In your opinion what caused the decline of African Americans in Baseball?

[boskey]

If you go back to the 70s, football and basketball players were like the rappers of that era. They were the coolest, flyest, sexiest and richest dudes out doing movies and commercials etc. Thats who kids wanted to be like.

I used to watch Welcome Back Kotter reruns as a kid and that nikka Freddie Boom Boom Washington was always talking about Clyde Frazier (s/o @Walt). Then you had OJ, Dr. J, Wilt, Jim Brown, Fred the Hammer, Deacon Jones, Kareem, Magic etc etc

Other than Reggie Jackson I don't think any baseball players came close to those swag levels.

Times change. I think baseball just got phased out.

 

[feelosofer]

too many things to list: some of us believing its a boring game, money grab is quicker in every other sport, instant fame in other sports, MLBs lack of promoting it's African American players, field up keep in black vs white neighborhoods, the fact that it's going the way hockey where you're going to need serious amounts of money to compete against your peers at your talent level, etc...

You actually hit the nail on the head, here. As someone who works part time for municipal government as a consultant. Baseball field upkeep is egregious. In order to fix and landscape a baseball field to proper playing specifications, it would have cost the city close to 50k to do it properly. I work in a poor city eith a median income of around 32k. They can't afford it. Also from an individual standpoint baseball is an expensive sport to play because the kids have to essentially buy their own equipment where as football and basketball have hand me down equipment and just an orange ball and hopps needed to play respectively. Also I would say culturally baseball has not tried to appeal to African Americans in recent years, especially because of them appealling to the 'good ol' boys' and hispanics.

 

[kingofnyc]

how many times we gotta go thru this

 

[tremonthustler1]

actually you couldn't be more wrong. those kids are coming from Third World poverty and if they don't make it in sports, then there really aren't that many opportunities for them to get themselves and their families out of poverty. We as blacks may be behind but sports aren't our only ways of making it out of poverty. Get what you're saying but really bad comparison. Now compare the upkeep of a basketball court to a soccer/baseball field? Now add equipment? Now add travel? Plus MLB scouts aren't going into black neighborhoods like they are Latin countries. And they can't lowball a kid from the hood (actually they can) but not to the extent they can a kid from Guatemala or Peru

You just explained also partially why PR baseball fell off hard til just recently. You can't get players for cheap anymore.

When Roc Nation gets a hold of Buxton out in Minnesota

 

[tremonthustler1]

I think it has to do with 1 things. One is baseball is not as glamorous to the black community as baseball and football. Hell it's not even bein marketed to us anymore. Second baseball is expensive compared to basketball and football. In baseball u need a glove, shoes, bat etc...

Not really an excuse. If you don't have a basketball hoop, you get a crate. It's not like kids in DR got a stash of money designed specifically to play baseball. They get real creative with it (in some cases, when you finally get actual equipment, you turn into a monster like Vladimir Guerrero)

it's also really hard to market a team first sport to a demographic couldn't care less about what team u rep, but more about what player you dikkride.

It's like this: half of Lakers fans don't get heartbroken when they lose, they just feel bad for Kobe. When the Miami Heat win, yeah that's cool, but only cuz LeBron got 2 rings. There are casual fans in baseball too, but if you ride with a squad, it's because that's your squad. MLB has always pushed this as a tradition, but that clashes with kids just supporting players. The NFL has kind of a healthy balance between the two (and even their demographics differ over WHY they watch football, but at the end of the day, they do, so the NFL could care less)

 

[The War Report]

The RBI program is suppose to be making a dent. I know there's a few MLB players that came from it. I think a lot of athletes who play basketball/football who might be marginal in that sport can eat real good if they switched over to baseball if they put the work in.

 

[Captain Crunch]

It takes longer to move up to the big leagues and start getting paid the kind of money they want.

This as well as the following:
Lack of scholarships and hype by MLB/Nike

It's a sport that you have to be put on to enjoy it(i.e your brother; granddad, or father taking you to games or watching a game with you)
Most kids don't want to follow slow pace things.
Despite the lack of athleticism, baseball is the hardest to play(try hitting a 80 MPH curveball :heh)

With that said, baseball is being played less by US youth in general, so this is affecting a lot of kids.

50's-willie mays

60's-frank robinson

70's-reggie jackson

80's-dave winfield, darryl strawberry, rickey henderson, doc gooden

90's-griffey and bonds

00's-? dontrelle willis had next til he flamed out.

this decade-?

I love the game, and there have been great players recently, but most of the black players today are boring as shyt. i guess jeter, but his audience is mostly whites.

This decade: Matt Kemp; McCutchen, Ryan Howard(he was in Subway commercials)

 

[MikeBrownsJob]

Despite the lack of athleticism, baseball is the hardest to play(try hitting a 80 MPH curveball :heh)

This is by far the dumbest thing ever.

Dude you can be a shytty athlete all around and but their are specialties within baseball you can focus on and ...You cannot do that with basketball or football (outside of kicker)

Do you realize Steve Nash is 6"4 205lbs yet he looks like a toddler out there on the court surrounded by 6"8 ballerinas. The coordination and grace that has to be involved to play professional basketball is unreal. Lance Stephenson is god awful, Javel Mcgee is an idiot but you put him in any gym across the country and those guys would dominate. No one would be able to guard them. In the MLB you don't have to be physically imposing or particularly athletic. You can be a designated hitter and get fat. You can suck at batting and be a pinch hitter. The worst guy on a D2 team is a damn good basketball player.

Football the same damn thing. Try tackling someone like Bo Jackson coming head on. From someone who loves baseball the reason why I quit is because I got pulled to center field and the highlight of my day was getting orange slices and hi-c's after the games from the Team Moms. Baseball doesn't compare to the other sports in difficulty.

 

[Big Boss]

These kids want to be superstars right away.

They stay showing high school basketball and high school football games on tv. especially them all star games.

 

[Ollie Boombayay]

I think it started with the lack of college scholarships for baseball. The NBA had already been an all black league before the other major sports were but when football started offering scholarships to inner city kids in low income communities more and more blacks started leaving going to football as a secondary sport. When Football became a majority black sport baseball lost its black athletes. I feel that basketball has become almost the 4 element of hiphop community so I don't think baseball can compete with basketball's appeal in the black community. What baseball needs to do is lure african americans away from football. With the recent head injuries going on in the NFL it shouldn't be to hard to lure people away from a sport can cause phyiscal damage, for and offers its players a lower salary than the other 3 sports combined despite being more profitable

Baseball's also got to loosen up and allow the players personality to shine. The unwritten country club style rules are very unappealing to the youth. Imagine if baseball players were allowed to celebrate in the same vein that the Dominican team did during the world baseball classic. People like to see people having fun.

Finally the most important thing baseball needs to do to lure more african americans into the sport is work with the NCAA to help promote college baseball. I caught a few college world series games this year and they were actually pretty entertaing and its actually a growing sport. There television ratings and attendance has been going up. Since they stopped using the aluminum bats and started using those weaker metal bats the games are actually respectable. If MLB were to work with the NCAA to help grow the sport it'd draw more revenue to the sport which would allow colleges to offer more baseball scholarships and maybe more black players would give the game a chance.

 

[sfgiants]

the baseball is expensive argument is true to an extent, but you got these dominican, pr, venezuelan mothafukkas playing in dirt fields using 2x4's as bats and shyt

mariano rivera used to make his baseball glove out of cardboard for fukks sake. the biggest reason i think is the fact that you have to wait YEARS to make any money in mlb, whereas you can be a millionaire by 19/20 in the nba.

 

[Da_Eggman]

the decline started in the 70's when the nba started to make its raise into mainstream

thew 80's and 90's babies grew up with MJ as there hero not Reggie Jackson or Barry Bonds

 

[mannyrs13]

I think that you have to be raised with it in order to appreciate it more. the culture just isn't the same as in years past. myself being Hispanic, Cuban as well as all Caribbean countries grew up on baseball and it's in our heritage. Sammy Sosa used to play with a glove made out of a milk carton. that's how dedicated these kids are over there. I haven't been watching games much this season due to work and a stressful home team, but I think what they need to do is market the sport better. I think Andrew mccutchen has the skills and opportunity to be a role model for young black youth. watch the pirates make a deep playoff run and have him become the face of mlb. but actually when you look at it, who is the face of mlb? NBA has lebron, NFL has Brady, shoot you can even make a case for Sidney Crosby in the NHL. players that are marketed by their sport. mlb has pujols? flabby and sick. Braun? steroids allegations. arod? same thing plus overrated for his contract. the only player I can think of with consistency and no drama is Cabrera and he's not the lime light type himself. I think trout has potential to be the face of mlb and maybe even Harper too but they still young. I think Stern is a better commissioner that selig when it comes to marketing. baseball has a rich history and tradition but not much marketing these days. it's up to the person to decide whether they want to watch or not.

 

[Khadafhi]

Not really an excuse. If you don't have a basketball hoop, you get a crate. It's not like kids in DR got a stash of money designed specifically to play baseball. They get real creative with it (in some cases, when you finally get actual equipment, you turn into a monster like Vladimir Guerrero)

it's also really hard to market a team first sport to a demographic couldn't care less about what team u rep, but more about what player you dikkride.

It's like this: half of Lakers fans don't get heartbroken when they lose, they just feel bad for Kobe. When the Miami Heat win, yeah that's cool, but only cuz LeBron got 2 rings. There are casual fans in baseball too, but if you ride with a squad, it's because that's your squad. MLB has always pushed this as a tradition, but that clashes with kids just supporting players. The NFL has kind of a healthy balance between the two (and even their demographics differ over WHY they watch football, but at the end of the day, they do, so the NFL could care less)

Your right but MLB is marketed towards Latin Americans.
If u go to any black neighborhood today there's an abundance of basketball hoops n open fields. A basketball or football don't cost shyt

 

[SmoothOperator88]

I think it has to do with 1 things. One is baseball is not as glamorous to the black community as baseball and football. Hell it's not even bein marketed to us anymore. Second baseball is expensive compared to basketball and football. In baseball u need a glove, shoes, bat etc...

I used the same damn glove all throughout high school and the same bat from 7th grade through high school. A lot of the time baseball equipment is a once every few years purchase. And let's not forget that football is the most expensive scholastic sport to fund (the reason my middle school and high school didnt have it). In some places you have families paying more than what it costs to buy baseball equipment that'll last you for a few years to play football EACH year.