There is nothing sweeter in this world than the sweet perfume of a summer evening mist hanging over fresh-cut grass in an expansive outfield.

Baseball is the greatest of all-American sports. No other sport speaks to the heritage and culture of this country like baseball. This game shaped a century of American bliss, as Americans became intimately familiar with names like Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. These players were heroes, and the game was their coliseum.

I was at work, Monday, watching as many opening-day games as there were TV's at the bar. While blatantly disregarding my duties, which I pretty much do all the time anyway, I overheard a couple guys debating at the bar about steroids. They were arguing about whether recent home run records should count in the official record if it turns out that players have been using steroids. These gentlemen were talking about how much easier it is to hit home runs in today's game with smaller ballparks, larger strike zones and thinner pitching. I decided to take the indefensible position of arguing against them by saying that today's players are better than the players of yesteryear. They all laughed in my face, until I made one comment.

I said that players in the glory days of baseball had it easier for one simple reason -- it was a segregated sport, until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

They all stopped laughing. There was no way to argue against the potential impact players of color would have had on major league baseball had they been allowed to play.

There is no asterisk in front of statistics before 1947. All records stand with complete legitimacy. The stars of the Negro League remain lost in a largely forgotten history.

Very few people ask if Babe Ruth would have hit so many home runs had he played in an integrated league.

Institutional racism is a nebular term that many people have a hard time understanding. It basically means our society is set up with embedded conditions that allow one race to be superior over another. This racism is latent in nature. Many contributors to this type of racism have little knowledge of their participation.

Some contend that institutional racism does not exist within our society. People of this persuasion believe that if one works hard enough he or she is automatically entitled to the fruits of his or her labor. They believe the argument of institutional racism is no more than an excuse for laziness and complacency. They also believe that institutional racism is a ploy for political power and the rise of socialism in America.

Our national pastime offers the perfect opportunity to examine the existence and the effects of institutional racism. The first half-century of the sport saw only whites on the fields of major league baseball. No matter how hard a player of color worked he was denied the opportunity to play in the major leagues because of his skin. Negro League players made far less money and received almost zero recognition in the mainstream press.

Negro League teams like the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays might very well have been able to compete on a major league level.

The case remains the same today. Arguments about whether Roger Maris deserved the home run record after hitting 61 in an extended season still has rage. Very few people will argue that perhaps black players might hold this, and other records, had they been allowed to play in the majors.

This legacy still exists today. The media lauded Mark McGuire intensely when he broke Maris' home run record. When Barry Bonds broke McGuire's record the sports media remained relatively quiet. While Bonds is arrogant and abrasive, he is also black. There is a large part of me that believes that many people in this country did not want to see the most coveted of records in baseball go to a black man. America still has a racist legacy. Baseball, being the reflection of American culture, also still has a racist legacy.

It's natural for a person to work for something that advances his or her position in society. This mentality creates a tendency to advance one's own race, which is not entirely faulty. This type of attitude fosters community development and the society in which the community exists.

This attitude can also be abused, as strong-willed individuals use the frailty of weak minds to advance their own warped agenda. We must remember that democracies thrive when the rights of the minority are intact -- whether it is racial, or gender, or class-based.

I'm not in search of an indictment of our entire culture through the injustices of the past; however, for our society to evolve, we must be consciously aware of our latent prejudices.