During the discussion of the amusing brouhaha over the New York Times’ management being revealed to rate its black and Hispanic journalists more poorly on average than its white journalists, it’s often asserted that there can only be two reason why whites (and to a lesser extent Asians) outperform blacks and Hispanics:
Many conservatives assume that without a racial thumb on the scales in hiring, the average performance of all the races hired would be the same. But that’s not how bell curves work. Even with perfectly meritocratic hiring, the superstars among employees are likely to come from groups shifted to the right on the probability distribution.
I was looking for a real world example of this. You can see this among Latin baseball players by comparing Dominicans to Mexicans. There are constantly new stars out of the DR but seldom out of Mexico. In MLB history, there have been 17 Dominican-born players, such as Juan Marichal, David Ortiz, Sammy Sosa, and Vladimir Guerrero Sr., better than the best Mexican player, Fernando Valenzuela.
How come?
Well, Mexico is a mestizo country while the Dominican Republic is a mulatto country.
In the U.S., blacks tend not to be very interested in baseball anymore—Willie Mays likely would be an NFL cornerback today—but blacks love baseball in the DR because that’s their only sport.
For example, the Pittsburgh Pirates have a rookie shortstop named Oneil Cruz who is 6’7″ and 220 pounds and who might be the finest physical specimen in baseball since Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Heck, he might well be the most remarkable body ever in the history of baseball. He’s already broken Stanton’s record for the hardest hit ball since they started measuring about a decade ago—a single off the right field fence. And he broke Dominican shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr.’s biochemically powered record for fastest throw to first with a 98 mph mark.
And Cruz is one of the fastest runners on the basepaths in the majors, faster than star NFL wide receivers.
On the other hand, he’s only batting .199 because hitting a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher is extremely hard and batting is kind of a knack no matter how muscular you are. If they played football or basketball in the DR, Cruz might be already be a superstar NFL wide receiver or NBA forward. But in MLB he’s still a project.
In contrast to the DR, Mexico is a big country with about a dozen times the population of the Dominican Republic, and it at least used to be pretty baseball crazy. For example, back during WWII, when Mexico was making lots of money, El Presidente’s son-in-law decided to make the Mexican League into the third major league and he paid 18 American big leaguers, such as Sal Maglie, to jump their contracts to play in Mexico. This caused a vast scandal, much like the current one involving the Saudi-financed LIV golf tour signing PGA Tour stars like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.
But then the war ended and the money stopped flowing into Mexico and it all went under. The American ballplayers finally got back to MLB around 1950.
The Los Angeles Dodgers always wanted to have a Mexican star the way they had a Jewish star in Sandy Koufax and the Brooklyn Dodgers had the first black star in Jackie Robinson. And in 1981 they found him in pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who proved an immense draw, both at home and around the National League.
Fernando was not quite a great pitcher, but he was a tremendously dramatic pitcher. He was the Maria Callas of baseball. To see the conflict between Fernando’s dumpy body and his superb will and skill was memorable. Valenzuela emerged out of Mexico at age 20 as a baseball genius. On the other hand, pitching is heavily biased toward height.
In major league history, Valenzuela remains the best Mexican-born ballplayer, with a career total of 41 wins above replacement—e.g., across his career, a team with Valenzuela would win 41 more games than the same team except with a sub-average replacement level player in Valenzuela’s stead. 41 is a fine total. But it usually takes around 60 to make the Hall of Fame, although lately they seem to be letting in players around Fernando’s level, such as Harold Baines (39) and Tony Oliva (43), so he might make it someday if the lowering of standards goes on.
The second best Mexican-born player ever was Fernando’s kinsman Teddy Higuera Valenzuela (30 WAR), a remarkably similar but less charismatic 1980s lefthanded pitcher.
That’s not counting American-born players of Mexican descent, such as Nomar Garcia (44 WAR), much less half-Mexican Americans like Evan Longoria (59 WAR) and Ted Williams (122 WAR).
In contrast, there are 17 Dominicans with more WAR than Valenzuela, the highest ranking Mexican. They are led by Albert Pujols (101 WAR), who is suddenly the hottest hitter in baseball at age 40 million plus, followed by Adrian Beltre (94 WAR) and Pedro Martinez (84 WAR), perhaps the most cunning pitcher ever. And that’s not counting American-born Dominicans like Alex Rodriguez (118 WAR), whom Pujols is attempting to overtake for fourth place all-time in home runs, behind Bonds, Aaron, and Ruth.
What’s the difference between Mexico and Dominican Republic? The Dodger scout who found Fernando, Mike Brito, who recently died at 87, spent decades scouring Mexico. His conclusion for why he hadn’t found many stars: Mexicans just have too short legs.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that soccer is now much more popular in Mexico, in part for that reason. You don’t have to be tall like 6’2″ Cristiano Ronaldo to be good at soccer. You can also be 5’7″ like Lionel Messi.
If there was a tipping point when soccer defeated baseball in Mexico in popularity, perhaps it was the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, in particular the quarterfinal of Argentina vs. England, the Hand of God game, when Diego Maradona scored perhaps the two most talked-about goals in the history of soccer.
I can’t say for sure that the stumpy Maradona was a mestizo, but he sure looked like one. If you were a short stocky Mexican kid around 1990, who would you have followed for your sport: Valenzuela or Maradona?
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