Winston-Salem State Rams to bring back baseball‎

Winston-Salem State University is bringing back baseball, a sport it last offered in the early 1970s. The team will start play in the spring of 2011, a condition of the school's readmission to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA).

Leon Kerry, the CIAA commissioner, said: "We have a rule that was voted in by the CIAA Board of Directors that any school that comes into the conference had to have a baseball program. This was part of the deal with Winston coming back." Chancellor Donald Reaves of WSSU confirmed yesterday that plans to add baseball are in the works but said all details have yet to be worked out. Kerry said that WSSU is on the CIAA schedule for next season.

"I'm really excited about baseball coming to Winston-Salem State," Reaves said. "I think this will help raise the profile of athletics, and it's also great for the profile of the university.

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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.

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Southern Jaguars travels to West Coast for tournament

Photo: SU Human Jukebox Marching Band and Dancing Dolls get to do battle with the USC Trogan Marching Band in Los Angeles.

Add weatherman to Southern baseball coach Roger Cador’s capabilities. “It’s beautiful in Los Angeles. Simply gorgeous,” Cador said. Southern (0-1) plays third-ranked UCLA (2-1) at 8 p.m. CST today at Jackie Robinson Stadium in the first Urban Invitational Baseball Tournament.

In the round-robin tournament hosted by the MLB Urban Youth Academy, SU will play Southern California (3-2) on ESPN2 at 10 p.m. Saturday at the MLB Urban Youth Academy and Bethune-Cookman University (2-1) at 3 p.m. Sunday at the MLB Urban Youth Academy.

Saturday’s entertainment will also include a “Battle of the Bands” between Southern’s Human Jukebox and USC’s Trojan Marching Band.

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What a wonderful ideal--a battle of the bands at a baseball game! I know the Southern Human Jukebox is loving the opportunity to square off with the USC Trogan Marching Band. This will be an epic battle that is worth watching. Nice escape for the students before Spring Break in Los Angeles, California, no less. Go Jags!