Last month, Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia referred to the decreasing number of black players in the majors as a "crisis." A few days later, an annual report released by the University of Central Florida revealed that only 8.4 percent of major leaguers are African-American, the lowest total in two decades. By comparison, African-Americans comprised 27.5 percent of major leaguers in 1975. In 1995, the number was at 19 percent. In Sunday's News Journal, on the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color line, we examined this alarming trend.It's still raining, so in the absence of a Phillies-Mets game, we present some of Phillies SS Jimmy Rollins' thoughts on the matter from ESPN The Magazine. J-Roll, Sabathia and Devil Rays LF Carl Crawford are quoted in this week's issue and were featured in a round-table discussion last Thursday on "SportsCenter."
I'm anxious to get your thoughts on some of these remarks.
Q: Is the declining number of African-Americans, as Sabathia says, a crisis?
A: We see different teams come in, and the first thing we look for is how many brothers they got. Sometimes, it's one dude by himself. And we're like, 'Man, you know that's a long year for him.' He has no one around to relate to unless he has a coach. When you don't have your people around, it makes it tough. Whether it's racism in your face or being swept under the rug, you feel it. You have nobody to talk to, and that can cause a lot of anger.
Q: Did big-league scouts sometimes avoid your neighborhood?
A: That championship ring wasn't on when they came to the house like it was when they came to the school. We had a nice field, so at home games, you could line up 10, 15 scouts. But when we went on the road, to the Oakland Athletic League schools, scouts were not gonna walk up 98th Avenue and go to a game. So some guys weren't getting seen.
Q: How much of it is baseball's image, not appealing to African-Americans?
A: You know, black people like to spend money. Shoot, let 'em spend some money on baseball. If you can make baseball look good to us, maybe that will spark an interest.
Q: It seems like baseball has often relied on the game to market itself.
A: Well, times have changed. If we want to bring African-Americans back to baseball, what can we do besides the RBI programs? People want to buy our products. I wear a skully -- maybe make a skully. Make some of C.C.'s spikes and people will feel like they can get out there and throw left-handed, even if they're right-handed.
Q: Baseball teams seem to realize the importance of putting Latino players together in a clubhouse. Do you think they just haven't seen a need to do the same with African-Americans?A: If we speak English, we should be able to adapt, right? That's probably the thought process. In the clubhouse, we call it the border. They're all over there, pulling their chairs together, huddling up, whether they're from Venezuela, the Dominican, Cuba, Puerto Rico. They speak the same language, they have the same experience coming from a poor country to a place where they can make a dream. We have to get on cell phones and highlight our boys three or four cities away.
Q: It might help if guys like you stayed in the game after you're finished playing, right?
A: Truthfully, myself? When it's done, I'm done. I want kids and a family. But, you know, thinking about the social responsibility, it might be important. I've never thought of it like that.
7 comments:
"We see different teams come in, and the first thing we look for is how many brothers they got." I've been thinking a lot about that comment and it strikes me as extremely poignant. It says to me that blacks and whites have trouble relating to each other because of their basic makeup and and not because they just have something against each other. Maybe this simplifies the issue of racisim too much, but it would certainly explain a lot. It begs the question, "is racism just something that is a part of who we are?" As a white person, I can't even imagine the difficult road that blacks have walked and must continue to walk - at the same time, a white person could not get away with that same comment - i.e. - "the first thing I look for is how many white people are on the team."
I wish C.C., JRoll, Carl Crawford, Ryan Howard, and others the best of luck speading the passion for the game to African American boys. It is a beautiful game and I think as many peopel as possible should have exposure to it.
The percentage of African Americans is even less than they say because I doubt that all of the people they included in that percentage were born in Africa.
Make an asinine comment and don't pen your name to it, classic.
To what J-Roll is talking about, I think it all has to do with the deterioration of our inner cities and the infatuation of MLB with foreign born players. Teams feel they shouldn't put all these resources to send a scout into an inner city when they then have to get lucky enough to draft the guy if they like them. By sending scouts to the Dominican or Venezuela, you can sign a guy without having to worry about him falling to you in the draft. I think it's all about economics, not only on baseball's end, but on the end of those in the inner cities. It's much cheaper and easier to play basketball than it is to get about 12 guys to play baseball and travel to games against other teams. There is no easy way to "fix" this problem, which I see as the dropping in number of American born players in general, not just African Americans.
Spot on, Ed. Spot on.
"Q: How much of it is baseball's image, not appealing to African-Americans?
A: You know, black people like to spend money. Shoot, let 'em spend some money on baseball. If you can make baseball look good to us, maybe that will spark an interest."
The Phillies had a superb opportunity to "make baseball look good to us" when they could've showcased and rewarded Ryan Howard's achievements the past two seasons in ways that didn't represent an underpaid contract raise and Amaro Jr. telling us in the process "Howard and his contract negotiations aren't a priority."
That kind of treatment is simply not appealing to a fan of the sport, regardless of color.
I've said it before regarding this team and race: Sadly, they were one of the last teams to integrate, and they can claim to have roots in the beginning of the Free Agency Era due to Curt Flood not wanting to play here. Now, here in Howard (and J-Roll, to a lesser-production extent) have a MONUMENTAL chess piece to market, present, and sell the game to the afican american fan base.
Look at the media and fan craze in Japan surrounding Dice-K and his first start in Boston. That game was on at like 3am in the morning there, and had a ratings numbers through the roof. How did that happen? How did they come to follow such a star, with such a furor, that can't be understood here for someone like Howard?
I don't think Anon made such an asinine comment.
Let's say for example you are of German (note: a country, not a continent) ancestry, but your family came to the U.S. 150 years ago.
Do you call yourself German-American? Or to make the analogy equal, European-American?
Yeah, anon, people do. I consider myself German-American.
The best point that I've heard anyone make on this subject came from baseball historian (and Newark native) Dave Smith. In his view, baseball isn't driving away African-Americans. Rather, there are more sporting opportunities for blacks today than there were for the previous generation. He drew a parallel to the declining number of women teaching in elementary schools. My mother is a teacher because, when she was growing up, most women went into teaching. My sister is a lawyer, a profession that wasn't readily available to women when my mom was in her early-20s.
Ed: I agree with what you're saying about the economics. Baseball isn't the cheapest or easiest sport for kids to play. Dontrelle Willis made that point in my interview with him two weeks ago in Florida.
Paul: The Phillies' decision to renew Ryan Howard's contract rather than sign him to a multi-year extension had nothing to do with anything except the fact that players with as little major-league service time as Howard don't get long-term deals. Trust me when I say the Phillies understand how important Howard is to their future. I'd be shocked if, a year from now, after he has become arbitration-eligible, Howard still doesn't have a long-term deal.
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