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Baseball fan following baseball since 1955. Have been fortunate enough to have seen Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Johnny Bench, Roberto Clemente and Dale Murphy play baseball in Kansas City and Houston. Served in Army in Hawaii and Vietnam with 25th Infantry Division.More By Niteowl049
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Lack of Black Players in Baseball
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I noticed last week and yesterday when I went to the Minor League baseball games in Knoxville, Tennessee that there were very few black players in the dugouts. For the first time, it really hit me that baseball is not drawing black players to the game like it has in the past. A report was released recently that said that only 8.2 percent of Major League players were black. Then if you break it down even further, there would be even less blacks who are American citizens because of the blacks who come from other countries.
It is sad to think that it took 12 years for the Boston Red Sox to become the last team to sign a black player to a Major League contract; the player was Pumpsie Green. If not for prejudice by the Red Sox, they could have signed Willie Mays. Can you imagine Willie Mays and Ted Williams on the same team? The Red Sox probably would not have had to wait 86 years between World Series championships if they had signed Mays.
They also gave Jackie Robinson a tryout, but he knew they were not serious about actually signing him. There are reports that someone yelled to get them blankety blanks off the field while Robinson was on the field.
Red Sox manager Pinky Higgins was quoted as saying he would never manage a team with a black player. Because of his attitude Pumpsie Green had to wait to be called up to the majors until Higgins was gone.
The following article was posted at the USA Today website a few hours ago and explains in detail what the findings were of the report mentioned above.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2008-04-15-3612051391_x.htm
