Blacks in Baseball: A Silent Crisis (2005)

Originally published by The Master Report (Sacramento, CA)

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Blacks in Baseball: A Silent Crisis

By Mark Bryant

There was yet another World Series this fall, as there has been just about every year for the last century, with a couple of notable exceptions. For roughly half of that period, a significant segment of the population could only participate in the Fall Classic if they bought tickets.

Blacks were excluded from the rosters of Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson broke in with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Today, the African-American baseball player faces a different crisis than his predecessors who suffered from outright bigotry: He is simply disappearing from the game.

As the NFL and NBA has increased in popularity among spectator sports by leaps and bounds, the MLB has sharply declined from its’ status as “America’s pastime.” Today, pro football is considered to be on the cutting edge in attracting and keeping new fans, while baseball is regarded as stagnant and boring. It is no surprise, then, that more and more black athletes have elected to enter the lucrative, player-friendly arenas of the NFL and NBA rather than embark on a career in baseball.

Sports Illustrated ran a front-page article two years ago lamenting the absence of the black ballplayer in the major league ranks, but don’t hold your breath waiting for MLB to solve the problem. A letter to the Washington Post this spring summed up: “Why should it change, if the game is profitable, given its current fan base?”.

Latin-American players, particularly those from the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Venezuela, have stepped into the void left by the declining numbers of black ballplayers. They account for 86% of players born outside the U.S. Just as basketball is seen as an ingrained part of African American culture, so is baseball in Latin America. Cheap talent is always a plus when considering the recruitment process of the tangled maze of baseball’s scouting system.

“Baseball is an inherited game, you can’t pick it up on the streets like basketball or football,” says Ralph Wiley, the ex-Sports Illustrated writer. “We’re still waiting for the day when American-born blacks are treated with respect in the game.

“In the first place, baseball never welcomed black players to begin with, which is why they had to form their own leagues in the first half of the 20^th Century, if they wanted to play…There is an underlying resentment for black ballplayers.”

Percentage-wise, blacks in MLB peaked at 20-25% in the late 1970s and early 1980s, since then the numbers have declined. Today at 10%, we have the lowest number of black players in MLB since the Robinson days of integration. What accounts for that?

First off, baseball is not, never has been and never will be considered a “sexy” and “in” kind of sport. It is tedious and puts a premium on strategy and execution rather than sheer athleticism. While blacks may opt to participate in skill-oriented sports like football and basketball in droves, it perpetuates the stereotype that they do not have the cerebral skills to excel in “thinking-man’s” sports such as baseball.

Second, the role of the black mentor in the lower levels—Little League, youth, high school, college and minor leagues—has been rendered nonexistent. It is clear that baseball is not a popular choice among black youths of today, but the cutting of youth and feeder programs in black communities has been the most stinging indictment. There is a dearth of knowledgeable fans in black communities and inner cities who are qualified to step in and teach the game to black youths.

It is tough to aspire to a major league career when not given the opportunity to play at a young age, and such a fate befalls most kids, not necessarily only in poor predominantly black communities. Major League Baseball has been remiss in marketing the sport to youth. World Series games typically start late in the evening and end well after midnight on the East Coast. That is much too late for even adults to stay up and pay rabid attention to, much less a youngster.

Third, the overall glamorization of football and basketball in high schools is a factor in why baseball has become less popular among black youths who otherwise would be good candidates for baseball. Talented athletes more often than not will forgo baseball altogether in order to put more focus on training for football and basketball seasons. As more and more high schools demand their players participate in year-round conditioning, weight programs and camps, three-sport athletes have become increasingly rare. More often than not, baseball is left out in the cold.

“All the girls cheer for the football players, and the players see all the fans,” said former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon, who is African-American and has a son in high school. “You go to a high school baseball game, and 30 people are there. So a kid is naturally going to go toward football, if he’s only going to play one.”

Justin Kasprisin, a recent graduate of the University of Vermont, points to the influx of Latins in baseball as another culprit. “Latin-Americans rose in baseball for the same reasons African-Americans did when they had the Negro Leagues. The low cost of developing players in Latin America plus baseball’s popularity there has created a player pipeline to the U.S.”

Finally, the economic structure often dictates that blacks opt for the greener (yes, this pun is intended) pastures of the NFL and NBA. Baseball is an expensive sport that requires more equipment and space to play than football or basketball. Many African-Americans simply can’t afford to play or go to summer instructional camps. Colleges offer scholarships in football and basketball, and more blacks naturally see those sports as a way out of poverty. It has become increasingly common for teenagers to declare themselves eligible for the NBA draft in recent years. Baseball typically requires players to spend an extended apprenticeship in the minor leagues for at least two to three years with no guarantee of reaching the major league pinnacle.

To remedy this, MLB has begun the RBI (Rebuilding Baseball in the Inner Cities) program in the last decade as a way to bring back baseball to black youths. Today, 190 cities across the U.S. and Puerto Rico are home to RBI. In 2004, Commissioner Bud Selig opened up a new Urban Youth Academy in Los Angeles in addition to facilities at Compton Community College. Bringing baseball to African-American urban centers has been a sorely needed idea, but much more is needed.

“I’m not sure many African-Americans kids identify with baseball players anymore,” says Mike Zmijanac, athletic director and football coach at Aliquippa High School in Pennsylvania. “(Blacks) don’t identify with baseball the way they used to, but I think the sport has fallen out of favor with a lot of Americans overall.”