Hall of Famers Barry Larkin, Mariano Rivera discuss 'poignant' lack of Black MLB players

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Major League Baseball has seen such a recent decline in Black ballplayers that there was a higher percentage of African Americans in the league during the Civil Rights era.

On Opening Day in April, just 7.2% of major leaguers were Black. Eleven years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, that number was 7.4%.

For the first time since 1950, no Black players will participate in the World Series.

Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, right, talks with manager Barry Larkin of Team Brazil before Game 1 of the 2013 World Baseball Classic Qualifier against Team Panama at Rod Carew National Stadium Nov. 15, 2012, in Panama City, Panama.  (Tito Herrera/WBCI/MLB via Getty Images)

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Barry Larkin was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012 after being named an All-Star a dozen times, winning a World Series in 1990 and an MVP in 1995 and earning nine Silver Slugger awards and three Gold Gloves.

The former Cincinnati Reds shortstop is one of the best shortstops to ever lace up cleats, yet he couldn't even get his son to stay on the diamond beyond the age of six.

"The reality was all of his buddies were playing basketball and football. That’s where he migrated. He wanted to play where his friends were and where he was comfortable. That’s just the reality of it," Larkin said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.

Fellow Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera believes basketball and football have played a role MLB's decline in Black players.

"There’s a process to play baseball, and there is a system in going through the minor league system and going through all that stuff. Boys start thinking ‘OK, I have this ability to play baseball or basketball or football. If I’m pursuing football, I can play in the NFL quicker than if I start playing baseball," Rivera told Fox News Digital. 

"Or basketball — if I’m talented enough, I can be drafted, and I can be playing NBA basketball within a year or two. The boys trying to navigate through that, and the ones that are playing baseball is because they really, really, really have passion for the game of baseball, and they stay with baseball."

Barry Larkin of the Cincinnati Reds fields a ground ball during a game against the New York Mets April 23, 1997, at Shea Stadium in New York City.  (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

At the same time, those sports are also why the league has seen a rise in Latin players, Rivera said.

"We don’t know how to play football," the all-time great closer said. "Basketball is taking a little bit more, and soccer is taking a little bit more of that chunk of it. But they see baseball like, ‘We’re gonna go through the system, and we’re gonna take our time. And we’re gonna go to the big leagues.’ That’s why you see a lot of players from Latin countries versus African American players, because they figure we have talent enough to be able to play this sport, and I will be making money quicker than baseball."

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Rivera and Larkin recently teamed up as part owners of Baseball United, the first professional baseball league based in South Asia, in efforts to bring in 2 billion new baseball fans. The game is growing in India, with over 50 million "avid fans" in the country and 16 million watching the World Series, according to league CEO Kash Shaikh.

"We can change the life of many youngsters. The game of baseball, to me, is something precious, something unique, something that not many people can do at that level. But if we start teaching the right way in these countries, the game of baseball that we know how to play, and they have passion for it, I think we can accomplish a lot," Rivera told Fox News.

New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera throws in the ninth inning of a game against the Seattle Mariners June 9, 2013, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

"I think, sporadically, there is baseball being played in these different countries. The question is what is the information, who's teaching them, what information are they getting?" Larkin added. "So, obviously, what Mariano and I bring is very, very high-level curriculum that's able to be dumbed down for whatever effort level it is. That really is the biggest thing."

That all rings true even in the U.S. Major League Baseball has taken notice of its decline of Black players. The league's percentage of Black players hasn't been in double-digits since 2008, and the 10.2% representation was much lower than when the number hovered between 17-19% from 1973 to 1988. 

The Players Alliance, a group of 150 current and former Black players, was formed in 2020 to "use our collective voice and platform to create increased opportunities for the Black community in every aspect of our game and beyond."

But it's going to take a while to "manifest itself," Larkin says.

"It’s poignant, the fact that there is not one African American participating in the World Series," Larkin lamented. "I think it is great that it was pointed out, and Major League Baseball, to their credit, is doing stuff to address that. But, obviously, it’s a participation – just a numbers game. More minorities that will participate, more specifically African American players that will participate, there’s gonna be a greater chance that they will be playing on a team that could possibly play in a World Series. 

Mariano Rivera, a 2019 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee and former New York Yankee acknowledges the crowd as he stands next to his Hall of Fame plaque during a ceremony in his honor before a game between the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians at Yankee Stadium Aug. 17, 2019, in New York City.  (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

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"But not surprising. Wasn’t surprising because of how the numbers are dwindling in the game at the Major League level overall."