Every April 15, Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day. Players wear No. 42 for Robinson, the first Black player in the league in the 20th century. The celebrations serve not only as a way to honor Robinson, but also to remind us that at one point, “persons of color” were banned.
For at least the last two decades, April 15 has also become a day to discuss the dwindling number of Black American players in the majors. A 2023 study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found Black players represented just 6.2% of players on opening-day rosters, down from the previous record low of 7.2% in 2022. Both figures are the lowest recorded since the study began in 1991, when 18% of MLB players were Black.
In Chicago, there are currently no Black Americans on either roster for the Cubs or White Sox. It’s an incredibly disappointing fact for such a diverse city with so many people from so many different backgrounds.
The Cubs released World Series champion Jason Heyward in 2022, who then went to the Los Angeles Dodgers and had a bounce-back season. Former AL batting champion Tim Anderson, the former face of the White Sox franchise, is now with the Miami Marlins. Pitcher Marcus Stroman opted out of the final year of his three-year contract with the Cubs in 2023 and is now a member of the New York Yankees.
Former three-time MLB All-Star Curtis Granderson said he learned about the lack of a Black player on both Chicago teams from a social media post and was surprised.
“I know it hasn’t been positive over the last couple of years. But Chicago, my hometown, where we have two teams and a very diverse city who has had such a great melting pot of great players of all ethnicities, to not have a Black (American) player on either team is astonishing,” the UIC alum told the Tribune.
As board chair of The Players Alliance — a nonprofit founded in 2020 by current and retired Black professional baseball players to increase representation in the sport — the issue is one Granderson knows all too well.
Typically when we talk about it, we speak as if there aren’t any young Black players at all — as if the sport itself is dying entirely in Black communities. But that’s not the case.
“There are a lot of young players coming up through the ranks. We just set a record in 2022 with nine Black players drafted in the first round, which was amazing to see,” Granderson said. “So there is a stream of talent that’s playing at the young levels that is up and coming.”
Granderson shared the organization is focused on a pipeline to the majors: the goal is to introduce kids to baseball, teach them the game and help them stay in it.
Curtis Granderson in 1999 at T.F. South High School (Thornton Fractional South High School photo)
“The challenge becomes statistically, we’ve seen that between the ages of 12 and 13, we lose millions of kids to of baseball for a number of reasons. Maybe they’re priced out, they don’t have the right coaching, they don’t have the right access or just not as many opportunities,” he said.
“When you have someone like our founding board member, Edwin Jackson, who was drafted at the age of 17. Well, in four years, here’s a chance where a player could be going to college, could potentially get drafted. Case in point (Jackson) or CC (Sabathia) at 18 or myself going to college. What if we would have stopped playing just a few years prior? Then we would have been out of that system.”
As he and The Players Alliance work toward their mission, Granderson acknowledges there’s been some pushback.
“So many people would say ‘Shouldn’t it be about having the best players on the field not just players of color?’,” he said. “Yes absolutely, the best of the best should be playing at the highest level. But you lose some of those best when they stop playing at ages 12-14.”
In the last few years, MLB, players and fans have made strong efforts to address the issue of interest from Black Americans in youth baseball with programs and camps. Grassroots organizations are popping up help with grades and assist kids in gaining more visibility as they chase dreams of playing on the diamond.
Earnest Horton, CEO and co-founder of Black Baseball Media — an organization dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion by promoting emerging talent and increasing participation in the game — along with Granderson will host the inaugural Jackie Robinson Baseball weekend Thursday through Sunday. The event, on pace to sell 4,500 tickets according to Horton, will feature over 80 Chicago Public League teams competing at Ozinga Field and Granderson Stadium at UIC.
“We’re creating an experience that’s going to keep them playing the game of baseball and inspire another kid to play baseball,” Horton said. “When you look at the top local high school players, they’ve got good grades. So when they have to put the bat and the ball down, they’re gonna be engineers and leading the global economy.”
Jones College Prep and Morgan Park players, with guests from various baseball organizations, gather for a group picture during a Chicago Public League Jackie Robinson Baseball Weekend game at Granderson Stadium on the UIC campus on April 12, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Andrew Atlas, 14, displays a T-shirt given to participants in the Chicago Public League Jackie Robinson Baseball Weekend before a game between Morgan Park and Jones College Prep at Granderson Stadium on the UIC campus on April 12, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
While he applauds the work MLB is doing, Horton said it starts on a local level by donating, fundraising and volunteering. He said MLB has taken notice of programs started by smaller organizations and adopted them.
“I don’t think identifying an African-American to actually play on the big league team is a top priority,” Horton explained, pointing to scouting as having a significant impact on the major league pipeline.
Lonnie Murray agreed.
“The problem has not been that African-American kids aren’t playing. Great success has been had by kids from inner cities,” said Murray, an MLB-certified player agent. “The problem is the measure that teams have used for scouting and the type of players that they want to draft.”
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“When you look at the number of Black kids in Division-I institutions, that has increased. We have seen a change in the visibility that HBCUs are given. MLB has done a much better job in trying to highlight some of the kids that would not just three years ago have had any visibility at all.”
While there is no immediate fix, Granderson, Horton and Murray all believe there’s a great future for Black players and the numbers in MLB will eventually increase.
Even though the Cubs and White Sox find themselves without a Black American player on one of baseball’s “holy days”, there’s hope in neighborhoods across the city and suburbs.
In February 2023, Heyward opened the Jason Heyward Baseball Academy in North Austin. The 10-acre campus has a major-league-sized infield and provides sports training and leadership development programs for players of all ages and skill levels. Heyward recognized the impact both the facility and his presence could have on future generations.
“I spent my time here as an athlete in this city being able to be rooted on by a lot of people, that’s always going to come to an end. That’s the playing side of the game,” he said after the ribbon-cutting ceremont. “This will always be here. There will always be new kids, There will always be new families. And to me that’s something that’s always gonna be passed along.”
There are kids like Paris Head, who pitched and played middle infield for the winning Team USA at the World Baseball Softball Confederation World Cup in Taiwan. Former Homewood-Flossmoor outfielder Dillon Head was selected in the first round of the 2023 draft by the San Diego Padres and is now playing in their minor-league system. St. Rita senior catcher Sir Jamison Jones made an appearance on MLB Network in January and is headed to Oklahoma State to play and study for a future in sports media. There’s also Kevari Thunderbird, a star left-handed pitcher at Kenwood Academy, and countless others playing baseball at an elite level.
When we talk about who’s missing from Major League Baseball this Jackie Robinson Day, let’s also remember the ones who are on their way.
The number of Black Americans playing in the big league may not reflect it, but Robinson’s legacy is still visible if you look for it.
