The Show Notes #1: Examining Some of the Factors That Caused Black America’s Detachment With Baseball

The professional athletes that have played in Minor League Baseball are already the best in the world at the game of baseball. The almost twenty thousand individuals who have worn an MLB uniform are outliers in a world of hundreds of thousands who dream of but do not reach baseball’s most competitive stage. Shortstop Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox is one of these individuals, and he is an outlier among the outliers who happen to be his peers because of the extremely unique path he took to becoming a professional baseball player.

After multiple leg injuries during his high school career as a local basketball star in the state of Alabama, Anderson decided to try and pick up the sport of baseball in the 11th grade. Most professional baseball players begin playing baseball in elementary or middle school. He played left field and despite being a novice, many individuals noticed the quiet and polite kid had talent.

After improving his senior year Anderson got a scholarship to East Central Community College in Decatur, Mississippi. He played at ECCC for two years, where he was one of the best JUCO baseball players in the entire country. Tim Anderson signed a letter of intent to transfer to the University of Alabama-Birmingham after they offered him a scholarship in 2013. Anderson looked at baseball as a tool to secure his college education via scholarship, although the game of baseball had other plans.

The likelihood of Tim Anderson getting selected in the first round of the 2013 MLB Draft four years after he started playing organized baseball is near zero. He beat those odds, getting selected with the 17th overall pick by the Chicago White Sox and receiving a seven-figure signing bonus. On average, one-third of the first-round draft picks selected during the MLB Draft make it to the majors, and Tim Anderson beat those odds just seven years after he started playing baseball.

It has now been twelve years since Tim Anderson decided to lace up his cleats and plant them into the dirt of baseball fields where he worked tirelessly to become one of the faces of the entire sport. He has defied probability and exceeded expectations to the nth degree. Tim Anderson’s path to being an All-Star level shortstop on baseball’s most revered stage is something you’d see in a screenplay making its rounds through the offices of Hollywood movie studio executives.

While Tim Anderson’s unique path to professional baseball stardom is a feel-good story for everyone to appreciate, the fact that he never picked up a bat or glove until he was in the eleventh grade is a microcosm of the socioeconomic divide in baseball that has reared its ugly head towards working-class individuals. This is the primary reason for the decline in participation of Black people in the sport from tee-ball to the pro ranks. The socioeconomic divide that is plaguing the sport of baseball starts at the lowest rungs of the amateur realm where children become acclimated with the sport while they are in elementary school.

Four-figure participation fees for travel ball teams that require heavy parent involvement make it almost impossible for the average working-class family to have their children grow in the sport, due to the lack of money and time. The pipelines that create individuals who love the sport of baseball are pricing out countless kids who are encouraged to focus on other sports that are less strenuous on their families’ budgets. The costs for participation in Little League teams have also skyrocketed, a negative trend that goes hand in hand with the dwindling number of teams in small cities and major metropolitan areas.

Collegiate athletic regulations and a lack of emphasis on investment in collegiate athletes have also contributed to the decline in the participation of working-class people in the sport of baseball. Colleges and universities being able to offer scholarships to collegiate athletes is the primary reason why collegiate athletics has been such an important and visible sector of sports in the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries.

Division I baseball programs are limited to 11.5 scholarships to distribute among rosters that consist of 20+ players, and Division II baseball programs are limited to 9 full scholarships to distribute among rosters that consist of 20+ players. By comparison, every scholarship distributed by a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) program is a full scholarship, and D-I FBS programs have 85 scholarships to distribute at any given time. Division I basketball programs can distribute 13 full scholarships in a sport that limits roster sizes to 16 players per team.

Specialization is also being emphasized on a wider scale amongst amateur athletes, and this has led to a decline in multi-sport athletes. When amateur athletes are at a crossroads about which sport to focus on, the declining probability of getting an athletic scholarship while playing an expensive sport is a statement that can sum up the decline of popularity the sport of baseball has faced during the 21st century. To put it plainly, there are not enough incentives for working-class individuals to play baseball when other sports offer more opportunities to avoid student loan debt at a way cheaper price for participation.

There are other Tim Anderson’s out there. We just need to make it possible for them to be found.