LAST Thursday was a storybook day for baseball at Citizens Bank Park.
The sun was shining and the temperature hit 75 as the Phillies prepared to host the Nationals in the late afternoon.
During the pregame festivities, our National League champs received their commemorative rings. And when it came time for the national anthem, several Tuskegee Airmen stood at home plate and saluted.
It was also Jackie Robinson Day, which explained the presence of several wheelchair-using members of the Philadelphia Stars, the old Negro League team. Sixty-three years ago, Robinson had broken baseball's color barrier and, by Friday, every player on the field wore his No. 42. (This also provided one of the better moments of levity during the game - when Charlie Manuel argued with home plate umpire Joe West, somebody near me yelled out, "Hey, Charlie, tell him to throw out No. 42.")
Just one thing missing: players who looked like Jackie Robinson.
The Phils' starting lineup included four Latinos, four white guys and a lone African-American in Ryan Howard. (Jimmy Rollins was on the disabled list.)
The Nationals fielded a team with three Latinos, three white players and three African-Americans. Three is a lot - 17 of the 30 major league teams had two or fewer African-Americans on their opening day rosters this year.
The trend has been developing for the better part of 20 years, according to data compiled by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida (TIDES).
In 1995, 19 percent of major league players were black. By 2008, that figure had fallen to 10.2 percent, up from the all-time low of 8.2 percent in 2007 and the first year-to-year increase in 15 years.
This year, 9.5 percent of the players on opening day rosters were black. That's quite a departure from the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates team that once featured a lineup entirely of nonwhite players.
As the percentage of black players has declined, the ratio of Latinos has risen. In 1990, 13 percent of major leaguers were Latino, TIDES reports. That figure rose to 19 percent in 1995 and 27 percent in 2008.
The trend is as unmistakable as Harry Kalas' legendary home run call. But is it a cause for public concern?
