Michael Smerconish: Baseball's whiter shade of pale

LAST Thursday was a storybook day for baseball at Citizens Bank Park.

The sun was shining and the temperature hit 75 as the Phillies prepared to host the Nationals in the late afternoon.

During the pregame festivities, our National League champs received their commemorative rings. And when it came time for the national anthem, several Tuskegee Airmen stood at home plate and saluted.

It was also Jackie Robinson Day, which explained the presence of several wheelchair-using members of the Philadelphia Stars, the old Negro League team. Sixty-three years ago, Robinson had broken baseball's color barrier and, by Friday, every player on the field wore his No. 42. (This also provided one of the better moments of levity during the game - when Charlie Manuel argued with home plate umpire Joe West, somebody near me yelled out, "Hey, Charlie, tell him to throw out No. 42.")

Just one thing missing: players who looked like Jackie Robinson.

The Phils' starting lineup included four Latinos, four white guys and a lone African-American in Ryan Howard. (Jimmy Rollins was on the disabled list.)

The Nationals fielded a team with three Latinos, three white players and three African-Americans. Three is a lot - 17 of the 30 major league teams had two or fewer African-Americans on their opening day rosters this year.

The trend has been developing for the better part of 20 years, according to data compiled by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida (TIDES).

In 1995, 19 percent of major league players were black. By 2008, that figure had fallen to 10.2 percent, up from the all-time low of 8.2 percent in 2007 and the first year-to-year increase in 15 years.

This year, 9.5 percent of the players on opening day rosters were black. That's quite a departure from the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates team that once featured a lineup entirely of nonwhite players.

As the percentage of black players has declined, the ratio of Latinos has risen. In 1990, 13 percent of major leaguers were Latino, TIDES reports. That figure rose to 19 percent in 1995 and 27 percent in 2008.

The trend is as unmistakable as Harry Kalas' legendary home run call. But is it a cause for public concern?

I say yes, if the diminished black presence on the field is a reflection of limited access to baseball for city kids. Don't misunderstand: I'm not arguing for quotas on the diamond, gridiron, hardwood or ice. Competition and skill should determine who suits up. But it is a plea to ensure that city kids are getting into the game - for Robinson's sake, but also for baseball's legacy as the national pastime.

MVPs Howard and Rollins are doing their part to promote baseball in the inner city by being role models on the field and through initiatives when not in uniform. Howard is working with the Fairmount Park Conservancy to renovate a field in Philadelphia's Hunting Park neighborhood. Rollins has become the national face for the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. Their efforts are significant, and they should be emulated across the country.

The problem, of course, is

that not every baseball town

is lucky enough to have two black MVPs in the same infield.

As I drank a beer and took in the game last Thursday, it struck me that while there is racial disparity in many professional sports, baseball is the first that's been in transition in my lifetime. As long as I've been paying attention, hockey players have been overwhelmingly white. Pro basketball players are primarily African-American. Football is split - for 20 years, an average of 61 percent of the guys who make the NFL have been black. The shifting demographics have been exclusive to the diamond and the dugout.

Part of that is access.

Ice is a natural part of the Canadian landscape, so they naturally play more hockey there. In this part of the country, suburbanites have the resources to rent ice time at 5 o'clock in the morning (not to mention the wherewithal to get the kids there).

IT'S RELATIVELY tough, however, to find enough friends for a pickup baseball or softball game. In the suburbs, Little League has been usurped by travel teams. And in the cities, kids are playing more basketball or football.

But once upon a time, baseball was America's game. It won't regain that status if young African-American kids aren't catching on, or seeing guys who look like them doing likewise.

What a disservice it would be to Robinson's legacy if, at some mid-April game five or 10 years down the road, 18 players take the field wearing No. 42 - and not one of them looks like the real No. 42.

Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.smerconish.com.