Can't Paucity Be a Result of Choice? - Lack of Black Baseball Players Isn't Just Systematic

Many arms will be raised and eyes will be rolled once again after Hank Aaron cried about the lack of African-American players in Major League Baseball.

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Many fingers will be pointed and damnations will be had once again after Hank Aaron voiced his concern about the lack of African-American players in Major League Baseball.

Next to PED/steroid use among players and the disparity of payrolls, this is arguably the sorest topic within the baseball community. It’s the sorest topic within this country’s borders, let alone its sports. The mere mention of black and lack sends us some folks into a blind rage; giving reason to post pseudo-anonymous incendiary comments online or craft coded messages in other visual media. They also rile up other folks who seem to wake up in the morning looking to be… well, riled up against anything that feels or looks wrong, even if the truth reveals something more.

There have been thousands of conversations about the lack of black baseball players; most, if not all can be cupped into one of the following opinions, theories and realities:

• Black families are unable to afford the commitments to the game: purchasing equipment, traveling, insurance (more of an institutional question than familial), etc.
• Black families have their priorities out of whack: they can “somehow” buy a Playstation 3, the new Kobes and some new rims, but still get welfare money and don’t eat.
• Baseball lacks new black superstars to make young kids pay attention: After Jackie & Larry broke the color line, Mays & Aaron carried the torch and passed it on to Jackson and Morgan, Griffey Jr. and Bonds, Jeter and… and… There’s no one to hand it to.
• Baseball carefully opened the gates to Latino players because black players were getting a bit full of themselves.
• For municipalities, it’s easier and cheaper to maintain a basketball court than a baseball field.
• These kids look for the instant gratification and the dollars in basketball and football; don’t appreciate the hard work to play this game.

Many of us fans and media share at least one of these concerns/excuses. They are convenient to return to every time this comes up because some want to ignore it and some want to force institutional changes.
The thing about progress is that at some point, fighting for and gaining the right to participate in something would eventually lead to future generations having the chance to do what couldn’t be done before.

In the case of baseball, progress led to the idea that black kids just may not be interested in the game.

Jason Heyward,
Top Rated Prospect in Baseball
Photo Credit to AJC

One of the more irksome, but unmentioned aspects of the paucity of African-American players in the game is that the game’s caretakers have this assumption that a finite number of available young athletes must become baseball players. This paucity would be even more glaring if this was 1970; where the sport dominated in the media (especially TV where there were just three networks and cable just came to the mainstream) and the population was 2/3 of what it is today (200+ million Americans).

Yet, this is 2010.

A black President was inevitable. A black man winning an Olympic gold medal in SPEEDSKATING was unfathomable… because you probably didn’t know it was a sport until last week.

Entertainment options are aplenty, to the point that kids don’t really know what to do with themselves. Yes, technology is the sticking point for curmudgeons and sociologists alike, but in terms of sports, there seems to be a new game cropping up somewhere in the world every other day. We’re fascinated by curling because most of us are trying to understand what makes it a sport, better yet an Olympic sport. Alongside the ‘traditional’ sports are all these ‘fringe’ sports that have grown in profile over the past twenty years.

We also have the same diversity in other realms of entertainment; especially for kids without an athletic bone in their bodies. There’s something for everyone in 2010 and the offerings continue to grow, even as the Great Recession takes hold on the world.

Look, considering this country’s racial history, the dearth of black baseball players – superstars or career minor leaguers – is painful to look at. In the face of the NFL and NBA, where the black populations mirror little else in this country, baseball’s stewards will never live this down. However, there will continue to be people who say that baseball is losing black athletes to these other sports and entertainment outlets.

No sport, no company, no one… is guaranteed to anyone in the population for its future. That sense of entitlement doesn’t help the cause.

Baseball is still a great sport and fans who truly love it will embrace whoever suits up in their uniforms. They’ll embrace any player on the roster as long as they help their teams win, even if they harbor uneasy sentiments about social issues in sports.

What they won’t embrace is a long-term debate on this issue. For all the great programs Major League Baseball has initiated to strum up interest in the game within the black community, what they need to do more than anything else is to understand the realities of 2010. Understand that promoting African-American stars, hosting tournaments in urban communities and merchandising itself onto the heads of kids across the country just may not be enough to interest every black child in America.

And that’s okay.

Past generations fought for so much to ensure that kids of all ethnicities can look forward to how they will participate in society. As the son of parents who have done as such, it’s not lost on me at all that men such as Aaron would love to see greater validation of that blood, sweat, tears and big flys hit so long ago. Yet, I also hope that it’s understood that arguably the greatest aspect of their legacy lies in the fact that millions of children who came after them were allowed another sort of opportunity; to look at the game in a different prism on its own merit…

And respectfully say thanks, but no thanks.

Besides

So besides the Beijing Olympics, what else is there to keep up with in August?

Here's something to start with this weekend:

Tomorrow: Pro Football Hall of Fame

Could you be a Hall-of-Famer and underrated at the same time? Or overlooked? If you take a look at this year's class, you could make the case for all of these players.

• Fred Dean made his name known to the masses as a San Francisco 49er, but it was in the shadow of San Diego's highly potent aerial attack led by Dan Fouts that he emerged as one of the most feared pass rushers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
• Before offensive linemen grew in profile (mainly because of criticism of those who underperformed), Gary Zimmerman was a dominant offensive lineman whose lone champion for a long time was famed analyst John Madden (only because of how much the former Raiders coach loves his OLs).
• Emmitt Thomas was a top-flight cornerback for Kansas City whose 58 interceptions are fourth all-time among pure corners (his passes defensed must be pretty impressive if that statistic was kept in the sixties and early seventies).
• Most people forgot there was a football team in New England until the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVI, but Andre Tippett was a beast at outside linebacker on a team that other than a SB appearance in '86 ('85 season), was just awful. Playing in the same era as Lawrence Taylor didn't help his profile over the years, but any quarterback who felt his wrath could tell you of his ferocity.
• Twenty seasons in the NFL, let alone twenty seasons as a cornerback for one team is an accomplishment in itself. Yet, Darrell Green was one of the best in the business with wide receiver-like speed and free safety vision for the ball. Oh, wasn't too shabby returning the ball, either.
• Jerry Rice will officially be enshrined into the Hall in 2011; one of the few guarantees in life, let alone sports. Art Monk's addition to the Hall in some ways is still a surprise considering how long he had to wait to get the call. The prototype to today's big wideouts, Monk utilized his speed and quickness on any and every route. How three Super Bowl titles and career records (many broken by Rice) were not enough for media members who love to talk about numbers and major markets as HOF qualifiers is still beyond me.

All week: Same faces, new places
Yes, Manny Ramirez is a Dodger, Mark Texieira is an Angel, Ken Griffey, Jr. is a White Sock (Sox is still plural, right?), Jason Bay is a Rod Sock, Ivan Rodriguez is a Yankee and I'm headed to the Brewers... However, to get a better sense of how your favorite team will adjust with new players, you have to look beyond the first weekend series after the trading deadline and keep at least the first week in focus. Each team will have at least one home series and one road series to give their new managers an idea of how their newest ballplayers are going to either adjust to unfamiliar teams and parks (or reaquaint themselves). As August rolls along, you may see some adjustments (especially in the case of Boston and Los Angeles, who need Bay and Ramirez to learn new leagues) to the lineups.
Or maybe all of the GMs were playing MLB '08 on XBox/PS3 and won't save the rosters to memory after it's all over.