burnet44
07-25-2007, 09:20 PM
dwindling minority
With fewer young, black players rising, there's a void at top
By TODD WILLS / The Dallas Morning News
twills@dallasnews.com
Whenever Nico Taylor travels to a major select baseball summer tournament, he and his father count the number of black players on the opposing teams.
At the East Cobb Yankees Classic in Atlanta, the city with the 11th largest African-American population, Taylor and his father counted eight black players on the seven opponents his Dallas Mustangs team played.
Taylor, who is black, was not surprised.
"There's not a push for black kids to go out and play baseball," Taylor said, "so they never get to enjoy the sport."
Taylor, who plays high school baseball at McKinney North, said he "maybe" remembers seeing one black player in 29 games his team played against mostly suburban teams this spring.
Taylor, 17, is the only black player on his high school team. He is one of two black players on the Mustangs under-18 team. Mansfield Timberview infielder Michael Choice is the other.
Taylor, who will be a senior in the fall, also plays basketball. There are four other black players on the basketball team. He doesn't play football, even though at 6-3, 195 pounds, he has the ideal frame to play wide receiver in a football-crazy state. He played receiver and running back in middle school but hasn't practiced the sport for his high school.
"Everybody comes up to me and asks why I don't play football," Taylor said. "But there's a lot of risk of injury. The football coaches came after me before my junior year and said it was time to get into football.
"But baseball is my future."
The fact is, 60 years after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball, considered one of the most important moments in this country's history, the African-American baseball player is slowly disappearing from the game.
MIKE STONE / Special to DMN
Nico Taylor is the only black player on McKinney North's high school team and one of two on the Dallas Mustangs' under-18 team. The latest study by the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports revealed that the percentage of African-American players in Major League Baseball in 2006 hit a new low of 8.4 percent since yearly statistics became available in 1991.
The percentage isn't much different at the amateur select level. Guerry Baldwin runs one of the nation's top programs, the East Cobb Baseball Complex in Marietta, Ga., near Atlanta. He estimated the level of African-American participation at 10 percent.
Participation in select baseball has become an important steppingstone for players eager to play high school ball and then move into college ball or straight to a professional contract. Sam Carpenter has run the Dallas Mustangs select program since 1986 and easily details the advantages of playing in what amounts to an all-star league.
"How often can you hit a ball 400 feet? How often can you be accurate throwing 95 miles per hour? Can you catch ground balls? Select ball helps you with those skills," said Carpenter, whose teams have won four national championships in the AABC Connie Mack division. "Those happen in select ball."
Players of color are still prominent in the major leagues. In fact, 40.5 percent of the players in 2006 were of color, close to the all-time high of 42 percent in 1997. But 29.4 percent of those players are from Latin America. The last time the percentage of black players and Latino players was equal was 1995, when each made up 19 percent of the major league rosters.
Sheffield speaks out
In an interview in the June issue of GQ, Gary Sheffield of the Detroit Tigers said Latin players have replaced African-Americans as baseball's most prevalent minority because they are "easier to control."
AP
In a recent magazine article, Detroit's Gary Sheffield said Latin players have replaced African-Americans as major league baseball's most prevalent minority because they are "easier to control." "Where I'm from, you can't control us," Sheffield told the magazine. "So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of those guys."
When the Tigers came to Arlington in late June, days after Sheffield's comments to GQ were made public, he added more insight. Sheffield, who played in a top Little League program in Tampa, Fla., said he played baseball when he was young because he knew he could. He said it was up to everyone from Major League Baseball to the black community to make sure there are programs to encourage participation.
"There is no one answer to anything," Sheffield said. "It's something everybody has to do collectively. We have to develop different programs to work to get something to get the situation better, to elevate it."
In some cases, peer pressure works against black youths who want to play baseball. Former DeSoto outfielder Kenny Gilbert said his friends pressured him to give up baseball for the school's more successful football and basketball programs.
Gilbert, who played for a select team called the Dukes, which practices in Mesquite, said he wasn't surprised to be one of five black players on the Chicago White Sox's rookie league team. He was used to a similar racial mix on his high school team.
"But the team we just played didn't have any," he added.
With fewer young, black players rising, there's a void at top
By TODD WILLS / The Dallas Morning News
twills@dallasnews.com
Whenever Nico Taylor travels to a major select baseball summer tournament, he and his father count the number of black players on the opposing teams.
At the East Cobb Yankees Classic in Atlanta, the city with the 11th largest African-American population, Taylor and his father counted eight black players on the seven opponents his Dallas Mustangs team played.
Taylor, who is black, was not surprised.
"There's not a push for black kids to go out and play baseball," Taylor said, "so they never get to enjoy the sport."
Taylor, who plays high school baseball at McKinney North, said he "maybe" remembers seeing one black player in 29 games his team played against mostly suburban teams this spring.
Taylor, 17, is the only black player on his high school team. He is one of two black players on the Mustangs under-18 team. Mansfield Timberview infielder Michael Choice is the other.
Taylor, who will be a senior in the fall, also plays basketball. There are four other black players on the basketball team. He doesn't play football, even though at 6-3, 195 pounds, he has the ideal frame to play wide receiver in a football-crazy state. He played receiver and running back in middle school but hasn't practiced the sport for his high school.
"Everybody comes up to me and asks why I don't play football," Taylor said. "But there's a lot of risk of injury. The football coaches came after me before my junior year and said it was time to get into football.
"But baseball is my future."
The fact is, 60 years after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball, considered one of the most important moments in this country's history, the African-American baseball player is slowly disappearing from the game.
MIKE STONE / Special to DMN
Nico Taylor is the only black player on McKinney North's high school team and one of two on the Dallas Mustangs' under-18 team. The latest study by the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports revealed that the percentage of African-American players in Major League Baseball in 2006 hit a new low of 8.4 percent since yearly statistics became available in 1991.
The percentage isn't much different at the amateur select level. Guerry Baldwin runs one of the nation's top programs, the East Cobb Baseball Complex in Marietta, Ga., near Atlanta. He estimated the level of African-American participation at 10 percent.
Participation in select baseball has become an important steppingstone for players eager to play high school ball and then move into college ball or straight to a professional contract. Sam Carpenter has run the Dallas Mustangs select program since 1986 and easily details the advantages of playing in what amounts to an all-star league.
"How often can you hit a ball 400 feet? How often can you be accurate throwing 95 miles per hour? Can you catch ground balls? Select ball helps you with those skills," said Carpenter, whose teams have won four national championships in the AABC Connie Mack division. "Those happen in select ball."
Players of color are still prominent in the major leagues. In fact, 40.5 percent of the players in 2006 were of color, close to the all-time high of 42 percent in 1997. But 29.4 percent of those players are from Latin America. The last time the percentage of black players and Latino players was equal was 1995, when each made up 19 percent of the major league rosters.
Sheffield speaks out
In an interview in the June issue of GQ, Gary Sheffield of the Detroit Tigers said Latin players have replaced African-Americans as baseball's most prevalent minority because they are "easier to control."
AP
In a recent magazine article, Detroit's Gary Sheffield said Latin players have replaced African-Americans as major league baseball's most prevalent minority because they are "easier to control." "Where I'm from, you can't control us," Sheffield told the magazine. "So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of those guys."
When the Tigers came to Arlington in late June, days after Sheffield's comments to GQ were made public, he added more insight. Sheffield, who played in a top Little League program in Tampa, Fla., said he played baseball when he was young because he knew he could. He said it was up to everyone from Major League Baseball to the black community to make sure there are programs to encourage participation.
"There is no one answer to anything," Sheffield said. "It's something everybody has to do collectively. We have to develop different programs to work to get something to get the situation better, to elevate it."
In some cases, peer pressure works against black youths who want to play baseball. Former DeSoto outfielder Kenny Gilbert said his friends pressured him to give up baseball for the school's more successful football and basketball programs.
Gilbert, who played for a select team called the Dukes, which practices in Mesquite, said he wasn't surprised to be one of five black players on the Chicago White Sox's rookie league team. He was used to a similar racial mix on his high school team.
"But the team we just played didn't have any," he added.