Heptagonals Track & Field

One of the former star sprinters at Dartmouth, Jimmie Lee Solomon, was ranked as one of the Sports Illustrated’s top 10 most influential minorities in sports a few years ago. And his work since has been paying off for Major League Baseball as the percentage of black players are increasing after a long, steady decline.

Solomon recently returned to his Texas high school for the first time in more than three decades to talk to students about being prepared for the future and following their passions. That event was covered by Gene Duffey on MLB.com.

Here is a sample:

After moving into his current role as executive vice president of baseball operations in 2005, he created, in 2007, the annual Civil Rights Game, which will be played May 15 this year in Cincinnati. He is extremely proud of the role baseball played in integration, beginning with Jackie Robinson in 1947.

“Baseball [integrated] before the armed forces did, before Brown vs. Board of Education,” he said. “The grand experiment was baseball. We needed to take credit where we were in the whole forefront of the civil rights movement.

“The Commissioner has created diversity, on the field and in the board room. We have vice presidents who are Latino and female. We had an uptick last year [in the number of black players in the Majors]. We went from 8.5 percent to 10.2 percent.”

Major League Baseball became concerned in recent years about the shrinking number of African-Americans in the Majors. Solomon spearheaded a change.