This is the third in a September series highlighting some of the best Black writers and creatives around baseball. This is the second piece by writer and journalist Karleigh Webb.
My late grandfather had two loves. One was his wife of 68 years, the other was baseball.
He played, coached and adored this game. He coached youth baseball for over 50 years. Each spring doing the same thing. He’d get a lot of kids from the neighborhood, a largely African-American enclave, and he’d form a team.
He’d have the gear, the uniform, the practices and teach baseball. He built a schedule each spring and summer and his teams would play ball anywhere they get a game.
The seasons would often start out rough, because each year it would be nearly new group of kids. By the end of the season tournaments, his teams would often shine. Some of his players would move on and make high school and college teams. But they’d all grow to love baseball the way he did.
Why he loved this game so much? He told me during one summer night after his team had outhustled and outplayed the opposition to another gritty win.
“I love baseball because this sport was the first to let me in. The first to let us in,”
In his later years, he saw his coaching as fighting against the tide. He often lamented, “It hard to get Black kids fired up to play baseball. They don’t see themselves playing ball in high school or college or the majors. They don’t see enough of themselves in the majors.”
It’s a thought I’ve heard from any Black men who love sports and are a certain age. He was 18 and playing on a semipro sandlot when Jackie Robinson first wore Brooklyn Dodger Blue.
He started a family and built a business through the 1950s and 1960s as the number of African-American players grew from a trickle into a steady stream. By the time his grandchild-turned-scribe (that’s me) came into the world, Black players accounted for 15.5% of the majors and continued to grow to a high-water mark over 18% by 1975.
Since that same grandchild grew to an adult, that number shrank. Today that number is 7.8 percent as of opening day, the lowest since 1960.
Many articles have tried to explain that number, but we’re seeing an effect of this decline. We see it in the tepid response of was we call “The National Pastime” in the historic national moment.
On Tuesday, Ursula Parson put up scathing, accurate appraisal of the timid-to-indifferent response of many players in the demographic majority of the American and National leagues to the protests across the country. In a George Floyd or Jacob Blake, a Black player sees himself. That doesn’t resonant with their teammate who aren’t black, and with a fanbase and media footprint that is largely white.
To me part of that timidness is a matter of “out of sight, out of mind”.
Commissioner Rob Manfred, the owners and the players won’t have an answer to police brutality or inequality and human rights. They can aid in seeing that more Black faces are in the dugouts, clubhouses and team offices.
The NBA, NFL, even the MLS, has used the moment to build initiatives and expand community outreach. Major League Baseball, you can do the same, and you have an issue and an infrastructure to do it.
Since 1989, the Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities program has been trying to stave off the shrinking Black presence in the sport. It is seems even with expansion of the program in the last decade, the effort still seems to be tepid.
My thought, make a new expansion of the program and bring in organizations in the communities, not as props but as partners, in limited ways in some cities stride have been made, but in the moment, now is the time to build a continuous concrete response that not only reflects a commitment to communities, but can also spark a commitment to growing this game.
Also, bring all the parts of the game into this. Amateur baseball, USA baseball, sponsors, broadcast partners, alums (especially alums because that also handle the “name a baseball player” problem MLB has – that’s my next column). That $30 million a year you are putting into the RBI effort? Double that for the next 3-5 years and put some of that into a real revival of this sport in African-American communities, and there’s very little need to reinvent the wheel. The other major leagues are doing this extensively. Even sports with lower profiles are getting aggressive at their grassroots, not by reinventing the wheel, but finding what’s working and putting material resources and knowledge in line with it. This moment, especially with the spotlight on you because you are playing amid this COVID pandemic, is a prime time to build a plan and get the parts needed behind the effort together.
Such would also involve doing something this sport has done for 120-plus years. Beat the bushes and find the person who was like my grandfather. They are in every city, town and hamlet in this country. Seek out those parents and supporters trying to start that league. Seek out that lifer. Seek out that ex-major leaguer or minor leaguer passing on that love, but also passing on the legacy of a Buck O’Neil and a Larry Doby, and Jackie Robinson. You are already doing this across Latin America and look how much impact it’s had. It’s made the game exciting and better. Bring that focus and intensity here. Think “Wins Above Replacement”.
Your own website recently had 5 true believers, all team scouts, who said the same things. I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before.
But now is a time to really listen because the silence on the diamond in the moment spoke loudly. It confirmed a message more in step with 1940 than 2020, and the demographic of the sports are sending a similar message.
My grandfather said this often when talking about civil rights and progress: “We’ve come too far to go back to those days.”
I hear the urgent tone of his voice saying that from his grave now, and yes Major League Baseball, he’s talking to you.
Karleigh Webb is a midwestern girl who bleeds Kansas City Royals blue. She is a regular writer/contributor to our SB Nation companion site Outsports and a the co-host of The Trans Sporter Room podcast.
When not writing about sports, she’s participating in them as a avid runner and cyclist.
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