Where have they gone?
April 2, 2008 @ 4:47 p.m. by jlongIn my introductory post a reader by the name of Van wanted me to tackle the question of where have the black baseball players gone.Then an individual at the Northwest vs. Heights baseball game asked me the same thing.
So here……you go.
Now the opinion I’m about to give isn’t based on any scientific knowledge or educational theory. Plain and simple you can find most of them on the basketball court.
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball has taken over as the No. 1 thing to do for most of the athletic black males in the summer. The traditional thing for most kids, regardless of color, back in the day was to play whatever sport was in season. However, in this day and age specialization is more rampant than ever and it’s most evident on the diamond where finding blacks is almost harder than playing Where’s Waldo.
It’s not so much a generation gap as it is a sudden surge in the popularity of basketball combined with the disdain of baseball. I grew up playing basketball in the winter and baseball in the summer.It was as routine as showering and brushing your teeth daily. Yet, my brother who is only five years younger than me nixed baseball in his middle school years to focus on basketball in the summer.
There are a variety of reasons that young black kids have turned to basketball as their primary sport. The biggest issue of them is the equipment and number of people necessary to play basketball compared to baseball. The fact that you can hoop by yourself allows kids to play basketball at anytime. Finding 17 other kids to play baseball or even 15 (playing with 2 outfielders) is a very hard task. Also decent baseball equipment isn’t cheap making the game less accessible for those who are somewhat underprivileged. That’s especially damaging when you can hoop on anything that resembles a hoop. And I know all about that we played on the monkey bars in elementary school because we didn’t have a goal on our playground.
That’s just my two cents. What do you think?
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I can agree with you. Basketball is just a simpler sport to play. All you need are some shoes, a basketball, and a place to play.
You’ve been doing a good job Jonathan, I enjoyed your article on the Heights/Northwest baseball game. You should do the Carroll/Northwest game if you want to see some real baseball in the City League.
Keep up the good writing.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I take my comment back, you should go take in a North/Northwest game. Forgot Bishop Carroll wasn’t BISHOP CARROLL this year…
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I agree with everything you said about basketball and you also have to think that a lot of them are doing track instead of baseball during the spring.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 am
Baseball has become rather “elitist.” With baseball schools, Westurban baseball, 90 games a year, youth tournaments every weekend, it takes parents with money and dedication to pull it off. Underprivileged children tend to migrate elsewhere.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:48 am
The lack of a lot of role models at the Major League level has to be a factor too in how high school kids look at it. Major League Baseball has become a white and Latin American sport while the NBA and NFL are led by black players. At the high school level I think there is some sense that people of different ethnic groups do different sports, with some exceptions of course. Perhaps coaches need to work harder at recruiting kids not traditionally attracted to their sport, though in the higher profile sports it may sometimes be too late by the time they reach high school.
April 12th, 2008 at 7:46 am
There have never been very many black kids playing baseball. My 2 sons have played since they were about 4 years old. We could see potential early and they really became very good players, rarely sitting out in games. Once they became teenagers though, they slowly lost interest because we honestly could not afford to put them on the better teams like the Sluggers or Gators. They were extremely high priced and the traveling was extensive. The really good teams go to tournaments every weekend, and they don’t stay local, so you have the expense of hotels and travel, on top of everything else. You get better as a player and team, playing with the better competition. If you talk to some of the parents of players on these teams, they would tell you that they spend probably close to $10,000.00 a season for 1 kid to play, I had 2 wanting to play! When they got to High School, it was the players that played on those teams that got to play, at least at their school. If you didn’t play for those teams…..you were riding the pine, or playing JV.
April 13th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I am really surprised that you havent caught a lot of grief for your article. Are you seriously publishing that African American males do not play baseball because of the cost. Are you insinuating that all African American males are poor? Are you suggesting that the majority of black males are underpriveledged? I think the bigger question is, why no Black people read your posts! Perhaps you should read the article below.
http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/9233.html
April 14th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Bob,
No way am I saying that a majority of black males are underprivileged. Nor am I saying that they are all poor. I’m certainly not.
Baseball is losing a lot of kids because of the cost, not just black ones. CueballKS said it best, that baseball has become an elitist sport.
As far as that article goes thanks for posting it. It was a good read. Mr. Early makes a good point, kids will say that they just don’t want to play baseball. However, you have to focus more on why they don’t want to play instead of just leaving it up to they don’t want to.
Its not that they are just sitting in the house and not doing anything. Most of them are finding solace in other sports. I think the real shame in this is that a lot of the history (Negro Leagues and etc.) is being lost because of the lack of interest.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
J Long,
I am going to guess that you did not really read the article since you are still asking the question. People play, and watch, baseball because they are connected to the game in some type of way. Many African Americans are not choosing baseball because they have no connection to the game. Their parents are not watching the game. Their parents are not taking them to the games etc…
If you want to see some African American players, just take a look at the traditional Black schools. One off the top of my head would be the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. While they are no comparison to a top tier program like Wichita State, they are still playing Division 1 baseball. They play top tier programs like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Honestly, I think that there are more African American players now than there was 10-12 years ago. I played small time college ball at a local NAIA and cant remember one African American player in the whole league. Atleast now I see a few kids coming through even at that level now.
Another problem is that even though we have WSU right here in town, Kansas is not a big baseball state. If you go across the border to the South you will see a huge increase in the number of African American players, not to mention the quality of ball.
That would also explain why many on this board are trying to say that Baseball is an elitist sport. Teams have to travel because the competition around the immediate area is a joke. Kids only get better by playing competition at their level or higher.
Im sure I am going to stir up some other comments on here but, I will stick to my guns. Baseball here is somewhat of a joke. We have some good teams but that is because all the best players get recruited to those teams. If you think its not true, you probably were never good enough to get recruited to play on a summer league team. Summer baseball in the local little league is nothing compared to playing on a traveling team that plays in West Urban just to tune up for their weekend tourneys.