Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is an educator, columnist and researcher in
Dr. Johnson currently teaches English composition courses in the Communications Skills department at
Dr. Johnson is active in the community through her church, Support Ministries of Jesus Christ, Inc., where she is a musician for the praise and worship team.
Much has changed since the heyday of the Negro leagues, when no black athlete in any other sport could rival the likes of Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. Negro league games were main events as black Americans avidly flocked to the stands in anticipation of dynamic nine-inning duels, especially the East-West All-Star Game. Although integration in Major League Baseball contributed to the demise of the Negro league, baseball remained enormously popular with blacks well into the 1970s.
Today basketball is the predominant sport in the black community as sandlots have all but disappeared from urban landscapes. Most black kids don’t have the passion for baseball that their fathers and grandfathers had, because they don’t see many faces on the field like their own. Baseball does not have a dominant black player who is an ambassador for the sport the way Michael Jordan was for the NBA in the 1990s.
Just eight years ago, it appeared that Major League Baseball was getting its version of MJ when Ken Griffey Jr.’s career was blossoming with the Seattle Mariners. At that time, Griffey had an annual salary of $8.5 million, was the American League MVP, and had endorsements totaling $5 million. He appeared in Nike commercials and, if his career had not been beset with injuries, he would be on pace with Barry Bonds in the chase for Hank Aaron’s homerun record. Griffey could have been that marketing magnet for the inner city that baseball so desperately needs, as NBA stars such as Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson are heavily promoted through their endorsements with Adidas and Reebok.
McGrady and Iverson were among the athletes selected as role models by young black males I recently surveyed who play basketball in Columbus public high schools. Only one athlete chose a current black baseball star as a role model: New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.
However, one of my most interesting findings was that some kids listed non-baseball sports stars, such as Jerry Rice, Julius Erving and Ervin "Magic" Johnson, who began their careers before the kids were born. This shows that the intrinsic historical connection baseball once had to the black community has been deeply severed, as no one mentioned Dave Winfield, Joe Morgan or Rickey Henderson.
Major League Baseball does have rising young black stars, such as sensational Florida Marlins pitcher Dontrelle Willis. Unfortunately, the D-Train, as Willis is popularly called, does not have the major endorsement deals that promote McGrady and Iverson, and this limits his visibility.
One of my respondents effectively conveyed this position: "There’s more basketball players who appeal to inner city kids. They wear our clothes, shoes and have our style. We sort of can relate to that."
Thus, it is evident that the Reebok and Adidas commercials market a cultural identity that Major League Baseball has yet to tap into.
When putting baseball’s lack of appeal to black youth in perspective, it is, as former commissioner Fay Vincent contends, a "20-year fix." Baseball has missed the present generation of black high-school athletes, but league officials are taking steps to attract younger kids back to the game by annually donating $250,000 to Little League to expand its urban programs. Also, RBI -- Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities-- programs are thriving in Atlanta and Houston.
I hope that the young blacks who are recruited to play in these programs will learn that they are part of a long legacy of athletes who paved the way for sports integration. Too much was sacrificed by trailblazers in the Negro leagues and those who followed them to allow the black ballplayer to disappear from the diamond.