DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to be racist, please don't interpret it that way. It's just my thoughts on diversity or lack therefore of in Major League Baseball.
Ok, we just celebrated the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, and I have to admit, when I heard that there were very few blacks in baseball, I was a little shocked. Playing fantasy baseball for years, I've glanced at hundreds of players pictures online and I guess it just didn't occur to me that most of them were either white or latin. Especially, all the Dominican Republicans, the number was shocking to me. I went to my current team, and noticed I only had 2 black players, but 4 Dominicans, and 3 other Latin players. I thought I had more.
So, I thought about it, and I have two things that I think led to this situation.
1) Michael Jordan - Yes, I blame Mike. Well, not just Mike, but all his PR and marketing gurus that made everyone want to be like Mike. Michael Jordan changed the NBA. It was no longer about marketing teams, but about marketing superstars. About shoe contracts and McDonalds commercials, and the list goes on. My generation grew up watching Michael Jordan dominate. He made every aspiring athlete want to be like him. Well, those kids chose basketball over baseball. And now, they are all grown up. All the Greg Odens, Kevin Durants, Dwayne Wades of the world grew up watching Michael Jordan and chose to pursue basketball and now you are seeing more quality basketball players over baseball players and MLB teams have been forced to look elsewhere, like Latin America.
And the biggest thing is and it can be changed:
2) the NCAA scholarship limit. Do you know what it is? For football: 85. For basketball 13. Or, enough to field a team for each. For baseball: 11.7. That's right, 11.7. Lacrosse and Track and Field both have more. That's barely enough for a starting 9. Its not enough to field a team of position players and pitching staff. So, coaches end up having to put people on partial scholarships and guys who are stars in college ball could only be on like .25 of a scholarship. So coaches have to go after smart guys that they are get on a partial academic scholarship as well or rich kids that don't need a scholarship. So, all the good players skip college cause they can't get a baseball scholarship and then get stuck in the minors forever (or don't even get drafted because its impossible to judge talent and properly scout high schoolers, especially to consider you are scouting the person to do directly to professional baseball, not college like other sports) or if they want to go to college, they have to go to college on scholarship for another sport, like basketball or football. And end up sticking with that one. Why do you think college baseball isn't as big as college football or basketball? Part of the reason (metal bat issue aside) is that the scholarships are not on par with the amount of participants. The NCAA does this for parity, is what they say, so that smaller schools can have chance in at least one of the Big 3 (football, baseball, basketball). But it has to change. So, if good players aren't coming up through college, they are coming up where they can get some playing time, Latin America. I'm not asking for 30 baseball scholarships, I think you could see vast improvement just upping it to 20. And still have parity. In all of college sports, I think this is one of the most important issues, even more so that the BCS. The BCS is fine next to this. I mean, if you are a high school player and looking to go to college on scholarship (because maybe no MLB scouts have been to your small school), you have to chose another sport over baseball, because you just aren't getting a baseball scholarship. You certaintly aren't going to be offered a full baseball scholarship, no one is. You better plan to go on a football or basketball scholarship.
I don't blame MLB at all for the lack of blacks on their rosters. They can't control where teams get their talent (and everyone knows that no one can control the NCAA and what they do) and teams are going to invest in where the talent is coming from, right now, the Dominican Republic. And rightly so, we've screwed up college baseball, created a gigantic minor league system that is too big for its own good, screwed up the whole steriod thing, if you were a talented, athletic kid (white or black) today playing sports, would you chose baseball? I know I wouldn't. We need to make baseball fun again for kids, we need to teach them the strategy of the game so that it entralls them and lets get kids playing baseball again. We need to put all this behind us and build on the future or we are going to lose the American Pasttime for good. Now is the time.
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