As Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson and his pioneering contributions to the game, I can’t help but think about the fact that the league is reporting a historically low number of Black American players in its ranks: only 6%.
I think this is a teachable moment at a time when diversity efforts across various arenas (no pun intended) have come under attack. Major League Baseball, unfortunately, is a prime example of what it looks like to talk the talk without always walking the walk.
Back in 2021, sports historian and professor Louis Moore wrote about the decline of Black players in MLB — and the league’s indifference to it:
It was, and remains, a valid question. Over the past few decades, Major League Baseball has shown what it looks like to outwardly celebrate diversity (with things like Jackie Robinson Day on April 15) while thumbing your nose at it in practice.