The start of the Major League Baseball season begins next Tuesday in Tokyo, Japan, where the defending World Series champion Dodgers will face the Chicago Cubs. One of the sport’s best players, infielder/outfielder Mookie Betts will suit up for the Dodgers. But the future Hall Famer is one of baseball’s few African American stars in the league today.
In generations past, Major Baseball’s All-Star Game, also known as the Midsummer Classic, would have rosters replete with African American players. Now, only a handful take the field in the annual July showcase. According to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida, in 1991, the first year it conducted a study on baseball’s racial demographics, 18% of Major League Baseball players were African American. On Opening Day last season, the number was just 6% — a decline from 6.2% in 2023 and 7.2% in 2022.
“There are so many factors that have caused the drop,” said Pittsburgh Pirates area supervisor Brandon Rembert to this writer last summer. The 26-year-old former outfielder for the HBCU Alcorn State University Braves has spent countless hours traveling across the United States and the Caribbean searching for MLB caliber talent.
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Rembert attends events such as the DREAM Series, an MLB developmental program, as well as numerous high school and college games. But the foundation for future major leaguers must be assembled much earlier.
“Today, AAU baseball is so prominent and critically important to growing and nurturing young players,” said Rembert. Kids are now playing for elite AAU teams and getting the experience of going from state to state competing against other top players at an early age. Many have personal trainers and coaches. So obviously, it’s very expensive. Some parents have the means to provide them with specialized training. Many do not. For a lot of African American kids the cost is prohibitive.”
In the age of profit-driven youth sports, socio-economics is a key determinant in the opportunities pre-teens and teens are afforded. But changing culture is also a prevalent element of African American youth turning away from a sport that was once an indivisible strand of the fabric of Black pride in America, with Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron among Black folks’ greatest heroes.
“Baseball isn’t associated with hip-hop culture like basketball and football,” said Rembert. “The marketing of its players isn’t on the level of basketball and football.”
For certain, young African Americans see the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves uber-athletic guard Anthony Edwards and the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens astonishing quarterback Lamar Jackson as representations and reflections of who they are culturally. They vicariously become them in video games, another driving force of youths sports preferences.
African American baseball players look to increase MLB representation. But they have already lost the past two.