We use the word discrimination in a negative sense so much that it’s hard to see it that being discriminating is a positive thing. That is, until you’re forced to.
This past week, it’s become harder and harder for my Ambassadors to get games scheduled against competitive teams. At the start of the season, our schedule was stacked, but after a lot of embarrassing losses, teams started mysteriously rescheduling and cancelling games.
By the way, the other teams are white and my Ambassadors are black, so does this means the other teams are discriminating against us?
Yes it does. Not the color of our skin, but the quality of our play.
Competitive teams:
• Will travel to the ends of the earth to play an intense, dog fight of a game, but not to play a team that gives up in the 3rd inning.
• Expect for the opposing pitcher to throw strikes. Notice I didn’t say throw fast (which wouldn’t be bad either), just throw strikes.
• Expect to be challenged.
My boys have had a hard lesson in competition that needed to be learned in order for me and my coaching staff to change the culture of inner city baseball. We don’t need teams playing us out of pity because we’re black, we need teams to play us so we can sharpen their game and they can do likewise.
Discrimination is bad most of the time, but being discriminating is necessary for success.
