Black to the Bigs
Black to the Bigs preview
Preview: 4/1/2025 | 1m 37sVideo has Closed Captions
Black to the Bigs is streaming now.
Black to the Bigs is streaming now.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Black to the Bigs is presented by your local public television station.
Black to the Bigs
Black to the Bigs preview
Preview: 4/1/2025 | 1m 37sVideo has Closed Captions
Black to the Bigs is streaming now.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Black to the Bigs
Black to the Bigs is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- The thing that we love about baseball (dramatic tones) is its tradition.
(dramatic tones) The thing that has hurt baseball is its tradition.
(daring music) - [Reporter] Black American players have hovered around 7%.
That number has dipped.
- But we have less participation by African Americans in Major League Baseball today than since the time of Jackie Robinson.
There's something wrong with that.
- Our system in baseball is broken.
(dramatic tones) - All right, so here's a question for you.
Would you spend $15,000 or more on a teenager summer sport?
(cash register dings) ♪ Triple play, play, play, play ♪ - You know, they don't have the five and six pairs of shoes, they don't have the batting gloves, the wristbands; they have the bare minimum, and they go out there and play.
- This subject of blacks in baseball is always looked at as a negative connotation.
Looking back on American history, it isn't beautiful.
Sometimes you got to fight through it to see the beauty in it.
- [Reporter] Red's owner, Marge Schott, made a racist, derogatory comment toward African American players.
(tense tones) - Baseball still feels old, and if it feels old, then it feels white.
- Our Black kids don't have the support because we don't have Black coaches everywhere.
- The game is never going to change if you guys stop playing.
- If this same system would've been in place when Hank Aaron and Willie Mays came along, we'd have missed the best players in the game.
- We can talk about it all day long.
What are we going to do about it?
♪ Black to the bigs, to the bigs ♪ ♪ Black to the bigs ♪ ♪ Let's get black to the bigs, to the bigs, to the bigs ♪
Support for PBS provided by:
Black to the Bigs is presented by your local public television station.