What is it about?

While celebrating Jackie Robinson's 100th birthday for the 2019 baseball season, Major League Baseball's (MLB) African-American roster remains below 8%. This paper examines the issues MLB faces in their outreach and relationship development efforts among African Americans.

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Why is it important?

The findings show that there is a lack of cohesion between MLB front office and each MLB team when it comes to how to develop relationships with the African-American community. Additionally, MLB does not have a definitive measurement of success regarding their outreach programs.

Perspectives

I remember being a child in the late 80's and early 90's growing up in rural Arkansas and sitting with my grandfather watching St. Louis Cardinals games. They had two prominent African-Americans players on the roster at that time: Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith. Not to mention that there were other all stars like Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry who were essentially the faces of the sport. Not since then has their been the magnitude of prominent African-American MLB players in one era. My hope is that this article and future articles will help increase the popularity and involvement among African-Americans.

Shaun Anderson
Loyola Marymount University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: The African American Community and Professional Baseball: Examining Major League Baseball’s Corporate Social-Responsibility Efforts as a Relationship-Management Strategy, International Journal of Sport Communication, April 2019, Human Kinetics,
DOI: 10.1123/ijsc.2018-0157.
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