Still the American Pasttime?

I'm a sports fan. Not quite a fanatic, but I get my fill of Sportscenter on an almost daily basis. And sometimes in the course of getting up and ready in the morning, something that's said floats through my head and sticks there. Today it happened to be about baseball, and I'm not even that big of a baseball fan. The All-Star Teams were announced yesterday, and on the American League team, only one born and raised American was a starter on the team. Let that sink in for a second. Its baseball, its the American pasttime (although if you ask us younger folk, I think its football), and 8 of the 9 starters for one of the teams will be foreign? Is that weird and screwed up to anyone else?

When it was talked about how only 11% of the active players in baseball were black, no one really seemed to really care. But now, its not just the black players that are being squeeze out, its the white player too. And for that matter, the hispanic, asian, or any other sub-culture. Its the American that is being underrepresented in the game that was invented right here in or country and played on our soil.

Now, the bigger question on my mind is, if you were a player in the minor leagues who had talent, had maybe been up to the big dance and didn't stick for whatever reason, do you have a gripe? Honestly, if it wasn't for the teams being able to go and grow, cultivate, and import talent from other countries at a much cheaper salary than their American counterparts, wouldn't a bunch more of those minor leaguers have big league jobs? Sure, you hear about the big money Japanese guys like Dice-K coming over here, but you also hear about the developmental leagues in the Dominican Republic bringing those guys over here and paying em peanuts. I just think that maybe the minor league players, the ones that legitimately have a shot at the majors but don't get in because of the foreign player, have a real live complaint and their concerns ought to be addressed and acknowledged by someone other than me.