I remember it clearly. I was 6th grade and it was Black History Month and my role in our church skits was to play Jackie Robinson.

I can remember standing in front of the congregation in my mock baseball uniform and giving my speech. “I was the first black baseball player in the Major Leagues,” I yelled. “I was born January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia!” I continued to rattle through my speech the way that little kids do then I finished with an expressive, “I am! Jackie Robinson!” My mother couldn’t be prouder, but the truth is I had no idea who Jackie Robinson really was.

At that time, I only knew the surface of what Jackie Robinson had to go through. I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of everything he went through to create a level playing field for blacks and other minorities to have the opportunity to play professional baseball in America.

In the years following that I began to read more and see that although he was smiling in all the pictures I saw as a kid, life in the Major Leagues wasn’t sweet for Jackie Robinson. From there I began to read more about the man that I was idolizing (along with Ken Griffey, Jr. who was a beast at that time) and I really couldn’t imagine why I’d never heard the “bad” things about his life.

I say all this to say, last Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the Major League Baseball color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, if he were alive today, would he be happy with the current state of African-Americans in not just professional baseball but in baseball period?

Today, fewer African-American kids than ever are taking up the national pastime instead taking their athletic ability to football fields and basketball courts everywhere. I bypassed the subconscious feelings of racism that many African-Americans associate with baseball being a predominantly white sport and looked at other causes.

Is it because baseball is so expensive? Unlike football and basketball where all you really need to play is the ball itself, in baseball you have to have a bat, a ball, a glove and if you’re seriously going to compete you have to have cleats and other equipment.

Is it because of how long it takes to make the majors and the limited positions there? Carl Crawford of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays joked on ESPN’s Outside The Lines “If you aren’t an All-Star you can’t be black in the major leagues.”

So are African-American youth avoiding the challenge or simply looking the almost overnight riches that comes with being able to play in the NBA one year removed from high school or the NFL after completing three years of college, while in baseball some players spend their entire careers in the minor leagues.

Are all colleges actively recruiting players of color? It was amazing to me to see that most Historically Black Colleges and Universities fielded baseball teams that we’re in stark contrast to their student bodies. 95% of the student population at Bethune-Cookman University is black while their baseball team only featured one black starter in their lineup over the weekend at A&T.

I know that some MEAC coaches like Bethune-Cookman’s Marvyl Melendez and A&T’s Keith Shumate had spoken of their commitment to go out and find the best African-American players they can find along with.

So, is Jackie Robinson’s dream of a level playing field in professional baseball realized? Yes and no.

I think that Jackie Robinson would be happy with the current state of African Americans in baseball but admit that we still have a long way to go. Robinson wasn’t arguing for all minorities to automatically be given the privilege of playing professional baseball but rather that they have the freedom and opportunity to pursue a career in professional baseball if they so chose.I’m sure it’d be a little bittersweet for him to see neighborhood kids in the streets imitating LeBron James and Kobe Bryant but happy to see the African-Americans finally had to opportunity to play and be accepted as equals in the sport.

African-American children might not have the abundance of black players to look up to like they would have had in 1970’s when over out of every four players in the sport were black.

But the same way people who are my brother’s age, 24, had Ozzie Smith or David Justice, kids today have Ryan Howard, Carl Crawford and budding star in Howie Kennedy, The Upton Brothers and Delmon Young.

I know he’d be excited about Willy Randolph managing the New York Mets and Ron Washington managing the Texas Rangers, but he’d be disappointed to see that even today there are only two African-American managers in the game.

The truth of the matter is that African Americans will only start playing baseball in huge numbers again when there are camps, fields, equipment and other things available for free that allow players in disadvantaged areas to be exposed to the game in a way where they see that the dream is doable.

• Mike McCray