Phillies Roster Stands Out Amid Decline of Black Baseball Players

Only about eight percent of Major League Baseball players are African-American. In 2002, the Phillies had six black players on the roster. This year, they entered spring training with seven. Jimmy Rollins thinks that the decline in African-American Major Leaguers has something to do with the way sports are marketed. He says baseball is not a glamour sport. Though, he did participate in the league’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) Program—an initiative created when MLB noticed the decline of African-American fans and players in the ’80s—and attributes part of his interest in baseball to that. The Phils are one of 13 MLB teams that participate in the program. [Metro]