As first baseman of the World Champion 1977 New York Yankees, Chris Chambliss was 1 of 6 blacks in the everyday lineup at a time when black players represented 28 percent of all major leaguers.
"I didn't think that would be the high-water mark," Chambliss said. "I thought more blacks would get involved. I thought the number would grow."
Instead, it dwindled.
The ebb came two years ago, at 8.2 percent - the lowest level since baseball was fully integrated in 1959. At the college level, it's even worse: Blacks make up about 6 percent of the Division I players.
So what are the game's leaders doing about this?
For starters, Major League Baseball is paying the freight for young players like Louis Singleton to attend its Urban Youth Academy this week in Compton, Calif.
Singleton is a rising senior at Norfolk's Granby High - a pitcher no less. And the percentage of black pitchers in the majors has been between 3 and 5 percent for the past decade.
At 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds and with an 89 mph fastball, Singleton has the tools and skills to someday enlarge that ratio. But when asked to name a black pitcher in the majors, Detroit Tigers lefthander Dontrelle Willis was all Singleton could muster.
"Wow, you got me on that one," Singleton said. "That's kind of sad."
And vexing to people like Jimmie Lee Solomon, Major League Baseball's point man in the recovery plan. Solomon's voice became enthusiastic when pointing out that the ratio of blacks in baseball had risen to 10.2 percent in the past year.
"It was the first bump up in many, many years," Solomon said.
Solomon, MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations, has overseen the launching of a series of initiatives designed to steer blacks back toward the game. Among them: the opening of the Urban Youth Academy in 2006, the Civil Rights Game in 2007 and the "Wanna play?" program that started this season. The RBI program - Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities - also falls under his jurisdiction.
The dwindling numbers scream for answers. And reasons.
Why have young blacks left the game?
Theories abound.
"These kids play football in the fall and their coaches tell them they need to be on a weight-training and conditioning program in the spring," said Ocean Lakes High coach Gary Spedden. "And if they play basketball in the winter, they have a coach begging them to play AAU ball in the spring and summer.
"By the time baseball rolls around, we've already lost much of our chance to get them on the field."
Spedden was coaching at Green Run in the early 1990s when a dynamic ninth-grader showed up for tryouts: Plaxico Burress.
Destined for NFL stardom with the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants, Burress "could have been a star in baseball," Spedden said. "We put him in rightfield and he chased down everything. But in the end, a high hurdle on the track doesn't move and a curveball does. There are a lot of nuances in baseball that take a lot of time to master. We had him for all of about 10 days."
Chambliss points to "the African-American neighborhoods, where organization of youth baseball doesn't exist."
"I was lucky in that respect growing up," said Chambliss, who manages the Triple-A Charlotte Knights, the top farm club of the Chicago White Sox. "My father was a military chaplain. We lived on military bases in Great Lakes, Ill., Camp Pendleton and near San Diego, where baseball was played and everyone had a Little League. I was always exposed to baseball and I was always encouraged to be a three-sport guy.
"Now, these kids are asked to choose and specialize at too young an age."
Solomon points to economics as a factor, and points a lot of fingers in doing so.
"Baseball is not an inexpensive game to play," he said.
He pointed out that Major League Baseball involves itself at the grass-roots level with seminars and its Baseball Tomorrow Fund, which can be used to refurbish youth fields. But eventually, something as simple as a city council meeting can drive a stake into the heart of baseball at the urban level.
"If a city planner is told to plan some type of athletic field for a depressed urban area, he's going to look at something that will provide impact and he's going to weigh resources," Solomon said. "And he's going to end up looking at a basketball court because it's a one-time expense to build one, while baseball is a tougher proposition."
Robbie Butler, Singleton's coach at Granby High, said that the lure of "Friday Night Lights" can be blamed to a large degree. Butler coached at Booker T. Washington, a predominantly black school, from 2002 to 2006.
"Baseball at Booker T. just wasn't 'cool,' " Butler said. "I could never get any of the higher-profile athletes there to bite on playing baseball. They all wanted to play the glamour sports.
"In football, if you make a long run or a long pass, you're a hero. In baseball, six of seven out of 10 at-bats, you're going to look bad. Baseball can be a frustrating sport, and there's no immediate success. Round ball, round bat. It's tough to play."
College scholarship numbers also can end up swaying a high school athlete. College football teams can award 85 football scholarships; baseball teams are limited to slicing up 11.7 scholarships among team members.
Singleton, though, is in California this week hoping to land some of that scholarship love. Four other Virginians are with him at the camp: Green Run High catcher David Dean, Great Bridge High shortstop Justin Lee, Bethel High outfielder Jamie Scott and Patrick Henry-Ashland middle infielder D.J. Martinez.
All five played for Team Upton, a predominantly black all-star team that this past weekend went to Atlanta for a six-team tournament put on by an organization called Mentoring Viable Prospects. From there, the five flew to Los Angeles with other players from the Atlanta tournament. They are training and playing all week with and against teams from the Urban Youth Academy, Southside Chicago and a hand-selected group brought together by Major League Baseball Scouting Services.
Team Upton was the creation of Chesapeake's Manny Upton, whose sons B.J. and Justin are major-leaguers themselves. This is the second year he has taken such a team to Atlanta.
"We want to give these kids some exposure and show them what is possible," Upton said. "I think it's critical that we make these inroads with the young black athletes. We're losing them to other sports, particularly after they reach the age of 13 and 14. There's a void there that needs to be addressed.
"One of the kids from Richmond said to me, 'I've never seen this many good black players together on one field before.' "
Upton covered most of the trip to Atlanta, paying for hotels and a meal. All the players had to do was "get here and pay the $100 registration fee."
Money always seems to be a factor.
"A lot of these kids can't afford to attend showcases where they can be seen by college coaches," Solomon said. "Most showcases cost hundreds of dollars. We hope they use this experience in Compton as a springboard to get a college education."
While in Compton, the players went to a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds game with Solomon and other MLB officials. Two other similar academies are under construction in Houston and Miami.
"Baseball is a game passed from generation to generation and for many an African-American family, the male is not there," Solomon said. "Remember back to your first memory of baseball. Chances are it involved either your father or your grandfather."
Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, runs a watchdog group that has been charting baseball's ethnic ratios since 2002. Simply put, he thinks the past two decades were a huge swing and a miss for most blacks.
"It appears as if baseball will virtually skip a generation of African-Americans," Lapchick said, "and if there is to be increases, it will be in the future and not in the short term."
Rich Radford, (757) 446-2463, rich.radford@pilotonline.com
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the disappearing black baseball player
How very sad...the poor black baseball player.Give me a break,it should concentrate on the poor baseball player without mention of color.All the article does is keeps the racism problem alive.I know m.l.b.and Mr. Uptons hearts must be in the right place,but realize by being one color team sponsors only takes us back to white only baseball of so very many years ago,and slights the very memory of Jackie Robinson , Larry Doby etc.Thank you.Tony
Unreal
Until everything stops being about race, racism will only get WORSE, not better. Let the people who WANT to play each sport and are best at it play it and leave it be.
Missing the point
Stop worrying about what color person on the field plays the game. Remember it's about the "GAME." Fans want to see a pure sport played. It doesn't matter who is on the field. Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and other black ball players wanted to be consider good ballplayers not good "black" ballplayers. We need to move on from color. Last time I checked we elected a person to be a good president not a good "black" president. See the point.
I'm very disappointed in this article. You know we need good teachers and scientists and engineers. If there's more minorities making a difference in society performing these jobs then what does it really matter that we have more minorities entertaining the populous. Stop considering a different color minorities. We all are Americans.
How about doing a piece .....
on how many whites thee are in basketball and what the NBA is doing to change it.
"So, what are the game's leaders doing about it?"
"So, what are the game's leaders doing about it?"
The particularly early, unnatural, awkward, almost jarring placement of the aforementioned query rendered what should have been a "numbers/trends" story into more of a thinly-veiled opinion piece.
I must confess that upon reading that particular line, I had the immediate impression that this was an AP story.
Indeed, everything from the story's headline to the query in question (and its placement)--to the absolutely appalling Whiteface photo (top left)--screams race-baiting sensationalism, political agenda and bias.
And last I checked, we don't pay Mr. Radford to do socio-political opinion pieces.
Instead of looking at the Big leagues
lets start looking at the Grass Roots level where the players develop. By the time you get to the show, you get there on merit, hardwork, dedication and quite a few bumps. Its not overnight success, its not a season of success, it is continued dedication that many children (of any race, creed, nationality) can not keep up with. Lets look at the percentages of children that don't make it at all levels, lets look at the percentages of children that make it past little league and into colleges, and then look at the percentages from college to the minors, then to the majors. The numbers are down all over, not just for blacks. If we all start thinking Americans, then we will be that, Americans. There are many other choices of sports, and frankly, I don't like any but baseball. Let everyone have their choice and work hard and everyone will be happy. Don't make a push to include everyone if everyone doesn't want that. As long as children are playing a sport, they learn good sportsmanhip, responsiblity, the ethics of hardwork, etc. Don't show favorites, don't bend over backwards to make people feel special, when they get older they feel entitled to everything and then you have pr
It's a great article.
It's a great article.
A note from the reporter
The percentage of white players in 2008 was 60.4 percent, which believe it or not was the highest since 2004. Blacks made up 10.2 percent, Latinos 27 percent, Asians 2.4 percent. I have received some really harsh emails today concerning this story. It is a trends and numbers story, nothing more, nothing less. But it seems to really strike a nerve with some. As the father of two teen-aged boys who both play baseball, I see it all first-hand. Baseball is tough to play in the inner-city because of a lack of options and avenues. That is indisputable. -- Rich Radford
I Agree
I am an African American I grew up in a good number and come from a well to do family.It was just easier to play the other sports and trust me we played all of them it was to hard to play baseball because when you hit the ball and there aren't enough people to chase it gets boring and it's too hard to find 16 people just to get a game!
phoney feel-good rubbish
What are we doing to get more white basketball players? What are we doing to get more hispanic tennis players? How about asian hockey players?
We will never have equality until we stop identfying ourselves by the color of our skin or other ethnic characteristic. And we must stop using the color of our skin as an excuse for missed opportunities that we ourselves choose not to pursue. You may never make the big time, but you have no business crying if you're not trying. You want something more out of life? Go get it. Even if you fail you'll be better off than those waiting for the government or a racially-biased organization to provide for them.
ya know ..
I wrote the same thing, but the "editors" or maybe we should call them censors deleted my comment. I wrote nothing offensive, nothing vulgar, nothing personally attacking anyone. If my comments hit the wrong censor, they are normally deleted, because the Virginian Pilot cannot stand to be challenged on their racist editorial decisions.
Blacks in major league baseball
Colin Cowherd? Now there's one of the great geniuses of our age. One thing that definitely can be said is that racism is not the reason why the number of African-Americans in MLB is only about half of what it was 30 years ago. Another thing to point out is that the number of players of African ancestry is almost certainly higher than it's ever been. It's just that many of them come from other countries, like the Dominican Republic. MLB teams will go anywhere and sign any player who has the ability.
What about
What is the percentage of white ballplayers? I'm all for increasing the number of black ballplayers, there are and where some great ones, including some from our area. I would like to see more American ballplayers. It seems that the most of them today can't even speak English. They have to carry interpreter's on the staff. A good story, but it does leave out some info that would help you to understand the situation better, like the percentages of whites (before and now), as well as the percentages of the other nationalities.
Good Point
The story stated that even at the college level there are more whites than blacks playing the game. even in the minor leagues majority appears to be white. from what I see the latin players do not spend too much time in the minors because they are better players. I think the article was referring that overall blacks are not taking an interest in baseball and that the majority playing the game are white kids.
Black, white...
Blah, blah, blah. There are plenty of sports without many black kids. I wrestled, ran cross country, and played baseball in high school. Wrestling is ridiculously cheap, cross country... IT'S RUNNING (no equipment except shoes). This article, like most others discussing black and white in baseball, doesn't do a very good job explaining that black players from the Dominican Republic are everywhere. They don't have any money. They also don't count as "true" black kids since they are considered "Latin". All this labeling is disingenuous. Black kids here have MUCH more than Dominican kids. They don't get respect for playing baseball, and that is the real issue. Wrestling, volleyball, soccer, etc... No respect. Black kids from other countries grow up idolizing soccer players, and oddly enough, they play soccer! If we want to make it so that black players play more baseball, let's fix the real problem. Black kids are given a hard time for playing "white" sports. THAT is an issue at home, not on the fields of play. There is no "system" holding them back.
Blacks in major league baseball
Blacks never made up 28 percent of major league players. The 28 percent figure is a myth that won't go away. The high water mark, at least so far, was probable just under 20 percent in the late 70's.
Good Article
I stopped playing baseball at 9. One reason the game was 2 slow and 2 there were not a lot of black players in the major leagues to look up too. A good friend of mine continued to play but as he moved up he was being squeezed out by the coaches.he was always the only black on the team.honestly he was better than the other kids.he made the all-star team but they would hardly play him.he eventually got a college schalorship for football.baseball is too expensive you have to have your own glove bats cleats, batting gloves plus the registration fees.other sports all you bring is your cleats and the rest is supplied for you.plus to play on the streets it needs too much epuipment.the other sports you just need the ball.you can't play 2 0n 2 baseball. even with football all you needed was 4 people and a ball.the city of virginia beach dropped their city baseball league because it is too expensive and not enough kids were signing up for them because they have better options from the other baseball leagues.Colin Cowherd also said it best. The best black athlete that is 6'4 215lbs is not going to play baseball anymore.their are exceptions but the majority won't.