Comments on: What Caused the Decline of African-Americans in Baseball?

By: Marc Schneider

Marc Schneider — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:22:11 +0000

There is some self-selection going on it seems to me. For example, I think white kids are often discouraged (or discourage themselves) from playing basketball because of the idea that they cannot compete with African-American kids. Similarly, perhaps a lot of African-American kids see baseball as a “white” sport and feel uncomfortable with what they perceive as the “culture” of the sport. They are being replaced by, largely poor, Latino players that come from countries where baseball is still the dominant sport.

I tend to agree with one of the earlier commenters; as long as all groups have opportunities, I don’t see why we should particularly care about the ethnic makeup of particular sports at any given time. (There is a problem, however, with the lack of opportunities that inner city kids have to play baseball because of the lack of resources and poor facilities.) A few years ago, there was a thought that the NBA was too black and that white fans would not support it. But that has been pretty much disproved.

By: tangotiger

tangotiger — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:07:14 +0000

JC, good stuff.

Isn’t it possible to look at the overall black pro athlete population and say
a) that it has declined,
b) that a smaller slice of that pie goes to MLB and a larger slice to NFL, NBA

So that the combination of the two results in a cancelling effect for NFL, NBA to make it look like they are unaffected?

Also, MLB has seen a rise in run scoring, resulting in a drop in small ball (meaning stealing bases), and maybe even less reliance on fielding. And perhaps black ballplayers are disproportionate in these types of ballplayers. The Vince Colemans et al may simply choose to be a RB or WR.

I will presume the height of the black ballplayer may have been the height of the SB revolution.

Tom

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:14:41 +0000

The 2008 Racial and Gender Report Card: Major League Baseball [Emphasis added.]

You bloggers are so typical! You only report the bad news! Why not highlight this result?

On the upside, the number of women playing major league baseball has remained steady for decades.

By: jay

jay — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:53:07 +0000

with all these stats, I would like to know which teams have who.
Which team has the most whites.
Which team has the most blacks.
Which team has the most Latinos.
Which team has the most asians.
am I missing someone?

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:28:41 +0000

All I have is observations as a coach of LL and Pony ball and as the father of a HS player in the western part of Cobb County, which is very racially diverse area. I started coaching 11 years ago and in T-Ball we had about 8 teams with 12 or so players per team with a breakdown of around 60/40 white to black. When they moved up to the next level there were fewer teams with less black players. This held true every time my son moved up a level. In Pony Ball there were 4 teams and the ratio was about 80/20. At the same time in the loical yout FB and BB leagues the ratio was and is about 10/90 white to black.
Our HS team is about 50/50 right now. That will change when the current senior class graduates. The numbers will move back down to about 80/20. We play in Region 5AAAAA and most of the teams have 1-3 black players. One is mostly Hispanic.
I think that the reasons are numerous.
1. The cost of travel, or year-round, ball. It cost about $5000 per summer of one kid to play travel ball for an elite team.
2. Lack of scholarships at the D-1 level. D-1 schools have 11.7 scholarships per year to give out. You do the math on that one. Most players have to get an academic scholarship or have rich parents to play D-1 ball.
3. Cost to play. It is expensive to just play rec ball. You have the cost of cleats, glove, maybe a bat and some of the uniform. It’s over $100 to play LL. Closer to $150 I’d imagine. LL will subsidize players who can’t afford to play though.
4. Marketing by the NFL and NBA. They just do a better job of marketing their players and teams. Kids and parent respond to that and want to play BB or FB more than baseball.
Here in Cobb, the high schools get no money besides the cost of field maintenance from the county. Every team in all sports, and all extracurricular activities, have to raise every dime that it takes to run the program from the cost of the baseballs to uniforms to buying new equipment. Some programs in the county are able to raise $100,000 every year.
I think as more black families keep moving to the suburbs that we will see more blacks involved in the game again.
Regarding the comments about stats. Scouts are the ones who go out and watch the HS players and recommend them to be drafted. Teams don’t rely on stats very heavily for amateur scouting. It’s all about potential for HS and college players. Sure, there is some evaluation based on the numbers, but not as much as you think.

By: ChuckO

ChuckO — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:37:47 +0000

I don’t pretend to know why there are fewer blacks in baseball now, but I will offer the following observation. I live in Atlanta in a racially mixed neighborhood. However, most of the whites are single, or childless married couples, so the kids in the neighborhood are overwhelmingly black. I have seen these kids playing football in yards, and in the streets. I have seen them playing basketball with baskets set up in driveways, or at a nearby park. However, I can’t recall ever seeing these kids playing catch, hitting a ball with a bat, or playing any semblance of baseball.

By: C.D.

C.D. — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:08:49 +0000

Very interesting read. A few weeks back I was looking at this issue. I was wondering if Puerto Rico’s inclusion in the draft and the changes we saw there could apply to what has been happening with African Americans. I think the lack of proper programs to develop talent is not as available and that there is a wider gulf between casual and serious players these days. Also, even with MiLB scholarships, I have to imagine the real and jerryrigged scholarships offered by every level of college football (yeah, I went to a DIII school and we gave out “academic” scholarships to some of the football players) have to outweigh the number of opportunities given to African Americans by baseball.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:56:00 +0000

Jason S.,

Other than the Dodgers and Mariners, I would say the Braves have moved in Asia about as much as anybody. What the Braves haven’t done is hit the “posting” market to buy players from the Japanese clubs. I thought Fukudome was a good potential pickup. The big thing is that the Japanese marketing opportunities are something that players from other places don’t have.

Maybe Australia will become a major venue for the Braves with Moylan and Stockman.

By: Tucker

Tucker — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:55:29 +0000

I think there are still a couple of incentive related things that could be affecting it. First is that the upside gains for baseball are not really as high as for basketball or football. The gains in particular in the forms of national awareness and sponsorship income are much smaller in baseball. Does C.C. Sabathia get the same status gains that LeBron or Chad Johnson get? I don’t think so. Second I don’t think that the returns from baseball are clearly advertised. The bonuses that the Upton brothers received aren’t as well known as the contracts for the top 5 picks in the NBA or NFL drafts. Further the NFL gets an advantage by in essence advertising the total upside gains by having non-guaranteed contracts with artificially inflated values. Finally I think one thing would be to look at where African-American players were drafted. We’ve seen a few very, very good African-American players come up relatively recently- Sabathia, Crawford, the Uptons… but most players in the majors aren’t high school players who get drafted before the fifth round. I’m not sure how to do it but I’d like to see a study of where African-American players were drafted. I have a feeling that a) they will be drafted out of high school and b) there will not be as many in later rounds.

By: Jason S.

Jason S. — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:51:47 +0000

Very interest subject and good responses so far. On a related subject, I have wondered why the Braves are 100% completely disinterested in Asian born players.
The organization doesn’t even try to sign anybody from the Japanese or other Asian leagues and it seems clear to me that they have made a very conscious decision about this. Is that really a good decision? Or is it more about them being too cheap to scout over there, so put all their eggs in the Latin American basket?