The first of three articles by Chuck Curti on the shifting demographics of baseball playing has appeared in today's
Times.
All the hand-wringing about the few African-American teenagers interested in baseball may be misguided. I can relate to people who are interested in diversity for diversity's sake, and think a baseball team is best if the players look different and talk different and think different and thus bring people together. Historically, that's been one of the major contributions of baseball (and later, all pro sports). The MLB playing field has never been so diverse, however, as the major leagues draw in players from all corners of the globe. We have South American players, Korean players, Japanese players, Mexican players, and so on.
So the "problem" outlined in Curti's piece is not one of growing homogeneity at the big-league level. No top-quality players are systematically excluded from professional rosters because of the color of the skin. No one can complain that the big-league teams are turning qualified players away for such foolish reasons these days. That's why the state of baseball today does not compare so well with the state of baseball before the integration of Negro league players.
The "problem" is the growing homogeneity - described as "whiteness" here - of baseball players on the American sandlots, Pony league fields, high school, and college teams. It's not that high schoolers aren't playing baseball. It's that not too many African-American high schoolers are playing baseball. Plenty of people of color are playing ball in their teenage years - but not so much in this country.
I've noticed a trend among ballplayers that echoes the broader trend responsible for the whitening described by Curti. The problem is not race but economics. It seems like every other hot prospect is the son of a millionaire former ballplayer and that every front-office heartthrob has come from the Ivy Leagues. Baseball was once the great sport of immigrants. Sure, there was Christy Matthewson, but it was Honus Wagner who popularized the sport for most of the people in the stands. The cheap seats are gone and now every seat is a luxury seat. Compared to the "good old days" of the deadball era, baseball games today are terribly expensive events (so are movies). Over the last fifty years, the disposable income of the lower and middle classes has been evaporating as a combination of factors (e.g. the stagnation of wages, the rise in property and commuting costs) has forced a growing percentage of lower- and middle-class families to be supported by two or more full-time jobs. The lower and middle classes not only have less money to spend for baseball tickets that are relatively more expensive, they also have less time to attend games. As the mass of park-going fans has trended upscale, it's no surprise that the sport has lost most of its lower-income fans. The move from day to night games and from radio to television broadcasting has also compounded the problems which have driven away the poorer fans. How can you follow the game when you can't afford to go to the ballpark, and almost all the ballgames are at night, on television, up against other kinds of programming that you prefer to watch? Before 1960, the average baseball fan listened to games on the radio if they couldn't go to the park. Football and basketball make more compelling television, for whatever reason. If you want more fans among poor people, baseball should do more to market their product on the radio so working people can follow the team while they do their jobs. Why not rebroadcast games at 1pm every day? Many people would prefer to listen to baseball at work than the same old classic rock station or the same old right-wing rantfest.
Of course, since poor people have less money, not too many big-money entertainment businesses instinctively cater to (much less sympathize with) their needs. The truth is, major-league baseball does not want to grow their fan base among the immigrant, the poor, the lower middle classes. At least I see no evidence that this is the case.
Until baseball recaptures the imagination of the working poor, no one can expect the demographics of teenage ballplayers to match anything other than the upscale demographics of the modern fan. I've always found the bean-counting diversity standards (how many whites? how many blacks?) economically oppressive. I've known many "elite" people who were proud of the racial diversity they lived in, but, at the same time, harbored the most offensive prejudice against poor people. My guess would be that a majority of the African-American high school and college players are just as well-off as their white teammates. Baseball has been gentrified and the process of gentrification shows no signs of slowing down.
In the end, though, we have to remember that baseball is a game. There's no great moral imperative for diversity and balance on the playing field the same way, for example, there is for diversity and balance in government. Why should a baseball purist care if high-school baseball is becoming something like golf, tennis, or polo in America? There is no shortage of local and international talent to stock our professional leagues. This really isn't a grave issue. It doesn't hurt a community terribly to have no black American baseball players on the diamond at City High. It does hurt a community terribly to have no black American politicians down at City Hall.
