MLB pushes for more Black American players in grassroots efforts

phoenix –

Zion Rose is well aware that the percentage of Black American players in Major League Baseball has been declining for decades.

But the 18-year-old Chicago catcher, still sweaty from practice during MLB’s Draft Combine this week at Chase Field in Phoenix, said he has news: It won’t be for long.

“You’ll see,” he said. “We’re starting to get through.”

Rose was one of more than 300 players from all backgrounds in Phoenix to join the group this week, featuring practices, interviews and games in an effort to showcase some of the game’s top amateur talent at the high school and college levels. show before July. provisional version. MLB said about 15 percent of the players in the showcase were black.

The hope is that the next Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts or Andrew McCutchen will be in that bunch. Possibly several.

a recent study by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports in Central Florida found that Black American players accounted for just 6.2 percent of players on MLB opening day rosters, down from last year’s previous record low of 7.2 percent. Both numbers are the lowest recorded in the survey since it began in 1991, when 18 percent of players were black. Last year’s World Series was the first since 1950 without a US-born black player.

There are tangible reasons to believe that the percentage of black players will rise soon.

Four of the first five players picked in last summer’s amateur draft were black for the first time ever. Those four were among hundreds who had participated in diversity initiatives such as the MLB Youth Academy, DREAM Series, and the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. MLB also pledged $150 million in a 10-year partnership with the Players Alliance. The non-profit association of current and former players works to increase Black involvement at all levels.

Many of those programs started several years ago and the younger participants are starting to reach the age of enlistment.

Rose is one of them. He said the diversity initiatives not only brought exposure to scouts, but also opened a vital pipeline for minority players to connect, share experiences and see faces that resembled their own. The catcher said black former MLB players and coaches also attended many of the tournaments and provided role models. He credited Reds pitcher Hunter Greene as a major influence.

“I met most of my closest friends in those camps,” Rose said. “Just being able to see people of your color play the game, identify with them, that’s been important.”

Homer Bush Jr. — whose father played seven seasons in the major leagues for the Blue Jays, Yankees and Marlins — said baseball is also getting better at mastering social media. The outfielder just finished his junior season in college at Grand Canyon.

Bush said it’s important that baseball portrays itself as a fun sport. Baseball’s trend of elaborate celebrations for home runs and big hits — like Pittsburgh’s reckless routine — is a good start.

He also said he believes having more black players in the major leagues should create a snowball effect that would bring more young minority players into the game.

“I could talk about it for hours,” Bush said. “But I feel like one of the biggest things is representation. I had a dad who played in the big leagues, so I had someone to look up to and admire. But most guys — if you’re on MLB Network or ESPN clicks — there aren’t many black baseball players.”

Of course, there are other variables to getting more minority players into the big leagues – mainly money and time.

Simply put, developing a major league ballplayer is usually expensive. There’s the equipment, the cost of joining a travel team, and the expensive individual instruction sometimes required – expenses that can easily run into the thousands of dollars a year. Then there is the time commitment: weekends are completely filled with two and sometimes three matches a day.

“We shot a lot of videos of other players for their parents who couldn’t make it,” said Shaun Rose, Zion’s father.

Karin Rose, Zion’s mother, said she was lucky to have a job as a school nurse, which allowed her to travel with Zion for much of the summer baseball season while Shaun worked at his barber shop. Money was not a big problem, as both had good jobs and a few relatives helped out.

Zion took the extra step of transferring from Brother Rice High School in Chicago to IMG Academy in Florida for his senior season so he could take advantage of the year-round facilities and baseball weather. He’s ranked by MLB.com as the 144th best prospect in this year’s draft, and is expected to play around the fifth round, where the recommended signing bonus is around $400,000.

“We understood the sacrifice, but it was Zion’s will to be a great player that put us in this position,” said Karin Rose. “We are really blessed with a travel ball, a lot of support from friends and family.”

Several black former MLB players were in Phoenix to help with the group, including Chris Young, who played 13 seasons in the major leagues and was an All-Star with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2010. He said the sport’s diversity initiatives are a good way to reduce the financial burden, but it will never go away completely.

“I don’t think baseball is going to get cheaper any time soon,” said 39-year-old Young. “It’s an expensive game. It was an expensive game even when I was a kid.”

He also hopes more black athletes will choose baseball over football or basketball, sports that have claimed top baseball opportunities in the past, such as Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. Another top contender this year — Duce Robinson — is trying to choose between playing pro baseball or playing tight end at USC.

“We have to make it worth it,” Young said. “When you get guys like that – I don’t want to exaggerate – but you get athletes like Mike Trout. Then it’s just up to the development of each team.”

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AP Sports writers Aaron Beard and Will Graves contributed to this report.