Black Movie Director Spike Lee stated many times “DO THE RIGHT THING”, which is what baseball should do.

Anyone else a fan of Black Movie Star John Witherspoon?

Former baseball players Frank Robinson, Bill White, and Don Baylor, along with sport announcers/writers, Bob Costas, Peter Gammons, and George Will are fine candidates for this job.

This is an eclectic list.

I'll take Richard Roundtree in Shaft.

This article is so bad that it's good and I recommend reading it for the unintentional comedy. I loved when he complained about baseball needing a salary cap because the same 6 teams keep making the playoffs - and of the 6 he listed only 1 made the playoffs this year, and only 2 last year (and none in the world series either year).

Shouldn't that be former Black baseball players?

His daughter owned or now owns the Milwaukee Brewers and he was the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, so in reality Selig is a defacto owner.

Wendy Selig hasn't owned the Brewers in at least 5 or 100 years.

I cpuld do better then this clown, and he is getting paid for it

I cpuld do better then this clown, and he is getting paid for it

Is he?

We need Jack Keefe to start writing some op-eds for BASN.

I love how the Braves are a big market team to this guy but the Cubs aren't.

I cpuld do better then this clown, and he is getting paid for it

cpuld you?

He lists A-Rod as having 554 career home runs, which is one fewer than he had at the end of the 2009 season.

Some bad writing, some bad ideas, some baffling combinations. All awesome.

Let’s make it clear Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame for his fetes on the field.

Great appetizers.

Should Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro belong in the Hall of Fame because steroids or no steroids the numbers would not be different.

Um, yes? Or no? Or is that a question?

Included in this list should be the intelligent and sports fan Condoleezza Rice she would become the first Black Commissioner and the first female. A baseball historical moment, but with "baseball being baseball", this will not happen.

The three strike rule should apply to cities that cannot support their major league team. Washington D.C. is a prime example of this. This year’s attendance at National games continues to be poor. The original Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1960 to become the Twins who have won the World Series multiple times. The expansion 1961 Washington Senators moved to Arlington in 1971 to become the Texas Rangers and they have won the American League Championship two times. The three strike law would apply to the city of Washington if and or when they lose this current team.

Yeah, baseball's fourth most urgent problem is that the Nationals will eventually fold, then when another team moves, DC will be a possibility, and if they end up there, the fans might turn on the team somewhere down the line.

MLB should have an outside accountant agency to take a yearly innovatory of the teams that are allegedly having trouble honoring existing payrolls.

Removal of baseball’s anti-trust clause. When this is accomplished we will then have true and honest trading between clubs. The Yankees, Mets, Braves, Red Sox, Angels, and Dodgers would be prevented from purchasing great players by solvent teams leaving poor teams to fend for themselves.

Huh?

Around the middle of August or the beginning of September teams in contention begin to manipulate games to position themselves for the wild card instead of winning their respective divisions

Teams throwing games in August because the prefer the wild card? This has literally never happened.

[quoteCreate a four team, four-division race in each league. Win your division or go home. Baseball has taken a half step by moving the Astros into the American League creating two 15 team leagues. ]

Might want to check your math there.

End the Wild Card playoffs... The truth of the matter is the wild card increases playoff revenue for the owners, MLB, and the cities.

They combined a set of rules from both the AFL and NFL into one. Baseball being baseball has not shown an interest.

Yeah, the DH made so much more sense before the merger.

Reduce intra-league play to a 14 game two-week format

I guess that's consistent with the plan to reduce revenue.

Other examples are the intra state rivalries like the Cardinals-Royals

So you DO know what intra means?

Owners of new stadiums should resist the installation of Astro- turf or indoor-domed ball parks. The game of baseball was design to be played outside on natural grass.

We'll get on that right away.

Also there is a lack of female participation in MLB offices with two female general managers

Who you calling a girl?

Home teams should not wear dark or black uniforms at home. The home team are the good guys

A whole article about how MLB is racist, then he says the white team is the good guys!

Let us all remember that we were once the younger fans.

Ok, I was worried I was making fun of a kid for a while. That's reassuring.

©Copyrighted Gary Norris Gray

I doubt it.

Part of me worried that it would be racist to make fun of the black athlete sports network, but it would be more racist to hold it to such a low standard that I'm not willing to make fun of it.

In Soviet Russia, right thing does YOU!

Baseball has taken a half step by moving the Astros into the American League

I thought maybe this article was old, but that's not the case.

I thought we had reached an agreement not to link to BASN. Who's even reading that site to come up with links to submit?

I'd love to see Don Baylor as commissioner. He could bring the same kind of uselessness to the job that he brought to being the Cubs manager. I think an empty Don Baylor jersey, propped up at the end of the bench, would have outmanaged the real Baylor by 5-10 wins a year.

Sorry - I mean Black Manager Don Baylor.

Baseball wants business as usual. They only want the Yankees, Red Sox’s, Mets, Dodgers, Angels, and Braves playing in the playoffs at the end of the each season.

The 3 NL teams are 13 for 48 at making the post-season since 2000, and only 3 times in those 12 seasons did 2 of them make it, and never all 3.

The 3 AL teams have made it 23 of 48 times, 3 times 2 of them making it and 4 times all 3.

If he really wanted to make a point about big markets, he could have included the Phillies in the NL at 5 times in that span, but that won't help with the fact that the Mets have only made it 2 times, that the Giants and Diamondbacks have each gotten there as often as the Dodgers, or that the Twins have been in the post-season 6 times in the same span in the AL.

*golf clap* for #12

Damn I miss FJM...

Aw come on. Really? Can't we talk about something else? Maybe it's because I'm getting older and I no longer live in Hipsterville, Brooklyn but I am just so over snarking on fishes in barrels.

I thought maybe this article was old, but that's not the case.

that's what I was thinking...

Some of this stuff is just dumb, and some is just baffling

the enrollment of Black Players in the Major Leagues continues to drop to all time low of 8%

When my high school's enrollment dropped, they leased part of the building to a day care center to make more money. Maybe MLB can do something like that.

Gary Norris Gray - Writer, Author, Historian.

1 - the writer is NOT me

2 - he is exactly correct about the RBI program, which is something that nobody wants to talk about, and is dismissed with - well, Those Peeple just prefer football and basketball

3 - female general managers? uh, um, er, no. wimmen don't know nothin bout no baseball. especially the stats and scouting parts. or the intangibles parts, as explained so well by Al Campanis

4 - agree about balanced schedule and making owners HAVE to financially invest in stadiums - if possible.

5 - the writer needs to get an editor because he has some good things to say and it is too full of stuff that needs editing. of course, there are a whole lot of people around here who dismiss anything that doesn't appear to have been written by a professor of english literature.

I've gotta hand it to Repoz, he's topped himself with this one. But at least it's nice to know that Sarah Palin's found herself a nice ghostwriting job.

5 - the writer needs to get an editor because he has some good things to say and it is too full of stuff that needs editing. of course, there are a whole lot of people around here who dismiss anything that doesn't appear to have been written by a professor of english literature.

Even if his points were all expressed lucidly, would there be anything creative or original in there? The ideas you point to as good ideas (private stadium financing, more gender diversity) are good ideas, but we're not breaking new ground.

2 - he is exactly correct about the RBI program, which is something that nobody wants to talk about, and is dismissed with - well, Those Peeple just prefer football and basketball

I think you're right, but I would like to hear what you think some good steps would be. When I taught in SW Philadelphia, I started a baseball team of 7th and 8th graders. I got some pretty good athletes to come out and try baseball for the first time, and at least when we were practicing, we had a pretty good time. Then the games started, and the only other middle school teams in the city were from Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods, and we usually couldn't even get out of the first inning before the game was called for darkness. We had bad equipment, but not much worse than what they had. Same for facilities.

Obviously, the disadvantages are smaller if you start earlier, but the structure isn't there to get the kids playing (there is no elementary school sports league there, and I haven't heard of that elsewhere either). Anyway, what do you think?

In a tangentially related story, Torii Hunter's kid is getting ready to commit to play at Stanford. In football.

the enrollment of Black Players in the Major Leagues continues to drop to all time low of 8%

haha I hadn't even noticed this one - "all time" just doesn't mean what it used to I guess.

5 - the writer needs to get an editor because he has some good things to say and it is too full of stuff that needs editing. of course, there are a whole lot of people around here who dismiss anything that doesn't appear to have been written by a professor of english literature.

I will continue to dismiss anything that was written by someone who doesn't appear to know jackshit about baseball. This guy is an absolute clown. That he has a couple of good points is proof of the blind squirrel/acorn rule and nothing else.

MLB should have an outside accountant agency to take a yearly innovatory of the teams that are allegedly having trouble honoring existing payrolls.

As an accountant, I would like to apply for this position.
Wait, what's an innovatory?

The three strike rule should apply to cities that cannot support their major league team. Washington D.C. is a prime example of this. This year’s attendance at National games continues to be poor. The original Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1960 to become the Twins who have won the World Series multiple times. The expansion 1961 Washington Senators moved to Arlington in 1971 to become the Texas Rangers and they have won the American League Championship two times. The three strike law would apply to the city of Washington if and or when they lose this current team.

1. Washington is among the MLB markets with the largest black population; removing a team from that area would be counter-productive to building black interest in baseball.
2. Washington hasn't had a contending MLB team since 1945, no pennant winner since '33 and no World Series winner since '24. (And for 33 summers, there was no baseball.) Kinda hard to build fan support with that kind of track record.
3. I would suggest this guy read "Beyond The Shadow Of The Senators," the story of the Homestead Grays in Washington and baseball in the District's black community. It might surprise him.
4. In the next few years, I fully expect Nationals attendance to be solid, once the team finally contends.

Last paragraph of the article:

NOTE: I would like to thank my fellow Popsicle Brother Michael Louis-Ingram, former BASN Editor and Chief, Tony McClean, my Mother, Joan H. Gray, BASN-CEO Roland Rogers, and fellow writers of BASN for their contribution in achieving the milestone of 250 articles on this network.

Apparently when Mr. McClean left his position as Editor and Chief (Editor-in-Chief?), they did not hire another one.

Apparently when Mr. McClean left his position as Editor and Chief (Editor-in-Chief?), they did not hire another one.

Was replaced by an editor-in-jest or editor-in-name-only.

Part of me wants to shoot them an email saying I'll write for them because I feel bad for them. That site really has nothing going for it.

Seriously guys? Is Dudewritessomethingstupidaboutbaseballletslinkit.com already taken? Cause I can say stupid #### too. Ask anyone.

we usually couldn't even get out of the first inning before the game was called for darkness

Racist

Rugby Is On The Rise Out West!
Black Athletes Tackling New Frontiers
by Loren Broussard -- Mar 11, 2006 - 9:46:00 PM

American Rugby League Struggles to Attract Black Players
by Loren Broussard -- Apr 16, 2006 - 9:57:00 PM

Punctuation errors? Check.
Grammatical errors? Check.
Spelling errors? Check.
Font problems? Check.
Historical errors? Check.
Statistical errors? Check.

A blank page would have been a better result.

My favourite is:

Included in this list should be the intelligent and sports fan Condoleezza Rice she would become the first Black Commissioner and the first female.

The three strike rule should apply to cities that cannot support their major league team. Washington D.C. is a prime example of this. This year’s attendance at National games continues to be poor. The original Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1960 to become the Twins who have won the World Series multiple times. The expansion 1961 Washington Senators moved to Arlington in 1971 to become the Texas Rangers and they have won the American League Championship two times. The three strike law would apply to the city of Washington if and or when they lose this current team.

Does this mean that the city of New York also has two strikes after losing the Dodgers and the Giants?

Also the cities of Baltimore, Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Seattle, and Kansas City should be on notice that they have one strike.

While we're at it, can we give the Cleveland Indians a retroactive strike for having comparable attendance to the expansion Washington Senators from 1961-1971? Sure they didn't end up leaving town, but if their fans were supporting at the same level it should be noted. Perhaps it will be recorded with a backwards K to indicate that it was a "looking strike" as opposed to a swinging strike.

My favourite is:

Included in this list should be the intelligent and sports fan Condoleezza Rice she would become the first Black Commissioner and the first female.

It's third grade writing,** to be sure, but for content it's no more ridiculous than proposals that've been floated around in the past to name either Richard Nixon or G.W. Bush Commissioners of Baseball. According to Baseball Almanac, Nixon actually was offered that job after he (ahem) "left office". Although in Rice's case, her real sports passion is the the Cleveland Browns and the NFL.

**EDIT: After careful consideration, I'll change "third grade writing" to "toddlers' writing". And a coke to Fancy Pants for the thought.

Does this mean that the city of New York also has two strikes after losing the Dodgers and the Giants?

And don't forget Milwaukee, another two time loser. In fact that poor city has the distinction of losing teams in two different leagues---where do you think the Baltimore Orioles franchise originated?

It's third grade writing

I find this insulting to third graders.

of course, there are a whole lot of people around here who dismiss anything that doesn't appear to have been written by a professor of english literature.

But seriously ... basic grammar and punctuation is not the same thing as "appear[ing] to have been written by a professor of English literature."

Editor and Chief (Editor-in-Chief?)

Maybe he owns a casino?

On his twitter bio Mr. Gray says he has cerebral palsy. Now, I'm not a doctor but according to Wiki cerebral palsy causes problems with "communication ability" and "impairments can also be found in cognition."

So yeah, maybe it'd be better just to not link to this stuff anymore.

It's third grade writing

I've spent the week marking a bunch of undergraduate essays that invalidate this point.

I've spent the week marking a bunch of undergraduate essays that invalidate this point.

No kidding. I think people here radically overestimate the writing abilities of the average student.

Some examples:
"To use it as a tool conflict must be control and without control of it that is when things can go bad because it cannot be affective as a tool."

"The influence that are made can make things bias because people start to side one direction when that is not really what believe."

Baldrick, are those students able to speak proper English well?

Removal of baseball’s anti-trust clause. When this is accomplished we will then have true and honest trading between clubs. The Yankees, Mets, Braves, Red Sox, Angels, and Dodgers would be prevented from purchasing great players by solvent teams leaving poor teams to fend for themselves.

Huh?

This is potentially lucid. I assume the author means that if the antitrust clause were revoked, large market teams would find themselves with more competition within their markets (as marginal teams would be able to move to those markets), and thus have less money available to them.

I have no opinion on whether or not it would work out that way (e.g. while the population and wealth of the greater NYC area could certainly support another team, it might not be willing to do so), but the idea is at the very least not absurd on its face, as far as I can see.

I took a freshman writing course once in which the professor made every student go through an essay before they handed it in and verify that each sentence had a verb. It was pretty embarrassing. (My essay, FWIW, was full of verbs.)

Let’s make it clear Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame for his fetes on the field.

That would be a fete worse than debt.

(Stolen from Flann O'Brien.)

Even if his points were all expressed lucidly, would there be anything creative or original in there?

I'd be interested in these topics from a black interest in baseball point of view. But this article is miles from that.