In 1981, over 18 percent of major league players were Black. That figure held until 1986, when it began a steady decline. While almost 30 percent of M.L.B. players in 2021 were Latino, who can be of any race, only 7 percent were African American, and as a result, the sport seems more disconnected from Black American audiences than in decades past.
Those issues, combined with criticisms of how the game is played on the field today and how it compares with faster-paced alternatives, is threatening to shrink the game’s appeal even further. Major League Baseball, under Commissioner Rob Manfred, is redoubling efforts to reverse those trends, and this World Series could be the last before fundamental changes are enacted.
Manfred appointed Theo Epstein, the star executive who guided both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs to World Series championships, to test methods that would speed up the game and make it more exciting.
Manfred also promoted Tony Reagins, an M.L.B. executive who had been the general manager of the Los Angeles Angels, into a role to help bring Black America back to the sport.
“We need more African American players at the highest level,” said Reagins, who is Black.
The Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson was among the most charismatic megastars in the game during the peak of its Black representation, even inspiring a candy bar named after him. But a few generations later, most Black athletes have chosen other paths.
“Where are the minorities in baseball?” said Jackson, now a special adviser to the Houston Astros. “I think that’s definitely part of it, where you don’t have the great Black athlete playing baseball. They are going to other sports.”
There are many reasons, but even baseball’s leaders acknowledge that the sport has not done enough to draw in Black fans and develop Black players. The game’s power structure is still mostly white, and many of its traditions, from discouraging bat-flipping to the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” originated in a time when the game was segregated.

Source: New York Times

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