AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > November > 24 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USBaseball starts to see hue of issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
One by one, a who’s who of African-American baseball players filed into a room in New York City to partake in a conference call with the commissioner.
It was a secret meeting.
Well, until now.
“Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Ken Griffey Jr., Derek Jeter. I mean, they were all there, and it was quite remarkable,” said Bud Selig, over the phone from his Milwaukee office, confirming the unprecedented session earlier this month that recently was discovered by an AJC columnist. “We’re not going to stop until we get this thing done.”
Selig’s reference was to the pitiful number of African-American players in the game despite Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier 60 seasons ago. Only eight percent of the players in the majors last season were African-American, compared with 27 percent in the mid-1970s. Worse, the Braves continued their silly trend of having no more than one African-American on their roster at a given time. Even worse, the Braves joined the Houston Astros as the only teams to begin last season without an African-American player.
The Braves eventually added Willie Harris, the same African-American outfielder from Cairo, Ga., who didn’t make their original 25-man roster despite an impressive spring training.
Something is wrong from Atlanta to Houston to San Diego. Selig knows it, which is why the commissioner whose close friend is Hank Aaron, the African-American slugger of the 1950s through the mid-1970s, decided to call this meeting. Not only did Selig invite all of today’s prominent African-American players to attend, but he requested the presence of Frank Robinson, the first African-American manager and Hall of Famer who is an adviser to the commissioner’s office. They huddled with Jimmie Lee Solomon, another African-American, who is Selig’s executive vice president of baseball operations.
The mission was two-fold: First, to have Selig receive information from the group on what it considered as the reasons for the drop in African-American players. Second, to have the group return at a later date with possible solutions.
Is this posturing by the commissioner, or is he actually swinging for the fences and expecting a grand slam?
“To answer your question, the commissioner is very concerned, and he’s very serious about this, and what he’s trying to do is figure out some way to find a solution to this, which is why he’s reaching out to this group,” said Robinson, from his home in Los Angeles. “There’s just not a simple solution to the problem. But what we have a tendency to do is that when somebody says there is a problem and that it should be taken care of, we have a tendency to ignore it initially. I’m not saying the commissioner ignored it, but that is what has happened to all of us in the game.
“We saw things happening over the years, but we didn’t really pay much attention. But now when you look around on the field, and you see the lack of African-Americans, it’s to the point where it is obvious that something has to be done.”
It’s so obvious that many still don’t get it or just prefer to ignore it.
Take, for instance, that gathering for the game’s front-office types in Orlando earlier this month. They congratulated each other on their idea of diversity throughout baseball. They bragged about the growing dominance of Hispanic players. They cited Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Matsui as Japanese stars evolving into American stars.
Selig listened, while trying not to clench his teeth. “They mentioned Taiwanese players and so and so forth, and I said, ‘Look. We’re more diverse than ever, but I’m a great student of history of this sport in every way, and the legacy of Jackie Robinson, an African-American, is so rich. We should — just because it’s the right thing to do — make sure that legacy endures with as many players as possible.’
“With that in mind — and I know I had a long talk with Hank Aaron about this — you had that group of African-Americans come together in New York, and they’re going to come and see me with their recommendations. I want to build more baseball academies, but I also want to know what they want us to do, and what they are willing to do with us, too.”
Sounds good. It always does. Now let’s see if all of this will help the Braves and other franchises stop flirting with returning to the 19th century.
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