Chris Rock gives a brilliant and hilarious take on why baseball is no longer appealing to many African-American fans. He also explains that once you lose black America, you lose young America. As Rock accurately notes, black people set the trends of what’s cool in America.
Baseball is the most arch-conservative of sports. NASCAR is obviously a red-state stronghold. College football progresses at a glacial pace. The NFL is so far to the right that…well, it doesn’t matter because baseball is more conservative than all of them.
Give a watch below to Chris Rock discussing why blacks and baseball don’t match anymore:(from HBO Real Sports)
Baseball isn’t translating well to the digital era. It’s pace has gotten slower while news cycles have gotten faster, and attention spans have gotten shorter. As Rock points out, the idea that blacks are checking out of baseball due to financial reasons is totally wrong.
“You can’t tell me black kids can’t afford to play when they’re spendin’ $300 for a pair of Jordans. That’s 6 gloves right there!”
Studies and data back that up too. Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel cited a couple figures shortly after Rock’s message aired during the episode. Another great point Chris Rock made is baseball’s bizarre obsession with retro. Especially so in the architecture and design of their ballparks. Major League Baseball panders to and emphasizes nostalgia more than any other league or sport.
MLB’s Golden Age came before the Civil Rights movement; during a time when Jim Crow laws were the establishment. Baseball began long before the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War. Rock doesn’t go so far as to say these things, but it’s what he’s implying when he takes on MLB’s fixation with the long past.
Since his ascension in the 90s, Chris Rock had been more than just a phenomenal stand-up comic; he’s been the chronicler of our age. He’s been America’s social theorist and most superlative social critic. Right now, Amy Schumer is enjoying the exact same type of explosion in relevance and importance as Rock did then.
Rock, however, has kept it going for 25 years. We’ll see if Schumer can do the same.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)