"In this glorious baseball summer, with multitudes
flocking to see the sluggers, those who run the game are
becoming more aware that something is missing from the
picture: minority fans," according to Roger Thurow, who
examines MLB's bid to recruit more minority fans in a front-
page feature in the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Look "into the
stands, and you wonder if the game was ever truly
integrated." MLB execs say that, on average, 5% of fans at
its games are black; generally, the number of Hispanics "is
no greater," except in Southern CA, Texas and Miami. In St.
Louis, a team survey showed that black attendance "hovers"
around 3% -- "in a metro area where about 20% of the
population is black." Art Taylor, Dir of Urban Youth Sports
at Northeastern Univ.'s Study of Sport in Society said,
"Baseball is a culture, and we've almost lost black people
in that culture." But this year MLB is "lavishing
unprecedented attention on its minority fans, few as they
are," and hospitality "seems to be breaking out all over."
Thurow details various teams and their efforts to attract
minorities, including the Cardinals putting their African-
American players on billboards and buses in the inner city.
MLB's RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) program is "in
more than" 90 cities across the country with "nearly"
100,000 teenagers and its World Series has a new "home" at
Disney's Wide World of Sports complex. The "seeds, baseball
officials believe, are beginning to grow again in the inner
cites." NL President Leonard Coleman: "If you look at the
demographics of our country, and if you look at the growth
of baseball, it has to come from the minority side" (Roger
Thurow, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/28).
