Torii Hunter agreed to a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels earlier this week.  The Angels didn’t disclose financial terms of the deal, which is subject to Hunter passing a physical, but the Los Angeles Times reported it was worth $90 million, the richest in Angels history.  Hunter, 32, batted .297 with 28 home runs, 107 runs batted in, and 94 runs scored for the Minnesota Twins last season.  He also won his seventh Gold Glove Award for defense, but is he a hypocrite?
“We are very excited to have Torii joining our organization,” Angels General Manager Tony Reagins said in the statement. Hunter had played his entire Major League Baseball career with Minnesota, which selected him with the 20th overall pick in the 1993 draft. He has a .271 career average with 192 homers, 711 runs batted in, and 672 runs scored over his 10 seasons and is a two-time All-Star.
But what about the being a role model for the black youth of today?  What about going to a “strong African-American” base?  It makes me wonder if Torii is more interested in the dollars than his role as superhero.

Earlier this year, when trade talks came up involving Hunter, he made it clear he was interested in Atlanta and Washington, saying that Washington’s large African-American population is a factor in his interest in playing for the Nationals as he would like to be a leader in the community.  Hunter said the Braves have also piqued his interest for the same reason.
“I always talk to my wife about being interested in playing in front of the African-American fans and trying to get the African-Americans back to playing the game,” he said.  “If I go to Atlanta or D.C. and make a difference that way, I would love it. Trust me — D.C. is very interesting to me as well as Atlanta.”
I did some digging to learn more about each of the cities involved:

While Hunter Loves to talk about going somewhere with a large African-American fan base, the proof is in the Thanksgiving pudding.  Torii was speculated to have drawn interest from five to six teams, including Texas, Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, so why Anaheim?!
Let’s look at the cultural breakdown of each city Hunter had callers from …

Chicago, Illinois  -  Illinois census data reports that Chicago’s population includes 36.8%
African-Americans  - The state’s population is 15.1% African-American.
District of Columbia  -  census data reports that Washington is populated by 57% African-American persons.
Texas  -  Hunter makes his off-season home in Texas.  For that reason, it would seem like a perfect fit for him.  Given his earlier comments, with only 13.7 % of the population of Arlington being African-American, and only 11.5% of the state of Texas, it obviously wasn’t as attractive, though.
What about Atlanta?  Hunter publicly praised the state for it’s racial mix.  How does Atlanta fit Hunter’s mold?  While Georgia’s population is 28.7% African-American, the city of Atlanta owns a strong base of 61.4% African-American persons.  Obviously, this was why Hunter indicated a desire to go there in the first place.

Finally, there is Anaheim, California.  California has the lowest African-American population among the involved states with only 6.7%.  Anaheim, as a city, is only 2.7% African-American.

Given his sentiments, the selection of Anaheim makes no sense.  He talks about being a role model for young African-Americans and then chooses a city, from among a culturally diverse selection of cities, that boasts the least amount of people that he is trying to impress and mentor.  There must be a logical explanation … $$$.

Yes.  Could it be that there was a $90 million reason!?  It is the largest contract in Angel history, after all.