The Josh Innes Show - Jackie Robinson Day

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

It's Jackie Robinson Day which means it's time for writers to cut and paste the same story they write every year on this day. Most of these stories center around the lack of black coaches and front office staff in baseball. To me, the larger issue is the lack of star black players in the game. Where does that start? How is that remedied? Can it be remedied? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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in Major League Baseball. And the headline in USA Today reads, Jackie Robinson Day. MLB finds itself in the crosshairs of DEI purges. What does the future hold? The 2025 celebration of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier is taking place in a toxic political environment. It's always a toxic political environment there. Bob, what are you talking about? And it's never not going to be a toxic political environment.

We are stuck in this never-ending loop of toxic politics, and I'm telling you, and I'm not saying this to be negative. I'm saying it to be real. God, I hate when people say, I'm just being real, I'm keeping it 100. But I am. We will always have a toxic political environment. Always.

It will never change. It will never get better. Everyone will always hate everyone. And it kind of goes back, and I know I bring this up at least once a week. Somehow, and I didn't do it. Somehow, over the weekend, I was seeing a lot of really shitty tweets on Twitter or X, formally known as Twitter. And I started seeing a bunch of shit that I was reacting to. And I'm retweeting.

Like, if you go back and look, like, there is a clear line of when weird shit is in my timeline versus I'm just looking at shit from people I follow. And I believe it was Saturday. And I was on a stretch Saturday where I was retweeting and quote tweeting like three, four, five things in a row trying to argue with people. And I'm like, why is this? Why are these things here? And somehow my Twitter had flipped over to for you as opposed to following. So what did I get in the for you category? A bunch of shit that the algorithm and Elon knew. Elon, that's right.

We love Elon. That they knew I'd argue with and I would engage with. So instantly I go, fuck, why is this on for you? And I flipped it back over to following. And if you notice, I've probably tweeted a handful of times in the last four or five days since that or three or four days, however long it's been. But Saturday, it was just like shit. Like I'm just it's amazing how like it's it's poison and it's like a drug and they know how to give you the drug. And because of that, like when people say, oh, we're in the midst of a toxic political environment, we will always be in the middle of a toxic political environment.

It will never change. The right wing people are going to hate whoever the next left wing person running for president is because that person's going to be trying to turn your boys into girls, girls into boys and pick their own gender. And the left wing people are going to hate the right-wing person because it's going to be Hitler. That's how this is going to be. It ain't going to change.

Why am I talking that way? I don't know. But that's where we are. Not to bring you down. I'd like to lift you up here, but as I sit here recording this podcast hoping to find a fucking job somewhere, you have to understand that I'm in a constant shitty mood. Not even a shitty mood, just a blah mood. And I'd argue that's actually worse than being in a shitty mood.

You know how if you're in a shitty mood as a sports fan, if you're angry about your team, that means you're still passionate about your team. If you're oblivious or blasé towards your team, that means you're apathetic. And if you're apathetic, that's not good for the team because that means you don't care anymore. I'm in a position of not even being angry at anything anymore. I'm just blah. So everything, I just, I just, I deliver things in a very bad mood seemingly a lot of the time. And I don't mean to do that for you folks because I love you very much, but it just, that's just the way it is. Let's see here. Let me knock out a couple of commercials early in the process here and let's continue

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Here we are 78 years later and the African-American player population on opening day rosters and injured list this season is six percent there are three black managers there is one black general manager uh and all the programs initiatives designed to increase black and minority representation in front offices coaching staffs and on the playing field major league baseball scrub the references to diversity on its career page here's the thing i don't know how you can get more black managers and black and black coaches if there are no black players and why are there no black players in baseball this is my theory all right I have a theory towards this step one in my theory is I think baseball players from the time they're like little elementary school kids up through high school and college are the biggest douchebags on the planet, at least in my experience growing up.

I played basketball for four years in high school, not well, but I was on the team and I never had a problem with any of those dudes. Like there is something to be said about feeling like you have a better understanding of a group of people when you're around them all the time. And I feel fortunate that I got to be part of the basketball team because I got to learn about a different culture of people that I may not have known about, right? Like not that I didn't know black people, but me, my friend Walt, one of my best friends, Martin, who is Hispanic, a Honduran Mexican American, his dad's Mexican, his mom's Honduranuran he's a Honduran Mexican American uh we were basically the three dudes who for all four years were the non-black dudes on the team there'd be occasional

guys that would come and go like one year there'd be another white dude whatever actually I take that back I take that back there was one other guy named Jordan he was on there too so there were four dudes four white dudes on the on the squad? And I feel that I was fortunate to get to be part of that because I at least got to see and experience other people's lives and grow some sort of, not even empathy, that's not the right word, but you get to kind of understand their life experiences and talk with them and see things they're into and they didn't judge me because I was the white guy although I went by white boy a lot of the time when I played basketball because that's just how the that was the that's how you differentiated people on the court I was either the guy in the goggles like I got I got guy in the goggles or I got white dude like that's just how it went and you accepted that as the white dude that played basketball but I appreciated and now especially looking back on it, I appreciate that I had the opportunity to live that life and experience that. Because I think that's helped me as a person.

It's helped me be able to relate to people. You know, because, you know, like when I was on in Houston, how was I able to relate to people? What's the biggest group of people in Houston as it relates to minority groups? Hispanic people, right? My best friend, one of my two best friends growing up, Honduran Mexican American. So I lived that life. What's the next group? Well, you look at black people. Well, I played basketball, so I got to be around them. I got to be around their parents. I got to kind of experience what makes them go. And I got to learn about that. And I think that's important.

I also played baseball until I was 15 years old and what I learned and one of the main reasons I didn't want to play baseball anymore after I was a freshman in high school is I didn't like baseball players I didn't like the tobacco and the just the the attitude I mean these guys all wanted to dip they all like were just kind of at least at our school a lot of them were kind of like hillbilly type dudes I just wasn't my vibe I just didn't want to be a part of it so it didn't interest me but going back to why you don't have black kids playing baseball my main reason for this is I think it's two main parts but I think the first part is truly a socio-economic part of it which is baseball is a sport played by white kids that have money,

at least enough money to play travel ball, at least enough money to buy $500 baseball bats and enough money to buy expensive gloves and expensive cleats. Dude, when I played little league baseball and I'm not trying to be like, remember when guy here, but when I played little league baseball, you had a mitt, you went out and got some cleats you shared baseball bats and your fucking hat was a trucker hat like in your jersey as we talked about the other day they went numbers 1 through 15 and the fat kid got number 15 that's what life was like playing little league baseball you look at the shit these guys have now they're all wearing jewelry all got eye black they all want to be Bryce Harper and they're all little douchebags they're all little douchebags named Colton and Sawyer and they're little assholes and like there's a lot

of money involved in that travel baseball is very expensive it's sort of like hockey too I would imagine hockey is not a sport that's very economically feasible for a lot of people to play because you got a shit ton of equipment and there's a lot of traveling right you know what basketball is put on some fucking Jordans or put on some Nikes, put on some Adidas, grab a fucking basketball and let's go. So I do think a large part of why you're not seeing young black kids playing baseball is it's expensive. And not just black kids, but you're not seeing a lot of poor kids play baseball. Baseball is expensive. Back in my day, you'd get a mitt and to break it in, you'd get some of that oil or whatever.

Your dad would be like, we're supposed to throw it in the oven for a little bit, right? So you'd get a mitt and you'd put a ball in it and you'd take a rubber band or your sister's hair tie or whatever and wrap it up and throw it in the oven or whatever, you know? Now they got machines that go out and break your mid-end for you. Like, it's just a different world. It's a different world. Dudes have their own bats, their own bat bags. Each kid has like four fucking bats and three gloves. Just in case he plays the outfield, he's got to have an outfield glove. If he's playing on the infield, he's got to have an infield glove. You know what I had? One fucking glove that I used for multiple years in a row because I love that glove. It wasn't until I was like 14 that like I had a first baseman's myth at the coach game

because I played first base. That's it. But now kids got like specialized bats. Kids have specialized gloves for each position. They got 10 different uniforms that mommy and dada have to pay for like that's the way baseball is baseball is not a sport at least in America for poor people now in countries where seemingly everyone's poor like the Puerto Ricos or Dominican Republics or wherever everyone's fucking poor playing baseball so they're throwing rocks at each other and shit

that's different but in, it is a sport for wealthy people, or at least people of not even privilege, because I hate the word privilege, but people who have money, people who either come from money or have parents that are willing to do it. And you're not going to get that a lot in lower income communities, right? So that's number one. Number two, I think over the the years because of the fact fewer and fewer black stars have played baseball fewer and fewer black people get into baseball at a young age basketball seems like a far more glamorous world basketball it's easier to assess you know what you can go to Walmart right now buy a two dollar basketball go down to a local hoop out of the

park somewhere and shoot baskets and all you have to have is yourself you know what you don't need whenever you're playing baseball you need to have a friend unless you're you know ozzy smith throwing tennis balls off a brick wall when he's a kid and fielding balls in a brown paper bag if unless you're doing that you need someone to play baseball with right to at least have an enjoyable experience playing baseball you need to have somebody else at least one other person with you. Basketball, you don't need to have that. Football is also an expensive sport, but football rules the world, and you can go to a high school today,

and they'll supply you the pads and everything you fucking need. So football's not all that expensive. But the socioeconomic part of it is very important, and I think that over the years, baseball has become a sport less dependent on great athletic ability and athletic skill. And it's become more about walks, strikeouts, home runs. Therefore, you're not looking at dudes where speed matters. Go back to the mid-1980s. Speed was the dominant factor in baseball, one of them at least. That's why teams like the St. Louis Cardinals went to three World Series from 1982 to 1987. Won three pennants, won one World Series.

How? Because like half their starting lineup was American-born black dudes, and they would all, like every one of the Cardinals on those teams would lead the majors in steals today. Like I think at the low end, they'd have dudes with like 50 steals or some shit. Like as a team, they stole like 350 bases a year, some large number like that. Their lowest dude out of their top three dudes would probably lead the majors in steals today. It was a different form of baseball that was more fun. And the superstars were playing baseball. You know, you'd see guys like Daryl Strawberry

and Doc Gooden for the match. You would see guys like Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, the 1985 league MVP, Terry Pendleton, who went on to win a league MVP with the Braves in 1991. You would see guys like Vince Coleman, who was the rookie of the year and stole over 100 bases three consecutive seasons.

At one point, had 50 consecutive steals without getting caught. You'd see a lineup like that, and you'd go, holy shit, over half of our lineup is black dudes. And that's in St. Louis, where the perception of St. Louis is, well, they're just a bunch of hillbilly white people that hate black people. They sure as fuck love the black dudes who played for the Cardinals. Shit, go to the mid-90s with the Cardinals.

They went to the playoffs in 1996. The Cardinals playoff starting lineup in baseball, 1996, featured Brian Jordan, Ron Gant in the outfield. Willie McGee, I think, had come back to the team that year, might have the next year, I'm not sure. But you had dudes in the middle of the lineup that were prominent big-time players that were black players on those teams, even in the mid-90s. The Braves had Fred McGriff in that era and eventually had Brian Jordan in that era and they had they also had Ron Gant at one point in that era Ron Gant bounced around a little bit you go to the Reds and you would have um oh what's his name Eric Davis you'd have guys like Eric

Davis for the Reds and Barry Larkin for the Reds. And of course, the big one being Ken Griffey Jr., the most popular player in the game. Barry fucking Bonds, arguably the greatest baseball player that's ever played. You don't get those guys anymore. So you throw in the fact that it's expensive. Then you throw in the combination of that, plus it's a boring game now that doesn't lend itself

to being exciting and people with great athleticism. If you're a great athlete, why would you waste your time playing baseball? Go jump out of the gym in basketball. It's easier to do. Why do you want to sit there and face a 100-mile-an-hour fastball every day when you can go to the gym and go dunk over dipshits? I think that's the biggest issue. So when people in this story will continue on about how white GMs get second opportunities, but black GMs don't.

I don't think that has anything to do with race. I just believe that once you've seen guys doing a job once, it's just easier to keep hiring the same people. Trust me, and you guys know this, there are black dudes, Hispanic dudes in other fields and other sports that all get recycled multiple times. It's a very lazy take to say, well, white guys continue to get second opportunities, as if to say a white guy does not deserve a second job, but a black guy who didn't get it does. Like, I don't like that. Like, could there, should there be more black dudes managing and black dudes?

Hey, you want to talk about second chances? Look at fucking Ron Washington. That dude was snorting the third baseline, and he's got another fucking job. So, like, this idea that black dudes just don't get other opportunities, I think is bullshit. And it's an easy self-fulfilling prophecy. Again, the number is extremely low and you could say that's a problem with baseball. But if you notice more black dudes are getting coaching gigs in the NFL and they're getting

recycled and coaching gigs in the NFL. And there are guys getting GM jobs. There are guys getting coaching jobs. And as time goes on and these things remedy themselves, those guys will become the dudes that get the second and third opportunities. Hell, look at the NBA. How many retread black coaches do you see? A lot of them.

Like no one, like that's the part that bothers me. And that's where the hypocrisy exists. You could say that there need to be more black this or Hispanic this, and that's fine if you feel that way but the problem i run into is when it's bad when a white dude gets another shot but when there's a black retread we don't call him a retread it's like he deserved that second shot whereas mike budenholzer's a retread or uh or insert other dopey white coach like budenholzer got fired yesterday, right? He'll be a guy.

Mike Malone, if he gets another job, we'll just call Mike Malone a retread. Even though Mike Malone won a championship, he'll be considered a retread. And that's what that story will be whenever Mike Malone gets another job. Whereas, oh, what's his name that's bounced around to a couple places? He was the coach of the Pelicans at one point. I'm drawing a blank on his name. I can see his face. But, like, that dude's coached.

Monte Williams. Monte Williams has had, like, three head coaching jobs. Every time Monte Williams gets a job, the media's not, well, we got another retread. Another retread here. He's the definition of a retread. Hadn't won much, keeps getting jobs. And you know why these guys who have been head coaches keep getting jobs?

Because it's easier to hire a guy that's been a head coach versus a guy that hasn't. It's less of a risk, I guess, in the minds of people. But start looking at the guys who keep getting second and third jobs. You start to see these kind of guys. Doc Rivers. Doc Rivers had success 15 fucking years ago, early in his career. Big picture, Doc Rivers is maybe the most overrated coach in history and keeps getting jobs but dare I dare you to be critical of Doc Rivers so like the idea and I'm

and by the way I think baseball would be exponentially better if baseball were like it was played in 1985 I didn't even live that I wasn't born but I've watched so many videos I've had all the Cardinals highlight tapes. And I know I keep going back to the Cardinals, but they were kind of the gold standard of what that era of baseball was, which was built on speed and astroturf and stolen bases and doubles, triples, gappers, all that. If that sport were played that way, now it'd be a far more exciting brand of baseball. It's not. It's about strikeouts, walks, and home runs. And dudes that go four and two-thirds innings

because they throw 100 miles an hour and we can't afford to blow their arms out. You know, that's another thing. Go back to the 60s. Some of the most dominant pitchers in the game, 60s, 70s, 80s, black dudes like Bob Gibson. You don't see... Bob Gibson, like most of his games

would be at least nine innings. And I know that it's a different world. But you go to a baseball game now, and you're like, boy, I get a chance to see blank great pitcher. Boy, I can't wait. Name a great pitcher in the game today. Paul Skeens. It won't be long until Paul Skeens is a five-inning pitcher.

If he throws 100 miles an hour, if he gets into a situation where he walks a couple guys and his pitch count's elevated in the fourth or fifth inning, Paul Skeens is going to come out. And God forbid he ever gets an injury, because then once he gets an injury and he comes back from that injury, a serious injury, you'll never get to see him pitch deep in game. Look how many of the guys that are considered the best pitchers in the game,

the high-end free agent type guys, look at the number of those guys that when you watch games, you're lucky to get them through five innings. Blake Snell. Like Blake Snell. Oh, we got to pay Blake Snell five innings. Blake Snell. Like Blake Snell. Oh, we got to pay Blake Snell all this fucking money. Blake Snell, Blake Snell. Blake Snell is lucky to get through five innings.

He walks like three dudes, gets traffic on base. He gives you five and a third. It's not even exciting to watch that type of shit. But the way the game works now, by the time you settle in, the dude's already coming out of the game. Those are the problems. I know it's easy on Jackie Robinson Day to cut and paste a story like this, which, you know, you can change the percentage every year

and kind of rewrite the same story and get the same quotes from people about how the game is, you know, like you don't get a chance. Once you're a black guy, you don't get another chance. And hey, let's list a couple of dudes who are white dudes that are on their second or third team, and you can just kind of rewrite the whole damn thing but like there are bigger issues and the issues are deeper than just white versus black in that and it starts with like you're not going to have a lot of black gms and managers in a sport that a lot of black dudes don't play. That's not really that hard. If you want to go to the root of it and try to fix why

black kids aren't playing, which a lot of them do, that's why a lot of major league teams have these inner city initiatives and they build little ballparks for people and they supply funding for shit. And that's great. You've got to create a world where that same little black kid that if he looks at Twitter or turns on his TV and he sees LeBron dunking or he sees Steph Curry hitting a 50-footer, you have to find a kid that would rather go out and stand with his thumb in his ass for three hours playing a baseball game every day than do that. And if you can find that or find a guy who, a young kid that isn't watching Jalen Hurts throw touchdowns in the Super Bowl or Pat Mahomes or isn't watching superstar wide receiver make a great touchdown catch or watching superstar running back run for 2,000 yards. You have to find a way to convince that kid that baseball is more exciting than those things and you have to do it with that kid not having the resources

to actually go out and play baseball. I guarantee, because I'll go to games in St. Louis, and there aren't a ton of people at the games anymore, and I haven't been to every stadium, but there are still a lot of black folks that love the Cardinals. This is kind of a unique town. You don't get a lot of cities where black folks are into baseball anymore, but there are still a lot of black folks that like baseball,

and a lot of that stems from when they were kids. It was Willie McGee, Ozzie Smith, Terry Pendleton, and Vince Coleman. And it was that Lonnie Smith, like guys like that, that were a huge part of their lives growing up. And it felt like they had representation. And I know that we haven't even gotten into the idea of representation, right? But if you're a young black kid, this is real. If you're a young black kid and you watch baseball and it's a bunch of Dominican dudes and white dudes, who is the person that represents you?

Because I do believe that part of believing you can do something, the scene, someone else that's like you, that has your similar story doing something, right? Like that's, you go back to Ken Griffey Jr. I bet there were a lot more kids playing little league baseball in 1996 than there are now. Ken Griffey Jr., while not a really realistic hope, his dad played baseball, it's a different world, but look at Ken Griffey Jr. You watch King Griffey Jr. in the mid-1990s. You're like, shit, I want to be like Griffey. You watch him in Pizza Hut commercials. They got the King Griffey Jr. Everybody had the little King Griffey Jr. baseball bats and gloves. I thought it was so cool when my baseball mitt had the back when the gloves had signatures in the pocket in the mitt part of it, the heel of the glove.

And I had a Griffey one. I'm like, holy shit, Ken Griffey. Who's that now? Who's that guy that if you're a young black kid, you're like, I idolize this guy. I don't know that that guy exists. I'm not telling you that little black kids also don't like white players. I'm sure they do.

In the same way that white kids like black players, right? But who is that guy that gives you that hope? If you were an 11-year-old kid playing Little League Baseball in 1985 in New York, you'd see Mookie Wilson. You would see Daryl Strawberry. You would see Doc Gooden. And you'd go, holy shit, there's a chance. I got a shot at this. I don't think people feel that way anymore.

And again, the most important thing is I don't believe that young kids give a shit about baseball anymore. It's just not interesting to them anymore. Inner city kids particularly, because what's in it for me? What can I do? Where do I fit into this world? And I think that's important. But when you go to these stories and you get into the cut and paste type bullshit,

like go deeper than that. Stop writing the story about how there's this woe is me story about how there's too many white dudes in baseball and whatever. Like, cool. Like, it's the same story every fucking year. Try to come up with a way to get more black kids. That's where it starts. That's where the interest starts when you are a kid.

And a black kid isn't going to be turned on to baseball because hey the Cincinnati Reds have a black GM I want to play baseball now they don't give a shit you need to put people on the field that they can relate to and you can't do that because no one's playing at a young age it really isn't that difficult uh anyway more to come