Here’s another way to honor the great Buck O’Neil: more Black Kansas City Royals

On Sunday, John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil, Jr. will be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The Kansas City Monarchs legend is certainly deserving of the accolades.

But on this long-awaited weekend of celebration and pageantry, we must point out the obvious: Like much of Major League Baseball, the Kansas City Royals have a diversity problem.

On opening day 2022, Black players made up only 7.2% of all players in the league, the lowest number in three decades, according to the latest report from TIDES, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.

Back in his heyday, O’Neil and other Black players were denied a fair opportunity to play in the major leagues. What would the former Royals scout say about an organization that has only two Black players — Amir Garrett and Michael A. Taylor — on its 40-man roster?

What would O’Neil, a champion for equality, think of manager Mike Matheny’s coaching staff, which appears to have only one Black coach? Would he be disappointed in the organization?

And what about minority hiring in the front office? We asked Royals officials for demographics on front office staff.

Of 43 full-time employees on the baseball operations side, 20 identify as minorities or women, club officials said. As of Friday, we were still waiting on more complete information.

When TIDES began tracking this data in 1991, Black players made up about 18% of all big league rosters, according to the report. In 1995, 19% of MLB players were Black.

The Royals and the rest of Major League Baseball are trending in the wrong direction. What does that say about the state of the game 75 years after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball’s modern era in 1947?

When Robinson played his final season in 1956, African Americans made up 6.7% percent of major league rosters, according to Andscape, the website previously known as Undefeated. Last year, that number was 7.6%, 0.4% higher than this year.

In 2022, 38% of all Major League Baseball players were people of color, a 0.4% increase from the previous season, the report from TIDES found. Still, the league’s percentage of Black players declined.

Diversity issues in Major League Baseball aren’t limited to the players and coaches, either. Off the field, only one Black person, one Latino person and two Asian people have ever held high-level positions such as general manager, president of baseball operations or the equivalent, the report found.

The Royals have made strides, team officials told us. In 2020, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Karen Daniel became minority owners of the club. Both are Black.

The team’s nonprofit Kansas City MLB Urban Youth Academy is designed to increase the number of Black and other minorities participating in baseball and softball.

But the team is apparently shifting away from the mission of providing opportunities for urban youths through a restructuring, a former employee claimed in a federal race discrimination lawsuit filed recently against the club.

Cleitus Ross of Kansas was the Urban Youth Academy’s baseball program coordinator from 2018 to 2021. He was fired because leaders knew he would not agree with realignment, according to claims in a suit filed in the Western District Court of Missouri.

The Royals denied the allegations. In a public statement, team officials described the claims as “wholly without merit.”

We’ve long held O’Neil, one of baseball’s greatest ambassadors, deserves a bronze statue in Cooperstown. We all should be proud that Major League Baseball is finally honoring the Negro Leagues great and former Kansas City Monarchs player and manager.

But the Royals must honor O’Neil’s legacy by reinforcing their commitment to hire more qualified candidates of color and develop a pipeline of talented minority coaches, players and executives within the organization.