I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, MLB has made some strong efforts to improve the level of African-American participation, but African Americans just don't seem interested in playing. On the other hand, MLB could do more; it's a worthy cause, and they are losing out on many talened black athletes.

One suggestion I would make, based on conversations I've had with knoledgeable people like Mudcat Grant and Al Oliver: MLB should lower the age target for its RBI program. They're getting kids when they're 11 or 12, when it's probably too late to begin a path toward the professional level, and they really need to bring those kids in when they're eight or nine.

Bruce's suggestion is a good one.

The issue of black and Latino general managers is an issue of the pipeline. If only 10% of the players are African-Americans, then theoretically only 10% of the managers and GM's should be black. Currently 2 GM's out of 30, and 4 managers out of 30, are black. Exactly 10% of available jobs.

The underrepresentation of Latinos is a different matter, involving language issues.

If young people choose to play other sports, then that's what young people do. Young Americans' involvement in basketball has to peak sometime.

The fact of the matter is that MLB needs to make its product available and affordable. Without more-than-basic cable TV, kids don't get many opportunities to see the game these days. And when the postseason rolls around, the late starts make seeing the climax of the season impossible for more than half the kids in the country (geographically speaking). MLB is too worried about maximizing its profit and that dominates their strategies in all areas, from scheduling to and ticket prices on down. They do the minimum necessary PR-wise to create a perception of caring about people who don't have the cash to enjoy their product while they laugh all the way to the bank.

Not to start another "I can't see the beginnings of the games!" "Well, I can't see the ends of the games!" "Well, we're both only able to watch TV from 7 to 10 PM, and we live 3 time zones apart, but somehow there must be an answer!" thread, but I do think that having every, single, World Series game played in the freezing cold and dark is not the best way to market the game during what should be the highest-rated sporting events of the year. It doesn't agree with the rest of the marketing strategy, the whole mythology of baseball, which is the summer, the sunny days, the green grass, the blue sky, the lack of a clock.

I'm not going to go to BB-Ref and calculate the average starting times and temperatures, but it seems like with the last few World Serieses being played in Boston, Denver, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Houston, Boston, St. Louis, NYC, Miami, San Francisco, and Anaheim...well, only Houston, Miami, and Anaheim are likely to be above 40 degrees at 9 PM in late October. And the "lack of a clock" aspect is lost too, because the playoff games are so slow that there's a constant sense that the game could easily go until midnight without anything particularly exciting happening, so people hope the thing gets wrapped up while they're still awake.

The playoff games are just harder to watch than the regular season games. How many sports is that true for?

I typed a little paragraph up about how the black population is allowed to simply, by and large, prefer basketball and football to baseball, but I really didn't have any point. Beyond not knowing if it's a solvable problem, I really don't know whether it's a problem at all, the way it's being portrayed. There's a very subtle undertone of baseball-is-ignoring-black-people in the reporting of this "story" in many places that I just don't see has any foundation to it. Most black people (poor/inncer city people?) prefer basketball, and MLB is working pretty hard to try to win some over to baseball, without very much success so far.

I knew a young guy came out of the inner city a couple years ago who told me baseball was the white people's game/a game for suburban kids. (And here I thought soccer was the preferred game of suburban kids everywhere.) Anyone else know whether I was getting a relatively isolated opinion, or a fair representative of what inner-city kids think? I've never been in an inner city long enough to know anything. I think it was just him, not the black/poor population at large.

Milton Bradley was the only black kid on his high school baseball team, at a school with a lot of black kids. I've seen interviews where he says the black kids on other teams made fun of him for it all the time.

Where is the outrage over lack of Americans of Asian decent in the game?

Are Indians notably represented in any sport at all other than cricket?

ZZZZZ.

those decent Asians.

Kurt Suzuki is trailblazing a blazing trail for Asian-Americans in the major leagues. Presuming he has a better career than Travis Ishikawa, that is.

MLB should lower the age target for its RBI program. They're getting kids when they're 11 or 12, when it's probably too late to begin a path toward the professional level, and they really need to bring those kids in when they're eight or nine.

Why is the goal production of African-American Major League Baseball Players? As someone that supports Harlem RBI, I think the primary objective of organizations like RBI should be to get kids on a program, through baseball, that helps keep their lives on track, possibly to college and on the road to being self sufficient adults.

I'm sick of the only measure of success of "the dream" is what percentage of African-Americans are playing baseball in MLB. This misses the point on so many levels I want to puke.

Kurt Suzuki is trailblazing a blazing trail for Asian-Americans in the major leagues. Presuming he has a better career than Travis Ishikawa, that is.

Suzuki really is a trail blazer of sorts isn't he? I guess Atlee Hammaker sort of fit the same category.

Ah, but like Johnny Damon, Dave Roberts, and Danny Graves, Hammaker doesn't have an Asian surname. And that makes all the difference.. Or something.

Can we ask, you know, Jackie's widow what SHE thinks directly?

She's quite an impressive figure herself, still.

Hard to believe Jackie's been dead for 35 years plus now. He left us waaaaay too soon.

Well, to be fair, the Asian American interest in baseball has dropped probably more sharply than African American interest.

There probably would have been more Asian American players in the past without:
1) The color barrier
2) The opportunity to play professionally in Japan.

Lenn Sakata?

Well, to be fair, the Asian American interest in baseball has dropped probably more sharply than African American interest.

The Asian-American community in Seattle, from what I can see, seems very interested in baseball. Of course, having Ichiro on the Mariners probably helps...

Hank Conger is going to be Asians what Khalil Greene is to white people.

with the last few World Serieses being played in Boston, Denver, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Houston, Boston, St. Louis, NYC, Miami, San Francisco, and Anaheim...well, only Houston, Miami, and Anaheim are likely to be above 40 degrees at 9 PM in late October.

San Francisco is rather pleasant in late October, no?

There probably would have been more Asian American players in the past without:
1) The color barrier
2) The opportunity to play professionally in Japan.

Not sure if I agree with this. Back when there was a color barrier, there weren't many Asian-Americans in America. And how many Asian-Americans have gone to play professionally in Japan? None that I can think of, though I'm not an expert on Japanese baseball by any means.

If MLB teams want a Latino GM, all they have to do is ask. I'll gladly trade in my job for a chance to be a general manager.

And how many Asian-Americans have gone to play professionally in Japan? None that I can think of

Mike Nakamura?

And how many Asian-Americans have gone to play professionally in Japan? None that I can think of, though I'm not an expert on Japanese baseball by any means.

Wally Yonamine not only played baseball in Japan (after playing running-back for the '49ers!), but well enough to make the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Was baseball Robinson's favorite sport? No. So why would he shake his head? There weren't many profitable sports for an African-American at the time, but there are now. Why would that piss him off?

Mike Nakamura is half-Japanese, half-Australian, and was born in Japan. Plus he's not very far in "the past."

The previous post seemed to be saying that Asian-Americans in (I presume) the '50s-'80s went to Japan to play baseball instead of playing in the U.S. because of better opportunities. Wally Yonamine (who I hadn't heard of) appears to be the perfect example of this. Are there many others?

At least this guy understood that the problem is that black people are not playing baseball from the start, rather than some invisible wall of racism holding them back later on.

I think that it's going to take a lot of effort. Lowering the age of the RBI program is a good idea, and I also think that if black baseball fans (and other fans) are worried about the future of African-Americans in baseballl, then they should get out there and coach some Little League teams. Role models start in the community, etc etc. Plus you get to make a difference in a kid's life.

well, only Houston, Miami, and Anaheim are likely to be above 40 degrees at 9 PM in late October.

San Francisco's summer is late October. Not that the Giants will be winning pennants anytime soon.

I think that Jackie Robinson would "surely tell" this ######### writer to stop presuming to know what he would think.

Right now African Americans make up 8.2% of all MLB baseball players and about 13-14% of all people in the US. So I guess this is a little under the margin of error. However, may baeball players are not US citizens with a huge chunk of them being from Latin American countries (where does Puerto Rico count in these stats?) and a growing number of East Asians (Korea, Japan, Taiwan) and even a few Australians. In other words, wouldnt' be possible that African Americans make up about 14% of all US players in MLB? Certainly would be in the margin of error right?

So I am not sure that I see the problem. Yes, it was higher in the 1970's and 1980's, but 1) that was an unsustainable peak and a ridiculous barometer to use and 2) the game has become more diverse since that time with more latinos. In fact, baseball is much more diverse than any other major american sport.

I also agree that the major aim of a program like RBI should be to get kids in inner cities to do something constructive with their free time, get them focused and teach them teamwork, work ethic, etc. since there aren't a lot of role models for them. How many turn into MLB players is irrelevent.

In fact, baseball is much more diverse than any other major american sport.
The NBA has baseball beat -- there are stars from South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. I'm thinking there's an Aussie or two but I'm blanking.

How many blacks are there as university professors, which Lapchick apparently is? Does he plan on stepping down to give one his job? Since Jackie robinson worked most of his life trying to elect republicans (an exception was 1968 when he supported Humphrey instead of Nixon), is Lapchick arguing that his profession should hire more? There are probably fewer Republican professors than Black ones.

However, there is no doubt Jackie would be dissatisfied that there are only two African-American and one Latino general managers at the major league level, in spite of the fact that that is an all-time high for MLB.

There is no doubt that Jackie would think this writer is a hack for assuming Jackie Robinson is capable only of superficial evaluation of high-level front office hiring practices.

Not sure if I agree with this. Back when there was a color barrier, there weren't many Asian-Americans in America. And how many Asian-Americans have gone to play professionally in Japan? None that I can think of, though I'm not an expert on Japanese baseball by any means.

Yes, but the Asian American population--male and female--was positively rabid about baseball.

There were a number of Asian American players who played in Japan pre-war, although that doesn't really prove my second point (they would have been locked out by the color barrier anyway).

With players like Ryan Kurosaki, it's harder since he played American ball and sucked in a tiny sample size. He may have made it if he tried, but the option of jumping to and succeeding in NPB ball was much more feasible than it was to people like Kevin Millar.

What I find fascinating is the success of Hawaiian Asian Americans in baseball and in film as opposed to us in the continental U.S. The few who have broken the intense color barrier in Hollywood.

It's interesting how a unique social atmosphere removed from mainstream institutional racism can change the results greatly.

with the last few World Serieses being played in Boston, Denver, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Houston, Boston, St. Louis, NYC, Miami, San Francisco, and Anaheim

We would be delighted to host one in Arlington.

Was baseball Robinson's favorite sport? No. So why would he shake his head? There weren't many profitable sports for an African-American at the time, but there are now. Why would that piss him off?

we have a winner. I don't know why all these articles focus on baseball instead of pro sports as the whole. What percentage of professional athletes are African American? That is the true measure of Jackies contribution(yes I know NFL integrated first but nobody really cared at the time) I'm glad that they do focus on the front office issue, but even there I think they are overstating things to a moderate extent.

Of course when they don't count guys like Renteria as african american in their counting system, I'm not too sure how to accurately gauge their numbers.

Baseball is very, very affordable compared to all other sports

As far as I can tell, baseball in this country has become more of a rich kids' game (not just suburban kids). When I was a kid, we played little league locally and developed from there. Now, to perform at the higher levels requires an incredible commitment from the kids and the parents, both in time and money, that seems a barrier to entry for not just black kids, but more lower-to-middle class whites as well. I'm not sure football and basketball have the same expense level.

As #29 inferred, it's not valid to compare the percent of African-Americans in MLB to their proportion of the American population. If Latins now are 29% of MLB, then Americans as a group must be under 70%. Take 8.2% as a fraction of 70% and you get 11.7%, pretty close to the article's number of 12.3% African-American share of the US population.

The other issues, top officials and especially youth participation, are more important, IMO. However, comparing proportions in baseball to those in basketball and football might draw some contrary (though, I think, unjustified) reactions, as in, why are whites under-represented?

I'm not sure football and basketball have the same expense level.

I'm sure you're right, because the school system can and does handle those sports; the income they provide offsets their costs. Baseball, being a summer thing, has always had a different model.

It's tempting to explain most of this by just pointing to the popularity in basketball among african american kids, but the popularity of football kind of throws me off. I taught and coached basketball in Baton Rouge in a high school that was around 60% black. Our entire basketball program (all three levels) was black, and I'd estimate that around half or a little more of the football program was, too. But there were only two black kids at any level of the baseball program (and one was a lefty pitcher who was way too small to play football or basketball).

So basketball is fairly easy to explain- a lot of my students came from pretty low-income families and lived in apartment complexes. Not a lot of grass for baseball, lots of concrete for basketball. Also, all it takes is one kid having a basketball and an available playground to get a game going. But why football and not baseball? Both require some money for equipment, both require open fields and parks. It's easy to understand why football, baseball, and soccer are popular in the suburbs, but why is football cleaning up over baseball in urban areas?

Ron Darling and Mike Lum are both of Asian descent.

Dave Roberts!

There were a number of Asian American players who played in Japan pre-war, although that doesn't really prove my second point (they would have been locked out by the color barrier anyway).

Is this true - the bold part?

I can think of Latin's who were lighter skinned that had long careers in the major leagues, in addition, wouldn't Asian have been accepted in the PCL?

It doesn't sound right to me.

Baseball is very, very affordable compared to all other sports

Maybe all other sports but not basketball and football. In football, all you need is a football. In basketball, all you need is a basketball and a hoop and in a pinch, a milk carton makeshift hoop will do. But in baseball, you need at least a bat, a ball and a glove. Plus, all your friends need gloves, too. And although baseballs can be easily replaced, they can just as easily get lost. You also need a whole lot of space to play with, so both land and money can be pretty scarce in the inner-city.

Both require some money for equipment, both require open fields and parks. It's easy to understand why football, baseball, and soccer are popular in the suburbs, but why is football cleaning up over baseball in urban areas?

You need over 100 yards for a proper game of football, but you can certainly make do in an alley or street. The lack of personal equipment in football may also be a factor. Once urban kids hit high school and start playing organized football, the school will provide them with nearly everything they need; shoulder pads, helmets, etc. But in baseball, one still has to spend money to purchase a personal glove, if not a glove and a bat.

But of course, being white, middle-class and from suburbia, it's very possible I'm grasping at straws being pulled out of my ass.

You need over 100 yards for a proper game of football, but you can certainly make do in an alley or street.

You can? My perception of "alley" might be off, but I think of an alley as about ten feet wide. That's not big enough. It'd also be pretty rough getting tackled while playing on a paved surface. Sure, you can play touch, but that turns into tackle pretty quickly.

And if you can modify football and basketball in such ways, you can do the same with baseball. I used to play one-on-one wiffleball in my backyard all the time. A porch post was first base, a rock was second base, and a tree was third base. (I had my own home plate!) Kids are pretty good at modifying game rules to fit the situation. And you can always just play catch.

You can? My perception of "alley" might be off, but I think of an alley as about ten feet wide. That's not big enough. It'd also be pretty rough getting tackled while playing on a paved surface. Sure, you can play touch, but that turns into tackle pretty quickly.

And if you can modify football and basketball in such ways, you can do the same with baseball. I used to play one-on-one wiffleball in my backyard all the time. A porch post was first base, a rock was second base, and a tree was third base. (I had my own home plate!) Kids are pretty good at modifying game rules to fit the situation. And you can always just play catch.

I may have been cutting it a bit close with alleys but I live in gentrifying Brooklyn, where I see plenty of kids playing non-tackle football on the less-busy streets. Granted, they could probably do this just as easily with baseball....

I absolutely agree that baseball can be modified, much more creatively than the other two sports. Hell, I played a lot of one-on-one whiffleball myself in my backyard with a tree stump for second base and a tire for third. You're right, kids are great at modifying game rules and equipment to adapt to their environment. But I think another reason that baseball has lost ground to football and basketball is marketing. The NFL has done a terrific job marketing their product to the point that the Super Bowl is practically just as much a holiday as any non-Christmas holiday. I don't know how well the NBA has marketed their product over the last 25 years but Nike has spent untold millions of dollars telling kids to Be Like Mike, and some of those kids have made millions doing their best imitation of Mike. Baseball just isn't as sexy to kids as football and basketball is, and when they don't care enough about baseball to play it, they certainly won't go out of their way to create makeshift fields and equipment.

Hard to believe Jackie's been dead for 35 years plus now. He left us waaaaay too soon.

i was stunned to see that when jackie robinson was my age, he had less than a year to live.

Football is also just an easier game. I play a pretty regular football game, and the one or two guys that play with no athletic ability or hand eye coordination whatsoever can still have a good time as long as they're willing to go all out, are willing to take a hit, etc. If we play baseball, they spend the whole time whiffing and dropping balls and not having fun.

Baseball just isn't as sexy to kids as football and basketball is, and when they don't care enough about baseball to play it, they certainly won't go out of their way to create makeshift fields and equipment.

Maybe it's my bias showing, but baseball seems to have far fewer "look at me!" occasions (Manny's stargazing in Tokyo notwithstanding), and most celebrations are team - or at least group - events, like the high-5s at home after a HR. A linebacker stones the runner and we see 15 seconds of fist-pumping strut. An outfielder makes a great catch and throw and heads back to his position. And basketball (NBA, anyway) seems all about 1-on-1 and monster slams. Could that lack of show-off opportunities make baseball "less sexy?"

Do kids still play stickball in the streets of NY like they did early in Willie Mays' career? Just a stick and a ball - pretty cheap.

Basketball, football and even hockey are played during the school year. Baseball is played in the summer, and thus scholastic baseball needs to be shoehorned into the spring, its season ending well before the big-league pennant races start heating up. So high school and college baseball are never going to get any respect; hell, the only non-MLB action that gets any (national) attention at all is the Little League World Series. (Imagine a world where hardly anyone payed attention to the big bowl games or March Madness!)

This is one of the main reasons there's never been (OK, since 1915) a serious challenge to MLB. I mean, a second football league can take its pick from several collegiate/municipal football stadiums that are as big (and often bigger) than the ones in the NFL; same story with the NBA and the NHL. (Granted, it's a lot harder to do that now than it was in the 70s, when there were fewer cities with big-league teams and the NFL, NBA and NHL were less monolithic and all-powerful). But there just aren't very many big-league-sized (40K+) baseball stadiums not being used by MLB: let's see, there's Candlestick, and Qualcomm, and, uh...is Tiger Stadium still standing? How about the Astrodome?

And of course you can't use collegiate baseball stadiums: they're all way too small, as are minor league parks. (Somewhere I have a spreadsheet that lists most of the ballparks in America -- yes, I know, I need to get a life -- and I think it says the average size of MLB parks is something like 42K, while AAA stadiums are around 12K, and collegiate stadiums average less than 5,000. Ouch.)

Getting back to the original topic: there are plenty of non-white kids playing baseball -- overseas. In places like Cuba, the weather is warm and baseball is all-pervasive, the way it was in this country before WW2. Japan, Korea, Taiwan -- they're all baseball-crazy, and they have professional leagues with stadiums of MLB-size (if not quite MLB-quality). If you really wanted to start a league to compete with MLB, you'd want to start there, not in America. A baseball version of the old WLAF, with teams in Asia and Central America and a handful in the US/Canada, might work but would probably need to much start-up money to get going.

Who is the baseball equivalent of Terrell Owens or Chad Johnson? Can you imagine the negative press an MLB player who behaved like that would get? Look what happened to Lastings Milledge because he high-fived some fans and recorded a rap track.

Yes I know Deion Sanders but he was mostly NFL with a bit of MLB on the side.

If the culture of your sport suppresses the charismatic entertainer, and tears down any African-American athletes so denying them role models, don't be surprised when the kids don't care much for the sport.

"Who is the baseball equivalent of Terrell Owens or Chad Johnson?"

Albert Belle or Milton Bradley.

I understand your point, though. It's weird that Shawne Merriman can use steroids, get suspended, and make the Pro Bowl in the same year, while Barry Bonds is still unemployed.

You can? My perception of "alley" might be off, but I think of an alley as about ten feet wide. That's not big enough. It'd also be pretty rough getting tackled while playing on a paved surface. Sure, you can play touch, but that turns into tackle pretty quickly.

You can play football on any side street outside of Manhattan. I played growing up on a street that was maybe 3 car-widths wide, often with cars parked on one side of it. It was paved. You simply can't do that with baseball, to any satisfying degree. With football, you can play in mild traffic, even, because of the start-stop nature of the game. If cars are driving by at a rate of less than 3 per minute, you'll be fine.