Major League Baseball Opening Day 2013: Fewer Blacks in the Game
Opening day of the 2013 season of Major League Baseball, (MLB), as the entry of the first Negro player, (read that African American or black), Jackie Robinson, into the sport is celebrated, we find there are fewer black minorities, to be precise American blacks of African heritage, than ever before.
Corporations in the Untied States when asked to tabulate minority numbers, especially when it comes to black people of African descent, tend to wash over and count everyone, even Latin Americans of dark complexion as blacks. That’s why there are disputed figures on the number/percentage of black African Americans, not of Hispanic heritage, when it comes to who plays professional baseball.
Most inner city black kids today seek scholarships and professional contracts from what they consider to be more exciting sports, like football and basketball. There aren’t many black youths playing baseball in the public schools or on the streets, nor are there nearly as many scholarships for college being awarded to blacks for baseball as there are big dollars for football and basketball at the major colleges and universities.
Clearly when there is more than one athletically talented and scholastically gifted student in a poor family, parents are challenged to find the cash to provide a higher education at the college level. Athletic scholarships for such students are often the only way for them to fulfill their destiny.
So as Major League Baseball Commission Bud Selig and his colleagues gather to investigate why the numbers of blacks from the US have declined over the last sixty-six years they may well consider offering college scholarship money in amounts competitive with the other sports for young black kids in the city.
We suggest MLB executives and owners begin today, this season, by announcing scholarships for young baseball players, to promote the sport among the public high school students across the country with emphasis on recruiting inner city youth to participate in training camps in preparation to receive those scholarships. Baseball is an exciting sport when well played by skilled and talented, savvy athletes!
Perhaps four years from now, when baseball commemorates the seventieth anniversary of Robinson’s historic social justice achievement there will be higher numbers. We would appreciate a true accounting of the number of US blacks from African American parentage in baseball. We hope in the future to see higher numbers than ever before, of US blacks of African descent participating in the sport as owners, managers, coaches as well as players. We’re watching and we’re waiting!
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