Whats odd is that there really isn't all that much African-American presence in baseball today. They've practically abandoned the sport.

4/19/2006 5:05:06 PM

i remember watching sports reporters or something similar recently and i thought i heard them say there were only four black starters in all of mlb - i called bs, and then i started thinking about it, and the only ones i could come up with off the top of my head were willis and sabathia

http://www.blackathlete.com/Blackbox/blackbox082305.html

^ just found that

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 5:13 PM. Reason : ]

4/19/2006 5:09:02 PM

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 8:39 PM. Reason : for real though.. free agency and night games..]

4/19/2006 8:38:10 PM

Quote :

" -Jackie Robinson -the emergence of Babe Ruth -tie between the Black Sox/Pete Rose/Free Agency (these three are all very important, just depends on which one you think had the bigger effect)"

When you say the emergence of Babe Ruth, I think it would be more correct to say the emergence of hitting for power. Babe Ruth was really the first player to make the Home Run a major part of the game. That burst of offense added an entirely new level of excitement to the game. (Although, I think it would be possible to argue against the home run as a positive thing because in some ways it really detracts from other areas. Homers are great for casual fans, purists would likely rather see a 1-0 battle.)

Personally I dont see the black sox scandal or the pete rose scandal as having had a significant impact on the game itself. It certainly affected the individual players involved, but the game as a whole didn't suffer much more than a PR blow. The rules against gambling were always there and the Rose/Black sox events were just those rules being enforced and players being penalized.

The Steroid issue is a MUCH MUCH bigger scandal as it is ushering in new rules/testing and is potentially putting a cloud around 10+ years of stats in a game that is very stat driven.

4/19/2006 9:41:36 PM

Ha, I actually forgot I posted this and wrote it without the help of you guys. Thanks for all the responses. I wrote on Jackie Robinson, the baseball strike and the 98 homerun chase. I think that was enought. It was 5 pages.

4/19/2006 10:59:59 PM

^^^ that was a classic baseball movement

4/19/2006 11:18:52 PM

another classic baseball moment:

4/20/2006 8:25:26 AM