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June 28, 2008

Can Of Corn

Diversity

by Dayn Perry

Every so often, you'll run across a story lamenting the fact that the number of black ballplayers in Major League Baseball is on the decline. Indeed, it's a verifiable fact that the percentage of African-Americans playing the game at the highest level has decreased significantly over the years. According to Dr. Richard Lapchick, sociologist and author of the annual "Race and Gender Report Card," the percentage of black players in MLB has remained the same or declined in every year since 1994. Today, that percentage stands at 8.2 percent, the lowest figure in the 20 years that Lapchick has tracked the numbers, and one that marks a precipitous decline from the levels of 1975, when 27 percent of the player population was black.

These numbers raise three vital questions: Why has this occurred? What can be done about it? And has the apparent "death of black baseball" led to an increase in white participation?

Let's take the last question first. Here are the percentages of white players in MLB over the last full decade (again, numbers courtesy of the RGRC):

Percentage of White Players in MLB
2007     59.8%
2006     59.5%
2005     60.0%
2004     63.0%
2003      N/A
2002     60.0%
2001     59.0%
2000     60.0%
1999     60.0%
1998     59.0%

As you can see, save for a slight spike in 2004, the percentage of white players has been mostly consistent. The obvious assumption, given these numbers and the decline in black players, is that the presence of Latino and Asian players is on the rise. Such is the case; in 1990, Latinos and Asians constituted just 13 percent of major league rosters, and these days that figure stands at 31.9 percent. Thankfully, I've yet to encounter anyone who asserts that major league scouting and development is some sort of racist construct, and the rise in prominence of Latin and Asian talents proves that it isn't (sufficiently for me, anyway), despite the cratering percentage of black players in the game. So the game isn't becoming more whiter, because compared to 1990 levels (when fully 70 percent of players were white), it's become measurably less so. Whether this is sweet relief, cold comfort, or thoroughly irrelevant depends upon your point of view. But in any event, the racial shifts in baseball haven't been in the service of creating more opportunities for white players. (The hope is that no one ever believed otherwise.)

Insofar as the causes of black decline are concerned, it's easy to wander into a complicated thicket of explanations. However, among the many reasons posited, two of them–mingled and interrelated ones–stand out as being both relevant and consequential. One is the demise of baseball's social import within the black community, and the other is the economically narrow nature of contemporary youth baseball.