MLB yesterday launched a three-part plan to "address the talent pipeline that impacts the diversity of on-field personnel, with a special emphasis on African-Americans," according to Paul Hagen of MLB.com. The first of three "broad initiatives now underway includes expanding baseball's existing programs, such as the Jr. RBI Program (Reviving Baseball In Inner Cities), the Urban Youth Academies and various grassroots programs across the nation." Second is implementing programs which will have the "goal of improving the quality of coaching as a way to attract the best athletes, including new initiatives and mobile coaching tools that are currently in development." Finally, MLB will "direct marketing in urban communities through a variety of methods, including raising the profile of current and former big leaguers." Former MLB manager Jerry Manuel will "take on an expanded role in the task force," serving as the "day-to-day leader of the initiative" under the direction of Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski. Manuel said, "You have to applaud Commissioner [Bud] Selig for taking on such a complex task. To put this task force together and identify different things and why and go forward from there, it's exciting" (MLB.com, 4/9). Dombrowski said that 15 to 20 other ideas "were still in development" for the initiative. In N.Y., Tyler Kepner notes only 8.3% of players on '14 Opening Day rosters "identified themselves as African-American or black," and for "many young athletes from low-income families, choosing baseball over other sports makes little sense." Yankees P CC Sabathia said, "If I had a choice, I would have had to go to college to play football, because my mom couldn't afford to pay whatever the percent was of my baseball scholarship. So if I hadn't been a first-round pick, I would have gone to college to play football, because I had a full ride" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/10).
