African-Americans and Pick-up Ball: The Loss of Diversity and Recreational Diversion in Midwestern Youth Baseball

Abstract

African-Americans and Pick-up BallThe Loss of Diversity and Recreational Diversion in Midwestern Youth Baseball David C. Ogden (bio) There are two things seldom seen today on Little League and other youth baseball diamonds in the Midwest. One is African-American children. The other is spontaneous play. What you find, typically, is highly organized play supervised by adults and undertaken by Caucasian boys. Despite the plethora of youth baseball programs, officials in those programs lament that boys are not experiencing the extemporaneous demands of pick-up ball; and, despite data showing the importance of sports to African-American youths and parents, those youths get little exposure to baseball, either formally or informally, according to officials and others.1 Such trends, say the officials, are antithetical to Major League Baseball's goals of making the game a primary interest among adolescents and teenagers. Background And Methods Youth baseball (for eleven- to fourteen-year-olds) is organized in various ways, but its highest level of competition comes in the form of "select" or "traveling" teams. Such teams in the Midwest are usually assembled via tryouts, in which only the "best" players are chosen, or by selection of "all-stars" from among teams in recreational leagues. Most of the players on those teams live with both parents in the city or suburbs and play between twenty and seventy games each summer. Few are African-American and few regularly put on a glove for a pick-up or sandlot game with friends. According to coaches and officials, these are indicators that youth baseball, at its highest level of competition, is becoming more rigid in organization and more demanding economically for participants and their families. This paper does not intend to provide a demographic or psychographic profile of the "typical" youth select player. But some aspects of such a profile may emerge in the two-pronged inquiry attempted here: To what extent do [End Page 200] African-American youths play select baseball? To what extent do select ball players play pick-up ball? Coaches, former coaches, and officials from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota were interviewed during the summer and fall of 1999. They noted the rarity of pick-up ball among their players and the rarity of African-American youths on select teams. Those interviewed cited numerous reasons, but some observations are echoed more than others, and those views form the basis of the ensuing discussion. Are African-American Youth Playing Select Ball in the Midwest? Tracking specific numbers of African-American youths (eleven- to fourteen-year-olds) is difficult, since many youth league organizations do not track race or ethnicity of their participants. Although the black populations in the communities of the coaches interviewed are small, those populations had little or no representation. "In my eight years of coaching," says Tom Tomanek, coach of a select team of fourteen-year-olds near Omaha, "I've had only one player who was an African American. I encouraged him to try out for the select team, but he chose not to." While the coaches that were interviewed cited several reasons for the lack of participation by African-American children, four themes emerged. These themes also surface in the popular press and in African-American publications, such as Ebony. Lack of Time, Money, and Perceived Incentives Equipment, travel costs, and other expenditures related to playing select ball can add upt o several hundred dollars for each player. For many African-American families such costs are beyond the family budget. "A disproportionate number of African-Americans are poor and are working just to make ends meet," said Don Benning, who coached youth ball through the .... in North Omaha and in the Gladiators select program. "I think you find minority families working long hours, and many of them are one-parent families," said Jerry Parks, former parks and recreation director and mayoral assistant for the city of Omaha. "It's hard for parents to find the time and money." Hubert Moss, who coaches a team of twelve-year-olds in North Omaha, says several of his African-American players have difficulty making games and practices because of lack of transportation. Between work and...