MLB’s international Latino players, coaches face challenges despite diversity efforts

ITHACA, N.Y. – Using Major League Baseball as a case study, Cornell University research highlights potential shortcomings in diversity metrics that could obscure inequities in sports and other organizations.

The researchers’ analysis of data from the major and minor leagues found that players and coaches from Latin America on average had shorter careers and were less likely to make it to the big leagues, reflecting unique obstacles despite MLB’s proactive diversity initiatives and high grades for on-field diversity.

In interviews, Minor League Baseball (MiLB) players and coaches and two MLB education coordinators shared overall positive attitudes toward baseball’s growing interculturalism. But they also described locker room cliques based on languages; disadvantages communicating with coaches who mostly speak only English; stronger feelings of inclusion among white players; and occasional incidents of bias. Those challenges could exacerbate struggles common to all minor leaguers: low pay, frequent travel and extended separation from families and friends, sometimes starting as teenagers.

“International Latino players face language and cultural barriers that aren’t captured in the most commonly used measures of diversity,” said Claire Malcomb, a doctoral student in the field of organizational behavior. “Our studies provide some evidence that despite high player and coach diversity grades in the majors, there is still work to be done.”

Malcomb is the first author of a pair of papers published in Frontiers in Psychology, in a special issue on the role of cultural diversity in sports: “The Illusion of Inclusion: Examining the Limitations of Diversity Metrics in Baseball” and “Beyond the Grind: The Intercultural Challenges and Cohesion Efforts in MiLB,” both co-authored by Emily Zitek, associate professor of organizational behavior.

While all pro players coped with mental and physical grinds in a sport where even successful players experience failure frequently, players’ and coaches’ experiences revealed unique barriers for international Latino players, the researchers said.

The researchers recommended that organizations such as MLB pay careful attention to how their data is measured, who their data includes and the limitations of what their diversity metrics show, or risk overlooking obstacles. For example, Malcomb said, international Latino players account for much of the diversity among players, while front-office diversity stems largely from that among U.S. citizens.

Simply counting “people of color” — the metric many organizations use to measure diversity — doesn’t capture the diverging experiences people from different backgrounds may have, particularly at lower levels, the researchers said.

“Better understanding the population within baseball becomes especially important when considering how to improve diversity, equity and inclusion,” Malcomb said. “The barriers and inequity faced by a U.S.-born Black player likely differ from those faced by an international Latino player. Despite this, under current diversity metrics, both are labeled ‘people of color’ and considered the same when making DEI policy decisions.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.

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