It's been a while since we've had an honest to goodness Back In My Day take, but today my friends is a leap day, so anything is possible. Noted conservative activist and nonagenarian Phyllis Schlafly went on her Eagle Forums radio show today and talked about the real problem with baseball: foreign labor taking all the good jobs from American ballplayers. You'll be shocked to learn that a World Series featuring the St. Louis Cardinals from 60 years ago factors in heavily to the equation.
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Schlafly—who successfully campaigned to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s because it would strip women of gender-based privileges like not working because you're married, and female-only public bathrooms—manages to tie the decline in youth participation in baseball to "[t]his foreign influx into our National Pastime."
Never mind that these awards and distinctions are based on human votes, most of which belong to white men, and never mind what speaking a particular language has to do with hitting, throwing, or catching a baseball, and please, please never mind what rising through the ranks of Little League has to do with anything. This argument is the equivalent of noting how the six most wealthy people in America are all white, and mostly male except for one woman—who inherited her wealth from her father—therefore everyone in America must also be rich, white, and mostly male.This is a hot topic in today's world, American Jobs sometimes sound as though they are more precious than the air we breathe—perhaps they are, since Leonardo DiFreakingCaprio seems to be one of the few people concerned about the environment—and connecting it to baseball is the logical end to this jingoism jangle. But it doesn't quite work, does it? Exporting jobs to developing countries and exploiting foreign labor is a money-saving business decision that hurts American workers. Importing foreign ballplayers and paying them millions of dollars to play baseball is not akin to stealing jobs from otherwise employable Americans. It's simply a matter of supply and demand; Be better at baseball, Americans, and you will get the job and the money.But there is really no point critiquing this line by line, because it is absurd and racist on its face. The only thing to do is call it absurd and racist on its face, hope that the majority of people in this world appreciate it as such, and pity a person who could live in this world for 91 years and not learn a thing.[Right Wing Watch]The best baseball players today are American-born. All six of the six recipients of the top awards this past season are native born American, but more than a quarter of Major League Baseball players are foreign-born, with whom our youth are less likely to identify. Some of these players cannot speak English and they did not rise through the ranks of Little League. These foreign-born players enter on visas and take positions that should go to American players. Fewer than four percent of the Baseball Hall of Fame is foreign-born, yet 27 percent of today's players are foreign-born.