The Rasputin* of Sports-Related Racial Stereotypes

So Major League Baseball and Chevrolet do this thing where they identify 6 qualities that Chevy trucks and some baseball players could be said to have in common. Then each week they nominate 6 players who they think best embody that week's quality, and ask fans to vote on which one should win.

This week's quality is "durability". The MLB site explicitly equates durability with "toughness", noting that, "you can't succeed in the Major Leagues without toughness, a quality that endears you to your manager, your team-mates, and your fans." Then it tells you the 6 nominees, and they are all white, even though only 63% of all players are white.

In sports, for some reason, only white guys can be tough.


*When I say this is the Rasputin of sports-related racial stereotypes, I mean because it's very hard to kill. Not because it helped precipitate the fall of the Romanov Dynasty, or because it had, by some accounts, a large and serendipitously-placed mole on the shaft of its penis.