Andrews Is in the Minority on College Baseball Fields

He heard it from the box seats, from one man who sounded like a dozen.

The man didn’t point at anyone, didn’t call anyone by name, but it didn’t matter.

Bobby Andrews, center fielder on the Cal State Fullerton baseball team, knew exactly where the taunting was directed.

As the only African American on the defending NCAA champions, it had to be him.

“He was telling me to go back to where I came from,” Andrews said. “He was telling me to go back to Africa.”

Standing along a foul line during that early-spring game at Tulane in New Orleans, Andrews felt a shiver as familiar and unsettling as the ping of an aluminum bat.

Nearly 60 years after Jackie Robinson painfully integrated major league baseball, his collegiate proteges often feel just as alone.

With the nationally televised NCAA tournament beginning in two weeks, the lack of diversity will again be impossible to hide under the oversized batting helmets and home-plate hugs.

From March Madness to June Sameness.

“I try not to think about it, I just try to play baseball,” Andrews said. “But it’s hard not to notice.”

Of 11 Division I baseball programs in Southern California, there are only 10 African Americans.

That’s less than one per team, and six teams have none, including former national champion USC.

“People see these numbers and are surprised,” said Richard Lapchick, president of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport. “But this decline has been happening over years.”

Nationally, among all baseball programs in all divisions, African Americans make up only 4.5% of the players, less than even half of even the dwindling 9% that populate the major leagues.

It’s far less than the 42% that populate college basketball and 32% that play college football.

“If baseball wants to continue as our national pastime, shouldn’t it reflect the diversity of our nation?” Lapchick said. “In this case, it clearly doesn’t.”

How is this more unbalanced than the NBA, which is dominated on the court by African Americans? Because there is diversity in the league’s front offices and boardrooms.

Why does the ethnic makeup of messy college dugouts even matter? Because, among other things, there is Larry Cochell.

Earlier this month, Cochell, the longtime coach at Oklahoma, resigned for using the “N-word” during an off-camera interview.

This wasn’t a rookie backwater boss, but a man who had won a national championship in 1994.

The most dangerous thing about that word was that is was spoken by an educator who was clearly comfortable using it.

“When you have an environment that is insular and only populated by one type of person, it’s hard to make that environment a tolerant place,” said Todd Boyd, a USC professor and author of several books on culture and sports. “It gets closed off.”

Andrews says his Fullerton teammates, which include several Latinos who make up 4.8% of all college baseball players, have been welcoming and inclusive over the last three seasons.

But he understands closed off.

“In this sport, if you are black, you stand out more, people expect more of you,” he said. “Sometimes, I think you have to do something better just because you are black.”

Walking through the White House recently on his team’s championship visit with President Bush, Andrews was approached by a tour guide.

“You must be a shortstop or center fielder,” said the guide.

It was no different from the times Andrews has been stopped while walking through the airport with teammates who look like ordinary folk.

“You guys must be the basketball team,” people tell him.

Andrews rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, right, we’re the basketball team,” he said, shaking his head at the memory. “Sometimes, you get a certain vibe that makes it tough.”

Being one of the only African American players on many of his youth league teams, Andrews says he has grown accustomed to that vibe.

“There’s not many of us at any level of the sport,” he said. “It becomes a part of life.”

The reason Andrews plays is the reason that many African Americans do not play.

He grew up in a household where baseball was the passion. He grew up in a family that could afford his spot on traveling teams. He grew up thinking baseball was cool.

Where neighborhood buddies eventually drifted to the quicker-fix sports of basketball and football, Bobby Andrews swung at balls with mop handles, then swung at stereotypes by looking for a good college program.

“We didn’t see any blacks out there anywhere, but it didn’t matter,” said his father, Bob Andrews, a former Navy medic who helped rear Andrews in Long Beach and Vista. “We knew what we wanted.”

That was eventually Fullerton, where one of Coach George Horton’s recruiters gave Andrews the phone number of former African American players who vouched for the comfort of his system.

“I don’t see race, and I just assume everyone is like me,” said Horton, whose team is ranked No. 1 again. “We only take good kids here, and when that happens, everything works.”

Horton said there are two issues that keep his game from diversifying -- money and the law.

“First, it’s the socio-economic situation of some of these kids, it’s just easier and cheaper to play basketball and football,” Horton said. “Then, there’s the major issue with scholarships.”

Because of Title IX, college baseball and softball each must offer the same number of scholarships. Because this puts a burden on schools that are giving countless full rides in football and basketball, the NCAA has mandated that baseball can give only 11.7 full rides, and softball can give 13.

“You do the math,” said Horton, who has 38 players in uniform this season. “We can’t give out full rides, kids can get a lot more money elsewhere, so what do they do?”

If you are Bobby Andrews, batting .303, what you do is look.

“Every game, I look,” he said.

If he sees an African American on the other team, he will approach him afterward. Nothing too noticeable, but something very serious.

“I’ll give him a longer handshake, tell him ‘good game’ more than anybody else,” Andrews said. “I let him know I support him. We’re different. I have to.”

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.