NEW YORK — Darryl Strawberry believes Major League Baseball should focus on developing and marketing the game in inner cities in order for the percentage of Black players to increase significantly.
“They have academies everywhere else, but they don’t have the attraction for what inner cities are all about,” Strawberry said Thursday at Citi Field, just before the New York Mets’ “Black Legacy Game” against the St. Louis Cardinals. “That’s where we played — me and Eric Davis, Chris Brown, all of us came from the inner city and inner city baseball was organized.”
Strawberry, Davis, and Brown grew up in the Los Angeles area and made their major league debuts in 1983 and 1984.
“They don’t have them anymore. Those parks have been closed down. Those parks are soccer fields. “They’re not baseball fields anymore,” Strawberry stated.
This season, black players made up 6.2% of opening-day rosters, up from 6% the previous season and down 18% from 1991, when The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida conducted its first annual study.
MLB has attempted to pique the interest of Black high schoolers through the DREAM Series, which it runs in collaboration with USA Baseball. The Series began in 2017, with one of the high schoolers in attendance being current Cincinnati Reds ace Hunter Greene.
Strawberry stated that MLB should increase marketing to attract Black athletes who would otherwise play basketball or football. Strawberry’s sons, D.J. and Jordan, each scored 1,000 points at Maryland and Mercer. Jordan Strawberry accompanied his father to Citi Field.
“The younger African-American kids kind of reject baseball because they don’t market it like they do basketball,” Darryl Strawberry said. “Basketball markets their players, their jerseys, and their tennis shoes, which is what attracts kids.
“My son Jordan is with me. He grew up playing basketball. He was a talented baseball player. I wish he’d grabbed a bat and kept going. Basketball marketing was very appealing, which drew players in. So you have to make the game appealing in order to attract players.
