Since it’s getting increasingly more difficult to tell the difference between news in the New York Times and parodies in The Onion, I thought I would perform a public service by giving you the opportunity to hone your source-spotting skills.
Here’s how a recent article begins about a “curious disparity” that, until now, you probably haven’t worried about very much. Is this an example of what the Times regards as news that’s fit to print, or is it an Onion parody?
Baseball’s Praised Diversity Is Stranded at First Base
About 40 percent of the players in Major League Baseball are black, Hispanic or Asian, and the sport is seen as a leading example of diversity, yet a curious disparity has emerged in a corner of the game.
Among baseball’s 30 teams, only 23 percent of the third-base coaches are members of minorities, compared with 67 percent of its first-base coaches. The disparity has existed for decades but it is now about twice as large as it was in 1990, based on an analysis by….
You guessed The Onion, right? I mean, who else would write in apparent seriousness (as the article in question does a few paragraphs later) that “diversity among the third-base coaching ranks has been in decline for the past five years, from a peak of 12 in 2005 to 7 this season, and the racial disparity between first- and third-base coaches has increased,” an underrepresentation deemed so dire that it was accompanied by a sidebar with a graph showing “A Gap in the Coaching Boxes” of 43 percentage points and noting that “[t]he disparity between the percentage of minority first-base coaches and minority third-base coaches in Major League Baseball is greater than ever.”
Who else would write that “the bench coach position… is fairly diverse”? Since a position can’t be diverse, this must be parody. In fact, who but The Onion could publish a long article about the lack of diversity among third base coaches without once giving any reason why diversity among third base coaches is important. Are their distinctive black and Hispanic ways of giving, say, run or hold signs?
Well, if you guessed The Onion, you’re wrong. This lamentation of the large and growing third base coaching gap is from the New York Times.
Now you can rightly complain that I cheated a little. If I’d quote a bit more of this long article it would have been easier for you to spot the distinctive Times faux-reasonable, unnamed source, unnamed expert-quoting style.
Current and former minority coaches and managers said they had noticed the disparity for years, but none attributed it to racism. Instead, some of the former coaches, along with diversity experts, questioned whether race may be playing a more subtle role, with minorities routinely funneled into a job at first base that is less demanding than the one at third.
“It’s very easy for them to put the minority at first base, to say we have a minority and we hire minorities,” said Al Bumbry, a black former player who was a first-base coach for the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians.
The Times, of course, would never slant an article to argue or imply that owners or managers of anything are racist. No, the Times is much more restrained and reasonable, pointing out that none of its sources attributed this large and growing “disparity” to racism while favorably quoting a named source who blamed “them” for routinely funneling minorities into a less demanding position that “gets less respect” and then patting themselves on the back for hiring minorities.
And then there’s the always reliable “some,” as in:
Some in baseball said managers, consciously or not, often select third-base coaches with whom they have a similar background because they believe they can work effectively with them, particularly at crucial moments.
The Times would never accuse any organization of racism, but “some” do.
The Times also famously likes academic experts, quoting one of them,“Roberto González Echevarría, a professor at Yale who has written about baseball,” who claims:
When minorities were first given coaching jobs in the 1960s, they often ended up as first-base coaches. They didn’t want to put them at third base to give the signs…
Diversity experts said although 42 percent of base coaches were minorities, the proportion of minorities to whites should be constant at each level of an organization and reflect the overall makeup of its workforce.…
This must be The Onion after all, since the Times, of course, doesn’t believe in quotas, and its editors would never allow its reporters to endorse the opinions of unnamed “diversity experts” who demand proportional representation, even in baseball.
You can’t make this stuff up. But the New York Times certainly can.
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14 Comments
I give up. This is, hands down, the STUPIDEST piece of shite I have ever read in my life. Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, hand over your crowns. We have a new winner.
I'm surprised they aren't complaining that MLB isn't playing the islamofacist/Liberal/progressive call to prayer during games.
They want the destriction of anything uniquely American anyway.
The only thing that's missing is Lou Costello yelling, "Third Base!"
What they never want to say is, the only way to make this "right" is to micromanage individual hiring decisions and effectively tell teams what race their managers and coaches need to be. Because left to their own devices, teams are going to keep on hiring whoever they judge to be the best person for the position regardless of race and that will never get us where the race hustlers want us to go.
Sports writers are just as hyper-Liberal as the rest of the MSM. Liberals are fascinated with sport — not with PLAYING, mind you, but with CONTROLLING sports at every level.
Those who can, do. Those who can't end up writing about it, taking their frustrations out on those who can and do.
Yes, they are. It's one of the few remaining areas of life that has resisted fitting their narrative, because it depends on the skillsof individuals and thus its outcome cannot be known in advance.
While this is a ridiculous article, the author does try to provide a "why" to asking the question: the increased stature, pay, and responsibility of the 3rd base coach. The graphic also provides a bit of connection to the overall concern by showing that most MLB managers were a 3rd base coach before taking their current role as manager. So, the logic goes, less minority 3rd base coaches, potentially less minority managers.
But, as with the other comments, the next question is then, "Do the 3rd base coach or manager roles have any responsibility in them that is affected by race or ethnicity?" No, but that calls into question the whole foundation of affirmative action.
Too bad The Onion can't sue the NYT for stealing their style.
When all else fails…………………re-arrange the deck chairs. The Titanic is sinking. or in this case the old gray lady.
We need to get on the NBA! Asians and Pacific Islanders are grossly absent from playing and coaching positions. I smell a class action suit!
There's 5 minutes of my life I will never get back. Senseless drivel.
I wonder what would happen if you applied to the NAACP as a programmer or editor and were denied based on your race?
Does that count as racism? Is there a reason we cannot sue racists for being racists when they harass us for nothing?
How many editors at the New York Times are minorities?
The NYT is Karl Marx in drag.
All I can do is laugh.
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