ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Rob Manfred was crowned commissioner 35 miles north of the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy last summer, and when he officially took his seat on the throne last month, Manfred laid out the business plan for his new administration.
The kids, the kids, the kids. It’s all about the kids.
“The mission before us is clear: To honor the game’s history while welcoming new people to our great sport — people who will one day pass their love of baseball down through the generations,” Manfred said in a letter to fans. “That is what our parents and grandparents did for us, and it is what we are doing for our own children. Baseball is a game firmly rooted in childhood experiences, and its vitality and growth rely heavily on giving young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to play and watch baseball.”
But inside that commitment is a whole other issue — bringing the game back to youths in the inner cities of America.
He addressed that as well in his letter to fans.
“My top priority is to bring more people into our game — at all levels and from all communities,” Manfred wrote. “Specifically, I plan to make the game more accessible to those in underserved areas, especially in the urban areas where fields and infrastructure are harder to find. Giving more kids the opportunity to play will inspire a new generation to fall in love with baseball just as we did when we were kids. Expanding Little League, RBI and other youth baseball programs will also help sustain a steady and wide talent pool from which our clubs can draw great players and create lifelong fans.” Facilities like the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in cities like Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Houston and New Orleans are part of baseball’s answer to bringing back the game in the black community — and convince a new young generation of athletes that baseball is an option for them.
In 2013, according to MLB, 8.5 percent of players on Opening Day rosters were black. Last season, that moved down to 8.3 percent. Part of the equation to increase African-American interest in the game is to have role models on the field to attract them.
But first, places like the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy at least create a presence in these communities — an oasis of sorts in places like Ward 7 and 8 in the District, with educational programs as well as baseball.
Manfred stopped by the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy Wednesday to continue to speak out about his commitment to youth baseball and minority participation.
“The visit here is really important to me,” Manfred told reporters. “One of the things I hope to accomplish during my time as commissioner is to increase the number of kids who play our game and are interested in our game. And, I’ll tell you a program like this is an example Major League Baseball and one of its clubs at its best.
“It promotes the goals of participation and diversity that are so important to our game.”
It does do that. But to truly grow the game among minority youth may be far more complicated than providing an oasis. The issue may be the very current structure of youth baseball itself.
Manfred needs to talk to Darryl Hill — the former University of Maryland football star who became the first black man to play football in any southern athletic conference. He went on to became a successful businessman, and has started the Kids Play USA Foundation, whose mission is to make sports more affordable for families of incomes of less than $60,000.
The new commissioner might want to read what is posted on the foundation’s web site, following the celebrated appearance of young pitcher Mo’ne Davis at the Little League World Series — which Manfred watched live in his first public appearance at commissioner-elect:
“According to ESPN the industry of youth baseball is ’a business enterprise designed to exclude those without the means and mobility to participate. Over the past 15 to 20 years, the proliferation of pay-for-play teams in youth baseball — and the parallel proliferation of parents willing to pay for them and coaches willing to cash their checks — has had more of an impact on African-American participation than anything another sport has to offer.’
“Then there are the ’elite travel teams. These are the teams comprised of the supposed better players who receive the best coaches (often private), elite training, top competition, national travel, and — what is most important — maximum exposure. The price tag to play on one of these elite teams generally runs well into the thousands of dollars per season, per child. But these players are not necessarily always the best athletes. They are mainly the kids who are good athletes that are blessed with financially capable parents.
“This year’s Little League World Series clearly demonstrated that the African American kids can and will play baseball, given the opportunity. The two finalists were teams from Chicago and Philadelphia that were comprised mostly of minorities who participated in city-supported baseball programs which were augmented by charitable funding. You may have noticed that the teams in the tournament that were not from major urban areas had very few minority players. That’s because, to the exception of a handful of programs located in big cities with large minority populations, baseball is pay-to-play and not subsidized, putting it out of reach for kids from low and some medium income families. Kids from low income families have little or no chance of playing on an elite travel team.
“Economics is why Black kids don’t play baseball. To claim that they simply no longer like the sport is just another way of avoiding the truth. The good news is that the decline in participation in baseball by underserved kids is reversible. The first step is to identify and confront the real culprit the commercialization of youth baseball.”
While Manfred is embracing youth baseball, he might want to look beyond the youth academies and examine how youth baseball itself is shutting out the very kids these academies are trying to bring to the game.
The problem isn’t the kids. It’s the adults.
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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