete. Robinson was 40th all-time in OBP. It's the *only* career stat he's in the top 80 in. He does not rank in the top 100 all time in stolen bases. Robinson *didn't* take chances on the bases, as shown by his 197 steals to 30 caught stealing. If anything Robinson is a JP/Beane/SABR style superstar.

Mike, I strongly recommend you send this as a Letter to the Editor of the Star. Succinct, correct and to the point, and completely takes the legs out from under Griffin's silliest argument. Well done.

Dave,

Not to be a smartass, but if the Jays do promote Quiroz (.185/.329/.354 since June 1), maybe the Star writers should give themselves credit ;) Incidentally, Quiroz's walk rate has shot up recently (13 in 141 AB through May 31; 14 in 65 AB since). The possibilities for over-interpretation are endless...

Non-sequiturs aside, many others on this board have made eloquent and well-reasoned rebuttals of the Star's "argument." I have a few small points to add:

1. From the second sidebar, one would think that the Jays haven't drafted a non-white in the first round since 1998:

That new strategy is why things have changed for the Jays since they made Puerto Rican-born high school shortstop Felipe Lopez their No.1 pick in 1998. Lopez has since been traded and Ricciardi's last two No.1 picks have been white college shortstops Russ Adams and Aaron Hill.

In fact, the Jays took Alexis Rios and Miguel Negron with their first picks in 1999 and 2000. Is this an oversight? Or disingenuousness? Casual fans would be less likely to accept the Star's argument if they knew that the Rios, the 1999 draftee out of Puerto Rico, was tearing up AA and on his way to the Futures Game (along with Quiroz, as has been mentioned).

It is, of course, true that Ricciardi hasn't drafted a non-white with either of his two first-round picks. The Star itself identifies the reason (the Jays are going after college players) and even acknowledges that this is a good strategy. (Of course, a sample size of two is meaningless to begin with.)

2. I'm surprised that the Star didn't bring up Orlando Hudson's "pimping" comment and subsequent (I do not draw a causal inference) demotion. Then again, if Hudson had won the second-base job out of camp last year, Homer Bush would have been out of Toronto even more quickly.

3. I believe that Brad Fullmer's trade had something to do with "attitude" (and a lot to do with his salary and the Jays' backlog of OF/1B/DH types). So whites aren't immune to that stigma. I acknowledge that it might be unconsciously applied to non-whites more often; still, it would be impossible to criticize the Mondesi trade in baseball terms, and in hindsight the F-Lop trade looks good as well. The point is that all of these "attitude" trades made sense in baseball terms as well.

Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi along with Oakland's Billy Beane and other new-wavers believe in building offence through patience at the plate and taking no chances on the bases. That's a pre-WWII style of play. Under those criteria, Jackie Robinson could not have played in the majors.


Let me get this straight Richard -- is this your roundabout way of saying that non-white players are not patient hitters?

It's an insulting generalization, especially in light of the facts.

2003 OBP leaders:

1 B. Bonds .493
2 M. Mora .460
3 M. Bradley .450
5 A. Pujols .447
8 C. Delgado .434
10 F. Thomas .427
11 G. Sheffield .418
12 M. Ramirez .416
14 R. Durham .413
16 J. Vidro .412
18 E. Martinez .410
23 R. Hidalgo .401
25 E. Durazo .400
27 J. Posada .398
28 C. Beltran .396
29 B. Abreu .396
33 L. Gonzalez .389
35 E. Renteria .387
37 I. Suzuki .385
40 A. Rodriguez .382

jc

as shown by his 197 steals to 30 caught stealing.

B-R makes it appear that CS numbers weren't kept until Robinson's 5th year. From that point on, he stole 97 bases and was caught 30 times, still a pretty good percentage.

Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi along with Oakland's Billy Beane and other new-wavers believe in building offence through patience at the plate and taking no chances on the bases. That's a pre-WWII style of play. Under those criteria, Jackie Robinson could not have played in the majors.

I know Mike Moffatt has already dealt with and disposed of this above, but that's a pretty astonishing thing for Griffin to say. Not only for its implications... that the Ricciardi/Beane style of management is implicitly racist; but also for the fact that he makes the MAXIMUM possible factual error.

Robinson, as a high-OBP player providing superior defense at a key position - is the type of player *most* in demand in the sabermetric-friendly offense.

Furthermore, far from Robinson being a guy who "could not have played in the majors", Robinson and his Negro Leagues colleagues - as freely available talent - would have easily been the most sought-after commodity by the "Billy Beane" or "J.P. Ricciardi" of 1947.

I mean, I know Griffin doesn't get it, but it takes serious cluelessness to make the maximum possible error.

(Incidentally, the station-to-station game isn't a "Pre-WWII" style of play; it dates to the late 1940s and early 1950s. I'll forgive Griffin this, if only because he males so many more egregious errors in such a short space.)

J.P. made a very good point to a reporter that I saw on Headline Sports last night. This is the same crew that called J.P.'s supporters a "zombie-like cult of statistical seamheads". The point that J.P. made is, look, is you're going to criticize us for having our head buried in the numbers, you can't then say we're racist to boot, because whether you're green, blue, or purple, the numbers are the numbers.

Griffin, for one, still appears to be seething with anger that he can't pull out his hatchet, because the team is having undeniable success. It's the old lawyer's adage... "When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. When both the law and the facts are against you, insult the opposing counsel."

Today's headline in Toronto's other major daily, "dykes take a hike", "Supersoakers,bare breasts and nothing but girls who wanna have fun" apparently in reference to a lesbian pride parade held in metro yesterday (perhaps many of the Zombies were in attendance along the route as traffic seemed to be down in yesterdays game commentary...?)

You've got to love what they'll do in Hogtown to sell newspapers. I feel fortunate to have access to the internet to obtain a further diversity of opinion. As lefty pointed out its pretty grim in Vancouver with both major dailies having the same owner. I feel fortunate to live in the "information age" with access to a satellite dish and the net. Five years ago I might have read this same tripe from the Star ,be left to stew about it in relative isolation, but today, after following this discussion here and on Primer, I'm simply blown away by the brilliant retorts to the Star's ridiculous insuniations.

lesbian pride parade held in metro yesterday

This was the Dyke March, one of the many events leading up to the big Toronto Pride shindig today, which I am *very* sure is the reason there are fewer people here at the Box than usual.

I don't go to Pride anymore, and I do miss it; more fun than a barrel of monkeys on payday. Of course, it's really only fun when you can go with friends, and when your Pride-going friends stop going, it's hard to build up much enthusiasm for it.

Hope you're all having fun... the bike race was a good time too, but we came back when Jay got tired of the wind.

I think it's interesting that even though the Star printed several letters to the editor complaining about the stories, they buried them in the sports section rather than the editorial/letter to the editor page. I know they often do this with other sports letters but to me this transcends sports and is pretty cowardly not to be put in the front page section, even though the inflammatory mugshots of the opening day roster was good enough for them yesterday.

The only defensable explanation, if that, is that their letters page follows a different format on Sundays. However I'd be really disappointed if they didn't give it the proper attention it deserves tomorrow, when they go back to their daily format.

I don't go to Pride anymore, and I do miss it; more fun than a barrel of monkeys on payday.

It was excellent, if a little small this year (SARS keeping tourists away, apparently). When I saw the newly-married couples, I got choked up. It was beautiful.

Last year the Star wouldn`t print the term Dyke March, which was actually maddening to many of the women that marched that afternoon.

http://www.ja-design.netfirms.com/
my late 2-cents, from my blog:

The Toronto Star, vindicated after a court ruled their story about racial profiling by police was not an attack against individual officers, have implied racial inequality on the Toronto Blue Jays. This new story was inappropriate and demoralizing and should never have been published. The fact they're not as ethnically diverse as others in the league, or representative of the city's multiculturalism is inconsequential. Budget constraints be damned, the article implies, minorities on the team would fill empty seats. The team's success is also no longer connected to its winning record, but to its appeal among the community. Bullshit. Jays' fans are notorious for being band-waggon jumpers, and only respond to a winner.

Another typically Canadian story: depreciate our successful teams and accomplishments.

The National Post has published an editorial rebutting the Star's "argument."

...and before I get in trouble, I'm not endorsing the last two paragraphs of that editorial. But I am impressed with the research that obviously went into the rest of it. I wonder if the Post's editors read BB?

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I suspect whoever wrote that piece was reading this site and/or baseball primer, as most of the arguments in that piece were made on the two sites.

Mike

It's safe to say that the BB crowd, while erudite, were not the only ones to have been irate about the original Star piece; no doubt the writers of the rebuttal in the Post could have come up with their own arguments without referencing two relatively obscure baseball Web sites.

FYI, the National Post article was written by Jonathan Kay. I'm not sure how much of a baseball fan he is, but his website is here (http://www.omnivore.org/jon/) and includes a copy of the article.

I only wish Jordan's comments (RE: I don't know where to begin) could appear as a rebuttal in a national newspaper!

Good job to the posters here anyway :)

Carlos Tosca is White, just because he is cuban denies his whiteness? So i guess we should deny the whiteness of all those that arent anglo saxon. LOL!

Carlos Tosca is White, just because he is cuban denies his whiteness? So i guess we should deny the whiteness of all those that arent anglo saxon. LOL!