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Leagues and Governing Bodies

Frank Thomas: MLB Should Open Inner-City Academies Similar To Those In Latin America

With African-Americans making up less than 10% of MLB Opening Day rosters, the league needs to "take initiative and put academies in the inner-cities across America" in order to increase participation numbers among African-American youth, according to FS1's Frank Thomas. He said, "We do it in the Dominican Republic, we do it in Venezuela, and as soon as Cuba is open they’re going to do it in Cuba, because these kids play baseball 24/7. If we get something going in the inner cities where kids play with cleats, baseballs, bats, the black kids, we will play. … The inner cities have so many former baseball players willing to take jobs to teach baseball in those academies if they build them, so there is no excuse. It’s time for Major League Baseball to do something about this.” The Baseball HOFer broke into MLB in '90, and he said there were "four or five black players on every team." However, throughout the late ‘90s and early 2000s, "you saw it dwindle every year." Thomas: "You see it now, each team barely has one black player. ... This is a problem that needs to be addressed, especially with the economics the way they are in baseball.” FS1’s Jim Jackson, who played 14 years in the NBA, said baseball is "not as cool as football, especially basketball," since the turn of the century. Jackson: "Basketball is intertwined with the central city. It’s intertwined with hip-hop. There is a divide in between with baseball and the older generation of African-Americans.”

LOSING ITS COOL: FS1's Mike Hill noted people do not make a "big deal about not having a lot" of white players in the NBA, and he asked, "If we don’t make a big deal about that, why do we make such a big deal about baseball?” FS1’s Ephraim Salaam said, “It’s the cool factor. Revenue is up for baseball, the cool factor is down. As an organization, you want to be prevalent in young America, and young America is based on the urban feel. When I say ‘urban,’ I’m not just saying African-American. I’m saying inner-city. I’m saying the cool factor. You look at what football is doing, you look at what basketball is doing, they are catering to urban America. Baseball is not doing that. So you go to the ballpark and the average age there is middle-aged white American. You go to a basketball game and you’ve got all the young actors, actresses and the rappers. It’s cool” ("America’s Pregame,” FS1, 4/23).

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