Anytime there are more than about three African Americans on the active roster, Juan Pierre says black players across the Majors start joking with each other about “the quota”.

Morgan Campbell of thestar.com explains that if one more African American joins the team, the joke goes, “the team will have to cut one of the originals to maintain balance.”

Pierre points out that on Thursday when the White Sox played the Blue Jays and everybody was celebrating Jackie Robinson Day, of the 50 players there, the only African American players were Pierre and Vernon Wells, and the White Sox oufielder was not happy with the situation.

“It’s discouraging that we don’t see more blacks in baseball because of all we went through to play this game,” said Pierre.

“A lot of people think there’s a lot of African Americans in the big leagues but really there’s not,” Blue Jays’ Adam Lind said. “I wish there were more.”

Campbell says by 1975, 27% of players on Opening Day rosters were African American, but by 2009 that figure had dropped to 10.2% and dipped to 9.5%.

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