Chris Rock answers the question, ‘Why don’t black people like baseball anymore?’

NEW YORK -- Chris Rock describes himself as “an endangered species.” In what way? As “a black baseball fan.”

In a segment for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” the comedian looked at how and why black players and fans seem to have abandoned participation and interest in what’s long been referred to as “the national pastime.” He pointed out that in the 1980s, black people made up about 20 percent of major league players; a recent MLB study put that number at 8.5 percent for the start of the 2013 season.

When Rock was a young man in New York, the 1986 Mets won the World Series with a roster studded with black stars such as Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Mookie Wilson. But he noted — amusingly, of course — many ways in which things have changed:

• The 2014 World Series winner, the Giants, had zero black players (and “the closest thing to a person of color in the stands was their mascot, a biracial seal“), nor did their NLCS opponent, the Cardinals.
• Stillman College, a historically black institution located in Tuscaloosa, Ala., has one black player on its 35-man roster.
• Howard University dropped baseball altogether. (“Yeah, lacrosse is black enough for Howard, but not baseball.”)

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