Latinos Changing America’s Pastime

Nelson Cruz at the plate for the Texas Rangers in 2012.

Major League Baseball is America’s pastime, powered by many American’s signing contracts each year in the hopes of working their way up to the big stage. But let’s take a step back to before someone plays professionally; college baseball. In the NCAA, there is very little socio-economic diversity. This being because the sport of baseball is usually fueled by parents spending a ton of money on private coaches, lessons, and paying for very expensive travel teams. Many sign contracts after college baseball or even sometimes out of high school, however, in today’s generation the face of the MLB has changed. Now, we watch baseball and see something different; Latino’s making up huge majority in professional sports in America. Although there are many sports that Latino’s play professionally, they make up the most percentage in none other than Major League baseball. In the 2011 season, Hispanics made up 27% in the Major Leagues and 42% in the minor leagues. Through this, household names in the MLB have evolved from Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle,and Jackie Robinson to names like David Ortiz, Nelson Cruz, and Alex Rodriguez. In college baseball, there are a small percentage of minorities, yet in the big leagues this percentage comes out of no where! How is this happening? The answer to this is latin scouting and development systems within a baseball organization. This is now what teams pride themselves on and organizations such as the Texas Rangers , New York Yankees, and Arizona Diamondbacks are really big on this. Kids from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela leave their home country in the hopes of being successful in American sports with a ton of baseball knowledge and skill. Baseball might be America’s pastime, but the sport is becoming increasingly Latino. In the 2011 season, 28% of athletes came from another nation, and this is how it was broken down:Making up 19.8%, the countries of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico made up the top 3. This is not very surprising however, since baseball is a Latin countries #1 sport. For many players, playing professionally is a way to escape political problems or poverty within their country and baseball could be their potential success. Major league teams have invested heavily in player development in Latin countries, and that investment definitely pays off when teams are playing in October with rosters consisted of hispanic names.
Last year’s World Series for example, between the San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers. A total of 22 players from both teams combined (Nearly half of all players in the World Series) were of latino descent, making it the most ever in a World Series. What’s even more amazing is the importance that every Latino on the roster carried. Latino’s were deciding factors in who would win the ball game. The Tigers had Triple Crown winning, Miggy Cabrera, while the Giants had huge factors such as Sergio Romo, Marco Scutaro, and Pablo Sandoval to name a few. This shows that Latino’s are just playing professionally just to fill the roster, but here making changes to their lineups and changing the face of Major League Baseball as it is now, more than ever, becoming an international sport. http://espndeportes.espn.go.com/videohub/video/clipDeportes?id=1624982&cc=3888