Fifth in a 10-part series

"A Jays team once led by Joe Carter, Robbie Alomar, George Bell, Tony Fernandez and Devon White was for years known to be as diverse as the city it represents. That is no longer the case."
... "Whitest Team in the Majors" by Geoff Baker for the Toronto Star

Let's get some things out of the way.

First, this story is not about the racial composition of the Toronto Star's sports desk, or even the media as a whole. The mainstream media is as Lilly-white as Oakland's Ted.

That's a specious argument, approximately the same as saying, "Rob Neyer never played major league baseball, so he shouldn't write critically about it." The first statement, a fact, does not support -- indeed is not even related to -- the second statement, an opinion.

Second, here's something most people don't know about the journalism profession: writers don't write their own headlines. So attacking the author of a controversial piece -- in this case, Geoff Baker -- for the impression created by the headline is aiming at the wrong target.

The ZLC's own Dave Till led his criticism of the "White Jays" story with this argument: "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."

Till, though, directs his venom properly, following that observation by saying, "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?"

You Know, Subheads Can Be Misleading, Too
Well, first of all -- yes. The business of the Star is to sell the Star, though the business of the journalists employed there may be -- may be -- somewhat more high-minded. But it's exactly right to wonder about the newspaper's motivation for the headline rather than the writer's.

Even Batter's Box founder Kent Williams found himself affected by the headlining process as he read a support piece by another writer: "Richard Griffin weighs in with some timely marketing advice to help the Jays," said Williams. "[The team] is apparently, according to the headline, ‘striking out in bid for diverse crowd.'"

And here's how Jordan Furlong of Batter's Box defines the story -- by its placement and posturing: "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."

Both Griffin and Baker acknowledged the unfortunate contributions of the headline to fan and player reactions to the story, but both found other issues more troubling.

The heated reaction was no surprise to Griffin, "given the inflammatory nature of the front page headline and graphic," he says. "What surprised me was the reaction of Jays players who for some reason took the analysis of the changing face of the Jays as a personal attack."

As for Baker, he acknowledges that "the front page headline and presentation, which I was not involved in, threw many people off topic. That's unfortunate." But, he adds, "the way the basic facts of the story were shrugged off by some -- though not all -- media in Toronto is still something I find troubling."

Okay, so this isn't about the how many Latinos share Geoff Baker's cube space or Richard Griffin's @thestar.ca e-mail domain. And it's not about headlines or front page placement.

It's about diversity and it's about facts.

And both sides of the argument seem to want it that way, so let's move on.

Geoff, over to you.

The Baker's Tale
" I was very surprised [at the response to the story]," says Baker, "though I'd expected a lot of negative reaction heading in. That's just normal."

However, he says, "the level of knee-jerk non-acceptance stunned me and the multitude of senior editors who approved the story beforehand and applaud it even to this day."

But what editors appreciate may not necessarily reflect what readers appreciate, right? Take Tom Fuke, writing for Blue Jay Way, who admits, "Racism is a sensitive topic ... right off the bat, the Toronto Star deserves credit, not criticism, for being willing to address such a topic."

However, says Fuke, "I appreciate the desire to write about the Blue Jays' lack of diversity, and I applaud the Star for trying. But considering the explosion that resulted, they have to consider that they could have gone about the issue more constructively."

Baker agrees with Fuke's basic assertion about addressing racism, and says, "Toronto is a big enough city that questions of race can be raised without automatically linking it to racism." And, continues Baker, "I think it's good that many people here don't automatically notice things like skin colour, but that doesn't make the issue less relevant."

However, he adds, the "explosion" that resulted -- as perhaps might be expected -- was entirely localized. "The media reaction outside of Toronto, especially from broadcast outlets, was far less hysterical than it was here," says Baker. "I did a number of interviews in the U.S. and around Canada that asked tough questions, but got them answered and moved on."

Locally, then, the hysteria generally fit into two distinct categories: the lack of comparison of the Blue Jays to other major sports teams in the area and the progressive-yet-dismissive idea that "race doesn't matter."

The Only Colour Barrier Now is Green
Or Purple or Red or Whatever Colour Canadian Dollars are These Days
Starting with the latter criticisms, there may be cases where it's true that race doesn't matter. For instance, in discussing the Jays' occasional use of sabermetric analysis on players sight unseen, Griffin notes "one senior official claimed they didn't even know [Corey] Thurman was black." And truth be told, a 6.46 ERA and 1.96 WHIP are the same in any language or colour.

However, says Baker, to claim colour doesn't matter in sports is "just silly. There have been countless stories on race in sport since before I was born right up to the recent Sports Illustrated piece on the decline of blacks in baseball."

And the Jays were given every opportunity to address the racial makeup of their team in the article. For instance, Baker quotes CEO Paul Godfrey as saying, "I believe the vast majority of people will come to see a winning ball club, whether it has nine Dominicans, nine Americans or nine people from Japan on the field. I think the excitement generated by a winning team far outweighs any other consideration."

So, what players are on the team is strictly a matter of talent, then? Of course not -- it's also a matter of budget.

Mike Moffatt is a regular contributor to Batter's Box and About.com's Guide to Economics. He addressed the "White Jays" article from an economist's perspective, saying "The front office personnel of the Blue Jays, particularly J.P. Riccardi and Keith Law, have done an excellent job in putting a winning team on the field at a minimal cost."

In fact, says Moffatt, "Part of the reason why the Jays have had so much success is that they have a better understanding of financial and economic concepts such as opportunity cost," essentially the value of the next-best choice.

That "next-best choice," in sabermetric terms, is the Red Sox signing Bill Mueller, Jeremy Giambi and David Ortiz instead of spending all the money on, say, Hideki Matsui. That's two white guys and an African-American with a Latino surname for a total of $5.5 million or one Japanese "superstar" for $6 million. Opportunity cost, indeed.

Does Mark Hendrickson Count Twice?
However, says Baker, "The most common argument against the story has been that we didn't compare the Jays to the Raptors or Leafs."

Why not? "Well, that would have been junk science at its worst," he says, "a completely invalid comparison, with no statistical relevance whatsoever. As Baker explains, the NBA is more than 80 percent black while the NHL is almost entirely white. "Baseball is the only sport with a true racial mix that allows for enough minorities on each team that the addition or subtraction of one won't alter the ratios dramatically," he says.

"You won't find a statistician on the planet who would consider comparing the three Toronto teams this way to be a valid exercise," says Baker. "We did our homework on the topic. Yet Godfrey stated this as his main objection to the story and it went unchallenged by the Toronto media -- with some even parroting Godfrey's arguments for days afterwards."

Another national writer built a case about Latinos having a walk rate 14 per cent less than non-Latino players, recalls Baker. "That's statistically correct. But what do those stats actually translate to? He said the walk rates were 0.069 to 0.060 ... Compute those over a full season -- where average at-bats per player was 147 last season -- [and] non-Latinos are earning 1.35 more bases per season than non-Latinos."

By the time batting average differences between the two groups are factored in, says Baker, non-Latino players are accumulating only one more base per year than Latinos, which is, to put it kindly, statistically insignificant.

"So it's essentially identical to the on-base percentage differences between Latinos and the rest of baseball that we talked about in our White Jays sidebar," says Baker. "There is no tangible difference. Yet, some folks would rather invent arguments than simply do some legwork."

That same charge -- lack of legwork before reporting a story -- has been leveled at Baker and his Star colleages as well, right here on Batter's Box.

But They're Winning ... Isn't that All that Matters?
To that charge, "the numbers don't lie," says Baker. "They tell of a dramatic dropoff in visible minorities playing for Toronto and yet, two months after our story, there is no clear indication as to why. The percentage decline was unprecedented. As we wrote, it wasn't about to change any time soon. And it hasn't."

Listen to the arguments -- and the numbers -- again.

"The Jays will likely finish the season with five non-white players," says Baker, though even then he is venturing into dangerous waters as many Latinos consider themselves "Caucasian," a term normally used interchangeably with "white" as a racial descriptor.

"The number of man-games played by Jays minorities will have dropped to a projected 727 -- down from 1,074 last year -- and 1,412 in the final year of the Ash regime," says Baker. "The total non-white players used, eight, will also be a huge drop from last year's 16 and the 18 used in 2001."

He concludes, "Those are enormous dropoffs in a sport growing more diverse by the year and something is obviously causing them. We still don't know what, but the sample size now [has] nearly two seasons [worth of players]."

Why is all this important? After all, the "White Jays" are 74-72 while the Rangers, with a roster packed with Benoit, Cordero, Diaz, two Garcias, Ramirez, two Rodriguezes, Park and Valdes -- not to mention Thomson, Young, Perry, Jones and Spencer -- are 65-81.

"Well, aside from Toronto's long and glorious -- and much written-about -- 27-year history as a home to Latino and African American players," says Baker, "let's consider where the game of baseball is headed."

One reader dropped Baker a note soon after the All-Star Game, he recalls anecdotally, and said she saw the importance of the "White Jays" story "in the fact that there was only one white player, Troy Glaus, in the entire American League starting lineup," he says. "The Jays obviously, have a very different look to them than does a collection of the AL's finest. That alone, for me, is a reason for all Toronto fans to care," says Baker.

The Sabermetric Complaint: Jackie Was a SABR-Star
But perhaps the line of reasoning that has raised the most significant ire with readers of Batter's Box and other sabermetrically-minded folks is the Jackie Robinson argument.

Moffatt, for instance, presents a seemingly compelling case, saying "Robinson was a star college athlete ... he was 40th all-time in OBP, the only career stat he's in the top 80 in. He does not [even] rank in the top 100 all time in stolen bases."

More to the point, says Moffatt, Robinson didn't take chances on the bases, as shown by his 197 steals but just 30 times caught stealing, an 87 percent success rate. By comparison, all-time steals leader Rickey Henderson and "Old School" icon Joe Morgan swiped bags at a rate of just less than 81 percent apiece. "If anything," says Moffatt, "Jackie Robinson is a JP/Beane/SABR style superstar."

But that's all in retrospect, retorts Baker. "When [Griffin] wrote about Robinson in his column defending my [White Jays] piece, his argument about the Jays not going after a player like Robinson today was 100 per cent factual," says Baker. "What readers fail to realize is that Robinson had an .097 batting average in college."

The only reason he was kept in the daily lineup, explains Baker, was for his base-stealing ability -- see percentages above -- and his breakneck style of play. "Baseball was arguably Robinson's worst college sport," he says, "but he was promoted to the pro ranks largely because others saw his 'tools' and projected him as the future star he later became."

And that, says Baker, is the exact opposite of the Moneyball formula. "Yes, Robinson became the prototypical sabermetric player," he says. "But that's all hindsight. At UCLA, he was raw, unpolished and obviously lacked the OBP that Ricciardi's Jays so covet from the college players they recruit. Stealing bases was his biggest asset at the time, something the Jays now consider to be overrated."

"It Was Valid"
Though the "White Jays" story has been -- to put it mildly -- controversial, Baker has no regrets.

"I would write this story again in a heartbeat because it was valid," he says. "We ran follow-up columns to it, including a piece by sports editor Graham Parley eight days later. Publisher John Honderich has since complimented me on the story and stands behind it 100 per cent. Our legal team had no problems with it and I have also been allowed to keep giving interviews about it, so obviously our paper is not embarrassed by the content of what was written."

Nor, it seems to Baker, should they have been. "The premise of the story -- whether we should have ever written it -- was never questioned by those who read our entire package," he says. And, he adds, "some readers have written in to commend us for our ‘watchdog' approach and their words are appreciated."

But has the story had the desired impact? At one level, if the impact desired was to draw attention to the Star and engender further discussion, then of course it has. However, says Baker. "We still don't know why nine out of every 10 new players coming into Toronto are white, though we have at least tried to find out."

Finally, Baker concludes, "My hope is that the Jays will one day look into the matter themselves and maybe help us shed some light on why this is happening here.

"Until then, we'll keep tabs on the numbers."