(Photo by Skip Foreman)
My son has fallen in love with baseball. It ain't puppy love, either. He's head over heels in love with the game. While he's played other sports (football, soccer, and basketball), he has really excelled at his play and passion for the game. He played baseball for the first time in the spring of 2013. This year, my son has played on spring, summer, and fall league teams.
My husband and I vowed to nurture any interests our children exhibit, so we're all in, too. My husband has coached some of our son's teams. I'm on the sidelines at every game with my "baseball mom" t-shirts and a speaker attached to my iPhone to play music to stir the crowd. Yeah, I'm THAT mom. (lol)
I have noticed something since my son has started playing on little league teams and watching major league baseball on television. I didn't see many people who looked like my son playing the game. Where are the brothers? Where are the Black boys on little league teams? Where are the Black men in MLB dugouts?
My father was a big baseball fan, and because he watched baseball, I watched more than my fair share of baseball games growing up. In fact, I watched so much baseball that I promised myself when I grew up, I would NEVER watch another baseball game. I know Daddy is looking down on us from Heaven, cheering his grandson on and laughing hysterically at me as I watch a game I swore off as a kid. (lol)
I remember teams. I remember players. I remember getting Willie Stargell's autograph once when my mom, sister, and I spotted him at the mall in my hometown ... and being excited after meeting him and getting the autograph. It seems to me there were just more Black men playing major league baseball then than there are now. Why is that?
To satisfy my curious mind, I did a little research and read quite a bit on this sad truth. Less than 10% of the players in major league baseball are Black. Less than 10%. By some accounts, the percentage was more like 8.3 during the 2013 and 2014 MLB seasons.
My son was the only Black player on the very first little league team he played on. In the summer of 2013, we sent my son to baseball camp at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There were 100 boys at that camp. My son was one of three Black boys that attended. 3 Black boys out of 100. Wow!
This year, the numbers increased slightly but not by much. There were at least 2 other players on my son's spring and summer league teams. This summer at baseball camp at UNC, there were 8 Black boys in attendance ... still out of 100, though. My son's fall league team boasts 5 Black boys on the team. After speaking with some of the other parents, I think the increase can be directly attributed to the success of the Jackie Robinson West team from Chicago that won this year's Little League World Series United States championship.
From my research (reading and just asking my circle of Black male friends and relatives), I've concluded two main reasons for the shrinking number of Black faces in baseball ... money and the popularity of other more widely accepted sports. In just the year-and-a-half I've been a baseball mom, I am now more aware of the expense associated with having a child in the sport. I will never forget my reaction when we went shopping when my son first signed up to play. While there was a range of prices, a $300+ bat caught his eye. My immediate reaction was like, "Damn! For $300, you better hit a homerun every time you step up to the plate!" I honestly had no idea. (We didn't get that particular bat, by the way.) Then there's the expense of buying shoes, gloves, helmets, pants, etc. The money quickly adds up, and all that was incurred before he even stepped on the baseball diamond to play his first game.
As with anything, you get better with practice. So, there's expense associated with trips to the batting cages. And ... did you know there are coaches who offer one-on-one lessons? I had no idea. We've gotten letters and advertisements from coaches offering lessons on batting, pitching, catching, and defensive skills, and the lessons are not cheap. Again, I had no idea.
And for the really serious players, there are travel teams young baseball players can join. I was talking to a parent a few weeks ago and was floored when he told me the money he and his wife spent to have his son travel with a league this past summer. He estimates that he and his wife spent well over $3500. They aren't wealthy people, either. He was telling me that he and his wife took on overtime at their jobs or got a part-time job to help with the expenses. His church held fundraisers (several fish fries and raffles). They set up a GoFundMe page. This father told me it's a sacrifice they are willing to make because of the exposure that being on such a team gives the aspiring player.
It is becoming increasingly clear. To get ahead in baseball and get in a position to be seen by the right people takes a big sacrifice of time and money. I can definitely understand how that could prove to be a huge obstacle in getting more Black boys started in baseball, especially when one can play another sport for considerably less money.
Besides the money involved, baseball's popularity just isn't like that of football or basketball, and I found that to be especially true in my own unscientific poll of my friends and relatives. I'm being completely honest here. Before my son started playing and following baseball, I couldn't name one single MLB player (besides Derek Jeter) who currently plays the game. Not one. I could, however, rattle off the names of scores of football and basketball players.
Are football and basketball sexier than baseball? Maybe. Faster paced? Seemingly, yes. Wildly popular? Most definitely. I am hoping baseball can someday get to be as popular in the Black community as football and basketball. It's going to take some time, and we definitely need to make the effort to bring baseball to our boys. What a joy it was to see the Jackie Robinson West team excel in the Little League World Series this summer. I hope their outstanding achievements will spark a renewed interest in the sport amongst our young Black boys.
Randal definitely has his village supporting him. Whenever he tells people how much he loves baseball, it's always the same reaction. In some way or another, he's told, "Stick with it, young man. You can have a long career in that game, and there aren't many of us playing. It would be great to see you playing professionally one day." Yes, it sure would ... and I hope to see other Black boys playing baseball, too.
From my research (reading and just asking my circle of Black male friends and relatives), I've concluded two main reasons for the shrinking number of Black faces in baseball ... money and the popularity of other more widely accepted sports. In just the year-and-a-half I've been a baseball mom, I am now more aware of the expense associated with having a child in the sport. I will never forget my reaction when we went shopping when my son first signed up to play. While there was a range of prices, a $300+ bat caught his eye. My immediate reaction was like, "Damn! For $300, you better hit a homerun every time you step up to the plate!" I honestly had no idea. (We didn't get that particular bat, by the way.) Then there's the expense of buying shoes, gloves, helmets, pants, etc. The money quickly adds up, and all that was incurred before he even stepped on the baseball diamond to play his first game.
As with anything, you get better with practice. So, there's expense associated with trips to the batting cages. And ... did you know there are coaches who offer one-on-one lessons? I had no idea. We've gotten letters and advertisements from coaches offering lessons on batting, pitching, catching, and defensive skills, and the lessons are not cheap. Again, I had no idea.
And for the really serious players, there are travel teams young baseball players can join. I was talking to a parent a few weeks ago and was floored when he told me the money he and his wife spent to have his son travel with a league this past summer. He estimates that he and his wife spent well over $3500. They aren't wealthy people, either. He was telling me that he and his wife took on overtime at their jobs or got a part-time job to help with the expenses. His church held fundraisers (several fish fries and raffles). They set up a GoFundMe page. This father told me it's a sacrifice they are willing to make because of the exposure that being on such a team gives the aspiring player.
It is becoming increasingly clear. To get ahead in baseball and get in a position to be seen by the right people takes a big sacrifice of time and money. I can definitely understand how that could prove to be a huge obstacle in getting more Black boys started in baseball, especially when one can play another sport for considerably less money.
Besides the money involved, baseball's popularity just isn't like that of football or basketball, and I found that to be especially true in my own unscientific poll of my friends and relatives. I'm being completely honest here. Before my son started playing and following baseball, I couldn't name one single MLB player (besides Derek Jeter) who currently plays the game. Not one. I could, however, rattle off the names of scores of football and basketball players.
Are football and basketball sexier than baseball? Maybe. Faster paced? Seemingly, yes. Wildly popular? Most definitely. I am hoping baseball can someday get to be as popular in the Black community as football and basketball. It's going to take some time, and we definitely need to make the effort to bring baseball to our boys. What a joy it was to see the Jackie Robinson West team excel in the Little League World Series this summer. I hope their outstanding achievements will spark a renewed interest in the sport amongst our young Black boys.
Randal definitely has his village supporting him. Whenever he tells people how much he loves baseball, it's always the same reaction. In some way or another, he's told, "Stick with it, young man. You can have a long career in that game, and there aren't many of us playing. It would be great to see you playing professionally one day." Yes, it sure would ... and I hope to see other Black boys playing baseball, too.
Space is a big issue, too. You can play football just about anywhere. Basketball is a little harder, but all you need is one net. Baseball requires a lot of space. The way neighborhoods are nowadays, there's just not the empty lot that can be used, etc.
ReplyDeleteI saw this when I came back from Japan as an 8th grader. There was also space to play a pick-up game in Japan. In the two neighborhoods I lived in when I got back to the states (before GSSM), no space. My second neighborhood we made do by using a tennis ball, but I still ended up breaking a window on a live drive because we were playing in the combined backyards of four houses.