Why There Aren't More Black Baseball Players

    I was killing time on Bleacher Report the other day, when I noticed an article about the fight to save Black Baseball. Over the last couple of years, there has been a dramatic decline in the amount of African-American players in Major League Baseball. This phenomenon has mystified the powers that be. After Black players fought so hard to get in the league, which had a long history of racism, why would they abandon the prize guys like Jackie Robinson, and Pumpsie Green fought for. The Bleacher Report article goes super in depth into the history of the game, and what socio-economic factors play into the decline of available Black players. While it was a completely well researched and well written article, I felt it over-complicated what in my eyes is a pretty simple matter. When it comes down to it, I feel as though there are only about three or four reasons more young African-American athletes don't go into the sport. They are as follows.

BASEBALL IS BORING AS S&*T

Just kidding....or am I?

BASEBALL LOGISTICS IN THE HOOD ARE IMPOSSIBLE

     For the sake of argument, lets assume that most African American professional athlete's are originally from an inner city background. I could explain why this is true, but that would just take too long and would force me to digress from the topic. So, just for now, assume this is true. Now when a young kid from the inner city is first starting to get into sports and trying to figure out which ones they are good at, several practical issues steer the kid away from baseball. First off to play baseball you need space. A baseball game requires a good amount of open space to play. Without it, you end up with a lot of broken windows and pissed off neighbors. However, if you drive around the South Side of Chicago, you will notice a lack of public parks that have space for a baseball field, and have had proper upkeep. Not saying there aren't baseball fields, just it doesn't seem like the park district puts the resources into maintaining their upkeep as they used to. So without proper space, where are you supposed to play.
      But lets say hypothetically, that we got all the fields in the city in tip top shape, the amount of Black inner city players would increase only slightly. Here's why. If a young kid wakes up and decides that he wants to play a game of baseball, he immediately has a problem. One of the reasons that kids gravitate toward football and basketball in the cities, is that those games are adaptable. See, you NEED 18 people to play a baseball game. Football can be played in any combination of ways, (two-hand touch, tackle, flag) with easily adjusted rules to compensate lack of proper equipment, or proper amount of people.  Basketball also has the same flexibility. You can play it one on one, three on three,  a game of 21. You can play full or half court. Baseball however doesn't give you the same flexibility to alter the game. You need 18 guys to play an actual game. Have you ever tried to get 18 of your friends to do the same thing at the same time? It's impossible.
     The other advantage of Football and Basketball: the lack of need for equipment. What do you need to get up a quick football game? A football and some space. What do you need to start a basketball game? A ball and a hoop. Hell, growing up half the time we didnt even need the hoop, if we could find a milk crate. A few times we even went without the ball, using a balled up sheet a paper and a trash can. What do you need to play baseball? A bat. a couple of balls, some bases, mitts, and preferably gloves and helmets. The odds of you having all this equipment AND eighteen people willing to play? Slim to none.

LONG ROAD TO THE MAJORS

     For those of you that dont know there is a significant difference in the path of becoming a professional in Major League Baseball versus other sports. In Football for instance you are required to do a couple of years of college before you can go pro. In Basketball, you have to do at least one year of college. However, in baseball, you can either be drafted out of college or high school. So on the surface, from the athlete's perspective, this should be a good thing right? Why wouldn't a young athlete jump at a sport that allows you to a professional right away? The sooner you go pro, the sooner you get paid, right? Well the answer is not necessarily. See there is a gap of time between when you get drafted by professional baseball and when you start actually playing professional baseball.
     See. the reason football and basketball make you go to college first has nothing to do with getting these kids an education, though that's the excuse they give. The real reason that they send you to college first is because they use college sports as a developmental tool, so that when you turn pro, you're a more of a finished product. That way they can spend less time teaching you the game, and more time making money off you. The reason baseball can draft you out of high school is because you're not going to the pros right away. In fact, you're not going pro for quite a while. Before you can become a major league baseball player, you are going to spend years, toiling away in the minor league system. A player spends the first few years playing in small, obscure country towns, usually for very minimal play. Some guys spend their whole careers playing Single A, Double A, or Triple A baseball without ever sniffing the pros. That's a whole lot of work, for no guarantee. Considering most African American athletes' desire to get paid as soon as possible to financially help the load on their families, most dont have several years to wait for their hard work to pay off.

YOU GOTTA CHOOSE EARLY

    We live in an era of sports specialization. Gone are the days of multi-sport stars like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. In today's sports landscape, kids are forced to declare early. often when they start high school, what sport they are going to specialize and focus on. These days, in the era of sports science, teams come up with all kinds of specialized workout and weight training programs. Most are tailored to their particular sport. So a kid is forced to make a choice at a time in his life, when baseball is probably the sport he's played the least amount of time, and isnt wholly familiar with. Why would he pick baseball if he hasn't developed the necessary skills or love of the game at that point?
     I say all that to simply say this. The reason why there aren't more Black baseball players is simple. The solution however is not. This is a systematic issue, and won't be resolved unless it's looked at from a big-picture approach. Or else, the numbers of black baseball players will keep dwindling. So yeah, Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player. Question is, have we already seen the last?