Baseball a microcosm of society?

Last night I was watching the Detroit Tigers v. NY Yankees playoff game on TV. Repeatedly, as the cameras panned the crowd, I could not find a single black face in the stands. I'm sure there were a few, but the crowd was predominantly lilly white. Now, this game was being played in Detroit. The population of that city is 82% black. And, it's not as though blacks aren't baseball afficianados -- witness the negro leagues of the past (Buck O'Neil, RIP).

Something is deeply, deeply wrong when the massive majority of the population of an entire city is essentially dispossesed from an event that might otherwise restore some pride and civic spirit to the town. Instead, we have a bunch of lilly white interlopers from the jet set circles of the world hogging all the seats, leaving the blacks to watch the game on TV.

I find it disgusting.

I was there when Detroit burned down in the 1960s. Will we ever learn?