MLB creating committee to study decline in African-American players
 

Why has it been on the decline with African Americans? Too much competition with other sports?

MLB might be the most diversified of all major american sporting leagues. Its an International league now.




http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/ey...erican-players



Major League Baseball is creating a committee to study why fewer African-Americans are playing baseball, reports Tyler Kepner of The New York Times. The first meeting will be held on Wednesday in Milwaukee.

“I don't want to miss any opportunity here,” [commissioner Bud Selig] said in a telephone interview from his office in Milwaukee. “We want to find out if we're not doing well, why not, and what we need to do better. We'll meet as many times as we need to to come to meaningful decisions.”

(snip)

“I really think our history is so brilliant when it comes to African-Americans,” Selig said. “You think about the late 1940s, the 1950s — wow. And you look at that and you say to yourself, ‘Why did it not continue, and what could we do to make sure it does continue?' ”

According to Kepner, only 8.5 percent of players on this year's opening-day 25-man rosters were African-American. The reigning world champion Giants are one of several clubs with zero black players. Recent research by Mark Armour from the Society of American Baseball Research says the highest percentage of African-American players in baseball was 19 percent in 1986.

Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski will be chairman of the committee. Former Mets manager Jerry Manuel, Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir and senior director of the MLB scouting bureau Frank Marcos will also serve on the committee, in addition to several other front office employees from around the league.

I think at least part of the reason the number of African-Americans in baseball has declined has to do with the lack of baseball scholarships colleges can offer. NCAA Division I schools are allowed only 11.7 baseball scholarships, and many fund fewer. Other sports like football (85 scholarships in the FBS) and basketball (13 in Division I) can offer more, which may be luring young athletes -- of all races, not just African-Americans -- away from the diamond.

There is no shortage of star African-American players in MLB today. Andrew McCutchen won a fan vote to be on the cover of the MLB 13: The Show video game while others like Matt Kemp, CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Michael Bourn and Jimmy Rollins are household names. Perhaps better marketing of these guys (and others) will help influence young African-Americans to play baseball.

Missing out on a lot of talent. I wish the kids would start playing baseball again instead of basketball. The opportunities are there, just not enough glamour

I agree. Its too bad....i feel like baseball has really dropped the ball (heh) the last few decades. Or maybe the NBA and the NFL have done a better job appealing to youth in general?

It's the urban black culture. Nobody there likes baseball all that much. I see no reason to blame MLB on that. What did they do to cause that?

I worked at a school for adjudicated youth for 3 years that was mostly populated by inner city kids(of all colors) who were gangbangers. Many, when you asked them about baseball, gave you a look like, are you kidding me? They said the opportunities to play were there, but it just wasn't a cool thing to do. At that time, about 15 years ago, is seemed to be a cultural thing as much as anything. I did some research on it at that time and the effort was still there to get them to play. I'm not sure if it's still there though.

Maybe Latino players are beating them out? About a year ago, I read somewhere that poorer black families in the US can't afford to send their kids to the baseball camps and leagues that showcase talents. Maybe a combination of both?

Reading this makes me want to club baby seals......

Who cares? Anyone do a study on the decline of White players in the NBA? It's still land of the free, do we need a committee for everything now?

Nice to see Lorenzo Cain and Jarrod Dyson fill the void left by Yuni Betancourt for Royals black players.

BREAKING!!!!!!!
 

This just in.............

no1curr

It's pretty obvious. Baseball isn't a cool sport any more with kids, especially kids in the inner city. Basketball is the cool sport.

I feel that with baseball, there are too many hoops to jump through to make into the majors. (A, AA & AAA minor leagues)

Basketball & Football, it's high school-college-majors, so I think it's more appealing than being brought up through a farm system before you get a sniff at the pros.

Hockey has the same problem as baseball but now they are starting to just play these 18 & 19 year old kids from the start & bypass the minors.

Blacks may not be but through the years there have been alot more Asian and Hispanic players coming up.

It's also very expensive. The cpmpetitive little league team I managed went through $7000 a season and we didn't even travel. Many parents can't afford that for their kid to play a game in the dirt and grass.

Blacks as a whole care mostly about basketball and football. In the inner cities, basketball is the game of choice. Much more individualized as well.

Will be interesting to see what Monte Harrison from Lee Summit West does. Very good football and basketball player but is excellent baseball player... Could be a 1st rounder in the MLB draft!

That's because the sport is quite popular in Asia & Latin America. Not popular in Africa or our urban core. Is this really confusing to people, and is there really a need to "study" it?

Of course they like football and basketball more than baseball these days. Lol. What's next? Are they gonna do a stupid study on why black youth like Lil Wayne more than Hall & god damn Oates?

Lol

I wonder when they are going to reboot (rape) "Major League"

Mike Trout is the blackest athlete in the majors.

Just out of curiosity, what is the percentage of European American in the MLB?

Sad that this is being done. (now awaiting some suburban yuppie to call me a racist ****)

Why is it sad? Is there anything they can do do make it more appealing to the African American youth? Because ultimately, they just want to make sure they are providing a good talent pipeline into their league.

Baseball is a more difficult game to play and get into at a high level.

Who the **** wants to go through the minors when you can go straight from high school to the NBA, or spend two years in college and get drafted #1 overall and start in your first game?

If you can't run fast or you have a shitty vertical though, baseball is great!

There is a GREAT talent pipeline from all over the world. If they don't want to play so be it. Plenty of talent to choose from.

It's cheaper to hoop. That's the impetus and genesis of this and now it's ingrained in urban culture.

I can play basketball with 2 people. Baseball? Only on Xbox. You need at least ten people. Plus, baseball is ****ing boring and it's barely athletic.

Good luck finding a place to ply your craft if you're a baseball player in an inner city.

This isn't a new thing. There was a program a few years ago called RBI-Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities.

Pretty much this. Baseball is ****ing huge in the Dominican Republic where a great deal of its population is black. Not so much here in America for whatever reasons.

These are all reasons I'd cite, if prodded.

-Need a diamond and large field, preferably away from cars/windows. Where are you going to find that in an urban area?
-Need at least 6 or 7 people per team to cover bases, pitch, catch, and cover the outfield.
-Need gloves, the ball, bats and makeshift bases.

Takes too much shit to get going. You can grab a basketball and play by your damn self if need be. For football, you just need a big area and a handful of people for a full-fledged game- even less if you just want to go play catch or "smear the queer" or whatever. Plus it's boring as all balls.

probably because baseball is so ****ing boring

More to Goldmembers point, its really expensive to excel as well. I have a good friend that plays college baseball and some others that play college football and basketball. Of course it could just be the person, but it seems much harder to get ahead of the competition in baseball.

As the OP mentions, there are a lot less baseball scholarships around than football and basketball. In order to get one of those scholarships, you need to be head and shoulders above the competition. Going to those expensive ass summer camps while you're growing up seems essential for baseball, as opposed to just relying on raw athletic ability in basketball and football.

It's all whitey's fault you know that.

MLB is now dominated by Latino's.

Minorities.

This is like complaining that there aren't enough Asians writing epic poetry...

Selig wants to know where the blacks have gone, but I wonder if he's asking after the last election where the whiteys have gone? Nope. He won't be asking that.

Yes.

We must have a committee for this.

And also we cannot:

say the word Christmas
no Easter Bunnies
no Washington Redskins

etc, etc, etc.

MLB is almost exclusively on cable these days. Even one of the two LCS is on cable every year. If you're an inner city kid you're probably less likely to have cable, so you may not even see much baseball all year.

Black people have evidently spoken.

They don't like baseball.

So the **** what!

I rarely watch NBA except for the last 2 minutes of any game.

Sounds like the NBA playoffs.

Barry Bonds screwed it all up for black people.

Blame him.

all about the money, baby.


more black people playing baseball = more black people watching baseball and buying tickets


have to get the black demo going

The thing is that black kids already feel like they can relate to NBA players. It's not as critical to draw them in.
With MLB they already don't relate that well, and having it be unseen just puts it further into the back of their mind.

Plus baseball is not very flashy.

No home run dances at home plate after you round the bases.

Can you imagine that? hehehehe

Let's end this right now: Soccer and Baseball are almost dominated by 2nd world countries because it's cheap to learn and play them.

End of ****ing story.

Soccer needs a ball.

Baseball needs 1 bat, 1 ball, and that's it.

The only reason Latinos and Asians don't dominate basketball is due to GENETICS.

Most of them just don't tend to grow that ****ing tall...

Yao Ming disagrees with this statement.

He's one in a million as far as height goes.

Proving my point...

:thumb: Exactly plus there was a study within the last few years and they asked like 2,000 black youth about baseball and nearly 80% said they found it slow and boring.

Are we now going to force kids to play a game they don't like to "balance" things out?

This country really sucks with all the PC and Wusification. Just let people be and do what they like not what some jackass politician or official THINKS they like.

...

http://img.pandawhale.com/36243-slow...son-w-jpBA.gif

Bingo.

It's called free market capitalism.

The dollars speak.

I remember Nascar doing the same kind of research and they found out it's because you can't race low riders.

Uh...That's pretty much what NASCAR does...

Needs more midgets

You know why there aren't more germans playing baseball? cause their dum

Ricky Bobby.

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I'm convinced...

Oprah has single handedly ruined this ****ing country

There's no way to spike a home run.

It's because most inner city African American's are afraid of the Three Strike rule.

HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED DOING SATIRE PROFESSIONALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE A NATURAL

ALSO PLZ POST TITTY PHOTOZ FOR ME TO YANK MY DOODLE TO, THX

Baseball has nothing but guaranteed contracts, you make more money and less taxing on your body. It should be a no brainer.

Also if you're satisfied with just making a living playing sports and don't need all the fame and glamour, there are way more job opportunities in baseball. There's gotta be like 1,000,000 active minor league players, AT LEAST.

You're right. That is kind of a tired bit.

Then again, so is the all caps, "OH NOEZ" stuff.

No way you can afford child support for 25 illegitimate babies playing minor league ball.

ALL CAPS WILL NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE BRUH

Cool post!

This....Hoops are everywhere and are easily mimicked. A baseball diamond on the other hand.

Why do they call it a diamond when all it really is is a square tipped on it's axis???

What the hell are you babbling about.

MLB is getting people together to understand more about something that has a huge impact on their sport.

Middle aged white guys discussing why black kids don't play baseball in online forums and commities. ...hmmmmmm...(rubs hands together grabs popcorn)

Yes please create the same group for hockey, golf, and tennis while you're at it. What a stupid topic. Can't believe local sports radio is actually talking about it as well.

Wouldn't doubt if many urban people are being priced out of it. I read an interesting article in the Economist not too long ago about the same thing happening to cricket in England. Fewer and fewer working class people are playing because of schools and towns selling their cricket pitches during tough financial times, so that now only the privileged can play.

Diamonds can be square I guess. Geometrically speaking, it would be more accurate to call it a rhombus if the lines weren't even.

I am white and would rather have a team made up of mostly black guys. Does that make me racist???

ROFL LMAO ROFL LMAO

Are there any black posters here who like Hall & Oates? Are there any black posters here who even know who Hall & Oates are? That's the question we should really be asking.

I'm sorry I was doing crack on that post.

Yes and if they don't we should form a committee to investigate why they don't like white top 40 music.

Then we must force them to like it.

LMAO If a middle aged white guy working for a tv network asked why there weren't more blacks in baseball, he'd probably get fired.

At least he must endure sensitivity training.

Not just white top 40, white top 40 from the ****in 80s!

Tell me this doesn't soothe your soul. Tell me this doesn't tug at your heart strings and bring a tear to your eye. Whites and black alike should love this stuff.

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I miss the big hair days in the 80's.

Had some great times then.