3.2CLS

"NEW YORK - Rachel Robinson still has vivid memories of April 15, 1947, when her husband changed America forever. As Jackie Robinson was getting ready to break baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rachel was hustling to get to Ebbets Field in time to see it.

She waited a long time for a taxi because drivers routinely passed up black passengers. She worried their baby, Jackie Jr., would be cold because she had dressed him in spring clothes. And she stopped at a hot dog stand in the ballpark, where a vendor was kind enough to heat up the boy's bottle.

"It was an exciting, exhilarating time - but it also was a stressful time," Rachel Robinson said.

Reform is rarely a breeze. Sustaining a legacy can be even more difficult.

As Major League Baseball prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Robinson's landmark achievement on Sunday, there are growing concerns about the sport's racial makeup.

Only 8.4 percent of big league players last season were black - the lowest number in at least two decades. In 1995, 19 percent of major leaguers were black, according to Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.

"Obviously, he would not be satisfied with where we are now," Rachel Robinson said, referring to the man she still calls Jack. "He would be disappointed, because he felt we were on the way toward some lasting change."

Has baseball betrayed Jackie Robinson?

"That's what it seems like to me - that all the work he's done is almost for nothing," Minnesota Twins center fielder Torii Hunter said. "Because look where we are. We should be progressing. We're regressing."

To be fair, baseball is undeniably diverse in certain areas. More and more players are coming from Asia and especially Latin America. According to Lapchick, 29.4 percent of players last season were Latino and 2.4 percent were Asian. That means 40.5 percent were minorities, just below baseball's all-time high of 42 percent in 1997." -AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum in New York





There is more to the article but what are your thoughts?

Personally, I think this is a ridiculous claim. Baseball in no way is targeted towards white people, or any specific race, just as basketball is not targeted towards black people. It is simply those who choose to play and those who have the skills to play. In no way is the sport baseball to blame for the regress of black players in the MLB.

So it's not as big in the inner cities as it was in the 60s, that's because of the technological advances which keep kids busy doing other things, there are also to my knowledge, especially in NYC, not many safe, well-kept baseball fields in which children can play. That's a problem with the city funding for sports in general as a baseball field takes more to maintain than many other sports. This has nothing to do with the sport not giving enough opportunity.

The decline is simply the lack of interest in baseball in general. I, for one am still a huge fan, but there has been a national decline in the interest of baseball. From the 60s on, many other sports have become popular in the US, including the interest in basketball, hockey, and soccer.

What do you guys think?

PillsburyChoboy

I think Rachel Robinson is an attention-whoring idiot riding the coattails of her dead husband. The low % of blacks in baseball is not due to any barriers to entry or oppression ... it's because over the past half-century, blacks have more options to choose and participate in other sports (consider the rise in popularity of football and b-ball since the 1950s).

When we should be striving to become color-blind, nappy-headed ho's like Rachel are playing the race card time and time again. Is the NBA concerned because there is too a high a % of blacks? Retarded.

3.2CLS

Thank you, I agree on everything you said....except the Imus line

CLpower

I forgot what I was watching, but it was like a half hour show about the lack of blacks in baseball, and it mainly examined kids at a young age. it was a good show actually.

michimonster

That is a bogus remark. I have to find the stats but participation in baseball as a sport is down in general, so of course there will be a lower number of blacks.

mantis23

ESPN

jupitersolo

I think it's great that baseball is allowing players to wear No. 42 to honor him. But I haven't heard one damn thing about the owner of the team that hired him. Without him Jackie wouldn't have been the first.

3.2CLS

I have this wild feeling that you didn't read any of the article.....

jupitersolo

I read what you put in the post to get this thread started, you didn't link the entire article. Was there more I could have read?

I don't know why you said I didn't??? Would you like to elaborate?? Your last question was "What do you guys think?"

So I wrote what I was thinking.

3.2CLS

Oh I was just saying that because it didn't really link to what the article was about, that's all. No offense meant.