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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5075
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 30, 2007 - 06:22 pm: | 
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 30, 2007
Only 8.4 percent of major-league players last season were black, the lowest level in at least two decades.
As of 1995, 19 percent of major leaguers were black, according to Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. Nine percent were black in both 2004 and 2005, and the new figure is the lowest since at least the mid-1980s, he said yesterday in his annual study.
http://www.amny.com/sports/baseball/ny-spbase305151616mar30,0,2807777.story?coll =ny-baseball-headlines
MSNBC.com
MLB reacts to study about lack of blacks
Indians, Cards to play in Civil Rights Game, Winfield to be part of panel talk
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:27 p.m. PT March 30, 2007
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Major League Baseball began an effort to emphasize its place in the history of America’s struggle for racial equality just one day after a study said only 8.4 percent of its players last season were black, the lowest level in at least two decades.
A panel discussion was set for Friday night at the National Civil Rights Museum on baseball’s civil rights history. The museum is on the site of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Cleveland Indians play the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition Saturday in the league’s inaugural “Civil Rights Game.”
“Baseball integrated long before (the public schools) and also before the armed forces,” said Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB’s senior vice president of baseball operations.
Among the scheduled panelists were Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, four-time All-Star Bill White and Branch Rickey III, grandson of Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey, who helped break baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson.
As recently as 1995, 19 percent of big leaguers were black, according to Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. Nine percent were black in both 2004 and 2005, and the current figure is the lowest since at least the mid-1980s, he said.
Just 3 percent of pitchers were blacks in 2006, Lapchick said Thursday in his annual study, the same as the previous year.
Solomon said the annual “Civil Rights Game” will be part of efforts “to re-engage with the African-American community, in light of declining numbers we are currently seeing, and recommit ourselves to making sure that the American pastime remains just that, the American pastime.”
Blacks were banned from major league baseball for about 60 years until Robinson stepped on the field for the Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
With so many young African-Americans attracted to basketball and other sports, too few grow up knowing how to play baseball or understand strategic moves of “the game within the game,” Solomon said.
And with few blacks on the field, major league teams have a harder time, he said, drawing black fans to the games.
Before Saturday’s game, the league will hold a luncheon to present its first “Beacon Awards” for efforts to further civil rights. Chosen to receive the awards were filmmaker Spike Lee; Vera Clemente, the widow of Pirates great Roberto Clemente; and the late Buck O’Neil, a former Negro Leagues player and the first black coach in the major leagues.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17877219/ |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9116
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 04:09 pm: |
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Here's why the percentage of Blacks in MLB is decreasing:
@ There are LOTS of great Latino and increasing number of Asian baseball players have entered the MLB.
@ The numbers of MLB teams have expanded.
@ Denigration of youth baseball in Black communities and schools.
@ Increased interest/presence of Black basketball and football players. |
Steve_s
Regular Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 242
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 04:54 pm: |
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Excellent topic! About a year ago I watched a TV panel discussion hosted by Tim McCarver, which included MLB managers Willie Randolph, Joe Torre, Sparky Anderson, and Lou Pinella. They acknowledged this problem which they blamed on the league's lack of vision, but not much else was said.
A few weeks ago I read the following opinion by C.C. Sabathia (he's an American baseball player, a Californian, who apparently once dated Serena Williams, blah, blah, blah). But he makes some more specific points:
http://www.examiner.com/a-620081~Indians__Sabathia_Makes_Pitch_for_Blacks.html
In other words, baseball camps and similar training progams do achieve results, the same as they do in Latin America. If you take a sport like the marathon, which Kenyan runners have dominated for the last few decades, simply applying their training methods does produce results. I think the evidence of that was in last year's Boston Marathon when 11 of the top 20 finishers were Americans, for the first time since the '70s (it's a sport which has never attracted many black Americans). I think it shows the effectiveness of the recent Nike-, Fila-, and USA Track and Field-sponsored training camps.
My good friend Jason Whitlock, who writes a provocative sports column on AOL (and is actually a very open-minded individual), alluded to this problem in a recent interview he gave on a sports blog:
Q: Do you think African-American athletes are partly to blame for some of the ills we are now witnessing the African-American community struggle with?
“No, not at all. We can’t single out athletes. A lot of these kids are coming out of hip-hop culture and don’t know any better. But we are now seeing the major sports shop for talent outside of the African-American community. Major League Baseball has made a concerted effort to shop outside. They are in love with foreign athletes and I think it’s definitely an intentional decision on their part. I think there is some racism to it and also some rejection of the culture.
http://lioninoil.blogspot.com/2007/03/interview-with-jason-whitlock.html
Although I haven't yet had a chance to ask him what he meant by these comments (and frankly, I don't like the pejorative use of the term "foreign" as applied to baseball, which has long had a Latino presence, and more recently, an Asian one), a related issue, that of "globalization," is a hot topic in the NBA. It's the idea that when an NBA team includes a European (or Asian) athlete in the 15th spot on the roster, the television coverage and market for NBA apparel in the athlete's home country increases exponentially. The assumption is that black athletes, who have contributed to the popularity of basketball and the building up of the sport, are being passed over in favor of some players who are not as good. Although I can't comment on the truth of that assumption, I guess the question for me is whether it's a supposed NBA policy, i.e. a directive, or in other words, a kind of quota. In baseball, it's hard to argue that the great Japanese ballplayers don't belong there, especially if the interest for baseball is waning in the African American community.
William Rhoden touches on this subject in his really interesting book, $40 Million Slaves. in which he also de-mythologizes Branch Rickey and the integration of baseball. He claims that the Negro Leagues, although they had expected to be "raided" (sorry to use these negative, outdated terms) for players, were "blindsided" in the sense that they had some reason to believe that the desegregation of baseball would have allowed black teams to be absorbed wholesale into the league as "expansion" teams (which there was some precedent for in the "barnstorming" leagues. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9118
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 07:37 pm: |
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Steve,
I HONESTLY believe one of the very BEST things that could happen for Black foks is for there to be far FEWER and less prominent professional and collegiate athletes.
So I'm actually rooting for the phenomena you and Tonya have presented to continue and grow in intensity and prevalence. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8136
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 02, 2007 - 11:41 am: |
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Come to find out the great American pass time, isn't just a matter of hitting a ball and running around bases. It turns out MLB is a rather cerebral nuanced sport, full of deliberate strategies and mind games and body language. But I digress. Baseball is too slow and tame to appeal to a generation of hot dogs who want fast action and instant gratification. Little leagues used to be the what incubated future players but these organizations required their youngsters to have focus and discipline and good sportsmanship. Not. And between the excitement and availablity of basketball pick-up games and the distraction of overzealous parents, little leagues just kinda fell out of favor. Not to mention the popularity of video games where in the comfort of their homes, all that's required for a kid to be a star are good hand-to-eye contact and quick reflexes! And it's like destiny has figured into the picture what with how today's new breed of lanky-limbed athletes are too tall to play baseball. Basketball is tailor-made for them. At my local high school, the coaches have a hard time getting the guys to come out for baseball because everybody is into basketball, and to a lesser degree, football. The Asians prefer the precision of tennis and the Hispanics have a monopoly on Soccer. As for baseball, you can't instill an interest in a sport a game that requires patience and dedication. It has to be a voluntary pursuit. IMO. |
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