Little League hopes to spur blacks’ interest in baseball

Genaro C. Armas

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — With fewer blacks playing in the majors, Dusty Baker wants to try to get kids’ attention while they’re young.

Free trips to play games on the finely manicured fields where the Little League World Series is played might help.

“Go, little man,” Baker, the former major league manager and outfielder, shouted from a seat behind the plate while watching a 12-year-old batter at the Little League Urban Jamboree beat out an infield hit. “Little man has some skills!”

Skills Baker hopes players will keep honing as baseball seeks ways to generate more interest in the sport among young blacks.

The purpose of the fourth annual jamboree and its parent program, the Little League Urban Initiative, is to promote the game to minorities, single-parent homes and poor areas, said the program’s director, David James.

It’s getting more interest this year from Baker and other blacks in the game as Major League Baseball worries about the declining representation of blacks among its players.

A recent study by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports found that only 8.4 percent of major league players last season were black, the lowest level in at least two decades.
That revelation comes in a year when baseball is celebrating the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the sport’s color barrier.

Some players have taken action. Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter last year started the “Torii Hunter Project,” which aims to get more inner-city kids to play baseball.

Hunter’s group has taken money from players including Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee, Florida Marlins pitcher Dontrelle Willis and Detroit Tigers outfielder Gary Sheffield, with funds going to help pay for Little League’s jamboree.

“Problems don’t just take overnight to solve,” Baker said. “Usually it’s a slow, gradual process, and the next thing you know, it’s a big problem.”

The cost to pay for bats, gloves and league fees can be prohibitive for many families, forcing their kids to turn to less expensive sports like basketball, Baker said. More kids are turning to video games and computers to keep them entertained.

Baker said some kids might be turned off by negative publicity surrounding San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, whose chase for Hank Aaron’s career home run record has been clouded by questions about steroid use.

And there’s not enough money or volunteers to keep leagues running in many cases.

So Baker sees Little League’s jamboree as “the planting of a seed” that might get more kids, parents and sponsors interested in the game.

Fourteen teams from around the country gathered over the Memorial Day weekend to play games at the Little League World Series complex.

“I like the stadiums. And the grass, it’s so soft. It’s comfy,” 11-year-old Tyler Johnson, of Tampa, Fla., said in the dugout as his teammates wearing bright orange Mets jerseys played the field.

“We got dugouts, but not this big,” Johnson’s wide-eyed, 11-year-old teammate Charles Mayhew said. “Out here, I feel like we’re on the biggest field.”

Keith George, 37, manager of the Tampa team, played Little League but laments he never played baseball above that level. “I want it right now, I still want it.”

George only manages these kids until age 12. After that, they either move up to a new division, or many drop out as they graduate on to high school, he said.

“We need more people to help out. Because if it was up to the kids, they would play,” he said from the dugout of Volunteer Stadium. “We need more mentors and people to step up and guide our kids.”

Twelve-year-old Jamariee Johnson-Brannon, a pitcher with the Peninsula league team from Portland, Ore., marveled at the sights in South Williamsport after watching the Little League World Series last year on television.

He’s so interested in baseball that his mother, Micole Johnson, plans to move the family to the warmer climate of Arizona, where her son can hone his skills year-round.

“I practice every time I get a chance. On weekends, when I’m bored, I’ll throw,” he said. He even stuck a tire on a fence to practice throwing strikes.
It’s the type of enthusiasm Baker hopes other kids will catch.

“This is something that very few people will ever get to do,” Baker said. “When they go home and watch a Little League World Series game, the first thing they are going to do is look at the field and say ‘I played on that field.’”

(Associated Press)