Baseball’s Demographic Shifts Bring Cultural Complexities

*Latinos are 17 percent of the U.S. population, and 27 percent of Major League ball players. It’s a cultural shift that’s changing not only play on the diamond, but the culture of the locker room as well. VL

By Jairo Ramos, NPR/Code Switch

This week, baseball fans celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, 67 years after Robinson became the first black player to participate in a Major League Baseball game. Coincidentally (or not), the racial, ethnic and cultural dynamics of the sport today are the topics of much discussion in this week’s news.

Hispanics … are largely overrepresented in baseball — in 2012, they accounted for nearly 27 percent of all baseball players while composing only 17 percent of the country’s population. According to the Society for American Baseball Research, that same year nearly 85 percent of all Hispanic players were natives of either a foreign country or a U.S. territory such as Puerto Rico.

Baseball clubhouses might be diversified — but they aren’t necessarily integrated. In a column published this week, retired MLB pitcher Dirk Hayhurst wrote about asharp divide that separates many dressing rooms into two factions: Latino players vs. everyone else.

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