Well, the 60 second news cycle quickly changed from layoffs at ESPN to how racist the city of Boston and their fans are.
While I obviously can't refute the peanut throwing incident since there are multiple witnesses, the yelling from the outfield does make me scratch my head. While I'm not saying it didn't happen, I will say that he must have some amazing hearing. I've sat out there many times and it typically takes about 20 fans yelling in unison to get a centerfielder to even flinch.
While everyone likes to point out Boston's history of having race issues in the past, nobody seems to want to look at the facts. The facts I'm referring to are some simple census data showing the percentage of black people living in major cities.
Here is the percentage of people who identified as black living in MLB cities from the 2010 census.
- Atlanta- 54%
- Baltimore- 63.7%
- Boston- 24.4%
- Chicago- 32.9%
- Cleveland- 53.3%
- Detroit- 82.7%
- Kansas City- 29.9%
- New York (Bronx)- 36.5%
- St. Louis- 49.2%
- Tampa Bay- 26.2%
While this population data may not show racism or perceived racism, it does show how a city may not appear welcoming to a black person. If you aren't aware of what I'm talking about, next time you are at a bar outside of Fenway, take a look around and notice how white the crowd is.
RSS Feed
