On Opening Day this year, the percentage of African American players fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest since 2007. The highest percentage was 19 percent in 1995. So why is the percentage of black players going down in the majors? Is there an underlying racial problem?
Not as much as you would think.
First, there has been a sharp incline in the number of foreign-born players since then. In 1995, 83 percent of all major league players were American born. This year, only 72 percent of players who have appeared in major league games are American born.
When you take into account the percentage of American players who were black, the number in some ways is even more disconcerting. In 1995, 22.8 percent of all American-born players were black as opposed to this year, when only 11.74 percent are black. This could indicate a growing disparity among American players.
However, we also need to take into account a couple of other things. First, it shouldn’t be assumed that non-black is equal to white. While foreign-born Latino players have been factored in, American-born Hispanic players have not been. The number of Hispanic Americans has gone from 8.9 percent in 1990 to 16.3 percent in 2010.
Regardless of what percentage that is, it’s still a decline in black players. However, whether it’s a shift from black players to Hispanic players or black players to white players might be important to understanding why there is a decline.
The other question, more appropriately asked and yet not, is whether this is actually a problem. The percent of the US population which is black is 12.6 percent. If the percent of the American-born players who are black is 11.7 percent, is there really disparity?
If there were just six more black players in the majors right now, the percentage would exactly correspond with total population demographics. By definition that’s a complete lack of disparity. I mean that literally.
Disparity: inequality of outcome or condition between cultural groups or differences in outcomes or conditions between cultural groups that are not predictable based on the number of group members present in the general population
In other words, all things being equal, we should expect to see the number of black Americans playing in the majors that we do see.
There is a difference between prejudice and racism. Prejudice is to “pre-judge” or make determinations about a person or people based on their race. They don’t have to be negative either, i.e. black people are better athletes is prejudiced, regardless of whether you think it’s true or not.
Racism is to establish a system where a particular race has advantages over other races in that system. The evidence of a racist system is disparity. For instance, pre-integration baseball was very much racist.
At the time, there also was a kind of prejudice that black players weren’t good enough to play with the white players, and as a result, there was a racist system which prevented them from proving otherwise.
Now it seems that prejudice and racism have flipped. We have a system without racism, as evidenced not only by the demographically equal inclusion of black Americans but also the international inclusion of so many other nations.
Previous notions that Japanese players and Latin-American players were not good enough to play with the American-born players has also been turned on its head, and as a result, international scouting has grown. In fact, based on countries where scouting and recruiting has extended to the impact on the player pool is far greater than it was during integration.
In fact, the population of the Dominican Republic alone is half of the black population of the United States in 1960, and right now it could be argued that the Dominican Republic could field a lineup of hitters better than the United States.
With prejudices falling away and equality truly entering the picture, should we really be concerned about the number of black Americans playing baseball being only what it should be expected to be? Granted, if it was to keep falling, or there was some evidence of something maliciously systemic occurring, there could be cause for concern.
However, it appears that the real reason that the percentage of blacks playing has more to do with everyone else playing. Beware the prejudices, even if they aren’t negative.
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