In this week’s cover story, “Endangered Species,” Scene checks out the growing lack of black faces in baseball. Via voicemail, a friendly reader ruminates on the problem:
I just wanted to thank you so much for an excellent article in this current issue of Scene magazine. I’m a retired professor, and I would say (chuckles) that this could be a good doctoral dissertation. You know, what happens all of a sudden? And we can put the blame on a lot of people. Personally, I don’t like basketball; I don’t like hockey; and I don’t like soccer, because there’s no, uh, logic to it. But football is like chess. You line up. You observe your opponents’ moves, you see. And baseball is the same way. To know anything about baseball, you have to read George Will. …
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2008.