What is causing decline in black baseball players?

Kaylum Graham was like a lot of future E.E. Smith High School athletes.

As a youth, he played many sports — baseball among them. But faced with tough choices entering high school, his passion for baseball waned.

“I felt there was a better chance for me to go to college playing basketball and football, so I stuck with the other two,” he said.

Those are among the common reasons given to explain a national decline in black athletes in baseball.

It’s been documented at the major league level, but it’s also evident in the high school ranks in Cumberland County. A Fayetteville Observer study reveals that only 40 of 152 (26 percent) varsity baseball players in Cumberland County are black. As a whole, 51.4 percent of Cumberland County students are black.

While some of the reasons for the decline are easy to identify, coming up with a plan to reverse the trend isn’t nearly as simple.

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