NY Times sportswriters have too much time on their hands

Racial bias down the baselines.

The bean-counters have struck again-- this time in the sports pages. Two New York Times sport writers have discovered that baseball coaches from minority groups are found more often coaching at first base than at third base. Moreover, third-base coaches become managers more often than first-base coaches.

Thank God for the NY Times! I have been watching baseball for over 40 years and I never noticed this. One would assume since I am a tea-bagging racist bent out of shape because the president's black I would be aware that whitey rules the third base coaches box.

Then again MLB's bean counters are just as bad. Carl Crawford of the Rays (and the left fielder for the 2011 Yankees) is considered black. David Ortiz of the Bosox isn't. I know kids, he looks black, but in racial accounting his name goes into the Hispanic column.

Which brings us to an amusing story from Eric Gregg's autobiography Working the Plate about his days working winter ball in the Dominican back in the early 1970's. Rico Carty comes out to argue a call and calls Gregg the N-word. Gregg laughs and says, "You're blacker than I am!" Carty replies, "Yeah, but I'm Spanish".

Back to these NY Times sportswriters. If you are watching baseball and you notice the skin color of the base coaches, you don't live on the same planet with the rest of us. And you wonder why your industry is dying.