They popped champagne corks in Anaheim and as the Dodgers wobbled back home to pack their bags in the final home stand of the season, Major League Baseball began hyping it’s Fall Classic in their game that is absent of African Americans in key front office or field manager positions.

Los Angeles Angels' Vladimir Guerrero, left, pours champagne over owner Arturo Moreno, right, during a locker room celebration after defeating the Seattle Mariners 7-4 to clinch the American League West division title Sunday, Sept. 23 in Anaheim.

For the third time in the past four years, the Angels won the American League West, this time with as diverse a team as there is in baseball and a minority owner to boot.

The Angels, who also adopts Los Angeles as part of its surname, employs five Black players and the team which introduced Jackie Robinson, also had five.

Those numbers pale in comparison when you consider that of the nine starters on the field, just two or three of them are Black, and when you examine the big picture of baseball, there are only two General Managers of color and just two field managers.

They call it the Fall Classic while Blacks may prefer the classic fall as numbers of Blacks continue to erode with each growing multi-million dollar contract.

The Black fan base has long been gone and here in Los Angeles and with the city’s ever-increasing Mexican population, the Dodgers fan base is becoming predominately Mexican and White.

Meanwhile, in Anaheim, the White fans are still the consistent bases of support for the Angels and that theme is consistent across America for Major League Baseball.

Sure, MLB will offer a bandage approach to address their decreasing Black player population by opening an Academy in Compton, but as for the fans, it’s not doing anything to attract Blacks to the ball park.

That’s probably for good reason because Blacks would probably prefer to watch a snow cone melt in the rain than watch a game of baseball.

However, when it comes to merchandise of MLB items such as caps, they are big-ticket items in Black communities and the cap varies from the color of the neighborhood gang.

Thus it is what it is, but I can’t imagine the Angels being where they are today without Darren Oliver, Garret Anderson, Chone Figgins, Howie Kendrick and Gary Matthews.

The Dodgers, on the other hand, would have been much better had they went with their young core of Black players all along and got rid of isolating Jeff Kent, who as long as he’s hitting for average and collecting RBI is worth it, but clearly this is a man who has problems with people, namely Black people.

It used to be Milton Bradley and now it’s James Loney, next it will be Matt Kemp. Let Jeff Kent go now!!!

Folks connected with the America’s pastime will argue that young Black urban kids are choosing to play basketball and football instead of baseball, but MLB has been more focused on developing and cultivating talent in other regions of the world because of economic reasons.

Yeah, they put a baseball academy in Compton, but as many whites frequent the place as Blacks and this is a problem that required major surgery a long time ago, now the patient is dead.

Published in : Sports, Baseball