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Major League Baseball today is once again commemorating its most significant moment of the 20th century: the ****** debut of Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers.The succe s of Robinson as an integration pioneer in MLB galvanized many acro s the nation in the push for racial integration and the march for civil rights. The launching of what historian Jules Tygiel labeled Baseballs Great Experiment reverberated well beyond the baseball world. Over the next several decades, Americans everywhere Alex Redmond Jersey confronted the prospect of integration coming to their team, neighborhood, school, or workplace.MORE: | Journalists, baseball insiders and scholars offer multiple readings on the fading away of the African-American presence and the factors contributing to the lower percentage of African-American players. They mi s the point. While they point to changes in the sporting world that can lead to the decline in black baseball players, they simultaneously ignore that Major League Baseball stripped the black baseball community of its infrastructure and subsequently failed to reinvest. The result: an annual conversation surrounding the lack of African-American interest in America's game.Some suggest too much is made of the situation: that African-Americans have more sporting and non-athletic pursuits from which to choose. Thus, the decline in African-American players might even be seen as a sign of progre s.Others note Jackie Robinson was a multisport athlete at UCLA that baseball was arguably his fourth-best sport behind football, basketball and track and field. Robinson, they note, chose baseball because the other sports lacked strong profe sional circuits that included black athletes and provided them a somewhat stable livelihood as the Negro Leagues did in baseball.These perspectives hint at the complex sporting world of Jim Crow that affected baseball and other major sports. That sporting world was one where whitene s was privileged above all else; where Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Fritz Pollard and Paul Robeson would not be afforded the place that their athletic excellence merited profe sionally.The challenge of pioneering integration was daunting. Each Major League franchise had its own institutional practices that were vestiges of a segregated culture. Players, scouts, coaches, team personnel and even upper management had to revisit their feelings about race and integration with the arrival of black players.For decades, there was much more to Carl Lawson Jersey being the next Jackie Robinson than on-field performance. This was the le son that the black Puerto Rican Vic Power learned firsthand when he failed to become the first black Yankees player despite his stellar performance for the organizations top farm club. Instead, New Yorks general manager George Wei s informed the baseball public that the first Negro to appear in a Yankee uniform must be worth having been waited for. Labeled a poor fielder by team officials and a showboat by sportswriters, the player who would revolutionize fielding at first base was traded to the Philadelphia Athletics in ****** .Vic Powers experience illustrates how black Latinos were always part of the story of integration. That most journalists now specify the decline in African-Americans in baseball versus merely labeling it a drop in black players is a (minor) recognition that the integration of baseball involved more than those from the United States.Indeed, Jackie Robinsons entry made it po sible for all black players, whether from the United , Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic or elsewhere in Latin America, to enter the Major Leagues. No longer did Major League team officials need to shepherd Latinos past those watching that ambiguous line between inclusion and exclusion by proclaiming a player was Cuban and not black, even Cedric Ogbuehi Jersey if the player in question was visibly no different than an excluded African-American.(Sporting News archives)The next Jackie Robinson?The decline in African-American participation and interest in baseball in the late 20th century has perplexed many Major League officials. Their bewilderment perhaps arose from too many of them operating from the belief that African-Americans would (always) aspire to be the next Jackie Robinson.In fact much derision has been directed toward African-American players who publicly acknowledged not knowing Jackie Robinsons place within the history of the game. The public shaming of these ballplayers in the media hid what ought to have been seen as a greater institutional shame: How much Major League Baseball contributed to the decline of Black baseball in the United States through the manner it pursued racial integration in the ****** s and ****** s, along with the neglect of the Black baseball community thereafter.Branch Rickey set the stage for how Major League owners shut out Negro League owners from being shared stakeholders in the proce s of integration. Rather, integration was pursued as a pillaging of the Black baseball circuit. Talented players like Monte Irvin, Roy Campanella and Willie Mays, among others, who would have commanded a $100, ****** purchase price, had they been white, were secured for a pittance from Negro League owners, who were fortunate if compensated at all.The point here is not to decry the end of segregation. Rather, the quest to understand the how and why of the decline of African-Americans interest in baseball demands a more critical look Logan Woodside Jersey at the proce s of integration. This nece sitates foregoing the popularized myth that Branch Rickey pursued integration due to a higher moral purpose which meant its implementation was either divinely inspired or primarily driven by his support of the cause of social equality.MLB pursued one-way integration, and for the first several decades it was restricted to just those who might appear on the field. Jackie Robinson himself was not deemed by the lords of organized baseball as meriting the opportunity to manage a big league or minor league club as his playing days were reaching their end.Robinson would fight for a more expansive vision of integration until Andre Smith Jersey the end. Standing in Cincinnati at the ****** World Series just ****** days before he died, Robinson spoke to that broader vision of integration, stating he would be even prouder of baseball when he could look into a dugout and see an African-American manager.A meaningful investment in black baseballHonoring Robinson and his legacy should involve a meaningful investment in reviving baseball in African-American communities. It is a project that would involve rebuilding what MLB laid waste in its pursuit of one-way integration: the black baseball circuit in the United States that produced talent for the Negro Leagues, teams at historically black colleges and universities, and, eventually, Major League Baseball.The Negro Leagues were largely responsible for developing the talent within African-American c