In the year marking the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut as the first black (or African-American if you prefer to be politically correct) player to reach the major leagues, the title of this article is a question some people are asking these days with regards to America’s favorite pastime.  

What gives? I’m quite sure the word racism may rear its ugly head at some point, but is that the main culprit? There are large numbers of Spanish-speaking players like Sammy Sosa and Mariano Rivera from places like the Dominican Republic, where baseball is king, playing at the major league level. Those types of players outnumber African-American ball players and have done so since the late ‘90s. Ozzie Gonzalez in his piece Latino Legends in Sports, says there were 170 major league players of Latin descent in June 2000, or 22% of all major leaguers.

One angle may be that blacks just don’t find the game as interesting as football and basketball.Recently, while attending an Oakland A’s game I couldn’t help but notice the small number blacks in attendance. A long-time friend had free tickets for me, my family, and whomever else I wanted to bring, to see the A’s in action but the response was minimal and only six of us (the family plus one) attended the game. My nephew said baseball is too slow for him and he declined. Is this reflective of the overall attitude of black America when it comes to baseball?

Just in casual conversation with anyone from my 19-year old daughter (a huge basketball fan) to my younger brother, quite the baseball player in his high school day I might add, it appears that the game just doesn’t hold the same interest for urban youngsters, mostly black, that it once did.

I recall playing baseball growing up in Richmond, California and all of the boys in the neighborhood played the game. Willie McGee was one of the guys from my old neighborhood and he went on to orchestrate a solid career in the big leagues, mostly with the St. Louis Cardinals. Sure it took more equipment, and thus more money, to play baseball than is required for football or basketball, but we found a way. How could we not? Baseball was, and still is, in my opinion, the ultimate kid’s game because it allows one to pick up a stick, hit a ball, run around bases, catch and throw a ball as hard as you can and for a youngster with energy to burn that sounds like a dream come true.

Outside of the fact that the game may be just too slow for young people today an even larger question that begs for an answer is have the powers-that-be really marketed the game to black kids?

Marketing is a huge tool and the NBA has done a fantastic job of encouraging America’s black youth to play basketball. Black youth, along with hip-hop culture, are the face of this country in urban centers like Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York and the NBA has capitalized on that relationship in a big way with a  marketing explosion of shoes, shirts, and shorts led by Nike and its endorsement deals with Michael Jordan.  In addition, although the NFL’s O.J. Simpson appealed to a wider audience in his heyday doing Hertz commercials, Simpson still provided the inspiration for African-American kids everywhere who dreamed of playing pro football, but outside of Nike adds featuring Yankee star Derek Jeter, has baseball done much to spark such interest?

Jackie Robinson passed away in 1972 and that year at least 20% of the players were of African-American heritage. To go a step further, another close friend of mine, who happens to be a relative of former major leaguer/current minor league hitting instructor Gene Clines, presented me with a stat that is unheard of in that the ’71 world champion Pittsburgh Pirates, of which Clines was a member, featured a starting lineup with six blacks and three Latinos in one game.

According to an ESPN article, at the start of the current season there were 69 black ball players out of a possible 750 (30 teams, 25 per team), so the numbers have shrunk since ’72 (down to 9.2 % of all players participating in the majors) just as they have as mentioned by Ozzie Gonzalez. In fact, two teams, Houston and Atlanta, two cities with large black populations, had no black players on their rosters to start the current season.

A third, and very important, angle is that just the mere process of making it to the big leagues can be cumbersome unless one is considered a hot prospect as was Darryl Strawberry in 1980.  I graduated high school that spring just as he did and I can still see his photo on Sports Illustrated as they anointed him “the next Willie Mays”.  But, as much of a star as Strawberry was touted to be, and ultimately became, he did spend three years in the minor leagues.  
Kids in urban America are not exercising that type of patience. It could be their financial situation at home or just living in a society where the object is to “get money” as quickly as possible that steers them towards options like basketball.  Who can blame them when others are skipping college and going straight to the professional level and getting paid upwards of $4 million over their first three years in the NBA as opposed to baseball’s minor league salaries in the neighborhood of $50,000 (with certain stipulations) for at least their first three years, if they’re lucky?

Ultimately, it comes down to interest in the game, marketing aimed at a target audience, and a willingness by young ballplayers to do it the old fashion way by working their way up the ladder.  There is plenty of opportunity for things to change. There are role models in the game to stimulate young African-American ball players’ interest like Barry Bonds, the new all-time home run king, and Tony Gwynn, one of the game’s master hitters, recently inducted into the Hall of Fame. Also, C.C. Sabathia, an all-star pitcher with the Cleveland Indians out of Vallejo high, is attempting to spark more interest in the game by contributing money and equipment to little leagues in his hometown.

However, a burning question remains: is it time for major league baseball to do more than just retire Jackie Robinson’s number?