The moral dimensions of baseball

Imagine you’re a poor kid from a poor country. At 15 you quit school so you can concentrate full-time on baseball. It’s a huge gamble; the odds are low that you will ever be a big-league American star. So does the major-league U.S. team that’s encouraging you have a responsibility to provide a Plan B? Like, say, a basic education?

That’s the provocative argument buried in the final paragraphs of Kate Kilpatrick’s excellent analysis of baseball in the Dominican Republic.

And before you say no, recall that without the talented-but-not-superstar players to make up the remainder of the practice teams and junior leagues, MLB player-development programs would never be able to pick out the stars.

(Note to alert readers: I am hoping to sneak this baseball post past our gracious host, not otherwise known for his charity toward this noble sport. It’s really about ethics, anyway.)

posted by Sra. Bibliotecaria ⋅ tagged ethics, international

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