Hunter, Baseball Need History Lesson

Around the turn of the 16th century, the first ship loaded with enslaved Africans arrived at a large island in the Caribbean that its European "discoverer," Christopher Columbus, named Hispaniola in 1492. The ship was piloted by Spaniards.

A few years afterward, and more miles to the west, Cuba received its first cargo of humans from Africa as the Spanish continued to spread slavery through the seas. By 1526, bound and bloodied Africans who survived the holocaustic journey across the Atlantic were being deposited on the shores of what we now call South Carolina.

Hispaniola is no more. The western half of it is Haiti, where baseballs were once made. The eastern half is the Dominican Republic, where more foreign-born Major League Baseball players emanate from than any other country.

Maybe had Angels' All-Star outfielder Torii Hunter been aware of that history, he would not have dismissed Dominican ballplayers on Tuesday as mere "imposters" of African-American ballplayers like him by saying:

"People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African American. They're not us.

"Even people I know come up and say, 'Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?' I say, 'Come on, he's Dominican. He's not black.' "

And once an equally uneducated debate erupted over the apparent Mis-Education of Torii Hunter (with all due apologies to the late historian Carter G. Woodson), Hunter, had he been cognizant of our African diaspora, would not have tried to clean up the intent of his critique by saying on Wednesday:

"What I meant was they're [Dominicans] not black players; they're Latin American players. There is a difference culturally."

Wrong, again.

More Dominicans than not are of African descent just like their neighbors in Haiti, where slaves revolted successfully for their freedom under the brave leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Spanish, not English, however, is a Dominicans' first language.

Had someone with the Angels – owned by Arte Moreno, who is Hispanic – been more knowledgeable about the history of race and ethnicity in the world, maybe they would have recognized Hunter used a gaffe to cover a gaffe.

Instead, it all just went to show how much company Hunter has in his belief. He is not alone and I don't mean to excoriate him.

I like Hunter, as do most people who watch baseball often or even casually. He is one of the good guys in the game, winning the Branch Rickey Award, which goes to player who has selflessly served his community, and has been celebrated for his openness with the media.

He wasn't being flippant in making his remarks. He was simply trying to answer yet another media query of the tired story about what has become a dearth of black players in the league who are part of Jackie Robinson's continuum, or Fleetwood Walker's if you want to be precise.

Pardon the digression, but I have a hard time getting worked up over the fact that fewer black kids born in U.S. locales like Pine Bluff, Ark., where Hunter is from, want to be the next Torii Hunter. That is their choice.

I do think baseball, which does have its RBI (Returning Baseball to the Inner-City) program, should do more to make baseball a part of the athletic experience of black kids. But more than enough up-and-coming black athletes in U.S. locales like Pine Bluff are pursuing other professional playing careers, especially on the football field and basketball court.

I'm more concerned that those same kids are going to college at half the rate of the rest of the population. I'm more concerned that in this recession, or economic recovery, that newly minted black college graduates are twice as likely to be unsuccessful finding a job as the rest of their graduating classmates.

I'm less concerned that there are more baseball players of African descent in the game today who appear to be more of a direct link in Roberto Clemente's legacy than those who made up most of the Negro Leagues. People of African descent from South America, Central America and the Caribbean – like Robinson Cano (pictured right) or Juan Encarnacion – are African-Americans to me.

Some are African-Americans to themselves, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told Amy Goodman at Democracy Now five years ago: "When we were children, we were told that we have a motherland, and that motherland was Spain. However, we have discovered later in our lives, that as a matter of fact we have several motherlands. And one of the greatest motherlands of all is no doubt, Africa.

"And every day we are much more aware of the roots we have in Africa."

I understand Hunter's point that there is a cultural difference between African-American ballplayers like him and those like, for example, Adrian Beltre, who is from the Dominican. But it is language, how food is seasoned and, maybe, the choice in music. It is no different than those who are part of the Jewish Diaspora and live in Washington as opposed to Uruguay or Hungary. Same folks; different strokes. The latest pitching sensation from Cuba, Aroldis Chapman, is of African descent. He's black, an African from the Americas.

There was one comparison Hunter made that was spotlessly correct, if not crudely said. It was that baseball is more likely to recruit black players from Spanish-speaking countries like the Dominican rather than from his native Arkansas or anywhere else in the states. It is cheaper, as he said, to sign talent that isn't yet in Scott Boras's stable or some other big-name agent's. It's the difference between buying in bulk or individually. Baseball has, indeed, turned the Dominican, once home to plantations to produce sugar, into a plantation that produces baseball players.

That is not a racist statement, however. Hunter was asked about race and obliged to discuss it. That didn't make him, or anyone else who does so, racist. It is possible to discuss race without being racist no matter what the response to touching this subject suggests.

There is no comparison between what Hunter argued to what Jimmy the Greek, or Nolan Richardson, once said about athletes of African descent in this country. There is no parallel between what Hunter uttered and what Al Campanis infamously expressed once on national television.

The only thread between all these comments is that they were based on historical misinterpretations. They all are proof why Black History Month, which just ended, needs to be rolled into American history and world history rather than be relegated to second-class status.