Clark Sad to See No US-Born Black Players in World Series

By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Author

HOUSTON (AP) — Players’ union head Tony Clark said years of inattention by Major League Baseball had contributed to the World Series being played with none U.S.-born Black players for the primary time since 1950.

“It is actually unlucky that any young Black player could also be watching these games tonight shouldn’t be going to see someone that appears like them and because of this may make a call against continuing to play our great game and move on to something else,” Clark said before Friday night’s opener between Houston and Philadelphia. “That’s disappointing and disheartening.”

The 50-year-old Clark was a significant league first baseman from 1995-2009, making the AL All-Star team in 2001.

“After I first began playing, players made sure, Black players in your team and other teams made sure that you just were encouraged and supported, recognizing that even even at the moment, the numbers weren’t as high, so that you were less likely in numerous ways to to see someone that looked such as you or got here from the identical place that you just did,” he said. “Toward the top, less and fewer of those conversations were being had because there have been less of those players to have them with.”

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Clark became executive director of the players’ association in 2013, the primary player to carry the job.

“How we came didn’t occur overnight. There have been conversations about this topic for a protracted time period,” he said. “Consequently of us not attending to this place overnight, getting back out of it shouldn’t be going to occur overnight either. But so long as there are people who find themselves committed to providing opportunities, providing opportunities each on the sphere and off the sphere, there’s going to be a chance for our game to be higher tomorrow than it was today.”

Houston’s Dusty Baker is one among only two Black managers and Chicago White Sox executive vp Kenny Williams is the one Black leader of baseball operations for a significant league team.

Clark said the responsibility to extend the share of Black executives in decision-making positions is as much as management.

“To the extent that that we’ve got only a pair Black coaches, to the extent that we only have a number of Black front office staff,” he said, “it’s a conversation that I feel it is best to have with those in those positions as to why that continues to be the case once they 100% have the flexibility to manage who they hire and who they don’t.”

Clark said about 30 players met with MLB officials in 2006 to precise what they were seeing and what areas needed to be addressed.

“It’s 2022 and we’re still having the identical conversations that we had back in 2006,” he said. “Now we’re sitting here 16 years later having the identical conversation.”

— Clark said the union was pleased with the expanded 12-team playoffs and remained against 14 teams, which MLB proposed during bargaining last offseason.

“I feel it was good that we crawled before we walked,” he said.

Philadelphia is the primary third-place team to achieve the World Series.

“Over the course of the playoffs, over the course of a month, you may get your foot within the door and lock it in, every kind of things can occur,” Clark said. “Which makes our game great.”

— The union and MLB began talks Thursday on a collective bargaining agreement for players with minor league contracts.

“There’s indeed a chance to search out common ground before the beginning of the 2022 season,” Clark said.

— The union will consult with players whether or not they favor continuing the rule to have a runner start on second base in extra innings of normal season games, which was adopted as a pandemic change in 2020 and continued through 2022.

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