Noticed anything odd about the Astros?

Astros roster has no black players

Joe Morgan worries about the face of baseball. Watching the World Series, the Hall of Famer is troubled by what he sees.

His old team, the Houston Astros, is down 3-0 to the Chicago White Sox, but it's not their lineup that concerns Morgan. It's their makeup.

The Astros are the first World Series team in more than a half-century with a roster that doesn't include a single black player.

"Of course I noticed it. How could you not?" Morgan said while the Astros took batting practice before the opener in Chicago.
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Morgan said it's a predicament and a challenge for Major League Baseball. While more players from around the world are making it to the majors - Japan, Korea, for example - the number of blacks is declining.

"It's a daunting task to get African-American kids into baseball, and I don't see the trend changing," he said.
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Black players accounted for just about 9 percent of big league rosters this season.

"We know that we have to work to do," Commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday. "We'll continue to intensify our efforts. I'm very aware, I'm extremely sensitive about it, and I feel badly about it. But we need to get to work to change things."

Major League Baseball has work to do, eh?

What about the NBA?

Two years ago we blogged here about the diversity among opinions regarding diversity of skin color in sports. That post is here.

I recall posting that because i saw a feature on ESPN about the scarcity of white high school boys in basketball. The conclusion was clear -- that white kids were choosing to opt out of basketball because they felt they couldn't compete. They choose baseball and football instead. There was a complete absence in that ESPN piece about institutional racism in basketball at ALL levels - whereby a coach, faced choose between a white player or black player of equivalent skills, will keep the black player, because blacks become better basketball players.

It's all very strange how it works. "Underrepresentation" of blacks, in any arena of life, is bad, something to be sensitive to, something to work on, something to feel badly about.

Underrepresentation of whites? Well, who gives a shit?

Fifty bucks says we'll see no articles about the lack of whites on this year's NBA champion.