I love Major League Baseball, but I know, as a black fan, that baseball hasn't always loved me. As a fan who happens to be black and female, sometimes I'm not even sure that baseball knows I exist. So when "Pitch," a new Fox show produced in cooperation with MLB, was picked up last week for the spring of 2017, it was a welcome surprise.
The hourlong drama will follow "a young female pitcher who defies the odds when she becomes the first woman to play in the major leagues." The pitcher will be played by Kylie Bunbury ("Twisted"), a black Canadian actress of Guyanese and Swedish descent.
The three-minute series trailer looks like someone transcribed my dreams into final draft. It's the baseball drama I've longed for since I watched "Friday Night Lights" and saw what could be possible in a show about sports. Plus, it has the added bonus of having a black female star. I'm always excited to see a black lead on a network show, but I was especially shocked to see one in a show about a sport that has skewed so white. Knowing what I know about the segregated history of the game, race was the first thing I thought about when I saw Bunbury's name.
Showrunner Dan Fogelman says Little League pitcher Mo'ne Davis' story was an inspiration for his story, but any mention of race seems glaringly absent from his latest interview. When originally speaking about the show, he noted that it "could be a great way to get new extra female eyes on the game itself." The quote is innocuous enough, but here's the thing: While I've never lacked for female companionship in my baseball fandom, finding black female companionship has been a completely different experience.
I have no black girlfriends who love baseball. I never really have, and I'm 28 years old. Baseball is the one sport for which I purchase tickets, merchandise and software packages yearly, and I do so knowing that the sport is 59 percent white on the field and, as a corporation, the MLB received a C+ from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport when it came to gender hiring practices in 2015. On Opening Day 2016 only 8.3 percent of players on the field identified themselves as black or African American. That lack of diversity translates into the fan base, with women making up 30 percent of the MLB TV demographic in 2013, according to Nielson. In that same survey, 9 percent of MLB TV viewers identified as black or African American (tied with those who ID'ed as Hispanic).
It's hard to find a shared experience in such a small number. Knowing no black women baseball fans personally, I put out a tweet seeking stories from other fans like me.
Bernadette Pasley, a baseball blogger and Yankees fan, told me, "As for black female baseball fans, I only know a few. All of the other black female sports fans I know are way more enthusiastic about other sports. In fact, they don't like baseball at all."
Crystal Owens has tried to get her friends interested in the game but says they're turned off by the staunch sense of tradition. "There's still a dominant culture within the game that prioritizes 'tradition' over 'fun,' and that can be quite alienating," Owens wrote. "'Tradition' often benefits white men, so it's understanding that with black women being one of the most vulnerable minorities, we might feel little unwelcomed in a sport where a good percentage of its players and owners buy into 'the right way to play the game.'"
There's a right and wrong way to play the game, and the right way lies far from the celebratory end zone dances so common on the football field.
Put simply: One does not dab in baseball.
But I'll admit, tradition is something that I love about the game. The sports I mapped onto early on -- baseball, softball, figure skating and dance -- were rife with unwritten rules of behavior and decorum. "My father introduced me to baseball" isn't a unique story, but it's mine. My dad is a Cubs fan from the South Side, meaning that among other things, I grew up as a child who knew how to take an "L" gracefully and often.
I was a 5'8" 12-year-old who was thoroughly uninterested in basketball, despite every gym teacher's wish. It had more unnecessary personal contact and consistent trash-talking than I was game for. I wasn't a loud or overly exuberant kid. A sport that encouraged players to simply go about the business of the game with less fanfare was perfect for me, an awkwardly tall pre-teen who batted lefty and hit for power to the opposite side of the field.
As an adult, I love the quiet rebellion of loving baseball. My world takes on a soft-focused, nostalgic tone whenever I settle down into the stands at Citi Field for a Cubs-Mets series. To be a fan of baseball is to participate in something distinctly and traditionally American, even if I don't see myself reflected in the product on the field.
I certainly don't expect "Pitch" to be solely about race, but casting Bunbury as the star of a show about a sport that's been steadily losing black fans and players for years does make it a factor. Black female voices are so often lost in the sea of generalized "female" focus in film and TV. Are we meant to celebrate and demand more women-driven media, and somehow not notice that those headliners are often white?
So in the rare occasions that we are given a representation of ourselves -- and particularly when that representation is presented in an environment as exclusive as Major League Baseball -- it's important not only to recognize that, but encourage that it be highlighted.
"Pitch" isn't simply an opportunity to bring more female eyes to the game. It's an opportunity for acknowledgement, to reach out and market specifically to black women -- the ones who can keep a perfect score sheet and the ones who need gameplay spelled out for them.
I don't know if "Pitch" or Bunbury will bring thousands of new fans to baseball. But I am hoping that maybe in the show's wake, the next time I put out the call to speak with fellow black female baseball fans on Twitter, I'll actually to get enough to field a team.
Kendra James is a race and pop culture blogger from New York City by way of Oberlin, Ohio. She spends her days in prep schools, her weekends at Racialicious, and her nights complaining @KendraJames_.