[shetuck]

Mlive: Tigers react to decline in black players

See! This is what you get when you talk smack about Ty Cobb!

Tanks for nuttin BKB!!!

Tigers react to decline in black players

Posted by Danny Knobler
April 15, 2008 21:37PM

DETROIT -- Before he put on uniform number 42 to honor Jackie Robinson for breaking baseball's color line, Gary Sheffield said Tuesday that baseball is responsible for the declining number of African-American players.

"I can't point the finger at one particular issue or person," Sheffield said, before the Detroit Tigers' 6-5 win over Minnesota. "But (baseball as a whole) is to blame."

Sheffield is one of five African-American players on the Tigers roster, the most the Tigers have had at the start of a season since 2001. But a report issued Tuesday by the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida found that African-Americans made up only 8.2 percent of big-league rosters in 2007, the lowest total in more than two decades.

In 1995, the same report found that 19 percent of major leaguers were African-American.

"It's definitely disappointing," Dontrelle Willis said. "I don't think the blacks that play get promoted as much as in other sports. Outside of Cincinnati, Brandon Phillips could walk down the street anywhere without getting recognized. And he was a 30-30 guy last year.

"(The 8.2 percent) isn't surprising. It is unfortunate."

Willis is part of an even more exclusive group. Tuesday's study found that only 3 percent of big-league pitchers in 2007 were African-American.

cont'd...