Over the last three decades, there has seen a stunning decline in the number of African-Americans playing Major League Baseball. In 2008, the total was little more than eight percent of all big leaguers—and roughly 12 percent of all players developed in U.S. high schools.

Considering the number of African-Americans in the U.S. population at large has been calculated at 12.3 percent, it’s apparent that the number playing Major League Baseball is strikingly close to the national average. By contrast, some 75 percent of players in the NBA and 66 percent of players in the NFL are African-American. Hockey is on the opposite extreme, registering barely a blip on the screen.

Though baseball is the only major professional sport in this country that comes even close to mirroring the national average, baseball has more than its share of critics when the issue of racial makeup of its game is addressed. That stems chiefly from the perception that baseball is fighting a losing battle in terms of attracting its rightful share of African-American athletes to the game. And on two counts, there is no disputing that.

By comparison to the number of African-Americans playing Major League Baseball now vs. 30 years ago, when the total was more than 25 percent—and even 10 years ago, when it was double the current output—the case is clear. By comparison to football and basketball’s skewed numbers, the facts are also irrefutable.

And it’s a trend that may not reverse itself any time soon as more and more African-Americans are choosing football and basketball over baseball.

In college football’s early-signing period that began Wednesday, only one player among the nation’s top 100 high-school football prospects, as ranked by rivals.com, is a baseball player of any significance—No. 83 Donavan Tate, a highly-rated outfielder from Georgia. In the past, any list of the best prep football talent would routinely be littered with players whose athletic ability crossed over into baseball.

Moreover, the top 100 list was overwhelmingly slanted towards African-Americans as it included only 15 white players. Rivals.com’s corresponding list of the nation’s top basketball players is even more pronounced than football as 31 of the top 32 players in that sport are African-Americans.

Meanwhile, a recently-revised list of the nation’s top 100 baseball prospects in the high school class of 2009, as compiled by Perfect Game, includes 15 African-Americans.

In other words, a list of the nation’s top 100 football prospects includes only 15 white players. A list of the nation’s top 100 baseball prospects includes only 15 black players.

That spells it out, pretty much in black and white, which athletes are choosing which sports—and goes a long way to explain why rosters of Major League Baseball and National Football League teams have the vastly different racial makeups they do.

A number of reasons have been advanced in recent years for both the disparity between baseball and football/basketball, and for the decline in participation of the African-American player in baseball. The purpose of this exercise isn’t to delve into them—it’s more to point out the vastly different demographic landscapes found in the recently-released lists of the nation’s top 100 high school football prospects, as published by rivals.com, and the top 100 baseball prospects, as published by Perfect Game.

At the very least, it graphically highlights the challenge facing Major League Baseball as it seeks to address and ultimately attempts to reverse the stunning decline in the participation of African-Americans in the game from even a generation ago.

There is irony in all this. At a time when Major League Baseball—save for the current economic crisis that is impacting society as a whole—is undergoing a period of prosperity like none other in the game’s long, rich history, and is literally awash in cash, more and more African-Americans may indeed be turning to football and basketball because they can’t afford to play baseball.

While colleges offer nothing but full athletic scholarships in football and basketball, making it extremely attractive for African-American athletes—or anyone of modest socio-economic means, for that matter—to attend college, college baseball teams are limited to a collective 11.7 scholarships. Full rides in baseball are few and far between, forcing athletes to cough up the difference, and the number of African-Americans playing college baseball is so few that Major League Baseball’s 8.5 percent looks attractive, by comparison.

With more and more baseball players attending college first before tackling professional baseball, does it not seem appropriate for Major League Baseball, for all its wealth, to pave the way for more African-Americans to attend college by subsidizing colleges in the form of baseball scholarships earmarked specifically for African-Americans? It only makes sense that more such athletes might then choose to play baseball in college—and not football or basketball—and go on from there to pursue baseball as a career.