Civil Rights Game

The Civil Rights Game is an annual Major League Baseball game (starting in 2007) that honors the history of civil rights in the United States and marked the unofficial end to the league's spring training. Starting in 2009, the game became a regular season game.

The first two games were held at AutoZone Park in Memphis, Tennessee. The intent of the game was to "embrace baseball's history of African-American players", as well as to generate interest for future black players, after a demographics survey revealed that the percentage of black players in the league has dwindled over the past twelve years to just 8.4 percent. The survey also gave the diversity of players in Major League Baseball an A+ grade: while African-Americans in the sport since 1996 dropped from 17 percent to 8 percent, the percentage of Hispanic players (many of them blacks from the Caribbean) increased during that period from 20 percent to 29 percent, and Asian and other minorities increased from 1 percent to 3 percent. The percentage of non-Hispanic white players went down from 62 percent to 60 percent during that period.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig commented on air during the first Civil Rights game that the 8 percent total for African-Americans was "a problem that needed to be looked at." Associated Press news releases related to the game focused on the drop in African-Americans, and quoted former Cleveland pitcher CC Sabathia on the idea that baseball must do more to promote the game in inner cities, saying, "It's not just a problem—it's a crisis."

In conjunction with the Civil Rights Game, Major League Baseball honors three pioneers of civil rights with the Beacon Awards (Beacon of Life Award, Beacon of Change Award and Beacon of Hope Award).

The inaugural game was played on Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 5:30 p.m. and was broadcast nationally on ESPN and ESPNHD. It was announced by ESPN's #1 broadcast team of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, with Peter Gammons serving as a field analyst (his role during Sunday Night Baseball telecasts on ESPN). The game featured the St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Indians. Both teams wore uniforms reminiscent of those worn in Negro League games. The Cardinals won 5–1, receiving a solid five-inning start out of their 2006 closer Adam Wainwright, who got the win.

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