Racism in Free Agency?

I remember it like it was yesterday: October 26, 2005. I was a junior in high school, and my favorite sports team, the Chicago White Sox, was playing in Game 4 of the World Series. The Sox were up 3-0 in the series—going for the sweep, but the game was scoreless through seven innings. I was sitting in my bedroom by myself because I cannot emotionally handle watching big games with other human beings (seriously…even when the Bears went to the Superbowl, I watched alone…). That’s enough about my unfortunate personal quirks, though. This isn’t about me.
Like I said, the game was scoreless through the 7th, and the previous three games had all been too close for comfort. We had a runner on third base with two outs in the top of the eighth, and Jermaine Dye was at the plate. First pitch strike. Second pitch in the dirt. Third pitch up the middle, and my wildest dream was an inning and a half from coming true, as was Jermaine Dye’s. And it did. The White Sox were World Champions, and Dye was the MVP of the series.
For the next four seasons, Dye remained an integral part of our offense, until his second half slump last season, after which the Sox decided against picking up his club option. Keep in mind, even with a horrible second half, Dye still had a .250 batting average with 27 homeruns and 81 runs batted in. Not bad. Anyway, when the happiest day of the year rolled around in 2010—Opening Day—Jermaine Dye was watching games from his couch. I can’t help but feel frustrated for him. One of my favorite players for the last five years, and one of the more underrated hitters in baseball, was riding a figurative bench. Even if the White Sox no longer wanted him, how was it possible that 29 other teams could not find a place for him?
Many people attribute Dye’s unemployment to his mediocre defense, increasing age, and his pride. He refused to accept offers that he deemed “not enough to move his family for.” He has said that he would rather retire than accept an offer that he considered demeaning—which includes not being worth enough, being a fourth outfielder, or taking a full time designated hitter position. While this has obviously played a role in his being unsigned, there is another perspective on the issue.
While I didn’t mention it before because, well, it’s mostly irrelevant, Jermaine Dye is African-American. In a sport that has been integrated for over 60 years, this shouldn’t be worth pointing out. However, one major league player, Orlando Hudson, believes it to be the reason that Dye and other great black players are jobless. Hudson, while not explicitly saying racism was the issue, inferred it by saying, “You see guys like Jermaine Dye without a job. Guy with [good numbers] and can't get a job. Pretty much sums it up right there, no? You've got some guys who miss a year who can come back and get $5 [million], $6 million, and a guy like Jermaine Dye can't get a job. A guy like Gary Sheffield, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, can't get a job." When he was asked if he was saying that this was because of racism, he responded, “We both know what it is. You’ll get it right. You’ll figure it out. I’m not gonna say it because then I’ll be in [trouble].”
Since Hudson won’t openly discuss his thought process here, it is difficult to understand how he formulated these grand statements, but he does make an intriguing point. Whether or not players like Dye and Sheffield truly don’t have jobs because of their race, Hudson’s statements have the potential to be very destructive. In a time when African-American youth are choosing to focus on football and basketball, and the percentage of black players in the MLB is staying down around 8%, the league cannot have accusations of racism floating around—let alone from African-American players themselves. The MLB is doing a lot of work, with the help of prominent black players, to convince black youth to start playing baseball—with both advertising campaigns and building inner-city facilities. Hudson’s comments send mixed messages to these kids—why would they want to play baseball when the players who are supposed to be convincing them to think the MLB is racist? These comments need to be taken seriously, and if Hudson has no reasoning to back them up, then he needs to keep his mouth shut.