The Red Sox' Marlon Byrd just shook his head when asked why theAfrican-American population in baseball has dropped to just 8.05percent. In 1975, 27 percent of major league players wereAfrican-American."I wish I could tell you why things are like this now," Byrd said."All I can say is that when I came up with the Phillies 10 years ago wehad six (African-American) players. I thought that was the norm."Oneof those athletes is Jimmy Rollins, the longest tenured member of thePhillies. The veteran shortstop is apparently color-blind since hefailed to notice that the Phillies have been above the norm during hisrun with the team."Has it been?" Rollins asked. Yes. Byrd is on the money regardingthe 2002 squad. Fast forward to the current team. At the start of springtraining Ryan Howard, Juan Pierre, John Mayberry Jr. Dontrelle Willis,Domonic Brown and Tyson Gillies, were part of the Phillies 40-manroster, along with Rollins.Sure, the ineffective Willis was waived before camp broke and Brownand Gillies are in the minors. But the Phillies hope that they will jointhe big club at some point.So the Phillies, the last team in the National League to sign ablack player (John Kennedy finally broke the Phillies color line in1959), have been above average over the last decade with periods whenthey've had a whopping six African-Americans on the 25-man roster.Byrd, amazingly the lone black baseball player in Chicago -- all ofChicago, home to both the Cubs and the White Sox -- before he was tradedto Boston in April, said "the Phillies have done a good job of bringingin (African-American) players and they're a big reason they've been sosuccessful over recent years."Rollins doesn't believe that race has anything to do with the Phillies acquisitions."It definitely wasn't anyone saying 'let's get a black player here,'" Rollins said.Rollins: 'Baseball not a glamour sport'Jimmy Rollins sayshe became a baseball player because of his mother. She played softballand she always loved baseball," Rollins said. "She exposed me to it and Iloved going to Oakland A's games when I was a kid."The A's won a championship in 1989 and were a dominant team duringRollins' childhood and he was part of MLB's RBI program (RevivingBaseball In Inner Cities). "It was great back then," Rollins said. "Itwas the A's and baseball for me."But for most African-American kids living in the inner city, basketball and football rule."That's true and I think that's it's due to marketing," Rollinssaid. "The NBA does a fantastic job at marketing their players. Footballdoes a good job as well. They both market the heck out of players.Baseball is not a glamour sport, especially in the minors. You don't seehigh school baseball games on TV. What you see on TV is what you wantto be. I don't know why we're not marketed like that. I think that's whyyou see what you see or don't see."Keeping ball alive in PhillyMajor League Baseball noticedthe sagging numbers of African-American players and fans during the late'80s. The RBI Program (Reviving Baseball In Inner Cities), which wasborn in 1989, is an initiative whose mission is to increase urbanyouth's interest in baseball and softball."One of the beacons of the RBI program is the Philadelphia RBIbranch," RBI director David James said. "The Phillies are one of 13major league teams involved with the program and they do a wonderfuljob."More than 9,500 kids from Philly are part of RBI. The ethnicbreakdown is 38 percent African-American, 38 percent Caucasian, 21percent Latino and three-percent Asian.The goal of RBI isn't to manufacture future MLB players.
