Spending this summer in Pittsburgh as a baseball fan was an unbelievable experience. Not only did I get to see my favorite baseball team make it to the playoffs for the first time since the year I was born (1992), I also got to see my favorite baseball player enter into the national spotlight. After being on the cover of MLB: The Show 13, Andrew McCuthen became a household name when he won the National League MVP (Most Valuable Player) after the season. At any Pirates game you can see around half of the fans dawning something associated with McCutchen on it: his #22 jersey, his last name, or even his patented dreadlocks that he keeps tucked beneath his cap.
Andrew McCutchen is different than most of the players on the Pirates roster. Along with Josh Harrison he was one of two African-American on the Pirates 25 man roster throughout the entire 162 game season. It's not just the Pirates, however, that lack African-Americans on their rosters. Only 7.2% of major league baseball players in 2013 were African-American, the lowest percent in the league since 1958 (11 years after integration).
Watching Andrew McCuthen hailed as a good and a savior all summer made me wonder, why aren't there more African-Americans in the MLB? What if every city had a star like McCuthen that transcends race and is beloved by the entire city? What does this mean for citiies and fans that don't have a player like Andrew to latch onto?
African-Americans in Baseball
Potential Problems in American Youth Baseball
When thinking about why African American's are disappearing from baseball, one of the first things to analyze is the youth baseball players of America. For Forbes.com, contributor Bob Cook wrote an article about the correlation between the lack of baseball players in the MLB and the issues with youth baseball in our country (check it out here).
In his piece, Cook addresses this decrease and MLB's route to try and fix this problem. In April 2013, Commissioner Bud Selig created a task force to investigate all angles of this problem. Cook said that the first thing that this task force needs to do is realize that this issue isn't MLB's fault. The reason for the issue in Cook's opinion has to do directly with the youth system for baseball in America.
I don't want to dive too deeply into his points, however, I do think readers should hesitate from alleviating the blame from MLB. Overall, it's a really interesting read and makes a lot of valid points! Be excited everyone, Opening Day is less than a month away!
Why the Decrease?
Throughout this entire project, I've always been wondering what could have factored into this huge decrease in African-Americans in baseball. I've only read articles where journalists try to dissect the issue themselves. A few weeks ago, however, I had the priviledge of engaging in a discussion with a very respected sports historian. Dr. Ruck, a professor in Pitt's History Department has done countless research and written various books about sports history, wsa kind enough to meet with me to and discuss this topic I've been discussing all semester! Having the chance to actually engage in an in person discussion was so valuable of an experience to have.
After talking to Dr. Ruck, I realized that there isn't one set reason blacks have disappeared from baseball. A bevy of different issues have helped to create a perfect storm to propel black participation to just a dismal 7.2 percent. Below is an audio essay with audio from that interview I had with Dr. Ruck. I feel that it would be best to allow the audio speak for itself!
Interviews
The first person I interviewed was a friend of mine named Cori. She is a sophomore nursing major at Pitt with an addiction to anything Boston. She would classify her love for Boston Sports as pride, and not an unhealthy obsession. The most intense part of her addiciton is her love for the Boston Red Sox. You can frequently see her around camous with a Red Sox hat on, checking the scores on her phone when the Sportscenter jingle sounds out from her iPhone.
The second person I interviewed was an avid baseball fan from across the state, Giana. Giana is a junior History major at Pitt who sticks with her hometown team, the Philadelphia Phillies. Giana is a truly Philly fanatatic, as she traveled to Florida over spring break to catch some spring training baseball before the regular season even started! She rocks her Phillies gear whenever she can in Pittsburgh, showing her love for her team despite being five hours away from home.
The next person I interviewed was a friend of mine named Kelsey. She is a sophomore entering the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at Pitt who is originally from Rochester, New York. Kelsey, like Cori and Giana, roots for the home town teem, as she has been a Yankees fan her entire life. Family ties keep her invested in those Yanks dawned in pinstripes throughout the entire year.
The final person I interviewed was Kevin, a sophomore Media and Professinal Communications Major. He is enthusiastic about all sports, as he is set to become the sports director for WPTS Student Radio next semester. Originating from the Poconos of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Kevin escaped the allure of the Philadelphia teams and found himself hooked to the New York Yankees. He will never hesitate to defend his favorite Yanks players of new and old, regardless of if its on or off the air.
After listening to these interviews I want to leave the listeners/readers with a challenge. Dive into this issue and other racial issues deeper. Just because something isn't being talked about in the mainstream media does not mean that it isn't important. If you see something that you think some people are missing, let us know! This project is about awareness, and it's pretty remarkable to see the reactions of sports fans when they are even slightly enlightened about a topic. So again, don't sit back, listen to these interviews and forget about them. Allow them to be your spark. Let them help fuel your fire for change in both society and the sports world.
Do Average Baseball Fans Know This is Happening?
Baseball is becoming more of a diverse game than ever. Almost every major league team employs players from various backgrounds: white American, Dominican, Cuban, Venezuelan, African-American, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese. Major League Baseball has come a long way since reluctantly having the first colored player take the field back in 1947. However, one of the games most noted minorities and slowly disappearing from the game they fought so hard to be a part of. Despite the growing number of minorities in the sport, African-American participation is growing to a dangerously low number. Once the game’s most common minority (18.9 percent of the league was black in 1981) African-Americans are now at their lowest percentage of participation since 1958 at 7.2 percent of the league being black. This decrease in black players also comes with the note that African-American participation in other sports are thriving, with the NBA and NFL at 72 and 66 percent black respectively. All of this begs the question, why are African-Americans leaving a sport that they have such a deep history in, dating back to the Negro Leagues before integration?
With it looking as though this number could potentially continue to decrease, it makes me wonder, do fans even realize that one day we might not have African-American stars like Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., and Andrew McCutchen gracing the baseball diamond in the foreseeable future? Had I not read a few articles on the topic that I found while perusing Twitter and Facebook, I might not have noticed the issue either. So I thought, why not ask some baseball fans and see what their knowledge and opinion is about Jackie Robinson leaving America’s Pastime.
Throughout a few of my other posts on this issue, I’ve copied links to audio essays and articles from different “experts” on this issue or experts on racial issues in America. This post however, will take a much different point of view than the other posts. When originally researching the topic, I knew that the number of blacks playing baseball was decreasing, but I was astonished once I actually looked at the research to see the rate at which African-Americans were leaving baseball. All of this made me wonder, if a twenty-one year old baseball fan who watches about eighty full games a year (yes I’m talking about myself), reads two to three baseball articles every day, and watches the MLB Network at least once a day never knew the gravity of this issue, then how many average baseball fans actually know that this problem is even occurring? I decided to interview four friends of mine who I would consider average baseball fans, to gauge their knowledge about the issue. Do they know that this is even happening? If so, how do they feel about it