Baseball & African Americans

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Jackie Robinson’s cause stalls</font size>
<font size="4">the number of African-American players in the majors
has dwindled from 27 percent in 1975 to 18 percent in
1982 to less than 10 percent last season</font size></center>

By Terence Moore
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, March 28, 2007, 08:15 PM



The conversation involved Jackie Robinson, a national treasure who died 35 years ago. He nevertheless lives forever after he used April 15, 1947 as his springboard toward immortality. He broke more than baseball’s color barrier back then. He unleashed the spiritual forces that would integrate everything from the military to restrooms to schools.

What would Robinson say today about baseball turning “diversity” into only a theoretical word in the dictionary regarding African-Americans?

What would he do?

Tommy Davis sighed over the phone from Los Angeles on Wednesday, and then the former Dodgers standout of the early 1960s said, “He’d probably march. Yeah, he’d probably do something, and I’m quite sure he could get an audience. I know he would get on television. I’m sure he could arrange a roundtable discussion about it, because there’s a problem here.”

A big one, and let’s start with the following: Baseball officials are sponsoring events this weekend in Memphis around something they are calling their inaugural Civil Rights Game. According to a press release from the Commissioner’s Office, this is to “honor [baseball’s] involvement in the historic struggle through which players of color broke barriers and made important contributions to American society.”

Well, if they say so. The NFL had more African-American head coaches during this year’s Super Bowl (two) than the number of African-Americans on the Braves’ current 40-man roster (zero). That’s compared to the 11 African-Americans on the Braves’ 40-man roster just a dozen years ago after they won their only Atlanta world championship.

This isn’t just a Braves thing. It’s a baseball thing. The Chicago White Sox’s Ken Williams is the only African-American general manager. Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers joins Willie Randolph of the New York Mets as the only African-American managers. In addition, the number of African-American players in the majors has dwindled from 27 percent in 1975 to 18 percent in 1982 to less than 10 percent last season.

And, please, no more silliness about how African-Americans are just not into the game anymore and preferring basketball and football.

“I’m not putting the Latins down, because they can play, but baseball has purposely built a bunch of camps and academies in other countries, and they’ve ignored areas in this country where you have African-American talent,” said Davis, telling the truth. As Hall of Famer Joe Morgan likes to say, “You won’t find African-American players if you’re not looking for them.”

Last summer I wrote about the gathering of more than a hundred African-American prospects from high schools across the South. They played at Georgia Perimeter College in Clarkston, and the pro scouts who bothered to come were significantly impressed.

Let’s just say it was a start toward shifting baseball back toward fulfilling Robinson’s legacy. To hear baseball officials tell it, so is this Civil Rights Game. It will be preceded on Saturday by a luncheon to honor Spike Lee, deceased Negro leagues legend Buck O’Neil, and Vera Clemente, the widow of Roberto Clemente. There also will be a group discussion involving various baseball personalities and others on baseball and civil rights.

Davis won’t be one of the panelists, but he should be. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he spent his youth watching Robinson terrorize Dodger, opponents with his bat, glove, legs and grit. In fact, Davis signed with the Dodgers instead of the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians or New York Yankees after a plea over the phone from his hero.

“When I heard his voice, I couldn’t believe it,” said Davis, now 68, still emotional with the memory. “Jackie obviously was a big part of my life. They should have a holiday, not only for Martin Luther King Jr., but for Jackie Robinson.”

They have an unofficial one in baseball, with every April 15 declared “Jackie Robinson Day.” Baseball also has ordered every team to retire his No. 42.

Now baseball has to retire its hypocrisy regarding it all.

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/sh...lumns/entries/2007/03/28/jackie_robinson.html

 

[Makkonnen]

great article

 

[QueEx]

... and unfortunate truth

 

[Makkonnen]

Seems like many accomplishments of the past 60 years are being rolled back.

 

[hanginbals]

 

[QueEx]

Seems like many accomplishments of the past 60 years are being rolled back.

Serious Q. Are "they" rolling them back or are we lazying them back? I know its a combination of those two factors and a slew of others, but I just keep worrying about OUR end of the deal.

QueEx

 

[QueEx]

Are we swinging and missing (at life's opportunities) or (for whatever reason) just not willing to step up to the bat in numbers that we have in the past?

 

[Makkonnen]

Serious Q. Are "they" rolling them back or are we lazying them back? I know its a combination of those two factors and a slew of others, but I just keep worrying about OUR end of the deal.

QueEx

I don't think it is laziness on our part. I think it is accurate planning on some people's part and a total lack of leadership in our community.

You can't explain away the widespread apathy, ignorance and complacency of millions of people in terms of folks just being lazy. Those same people work hard at countless other things with positive connotations such as college, careers, families, athletics etc. If you were white and suggested that this rollback of accomplishments was due to our collective laziness you'd be instantly labeled a racist. Lazy negroes?

This nation used plenty of effort and planning to destabilize african-american leadership before, during and after the civil rights era and that along with those who sold out, and continue to sellout, our interests seems to have been enough to sidetrack our communities significantly.

I'm assuming your 40+ yrs old now,haven't you seen a tremendous drop off in community leadership and personal accountability in the decades following civil rights? I dont think we are too lazy, I think many of us have no direction.

 

[actinanass]

Mayne I'm feeling this post. I've been trying to tell my people to go to the rangers game *since I'm from DFW "dallas-fort worth"* to represent for Ron Washington. They don't even know that this is history. If I'm not mistaken, Ron would be the first black manager in rangers history.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>League falls short on Jackie Robinson Day</font size>
<font size="4">Less than 10 percent of Major Leaguers are African-American</font size></center>


By CARROLL ROGERS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/13/07

It doesn't take Jackie Robinson Day to remind Major League Baseball how few African-Americans are playing the sport now. On any given day, players, coaches and managers can look around dugouts and see it for themselves.

But today's Jackie Robinson Day – a leaguewide celebration honoring the 60th anniversary of the fall of baseball's color barrier – does give people a reason to talk about it frankly.

"In the 'hood, baseball is considered a white man's game," said Dmitri Young, who will wear Robinson's No. 42 for the Washington Nationals today. "That has got to change."

Young was born in Mississippi and grew up in Los Angeles. He's one of only three African-Americans on the active roster for the Nationals, and was one of 69 African-Americans on major league rosters when the season began (9.2 percent).

Only one team had more than four African-American players (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) and two had none (the Braves and Houston Astros).

"You look in the Braves dugout, the only black guy over there is Terry Pendleton," said Young, who was in Atlanta this week for a three-game series against the Braves.

Pendleton, the Braves' hitting coach, is joined by several Braves players of color – Andruw Jones (who will wear No. 42 today), Edgar Renteria and Rafael Soriano – but they are Latin American.

Braves general manager John Schuerholz said falling numbers of African-Americans in the game is an important issue for his franchise and all of baseball.

"It's not benign neglect on anyone's part," said Schuerholz, the longest-tenured GM in baseball. "It's discussed. It's focused upon. It's a significant area of interest for baseball."

But from a scouting standpoint, the path is pretty clear.

"You go to where the talent leads you," Schuerholz said. "Finding major league-caliber baseball players is far too difficult if you try to narrow your criteria down to demographics."

Major league franchises now search for talent in places like Asia and Australia, and as thoroughly as ever in Latin America. It's not like they don't cover the home front, but the numbers just aren't there at the highest talent levels.

"It's not as if we as an industry don't understand how important it is to broaden the base of our talent source and vary it as much as we can," Schuerholz said. "The more sources of talent we have, the better our product is going to be."

Schuerholz points to efforts Major League Baseball has made in African-American communities through the RBI program – "Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities" – by donating more than $20 million during the past 16 years. He also points to local efforts like what four Braves players did last year funding the opening of a four-field complex in a low-income neighborhood near Turner Field.

But are those programs making enough of an impact? What will?

Schuerholz, Young, Pendleton, former Braves outfielders David Justice and Marquis Grissom, both retired, and Nationals reliever Ray King addressed some of the problems and offered a few solutions:


IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEMS

1. Other sports are winning

"I watch college football games with 80 guys in uniform standing on the sideline, and 25 of them or 30 of them are playing significant roles," Schuerholz said. "I say to myself, 'There are a lot of great athletes who probably at one time had some interest in baseball and we've lost them.' Wish we could find a way to reverse that."


2. Year-round attention to one sport

"When I was first coming up, they'd get guys who were football players who played other sports to play baseball because they had speed or showed raw power and said, 'We can develop this,'" Young said. "Now it's almost like they've given up on them. They all go play basketball or football or do something else."


3. The expense and relative inconvenience of baseball

"You go to the store and look at a real baseball glove or an aluminum bat?" Pendleton said. "C'mon, it's almost impossible for kids who don't have [much money] to be able to afford those things. So it makes it tough for them to even focus on wanting to become a baseball player. 'I got a better shot at basketball' because they can get out and play it. ... A kid in the 'hood, whether he be black, white, Hispanic, has an opportunity to grab one basketball and 10 people and have a good time with it. Baseball and football are more difficult."

(At Baseball Glove Warehouse online, gloves were priced from $39.99 to $279.99. On Justbats.com, aluminum bats started at $129.)


4. Not developing talent stateside like Latin America

"[Teams] are building these complexes in the Dominican [Republic] and Venezuela," Grissom said. "I don't see anybody building complexes in Atlanta."


5. Club baseball works against low-income families

"Little League is becoming minute," King said. "I live in Arizona and nobody plays Little League anymore. Everybody is going to club ball. And a minority or a lower-class family can't afford to pay $100 a month for a kid to play club ball."​

SOME SUGGESTIONS

1. Market like the NFL and NBA do

"I think basketball and football do a tremendous job of promoting their sport in the African-American community, making it a sport kids can identify with," Justice said. "I've seen NBA shows just on dunks. I could sit for 30 minutes and watch a show of all dunks. Do you ever see a show of just home runs? Or 30 minutes of the best defensive plays? No, you don't. ...

"The NFL [Network] plays a show of all the great touchdowns or best hits, I'm locked in. How many times do you see a baseball player on [MTV] Cribs? Or anything that would spark a young kid's interest? We see Kobe [Bryant] and LeBron [James]. How about Albert Pujols? Major League Baseball doesn't promote their stars on the level that the NBA and NFL do."


2. Promote more than just video games

"The only time you see baseball players is when they sell their Playstation or Sony [game]," King said. "You don't see anything like Dwyane Wade driving a [Lincoln Navigator] dropping off basketballs and a rim for kids to go play basketball. You could do something along similar lines with baseball. Drive up, drop off some bases and gloves and let's go out and play, kind of like field of dreams."

"Or have guys pull up in cars and see kids out there playing ball, and we come out and play against them," Young said.


3. Go grass roots

Develop parks in urban areas. Or South Fulton, like Marquis Grissom is. He started his own youth baseball association, which opened last month with 121 kids ages 7-18. It's a program Grissom has big plans for and would like to take national.

"We have to at least give kids the opportunity to play," he said. "That's what we're not doing."

He is developing an afterschool program, too.

"You've got to do more than just build a park," Grissom said. "I had teaching and mentors. Today it's not there."


4. Financially support at-risk youth teams

"If a team donated half a million dollars a year to promote the game of baseball, not only for minorities but for middle- and lower-class families who can't afford it to where you go in and reach 10 or 12 kids, keep that kid off the street," King said. "That will probably up our total from 9 percent where we are now, at least get it back up to 12 or 13. ... You've got 30 teams that [each have] rookie ball, A ball, AA baseball in those cities. [If each affiliate also] sponsors this Little League team, I guarantee you the participation in Little League will jump back because some kids want to play and they can't afford it."


5. Stick with it

"They need to have like a 10-year plan, not 'We're going to do this' and three years later walk away from it," Young said.​

http://www.ajc.com/braves/content/sports/braves/stories/2007/04/13/0414diversity.html

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>The Lesson Robinson's Heirs Haven't Learned</font size></center>

Apr 16, 3:54 AM (ET)
Associated Press
By JIM LITKE

CHICAGO (AP) -Jackie Robinson Day passed through town like a cool spring breeze, leaving little behind besides a chilly reminder that black kids don't play baseball anymore.

"Tomorrow," Cubs great Billy Williams said, settling into a seat in the shade of the home dugout, "you won't even know any of this happened."

In the sunshine nearby, members of the Cubs marketing department scurried from place to place, setting up microphones and herding schoolkids taking part in the pre-game ceremonies into position. An hour later, a few scholarships would be announced while the four Chicago ballplayers and two coaches who donned Robinson's No. 42 posed alongside Ken Griffey Jr., Cincinnati's lone representative, for a photo.

Robinson once said he avoided looking at the crowd during most of his at-bats in that fateful first season of 1947 "for fear I would see only Negroes applauding."

The good news is that now everyone would have been cheering because his accomplishments shamed America's sporting public into severing ties to its spiteful past. However, there weren't many more African Americans to be glimpsed in the announced crowd of 39,820 than the handful the two clubs combined to put on the diamond.

"We look at the problem, read about it, talk about it and nothing much changes," Williams said.

A sweet-swinging outfielder with an unusually discerning eye at the plate, Williams didn't make it to the majors until 1959, three years after Robinson had retired. But he was part of a treasure trove of ballplayers who lived in and around Mobile, Ala. - where Henry Aaron and Willie McCoy hailed from - who weren't "discovered" until big-league scouts began mining historically black billfolds fields in search of another Jackie.

He can't bear to think what scouts would find there today.

"Empty diamonds, for the most part," Williams said. "Kids, specially talented kids, don't want to wait. They think baseball is 'slow,' whether you're talking about the game itself or the time it takes to get the payoff. We're talking 5 or 6 years to get established, but because of the longevity, you can get those back at the end of your career."

Williams chuckles bitterly at the irony that among Robinson's many virtues, patience is the one precious few of his heirs bothered to master.

"Try selling that to a generation that grew up on Michael Jordan," he said. "Their motto is: 'I want it now."'

Baseball spent much of Sunday in a self-congratulatory mode, harkening back to the day when it held such a central position in American society that Robinson breaking the color barrier 60 years ago had a much more significant impact outside the game than between the lines. From that day, the percentage of African Americans in the major leagues climbed steadily until about 1975 - peaking at 27 percent - then began falling precipitously. They have been replaced gradually, by Hispanic ballplayers, and more recently by Asians.

Today, the number of African Americans in baseball hovers around 8 percent, roughly the same as the percentage of black adults who list it as their favorite sport.

"I didn't appreciate baseball. I was just bored," recalled Cliff Floyd, one of four Chicago players who wore Robinson's number . "And that's what these kids are: They're bored. ...

"A lot of times in baseball you strike out, you pop up, you roll out to first. In basketball, you've got dunks. You've got guys flying through the air. You've got balls flying off the backboard. That's fun for these kids," Floyd added. "You've got kids looking at the basketball rim going, 'Man, that's me one day."'

Basketball continues to collect much of the blame for siphoning off all those would-be Jackies, thanks to an assist from the sneaker companies. But baseball's poor marketing overall, as well its late recognition that black kids were turning away from the game, come in for plenty of scorn, too.

"Go to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Venezuela and you'll find baseball academies bought and paid for by teams," Williams said. "We've got one up and running in Compton, and we're renovating a few ballfields in a few other places.

"But it won't be until we get people and former players who aren't afraid to go back to the neighborhoods where they came from and do some serious scouting and selling that we're going to make a dent."

Floyd, for one, said he was prepared to do his part.

"It's going to take a huge effort - not so much when you're playing, but when you're retired. I've got to go back home and not just sit on my butt," he said. "I think you should get out there in the community and show these kids how important the game is, show them video of how you laughed and smiled because that's what they don't see."

After Cincinnati won Sunday's game 1-0, Griffey sat in front of his locker in the visiting clubhouse working over a plate of food. His father was a Reds star when baseball was still the No. 1 game in black communities. Asked what one thing he would like to see different the next day, Junior didn't opt for more U.S. baseball academies or a better marketing campaign.

"Just him, Jackie, being here," Griffey replied.

Asked whether Robinson would have liked what baseball has become, Griffey shook his head slowly.

"I have no idea," he replied. "But I would have liked having him around."

---=

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org


http://sports.iwon.com/news/04162007/v0465.html

 

[Spectrum]

Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2893756&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Perez on Sheff's comments: 'That's going to hurt a lot of people'

Major League Baseball says Gary Sheffield's recent comments about Latin players in baseball "hasn't hit the radar screen," but several people associated with the game have taken notice.

MLB vice president for public relations Richard Levin gave no indication that baseball is considering disciplining Sheffield, when asked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but told the newspaper to "consider the source" of the comments.

In an interview in the June issue of GQ magazine, the typically outspoken Tigers designated hitter said Latin players have replaced African-Americans as baseball's most prevalent minority because they are easier to control.

"I called it years ago. What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out. … [It's about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do -- being able to control them," he told the magazine.

"Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man.

"These are the things my race demands. So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys."

Pearlman: Dangerous Moron

In baseball, as in life, there are morons, and then there are dangerous morons. And Gary Sheffield is chief among the latter, Page 2's Jeff Pearlman writes. Story

Eddie Perez, a former teammate of Sheffield's with the Braves who is now the team's bullpen coach, had a stronger reaction, however.

"That's going to hurt a lot of people," he said. "I don't know [if he'll be suspended], but somebody needs to say something."

Perez dismissed Sheffield's theory on why there are fewer blacks playing in the big leagues.

"I don't think we're taking anybody's food off the table. We're just putting food on the table for us," he told the newspaper

"They're paying Latin players lots of money. But it's not because they like us -- it's because we're doing good. When we play, we play hard. You don't hear too many Latin players talk a lot of trash."

Lisa Navarrete, a vice president of La Razza, the Latino national civil rights and advocacy group in Washington, told The New York Daily News that Sheffield was targeting the wrong group for the lack of diversity in Major League Baseball.

"He's targeting the wrong culprit, the players themselves. Then he resorts to the stereotyping that he himself is trying to fight. I don't want African-Americans to be stereotyped. Plenty of players belie Sheffield's characterizations. It's unfortunate, because at the end of the day, the situations faced by Latins and African-Americans have more in common than they are different," she told the newspaper.

According to a 2005 report by the University of Central Florida Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, only 8.5 percent of major leaguers were African-American -- the lowest percentage since the report was initiated in the mid-1980s. By contrast, whites comprised 59.5 percent of the majors' player pool, Latinos 28.7 percent and Asians 2.5.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen didn't want to comment directly on Sheffield's remarks, but told The New York Daily News but gave the newspaper his own theory on why there are more Latin players in the game now than African-Americans.

"I guarantee that Latin American people play more baseball than any people, because that's all we have," Guillen told the newspaper. "You have more people playing baseball in Venezuela or the Dominican than anywhere, so there are going to be more players from there."

Guillen also told the newspaper that he believes there are more Latin players in baseball than African-Americans because players from Central and South American and the Caribbean can sign as free agents while American players have to go through the draft.

"It's not that they can control us; maybe when we come to this country, we're hungry," Guillen told the newspaper. "We're trying to survive. Those guys sign for $500,000 or $1 million and they're made. We have a couple of dollars. You can sign one African-American player for the price of 30 Latin players. Look at how many Latin players have won Cy Youngs or MVP awards the last couple of years, how many Latin players have been in the All-Star Game; it's quantity and quality."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[Theo_Huxtable]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

What the fuck is he talking about. He sounded like an idiot to me. The "You can't control us" comment made it seem more like he feels we're animals than anything else.

You go out and play baseball and get paid more than any other athletic profession, shut up.​

 

[Spectrum]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

^^^

Sheffield has some "out of left field" shit to say at least once a month

 

[jcv06]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

why is sheffield such a needy attention whore

 

[Theo_Huxtable]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

^^^

Sheffield has some "out of left field" shit to say at least once a month

I don't watch baseball, but I know he's been around for a while...this dude needs to mature.​

 

[LongJohnJayDEE]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

I agree with Sheffield cause I guess they don't want alot of African-Americans
to get in it cause then they would think it would become a hood sport like basketball and football is that is why there are not many blacks playing in the major leagues.

If you really think about it the Negro League players were actually better than the major league players back in those days.

Plus Baseball isn't the greatest sport anyway most people watch Football, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis, Golf etc.

When you go to a baseball game you might find like 1% black people in the stadium watching the game.

And Most of those latin players are Black people they just were born in those so-called latin countries so they become latinized as they sometimes lose there blackness and try to hide it threw Oh I'm latin or hispanic.

David Ortiz (Boston Red Sox)
Manny Ramirez (Boston Red Sox)
Alfonso Soriano (Chi Cubs)
etc.

Those guys are Africans there ancesters just were dropped off the slave ships
into Dominican Republic and they became a part of there culture was taught the spanish lanquage and it went on from there.

If those guys went out in any invironment in the USA people gonna think they black just like any other black person.

They need to feel proud of there blackness, I know I am.

 

[EasyRawlins]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

Sheffield should run that "you can't control us" idea by the NFL Union.

 

[hunchbak]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

Sheffield should run that "you can't control us" idea by the NFL Union.

Fuckit... Run it by david stern's racist ass!

 

[RunawaySlave]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

"I called it years ago. What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out. … [It's about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do -- being able to control them,"

I'd like to see what comes after those dots and dashes first
before making any comments.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Sheffield: MLB has more Latin players because they are "easier to control"

Sheff may not have sounded like a scholar; he may not have said it like a lot of us would have; nevertheless, as the articles at the beginning of this thread point out, Sheffield made some very interesting points.

QueEx

 

[LongJohnJayDEE]

More Blacks need to focus on Education first then if they are blessed with the ability to play a sport then that's okay and they should be able to pick which ever sport they want, if blacks like basketball or football as there main sports to play then so be it, don't force baseball on us if that's not what we like.

 

[GET YOU HOT]

Virtually untapped source of income, even in the minor leagues. The young rippers with the cut up upper bodies, are too busy, twisting dreads & pullin' up their saggy jeans...