segregation in sport* - sage journals · segregation denotes the exclusion of certain categories...

Racial Segregation in American Sport*

JOHN W. LOY and JOSEPH F. ELVOGUE (U.S.A.)

INTRODUCTION

NUMEROUS journalists have commented on the social functions whichsport fulfills for minority groups in American society. Boyle, for exam-ple, forcefully writes:

Sport has often served minority groups as the first rung on the social ladder.As such, it has helped further their assimilation into American life. It would notbe too far-fetched to say that it has done more in this regard than any other agency,including church and school (1963, p. 100).

Recently, journalists have placed special emphasis on the many con-tributions sport has made for the Negro. As Olsen observes:

Every morning the world of sport wakes up and congratulates itself on its con-tributions to race relations. The litany has been so often repeated that it is believedalmost universally. It goes: &dquo;Look what sports has done for the Negro&dquo; (1968, p. 7).

In view of the many journalistic accounts of the contributions of sportto the social success of minority groups, it is somewhat surprising thatsociologists and physical educators have largely ignored the issue of mi-

. nority group integration in American sport. The purpose of this paperis to direct the attention of sport sociologists to the issue by presentinga theoretical and empirical examination of racial segregation in America’smajor professional baseball an,d football teams.

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.

, THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

Theor,etically considered, our examination largely draws upon Grus-ky’s (1963) theory of formal structure of organizations and Blalock’s(1962) set of theoretical propositions regarding occupational discrimi-nation..

* Appreciation is accorded to Mr. Schroeder, director, and Mr. Dyer, assistantdirector of Helms Hall for assistance in the collection of data for this paper.

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GRUSKY’S THEORY OF FORMAL STRUCTURE

According to Grusky, &dquo;the formal structure of an organization consistsof a set of norms which define the system’s official objectives, its majoroffices ~or positions, and the primary responsibilities of the position occu-pants&dquo; (p. 345). The formal structure &dquo;...patterns the behavior of its con-stituent positions along three interdependent dimensions: (1) spatial loca-tion, (2) nature of task, and (3) frequency of interaction&dquo; (p. 345). Thetheoretical import of Grusky’s model is contained in his statement that:

All else being equal, the more central one’s spatial location: (1) the greater thelikelihood dependent or coordinative tasks will be performed and (2) the greaterthe rate of interaction with the occupants of other positions. Also, the performanceof dependent tasks is positively related to frequency of interaction (p. 346).

Combining these three criteria, Grusky distinguishes positions of highinteraction potential and positions of low interaction potential and posi-tions of low interaction potential within the social structure of organi-zations. He defines the occupants of these two types of positions as highand low interactors, respectively.

For our purposes, we prefer to use the concept of &dquo;centrality&dquo; in deal-ing with Grusky’s three interdependent dimensions of organizationalpositions. With an extension to permit us to embrace all three of Grusky’scriteria, w,e accepted Hopkins’ (1964) definition of this concept:

Centrality designates how close a member is to the &dquo;center&dquo; of the group’sinteraction network and thus refers simultaneously to the frequency with whicha member participates in interaction w.ith other members and the number or rangeof other members with whom he interacts (p. 28) [and the degree to which he mustcoordinate his tasks and activities with other members].

BLALOCK’S THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS

Several years ago, Blalock (1962) made a very astute analysis of why&dquo;professional baseball has provided Negroes with one of the relativelyfew avenues for escape from blue-collar occupations.&dquo; From his analysis,Blalock developed thirteen theoretical propositions concerning occupa-tional discrimination which can be empirically tested in other occupa-tional settings. His analysis is an excellent example of how the criticalexamination of a sport situation can enhance the development of socio-logical theory in an area of central concern. Blalock was, however, per-haps naive in assuming that professional baseball is &dquo;...an occupationwhich is remarkably free of racial discrimination&dquo; (p. 242).

We sought to test Blalock’s assumption that professional baseball is

relatively free of racial discrimination by drawing upon three of his pro-positions to predict where racial segregation is most likely to occur on



7

the baseball diamond. The thr.ee particular propositions which we consi-dered were:

1. The lower the degree of purely social interaction on the job..., thelower the degree of discrimination (p. 246).

2. To the extent that performance level is relatively independent ofskill in interpersonal relations, the lower the degree of discrimination(p. 246).

3. To the extent that an individual’s success depends primarily onhis own performance, rather than on limiting or restricting the perfor-mance of specific other individuals, the lower the degree of discrimina-tion by group members (p. 245).

On the one hand, the consideration of proposition 1 in conjunctionwith proposition 2 suggested that discrimination is directly related to leveland type of interaction. On the other hand, the combined considerationof propositions 2 and 3 suggested that there will be less discriminationwhere performance of independent tasks are largely involved; becausesuch tasks do not have to be coordinated with the activities of other per-sons, and therefore do not hinder the performance of others, nor requirea great deal of skill in interpersonal relations.

Since the dimensions of interaction and task dependency treated byBlalock are included in our concept of centrality, we subsumed his threepropositions under a more general one, stating that: &dquo;discrimination is

positively related to centrality.&dquo;

.

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, ,,; ;

STATEMENT OF THEORETICAL HYPOTHESIS

Broadly conceived, discrimination &dquo;...denotes the unfavourable treat-

ment of categories of persons on arbitrary grounds&dquo; (Moore, 1964, p. 203).Discrimination takes many forms, but a major mode is that of segregation.Segregation denotes the exclusion of certain categories of persons fromspecific social organizations or particular positions within organizationson arbitrary grounds, i.e., grounds which have no objective relation toindividual skill and talent.

Since we were chiefly concerned with the matter of racial segregationin professional sports, we took a~s our specific theoretical hypothesis theproposition that: racial segregation in pro f essional team sports is posi-tively related to centrality. In order to test this hypothesis, we empiri-cally examined the extent of racial segregation within major leaguebaseball and major league football.



8

THE CASE OF PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL

Baseball teams have a well defined so,cial structure consisting of therepetitive and regulated interaction among a set of nine positions com-bined into three major substructures or interaction units: (1) the battery,consisting of pitcher and catcher; (2) the infield, consisting of lst base,2nd base, shortstop and 3rd base; and (3) the outfield, consisting of left-field, centerfield and rightfield positions.

EMPIRICAL HYPOTHESIS

As is evident from Figure 1, one can readily see that the outfield con-tains the most peripheral and socially isolated positions in the organi-zational structure of a baseball team. Therefore, on the basis of our the-oretical hypothesis, we predicated that Negro players in comparison towhite players on major league teams are more likely to occupy outfieldpositions and less likely to occupy infield positions.

METHODS

l7ata. On the basis of the 1968 Baseball Register all professional playersin the American and National Leagues who played at least fifty gamesduring the 1967 season were categorized according to race and playingposition. 1

Treatment. The X2 test for two independent samples was used to test

the null hypothesis that there is no difference between white and back

1 The criterion of fifty games was established in order to eliminate the partialparticipant, such as the pinch hitter or runner, the player brought up from theminor leagues on a part-time basis, the occasional utility man, and the unestablishedrookie trying to make the team at any position.

Players were ethnically classified as Caucasians, Negroes or Latin Americans.

The latter group was excluded from most analyses, however, as it was impossiblein terms of the sources available to determine which Latin American athletes were

Negroes.Players at all positions were considered except for pitchers. They were exclud-

ed for purposes of analysis because: (1) data comparable to that collected for

other players was not available, (2) the high rate of interchangeability among pitch-ers precluded accurate recording of data, and (3) pitchers are in a sense onlypart-time players, in that they typically play in only one game out of four, or

if relief pitchers-play only a few innings in any given game. In order that the

reader may make certain comparisons later in the paper, we note at this pointthat &dquo;only 13 of the 207 pitchers in 1968 major league rosters were Negroes&dquo; (Olsen,1968, p. 170).



9

ballplay,ers in terms of the proportion who occupy infield and outfieldpositions. The .01 level of significance, using a one-tailed test, was select-ed as being sufficient to warrant the rejection of the null hypothesis.

Findings

Tabl,e 1 presents the number of white and black athletes occupyingspecific positions in the major leagues in 1967. It is clearly evident fromthe table that Negro players are predominantly found ill the outfield.

The highly significant X2, resulting from the test of our null hypothesis,

Fig. 1. Schematic outline of field positions in baseballP - pitcher; C - catcher; IB - first base; 2B - second base;SS - shortstop; 3B - third base; Lf - leftfield; Cf - center-

field ; Rf - rightfield.

givers strong support to our empirical hypothesis and provides some con-firmation of our theoretical hypothesis that racial segregation in profes-sional sports is related to centrality. As a further test of our hypothesiswe examined the extent of racial segregation in professional football.



10

TABLE 1

1-Comparison of Race and Position Occupancy in Major Leagues Baseball in 1967

. The Case of Pro f essional Football

. Like baseball teams, football teams have well defined organizational

structures. How.ever, whereas the positions in baseball organization aredetermined by defensive alignment, there exists both a distinctive offen-sive and a distinctive defensive team within modern professional footballorganization. Figure 2 shows the constituent positions of the offensiveand defensive teams of any given professional football organization.

Empirical Hypothesis ~

It is clear from Figure 2 that the most central positions on the offen-sive team consist of center, right guard, left guard and quarterback; whilethe most central position on the defensive team are the three linebackerpositions. Therefore, on the basis of our theoretical hypothesis, we pre-dicted that Negro football players in comparison to white players aremore likely to occupy non-central positions than central positions on bothoffensive and defensive teams.

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11

METHODS

Data. Using the Official 1968 Autographed Yearbooks of the Americanand National Football Leagues in conjunction with Zanger’s Pro Football1968 we classified all starting offensive and defensive players accordingto race (black or white) and playing position (central or non-central). 2

Treatment. The X2 test for two independent samples was used to testthe null hypothesis that there is no difference between white and blackoccupancy of centrally located positions on either offensive or defensiveteams. The .01 level of significance, using a one-tailed test, was selectedas being sufficient to warrant the rejection of the null hypothesis.

Findings

Tables 2 and 3 present the number of white and black athletes occu-pying central and non-central offensive and defensive positions, respec-tively, in the maj o~ professional football leagues in 1968. It is evidentfrom the tables that very few Negro players occupy central positions,either defensively or offensively. The significant X2 tests of our null

hypothesis give strong support to our empirical hypothesis and providefurther confirmation of our theoretical hypothesis.

DISCUSSION

The preceding findings leave little doubt that only a very small pro-portion of black athletes occupy central positions in America’s profes-sional baseball and football organizations. However, notwithstanding ourtheoretical buttress, a number of telling questions can be raised regard-

2 The major difficulties we experienced in data collection were associated withthe problems of determining the race of the players and in determining who werethe first string or starting players. In the case of major league football, we used the&dquo;official yearbooks&dquo; to ascertain the race of given players as these sources containedphotographs of the members of every team in a given league. Zanger’s text wasused as a means of determining the first string or starting lineup for each team.However, Zanger’s lineups were preseason forecasts based upon the players’ per-formance the previous season. A more accurate means of recording would havebeen to determine the players having the most playing time at each position forevery team during the 1968 season.

An indication, however, that the data which we present in Tables 2 and 3 is

reasonably accurate are the following facts cited from a study made independentlyof our own:

&dquo;On one typical weekend in the 1967 NFL season, no Negro center started a game. Ofthe 32 offensive guards in the starting lineups of NFL teams, 29 were white&dquo; (Olsen, 1963,p. 171).

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&dquo;...(on that same typical weekend in the 1967 season, 48 linebackers lumbered out on thefield to start NFL games, and 45 of them, or 94 per cent, were white)...&dquo; (Olsen, 1968, p. 172).



12

Fig. 2. Schematic outline of field positions in professional football

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TABLE 2

A Comparison of Race and Position Occupancy within Offensive Teams in MajorLeague Football in 1968



13

TABLE 3

A Comparison of Race and Position Occupancy within Defensive Teams in MajorLeague Football in 1968 .

ing the revealed relationships between race and position occupancy.Three such questions are: (1) Does the discovered relationship betweenrace and position occupancy indicate the actual presence of racial segre-gation ? (2) If racial segregation is actually present, what are the &dquo;social

mechanisms&dquo; linking it to centrality? (3) If racial segregation does existin professional sports, what are its social consequences? Let us brieflyconsider each of these questions in turn.

. DOES RACIAL SEGREGATION ACTUALLY EXIST IN SPORT? .

One can argue that showing that Negro athletes infrequently occupycentral positions does not confirm that they are racially segregated. Theymay be excluded from central positions for objective rather than arbi-trary reasons. On the one hand, Negroes may not have as great a talentor skill for certains tasks as white players, and are thus excluded fromselected positions for that reason. On the other hand, Negroes may possess



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greater athletic ability than whites for certain activities, and are accord-ingly found proportionately moire often in some positions than others.A third alternative, of course, is that Negro athletes exclude themselvesfrom selected positions by personal preference.

Although we are not presently prepared to fully assess the validityof ~each of these three perspectives, we must franldy state we find themtenuous. For example, we have found no evidence which would lead usto believe that Negro athletes have inferior ability in comparison to whiteathletes for any role assignm.ent in professional baseball or football. Weobserve that time and again in the world of sport athletic stereotypes ofNegroes have been refuted. It will be recalled that, not too long ago,there existed the myth among track authorities that Negroes were racial-ly suited for the sprints and perhaps the shorter distance races, but didnot possess the capabilities for the endurance events. The success ofblack athletes in long distance running events, including the Olympicmarathon, in recent years has dispelled the notion that Negro trackmenare speed merchants without stamina.

Similarly, we have discovered little support for the view that Negroathletes possess certain abilities in greater abundance than white athletes.We have, however, encountered some findings which indicate that a blackathlete must be superior to his white counterpart before he is permittedto occupy a given position. For example, a recent study shows that thecumulative major league batting averages in 1968 were higher for Ne-groes at every position as follows: catcher-whites .238, blacks .279; firstand third bases-whites .265, blacks .277; second and shortstop-whites.246, blacks .258; outfield-whites .253, blacks .266 (Los Angeles Time, May15, 1969, part 3, p. 3). 3

.

Finally, we find it difficult to believe that Negro athletes are largelyselecting the positions which they occupy in baseball and football on thebasis of personal preference. What seems to be operating is a self-fulfil-ling belief. A black athlete assumes that he doesn’t have much chance atbeing accepted at certain positions and thus tries out for other positionswhere his estimate of success is much higher. As Olsen succinctly states:&dquo;He anticipates the white man’s categorization of him, and acts according-ly&dquo; (1968, p. 170). An interesting study, we suggest, would be to comparethe playing positions of white and black athletes in professional footballwith those they filled in college football. Our prediction is that a greater

3 For a more complete account of how Negro athletes must be superior to whiteathletes in professional baseball in order to maintain their positions, see Rosenblatt,1967. Finally, we note that the three outfield positions were considered as a singlecategory since data were not available for each of the three outfield positionstaken separately.



15

proportion of black than white athletes will be discovered to have ac-

quired new role assignments.Some would perhaps contend that we are overstating our case regard-

ing racial segregation in professional sports; because:The degree to which Negroes have moved into pro sports is astonishing. More

than half the players in the National Basketball Association are Negroes - as _

were eight of the 10 starters in the last NBA All-Star Game. A quarter of the

players in the National Football League are Negroes, and the 1967 NFL team was40 per cent black. Nearly 25 per cent of all players in major league baseball areAmerican Negroes, and here too a disproportionate number of the stars are not

white. For example, of the top ten hitters in the National League for the 1967

season, only one was a Caucasian (Olsen, 1968, p. 170). -

Nevertheless, we point out that sport seems to mirror American life atlarge, in that, integration has been very slow, and where it has been rath-er fully achieved there remain many forms of discrimination other thanthat of segregation.

Professional baseball is a good example of how slowly the process ofintegration takes place. Many herald 1947 as the year &dquo;the color line was

broken&dquo; with the entrance of Jackie Robinson into major league baseball.But, as illustrated in Table 4, ten years later there were only a dozenNegro players in the National League and as late as 1960 there wereonly a half dozen black athletes in the American League. Table 4 doesreveal, however, that there has been a substantial increase in the num-ber of Latin American players in recent years and indicates that thereexists an intermediate &dquo;brown zone&dquo; between the &dquo;white and black belts&dquo;of major league baseball.4 4

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WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL MECHANISMS OF SEGREGATION?

Assuming that there is racial segregation in professional baseball

and football, one is led to inquire as to what are the underlying causes ofthis form of discrimination. We have argued that segregation is a functionof centrality and its associated interdependent dimensions of spatial loca-tion, rate of interaction and task dependency. Sociologically viewed, ourtheoretical rationale is probably a fairly satisfactory one; but those of

4 It would be interesting to find out whether or not "darker" Latin Americanathletes are more often found in the outfield than the "lighter" Latin players.

There are some small indications that "quota systems" are operating for Amer-ican Negro players and Latin American players, in that, if members of one groupare prominent occupants of a given field position within a league, then the mem-bers of the other group tend to be predominant at another playing position. Fora discussion of the social relations between American Negro and Latin Americanplayers, see Boyle, 1963, pp. 108—113.



16

Distribution of White, Black and Latin American PlayersNATIONAL LEAGUE

a more social psychological orientation would likely want to know whatsort of personal qualities and behavioral dispositions are associated withcentrality which influence segregation. I

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17

TABLE 4

by Position in Major League Baseball 1956-1967AMERICAN LEAGUE

There are no doubt many kinds of normative beliefs and attitudes

which act as antecedent and/or intervening variables in the relationshipbetween segregation and centrality. We specifically speculate that there

2 International Review



18

is a relationship between interaction and attitudes regarding personalintimacy; and a relationship between task dependency and beliefs concern-ing the qualities of judgment and decision-making ability.

A major generalization of discrimination research states that: &dquo;there

is a range within discriminatory practice such that there is most discri-mination and most prejudice as the practice comes closer to intimatepersonal contact&dquo; (Berelson and Steiner, 1964, p. 511). Thus, we reasonthat Negroes may be excluded from central positions because these po-sitions involve high rates of interaction which lead to greater personalcontact among players than do peripheral positions in an organization.

We conject, in passing, that there may even be normative beliefs re-garding the interaction of Negro athletes among themselves. In the caseof professional football, for instance, black athletes are most often foundat the two cornerback positions. Similarly, in the case of professionalbaseball, we point out that in the infield Negroes are most often foundat first and third bases. While the relationship may be a spurious one,it is interesting that Negroes are placed in the extreme corners of the

field in both baseball and football. A related observation is that seldom

does one find two Negroes playing side-by-side in either major leaguebaseball or football.

In treating interaction, one should, of course, distinguish between taskinteraction and social interaction since there is probably only a moder-ate correlation between the two. Although we expect that there may bea substantial degree of prejudice regarding the intermixing of white

and black players off the field, we are not sure that there is marked

prejudice among players concerning racial interpersonal contact on thefield. 5

We speculate that segregation in professional sports is more a func-

tion of management than playing personnel. For example, there appearsto be a myth among coaches that Negro players lack judgment and de-cision-making ability. This myth results in black athletes being excludedfrom positions requiring dependent or coordinative tasks as such’ activi-ties generally require greater judgment than idependent tasks. In short,the central positions in major league baseball and football are typicallythe most responsible or so-called &dquo;brains positions.&dquo; The following quota-

5 Charnofsky (1967), for example, presents evidence which suggests that whilethere exists a degree of racial prejudice among a number of players, the majorityof athletes in professional baseball hold favorable attitudes toward minority groupmembers on their teams. We note, however, that off the field the problem of

discrimination may be a horse of a different color. For example, the 1969 season

is the first where several teams have set forth explicit policies assuring the racialintegration of teammates on the road via mixed room assignments.



19

tions from Olsen with respect to central and peripheral defensive posi-tions within football organization well illustrate the matter:

&dquo;Most defensive football players have a single job to do, with little variation,but the linebacker has to exercise judgment&dquo; says a thoughtful NFL player.&dquo;He may wind up tackling the quarterback fifteen yards behind the line of scrim-mage, and he may wind up knocking down a pass twenty-yards up the field. He

has to be able to read plays-well, everybody knows all the things the linebackerhas to do. It’s one of the most responsible defensive positions. Therefore, he can’tbe a Negro&dquo; (p. 172).

&dquo;Cornerback is not a brains position&dquo; says Bill Koman, retired St. Louis Car-dinal linebacker. &dquo;You pick up the split end or the flanker and you stay with himall the way. That’s it&dquo; (p. 173).

&dquo;Yassuh, white man, boss,&dquo; says one NFL cornerback derisively when askedabout the situation, &dquo;We ain’t got the brains to play center, ’cause we can’t count,but we can follow that flanker’s ass all the way down the field, yuck, fuck&dquo; (p. 173).

In our discussion herein we have emphasized the interaction and taskdependency dimensions of centrality; whereas in our empirical exami-nation of racial segregation we stressed the dimension of spatial location.Additional limitations of our empirical analysis include the fact that

our measure of spatial location was dichotomous rather than continuousin nature; and the fact that we only looked at major league baseball andfootball for specific one-year periods. In an effort to overcome these li-mitations, we extended our analysis of the racial composition of profession-al baseball to cover a twelve year period; and we developed an opera-tional index of centrality which is continuous in nature and which reflectsthe interaction and task dependency dimensions of centrality.

Table 5 shows the approximate number of individual white andblack athletes at each field position in the major leagues over a twelve

- year period. 6 The table also shows the rank order of playing positions interms of the proportion of Negro players at each position. This rank orderis nearly identical to that given in Table 1.

Having reaffirmed the relationship between segregation and spatiallocation, we turned our attention to the interaction and task dependencydimensions of centrality. We decided that the total number of &dquo;assists&dquo;made by occupants of given field positions during a season would serve

6 As is evident from Table 4, we were unable to obtain relevant data fora number of seasons for the two major leagues between 1956 and 1967. However,there does not appear to be much change in playing personnel from one yearto the next. Moreover, our figures provide a conservative estimate of the racial

composition of professional baseball, in that the missing data includes more whiteplayers.

It was not difficult to keep track of a small number of players switching leaguesover the period sampled, but a small number of players switching playing positionsover the period covered did pose a bit of a problem. We arbitrarily assigned themthe position where they had played the most games in their major league career.



20

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TABLE 5

Distribution of Individual White and Black Playersby Position in Major League Baseball 1956-1967

TABLE 6

Ranks for Position Occupancy and AnnualAssists in Professional Baseball

- -- - --

as an adequate operational indicator of centrality. On the one hand,assists are an indicator of the rate of interaction and the number and

range of other group members with whom a position occupant interacts.On the other hand, assists are an index of the degree to which dependenttasks are associated with given positions.

7 An assist is the official credit awarded in the scoring of a game to a playerwho throws a ball in such a way that it results in a putout. Data regarding assistswere obtained from the American League Red Book and the National LeagueGreen Books. These are annual publications of the two major leagues which reportvital statistics about all players, teams and games each season.



21

We discovered that the rank order of field positions with respect tonumber of annual assists remained the same for both leagues for everyyear covered. 8 More strikingly, however, we found a perfect rank ordercorrelation between our measures of segregation and centrality (see Ta-ble 6). Thus, we concluded that we had obtained substantial support forour theoretical hypothesis that racial segregation in professional teamsports is positively related to centrality.

WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF SEGREGATION?

It is exceedingly difficult to assess the social consequences of racialsegregation in professional baseball and football because data is limited;and because the consequences are both manifest and latent, acute andchronic. It would appear, however, that one of the major disadvanta-

geous consequences of segregation is the retardation of upward career mo-

bility in professional sports. Grusky (1963) has shown that approximatelythree-fourths of all major league baseball managers are recruited from

8 In the scoring of a game, the strikeouts made by the pitcher which are

caught by the catcher are recorded as putouts for the catcher. For purposes of

analysis we considered such putouts as assists. We reasoned that the catcher callsthe pitch and assists in making the strikeouts by receiving the thrown ball fromthe pitcher. We note that a strikeout is recorded regardless of whether the ball

is caught or not.An example of the consistency of the number of annual assists by position for

both leagues is the following data for the 1963, 1964 and 1965 seasons:



22

infield positions. 9 Therefore, to the degree that Negro athletes are deniedaccess to central positions, they are also limited in obtaining positionsof leadership in professional baseball. 10

Grusky assumes that the position which an individual occupies in-fluences his development of varying kinds of role skills; and furtherassumes that the occupancy of central positions enhances the obtainmentof key role skills related to upward career mobility. These rather broadassumptions are likely related to Hopkins’ (1964) set of fifteen theoreticalpropositions regarding small groups. For example, Hopkins states that:&dquo;For any member of a small group, the greater his centrality:

1. the greater his observability;2. the greater his conformity;3. the greater his influence; and,4. the higher his rank&dquo; (1964, p. 51).

Another related proposition is that centrality is positively related to liking(Grusky, 1963, p. 347; Homans, 1950, p. 133). 11

This latter proposition suggests that there may be a &dquo;vicious cycle&dquo;operating in professional sports. Negroes, because they are not liked bythe white establishment, are placed in peripheral positions; and, as a re-sult of this placement, do not have the opportunity of high rates of inter-action with teammates, and do not receive the potential positive senti-ment which might accure from such interaction. In view of the nature ofour problem, our discussion is likely too brief and superficial. However,we hope that we have been successful in directing the attention of sportsociologists to the matter of integration in American sport, and in provid-ing stimulation for further theoretical and empirical analyses of the

subj ect.

REFERENCES CITED

American Football League Official Autographed Yearbook 1968. Dallas: SportsUnderwriters, Inc., 1968.

American League Red Book. Boston: American League Publicity Department.

9 In Grusky’s study about twenty-five per cent of the managers were found tobe ex-catchers. Recent investigations by Loy and Sage concerning collegiate base-ball show that college coaches and college team captains are most often re-

cruited from infield positions; especially that of catcher. Moreover, their findingsindicate that, although there are relatively few Negroes playing college baseball,there are proportionately more Negroes in outfield than infield positions.

10 It is only recently that a token number of former Negro athletes have beenhired as coaches in professional sports; and to date there are no Negro headcoaches in major league football or Negro managers in major league baseball.11 See Hopkins, 1964, pp. 112—117 for a critique of this proposition.



23

Baseball Register. St. Louis: Sporting News.Berelson B. and Steiner G. A., Human Behavior - an Inventory of Scientific Find-

ings. New York: Harcourt, Brace World, Inc., 1964.Blalock H. M. Jr., Occupational Discrimination: Some Theoretical Propositions,

"Social Problems" (1962) 9: 240—247.

Boyle R. H., Sport — Mirror of American Life. Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1963.Charnofsky H., The Major League Professional Baseball Player: Self-Conception

Versus The Popular Image, "International Review of Sport Sociology" Vol. 3,Polish Scientific Publishers, Warsaw 1968.

Grusky O., The Effects of Formal Structure on Managerial Recruitment: A Studyof Baseball Organization, "Sociometry" (1963) 26: 345-353.

Homans G. C., The Human Group. New York: Harcourt, Brace World, Inc., 1950.

Hopkins T. K., The Exercise of Influence in Small Groups. Totowa, N. J.: BedminsterPress, 1964.

Loy J. W. and Sage J. N., The Effects of Formal Structure on OrganizationalLeadership: An Investigation of Interscholastic Baseball Teams; Paper present-ed at the 2nd International Congress of Sport Psychology, November 1, 1968

in Washington, D. C.Moore H. E., Discrimination, pp. 203-204 in Julius Gould and William L. Kolb (eds.),

A Dictionary of the Social Sciences. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964.Olsen J., The Black Athlete - a shameful story. New York: Time, Inc., 1968.National Football League Official Autographed Yearbook 1968. Dallas: Sports Under-

writers, Inc., 1968.National League Green Book. Cincinnati: National League Public Relations Depart-

ment.

Rosenblatt A., Negroes in Baseball: The Failure of Success; Trans-Action (Sep. 1967)4: 51-53, with a reply by Whitehead (Oct. 1967) 4: 63-64.

Siegel S., Nonparametrics Statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1956.

Study Indicates Cracking Majors Harder for Blacks. Los Angeles: Times, May 15,1969, Part III, p. 3.

Zanger J., Pro Football 1968. New York: Pocket Books, 1968.

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24

RASSENSEGREGATION IM AMERIKANISCHEN SPORT

Zusammen f assung

Stutzend sich auf Grusky’s Modell der formalen Organisationsstruktur und

Blalock’s theoretische Vorschlgge zur Frage der Besch5ftigungsdiskriminierung,bringt der Autor die Hypothese vor, dass Rassensegregation in Berufssportmann-schaften bestimmt mit der Zentralitdt in Verbindung steht.

Vergleiche der Rasse und Position von Mitgliedern der bedeutendsten Mann-schaften der amerikanischen Liga fur professionellen Baseball im Jahre 1967

sowie der bedeutendsten Mannschaften der amerikanischen Liga fur professionel-len Fussball im Jahre 1968 bestdtigten diese Hypothese. Kurz gesagt: Forschungenhaben ergeben, dass Neger im Vergleich mit Weissen mit viel gr6sserer Wahrschein-lichkeit Randpositionen im Spiel professioneller Sportmannschaften und mit viel

geringerer Wahrscheinlichkeit ScNfsselpositionen in diesen Mannschaften ein-

nehmen.

LA SEGREGATION RACIALE DANS LE SPORT AMTRICAIN

, Rdsumd

S’appuyant sur le modele de Grusky concernant le modele formel d’organisa-tion structurelle et sur les constatations th6oriques de Blalock, relatives a la discri-mination occupationnelle, 1’auteur avance 1’hypothese suivante: la segregation ra-

ciale dans les 6quipes sportives est postitivement li6e a la centralisation.Cette hypoth6se a ete confirmee par les comparaisons des races et des postes

occup6s aux Etats-Unis dans les organisations sportives les plus importantes de

base-ball en 1967 et dans les plus importantes 6quipes de foot-ball de premieredivision en 1968. R6sumant, les r6sultats des recherches indiquent que, en comparai-son avec les sportifs blancs, les sportifs noirs occupent plus souvent des positionsperipheriques dans le jeu, et plus rarement des positions centrales dans le jeu des6quipes sportives professionnelles.



segregation in sport* - sage journals · segregation denotes the exclusion of certain categories...

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