Lack of African Americans Playing Baseball is a Problem
Baseball Needs to Be Promoted in Urban Areas
This quote came from C.C. Sabathia, starting pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. Sabathia does have reason to come up with such a quote. He is, after all, the only player on the 25-man roster in Cleveland. The truth is that there should be more African-Americans playing in the Major Leagues.
The problem is nobody seems to have any ideas on what to do about the situation. Sabathia himself had no answers but continued to voice his frustration with the problem. "I go back home to Vallejo (Sabathia's off season home) and the kids say, 'What's baseball?' It's not just an issue for my hometown, it's an issue for the whole country. I think Major League Baseball should do something about it. I don't know exactly what they could be doing, but I know it's not enough."
The AP story in which Sabathia was quoted gave several reasons why so few African-Americans are playing professional baseball at the moment. For starters, baseball is expensive in comparison to other sports. Baseball bats get more expensive every year. Add that along with purchasing a glove, uniforms, and the necessary equipment needed for catchers and baseball becomes a pricey sport.
Another reason cited by the AP for the lack of African-Americans playing baseball in the U.S. deals with the fact that current role models in sports aren't playing baseball. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Terrell Owens are all playing something other than baseball. Kids see these talented athletes and naturally want to mimic them.
Major League Baseball has implemented methods in order to develop baseball in urban areas. Sabathia is working with other prominent black baseball players to help the cause. Is there anything that can be done to increase the number of African-Americans playing baseball?
One thing I would suggest would be to increase Little League organizations in urban areas. Kids need a place to play the game, so fields are necessary. It is also important that these fields are well taken care of. This is where parent volunteering comes in. Besides, the kids are going to need plenty of coaches.
I would also call upon organizations such as the YMCA and The Boys and Girls Club to get involved. Even in Erie there are numerous basketball and indoor football leagues. In the summer months groups such as the two mentioned should encourage more baseball leagues. This way kids in urban areas will the chance to fall in love with baseball at a young age.
I believe that two birds could be killed with one stone by doing this. Not only will more African-Americans begin playing baseball at a young age. This could also be a way to give kids in urban areas another chance to go to college. Right now, there is an influx of basketball and football players receiving scholarships. If urban areas push baseball it could give these kids who may not have been able to afford school a chance to attend for free by receiving a baseball scholarship. For this to work both high schools and colleges would have to get involved and promote baseball in urban areas.
Sabathia overstated the issue when he called it a "crisis." Nothing like this in sports could ever be considered a crisis. However there is no doubt that it is a problem. It is important for the purity of the game that baseball promote itself to people of every background. Getting more African-Americans to play baseball is a good thing for everybody involved.
Published by Zac Wassink - Featured Contributor in Sports
A gimmick sports writer with a love for the Giants, Mets, Browns, Indians, Bulls, & Penguins. I also have a degree from Penn State. Let's Go State! View profile
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- sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2798719 - AP story
- Sabathia is the only black player on the Indians
9 Comments
Post a CommentIf and only if we improve the school system. If we teach students that getting good grades and planning for the future is the way to get a scholarship. Colleges have much more money to give to inner city students with good grades than they do to inner city students who can throw a baseball, or dunk a basketball.
Sorry- I meant Mr. Sabathia! (from above)
Great article! I would love to see Mr. Sabathia come and address this issue in my small hometown of Zanesville, Ohio. I would really like to talk with him about what is really going on in regards to baseball and African Americans. Is it really that they are not interested or is it something else? My son loves baseball, but I feel he has been disenfranchised of his right to play. Yes, we are African American. Keep up the good work Mr. Sabathis!
one thing wrong with this is the statement that baseball is another oppurtunity for blacks to go to school for free, baseball only has 11.7 scholorships for the whole team, so players often share scholorships and very rarely recieve a full ride for baseball, which is why more players can get to school through football and basketball which has more scholrship money
Good points here. I was skeptical until I got to the part about opening up more opportunities for black students to go to college -- I don't have much of a problem with various sports being mostly made up of one race or the other, but it's true that if more black students grew up playing baseball, that would be another opportunity for them to get college scholarships. Another good article.
Its not due to lack of talent, or funding. Its that these kids and kids in general are pushed more so to play basketball and football. There is more money to be had per capita in those sports. Interesting topic.
Excellent. I hope MLB sponsors more kid teams.
That's something to think about, very interesting article.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King, judge not by the color of the skin but by the quality of their play. I believe the quality of play in MLB is better right now than it has ever been. If that is accomplished with declining representation from American-born blacks, that's okay with me. I don't lose any sleep about the lack of American-born whites in the NBA. And why do we differentiate between American-born blacks and Latin blacks? That makes no sense to me. I'd feel sorry for CC Sabathia that he has no American-born blacks as teammates but then I remeber he got paid $7 million last year and I think he can suck it up and live with it.