Posted on 04/16/2014 7:28:08 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
Yesterday wasn’t just tax day, it was the 67th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the baseball color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. For those games not washed away by rain or snow, teams wore #42 jerseys in his honor. ESPN, as usual, used the anniversary to lament the dwindling number of black baseball players. The number of blacks playing major league baseball has gotten extremely low in recent years. It goes right along with a massive decrease in the number of black kids playing baseball and going to baseball games. In many ways the decrease in black interest in baseball dates back to Jackie Robinson.
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In 2012 the MLB was 63.9% white. That’s up from the low of 60.3% in 2004. In 2013 the NFL was 29.26% white. In 2012, 78% of all professional basketball players were US blacks.
I think part of the reason that so many bullpens are full of tall athletic white lanky kids throwing 95+ in recent years is that they have started choosing baseball instead of trying to compete with tall athletic black lanky guys at younger and younger ages in basketball.
The great equalizer in baseball is hitting a round ball fair with a round bat, especially when it’s 90+ and your timing is messed up with slower breaking balls and change ups. If you can do that, some of the other more physical skills that might be lacking don’t matter as much. Generally, the skill set of NFL and NBA requires more physical skills. Also, the skill set for baseball at the major league level usually requires very frequent repetition at a very young age, usually from fathers.
FReegards
Historically college baseball didn’t produce a ton of major league players. That started changing in the 90’s. I don’t think Title IX affects baseball like it affects some smaller sports like swimming, golf, fencing etc.
There are basketball courts available everywhere, and all it takes is ONE basketball among ten players. The requirements for baseball are more complicated and expensive.
There are other reasons, too. Baseball skills are often imparted by a father. Even within basketball, the skills developed vary by socioeconomics. A good jump shot is not developed on a public court, where a player must struggle to get his hands on the ball. A jump shot is developed through thousands of shots taken at a basket at a suburban home.
Or it could all just be racism.
Most of the navel gazing is really just about revenue. When a sport loses an entire demographic they see money going away, and “why don’t they like us anymore” is a valid question to ask.
Yep, about 10,000 hours of practice.
I agree there is an undercurrent of broken families that could affect interest in baseball. Having said that, does baseball have to be passed on to father and son? If so, what makes baseball different than football in that regard?
Personally I love the end zone prancing in the NFL. I can’t imagine that the ability to prance is the difference between choosing sport A and sport B for a kid. Especially when so few have the talent and drive to make to the point where you might have something to prance about.
The showboating/jerkitude quotient in baseball as compared to football and basketball is a good point. Baseball probably has just as many jerks who would love to break out the gyrating buffoonery displays after a routine single, but there is a jerk on the mound as well. That’s why nobody moonwalks down to first after drawing a walk, nobody wants 90+ in the neck. Doesn’t even have to be the same game, series, or player. And all the players know it.
Also as has been pointed out, there’s very few superstars the minors and they rarely have entitlement syndrome, as opposed to the elite free farm systems of football and basketball.
Freegards
MLB has never had a huge slice of the black entertainment dollar. They started going out of their way 10-15 years ago to try to get it without a whole lot of success. I’m wondering why that is. Obviously the free market is working. Blacks as a group willingly spend their time on money on activities other than baseball.
Actually it’s been getting discussed in MLB circles for a while. The lack of black players is a sign of the black fans. Nobody likes losing 10% of the population from their fan base, and it becomes a bigger problem when it is impacting the pipeline of quality players. No sport wants to see the pipeline diminish because that becomes a vicious cycle, when top athletes don’t want to play your sport quality of play diminishes, which reduces the fan base, which reduces the number of top players interested in your sport... Nobody wants to wind up on the “remember when” pile next to boxing.
Different strokes and all, but I can’t stand the prancing posturing and chest pounding after a 300lb behemoth falls on a loose ball. There is no self policing in the NFL. A million replay angles, the penalty system and modern officiating combined with each game meaning so much makes it impossible, at least in recent years. And I guess I like sports where the cool players can self police the mouth breathers who are really into executing fruity self-congratulatory posturing after even the most mundane of plays. Same thing with the NBA, chest pounding after a near 7 footer dunks with no defender within 20 feet of him is ridiculous.
FReegards
You’re missing the point.
The phrase “number of blacks” itself indicates an unhealthy preoccupation with race.
Demographic questions like that are the ones that keep marketers up at night. Why are certain groups simply not interested in certain things (or more importantly for the marketer why are they not interested in my thing)? It becomes bigger in sports because the fans are the source of the athletes and when the demographic you’ve lost is disproportionately represented in the pool of top athletes quality of play is going to suffer which will impact the revenue stream.
When millions moved to the cold north and crowded big cities, there was less good weather and not a lot of room. In football, other than quarterback or kicker, players basically need no practice..you're either big, tough, and/or fast, or you're not. Basketball doesn't need a lot of space. But baseball needs big fields, and more equipment. Not a lot of large, grassy spaces in big cities.
Almost twenty years ago SI did a front cover story about the decline in white players on major college and pro teams. I don't recall a huge brouhaha about the article. A number of reasons were offered even the obvious major reason that black athletes are on average better adapted for the sport than white players.
That fact got many people fired (Jimmy the Greek, others) for stating the obvious. Since then I've read comments by a number of well-known black athletes saying pretty much the same thing. Only clueless white libs (for ideological reasons) still believe in the myth that all races are exactly equal in physical ability.
James makes a lot more than 19 million. Counting endorsements it’s more like 30-40 million a year easily.
That “no dad to play catch with” reason is faulty. I rarely or never played catch with father (he wasn’t interested), but I played a heck of a lot of baseball when I was a kid. It was my best sport. You played catch with your friends.
Be honest. Because you don't watch basketball. Yes, there are a number of classless individuals in the game, but there are quite a few that play the game straight.
I doubt many of the players from Latin America and the Caribbean had a lot of money. But they did have the talent.
Use the rule of Occam's Razor. They don't like the sport. For one thing, even when I was a kid and loved to play the sport, watching it on tv was often a chore. Basketball and football were always more exciting to watch. But basketball was just about never on tv when I was a kid back in the fifties and sixties. Now it's on every night during the season.
Another myth. Your friends play it, you play it.
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