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Shirts & Skins: How Racism Landed Santana

Posted Feb 06, 2008 11:00AM By TAN (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Twins, Mets, The Word

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TAN (The Assimilated Negro) makes jokes and broad sweeping generalizations in Shirts & Skins, his weekly exploration of race and sports. His opinions, like this tagline, may change at any moment.

How fitting that on the day after Super Tuesday Mets fans will finally get to meet the man who will likely be their president for the next seven years, Johan Santana. Finally Mets fans get to see their new star in the flesh. They get to hear the new voice in the clubhouse. And they get to taste the dulce de leche icing on the latin cake GM Omar Minaya has cooked up in Queens.

Of course if we had a crumb for every article explaining how this moment came to fruition we'd be able to cure famine across the universe. But really all you need to know is this: Johan Santana wanted to be a Met. After all, this was a man with a no trade clause to control his destiny. He didn't have to go anywhere he didn't want to go, and he could wait a year to sign wherever his heart desired.

But his heart desired to play in the Latin Disneyworld in Flushing. And why not? There's money, opportunity to win, and a lot more players speaking his language. On Minnesota last year there was one Spanish speaking regular, Luis Castillo (who incidentally was traded to the Mets, much to Santana's discontent), and a couple players total. On the Mets there are five regulars, including Luis Castillo, and more than half the roster can roll their "r's" with ease.

In March of '05 NY Magazine profiled Minaya's building of a "Latin Dream Team" and positioned him as a contrarian to the popular Moneyball, a book with the tagline: "The art of winning an unfair game." Three years later the Johan Santana signing may be the final crowning chapter for the would-be manual on Raceball: The art of using racism to create a winning culture.

The wiki on Moneyball says, "The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed." And if the game can be flawed with regards to scouting players, why can't there be flaws in how we approach team chemistry? Moneyball was a book about new ways of evaluating talent; but as the Super Bowl Champion NY Giants have shown, it takes more than talent to win a championship. It also takes chemistry. It's more art than science, but Minaya might be ushering in a new model for creating clubhouse alchemy: Raceball!

Conventional wisdom says we would never consider race/ethnicity when filling out our roster; to do so would make you RACIST and EVIL, and subject to incarceration by the PC Police. When confronted on the subject, even Omar himself denies giving a thought to race when acquiring players. But actions speak louder than words, and you don't go from five Latinos on the team to almost half your 40 man roster in a couple years without being conscious of race.

Yet while Señor Minaya clearly has a disposition towards Latino players, he has never sacrificed talent for the sake of ethnic synergy (though some might argue Julio Franco as a stretch). With this approach Omar incorporates race into the formula, but not to the point of discrimination. And the end result is a New York Metropolatinos team with a strong sense of family and camaraderie.

When we hear the cliché "change the culture" in sports it doesn't refer to racial demographics, it's usually about winning and losing. The Knicks, for example, will be helpless until they "change the culture." In baseball, however, that cliché rings hollow. Look no further than the Florida Marlins who have spit on the notion of winning/losing culture by winning two championships with absolutely no sense of continuity or "culture."

Baseball has the longest regular season. It is also the sport with the most sitting around and doing nothing but interacting with your teammates. This gives all the more opportunity for team spirit to fall through the cultural gaps. In baseball "culture" adheres to it's true definition and is a reflection of the melange of players and personalities in the clubhouse.

Consider this old ESPN article on notorious Mets flop Roberto Alomar: in it he mentions being unprepared for NYC, being disappointed with the loss of Edgardo Alfonso, and wanting the Mets to "hire a liaison to counsel their Latin players." Perhaps the reason for his colossal underachievement as a Met was not about the "losing" environment, but the "ethnic" environment, or lack thereof. Conversely, in the NY Mag piece Minaya talks about having staff who teach English to the Spanish-speaking players, and Spanish to the Anglo players. That is a total 180 degree turnaround in the kind of "culture" that matters.

Moneyball for all its ballyhoo has not netted the book's star Billy Beane and the Oakland A's a championship. Similarly the jury is still out for Omar. But Raceball isn't only about the players on the roster, it's about being attractive to free agents as well. Teams in the biggest markets with ample resources need more than dollars and competitive teams to get a player to commit. Johan Santana was going to get his dollars from anyone, but he wanted to come to Flushing because of the environment Minaya has created.

Now take a player like CC Sabathia, who will likely be the next big ticket free agent pitcher to hit the market. CC's on record as being down on the lack of black players in baseball, so if the money's relatively even, what large market team is he likely to sign with? Raceball tells you that both L.A. teams, who easily trump the rest of the league in terms of black player count, might just have an edge in a race for his services. With the big boys in MLB, that edge is what you need.

So as we embrace Obama and post-racial politics ... and as Mets fans salivate over their new 80% Latin rotation, destined to lead the league in ERA, WHIP, and FLAN ... open your hearts and minds to Minaya's progressive form of racism as a harbinger of things to come in baseball (even though he can't acknowledge it in the press). It's not to say you go all in with one group or another, but it's just saying our cultural roots make us who we are, and like sabermetrics and Moneyball, General Managers will be wise to integrate racemetrics into their decision making process.

Viva la Raceball!

This Week's Racial Scoreboard: 2/6/08


The Racial Scoreboard embraces racism-as-sport and awards (or takes away) "Culture Points" based on news that may or may not have anything to do with race. Afterwards we all shake hands and go out for drinks.

Super Bowl Interracial Love I: Can you imagine the tears Martin Luther King would have wept if he got to see Eli Manning's historic pass to David Tyree? Not just a dream for Giants fans, but also a dream for the sons of former slaves and former slave owners playing together on the field of brotherhood.

Team B, Team W: +5 Heidi Klum & Seal sex tapes
Super Bowl Interracial Love II: A roundabout score for real interracial love with Michael Strahan, divorced at high cost from his caucasian wife before the season, takes that pain and frustration and channels it into a Super Bowl run.

Team B: +1 Frederick Douglass autobiography
Jeremy's Token: Disposable Shockey. Team W forever cements the Manning legacy, but at cost of once promising Jeremy Shockey never being relevant as a star player again. Move over Shock, there's a new Boss in town.

Team W: -10 Eric Lindros concussions
End of the Knight Era: The man who brought you Isiah Thomas and a thousand Caucasian chokings has decided to fold his hands and hang up the sweater. Following Joe Gibbs retirement, this counts as another legendary loss for Team W. But Bobby was always a gift and a curse, so it doesn't sting as much. At least some kids will be able to live their life in peace.

 Team W: -3 Hoosiers screenings

... And that's all for today. Thanks for playing.

Tags: Johan+Santana, JohanSantana, ShirtsandSkins

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