With good reason, there's been a lot written about Brian Barton.

If you don't know his story, he was signed by the Indians a few years ago after area scout Jorge Diaz watched him tear up the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2004. Nothing unusual there.

The unusual part has to do with Barton's background. A terrific student, most in baseball thought he'd pass on the game in favor of working as an engineer for Boeing. So he wasn't drafted. In an interview with Baseball America a year ago, he was asked how he felt about being passed over in the 2004 draft:

BB: When I was younger I had dreams. I wanted to be an astronaut growing up. As I got older and older, I really just wanted to be a baseball player. Everything else at that point became secondary. This is my dream and what I've spent pretty much all my life doing. And then from the outside world it was almost taken from me because a lot of people--the majority I didn't even know--felt like they knew what I wanted out of life. That was one of the main things that hurt, especially when draft day came up. A lot of people who never saw me play, a lot of people I've never even talked to in my life now had what I saw as a pretty glaring role in determining my future.

That kind of bothers me a little bit because I think any time you make a decision on me you should at least come talk to me--know what's going on in my mind before you just assume things.

Mirabelli asked me before I signed if I really wanted to play. I told him if I didn't want to play, I wouldn't have put myself through all that trouble. I wouldn't have gone through the major I went through and still juggle baseball. But again, it really goes back to learning not to take things personal.

Mirabelli is the scouting director of the Indians, John Mirabelli.

After playing 3 years in the Cleveland system, Barton was available in the Rule 5 Draft and was selected by the Cardinals last December. He started for the big league club on Friday and Tony LaRussa said that he's eager to give him more playing time.

Now apparently there's been a little controversy over how he was viewed by the Tribe. In the current edition of the always terrific Baseball Prospectus, here's the comments on his player profile:

The Cardinals made Barton the best position player taken in this winter’s Rule 5 draft. Based on his age and skill set, the resulting big-league promotion should simply accelerate what should be a pretty nice career as a bench outfielder. Barton is among the smartest people in the game; he complete a degree in aerospace engineering at Miami, but turned down a high-paying job with Boeing to give this baseball thing a shot. There were some whispered concerns about Barton’s makeup during the year, but they amounted to little more than an ugly reminder that, even more than half a century after Jackie Robinson, there remains a small segment of the baseball community that is unable to accept intelligent black players.

BP maintains that the words in their books are from the collective authors and they rarely attribute words to a specific person. In this case, Kevin Goldstein chimes in that the words are his and that he stands by them.

The reason he even has to mention that he stands by his words:

At the same time it has come to our attention that the comment could be construed as my saying that the reason the Indians did not place Barton on their 40-man roster was because he was black, smart, or some combination thereof.

I sure didn't get that he was accusing the Indians of being a backwards organization but apparently some folks did. Here's his entire post:

by Kevin Goldstein

Baseball Prospectus 2008 is a massive book with a lot of words in it, and sometimes we use some of the space as a personal soapbox. Consider the player comment on Brian Barton, located on page 134:

The Cardinals made Barton the best position player taken in this winter’s Rule 5 draft. Based on his age and skill set, the resulting big-league promotion should simply accelerate what should be a pretty nice career as a bench outfielder. Barton is among the smartest people in the game; he complete a degree in aerospace engineering at Miami, but turned down a high-paying job with Boeing to give this baseball thing a shot. There were some whispered concerns about Barton’s makeup during the year, but they amounted to little more than an ugly reminder that, even more than half a century after Jackie Robinson, there remains a small segment of the baseball community that is unable to accept intelligent black players.

Now, we normally do not put bylines in the book, as it is very much a group effort. But I wrote those words, and I stand by them. At the same time it has come to our attention that the comment could be construed as my saying that the reason the Indians did not place Barton on their 40-man roster was because he was black, smart, or some combination thereof. In reading the comment again, I can understand where that inference comes from, and I want to make it clear that it was not my intention at all, and in fact, that inference couldn’t be further from the truth.

Here are a pair of facts related to that comment that help clarify things.

1. Those ‘whispered concerns about Barton’s makeup’ came from people who are not under the employ of the Cleveland Indians.
2. Any feedback I received about Barton from people directly related to the Cleveland organization was quite positive in terms of his makeup.

It was that dichotomy that had me think of some of the struggles that Doug Glanville encountered during his career, which led me to write what I wrote. Like nearly every aspect of our society, there is still some element of racism in baseball, to be sure, and that’s all that I was trying to point out. But to be clear, I was not pointing a finger at any one party, and in no way do I believe that any percentage of any personnel decisions made by the Indians concerning Brian Barton revolved around his ethnicity.

Nice to see him say that, even if it wasn't at all clear that he was ripping the Indians in his original comment. One thing that is clear - it's easy to root for Brian Barton.



Beanpot
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=829
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/printer/p263799.html
http://www.bnd.com/sports/breaking_news/story/300852.html