Ex-MLB outfielder advocates for partnership among baseball, fans and police

Former MLB outfielder Doug Glanville devised ideas for the league to “confront systemic racism,” and one of the ideas included being a bridge among players, fans and police.

Glanville, an analyst for ESPN and a member of the Connecticut Police Officer Standards and Training Council, wrote in a story republished Friday that the partnership between the game of baseball and law enforcement should be expanded because of “common culture” between the two.

METS GM APOLOGIZES AFTER BLASTING MLB COMMISSIONER MANFRED IN HOT MIC VIDEO

“Little leagues are everywhere, and minor league and big league teams have strong local presences. Baseball can help develop and share resources with police to help reimagine policing through the best spirit of the game,” Glanville wrote. “Everywhere I played, I had a direct relationship with local law enforcement. Players know that experience well, whether it is an officer looking out for players to secure their safety or a working friendship linked together for charity or volunteer officers in players' lives as coaches when they were younger, as they were in my case.”

Glanville insisted that baseball can be part of the solution.

“This is a time when we need to engage more, sit at the table together and allow the language of baseball to break the ice. Police are everywhere, and so is baseball, and the two have a long-standing connection. There are about 700,000 police officers in the United States in about 18,000 departments. There are 180,000 Little League squads and millions of players. There are 30 big league teams and 250-plus minor league teams. Together, they represent an underutilized partnership.”

METS' DOMINIC SMITH TEARFUL AFTER KNEELING DURING ANTHEM: 'BEING A BLACK MAN IN AMERICA IS NOT EASY'

Among his other ideas, Glanville wrote that baseball should confront racism, take advantage of the league’s diversity, use the wide-ranging use of analytics to expand on diversity in leadership positions and revisit the rule requiring teams to interview minorities for jobs.

MLB teams postponed some games as NBA players protested police brutality in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake.

New York Mets and Miami Marlins players took the field for the scheduled 7:10 p.m. ET start time, observed a 42-second moment of silence and then walked off the field in protest. The team left a Black Lives Matter T-shirt on home plate.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM

At least seven MLB games were postponed Thursday night. Athletes across several sports said they would not play after Blake, a Black man, was shot multiple times during an encounter with police in Kenosha, Wis., as seen in moments captured on cellphone footage. The shooting sparked days of protests.

Fox News’ Thomas Barrabi contributed to this report.