What do Joe
DiMaggio and the new California affirmative action plan for colleges
and universities have in common?
Before and after
Joe DiMaggio’s recent death, many called him the greatest ballplayer
who ever lived. I dissent. No disrespect intended, for one can scarcely
overstate DiMaggio’s style, grace, elegance, and accomplishment.
But greatest
living ballplayer? And I don’t mean what about a Babe Ruth or a
Rogers Hornsby or a Ty Cobb.
Here’s the problem.
These guys did not play against the best. Until 1947, the modern
major leagues barred talented blacks and Latins from competing.
But black stars existed. They played, often under miserable field,
hotel, and travel conditions. For reasons having nothing whatever
to do with their character or ability, "major league"
baseball stopped them from displaying their talents before the widest
possible audience and on the most important stage.
According to
the Ken Burns PBS documentary on baseball, all-star players from
the Negro leagues and from the major leagues played each other during
so-called "barn-storming" tours. While records are sketchy,
many say the Negro players more often than not bested their white
counterparts.
The modern major
league shut-out of talented black and Latin ballplayers not only
harmed the excluded players. This shut-out hurt everybody—the excluded,
the included, and the fans—all of us.
Why shouldn’t
baseball place an asterisk next to Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs? He
never faced Satchel Paige, who, at an age well past his prime,
finally got a shot at the major leagues. Paige pitched effectively,
helping the 1948 Cleveland Indians to the World Series.
Until Rickey
Henderson and Maury Wills came along, many consider Ty Cobb the
best base stealer, having amassed 892 over a career that spanned
24 years. But tell me, was Ty Cobb the only fleet-footed ballplayer
of his era? How many records would a latter-day Lou Brock or
Tim Raines steal against pitching devoid of black and Latin arms?
Which brings
us to California Governor Gray Davis’ plan to admit the top 4% of
grads at every state high school to one of the University of California’s
campuses. Diversity, you know.
What about merit?
What about the unfairness of punishing a sub-top-4% kid at an academically
rigorous high school in favor of a top-4%-er at a school with lousy
standards? Where is the pressure on the lousy school to improve
if, irrespective of how badly teachers teach, how poorly administrators
administer, and how indifferently parents parent, the top 4% get
a pass?
But we all pay
for this. Corporations pay billions of dollars in remedial training
expenses, making up for under-performing K-through-12 schools. Davis’
4% plan removes yet another incentive on the part of these schools
to clean up their act.
And of the kid
who comes from a highly competitive academic school with high standards
and exacting classes, California Governor Davis effectively says,
"Too bad." Years ago the National Collegiate Athletic
Association instituted minimum SAT test scores. A court recently
overturned the NCAA’s minimum standard rule, but black athletes
did meet the standard. The decimation of the black collegiate
athlete never occurred. The kids knew what they had to do, and,
surprise, surprise, did it.
Defenders of
the governor’s plan say that the plan helps poor whites, too. Oh.
Guess it’s O.K. for merit meltdown if white sub-performers benefit
along with minority ones.
The laugher,
at least in California, is that Asian students take the biggest
hit through affirmative action. Asians outperform whites on standardized
tests, and hold huge pluralities at the leading California campuses.
Laws and policies
that punish merit, however well-intended, ultimately hurt everybody.
When you walk on a 747 and notice a female pilot, do you want someone
who represents company diversity or a lady who aced the flight academy?
When your mother has a heart attack and they wheel her on a gurney
into the OR, do you want a "diverse" group of doctors,
nurses, and other para-professionals, or do you want the best and
most competent you can afford?
When Clinton
assumed office, he said he wanted a cabinet that looked like America.
Does the physics faculty at MIT look like America? Does the roster
of the New York Knicks look like America? Do the leading players
in the fashion business look like America? What does that mean?
As long as the competition is fair and open, we all lose when we
try to control the result.
Here’s a better
policy. How about a Clinton cabinet that represents the best and
brightest in America? Then, the Prez could say about his cabinet,
as many have said about the great Joe DiMaggio, here, truly, was
the best. No asterisk necessary.