Chris Rock Talks About The Lack Of Black Athletes In MLB On ‘Real Sports’ (NSFW)

Longtime Mets fan Chris Rock went on HBO’s Real Sports to talk about an important issue, the lack of black players in the league. During his long but wonderful seven-minute rant, he stated how black athletes make up less than eight percent of the league, which is an average of two per team, and how this was different in the 80’s.

When the Mets won in 1986, all of New York cheered them on, but when he now asks his friends “did you see the met game last night, they’ll say, ‘what the f*** is a met?'” And his main reason why this is happening is not what you think. It is not about the monetary gap, but because the sport is stuck in the past. “Guess what, black people don’t like to look back… But baseball can’t get enough [of the past].”

He later complained about how other sports are speeding up, yet baseball seems to be slowing down: “last year, the Mets played a half inning with no hits and it took more than 22 minutes.” Yet, his most interesting point is how baseball is losing its fanbase: “little league participation has fallen 20 percent since 1995… Of the people who still watch baseball on TV, five out of six are white and their average age is 53. That’s not an audience, that’s a tea party rally. Baseball is dying, literally.”

It is an interesting take on baseball’s declining fanbase.