Frank Thomas responded to the controversial take on blacks and Major League Baseball that Chris Rock made for HBO Real Sports. (You can watch the video here)
“I think he hit the nail on the head,” Thomas said of Rock’s talking points.
“He got it right, he’s a true baseball guy and he knows his baseball.”
Watch Frank Thomas opine on these issues below:
The Big Hurt talking about the small number of black players in Major League Baseball:
“Major League Baseball has got to take initiative and put academies in the inner cities across America. [They] do it in the Dominican Republic, [they] do it in Venezuela and as soon as Cuba is open, they’re going to do it in Cuba because those kids play baseball 24/7. If they get something in the inner cities, provide cleats, baseballs, and bats, the black kids will play…we’ve got ex-black baseball players that would be willing to take jobs with Major League Baseball to teach baseball in the inner cities at these academies if they build them.”
Here’s video of the full segment as Frank Thomas led a discussion (watch it here) on this afternoon’s edition of AMERICA’S PREGAME (airing weekdays, 5:00 PM ET) alongside host Mike Hill and former professional athletes Jim Jackson and Ephraim Salaam. They elaborated on what Rock said- baseball isn’t “cool.”
Black people, hip-hop culture, whatever you want to call it, they decide what’s hip among young people in America, and young people decide what’s cool. It’s been this way since the 1990s.
Dontrelle Willis says MLB has a race issue too. He agrees with Chris Rock; and even mentioned Rock’s famous “a black man has to fly, to get to the same place a white man can walk to.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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