Outfielder Adam Jones on the Baltimore Orioles, says African American baseball players will not protest the national anthem because, “Baseball a white man’s sport.” This stems from current topic of much debate, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick not standing for the national anthem because he believes that the Flag does not represent what it should.

However, Jones’ response when asked if he and other African Americans would do the same raised some eyebrows, saying “In football, you can’t kick them out. You need those players. In baseball, they don’t need us.”

Jones makes an interesting point being that in the NFL, according to USA Today, African Americans make up 68% of the league population whereas in the MLB it is just 8%.  After gathering this information I asked students at WMC if they believed that MLB owners cuting African Americans from the league was a legitimate possibility.

Sophomore Dylan Goldberg said in response to this question,“I doubt it, I don’t think they would cut them but it would become like the Colin Kaepernick thing.”

This is a very common idea among the general public where people would simply take to social media to voice their opinions rather than take direct action.

Junior Lauren Shultis added to this idea saying,  “They could probably cut them but that would also cut a lot of the viewers that would watch.”

She points out a major flaw in the point Jones makes. In fact according to MLB. Combined, this year’s all star game contained 39 players of color which was almost half (49.4%) of the total players. Eliminating these players would hinder a team’s ability to compete as well, which would undoubtedly scare off team owners looking to win the World Series.

While Jones may bring up a valid idea, the legitimacy behind his remarks seems to be questionable. However, with no MLB players taking any course of action as of yet, this idea may be holding back more than just Jones.