Texas Rangers’ Church aims to buck trend

DALLAS — It was the bet that kept on giving. Back in high school in Atlanta, a buddy challenged Marc Church, a shortstop, that he couldn’t hit 88 mph off the mound in a game as a pitcher. Threw down $50 to back it up.

Church hit 90, picked up the bills, figured he’d have some gas money for his Honda CR-V and a bit left over for a couple of Chick-fil-As or Chipotle bowls. Can’t remember which. Doesn’t matter anyway. The real winnings came in the form of a long-term connection.

Church’s talent put him on the radar as a potential pitching prospect. In the tight-knit Black baseball community in Atlanta, word of Church’s live arm quickly got back to former MLB pitcher Marvin Freeman, who runs a baseball-related youth foundation and is key in MLB’s efforts to raise Black participation in the game. In a flash, a mentorship was born that some six years later helped put Church on the verge of being what has become all too rare in the game today: A dominant pitcher who happens to be Black.

With both Church and Kumar Rocker, who also is of Indian descent, the Rangers might wind up with two playing significant roles in 2025.

As Black History Month winds down and baseball prepares for its annual celebration of the game’s integration by Jackie Robinson in April 1947, it’s worth noting how little Black representation there is currently among pitchers and the challenges in changing that.

Beyond the challenges related to pure talent, there are those related to access, opportunity and even health for pitchers. For Black pitchers, there is also the challenge of almost always being in mostly unfamiliar surroundings.

“Everybody learns differently,” said Church, who had a 14-pitch 1-2-3 ninth inning on Thursday to close out an 8-0 win over Seattle. “There are a lot of challenges beyond the baseball field that guys don’t really consider. Most times, I am the only Black guy, or there are one or two others in the clubhouse. I listen to different types of music. I dress a little different. It’s just the way I am.

“But it’s easier even when I just had Kumar, to have somebody you can relate to. Somebody that comes from the same place, that is dealing with the same type of things in the same way. It’s always easier when you have somebody like that in the clubhouse with you, because this is a hard game, and you need somebody that you can talk to and you can relate to.”

Or as Freeman, who spent 10 years in the majors from 1986-96, puts it: “Sometimes, you just need somebody who looks like you and sounds like you.”

He’s not the only one who puts it that way. In a series of interviews over the last week, Rangers special assistant Darren Oliver, who spent 20 years in the big leagues, and now works with pitchers in spring training and occasionally in-season, summed it up the same way. So did third base coach Tony Beasley, one of two Black men to serve as manager in the Rangers’ 53-year history and the coach with longest consecutive service to the Rangers on the major league staff.

They all serve as unofficial members of a support staff, along with minor league development coach Josh Johnson and second baseman Marcus Semien, who are seriously invested in seeing Black pitchers in the Rangers organization maximize whatever opportunities they may get.

“Black players end up just having to adapt a lot,” Beasley said. “The first thing you do with players as a coach is build a relationship, some type of connection so that you can try to understand his culture, his background and how to bring out the best. That’s how you get to know how a kid is wired, how he competes, what his family dynamic is.

“It’s about creating trust. And there just aren’t a lot of Black coaches around to relate to the player in that way.”

Even in a year when baseball will celebrate CC Sabathia’s induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the numbers stand out for scarcity both from historical and contemporary perspectives.

From the historical: Sabathia will be just the fourth Black pitcher who pitched most of his career in the post-segregation era selected to the Hall of Fame, and the first elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America in more than 30 years. years. Lee Smith, the only Black reliever inducted, was selected by the Today’s Game Era special committee in 2019.

From the contemporary: Last year, only one of 30 pitchers selected for the All-Star Game was Black (Hunter Greene). Only one of the 58 qualifiers for the ERA title (minimum of 162 innings) was Black (Jack Flaherty). Only seven of the 126 pitchers to throw at least 100 innings — 5.6% — were Black. According to figures provided by MLB, 29 Black pitchers appeared in games in 2024. It represented 3.6% of the 802 non-position players who pitched.

MLB has long been aware of dwindling Black participation in the game and has taken steps to try to turn things around. RBI Baseball and Youth Academies are at the foundation of that. The DREAM Series, which began in 2017, is an effort to particularly help develop elite pitching and catching, two areas where Black participation is especially low. There is a focus on elite instruction, mentorship and off-the-field growth. Before he really popped as a pitcher, Church was actually turned down for the DREAM Series. The opportunities are limited.

“We recognized this as an issue a number of years ago and are trying to address it with things like the DREAM Series,” said Tony Reagins, MLB’s Chief Development Officer. “We are trying to open up every option for this [development]. A lot of our kids are just as talented as others. They just don’t have the opportunities or access. And you have to add health. Those are three touch points that are essential for our numbers to change at the major league level.”

The mentorship element is crucial. There is an extreme lack on that front. While MLB has acted to get more resources to Black pitching and catching hopefuls, more than two decades of dwindling participation in the sport have left the next generation with precious few voices to turn.

Outside of Rocker, Church and Semien, the Rangers have six total players in the system who are Black, and only two of them are pitchers. That’s four Black pitchers among 121 either on the spring roster or in the minor league camp. Those four pitchers do not have a full-time Black pitching instructor — or manager — in the system. The Rangers are hardly alone. Among more than 70 pitching coaches, assistant pitching coaches and bullpen coaches on major league staffs, only two are Black, according to MLB research.

On the pitching front there is another hurdle, too. He’s found that many Black players don’t want to make the full-time switch to pitching and the stigma that goes with it: PO. It stands for “Pitcher Only.” But it also often describes a player’s reaction when the idea is, well, pitched.

Church admits he didn’t want to move to pitcher, until he realized with a little work and strength he could get to 95 mph or better. That’s MLB caliber. Michael Harris II, a two-way player who worked with Freeman, never gave up on the dream of playing a position. Worked out OK for him, too. Won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 2022 for his hometown Braves.

Freeman, who says about 70% of the kids he works with are Black, invests significant energy into those kids who commit to pitching and he’s helped guys like Taj Bradley and Simeon Woods Richardson matriculate to the major leagues. He worked with Church regularly over the winter as the duo tried to refine a “splinker” to give him a third pitch. The two talk regularly in season. He calls himself “Dr. Free.”

“I seek to find those kids,” Freeman said. “I want to give them a more level playing field. The opportunities that present themselves may be few. You may only get one opportunity to prove yourself. That’s part of the game, too. We want to make sure that when they do have the opportunity to, they can capitalize on it.”

If all goes well, guys like Church may help MLB actually turn back the clock to a time when there were more Black pitchers and more inspiration for young Black baseball hopefuls.

“When I watched baseball, I saw guys that looked like me,” Freeman said. “It made me believe more that I could do it.”

Someday Marc Church or Kumar Rocker may just provide that inspiration to another generation.

________

©2025 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.