Baseball Scholarship Can’t Be Dismissed

I was distressed to read Doreatha Hill’s letter regarding her thoughts on the absence of collegiate African American baseball players and The Times’ decision to print the letter.

Ms. Hill uses her family’s experience to support her credibility to comment on the black ballplayer’s experience in Southern California and notes slights and omissions experienced by those players while ignoring the 400-pound gorilla she herself pointed out: Her son received a full scholarship to play baseball!

Ms. Hill claims that African American prep ballplayers from Southern California are ignored by local colleges. Does she really think UCLA, USC, Cal State Fullerton or other Southland collegiate powerhouses are going to ignore talent? For all its intricacies, baseball has a primal foundation: to win. As Billy Martin infamously said, “I’d start Hitler if he could hit .300.”

Ms. Hill comes off too much like a disgruntled Little League mom and too little like a dispassionate critic.

Martin Zaehringer

Ventura