I attribute African-American fatherlessness largely to short-sighted public policy, but that is for a future post.

NOW we're talking about a BTF thread monster!

I'm with him up to here though; and I'm fine with saying the black community's fanlessness is a product of both the underlying factors that cause fatherlessness and the fatherlessness itself.

I think he's 100% correct.

The decline of the black family happened so quickly in the aftermath of the Great Society it's impossible not to see the link. The government provided an economic substitute for a husband /father that was an adequate substitute only for the poor. These poor were disproportionately black.

At the same time other forces (free-trade/de-industrialization, widespread illegal immigration) were undermining the earning power of unskilled workers, who, big surprise, are found primarily among the poor.

So, the ability of poor men to support a family was declining, the gov't was providing a substitute source of income which was available only if you didn't get married.

Oh, BTW, now that this phenomena has gained cultural hold, and low-skill wages continue to fall, the phenomena of fatherlessness is spreading rapidly through the hispanic and white working class populations. Whites now have the same rate of fatherlessness as blacks did in the early 1960's (~25%).

Basketball and football have plenty of black dudes.

Not blaming Whitey... oh everyone is gonna nod along with this thread, smilin' and all...

When fathers began to massively disappear from the African-American families in the mid 1980s, so did the game of baseball from those communities.

Let me take all of this from another perspective, as I'm guessing I'm one of the few African-Americans on this board. The 70's and 80's while not perfect for African-Americans did provide substantially increased opportunities for AA in all aspects of American society. This change in AA's lives also forced a re-examination of what the pre-Civil Rights Era meant. One of the aspects that stands out and unfortunately for baseball is often used as an example of that change was Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier. I think, personally, that this incident while of course properly elevating Jackie's contribution to the civil rights movement also diminished AA's general view of baseball as a "white" sport that didn't give opportunities for AA. Obviously, this isn't to say that basketball and football where great sports for AA during the pre-CR era but that period obviously doesn't contain the same image problem.

I'm obviously a huge fan of baseball, but the majority of my friends don't have the father issues of the AA stereotype and don't look at baseball as a sport for them. I've never had a conversation around these issues exact issues around baseball, but I can say with experience that baseball is lumped more often with a sport like hockey or golf by most than with the other major American sports like football and basektball.

#3 raises the point I was going to raise. "Fatherlessness" among African-American families is clearly a public policy issue but I'm not understanding why it hurts baseball but not basketball, football, track, etc.

And of course I'd like to see something that controlled for income -- other than possibly Hispanics, I'd guess baseball isn't overflowing with fans in poverty, regardless of race.

The decline of the black family happened so quickly in the aftermath of the Great Society it's impossible not to see the link.

The "decline" of the black family occurred roughly simultaneously with any of a bejillion social and political phenomena (the post-War African-American migration from the South, urban decay, white flight, urban "renewal", shift to a service economy and the destruction of low-skill wages, a decline in the African-American business class, flagging unionization, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, etc.) that you'd be foolish to use temporal proximity as a sign of cause and effect. The argument has to be a lot more sophisticated than that.

fathers pass along the appreciation of baseball tradition

but I'm not understanding why it hurts baseball but not basketball, football, track, etc.

This was my thought as well. So a youth can discover football on their own, but baseball is too much?

#5 makes a good point as well. Or maybe it alludes to it and I'm running too far with it. But has there really been a decline in African-American fans? Have the major leagues ever really been popular among African-Americans? Or was there substantial African-American interest in Negro League baseball but, other than presumably the early integration period, MLB has never had African-American fans?

I don't know the answer to that and I doubt anyone else does. We infer it from a decline in the %age of African-American players (although I still don't think I've seen anyone measure this controlling for the decline in American-born players overall) and some of us infer it from vague memories of seeing a higher percentage of African-Americans at games when we were kids (but a lot about "being a fan" has changed since then). We infer it from a lack of baseball fields and a (presumed?) decline in Little League teams but such things aren't driven solely by local interest -- i.e. you find a shortage of supermarkets in African-American neighborhoods too but I'm pretty sure there's been no decline in interest in eating.

Anyway, clearly the solution to this is a marketing campaign targeted at African-American mothers. :-)

I think, personally, that this incident while of course properly elevating Jackie's contribution to the civil rights movement also diminished AA's general view of baseball as a "white" sport that didn't give opportunities for AA. Obviously, this isn't to say that basketball and football where great sports for AA during the pre-CR era but that period obviously doesn't contain the same image problem.

I don't doubt that you're at least partially correct here, although the integrations of the NFL, NBA, and MLB all happened at essentially the same time: 1947 for baseball, 1946 for the NFL, and 1950 for the NBA. There had been African American players in MLB and the NFL before these times, but only in the very early days of both leagues, and there had been long segregation periods before WW II. I think really, then, that the reason Jackie Robinson was a big deal was that baseball was way more important in the public consciousness than football or basketball were in the 1940's. Nobody really cared that the NFL was integrated. It was a sideshow. I've never heard of a Negro League equivalent for football, and while the Harlem Globetrotters did exist, the idea of a full league's worth of African American basketball teams probably never occurred to anyone in the 1940's. I think your point really comes down to the fact that by the time that football and basketball really became popular at the professional level, the idea of segregating a pro sports league was absurd. Robinson and Doby and Campanella and a few other guys had already done all the heavy lifting. All the people who could have gone either way about being racist or not had come to accept that an African American man could be a great athelte and a class act.

There's another issue, too, though, one which is getting better in football very quickly and worse in baseball: the number of players at the "intelligence" positions (quarterback, center, and middle linebacker in the NFL, pitcher and catcher in baseball). At those positions in the NFL, I'd guess about 30% of players are African Americans. The last African American catcher I can remember in the big leagues was Charles Johnson, and he was a superb defensive catcher - great arm, great hands, great game caller - who would have been a very poor defensive player at any other position because he was so slow. There have been a few more African American pitchers in the past couple years than there had been for a while, but there still are very few of them. I have a feeling that the unintentional racism of "this guy looks like a catcher" when the mental image of a catcher is always a white guy is hard at work nowadays. There are plenty of black Latin catchers, but I think the scouts who work those areas are less likely to be white guys. I don't think there is intentional racism going on like there once might have been, but I think there must be something wrong. Generally whenever a group is underrepresented, and the few represented members are overqualified, that indicates some intentional or unintentional bias.

Anyway, clearly the solution to this is a marketing campaign targeted at African-American mothers. :-)

Good snark. I just think that there is a leap that the author is making that just doesn't seem to be there. The whole "Field of Dreams" passing of baseball from father to son just doesn't seem like an archetype that was ever in the black community. Yes African Americans once loved and participated in baseball, but America once loved boxing. I think its easier explained by a more general decline in its popularity than making this sociological leap than the author clearly uses as his reasoning for most of the problems with the African American community, if you do any quick research.

#5 makes a good point as well. Or maybe it alludes to it and I'm running too far with it. But has there really been a decline in African-American fans? Have the major leagues ever really been popular among African-Americans? Or was there substantial African-American interest in Negro League baseball but, other than presumably the early integration period, MLB has never had African-American fans?

Of course there's no statistical evidence about this, but it's been written by more than a few people, including black sportswriters like Sam Lacy, that there was always a strong contingent of African American fans at Major League parks in the Jim Crow era. In the early part of the 20th century they were frequently consigned to separate seating sections in places like Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, or Griffith Stadium in Washington, but nevertheless they were there. And as you imply, for a brief period in the late 40's black fans actually made up a disproportionate part of the crowds for games featuring the Dodgers or the Indians, as much as 50% in a handful of cases.

As to why blacks seem to gravitate towards basketball and football rather than baseball, I think the main factor is the far greater emphasis placed on the former sports at the high school and college level, with all the attendant athletic scholarships and the far greater media attention. And for basketball, you can add the relative ease of practicing on your own, with the ability to work on your moves without having to have anyone else around. Black kids might well look upon baseball as a "white" sport, but I think that's an attitude that's evolved because of these other factors more than it's something that's been there forever.

Man, #9, thanks for reminding me of Charles Johnson. I'd somehow completely forgotten about him. You're right, he was one of the slowest players I remember--Molina-slow. But sparkling defense, and, in his prime, some good offense, too--an .113 OPS+ for the World Champs in 1997.

while the Harlem Globetrotters did exist, the idea of a full league's worth of African American basketball teams probably never occurred to anyone in the 1940's

African-American basketball in segregation times was a very big deal. It's more that a pro major league of any color didn't occur to people till the late 40s, and in any event the BAA/NBA integrated very quickly after it was founded, in the wake of major Northern college basketball programs doing the same. In any case, your general point is quite right: back when even "white" basketball's idea of major-league cities were Ft. Wayne and Sheboygan, nobody in the media was much interested in the integration of pro basketball.

And, to echo Walt in #6, the notion that the Great Society somehow caused "black fatherlessness" within a half-dozen years or so is far-fetched. It's based on an assumption that if the community takes care of people, their moral fiber goes to hell. You might just as well assume that people's moral fiber will go to hell if the community doesn't take care of them. Thousands of deadbeat white dads in 1930s Hoovervilles would agree. But as Walt notes better than I could, social phenomena are incredibly complex, and simplistic explanations don't help understand them.

"Fatherlessness" among African-American families is clearly a public policy issue but I'm not understanding why it hurts baseball but not basketball, football, track, etc.

I think a significant difference between baseball and those other sports is that it takes more skill and less athleticism in order to excel. You need a lot more coaching on technique to be great, and a stable family, school or neighborhood environment makes that much more likely to be available. And as mentioned above, success breeds interest, so these other sports have been adopted more and more as time went on. This isn't a zero-sum situation, but there is a fair amount of redistribution of recreational time and dollars at work here.

We've had this discussion before, and it isn't simple and it doesn't resolve to a clean series of points. Did anyone ever find good historical numbers on MLB demographics?

And, to echo Walt in #6, the notion that the Great Society somehow caused "black fatherlessness" within a half-dozen years or so is far-fetched. It's based on an assumption that if the community takes care of people, their moral fiber goes to hell. You might just as well assume that people's moral fiber will go to hell if the community doesn't take care of them. Thousands of deadbeat white dads in 1930s Hoovervilles would agree. But as Walt notes better than I could, social phenomena are incredibly complex, and simplistic explanations don't help understand them.

Is it so hard to believe that id a family (or potential family) with poverty level income (say $15,000 in today's money) is all of a sudden offered ~$10-15,000 in government assistance, but only if they don't marry, they will choose not to marry?

They may still choose to have kids, and the father may unofficially live with them, but they won't marry. This will make for a much less stable family. The father no longer feels financially responsible for his children, so is less likely to work, and when he doesn't work, the mother is more likely to dump him.

What do you think would happen to white middle class marriage rates, and legitimacy rates, if the government offered $100,000 p.a. to college educated women but only if they had children, and didn't marry?

Doesn't the move of many AA from rural south to urban inner cities have some part in this?

Baseball requires some space to play, especially compared to baseketball, where you can put up a hoop about anywhere.