Mythbusting: Jackie Robinson and Blacks in Baseball

It is heartwarming that Major League Baseball's 60th anniversary tribute to Jackie Robinson grew organically from the request of Ken Griffey Jr. that he be allowed to wear Robinson's retired #42 on April 15, in honor of the civil rights hero. But some are taking the opportunity to call attention to a perceived problem: the exodus of blacks from baseball.

Jeff Passan notes that just 8% of MLB players today are Black like Robinson, down from 25% in the 1970's. Why the precipitous decline? Passan quotes Black pitcher C.C. Sabathia, who called the decline a "crisis". Others have joined in, here, here, and here.

Clearly there's been a decline. Part of that is due to a change in Black culture - Black boys are playing more basketball and football, especially in cities. But there's also been a decline of Americans in the sport in general. Hispanics and Asians have broken into the big leagues in a way that would make proud Ozzie Virgil (DR, 1956) or Masanori Murakami (Japan, 1964) and probably Robinson as well.

So where do we stand now? According to Wikipedia, 582 out of 744 players on the 30 MLB rosters at the beginning of the 2006 season were American. Of these, 75 were black. This year, it's more like 60 (to get 8% of the total). I don't know how many Americans are in MLB this year.

Thus, 12.9% of American MLB players last year were Black. Compare that to the 2005 Census estimate, which indicates that 12.8% of Americans are Black. In other words, Blacks are exactly represented in Major League Baseball - pound for pound, man for man. That's not tragedy, that's equality! And if we consider that many of the new Latino players are also the descendents of African slaves, we see once again that baseball is ahead of its time, foreshadowing an America that gives equal opportunity to her children and opens her arms wide to the world.

If this 12.9% represents extreme equality, why are Black Americans so overrepresented in the other big sports? Should we expect Blacks' overrepresentation to hold across all sports? Indeed, African-Americans have more aberrantly strong, tall and athletic types than most ethnic groups. I know of two hypotheses to explain this phenomenon: the unnatural selection process of slavery favored those attributes; any racial "hybrid" is called "Black" even if he is mostly European, and hybrid humans may combine strengths in the same way other species do, at least in some part of the distribution.

This is where baseball comes in. It is the ultimate American sport, and success therein requires more years of training than basketball or football (few players can jump from college or high school to the majors) and less all-around athleticism. Major League rosters exhibit more body types than NFL rosters and far more than NBA rosters. While genetics may create more tall African-Americans (and more power to them!), it can't do as much to create more "dirt-dogging", obsessive, driven African-Americans. I am proud to report that success in baseball does not appear to be a function of race at all.

The conversation is not over. While there is nothing negative to report about the level of black participation in baseball, the trend, if it continues, is discouraging. How do the minor leagues look? College teams? The continued efforts of Major League Baseball and others to build strong urban baseball programs is probably important in keeping our National Pastime integrated at its low levels. But as the conversation continues, let's keep two things in mind. First, Blacks are fully represented in Major League Baseball. And second, if Black kids and teens are choosing to play other sports over baseball, it's because they have lots of open opportunities. And that's something I would be proud to tell Jackie Robinson.