Curse of the Black Bambino: Baseball’s Failure to Attract African-American Athletes

How could the sport that gave us Jackie Robinson become so irrelevant to Black America just a few decades later? While the NFL and NBA have risen triumphantly on the wings of great African-American athletes, baseball finds itself left in the dust. It was the likes of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Bob Gibson that fueled baseball’s growth, but such premium Black athletes have long since fled to football and basketball. Baseball is the only sport to become slower and less athletic since the early 1980s; its television ratings sinking to new lows with every season. More than ever, baseball needs Black America to reinvigorate its sport both on the field and in the turnstiles. Former major league scout Anup Sinha spent much of his career investigating the causes of baseball’s black-out which is exposed for all in Curse of the Black Bambino. This book is loaded with new research and the additional insight of players, coaches, scouts, and league executives. Sinha weaves both the historical and the anecdotal to illustrate the genesis of the issue at large. Included is a surefire plan to reclaim African-American athletes and take the sport to new heights in both entertainment value and popularity.