When fans watch the Houston Astros and Phillies line up this week to begin the Fall Classic, it will be a much different picture.
To be sure, Houston’s Jose Altuve and Philadelphia’s Jean Segura are among scores of Latin players helping keep big league rosters diverse.hortly after Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color barrier, there project to be no U.S.-born Black players in this World Series.“That is eye opening,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
Starting in 1954 when Willie Mays and the New York Giants played against Larry Doby and Cleveland, every single team to reach the World Series had at least one U.S.-born Black player until the 2005 Astros did not.Article content At the All-Star Game this summer at Dodger Stadium, Betts wore a T-shirt with the message: “We need more Black people at the stadium.”
Lapchick, lead author for his group’s annual reports on diversity hiring practices in sports, said Black players made up 7.2% of opening day rosters this year. That dipped from 7.6% last year and marked the lowest since study data was first collected in 1991, when 18% of MLB players were Black.Article content