Simply Put- Race in Basketball and Baseball

7/31/08

I continue my writing this week concerning the issue of race in the sports of basketball and baseball. If you read my column last week you know that I, along with many others, have notice the decline of African Americans in the game of baseball and the decline of white Americans in the game of basketball. Some of the latest national figures bear out this trend. In Major League baseball African Americans now comprise about 8% of the league. In 1959, one year after integration, it was 17.25%. In the mid 70’s it reached as high as 30%. The National Basketball Association is just the opposite. In the 60’s the league was 80% white and 20% black. Those figures are almost exactly opposite now.
I’ll spend the next two weeks throwing out my theories, which I’ve boiled down to (1) Money and (2) Culture. First the easy issue of money. In my day, you signed up to play city league baseball and you had a glove, most likely a hand me down, and a pair of cleats. The coach or the league provided a few bats and helmets, of which you selected the one that came the closest to your size and needs. Go out to any Little league game these days, especially an All Star event. Each player will show up with their own equipment bag. In that bag is at least one glove, possibly more; 1 bat, possibly more; a pair of cleats; a personalized batting helmet, many of which are airbrushed with their name and a host of other equipment. Simply Put, baseball has become an expensive sport. Those personal equipment bags can easily contain $300-400 dollars of equipment. Once you get into high school, the cost just keeps going up.
Basketball on the other hand is much different. Sign up for a city league and you just need a pair of basketball shoes. Sure you can spend lots of money on a pair of shoes, but you don’t have too. And even if you do it still will be much less than all that baseball equipment.
And the reality is, even though many economic strides have been made for improvement, many African Americans families are not in a position to pay $300-400 dollars for their kid to play baseball for one year. Some might ask "which came first, the chicken or the egg", i.e. did the decline of the African American baseball players just evolve over time and thus those that were left were kids whose families could and would spend the money. Or was it because of the increased spending there has been a decline in African American being in a position to afford to play the sport. I haven’t figured out the chicken and egg theory but I can’t help but believe that the high cost of playing the game of baseball has caused some African Americans to just say no. From the front porch: Coach said those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind.