Major League Baseball Had a Chance to Stop the Drain of Black Players From Baseball. It Didn’t.

[Race Jones]

MLB Could've Stopped Black Talent Drain But Didn't - Global Sport Matters

MLB could have responded to prominent Black figures’ warnings about their community’s relationship with baseball in the 1970s, but didn’t.

globalsportmatters.com

Baseball was warned. In a 1974 article about the lack of Black MLB managers, the Sporting News pointed to an equally pressing concern: the decline of the Black player. Editor C.C. Johnson Spink wrote that over the previous five years, there had been a significant drop in the numbers of African-American players drafted, from 40 percent to roughly 15 percent. Spink also wrote that, statistically, Black players had outperformed their White counterparts.

If Black players left baseball, he concluded, then the game would suffer.

Three years later, Atlanta Braves general manager Bill Lucas, the league’s first Black GM and also the highest ranking Black official in MLB at the time, sounded a similar alarm, telling a reporter, “I’ve noticed a decline of Black ball players drafted and being funneled into the minor leagues and a decline in the number pursuing the major leagues. It’s an indication we may be losing some good athletes to other spring sports.”

Lucas wasn’t alone. The popular Black sportswriter Doc Young wrote numerous editorials about the decline of the Black superstar. Investigative pieces in newspapers across the country highlighted the general decline of Black American players. MLB officials publicly stated there was a problem. Monte Irvin, who integrated the New York Giants in 1949 and was at that time working in the commissioner’s office, said, “Black kids are not just playing as much baseball as they used to.” His solution? Get the kids when they were young. As he put it, “in the inner cities, a kid may have baseball ability right after he gets out of grade school but doesn’t know what to do with it. We have to get scouts to dig him out, to tell him where to play.”

Beyond Bud Selig: Can Baseball Fix Its Pipeline? - Global Sport Matters

In 1999, former commissioner Bud Selig tried to fix MLB's diversity problem with his own Selig Rule, but it didn't change baseball's tide.

globalsportmatters.com

 

[Revolver Ocelot]

Lol @ lack of black managers being a reason for the decline of black players.

 

[Dwayne]

Lol @ lack of black managers being a reason for the decline of black players.

Folks just gon have to come to terms is we dont play it as much.


Especially in predominantly black neighborhoods and definitely not in lower income areas.

 

[Scottie Simpen]

Folks just gon have to come to terms is we dont play it as much.


Especially in predominantly black neighborhoods and definitely not in lower income areas.

Baseball is one of the sports that you have to introduce early, because the product on TV is cheeks. Growing up I had Griffey to look up to, but I couldn't name you 5 black players now. Also it's expensive as hell lol

 

[GNS]

Lol @ lack of black managers being a reason for the decline of black players.

Where in the article was that said to be the reason?

Anyway
Those cacs were warned. Knowing them they looked at it as a blessing that lil timmy and aaron had a better chance to succeed with less brown skinned competition from leroy and cornell.

They reap what they sow. There's some international brothas in their repping but having african american representation would further the interest imo and indubitably the athleticism

I have no idea how baseball cats still get them huge contracts but there's still a big market there, it just got gentrified. Which prolly was the point.

 

[Mister B.]

Shock article.

People in the hood will play football or basketball way over baseball.

 

[Chi-Town B]

It can take years before you're able to get out of the minors and start making money in the big leagues, these kids not trying to waste time toying around in the minors

 

[grYmes]

Unless you a baseball prodigy & you got the passion for it very rarely are black kids out here putting all their talents in that sport. There’s a reason a lot of these good black baseball players are also quarterbacks. My cousin was a pretty good baseball player, good enough to go to the minors but he just liked basketball better.

 

[Disanthrope]

I'm not putting black players not playing baseball on anybody but black players.

We don't fuck with baseball like that and that's ok

 

[Disanthrope]

Let our afro latino brothers have baseball and dominate..

 

[Race Jones]

per usual nobody read the article lmao

 

[Revolver Ocelot]

They've been writing the same article for years.

If you were ACTUALLY into sports you would've also known that.