MLB on Friday celebrates the 69th anniversary of Baseball HOFer Jackie Robinson "breaking the color barrier, and while the number of African-American players on teams remain near historic low levels," the dearth of black pitchers is an "alarming trend that mystifies the industry," according to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY. The African-American population on MLB rosters "remains flat at just 8%." However, of the 449 pitchers on opening-day rosters and the disabled list, "just 14 were African American," which comes out to just 1.6%. Forty-two of the 69 African-American MLBers -- 61% -- are outfielders. The immediate future for black pitchers "doesn’t look much more promising." MLB.com rankings show that the top 100 minor league prospects "include just four African-American pitchers." D-backs Senior VP & GM Dave Stewart, who pitched for 16 MLB seasons, said, "The black pitchers have almost become extinct. There are a lot of reasons, I don’t know if any of them are valid, but it seems like a lot of teams take black pitchers and convert them to infielders or outfielders. I know it happened a lot in the past, so maybe it’s still happening." Nationals manager Dusty Baker said, "The reason you don’t see a black player converted into being a pitchers is because teams don’t have money invested in them. Most of the white pitchers being converted, you have money invested in them." Nightengale notes outside of just pitchers, there are 19 clubs who "opened the season with two or fewer African-Americans on their entire team," and the Braves, Angels and Rockies are "playing without a single black player" (USA TODAY, 4/15).
