(Photo by Rashad Milligan for rolling out)
Despite the Atlanta Braves having seven Black players on its last championship roster in 1995, baseball Hall of Fame voter Terence Moore said the decline in Black interest in baseball started in the 1980s. As the Black icons Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Frank Robinson retired in the 1970s, the NFL began to grow in popularity and the NBA was on the heels of its pop culture phenomenon of the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rivalry in the 1980s. While Black superstars Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Bonds became the faces of baseball, they were only two players.
At the Braves championship celebration, Aaron’s widow, Billye Aaron, spoke about how proud her husband would have been of this year’s championship.
“Think about it, this man spent nearly 70 years of his 86 years on Earth as part of the Braves organization,” Moore told rolling out. “That’s why I can flatly say that he loved the Braves and he would have been elated for what’s going on right now.”
Moore was closer to Aaron than any other reporter. The former Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist knew Aaron for nearly 40 years and wrote his obituary for the AJC. Moore confirmed the claim Aaron would be embarrassed by Terrance Gore being the only Black player on the Braves roster this year.
“I can speak very clearly on this to say from the time I came to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1985 through his death when Hank wanted to speak out about the lack of Blacks in baseball, the person he talked to before anyone else was me,” Moore said. “So I can flatly say he was very disturbed, always, about what was happening to the dwindling numbers of Blacks in baseball.”
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