Urban Invitational helps MLB try to lure more blacks to baseball

HOUSTON, Texas  -  For Michael Robertson at Texas Southern, Waskyla Cullivan at Prairie View A&M and the other coaches at Major League Baseball's Urban Invitational, coaching at a historically black university is a mixture of outreach and pragmatism. 

In a sport where black participation is dwindling, Robertson, Cullivan and their colleagues are determined to advance their schools' traditional mission of expanding opportunities. But they also want to - and have to - win games.

And so the six-team field that will compete through Sunday at Minute Maid Park and at Sylvester Turner Park in Acres Homes looks a lot like America - and unlike the bulk of NCAA baseball teams. Blacks accounted for only 5.1 percent of baseball players in NCAA Division I in 2010-11, down from 6.6 percent in 1999-2000. Across all NCAA divisions, blacks make up 3.9 percent of baseball players, down from 4.6 percent in 1999-2000.

By contrast, teams such as TSU, Prairie View and traditional Southwestern Athletic Conference powerhouse Southern are likely to include significant numbers of non-black players.

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