That lags far behind the percentages in other professional sports. Twenty-five of the NFL's 120 game officials -- 21% -- are minorities, for example, including eight of the 15 officials hired in the last four years.
Basketball has done even better. Although the NBA does not compile those statistics on its officials, a study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida found that in the 2006-07 season, 36% of the league's 59 officials were either black or Latino.
The NBA is also the only major pro sport with a female official, Compton's Violet Palmer.
"It's important because we want diversity in every area of our game," says Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations. "There's been a lot of focus to the players on the field but less focus is brought to the umpires. We don't have very many minority umpires. So we've been working to increase those numbers.
"The way you do that is to increase the pipeline."
To help do that, baseball will give as many as eight umpires in last week's camp scholarships to one of two umpire schools in Florida in January, the necessary first step toward becoming a professional umpire.
Seven umpires who attended last November's Compton camp already are working in the minor leagues.
The fact that all seven are white doesn't really matter because, Solomon and others say, the goal was never to create an affirmative action program. The goal was to generate interest and create opportunity and that, in turn, will eventually draw qualified candidates of all backgrounds.
"They're trying to find the best umpires. They're just reaching out to find them," says major league veteran Brian Gorman, an instructor at last week's camp.
"Major League Baseball is not going in there saying, 'We're only sending minorities,' " adds Alfonso Marquez, a camp instructor last fall and the major leagues' only Mexican-born umpire.
"The camp is not necessarily just minority. It's really for people that don't have the resources to be able to go to umpire school.
"Opportunity. That's the biggest thing."
And that's all that Rich Gonzalez is asking for. A high school and college umpire in St. Louis, Gonzalez, 19, came to Compton well aware of the challenges.
"They said a year in rookie ball, a year in A ball, a year in double A, five to six years in triple A. And then maybe you might get called up," says Gonzalez, whose father, also a college umpire, was Rieker's roommate at umpire school 24 years ago.
But while Rieker went on to the big leagues, Gonzalez's father went home to St. Louis to get married and start a family. So what was once his dream is now his son's.
"This," Gonzalez says, "is what I want to do."
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kevin.baxter@latimes.com
