Watching the State of Baseball on HBO with Costas...

[dawgstudent]

Dave Winfield made an interesting point of how to make the game attractive to African-Americans. You need to stress the point that for one, baseball is a game for all sizes unlike basketball. Also, with baseball you won't be hurting for the rest of your career like football. Thought it was an interesting point.

He first said by the next generation - black players will comprise 1 to 2 percent.

 

[RebelRichman.nafoom]

I am not going to look up any actual percentages, but my question is, where do these guys play college ball? Black players seem to be the overwhelming minority in college baseball. That has never really added up to me.

 

[Xenomorph]

...oh wait.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[Xenomorph]

..because I assure you I will not have the energy nor the desire to defend this post, but here goes.

To attract the young people Dave Winfield is hoping to, MLB will have to allow itself to be permeated by the same cultures the NBA and NFL are currently trying to rid themselves of. You can offer future health and the opportunity for the 6'1, #195 athlete all day, but until the hip hop rappers start hanging out at the homerun derby, the average young black kid isn't going to give 2 ***** about baseball. Now.. if Derek Jeter had an ongoing history of being arrested after making it rain in a strip club or Dontrell Willis ran a dog fighting ring that might turn some heads. Or maybe if Ryan Howard would get a few tats and sit in front of the camera saying stuff like "We talkin' bout PRACTICE?!", notice might be taken. But good knees at 50?.. That's not taking the pig skin out of their hands or making them kick off the sneakers.

 

[tossedoff]

The decline in black players in MLB happened at the same time as the increase in single parent households in the black community. Baseball, more than any other sport, is a father/son game.

 

[Xenomorph]

*

 

[rhs43]

To answer the question about where all these black kids play college ball...A lot of them don't. I mean look at Rashun Dixon, then look what Ed Easley did. Dixon abviously needed the money more, and I think more black males take the money when they are drafted instead of going to college. This is just my take on things. I'm also not going to sit here and try to defend this.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

They talked about the RBI program but they also interviewed some baseball coaches who coach in a high AA population areas. One made the comment about the guy who thinks he's going to go to the NBA who's 5'8 who would made a damn good second basemen.

 

[RebelBruiser]

The decline in black players in MLB happened at the same time as the increase in single parent households in the black community. Baseball, more than any other
sport, is a father/son game.

</p>

Very true. The Memphis paper did a piece on this a few years back. They came to the conclusion that the lack of father figures in inner city Memphis played a big role in the lack of quality baseball. Of course, baseball just isn't cool in the black community either, which is another part of the problem.

Either way, they made the point that a lot of the city schools in Memphis have baseball teams filled with players who didn't start playing until maybe 9th grade in most cases, while the county schools had kids who started playing baseball at age 5 or 6.

 

[Dog in the Know]

and the school is in the high 90 percentile black, used to have a decent tradition in baseball. As more and more whites left the community, and the school, the baseball program began a steep decline. A couple of years ago they did not win one ballgame and many were forfeited b/c the black players just didnt give a ****. They would not even show up for games.

Now basketball, another story. They compete year in and year out for the state championship and in recent years won it.

Football has ups and downs. good years and bad years.

I coached summer league t-ball this year and had two black players on my team. One had no father in the picture at all. The other had a very nice family. Of 13 teans each team had a few black players with a few predominately black teams but out of almost 200 kids, blacks comprised less than 25% total.

I hope they are not blaming this on whitey because in no way have I witnessed any discrimnation against blacks in t-ball.

 

[TBonewannabe]

When you see a NFL 1st rounder sign that 30 or 40 million contract and a first rounder in Baseball might get 1 million. Also with baseball, you don't make big money until you are in the bigs for a few years. Papelbon isn't even making 1 mill a year but is the best closer in baseball and has made 2 straight allstar teams.

NFL and NBA pay big money faster. Kids growing up don't look at longevity of a career.</p>

 

[TBonewannabe]

The coach would come to the game and it looked like a clown car. Every kid came out of that one car. They only had a handful of parents that came to the game. With the rise of Select baseball now, it is a lot of trouble for parents to go to tournaments all over much less just go to the ballfield in town.

I work in Jackson and a guy's son at work had a tournament in Ruston, LA this weekend. The talent level is declining in Little league because of Select.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[Todd4State]

First of all, if MLB is only 1-2% black, who cares? Is this really a problem? Why is no one upset that golf and the NHL is 1% black?

I'll be the first to admit that baseball is an elitist sport- but there's nothing really wrong with that either. Golf is an elitist sport to, and it seems to be doing fine.

I would counter with basketball is a sport where you clearly have an advantage if you're a great athlete. That's not fair to people who rely mainly on brains and sound fundamentals like just about any white person that went to Duke. Is the fact that JJ Redick is a bench player a problem to anyone?

First of all, the lack of a father figure is BS. Football is pretty expensive to, and inner city kids don't seem to have a problem playing that. And before you say, well you can just play football in the yard, I want to say that there are thousands of kids right now in the Dominican Republic that are playing baseball with cardboard gloves and sticks. I would venture to say that the people in the Dominican Republic have it as bad or worse than the inner city kids in America, unless their father sells drugs or played MLB.

I'll tell you what has really happened- MLB has found a cheaper alternative to black players- Latin players. Dominicans are just as athletic as any black player, but you don't have to draft them and pay them nearly as big a bonus and you teams can put them in their baseball academies and train them from age 16. That's another thing- the RBI program should be placing high school coaches at inner city schools, because it does no good to train inner city school kids at the little league level and then have them go to a school where they have a crappy high school baseball coach. And the fact is a lot of black players are very raw because they don't have good baseball training, they may cost you something like 300,000 dollars vs. 4,000 in the Dominican, and then they are at least two years older.

Then you throw in the fact that you can get instant gratification by going to the NBA or NFL instead of having to play in towns like Batavia, New York, and as mentioned the larger signing bonuses.

Baseball has also always been a sport where fundamentals and brains were valued over athleticism. So, yes, the white kids that go to the LSU/MSU/UM baseball camps every year, and the other camps, like the one Paul LaCoste runs, and then play on the select teams clearly have an advantage as far as baseball is concerned.

 

[seshomoru]

First of all, if MLB is only 1-2% black, who cares? Is this really a problem? Why is no one upset that golf and the NHL is 1% black?

Yes it's a problem. Primarily, it's a problem for MLB. It represents a declining market and a LOT of talent that never develops. I personally think the problem runs deeper than just baseball. Hell, little league baseball is looking more and more like church on Sunday morning.

No one is upset about the NHL or golf because though there are small numbers currently, those numbers are growing. It may be slow, but it's tilting in the right direction.

 

[TilloDawg]

I am not going to look up any actual percentages, but my question is, where do these guys play college ball? Black players seem to be the overwhelming minority in college baseball. That has never really added up to me.

</p>8% of MLB players are black...

 

[Todd4State]

for all those black golfers and hockey players.

MLB totally lost the African American market when Micheal Jordan came around in the 80's. You also have to remember that African Americans are still a minority- and in fact I believe that there are a more Hispanic people in America now. And, you also have to remember that we live in a part of the country where there are a lot of black people, so it may seem like this is more of a problem than it really is. Even without the African American market, attendance is thriving and interest in the game is still very high, and the talent level is as high as it ever has been. I will say that it would be nice if they had that market, but it's not like MLB is going to fold without that market.

I also don't see any Oriental people complaining about a lack of Oriental Americans in the big leagues either.</p>

 

[SWFLDawg]

Todd for state very happy w/ state of baseball and the decline in number of black players.

oriental americans...nice</p>

 

[hotdigitydog]

lack of white players in the NBA do you? Look at the dream team. How many white players are on it? If this were the other way around and the MLB all-star teams were all white, the NAACP and the Rainbow Push Coalition would be throwing a fit.

 

[TBonewannabe]

nm