Jay Jaffe, one of the best baseball writers out there who genuinely seems like a cool dude, posted an article on FanGraphs this morning talking about the competitive advantage the Giants (as well as, and especially, the Dodgers) gained by integrating their organizations. It was written in part to honor Jackie Robinson (after this weekend’s celebration of him around the league), but also to demonstrate, statistically, how human beings’ general awfulness to each other stood in the way of some good baseball.
I may be reversing the point he was trying to make — the influx of not just Black talent, but Dominican and Puerto Rican players, too, revolutionized the game and gave it a quantum leap in terms of competitiveness — but for good reason.