Chris Rock trolls baseball: Was he right or wrong? (Video)

Stand up comic and New York Mets fan Chris Rock did a segment yesterday on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about the declining popularity of baseball among balck people.

Beaseball is back, and everybody appears to be happy. The sport enjoyed one of its most successful set of opening weekends to date, and with the summer rolling around folks are bound to be flocking towards the game.

Yet the sport has become even less popular among African Americans. Only about 8 percent of players on major league rosters are black, down from over a quarter 35 years ago. The demographics of fans has also become less black, drawing in more whites and Latinos.

Stand up comedian Chris Rock has his take on why baseball is less black, and he gave it in a segment on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

[Mild NSFW: Language]

The issue has already been taken up by other leading figures in baseball, including career home run king Hank Aaron.

For a lot of people, like Pittsburgh Pirates minor league prospect Josh Bell, the discrepancy in black baseball players stems from socioeconomic issues.

From Al Jazeera America:

"“Think about the demographics of the black population as a whole and how poorly we are doing as a whole as a race,” Bell said. “It is a lot easier to go outside and run some drills with the football rather than paying for hitting lessons or pitching lessons and going to this showcase or that showcase.More from Entertainment10 greatest fictional football players of all timeStephen A. Smith learned quickly not to mess with RihannaEverything to know about Taylor Swift’s Thursday Night Football appearanceHouse of the Dragon live stream: How to watchFrom boxing to cinema, Javon Walton stars in Samaritan with Stallone“Baseball is one of those sports that is really expensive, and the showcases are starting earlier and earlier. The competition is getting stiffer, so the need for some sort of training outside of the hitting tee in the backyard comes more and more at an earlier age.”"

But Rock throws that notion away as the primary reason, saying that baseball isn’t popular because it has become uncool compared to basketball and football, and too concerned with emulating the past.

One of the most interesting points that Rock brings up is that baseball has within it an unwritten code both to the way that it is played and the way it is watched. Basketball and football thrive on unfettered enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm transfers over to the fans. When the players get punished for being too excited, like they are in baseball, then the fans themselves become less likely to engage in enjoying the game.

But the problem is broader than just baseball being unpopular among black people. Sure, the dryness of the game today can be identified as a white characteristic, but it is an unappealing characteristic to anyone who prefers the faster pace of the NBA or NFL, which is the majority of younger fans.

Baseball is not only in danger of losing its base not only among young black people in America, it is in danger of losing its base of young people in general, which will damage the future of the sport.

[H/T: Al Jazeera America]