Rocked by the trend: Houston Astros manager Baker Jr
Image: AFP
“I’m ashamed of the game”: Since 1981, the number of US-born black players in the MLB professional baseball league has steadily decreased. Why is that?
EThere is few better witnesses to the past few decades in American professional baseball than Johnnie Baker Jr. When he was born in California in 1949, the league had just accepted its first black player, Jackie Robinson. And she began to slowly but consistently reduce the systematic discrimination against Afro-Americans that had been practiced until then.
When Hank Aaron, one of their pioneers, hit the home run in April 1974 that put him at the top of the all-time leaderboard and surpassed white legend Babe Ruth, Baker lived the moment first-hand as his teammate in the Atlanta Braves jersey Vicinity. Baker reached the final series, the so-called World Series, four times and won the title once: in 1981 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
