All-Stars reflect face of baseball

The reality struck me while standing in the National League clubhouse the other night before the All-Star Game. I looked around the room and suddenly noticed something was missing.

Where’d all the African-American players go?

This was the league that gave the world Jackie Robinson. On this past Tuesday night, it had two black All-Stars. The American League barely had more. The NHL All-Star Game barely had fewer.

But so it goes in modern major league baseball.

This is not a tale of racism, closed doors or Jim Crow. Not in a sport where the Latin players are arriving in waves, and young superstardom is defined by Albert Pujols. Baseball weeds out bad hitters and poor fastballs, not people of color.

Rather, this is a broken connection between a game and a segment of the American population. And an irony it is. Baseball – with glittering names from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela and Japan – has never seemed more inclusive. But not when you start counting black Americans.

“A very disturbing number,” said Ozzie Smith, a Hall of Famer and former St. Louis shortstop. “I don’t think any of us expected it would come to this.”

Baseball owes some of its richest history to the black community. The Negro Leagues. Robinson’s courage. Hank Aaron. Willie Mays. Bob Gibson. Thirty years ago, black Americans accounted for more than 27 percent of major league rosters.

And now black kids avoid the game en masse (so do black customers, if you gaze through many grandstands). The NCAA reports African-American representation on Division I baseball rosters to be in single digits. Some teams at predominantly black colleges are nearly half white.

Now, the black major league proportion is nearing 8 percent. Outside PNC Park in Pittsburgh is a huge statue honoring Willie Stargell. Inside on Tuesday night, you could almost count the black All-Stars on one hand.

Several reasons can be offered. The lack of facilities in inner cities. The popularity of basketball and football among the young. How does baseball compete against the siren call of the NBA, where you turn on the draft and see a kid two years out of high school getting rich?

And maybe baseball’s considerable efforts to woo Latin America diverted its attention from the problem at home.

“So many urban areas have gotten rid of YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, which are very important for the process of developing young players,” Smith said.

“When you start setting up camps in other countries as opposed to camps here, we might have lost some of the few players here we had.”

But there are no villains here. Major League Baseball has put millions of dollars into its RBI program – Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities. It has produced a few players. Just not enough. Not yet, anyway.

It is no coincidence that some of the most established African-American stars such as Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. were sons of players, taught to love the game early. But who takes their places?

“It’s an issue that has to be addressed by baseball, by entertainment, by the colleges,” said Bob Watson, vice president of on-field operations in the commissioner’s office. “All of your major colleges and high schools use football and basketball as their revenue. They want the best athletes, and they’re not going to let them play another sport.

“When was the last time you saw a dual-sport baseball player? There’s your answer.”

But not the solution. Truly, there is no sign of imminent change. The children of New York and Chicago still love their basketball. The children of San Pedro de Macoris still love their baseball.

The All-Star Game reminds us where that leads.