Diversity important to ChiSox GM
CHICAGO -- Orlando Hudson has been on the Chicago White Sox for only two weeks, but he knows he holds a singular distinction.
"Now I'm the only one," the 34-year-old Hudson said. "I'm the long-lost brother of Chicago."
Hudson laughed, but he really didn't want to get into the issue, the dwindling percentage of African-Americans in his sport. Each of the past three times he had talked race and baseball, he said with a laugh, he got himself in trouble.
"I get too in-depth with it," he said. "It is a touchy subject for some people."
Hudson, just released by the Padres, was signed by the Sox exactly a month after Marlon Byrd was traded from the Cubs to the Red Sox, so for that month there were no African-American players on either Chicago team.
On Thursday, the visiting Blue Jays had two African-American players, 31-year-old Rajai Davis, who was scratched from the starting lineup with an injury, and reliever Darren Oliver, a veteran of 19 seasons.
According to a USA Today story from April, only 8.05 percent of players on major league rosters were African-American. By comparison, in 1995, the percentage was 19 percent. The reasons for the decrease are manifold, but the decline is obvious. Baseball hasn't become homogenous, as the number of Latin players has skyrocketed.
But this season's glaring lack of African-American players in Chicago baseball is empirical evidence of an issue in the sport. Race is a hot-button topic, and with baseball, the one team sport historically connected to race, it's an important one to follow.
"That's why sports is under the microscope with regard to diversity," White Sox general manager Kenny Williams said. "There is a greater need for [diversity] in society as a whole. We can all learn something from one another."
http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/8024001/the-chicago-white-sox-looking-grow-baseball-black-communities
