{"id":45210,"date":"2017-08-29T09:44:47","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T13:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45210"},"modified":"2020-08-03T09:45:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T13:45:22","slug":"youre-better-than-this-adande","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45210","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019re better than this, Adande"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

I like J.A. Adande, as a sports journalist.\u00a0 I remember him best as the straight man on Around the Horn<\/em>, but in spite of his \u201crole,\u201d he was always a source of informative and insightful sports opinions, on the show and in the times that I\u2019ve come across his writing on the internet throughout the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I don\u2019t know it\u2019s because it was for The Undefeated, an online rag that doesn\u2019t hide its black bias, and he\u2019s just trying to appeal to its target audience, or he\u2019s deciding to waver from his modus operandi of logical and educated opinions; but his article<\/a> about how \u201cthis isn\u2019t the baseball he grew up watching because there aren\u2019t enough black guys in it and the ones that are aren\u2019t aren\u2019t playing \u2018black enough\u2019 baseball\u201d seems just so, so, so beneath a guy I\u2019ve always held in regard for integrity and not needing to ever play the race card in order to look intelligent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, Adande says the Cincinnati Reds\u2019 Billy Hamilton (a black player) runs down flyballs at the wall, is a fast runner and steals a lot of bases is playing \u201cblack baseball.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By this logic, Mike Trout, Trea Turner and Kevin Pillar, are playing, black baseball.\u00a0 These are also guys who are very good outfielders who are capable of making plays at the wall and occasionally robbing some home runs, and they are also very fast runners who steal lots of bases.\u00a0 However, all three of them are white guys, thus negating Adande\u2019s logic of what defines \u201cblack baseball,\u201d and how absurd it is to associate such styles of play solely with the color of a player\u2019s skin.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I understand Adande\u2019s observations about how the game is most certainly nothing like it may have been when he was growing up when Rickey Henderson was stealing practically 100 bags a year, but the change in the style of the game has less to do with the dwindling number of blacks in baseball, as much as it has to do with the fact that the things that Adande is basically labeling as solely \u201cblack skills\u201d are things that aren\u2019t as strategically favored in today\u2019s stat-driven, sabermetrically-friendly baseball.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, steals are now considered too risky and not worth the risk of giving up an out just for a single base.\u00a0 Unless a player has the raw foot speed of Billy Hamilton or Trea Turner, they do not have the perma-green light to steal at will, and even other good base thieves like Dee Gordon and Jose Altuve still have to be great at studying opposing pitchers in order to steal successfully.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crashing into outfield walls in order to make plays on flyballs are also frowned upon these days, because baseball players today are pussies and get hurt way more frequently than back in Adande\u2019s watching days.\u00a0 Players don\u2019t want to get hurt, and the fans and management of these players don\u2019t want getting hurt, so more often than naught, players are instructed to concede the double or homerun rather than end up on the disabled list for leg, hip or rib injuries from smashing into outfield walls just to make a highlight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adande isn\u2019t wrong about the numbers of black players continuing to dwindle, but his supposed black baseball is dwindling, because the things that he claims makes baseball black, are simply considered risks often not worth taking, either for strategic or health related reasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It has nothing to do with race, but everything to do with today\u2019s strategies.<\/span><\/p>\n

C\u2019mon, Adande, you\u2019re better than this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like J.A. Adande, as a sports journalist.\u00a0 I remember him best as the straight man on Around the Horn, but in spite of his \u201crole,\u201d he was always a source of informative and insightful sports opinions, on the show and in the times that I\u2019ve come across his writing on the internet throughout the … Continue reading You\u2019re better than this, Adande<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,45,89,69,49],"class_list":["post-45210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-fail","tag-racism","tag-television","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45212,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45210\/revisions\/45212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}