Blacks in Baseball - Issue I

I. Numbers of Black MLB Players

There has been much celebration made about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. However, at the recent 60th anniversary celebration of Robinson's milestone at a Braves and Astros game, not one black player was on either team's roster, which brings us to this:

By Carroll Rogers The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 05/08/07

Upset over the lack of African-Americans on the Braves' roster, members of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow-PUSH Coalition asked for a meeting with team officials. They got one Monday.

Joe Beasley, Southern regional director for the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said he and Dexter Clinkscale, the director of sports for the organization, met Monday morning for nearly two hours with Braves general manager John Schuerholz, assistant general manager Frank Wren and three other Braves officials.

"The team slipped ... down to [no African-Americans]; it wasn't something that just happened," Beasley said Monday afternoon. "I think it was a lack of diligence on the part of the Braves to recruit African-American players. There's not diminished enthusiasm for African-Americans playing baseball. It's simply the opportunity hasn't presented itself."

...Less than 10 percent of major league players are African-Americans. But in a recent interview on the subject, Schuerholz said: "You go to where the talent leads you. Finding major league-caliber baseball players is far too difficult if you try to narrow your criteria down to demographics."

Countered Beasley, "As I expected, [Schuerholz's] idea is the bottom line: I'll put the best 40 men I can get wherever I can get them from on the field, and that's fair. But the fact of the matter is if they put resources into recruiting here in the United States, and more specifically here in Atlanta, there are talented players here." ....

I didn't even notice the race disparity on the team, because I'm paying more attention to batting averages and ERA's.

Sports does not lend itself as well to affirmative action programs as do other fields. You can have do-over's in business, but not on the field of major league baseball. If you make an error or strike out in baseball, the umpire won't feel bad and let you try again. Those things can cost the team wins and cost the team both fans and money. I prefer to take the top players without regard to their races.

But, blacks only represent 12.8 percent of our population, so being represented by a near 10 percent in MLB is not far off of the mark, anyway. I suspect that the problem, if there is one, results from black athletes drifting more towards professional basketball and football rather than from racism in the game of baseball--just a guess.

Maybe Braves G.M. John Schuerholz could expand his search and find some black athletes in the National Basketball Association...and, maybe Jesse Jackson could get a few white players for his team, too.

I wonder what Don Imus would have to say about this.