Thinking Outside a Black/White Binary In Sports

American racial concretizations have constructed a racially polarized society, where self-identification has become classified based upon individual categorization into a black or white constitutive group. Sports act as a reflection of society, and the narrative surrounding athletes and sporting institutions has similarly been focused on conceptions of identity along a black-white paradigm to avoid pluralistic understandings of race. 

However, the sporting experiences of Latino athletes, a racially ambiguous ethnic group through the lens of the black-white identity binary, have shown the arbitrary nature of that very racial binary, and the fragility of racial boundaries. During the age of US Empire, non-white others delicately manipulated racial perceptions to move beyond black exclusionary sporting practices.

However, Latinos were never accepted as occupying the same sphere as white athletes, and racial standards forced the players to dissociate themselves from their ethnic backgrounds. The continued recognition of Latino “otherness” has proliferated throughout the sporting world today, and the sporting community has marginalized their self-identity and ethnic orientation. While sporting figures existing outside of the black-white paradigm have been able to transverse racial boundaries and slip into sporting leagues, their racial ambiguity has forced them to be identified as outsiders to the game, lacking any real agency beyond the playing field.

In the early 20^th century, Latino baseball players could negotiate the fluid understanding of race in America by defying the racial binary. Latino ballplayers transcended the black-white paradigm because American racial standards were based upon individualized racial consciousness. The very first Latino players in the major league, like Louis Castro and Frank Arellanes, began to blur the color line. Teams allowed for the presence of non-white others in the sport by implying that they did not directly challenge black exclusionary practices to take advantage of cheap Latino labor. Through the racialization of the Latin athlete, Latinos were prescribed a racial identity not based upon their ethnic background, but in comparison to American racial standards.

In his fantastic book Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line, Adrian Burgos said, “Latinos like Castro secured admittance in organized baseball, but this passage to acceptance did not necessarily translate into being accepted as a fellow white.” Latinos were only able to play in the big leagues because of their non-black status, but their foreignness was still pronounced because their identity was conceptualized merely as a differentiation from blackness. Burgos said Latinos “did not wholly reside in the same racial camp as fellow major leaguers,” and Latinos lack of holistic acceptance in baseball implied their lack of accepted whiteness. 

Thus, Latinos had to distance themselves from their ethnic backgrounds, and as Marcos Breton said in his article "Fields of Broken Dreams: Latinos and Baseball", lie about their African ancestry" to associate their racial identification separate from blacks. The only way Latinos could remove their inherent differentiation was through an Americanized process of racialization by distancing themselves from anything that would cause suspicion to the public’s racial perceptions. Latinos could play in the majors based upon their orientation along “Americanized” ethnic standards, but they were never truly accepted, and as Breton said, “they were treated like novelties.” 

While the slew of current Latino baseball players (Yasiel Puig, Jose Fernandez, Yoenis Cespedes, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Felix Hernandez, Adrian Beltre, Jose Bautista, Yadier Molina, Carlos Gonzalez to name just a few) have been able to paradoxically transfix racial boundaries by starring in the major leagues, sporting discourse has constantly alienated their identity. Whereas Latinos in the past quietly slipped into the big leagues and failed to alter public sensibilities, Latino ballplayers today often play with a cultural flare while actively displaying their ethnic pride. Although so called "baseball traditionalists" like Goose Gossage ostensibly criticize foreign players for disregarding baseball’s unwritten rules, their underlying antagonism has been rooted in their lack of acceptance of Latinos, and their fear of foreigners taking over the American game. 

Since Dominican outfielder Jose Bautista’s now famous bat flip in game 5 of last year’s ALDS against the Texas Rangers in one of the craziest innings of baseball I have ever seen, Bautista has been defending himself against claims that he was showboating or disrespecting the game. (Russell Martin hitting Shin-Soo Choo's bat throwing the ball back to Aaron Sanchez in the top of the 7th, the game being played under protest, fans in Toronto throwing stuff onto the field, the Rangers making errors left and right in the bottom of the 7th, an interference review, and Bautista's home run all happened in one inning).

Jose Bautista's massive home run and bat-flip

Breton notes that back in the mid-20th century, Latinos faced the same stereotypical criticism because “labels were rooted in negative white perceptions of Latinos, labels that took hold and became a burden even the great players had to carry.” The expressionism of Latino baseball players, like Bautista throwing his bat (that was not just a normal Big Papi bat flip), symbolically threatens American racial and cultural control over foreign players, which has changed from the early 20^th century when Latinos were forced to adhere to the dominant white culture to stay in the league.

There have been many attempts within baseball to suppress Latinos, as evidenced by the fact that after studying "67 bench-clearing incidents in Major League Baseball over the past five seasons [it was] found that the main antagonists hailed from different ethnic backgrounds in 87% of the cases." The “playing the game the right way” argument implies that the correct way to play the game is based upon a white dictation of the sport in reaction to perceived Latino empowerment. Current Braves pitcher Bud Norris said, “If you’re going to come into our country and make our American dollars, you need to respect the game.” Norris's comment showed how the attempts of the baseball community to “normalize” the on-field actions of Latinos have marginalized their freedom.

Off the field, teams exploit players, and Latinos continue to be classified as outsiders. The institutional signing rules of baseball can be aligned with the long American history of imperialism, and reinforces the cultural inequality that baseball players are often trying to maintain on the field. Latin players have particularly been exploited by clubs as a source of cheap labor. 

Every MLB team today, including the San Diego Padres, have a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. 

In an except from his book Raceball: How The Major Leagues Colonized The Black and Latino Game, Rob Ruck reflected,“Ballplayers today rarely take stands that resonate beyond the ballpark” since Latinos specifically fear any action that could subvert their chance at baseball survival. When Colin Cowherd said on ESPN Radio, “I’ve never bought into that baseball is too complex, a third of the sport is from the Dominican Republican,” he reflected a misunderstanding of the educational opportunities embedded in a racialized society for the non-white community, or the education present in foreign communities.

Furthermore, the presence of Latino players in Major League Soccer has similarly shown attempts to separate white and Latino athletic spheres, and efforts to systemically regulate the behavior of the racially non-white other. Chivas USA, which ceased operations in the league in 2014, was designed as an MLS team to attract Hispanic fans in Southern California, who comprise the largest single ethic group in Los Angeles County.

However, since the MLS consciously segregated its own league by having one team made up of Latino coaches and players, they alienated the Latinos from the rest of the league and symbolized that their presence could only arise in a specific sphere. Moreover, by constructing the team as the US version of a Mexican club team, the MLS did not allow the Latino players on the squad to define their own identity. Brandon Valeriano said on a broader scale in his article from The Washington Post, “We need to understand that the national sport should be a reflection of our views and values,” and the MLS underestimated Latinos wanting to value their American identification and not wanting their identity to be defined as “Mexican,” or as league outsiders.