> Cultural Diversity: Diversity in the Dugout

I. Introduction
II. Objectives
III. Preparing the Students
IV. Presentation
V. Enrichment and Assessment Activities
VI. Additional Resources
VII. Relevant National Learning Standards
VIII. Planning a Videoconference?

Printable Format

I. Introduction - rationale, goals, target audience
"For starting pitchers we have two Dominicans, one Italian, one Mexican, and one Japanese. In the bullpen we have a Venezuelan, a Mexican, a guy from the United States, and a guy from St. Louis." Tommy Lasorda made this statement while managing the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1999. Today, 30 countries and territories are represented in major and minor league baseball, with 30 percent of players on big league rosters born outside the United States. For over 100 years the game of baseball has created many opportunities for players from around the world - showing the "National Pastime" to be more culturally diverse than ever before. The melting pot of cultures within baseball, however, does not come without hardship. Racism, discrimination and cultural differences combine to make life difficult for players of all backgrounds. But the game takes on unique flavors worldwide as players, fans, and cultures come together at the ballpark, leaving many of their differences behind.

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II. Objectives - in completing this lesson, students will:
A. Examine historical data from various sources (including museum and library collections, artifacts, primary sources, oral histories, and Web sites) for life experiences of baseball players as they pertain to their time period and cultural background.

B. Analyze the geographic location of players, and the effect their backgrounds had on the baseball team - and the general culture of the stadium and community. Discuss various obstacles players faced, on and off the field, and how they had to overcome them.

C. Understand how the impact of cultural diversity, location and era affected a player's ability to succeed.

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III. Preparing the Students
A. Background
As European immigrants first descended on New York's Ellis Island in the 19th century, many children played baseball to ease their assimilation into a new society. Soon after baseball's popularity grew around the time of the Civil War, the first foreign-born players were making their professional debuts, and baseball's expansion correlated with American influence in countries throughout the world. With the continued growth and popularity of baseball in the late 19th / early 20th centuries, many players emigrated from Central & South America specifically to play baseball. Globalization brought Asian players to baseball's sphere of influence in the mid-to-late 20th century. The World Baseball Classic in 2006 featured 16 teams from countries around the world playing in the United States, Puerto Rico and Japan, highlighting the diversity in baseball today.

B. Vocabulary
Asian
Assimilation
Attitude
Awareness
Biography
Correlate
Culture
Debut
Discrimination
Diversity
Ellis Island
Emigrate
Ethnic
Foreign
Globalization
Immigration
Influence
Integration
Itinerary
Latino
Melting Pot
Native
Obstacles
Overcome
Pioneer
Racism
Reduce
Reflect
Stereotype
Universal

C. Suggested Pre-Program Activities
1) Go to the multi-media section of this lesson and print pictures of foreign-born baseball players (coming soon.) Identify one fact about each pioneering player.

2) Examine a list of cities and countries in which current players were born. Identify these countries on a map and three facts about each country.

3) Examine the countries fielding teams in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. How many players on current Major League rosters hail from those countries?

4) Discuss the ethnic populations found in American cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and the West Coast.

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IV. Presentation
If you are participating in a school visit or videoconference please do not review this section with your students. It will be taught as part of the presentation.

A. Opening
1) Match a list of current and former baseball players with a list of countries they came from - perhaps plotted on a map of the world.

2) Showing pictures of players of differing ethnicities either with a printed picture or via powerpoint, read a quote highlighting a player's background (in regard to racial issues, cultural obstacles, etc.). Ask students to match the quote to the player.

3) Call out common baseball phrases in Spanish, French, Japanese or any foreign language and ask students to identify the commands in each phrase.

4) Print a baseball contract in a foreign language and ask students to sign it (coming soon). The contract will explain to students that they are contractually obligated to swing the bat with only one arm, and dressed in a chicken suit. How does this make them feel after they are told what they have signed?

B. Lesson
1) Hand out a bio card of a player to each student in order to determine the ethnic group to which each student belongs. Cards will feature multiple players of differing backgrounds - Americans, Japanese, Cuban, Venezuelan, etc. INSTRUCTOR'S NOTE: This will depend on whether or not the visiting class is a foreign language class, or a general classroom.

2) From the bio cards of players, have students produce a list of obstacles the players might meet playing baseball in the United States. Produce a visual representation (chart or pattern box, etc.) of obstacles common to each group. Discuss how the obstacles differ, which obstacles would be universal to each group, and examine how obstacles have either reduced or increased over time.

3) Introduce the playing of winter baseball in the Caribbean and South America. Discuss the 1937 Pittsburgh Crawfords, nine of whom (including Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson) left the team in order to play for Dominican president Rafael Trujillo. List advantages and disadvantages they would face as Americans in South America & the Caribbean.

4) Discuss how Nemesio Guillo - credited as the "father" of Cuban baseball - took baseball back to Cuba in 1864 after attending Springhill College in Mobile, AL, and how American teacher Horace Wilson organized the first baseball game in Japan at what is now Tokyo University in 1873. Then examine the world baseball tours of the 1880s, 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. How would these events affect the spread of the popularity of baseball in other countries or cultures?

5) Download a list of the first foreign-born players.
a) Discuss when and where European immigrants first played professional baseball.
b) What were the factors dictating the second wave of cultural diversity in baseball, what was their background and where did they play? INSTRUCTOR'S NOTE: Economic and political reasons - guide student responses appropriately - were major influences in the influx of Latino players some 30 years after the initial wave of European players. Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans both became the first Cuban-born players in the Majors on July 4, 1911 playing for the Cincinnati Reds. The first Dominican-born player, Ozzie Virgil, did not debut until 1956, and the first Latino Hall of Famer - Roberto Clemente - was not elected until 1973.
c) Finally examine the more recent wave of Asian-born players, and discuss where those players first played. INSTRUCTOR'S NOTE: Discuss Masanori Murakami, who debuted for the San Francisco Giants. Murakami played as a 21-year old pitcher in only 54 games and, despite playing well, left the Giants after the 1965 season to return to his native Japan. Why was it almost 30 years before another Asian-born player - Hideo Nomo - played in Major League Baseball. Examine why Asian players, for the most part, play in major centers of Asian-American population (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City).
d) Discuss diverse backgrounds from within the borders of the United States, and challenges that specifically Native American players like Jim Thorpe, Chief Bender, Louis Sockalexis faced from others within their own country.
e) How does the culture of the geographic region affect where these players choose to play, and how does each ballpark reflect the cultural climate of the area (sushi in Seattle, tortillas in Houston, Coca-Cola in Atlanta, etc.)?

C. Conclusion
1) Does diversity make us better as people and as a society? Support your answer with information learned in this unit.

2) Is your classroom culturally diverse? Is there a difference between race and culture? What can you do to increase cultural awareness in your classroom or neighborhood?

3) Since the 1860s baseball has reflected the changes of attitude towards different ethnic groups - good and bad. The discrimination faced by immigrants at the end of the 19th century to 2006's World Baseball Classic shows baseball today is truly a melting pot of cultures.

V. Enrichment and Assessment Activities
1) Assign a foreign-born baseball player (current or former) to each student and direct them to create a baseball card of that player. Include a picture of the player and experiences/obstacles that player faced.

2) Hold a cultural diversity day at your school. Groups (or students) can each be assigned a country and bring in that country's food, reproduce the flag, learn the national anthem.

3) Have students imagine they are a baseball player in a foreign country. Then have them write a letter to their families based on their fictional experiences. Consider how students overcame their challenges.

4) Plot the course of the 1880s, 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s world baseball tours and examine how many stops on those tours currently have baseball players in the Major Leagues. Plan a new world tour and come up with a list of countries students would like to include in their itinerary.

5) Using information from this unit, have each student reflect on their background and life experience as compared to that of a player of their choice. What can be learned by the player's experiences, and how could a student draw from those experiences in order to have a more successful life?

6) Have students research baseball executives of differing ethnic backgrounds and write a biographical sketch of that person (choices can include Arturo Moreno, Omar Minaya, Fredi Gonzalez, Manny Acta, Ozzie Guillen, Kim Ng, etc.).

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VI. Additional Resources
A. Literature
Bjarkman, Peter J. A History of Cuban Baseball: 1864-2006, 2007.

Bruchac, Joseph. Jim Thorpe: Original All-American, 2006.

Hogan, Lawrence D. Shades of Glory, 2006.

Jamil, Milton. Full Count: Inside Cuban Baseball, 2000.

Kashatus, William J. Money Pitcher: Chief Bender and the Tragedy of Indian Assimilation, 2006.

Lafreniere, Kenny. El Duque: The Story of Orlando Hernandez, 1999.

Light, Jonathan Fraser. The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, 1997.

Kelley, Brent. The Negro Leagues Revisited, 2000.

Maraniss, David. Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, 2006.

Markusen, Bruce. Roberto Clemente: The Great One, 1998.

Monk, Cody. The Dominican Dream Come True: Alfonso Soriano, 2003.

Myers, Walter Dean. The Journal of Biddy Owens, 2001.

Nakagawa, Kerry Yo. Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese Baseball, 2001.

National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum. Baseball as America, 2002.

Oh, Sadaharu and Falkner, David. Sadaharu Oh: A Zen Way of Baseball, 1984.

Riess, Steven A. Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era, 1980.

Walker, Donald E. and Cooper, B. Lee. Baseball and American Culture; A Thematic Bibliography of Over 4500 Works, 1995.

White, Sol. A History of Colored Base Ball, 1907.

Whiting, Robert. You Gotta Have Wa, 1990.

Wilson, Nick C. Early Latino Ballplayers in the United States, 2005.

B. Web Links
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Spanish-English Baseball Dictionary

List of Native American Baseball Players

First Foreign-Born Major League Players

Nisei Baseball Research Project

A Tribute to Cuban Baseball

Official Site of the 2006 World Baseball Classic

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Negro Leagues Baseball Players Association

Library of Congress

Latino Sports Legends

Baseball-Reference

LatinoBaseball.com

Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame (en Espanol)

Other Media Coming Soon

VII. Relevant National Learning Standards

A. Foreign Language
1) Uses the target language to express needs, feelings, and ideas related to everyday situations.

2) Knows distinctive contributions made by people in the target culture.

B. History
1) Understands the experiences of diverse groups and minorities in different regions of the country.

2) Understands efforts to restrict immigrants and diverse groups of people in the post-World War I era.

3) Understands the experience of immigrant groups.

4) Understands the involvement of diverse groups in the civil rights movement.

5) Understands the causes and nature of movements of large groups of people into and within the United States, now and long ago.

6) Understands the dreams and ideals that people from various groups have sought, some of the problems they encountered in realizing their dreams, and the sources of their strength and determination that families drew upon and shared.

7) Understands how people over the last 200 years have continued to struggle to bring to all groups in American society the liberties and equality promised in the basic principles of American democracy.

8) Knows how to identify patterns of change and continuity in the history of the community, state, and nation, and in the lives of people of various cultures from times long ago until today.

C. Geography
1) Understands the characteristics of populations at a variety of scales.

2) Knows the causes and effects of human migration.

3) Knows the ways in which human movement and migration influence the character of a place.

4) Knows the human characteristics of places (e.g., cultural characteristics such as religion, language, politics, technology, family structure, gender; population characteristics; land uses; levels of development).

5) Understands ways in which people view and relate to places and regions differently.

6) Knows the similarities and differences in characteristics of culture in different regions.

7) Knows the distinctive cultural landscapes associated with migrant populations.

8) Knows ways in which communities reflect the cultural background of their inhabitants.

D. Language Arts
1) Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts.
2) Writes personal letters.

3) Writes biographical sketches .

4) Summarizes and paraphrases information in texts.

5) Draws conclusions and makes inferences based on explicit and implicit information in texts.

6) Writes expository compositions.

7) Uses strategies to compile information into written reports or summaries.

8) Uses a variety of resource materials to gather information for research topics.

9) Contributes to group discussions.

E. Civics
1) Understands the role of diversity in American life and the importance of shared values, political beliefs, and civic beliefs in an increasingly diverse American society.

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VIII. Planning a Videoconference?
A. Videoconference Checklist (PDF)