African-American and baseball today

[Honus Wagner Rules]

For years there's be a great concern about the lack of many African-Americans in the major leagues. So this article sheds some light of hope.


Upton brothers look to reverse trend

By Bomani Jones
Page 2, ESPN

When Manny Upton was growing up, his father called him Bossman. The nickname was so closely attached to him that his high school coach suggested he name his first son B.J. -- Bossman Junior.

So the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' starting second baseman goes by B.J., even though his birth certificate says his name is Melvin. B.J. Upton got more than a cool nickname from his father. He got a love of baseball and a successful work ethic from Manny and Yvonne Upton, too; and those lessons still fuel B.J. and his brother, Justin, the two highest-drafted brothers ever. B.J. was the second overall pick in the 2002 draft. Arizona took Justin with the first pick in 2005.

B.J. Upton may have finally found a home at second base.B.J. is off to a hot start with the Devil Rays, hitting .385 with a home run and five RBIs through the team's first eight games. Justin started 2007 with the Visalia Oaks in the Class A California League, a step up from his pro debut last year when he was a midseason All-Star with South Bend in the Midwest League.

They are bright faces of baseball's future in a time when fewer black players are reaching the majors. African-American players comprised 27 percent of big league rosters in 1974, according to the University of Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, while this season they make up only 9.2 percent.

The Uptons are aware of the numbers. With the same love he showed his sons on their way to professional baseball careers, Manny "Bossman" Upton continues to share his passion and insight with other young players back home in Cheseapeake, Va., in the hope of re-heating the relationship between blacks and baseball.

The love of baseball is passed down from father to son, perhaps more than any other sport. When Spike Lee received the Beacon Award at the Civil Rights Game in Memphis two weeks ago, he discussed how his father cultivated his affection for the game.

Bob Kendrick, the director of marketing of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, understands.

"It's the most romanticized game of all the sports. People tend to mark events in their lives with baseball. The late Buck O'Neil once said, 'You never hear anyone saying their daddies took them to their first basketball game.' But you hear it all the time with baseball."

Manny Upton picked up baseball the same way. Growing up in the Tidewater town of Chesapeake, his father passed the game along to him. All his uncles played baseball.


He became a very good player. In 32 years of coaching baseball at Great Bridge High School in Chesapeake, Martin Oliver gave starting jobs to only five freshmen. Manny was one of them, before he went on to play college football and baseball at Norfolk State University. Later, he worked as a scout for the Kansas City Royals.

"I could never remember a kid that had that great work ethic and great attitude," Oliver says from his office at Hickory High School in Chesapeake, where he serves as athletics director. "Bossman always did things the right way."

So do his sons. Steve Gedro coached B.J. at Hickory through his sophomore year, when little brother Justin served as the team's manager. Gedro sees how they learned the game's intangibles.

"Outside the lines, Manny is a laid-back individual," he says. "Inside the lines, he's very competitive."

Manny made sure to share this outlook with his sons. His father passed away when he was 15, making it imperative that he be active in his sons' lives.

Yvonne Upton says her sons loved every minute of Manny's attention, and B.J. and Justin loved playing baseball with him.

"Oh god, I tell everybody that my sons always thought the sun would rise and set with daddy," she says. "I could remember B.J. sitting in the window. He had an internal clock and knew when he'd come home, and he had his glove."

Justin wasn't far behind.

"I always made him come and play," B.J. said at his locker in spring training. With a smirk that showed humor and a dash of pride, he says, "Everything he knows, he knows from me."

Looking back, Justin didn't find much humor in those days. He remembered being on the short end of the sibling rivalry, a feeling little brothers all over can relate to. "He was always a step up, always better. He always beat up on me."

He did, however, appreciate having his older brother. Though baseball keeps them from seeing each other very often, their relationship is strong. "I did referee a lot of fights," Yvonne says between chuckles. "But that closeness between them is always there."

They battled like all brothers do, but B.J. served as another in-house role model. Unlike Manny, B.J. was Justin's contemporary, someone he could measure his progress against and aim to surpass. "To have an older brother to try to catch up to just added a little more fire under my butt. That's what drove me to be a great baseball player," Justin said.

On his way to the Devil Rays, B.J. climbed quickly through the system, reaching the majors in August of 2004 when he was still just 19 years old. Justin was the 2005 national high school player of the year and is widely considered one of the top prospects in baseball.

But their steps up the baseball ladder haven't been totally smooth. B.J. struggled defensively in the minors, even committing a whopping 53 errors at shortstop in 2005 at Triple-A Durham. Justin hit a serviceable but unspectacular .263 at South Bend.

B.J.'s struggles in the field left the Devil Rays unsure of where he would play in the big leagues, so he wore several gloves in spring training. Upton was just as confused. When asked in March what position he would play, he shook his head, took a deep breath and said "I don't know" in an exasperated tone.

"He's gonna be fine with it," Manny says before mentioning his appreciation for Tampa Bay's attempts to make his son comfortable. "He's happy at second. He'll do whatever it takes to be good."

Manny is also at ease about Justin, with no concern that being the top pick will burden the 19-year-old.

"If he proves himself at A ball, he'll move to Double-A. If he doesn't, he doesn't deserve to move," Manny says. "The added pressure isn't being No. 1. The added pressure is from getting better."

Manny Upton suggests that one of the reasons baseball seems to have lost the interest of the black community is the financial burden demanded of grooming the game's best young players. It takes money to get into the AAU programs that produce many of the top-notch high school players.

Without the wildly successful AAU summer program the late Towny Townsend founded in Chesapeake, which in recent years has produced first-round picks Michael Cuddyer, John Curtice, David Wright, Ryan Zimmerman, the Uptons would not have gotten so far.

"The more you play, the better you get," Justin says. "Playing all those games in the summer really helped."

But the summer games don't come to the players. Players have to get to the games. Parents have to be able to make time and put forth the cash to cover expenses and supplies.

"We're both working parents. They had to be where they had to be," Yvonne says. "It was a financial sacrifice. There's hotel rooms, food, etc."

Manny works as a mortgage broker and officiates college basketball. Yvonne worked as a teacher before retiring two years ago. For the Uptons, the sacrifice was manageable.

Wiley Lee is the varsity baseball coach at Great Bridge High School, where he coached Justin. He believes less fortunate black players are forced by costs to specialize in one sport, and the sport of choice in the black community is usually not baseball.

"It's a tremendous financial obligation to [play two sports]," he says. "Because of the financial obligations and the travel that you do playing AAU, it's difficult to do two at the same time."

He believes that leads kids away from baseball and toward football and basketball, games that are more prevalent and easier to pick up. That's different than baseball, which leaves those that choose to leave it.

"After 8, 9, 10 years old, you can't miss a year. After that, the kids are too advanced," Manny says. "I picked up football as a 10th-grader. I don't care how talented you are at baseball. You can't leave."

The Upton brothers were both talented football players, so they understand the lure of football and basketball. So their concerns about decreasing numbers of blacks in baseball is tempered.

"I'm not sure it's frustrating," B.J. says. "[Black kids] see guys like Michael Vick . You just try to give them someone to look up to, to catch their eye."

Says Justin: "It's not so much disappointing. But it's to the point where we've got to pick it up again."

Wiley Lee and Manny Upton work together to encourage more black kids around Chesapeake to play baseball. Through Great Bridge High School, they provide young black athletes opportunities to play in more games and hold camps each winter, spring and summer. "We try to work with a lot of black kids and show them, not that basketball is bad, but baseball is good," Lee says.

"We have to somehow keep them involved," Manny says. "The hard part is that winters are tough. We don't have enough indoor facilities where we can keep them here all the time. Our good black athletes are good football and basketball players. We're trying to get them to start playing baseball a little bit more."

Lee says Manny's dedication is invaluable.

"He does whatever he can to help," Lee says. "We tell Upton we've got a great kid with good grades, and he comes to help. Even if he's a disciplinary problem, he helps."

B.J. and Justin also pitch in with funding for the program and help when they can.

"They come to help the kids," Lee says. "They show their faces and help motivate the kids and show it's not just a check they're willing to donate. They really spend time instructing them."

That's another example of the Bossman's mark on his kids. As proud as he is, there is one thing Manny Upton's waiting for, the one thing his sons that would please him more than anything.

"When my boys are on TV, I want them to say, 'Hi, Mom and Dad.'"

Or maybe even, "Hi, Bossman."

[I]Bomani Jones is a columnist for Page 2. Tell him how you feel at readers@bomanijones.com.

[Zito75]

I didn't read the entire article, but caught the gist of it... Interesting.

If you look at the Indians roster, there are only like 2 African Americans listed. Wouldn't you think that more blacks would be playing that can be recruited in Dominica and Haiti- places like that?

[Old Sweater]

I didn't read the entire article, but caught the gist of it... Interesting.

If you look at the Indians roster, there are only like 2 African Americans listed. Wouldn't you think that more blacks would be playing that can be recruited in Dominica and Haiti- places like that?


He believes that leads kids away from baseball and toward football and basketball, games that are more prevalent and easier to pick up. That's different than baseball, which leaves those that choose to leave it.

"After 8, 9, 10 years old, you can't miss a year. After that, the kids are too advanced," Manny says. "I picked up football as a 10th-grader. I don't care how talented you are at baseball. You can't leave."


They play year round in the Caribbean.

[baseball_83]

I didn't read the entire article, but caught the gist of it... Interesting.

If you look at the Indians roster, there are only like 2 African Americans listed. Wouldn't you think that more blacks would be playing that can be recruited in Dominica and Haiti- places like that?

The issue is more focused on African-Americans, not just "blacks". It's not about the color of someone's skin, it's about the lack of appeal baseball has among African-American youth, and why this is causing diminishing numbers of African-Americans in baseball.

[bryanac625]

Reading this article, several things stood out to me:

1. Two parents in the home, with a strong work ethic and goals.

2. One of the criticisms of the decline of African-Americans in the game is that it takes too long to develop a player. B.J. was drafted five years ago and it took two years to reach the majors. Justin was drafted two years ago and hasn't even made it to the majors yet- it's certainly not guaranteed he will. In a fast food society, people want instant results. Lebron James went straight from high school to the NBA, though even that is an exception.

3. Football and basketball are "easier to pick up," as Justin's high school coach says. You can play basketball with just two people and you don't even need a hoop. Besides that, both of those sports, it's become easier to be a superstar- a quarterback or a guard, a Michael Vick or a Michael Jordan.

I know some don't think any of this matters; I know some say there are already a great many blacks in baseball if you include dark-skinned Latino players like David Ortiz, Vladimr Guerrero, Alfonso Soriano, etc. I truly appreciate everyone who has had a positive influence on this game. Personally, I would like to see the legacy of Jackie Robinson continue, especially as we are about to celebrate his 60th anniversary. Baseball is my favorite sport and as an African-American myself, I'd certainly rather see a black kid playing the game than to see another news story about black youth lost to vulgar hip-hop or gang violence. I'd certainly rather hear about American blacks in baseball than some stupid story about a crazy woman falsely accusing three men of raping her or a shock jock referring to black women as "nappy-headed hos."

[Mattingly]

One of the problems with baseball is that baseball doesn't offer immediate financial rewards like other sports do. In the NBA, like the NFL (to my knowledge re the NFL), there's no Minor League system. That is, if you go through 4 years of a sports college, instead of going through A, AA & AAA, you go straight to the bigs. There's also (to my knowledge) no team controlling their contract status for the first 6 years once they hit the bigs either.

Let's examine two of the best young athletes. From the NBA, Cleveland Cavalier's LeBron James (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3704) makes $5.8m in his 2nd year of play, whereas Albert Pujols (http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/pujolal01.shtml), the closest similar young phenom player I can think of, didn't make $7m until 2004, his 4th year in MLB. He'd made $600k in 2003.

espn.com's MLB site still has on its cover page a related article on this:

Robinson would have mixed view of today's game (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/jackie/news/story?id=2828584)
As the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut is marked, Major League Baseball is sure to give itself an extended pat on the back. We'll hear much this month about the breaking of baseball's "color line" as a civil rights milestone. We'll be reminded that the national pastime opened its doors to blacks way ahead of many other American institutions. The sport will bask in the righteous recounting of Robinson's courage and Branch Rickey's wisdom.

But to focus on events of 60 years ago is to dishonor No. 42. Jackie Robinson wasn't one to dwell on the past. After leaving baseball after the 1956 season, he devoted himself to blazing new paths -- in business, politics and the civil rights movement. He was all about today and tomorrow, not yesterday. Proud as he was of changing the game in 1947, Robinson biographers and contemporaries agree he'd be more interested in assessing the game of 2007.

The Robinson salute culminates April 15 with pregame ceremonies at Dodger Stadium, where dignitaries will exchange verbal high-fives about how far the game has come in the past six decades. But towering above the rhetoric, like a major league popup, remains a central major question:

What would Jackie think?

If he checked the starting lineups of that night's game, Robinson's first thought would probably be, "What happened?" The Dodgers will likely have one black starter (Juan Pierre), and the visiting Padres two (Mike Cameron and Terrmel Sledge).

Robinson would have found this inconceivable. At the time of his death in 1972, about 20 percent of big leaguers were black and their numbers were rising. Some teams' rosters particularly weighted toward players of color. In one game in 1971, the Pittsburgh Pirates (winners of that year's World Series) fielded a starting lineup with six black and three Hispanic players.

[riverfrontier]

I would say that the NFL would be the biggest drain on African-American talent. Speed and body size are the two biggest natural assets in that game, and steroids can help anybody gain half of that combination. There are also many many more possibilities for someone who is lacking in a particular set of skills to make a football team. If a guy has bad hands, there are a number of places he could still play. If he's too slow, he cranks up the testosterone and plays a position on the line. I would think that basketball, being more of a finesse sport, and usually requiring the serious prospect to be about a foot taller on average than than most men, would take less away from baseball. When was the last time you saw an outfielder who was 6'10"? A kid that size is going to be steered toward basketball from elementary school days.
Also, college football players are rock stars from the first day they hit campus. Ballplayers are usually an afterthought for any given student body. Combine all this with the previously posted opinions, which I agree with, and you've got the situation at hand concerning African-American ballplayers.
What can or should be done about it? Nothing, in my opinion. Athletes will do what they want. Culture ebbs and flows, and this is just a sign of the times.

[Dirt Dog]

What can or should be done about it? Nothing, in my opinion. Athletes will do what they want. Culture ebbs and flows, and this is just a sign of the times.

I think that's it. It's like the free market system. Things will change over time.

I think a lot of getting a kid hooked on any sport is the type of upbringing and influence that kid has or lack thereof in his/her life.

There are various reasons why black kids in the U.S. (there are white African-Americans btw, the MVP of the NBA over the last 2 yrs is one) are not interested or attracted to baseball. From a coaches point of view, baseball players need to develop more skill to play the game than football and basketball. I see it every year.

Some think baseball is too slow of a game, no excitment, etc. Some kids don't want to work towards this skill development the game requires. Long gone are the days of the sand lot. It's moved to a pick up game of street ball (basketball).

[DodgerBlue8188]

I grew up right by all those guys in Chesapeake. Where I live baseball for african americans aren't as popular. Seems like black people only really focus on basketball and football. Now, maybe this is a result because not as many could be as serious about the game of baseball years ago like the article says. But now days I just don't think they look at baseball as a sport to play.

[DodgerBlue8188]

Long gone are the days of the sand lot. It's moved to a pick up game of street ball (basketball).

Yea you're right. Until there is black athletes to look up to like in basketball I don't young black guys choosing to play baseball over basketball.

[DodgerBlue8188]

While were at it though what about whites in basketball? Why is that going down? I'm sure the % of whites have gone down in the majors in the last 20 years as well. Just not as much.

[plask_stirlac]

While were at it though what about whites in basketball? Why is that going down? I'm sure the % of whites have gone down in the majors in the last 20 years as well. Just not as much.

Probably more foreign-born players especially in pitching, Venezuelan pipeline and somewhat steady Dominican and PR pitching. Also the small but not insignificant Asian influx.

Just from Venezuela the AL Central last year had Santana, Rincon, Silva, Freddy Garcia, Victor Martinez, Carlos Guillen, and I'm probably forgetting about half.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

From another sportswriter:


Right idea, wrong solution

By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports
April 12, 2007


Over the weekend, Major League Baseball will laud Jackie Robinson for his role in integrating the game and, ultimately, the country. At the same time, it will conveniently ignore another manner in which Robinson was far ahead of his time.

Given the choice, he probably would have chosen to play another sport professionally instead of baseball.

Thousands of African-American children are making that decision today, and no matter what it has tried to stop the trend, baseball has seen the number of black players in the major leagues decline precipitously. So for MLB to plan such a blowout for this Sunday, the 60th anniversary of Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, makes it seem like the sport is trying to hide the elephant in the room with Saran wrap.

As nice an idea as it was for Ken Griffey Jr. to propose that players be allowed to wear Robinson's retired No. 42 for one day, and as touching as the ceremony at Dodger Stadium with Robinson's widow, Rachel, surely will be, baseball devoting such attention to the past – no matter its place in history – is a misguided attempt to gussy up a problem with no obvious solution.

"We think we're making great strides in overall diversity, but we're losing the African-American player," said Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations and the league's highest-ranking African-American. "And that's a shame. Because there was a time when baseball was at the forefront with African-American participation. We were at the forefront of the whole civil-rights movement. To let that decline to the point where we can't reverse it would be a travesty."

It is a tenuous balance, trying to honor the past without misrepresenting the present. Last season, 8.4 percent of big-league players were African-American, almost a 10 percent drop from 10 years earlier and nearly a 20 percent drop from the peak in the 1970s. The percentages taken through the years read almost like a bell curve, with the present creeping downward toward 1947.

Robinson debuted with the Dodgers that season, hand-picked by general manager Branch Rickey because of his fortitude and stubbornness. He was talented, sure, though at UCLA, Robinson made his name playing football, joining stars Kenny Washington and Woody Strode to form what would be coined the Gold Dust Trio. Washington and Strode, incidentally, were the first two African-Americans to play in the NFL, signed in 1948, after Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.

The year before he signed with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, Robinson coached basketball at Sam Houston College in Austin, Texas, and, according to Jonathan Eig's brilliant new biography, "Opening Day," would insert himself into games when his team played poorly.

For Robinson, football and basketball had the allure of forbidden mistresses, and that was even prior to the NFL and NBA's maturation into baseball's legitimate competitors.

Lucky for baseball, it was willing to take the chance on Robinson and continues to ride Rickey's coattails – and Robinson's legacy – 60 years later.

"We had reduced him to this mythological figure who's the picture of cool composure and grace under pressure," said Eig, whose book chronicles Robinson's 1947 season. "He wasn't. He was a human being in lots of turmoil. We crave these myths. It's true with George Washington. It's true with Abraham Lincoln. Half these stories we learned about these legends are invented. It's because the myths help tell these stories, and we love simple stories."

Like the story of May 13, 1947, when Pee Wee Reese ambled up to Robinson at Crosley Field in Cincinnati and slung his arm around Robinson's shoulder. It's a moment cited as the turning point in baseball turning colorblind. And it's one that, according to Eig's research, never happened.

Such fables do give baseball justification for reminding younger generations of who, exactly, Jack Roosevelt Robinson was. And yet every time fans spin the turnstiles at a major-league park, they see the No. 42 alongside the rest of the team's retired numbers, a constant but subtle cue of his importance – a fair reminder, as opposed to a pound-over-the-head celebration that seems out of place on an anniversary like No. 60.

"A lot of players have lost sight of who Jackie was and what his legacy was and how important he was to our country, let alone baseball," Solomon said. "We've been pretty good over the last several years to make sure Jackie's legacy was obvious to everyone."

Whether it actually helps draw African-Americans to baseball is arguable.

Baseball, as Solomon admitted, made a decision about 20 years ago – based largely on economics – to spend money building academies in Latin American countries such as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. The players were teenagers, disposable if they didn't pan out, cheap to sign if they did. Even though the signing bonuses in Latin America have gone up exponentially, topping $2 million for the top talent, the best bargains still come from there. Nearly 30 percent of players in the major leagues last season were Latino, a number that has grown almost inversely proportionate to the number of African-Americans.

Meanwhile, in the United States, equipment prices rose and children in urban areas were priced out of the game. Baseball, slow to recognize the problem, failed to reach out. When the percentage of African-Americans dipped below 10 percent in 2004, the outcry among players began, and it continues today.

"Any publicity, anything Major League Baseball can do, is a good thing because it brings attention," said Cleveland Indians left-hander C.C. Sabathia, one of only two African-American starters in the major leagues and an outspoken voice who earlier this spring deemed the decline a "crisis." "People need to understand, this isn't going away. It won't be over after Jackie Robinson Day. I won't stop saying what I'm saying. I hope the same can be said for others."

Sabathia grew up in Oakland watching Dave Stewart, Rickey Henderson and Dave Henderson, among others. He has heard all of the arguments why the trend will only get worse.

Football and basketball offer immediate riches. They have a greater appeal among the teenage girls athletes want to impress. Division I football teams offer 85 scholarships as opposed to the 11.8 of baseball, considered at most universities a non-revenue sport. Basketball hoops are omnipresent in urban areas because they take up minimal space, need little maintenance and can be used by an entire neighborhood with just one ball.

MLB tries to combat the problem with programs like Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI), which has done an excellent job of introducing kids to baseball and providing proper equipment. Keeping them is another story. Though MLB likes to point out that more than 150 RBI players have been drafted since the program's inception in 1989, only four current major-leaguers – Jimmy Rollins, Carl Crawford, Dontrelle Willis and Coco Crisp – were graduates.

The newest attempt comes from the MLB-financed Urban Youth Academies, like the one that opened in Compton, Calif., last year and others planned for Atlanta and perhaps Houston and Washington, D.C. They have the same concept as RBI. Whether they can have greater long-term success is impossible to gauge.

"We're realistic: The numbers can drop even more," Solomon said. "We're working hard as we can to make sure they don't. It won't be for lack of effort from (MLB)."

With no obvious solutions to fixing the problem, baseball has opted for the temporary salve in hopes of buying itself some time. Baseball knows it's too big and important an institution to turn its back on what it helped foster.

"Eight percent," Sabathia said. "What would Jackie think?"

Certainly not about rejoicing. In fact, at Game 2 of the 1972 World Series, about a month before Robinson died, MLB honored him for the 25th anniversary of his debut. Robinson blanched at going. There still wasn't a black manager in baseball. Robinson extracted a promise from commissioner Bowie Kuhn that he would pressure teams to hire one.

Less than three years later, Frank Robinson was managing the Cleveland Indians.

What would Jackie Robinson ask for today? It's impossible to say.

One certainty: He wouldn't want baseball to just keep celebrating Jackie, to harp on its past while its present worsens.

It's too simple, too programmed, too easy.

Everything that Jackie Robinson – and what he still stands for – wasn't.

Jeff Passan is a national baseball writer for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jeff a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

[Erik Bedard]

(there are white African-Americans btw, the MVP of the NBA over the last 2 yrs is one)

Actually, he's African-Canadian.

To me, it's all about location, location, location. Can you play a fun, enjoyable game of baseball on a concrete street with cars racing by? No. Overdevelopment has made it so that there are not many fields to play ball on in big cities such as Baltimore, where I live, and it's way easier to just pick up a basketball and start playing on one of the local hoops.

Another thing is the monetary concerns. How easy is it to lose a baseball? Pretty easy. So you'd need to buy a whole bunch. Also, I went to Play It Again Sports the other day to buy myself a new hockey stick, and I started looking through the bats. The cheapest one that was any good was $37.99. Then the cheapest was $49.99. Gloves cost quite a bit too, and in the inner city, most parents can't afford to buy all that stuff for kids who will rarely use them because of not having many fields, needing too many people, and other things.

Also, most young black people go into public schools, which don't get a lot of money, so it's hard for them to have baseball teams -- and way easier to have basketball teams. Also, the black culture among teenagers dictates that it's not cool to do well in school, so not a lot of kids are going into private schools, which have baseball teams that often have better equipment and are far more successful.

There are a lot of factors as to why urban black kids aren't getting into baseball, but the main factor is where they live, and the culture that they're born into.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Actually, he's African-Canadian.

To me, it's all about location, location, location. Can you play a fun, enjoyable game of baseball on a concrete street with cars racing by? No. Overdevelopment has made it so that there are not many fields to play ball on in big cities such as Baltimore, where I live, and it's way easier to just pick up a basketball and start playing on one of the local hoops.

Another thing is the monetary concerns. How easy is it to lose a baseball? Pretty easy. So you'd need to buy a whole bunch. Also, I went to Play It Again Sports the other day to buy myself a new hockey stick, and I started looking through the bats. The cheapest one that was any good was $37.99. Then the cheapest was $49.99. Gloves cost quite a bit too, and in the inner city, most parents can't afford to buy all that stuff for kids who will rarely use them because of not having many fields, needing too many people, and other things.

Also, most young black people go into public schools, which don't get a lot of money, so it's hard for them to have baseball teams -- and way easier to have basketball teams. Also, the black culture among teenagers dictates that it's not cool to do well in school, so not a lot of kids are going into private schools, which have baseball teams that often have better equipment and are far more successful.

There are a lot of factors as to why urban black kids aren't getting into baseball, but the main factor is where they live, and the culture that they're born into.
You don't need a baseball to play baseball. When I was a kid back in the mid 1970s we used tennis balls, racketballs, and handballs as well as baseballs. We always could find tennis balls near tennis courts. People would always leave them behind or lose them. Also using tennis balls you didn't even need gloves. We always found a way to play baseball when we didn't actually have a baseball.

[riverfrontier]

Honus, I also played baseball with anything I could find. Any ball I could throw against a wall, or at my brother. I believe I was a product of my culture, but that culture evolved over time, and I was left with childhood memories. The sweet spot changes after time.
Erik Bedard, your point about inner city schools and the funding that allows them to scrape by is a good one. It's becoming more of a privelage to play baseball properly, (catcher's gear, enough space, etc.) and unless you really have a strong mentor, it won't happen at all.
Now that we've shown African-Americans the path to get back into baseball, can we now address the Anglo-American problem of kids graduating high school without ever reading a book? I know most of them students that rotflol on this websight could of read a book or too, but it don't seem two likely. Such a great nation.

[Dirt Dog]

Actually, he's African-Canadian.

Yea, I knew he was raised in British Columbia, I thought that he was naturalized. For some people today it seems you just can't simply say you're an American anymore.


Also, the black culture among teenagers dictates that it's not cool to do well in school, so not a lot of kids are going into private schools, which have baseball teams that often have better equipment and are far more successful.


The kids that I currently teach fit that perfectly. A lot of students think it's a waste of time to try hard and study and make an A or B, when you can pass w/ a D. Many are looked down b/c they do well in school.

Most can't afford the cost of private schools ($5000-$8000/yr), unless they are recruited and where I live high school recruiting (public and private) is almost as big as college recruiting. A lot of private schools are too hard and some, not all, end up coming back b/c failing grades.


There are a lot of factors as to why urban black kids aren't getting into baseball, but the main factor is where they live, and the culture that they're born into.

I think that's another good point. I say this all the time regarding certain issues at the school where I teach/coach, that teachers are going up against a culture which is about as hard to change as sweeping the Atlantic Ocean back w/ a broom. It is true of baseball as well as tennis, golf and and soccer.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

A good interview with some current African-American major leaguers.


'We've just gotta get the kids back interested'

By Tim Keown
ESPN The Magazine

Editor's Note: This story appears in the April 23 edition of ESPN The Magazine.


Joyce Harris will never forget the first time her son, Dontrelle Willis, tried out for an elite traveling team in a tony Bay Area suburb. Dontrelle hadn't thrown four pitches when another mother asked Harris, "Who's your son's pitching coach?" Harris, a former union ironworker, laughs as she recounts the story. "He had a box painted on a wall on the side of the house," she says. "That was his pitching coach."

During the past few years, The Magazine has done a number of features on African-American players who privately raised concerns about declining representation. In 1975, 27.5% of big leaguers were African-Americans. This year, on Opening Day rosters, the number was 8.4%. And so, 60 years after Jackie Robinson's debut, we invited three prominent black All-Stars -- Devil Rays leftfielder Carl Crawford, Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and Indians lefthander C.C. Sabathia -- to discuss the issue. Is this, as Sabathia put it at the Civil Rights Game in late March, a crisis? And if so, what is to be done?


JIMMY ROLLINS: We see different teams come in, and the first thing we look for is how many brothers they got. Sometimes it's one dude by himself. And we're like, "Man, you know that's a long year for him." He has no one to relate to unless he has a coach. When you don't have your people around, it makes it tough. Whether it's racism in your face or being swept under the rug, you feel it. You have nobody to talk to, and that can cause a lot of anger.

CARL CRAWFORD: We have a joke among ourselves: If you ain't an All-Star, you can't be black in the major leagues. It seems like we always have to be the best player on the team. That's the only way we can crack the door.

THE MAG: Did big league scouts sometimes avoid your neighborhood?

ROLLINS: That championship ring wasn't on when they came to the house like it was when they came to the school. We had a nice field, so at home games you could line up 10, 15 scouts, but when we went on the road, to the Oakland Athletic League schools, scouts were not gonna walk up 98th Avenue and go to a game. So some guys weren't getting seen.

C.C. SABATHIA: I called home when I first got drafted, to tell people my high school team could beat my A-ball team. We have to get more exposure.

THE MAG: Is baseball becoming like soccer, which has the image of a suburban, wealthy sport?


SABATHIA: Everybody talks about how the game costs a lot to play, but it doesn't. Go get a tennis ball, go get a bat, and play all day. I think we've just gotta get the kids back interested. When I go home [to Vallejo, Calif.], the field I played on has weeds six feet high. When I lived there, it was green grass, and everything was nice, and we had brand-new balls. The community took care of the field. That's what I'm trying to do [in reviving the North Vallejo Little League], because there's so many kids in my hometown who need something to hold on to, and I feel it's my job to try to help them.

THE MAG: How much of it is image?

CRAWFORD: When I go back to my area [Houston's Fifth Ward], it's like, "Who are you?" I ain't really no big deal.

ROLLINS: You know, black people like to spend money! Shoot, let 'em spend some money on baseball. If you can make baseball look good to us, maybe that will spark an interest.

"I'm going to take on the problem head on. I want to go deep into the heart of where I came from. It's the only way we're going to get the results we're looking for."


THE MAG: It seems like baseball has often relied on the game to market itself.

ROLLINS: Well, times have changed. If we want to bring African-Americans back to baseball, what can we do besides the RBI programs? People want to buy our products. I wear a skully -- maybe make a skully. Make some of C.C.'s spikes and people will feel like they can get out there and throw lefthanded even if they're righthanded.

SABATHIA: When I was starting out, we had Ellis Burks and Matt Lawton. I definitely never thought I would see the day when I was the only African-American in the clubhouse. And you know, I think a lot of people don't believe that this is a big problem, because they see the skin tone of the Latin players. This is nothing against Latin players, because some of those guys are my best friends in the world, but I think people see their skin color and think it's not a big deal.

THE MAG: Baseball teams seem to realize the importance of putting Latin players together in a clubhouse, to share their language and culture. Do you think they just haven't seen a need to do the same thing with African-Americans?

ROLLINS: If we speak English, we should be able to adapt, right? That's probably the thought process. In the clubhouse, we call it the border. They're all over there, pulling their chairs together, huddling up, whether they're from Venezuela, the Dominican, Cuba, Puerto Rico. They speak the same language, they have the same experience coming from a poor country to a place where they can make a dream. We have to get on cell phones and highlight our boys three or four cities away.


CRAWFORD: Before I signed, I didn't have a clue what a Latin guy was. I got into the team van [in rookie ball], and I was like, "We're about to have a good team." I heard a Latin guy talking Spanish, and I didn't understand what was going on.

ROLLINS: I cussed one dude out. I thought he was ignoring me. I'm talking to him and he's not saying nothing. And then it was like, "No, he's Spanish," and I'm like, "No, that dude is black." It was a straight culture shock that somebody with skin the same color as mine doesn't understand one word I'm saying.

SABATHIA: A couple of years ago, a teammate saw me walking out of the clubhouse in Minnesota with Jacque Jones, and he was all over me the next day. "Why you always hanging out with guys from another team?" Well, I can relate to Jacque. I'm not saying I don't have white friends, because I do, but it's nice to have somebody who can relate to you whatever situation you are in.

THE MAG: C.C., given what's changed over the past 10 to 15 years, if you were 10 years old right now, would baseball be your sport?


"I think it's going to take black players coming together to really do something to turn it around. And there's no better time. Everybody gets along. It's not like we don't know each other, 'cuz there's not a lot of us!"

SABATHIA: I don't think so. The reason I wanted to play baseball was the A's. They had Dave Parker, Rickey Henderson, Dave Henderson, Dave Stewart -- guys I could look up to. Right now, the A's have Milton Bradley, and that's about it. I don't think I'd be playing baseball. I think it would probably be football, because that's what I see.
THE MAG: What can you guys do?

SABATHIA: I think showing our faces a lot is going to help. Donating, getting out there and maybe throwing camps. We could say, come to Torii Hunter's camp or Jimmy's camp or Dontrelle's. I think it's going to take black players coming together to really do something to turn it around. And there's no better time. Everybody gets along. It's not like we don't know each other, 'cuz there's not a lot of us!

ROLLINS: Spark it up. That's community. One person with hope can only go so far.

THE MAG: It might help if guys like you stayed in the game after you're finished playing, right?

ROLLINS: Truthfully, myself? When it's done, I'm done. I want kids and a family. But you know, thinking about the social responsibility, it might be important. I've never thought of it like that.

SABATHIA: The way you put that, you got me thinking about it now. Maybe we do need to be around and help some of these young guys out.

CRAWFORD: Hit the monster, you know? I'm going to take on the problem head on. I want to go deep into the heart of where I came from. It's the only way we're going to get the results we're looking for.

[Elvis]

There are plenty of African-Americans in MLB. Most people from other countries think we're very arrogant for claiming we're "Americans", while not including Central and South AMERICA. Since when is the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venesuela etc. not AMERICA? We're still in a segregation mode - constantly pointing out our differences in skin color and thinking that is "helping" to unite us...B.S.. All that does is divide us. We're all Americans - period. Screw the dang hyphens. The only time I notice that someone's skin is different is when some "PC" media person points it out, which they do CONSTANTLY! :crazy

Remember last Super Bowl? All the talk about the coaches were about the color of their skin instead of their character, intelect or gameplans. Even the coaches themselves spoke up about the unneccesary coverage of their skin color. HARPING ON OUR DIFFERENCES IS NOT HELPING!

Until the day comes that we stop pointing out how different we are because of our skin color, we will continue to have race problems in this country. :(

[mac195]

I didn't read the entire article, but caught the gist of it... Interesting.

If you look at the Indians roster, there are only like 2 African Americans listed. Wouldn't you think that more blacks would be playing that can be recruited in Dominica and Haiti- places like that?
Dominicans of partly, or even mostly African decent, don't consider themselves "black", and aren't counted by people like the author of the article when talking about the alleged shortage of blacks in MLB. Sammy Sosa, for example, isn't included. As for Haiti... do they even play baseball there? It may be that the country is too poor and messed up to have an infratructure that can produce top athletes.

[mac195]

One of the problems with baseball is that baseball doesn't offer immediate financial rewards like other sports do.
I don't think that's it. MLB gives very large signing bonunes to kids in high school, and has for a long time. Recently it has become more common for high school kids to go right to the NBA and get big money, but most still have to go to college for at least a couple years. Football players don't get much, beyond what they can take under the table from college boosters, until they are 22 or so.

[mac195]

While were at it though what about whites in basketball? Why is that going down? I'm sure the % of whites have gone down in the majors in the last 20 years as well. Just not as much.

Whites have been hugely underrepresented in the NBA since about 1970. But of course nobody writing for Sports Illustraded or ESPN would be so racist as to say that's a problem.

[mac195]

Football and basketball are "easier to pick up,"
That is certainly true. Hitting, fielding and pitching in baseball are very refined skills. There is nothing comparable in football or basketball. If you are big, and very athletic - move well, run fast - you can play football. And you can at least play good "d" and rebound in basketball. But nobody plays high-level baseball without years of practice.