DOES BASEBALL SHORTCHANGE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY WITH FOREIGN PLAYERS?

Sports columnist Diane Grassi raises a theme heard in many other contexts – immigrants take jobs from African-Americans. I’ve never seen this argument raised in the context of sports, but I suppose it was a matter of time. While the voices most often heard from the African-American community are pro-immigrant, there is a small segment that has focused on immigration as a problem (even though a lot of immigrants themselves are black). I don’t claim to be an expert on MLB’s efforts to develop African-American talent, but it has always been true that the US is the premiere destination for the world’s top athletes in a variety of sports and if America wants to retain its status as the top athletic nation in the world, we need to forget about quotas and other measures that serve as barriers.