| |
|
Study
Reports a Decline of Blacks in Baseball |
By Andre L. Taylor
NYT Institute
When New Orleans Zephyrs outfielder Ryan Thompson
takes the field before a game, he realizes that
while he and his teammates are dressed in the same
uniforms they don’t share the same ethnicity.
Thompson is the only black player on the Zephyrs
roster, a Class AAA team owned by the Houston Astros.
The 2003 Racial and Gender Report Card compiled
by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport
showed that blacks, of non Latino origin, make up
only 10 percent of Major League Baseball players
during the 2001-2002 season.
The annual study also looked at the gains and losses
of women and people of color on the collegiate and
professional levels in basketball, football and
hockey.
“We’re a dying breed,” said
Thompson, 36, who is playing in his first season
with the Zephyrs. “We’re about to be
extinct.”
Fritz Polite, an assistant professor and associate
director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics
in Sport at the University of Central Florida, assisted
with the study and agreed with Thompson.
Polite, who specializes in the social and cultural
aspects of sports, said blacks’ exposure to
“America’s past time” is not what
it used to be, especially in the urban communities
throughout the country.
“I think it’s a gradual decline,”
Polite said during a telephone from the Institute’s
headquarters in Orlando, Fla. “I don’t
think it (they) will be extinct, but it is on a
gradual decline and something needs to be done.”
Polite said another possible factor to the decline
in black players in baseball was that “they
jump around a lot.”
. “One day they’re in double-A ball
and then the next day they’re in triple-A
ball.”
In his 17 years as a professional baseball player
in both the major and minor leagues, Thompson has
noticed an absence of blacks in the minor league.
He said there were some teams that “don’t
have any.”
Polite said with the rise in interest in basketball,
black youth’s involvement in baseball programs
have suffered. Basketball has increasingly gained
a following among inner-city youth and has virtually
replaced baseball in some communities.
“I think it has a lot to do with infrastructure
and facilities,” Polite said. “It’s
much easier to play basketball in the urban areas.
All you need to play basketball is a ball and you
can make a court.”
Thompson wants to make sure there is a future for
blacks in the game. He said his children frequently
attend Zephyrs home games and practices.
“My little boys love baseball,”
Thompson said. “They love other sports too,
but they are so indulged in baseball because they
are around it all the time.”
Thompson said there was a need for black baseball
players to promote the sport in their communities.
To the Zephyr slugger, there is a need to be both
a player and a spokesman.
“I think that we as African-American
players have major league experience and need to
do something to change the minds of the kids,”
Thompson said. “We have to get them to see
that baseball is a great sport and you can play
it longer than any of the other sports.”
Calls to the Astros front office in Houston to find
out how many blacks are on the team’s minor
league roster were not returned.
|
 |
|
|
|
