Black Players In Baseball -- Percentage of Players On Rosters

Richard Lapchick's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida puts out data on the number of black players in the Majors every year, and this year the percentange on Opening Day has slipped to 8.5 percent from 9.1 in 2010.

Lapchick's Institute gave baseball an A for racial diversity in hiring, which was the same grade it received last year. Baseball received a B-minus for gender, down from a B last year.

This has been a concern of Major League Baseball and leaders in the African-American community, Lapchick said. However, the 38.3 percent of players who are people of color also make the playing fields look more like America with its large Latino population.

Since conducting the study in 1990, the highest percentage of black players on Opening Day was 19 percent in 1995.

Percentage of Black Players in MLB

Year Pct

2011 8.5

2010 9.1

2009 9.0

2008 10.2

2007 8.2

2006 8.4

2005 9.0

2004 9.0

2002 10.0