In the old days, Frank Robinson said, inner-city kids would grab a stick and a ball and run to the nearest sandlot. They would play from dawn till dusk, pickup games with shoddy equipment, but who cared? Not them. Because in the old days, baseball was the sport of the city, whether it was Oakland, Calif., where Robinson grew up, or, say, Washington, D.C.
"We played basketball," Robinson said, "just to pass the time between baseball seasons."
From left, Daniel Howard, 14; David Harold, 10; William Minor, 13; and Simon "Big Hurt" Casselle, 12, are among 300 members of the District's Satchel Paige Little League.
(Dudley M. Brooks -- The Washington Post)
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Those romantic notions, Robinson knows, are very much the old days now. When the 69-year-old manager leads the Washington Nationals onto the field at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium next Sunday for an exhibition game -- the team's first appearance in its new home -- he will be the face of the sport's return to the nation's capital after a 34-year absence. And though he doesn't dwell on it privately, or speak about it unless asked, he knows: His face is the kind that is fading away from baseball. It is African American.
Baseball's return to the District has focused attention on the sport's relationship with the black community -- in the Washington region and across the country. For decades now, African Americans have been turning away from baseball for the faster-paced games of football and basketball, which have been more in tune with blacks culturally.
It is a trend Major League Baseball would like to reverse, and some in the sport see the Nationals' arrival in Washington as a possible catalyst for a reinvigorated relationship. Robinson, a Hall of Famer regarded as one of the best players ever, is managing the Nationals this year because of his abilities. But baseball recognizes that it also doesn't hurt to have a prominent minority in a position of authority with the team, according to two sources with intimate knowledge of the league's actions regarding the franchise.
In 1971, when Robinson was a slugging outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Senators played their last season in the District, nearly one in four major league players was black. Last season, the number wasn't even one in 10. The Nationals' roster boasts just one African American, outfielder Terrmel Sledge, assured of making the team, and just one other, outfielder J.J. Davis, with a decent chance.
"We're aware of the situation, and we've put a lot of work into promoting the game in cities," said Tom Brasuell, baseball's vice president for community affairs. "I think the number of African Americans playing the game should reflect the population. If the 10 percent we have holds, we'll be okay. If it drops below that, there'll be real concern."
In the three decades since baseball left Washington, the number of Latino ballplayers in the majors has swelled. Of the 31 players left competing for 25 roster spots with the Nationals, 13 are Hispanic. The growing number of Latinos has added a dose of ambiguity to consideration of the sport's image among African Americans, since many Latin American ballplayers are black. As for African Americans, the dilemma facing the sport is clear: A dearth of African American talent has touched every strata of the game -- from Little League to the majors.
Robinson, who in 1975 became the first black manager in major league history, understands his sport is in trouble among the segment of the population with whom he grew up. Yet he believes baseball's return to Washington, and his position in it, might not be enough to again make his sport popular among African Americans.
"I will not sit here and try to say that because a major league team is coming to town, it's going to get better," Robinson said. "I don't think that's going to get it done. It goes back deeper than that."
Detached From the Game
The Nationals franchise, which is still owned and operated by Major League Baseball, spent the previous 36 seasons in Montreal as the Expos, trying to establish a niche in French-speaking Canada. Now, it lands in a much larger, racially diverse metropolitan region that is 57 percent white, 24 percent African American, 9 percent Hispanic and 7 percent Asian.
The District, which today is 57 percent African American, has a rich but mixed history of selling baseball across racial lines. Washington had a club in the original American League in 1901, and the team, in one form or another, survived in town for seven decades. But when Calvin Griffith, the owner of the first version of the Washington Senators, moved his franchise to Minnesota following the 1960 season, he said, quite bluntly, that the District's racial demographics were partly to blame.
"Black people don't go to ballgames," Griffith told a reporter years later, "but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant they'll scare you to death. We came [to Minnesota] because you've got good, hard-working white people here."
Over the years, Griffith and his uncle, Clark Griffith, had rented Griffith Stadium, their park on Florida Avenue, to teams from all-black circuits collectively known as the Negro Leagues. Still, the first edition of the Senators enjoyed a significant following of black fans in the 1920s and '30s even though the stands were segregated. Early on, Negro League franchises tried, with little success, to establish themselves amid a black middle class with money to spend.
