Behind the count: Harlem Little League faces steep registration decline as 35th season looms
As Harlem Little League celebrates 35 years in the community, volunteer board members say attendance continues to dip after the pandemic. Upward of 900 youngsters were registered at the program’s height. A ballpark number, no pun intended, estimates around just 250 players this upcoming spring.
Several reasons are at play for this decline, including reduction in playable fields, waning interest for the sport among Black youth, and the growth of “travel ball.” Board secretary Satrina Boyce said the privatization of youth baseball is especially damaging for children who are not born on third base.
“A lot of those rec leagues [where every kid, no matter what talent could play] are getting smaller and smaller because parents…go to the private leagues where they’re paying a lot of money, but we do know that not everybody can afford a traveling baseball team,” said Boyce. “For Harlem Little League, this is something really important and it guides all of our decisions. Our goal is to build big league citizens—notice it doesn’t say ‘the next major league player.’”
Costs range between $100 to $150 to register for spring 2024, and board members maintain no child will be turned away if their families can’t pay sign up costs.
Sponsorship chair Fred Sims said that comparatively, travel ball costs anywhere between $800 to $2,000. The private leagues also poach top Little League talent and remove them from playing in the community. Sims added that some players split their time between both programs, causing schedule conflicts that have led to game cancellations.
“If you come to a game, you will see parents along the fence watching the kids from the community play,” said Sims. “And the kids [met] each other and the parents knew each other…when their kids were five. Now the kids are graduating, but they’re still friends. Harlem Little League is part of the tapestry of Harlem. This is hard to think of how people will be getting together otherwise.”
Fewer players also lead to more repetitive matchmaking because teams, while co-ed, are already split up by age.
Board members also suspect gentrification plays a factor, although its direct impact is unknown. Little League is ZIP code-based and reflects neighborhood changes. Citywide, Black families are moving out at an alarming rate with the population declining by 9% over the past two decades, reported the New York Times.
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum co-founder Phil Dixon said engaging Black youth in baseball is tougher today due to poor marketing and fierce competition from other sports, like football and basketball, where Black athletes are more visibly represented.
“Most of the stations that carry baseball are stations that Black people typically don’t even listen to when the baseball season is over, which means that when caravans come through town, a lot of times, they miss the caravans [and] don’t actually meet these players,” said Dixon. “And of course, now there’s even [fewer] players to meet.”
Two years ago, the World Series featured no American-born Black players for the first time since 1950, just three years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Dixon’s own fandom started by meeting MLB outfielder Reggie Smith in the fifth grade. Half a century later, he now serves as a baseball historian dedicated to preserving Negro League history.
Locally, general disinterest in baseball also means fewer fields in Black neighborhoods, including at Colonel Charles Young Park where Harlem Little League often practices, according to Boyce.
The Harlem Little League was initially started by Dwight and Iris Raiford back in 1989 for their son, who wanted to play baseball for the West Side Little League. In 2002, a team that reached the Little League World series.
“It is a labor of love, but it is also changing,” said Sims. “Little League is evolving, the kids are changing and evolving. And we have to be changed with them.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
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