The percentage of black players in the major leagues dropped again on Opening Day this year even as the sport again received a top overall grade for racial diversity. Baseball's grade for gender hiring declined slightly, according to the annual study released Thursday by Richard Lapchick's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida. Baseball received an A for racial diversity in hiring, the same grade as last year, and a B-minus for gender, down from a B. Its overall grade remained a B-plus. "A one-year difference like this must be seen with the perspective of the overall pattern baseball has been going in," he said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "If it happened two or three years in a row, it would be different." Read more: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6401971
