Has baseball turned its back on Blacks? MLB efforts in the inner cities extend to all aspects of community'

Ebony, May, 2007 by Jimmie Lee Solomon

Major League Baseball is the sport of Jackie Robinson. Because of his valor and Branch Rickey's dating example, throughout the 1950s and '60s, the best African-American athletes were playing baseball. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, and we take the decline of African-American participation seriously.

As we noticed this downward trend, we faced a challenge. Do we accept that other sports are simply cheaper to play? That baseball has become so predominant in Latin America that we don't need to focus on the game domestically? That the game and its players and fans have simply changed? Major League Baseball is not content to concede that African-American players and fans are lost to us. We opt instead to carry on the proud legacy of Larry Doby, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, and continue to cultivate our audience in traditionally African-American communities.

Major League Baseball was at the forefront of integration in this country when Jackie crossed the baselines more than seven years before public schools were desegregated under Brown v. Board of Education. Our programs today respect the game's traditions as well as our social obligation.

Major League Baseball's efforts in the inner cities extend to all aspects of community and individual development--whether it is the more than $10 million in grants awarded by the Baseball Tomorrow Fund to programs, field improvements and equipment purchases for youth around the world, the innovative Breaking Barriers program that has educated approximately 14 million students throughout the United States and Canada, using the nine core values espoused by Jackie Robinson, or the character-development programs available through MLB's partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of America.

Since 1991, Major League Baseball has operated the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program, which is dedicated to bringing baseball to youth in underprivileged communities. Currently, RBI serves more than 120,000 children annually and leagues have been started in more than 200 cities around the globe. Nearly 150 RBI alumni have been drafted in the annual first-year player draft, with some advancing as far as the Major Leagues, including All-Stars Dontrelle Willis, Jimmy Rollins and Carl Crawford, and teen phenom Justin Upton, who was selected first overall in the 2005 draft.

In June, 2004, MLB broke ground on its first Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy on the campus of Compton Community College in Compton, Calif. Since its opening just over a year ago, the Compton Academy has already produced four players who have been signed by Major League Clubs, and has given dozens of young African-Americans and Hispanics the otherwise unavailable opportunity to receive higher level education credits. Working with Santa Monica City College and a grant from Los Angeles Angels' owner Arte Moreno, Academy attendees participated in a five-week program that offered college-level courses for high school credits in the morning, followed by baseball and softball instruction back at the Academy in the afternoon.

Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig has always believed that we need to lead by example. In 1998, he authorized the creation of the Diverse Business Partners program, an initiative designed to increase economic opportunities by focusing on the cultivation of partnerships with minority- and women-owned businesses. Accompanied by a supplier diversity program for the construction of ballparks, MLB Diverse Business Partners has spent hundreds of millions of dollars with minority businesses.

Five years earlier, the Commissioner had already launched his initiative on minority hiring, the first of its kind in professional sports. His man date requires that minorities be considered for the most high-profile positions in each Major League organization, including general manager and field manager. The 2004 Chicago White Sox, owned by Equal Opportunity Committee co-Chair Jerry Reinsdorf, were the first World Series winner to be led by minorities on and off the field (General Manager Ken Williams and field manager Ozzie Guillen). And again, in terms of leading by example, it should not go unnoticed that of the Commissioner and President Bob DuPuy's top lieutenants, two of the five--Executive Vice President of Finance Jonathan Mariner and myself (Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations)--are African-Americans. The person who handles the purse-strings of our industry and the one responsible for the game on the field both have the innate, firsthand understanding of the African-American community. As such, our industry is sensitive to what we need to do to reconnect with AfricanAmerican players and fans. It will not be easy, and it will not happen overnight. But we are committed to this for the duration.

Jimmie Lee Solomon is the Executive VP of baseball operations to Major League Baseball