Charting The Decline Of The Black Baseball Player

A few years back, baseball writer and SABR member Mark Armour tracked the integration of baseball from 1947 to 1986, the 40 seasons after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Why 1986? That year would begin a precipitous decline in the number of African Americans, to less than half the high-water mark--and the trend may not have bottomed out. Armour, with the help of Dan Levitt, has updated the study. The chart above tracks the demographics of MLB from 1947 to 2012.