Sports odds and ends
Second of two parts
Tony Kemp recently tweeted: “1 of 780 in the World. 6% of black players on Opening Day MLB rosters. Beyond thankful to make a six Big League Opening Day…”
Kemp was then with the Baltimore Orioles, but was designated for assignment on April 10 and elected free agency on April 13. He signed a minor league contract with the Minnesota Twins four days later, and was assigned to St. Paul on April 18.
The 32-year-old infielder joined Simeon Woods Richardson as the St. Paul Saints’ only Black players this season. But with Woods Richardson recently promoted to the big league (more on him later), the 5-6 native of Franklin, Tennessee is the only Black player on the Twins AAA roster.
“Baseball is not a sprint,” he recently told me as we sat in the Saints dugout before batting practice. “You got so many levels to go through. And if you don’t have that patience, you will get to a certain point and quit.
“If someone were to tell me, ‘Hey, by the time you’re thirty-two you’re gonna have two beautiful girls, a beautiful family, and you’ve played parts of nine years in the big leagues,’ I would tell them where do I sign up?”
Kemp, who played college baseball at Vanderbilt, was an All-American, 2011 Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year, and first-team all-SEC. He played in the 2011 College World Series and later was the 2013 SEC Baseball Player of the Year.
Houston selected him in the fifth round of the 2013 MLB Draft. He debuted with the Astros in 2016 and played on the 2017 World Series champion Astros. He has played with four major league clubs—Houston (2016-19), Chicago Cubs (2019), Oakland (2020-23), and this season with Baltimore.
“Once I got drafted out of college,” continued Kemp, “I just wanted to live out my dream and just play baseball as long as I could, until someone said, ‘Hey, you can’t play anymore.’ I think being able to have a career that I’ve had up to this point, I would call it a success.”
The secret has been out for some time that U.S.-born Blacks playing baseball have been dwindling.
“I think it’s obviously a glaring statistic,” affirmed Kemp. “You obviously want to see more Black players getting out there playing baseball, but the reality is the numbers are just going down and down.”
Therefore, in his opinion, unless you love playing baseball, which he does, and unless you’re willing to keep going despite the overwhelming odds, the low numbers of Blacks playing the sport won’t improve.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to how much do they love the game,” noted Kemp. “Given all the obstacles of being 5-6 against the norm of how a typical baseball player is built, and being Black and the low percentage of [Black] guys to play in the big leagues, it kept me going to prove myself right and to enjoy the game and to have fun and provide for my family.”
Kemp believed he’s blessed: “God has steered me in the direction of the right path and nothing is possible without Him. God blessed me with a ton of things, especially being a big leaguer. “I mean, there’s still less than 26,000 people to ever play the game since 1900 or so.”
Picking brains
Simeon Woods Richardson told me last week, “I’m taking it one day at a time. Every day is a journey, still learning, being a sponge, picking guys’ brains.”
The 22-year-old pitcher is still with the Twins. “He’s still a real young kid,” said Twins baseball operations president Derek Falvey. “He is still learning how to pitch up here.”
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