Here’s the article:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2013/04/10/mlb-bud-selig-creates-diversity-task-force/2071305/
On April 10th the Major League Baseball announced
the formation of a task-force in hopes of addressing the declining numbers of
African Americans within the league. According to the USA Today study, the 7.7%
rate of African Americans in the league is as low as it was in 1959 when the
Boston Red Sox became the last team to integrate its roster. That rate peaked
in 1975 at 27% and in 1995 was at a steady 19%. The league has seen a steady
decrease over the years; last year the rate was 8.05%.
Some believe this problem can be traced all the way back to
the college level. There are only 11.7 baseball scholarships provided to
college baseball programs while 85 scholarships are provided to football
programs and 13 to basketball programs. From the eyes of high athletes,
especially most African American athletes, they will go where the money can be
found. Hall of Fame executive was quoted saying, “At the high-school level, the
coaches get these kids in revenue-driven sports, and take them away from
baseball. There's so much pressure on these kids to even play spring football.”
Obviously there are more members of a football team than a baseball team, but
that means more opportunity for players and that tends to steal athletes from
the baseball diamond.
Another point of contention that was mentioned in the
article was that there is a lack of African American representation in the
leadership positions within the league. There are only three African American
managers and only one African American general manager. This lack of
representation on the front end is what second-base hall of famer Joe Morgan believes
drives the low rate of African Americans in the league.
With the release of the new movie 42 retelling the story of the infamous Jackie Robinson, this is an
interesting issue to consider. How should Major League baseball go about
increasing the rate of African Americans in the league? In addition, is there a
magic number that rate should reach? There are high hopes for the task-force
being formed. In addition to considering subsidizing baseball scholarships at
the college level, the committee is revisiting the already existent “Reviving
Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI)” program. The RBI program has produced more than
200 draftees into the league over the years and 14 just last year. It just
continues to amaze me how we are still fighting the legacy of segregation.
I also think there's a stereotype on baseball that it's a predominantly White and Latino sport. Baseball, Tennis and Hockey all have very low African-American numbers for this very reason. I really see this taking a while to change too, unfortunately, because they're aren't many role models, especially in Tennis and Hockey, for young African-American athletes to aspire to be like. As an athlete myself, I hate that segregation still exists so heavily between the lines.
ReplyDeleteThis is a scary realization because it is terrifying to think that someday there could be barely any African American baseball players in the MLB. It is interesting to think about why there has been a steady decline of African American's in the league, and I definitely think that college could be a main source of the problem. Because college is so expensive, it is only logical that athletes are forced to go where the money is. I will be interested to see how effective the task-force is in the future!
ReplyDelete