Quote:
Originally Posted by uruguru
But did it really? 1947 was a reflection societal changes that were far far greater than the sport of baseball. 1947 was an inevitability. Why not 1995 instead? After all, we are not far from a year where there are more Asian players in MLB than black players.
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There weren’t any Asian players in the league in 1946 either and without black integration we never would have had that, nor would we have had the vast majority of Latino players (where light-skinned players such as Dolph Luque could technically play but there were still a lot of folks who were banned and forced to play in the NeL).
If 1947 was an inevitability, why did it take until 1947? Why did it take the Red Sox and Cardinals until almost 1960? Why did a similarly segregated sport - golf - still play major tournaments at whites-only courses into the 1990s? I think it’s silly and reductive to just say “oh well you know the owners and fanbases were like essentially nice people, they totally would have just integrated on their own”. No, it had to actually start somewhere and some time and frankly that season is a great dividing line.