Where has baseball gone?: It's painful. It's the disappearing act of baseball in the inner city.
posted by mick to baseball at 12:13 PM - 1 comment
On a related note, a Sports Illustrated column asks What happened to the black baseball players? The column cites the rising percentage of Latino players, the declining popularity of baseball in inner cities, unavailability of baseball scholarships, and greater financial rewards in pro basketball and football.
The most interesting theory is a double-edged Jackie Robinson effect, where baseball is credited for integrating, but resented by some people for being segregated in the first place. "When baseball excluded blacks, the other sports didn't matter. I think a lot of blacks associate the sport with the pre-Robinson era, fairly so. The stain that the discrimination represented was not as much a football, basketball or hockey stain as a baseball stain."
On a related note, a Sports Illustrated column asks What happened to the black baseball players? The column cites the rising percentage of Latino players, the declining popularity of baseball in inner cities, unavailability of baseball scholarships, and greater financial rewards in pro basketball and football.
The most interesting theory is a double-edged Jackie Robinson effect, where baseball is credited for integrating, but resented by some people for being segregated in the first place. "When baseball excluded blacks, the other sports didn't matter. I think a lot of blacks associate the sport with the pre-Robinson era, fairly so. The stain that the discrimination represented was not as much a football, basketball or hockey stain as a baseball stain."