Did you see Jackie Robinson hit that ball…or was it just another guy wearing his number?
Am I the only one completely turned off by what MLB has turned into an annual celebration of its own silliness? Is MLB the only organization that insists on reminding everyone of a very bad policy that it had for many years but that it ended many years ago?
Jack Roosevelt Robinson is properly recognized as an American pioneer and hero for becoming the first modern black person to play MLB and to have done so under difficult circumstances. His personality and character contribute to his stature.
If one objective of MLB is to educate people, including its own players, about the past it seems that there are significant failures. During last night’s ESPN game of the week Angel outfielder Torri Hunter was featured in a studio statement in which he said that if it were not for Jackie Robinson he, Hunter, would not be in MLB today. Torri Hunter is 36 years old. He’s not a kid but a 16 year veteran. Is his grasp of history so flimsy that he thinks that MLB could have remained racially segregated all these years?
...Every MLB game had announcers, including former players, going on and on about Jackie Robinson beyond all proportion to the matter. Yes, Jackie Robinson did something special but integration would have happened with or without Jackie Robinson. The poor man could have been spared his personal grief and the rest of us can now be spared foolish over emphasis.
Chalk up another mess for MLB commissioner Bud Wonder Boy Selig. Way to go Buddy boy!
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Also, Jackie Robinson was not the first player of African descent. There were Latinos of African descent that played earlier, especially in the 30's and during WWII. Their darker skin was explained by the fact they had darker spanish blood, but most fans and opposition players knew otherwise, so they were also abused.
Fascinating book called Playing Americas Game, Baseball, Latinos and the Color Line which explains in more detail.
Is his grasp of figurative speech so flimsy that he thinks "Torri" Hunter thinks that without Jackie Robinson's existence, he'd be playing for the Indianapolis Clowns or Kansas City Monarchs?
I don't think Canadians venerate Vimy Ridge because \"#### yeah war is awesome!". It probably has more to do with it being one of the first times Canada stepped out from behind the skirts of the British Empire and acted as a conciously independent unity. Sure, there's a contradiction there in that the only reason they were in France to begin with was because of their ties to the British Empire. The reason they fought may not be particularly relevant to Canadian identity in the 21st century, but how they did is. I guess the parallel is, sure someone had to break the colour barrier, if not Jackie Robinson then it would have been another man at roughly the same time, but it was him so he gets commemorated. I do agree that a narrow focus on him leaves out a lot of other people who played important roles and/or were treated horribly unjustly...I guess that's one of the great difficulties with historical memory. The narrow focus more easily captures the imagination, though it may simplify the story.
Jackie Robinson is one of my favorite all time players, but this treatment is way overboard.
On a related note, why the heck was Bud allowed to name the annual best hitter award for his pal Hank Aaron? Give a look at the all time list for OPS+; let me know when you finally find Aaron's name.
Since we already have a Babe Ruth award, the award for the best hitter should be named for Ted Williams.
If I had a say, I would name the Hank Aaron award for a new, far more prestigious honor. Each year the Hank Aaron award should voted on and given to one veteran player (10+ years) who best represents the qualities of Hank Aaron: extremely high level of play with extreme consistency. I would allow players eligble to win only once. This would become the most important award of all, as it would be a foreshadowing of future HOF election. The types of players that would win this award would be guys like Pujols, Rivera, MCabrera, Halliday & Jeter. Occasionally, a Michael Young type might sneak in.
By all means laud Robinson, but baseball would be better served to remember other pioneers as well, and not be afraid to discuss the fact that it has had owners, commissioners, and even HOF players who played a large role in keeping the game segregated. It would also do well to talk about some the Negro Leaguers who came before Robinson.
I would allow players eligble to win only once
If you have extreme consistency, you should be able to win year after year. It gets even more extreme as time goes by!
And inhale cigars until they lose their lunches.
Baseball became racially segregated in the 1880s and remained that way for 60 years with no attempts made to change, and without the heavily concerted effort made by Rickey and Robinson to desegregate the sport, I could see baseball remaining that way for a long time after the late 40s. Heck, it took the Red Sox another ten years after Brooklyn to finally desegregate. And given the problems Dick Allen had in the 60s, it's clear change was slow to really take. Same with football, where it took official Washington pressure on Redskins owner George Preston Marshall to force him to desegregate his team in the 60s, not to mention the shabby treatment AFL blacks got at their league's all-star game held in New Orleans which forced the black members to boycott the game in protest.
Consider also that it took an unbelievable struggle during the 50s and 60s to force changes to Jim Crow second-class citizen laws and practices in the South (restaurant sit-ins, freedom rides, local bus boycotts, local business boycotts), featuring participants being intimidated, beaten, arrested, and killed for their efforts. Those trying to force change were gutsy folks. Robinson's level of courage fits well alongside these people and there's no question he suffered heavily -- in fact, he's probably lucky he wasn't killed by some nutcase. I think he deserves the accolades he gets today. It never hurts to be reminded every so often how bad things once were and how far things have come.
Its even worse, its "lets talk about old timey racism to make ourselves feel better about current racism."
Isn't that how this all started? They had one player per team don 42 (only on Robinson's actual birthday, not later if you had no game that day). Then some team had multiple black players who wanted to wear it, so they let them all. Then nobody wanted to be the guy not honoring Robinson, so suddenly everyone on the field was #42.
Anyway, this isn't MLB-related (the organization itself, I mean) but isn't it about time the Jackie Robinson Museum finally opened? It's been 5 years already since it was announced. The signs in the windows still say "opening 2011."
Canada's formative moment occured on September 28, 1972 in the Lushnicki Sports Palace.
(I say this in part jest but there are many who would agree wholeheartedly with this.)
A nitpick of sorts, but: the National League was always segregated. Top amateur and early professional competition in the 1850s and '60s was largely segregated. After the war, segregation prevailed almost everywhere, except in a few (and needless to say, Northern) minor leagues. The oft-cited Fleetwood and Welday Walker should definitely get their due, because they played in a true major league (the 1884 American Association, which had any number of first-rate stars). But they also played during a year of disorganization, in which a third major league threw personnel issues into disarray, and they didn't play for long, and they were a big exception. Really it's fairer to say that professional baseball was almost entirely segregated from the beginning: there was no Reconstruction golden era of diversity.
On the point of the thread: I think an annual Jackie Robinson day is a great idea. I also think that having everyone wear #42 is bizarre. It's like celebrating Lincoln's Birthday by having everybody wear the beard and the hat. Isn't there a more dignified way to run this?
With a "Jackie Robinson Game" played every year in the Coliseum - Dodgers vs. Mets. That would make for fun baseball.
We do? Who won last year?
Or at
EbbetsCiti Field.1. Jackie Robinson is worthy of being honored throughout baseball for eternity.
2. The "everyone wears 42" thing is not honoring him. It's like honoring Dale Earnhardt with a Shriner parade. It's like honoring Fred Astaire with Cotton-Eyed Joe. It's like honoring Sean Forman with lolcats. It's taking great achievement and calling attention to it in the silliest way possible. It is to Jackie Robinson's legacy what Chuck Testa is to marketing: we're all talking about Robinson, but not necessarily in the intended way.
Seriously, it's the day when you can't tell the players even with a scorecard.
As is, I agree with vi's No. 2.
Definitely yes. It could not have been easy to find the player in his prime, with superstar talent, who also had the educational background Jackie had. His military background was certainly of value too, though not something that was in short supply in 1947. Jackie was the perfect man for the job. The eventual integration could have been much uglier if segregation had last just a few more years, and somebody signed Willie Mays because well, he had Willie Mays type talent. It was not a task fit for a 20 year old boy*.
*I realize the racist history of referring to men as boys but I'm doing this here only to highlight A) the difference in life experience at the time between 20 year old Mays and the 28 year old Robinson and B) as a privelege of my own advanced years, 20 year old males are all "boys" to me. If Mike Trout and Bryce Harper don't like it, well, they'll grow older.
That's a fantastic idea.
And the winner gets to possess his legacy for the following calendar year.
I was half-watching MLB TV when they were recapping the Sox/Rays game. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shot of David Ortiz from the back and my immediate thought was "Mo Vaughn unretired?"
MLB does give a "Branch Rickey Award" for community service. Shane Victorino won it last year. But you're right, he warrants more attention. However, to be honest, I think the whole integration aspect overshadows the fact that Rickey was a helluva GM and Robinson was a helluva player in their own right, and I think that gets lost sometimes with the celebration of breaking the color-barrier.
I think it was huge the Brooklyn Dodgers, a high profile organization who were really good at the time, were the ones that integrated first. If say the St. Louis Browns had been first, it would have likely been seen as a publicity stunt, or a desperation move to appeal to "Negroes" to get more fans.
That's a reflection of the chasm between the book reading fans and everyone else. Rickey's had a doorstop-sized bio of him plus more than a few other books and SABR articles that recognize his enormous importance in changing the game. But for 90% of the world, history is just something that happened "before my time".
I say that we pick the player who best embodies Robinson's virtues and character and make him change his name to Jackie Robinson up until he retires or starts to suck, whatever comes first. Then we pick a new Jackie Robinson, thereby ensuring that he will be with us forever.
NO, 90percent of the world needs to live a lie--only they call it a mythic narrative. And all that stuff you enumerate about Rickey is NOT public commmoration by the institution of baseball, or by other social and political institutions.
I asked a class recently what the climactic American historical event of 1974 was, and a (good) student answered, "I wasn't around then."
Heh. I've made the same claim more than once. Funnily enough (or perhaps predictably) no one here in the UK has a clue what that refers to.
I might be projecting my own experience onto others, but I think Branch Rickey remains relevant to anyone who grew up with the Ken Burns movie. For whatever else you want to say about that project there's probably a large section of 20 somethings who know who Branch Rickey is almost exclusively because of it.
and we all know that you can't have a White man wear #42 because it is not ok for a White man to have a Black man as his hero.
my mama always said that jackie didn't desegrate baseball - he desegrated America and that he gave his life for his COUNTRY.
and you best believe buddy boy is gonna make DAMM sure that the part played by all the racist owners/commissioners is somehow overlooked, as if it was all the players' fault, or american attitudes' fault and just like steroids, racism is one of those quaint icky memories of The Past
Well, you gotta admit after Barry broke the record Hank's 715 has become less celebrated.
True. He also wasn't the only one. Hank Aaron desegregated the Sally League, can't imagine that was much fun.
If all this happens 20 years later there is a ripple effect. Integrating major league baseball (and the army) led to integration in all aspects of society. If it happens in 1962 then Torii Hunter is growing up in a very different world.
yeah, arom should have said "kid" instead of "boy" but i know what he means because 20 year old males, are most definitely not mature adult men with DAMM few exceptions.
willie mays would have been just another outta the cotton fields n-word, but jackie was no question a grown man who was properly educated at a White university and served in the military - and spoke English like an educated White man. he couldn't be dismissed and willie, talent and all, most certainly would have been.
i always think of jackie as the soldier who volunteers to go and destroy the enemy machine gun setup (like in the old WW2 movies) and he manages to mess the gun enough that it can't fire quite as well as it used to and too many of the enemy soldiers are left alive and jackie gets a wound doing this that takes a long time to kill him.
and you know that destroying 1 machine guy won't stop the war, but it's a start for the people on your side...
Well, if you'd defended Canada's hockey honour like a proper NHL player, she wouldn't even be alive to be ######## about Brian Burke.
What? Surely the climactic American historical event of 1974 was the debut of "Rhoda".
I asked a class recently what the climactic American historical event of 1974 was, and a (good) student answered, "I wasn't around then."
You might've replied "whatever" to that, even if the point would've almost certainly been over his head.
Closer to "no major attempts". John McGraw tried to gain an advantage by claiming a black player (blanking on who) was an Indian. Lost that one.
And Leo Durocher actually forced Landis into lying about MLB's practices. In 1942 Durocher claimed he'd sign black players if allowed to. Landis:
a) claimed that MLB had no policy banning the signing of black players
b) forced Durocher into claiming he had been misquoted
As to why Landis made the public claim, the best explanation I've heard is that in the climate of WWII (specifically with the large number of black soldiers) it wasn't acceptable to have baseball formally segregated (and yes, I'm aware that the Army itself was segregated at the time. Not saying I buy the explanation, just saying it's the best one on offer. It is pretty much how the Philadelphia transit strike of 1944 played out at any rate). Landis would certainly have seen the lie as a simple way to defuse the situation, and he often opted for expediency.
I always thought it was the September weekend I got 3000 IU students to pay me a buck each to watch my collection of 16mm bootleg TV shows. That paid the rent for the next 15 months.
The problem at this point (and I never thought I would say this) is that people are over-demonizing specific segregationists. The owners in baseball were just regular Americans, just like your grand-dad and the the guy that owned the corner hardware store (or more accurately, the bank). These men did not "hate" black people--they just were afraid of change, and afraid of sticking their neck out. The same as people today. The integration of the Red Sox in 1959, 12 years after the Dodgers, was nonetheless earlier and with less rancor that the integration of huge segments of American life.
Demonizing Tom Yawkey or other owners is, in my view, a misunderstanding of how America worked in the 1940s and 1950s (or later). I am not trying to say these people were saints, they were just American men, and this is what they did.
Not to derail the thread, but as a suburban white kid growing up in the 1980s my "celebrity hero" was Bill Cosby. I still think Heathcliff Huxtable represents everything a father should be, and now as a 35 year old man I'm hoping to aspire to that when my first child is born in 5 months.
I think this is very accurate. Much of the reason the civil rights movement was able to gain traction in the 1950s and 1960s was precicely *because* of Jackie Robinson in 1947. No Jackie Robinson, and integration in general could have been pushed back by a decade or two.
That actually had been baseball's party line for quite a few years before that, back when the Daily Worker was quoting one star Major Leaguer after another to the effect that they'd have no objection to letting blacks in the Majors. And if you think about it, with all of that propaganda about baseball's being "America's melting pot", it would have seemed a bit embarrassing for it to formally codify any racial exclusionary policy.
That was a tough battle to fight and probably an inevitable result. If people in small cities have only the option of watching minor league baseball, as in the days before TV, they will watch. Give them the choice between watching their minor league team on TV, or watching a major league team, the vast majority will choose the major league team.
The end result is fewer jobs for players, but much more money concentrated at the top. Same thing with a small number of Hollywood stars making millions instead of local theater groups making a few bucks in just about every small town in the country.
I think this is very accurate. Much of the reason the civil rights movement was able to gain traction in the 1950s and 1960s was precicely *because* of Jackie Robinson in 1947. No Jackie Robinson, and integration in general could have been pushed back by a decade or two.
I wouldn't say "a decade or two", but Jackie Robinson's smashing success certainly greased the wheels for almost everything that was to follow. You have only to read the black press of the time, or the letters that Robinson received from black leaders from every walk of life (including Dr. King), to realize the truth of that statement.
But that would require some actual commitment to the issue beyond the hollow symbolism that's been put into place. And subsidizing 600,000 copies of a DVD, three-fourths of which would be discarded without even being played, is not going to be seen as anything other than foolish idealism.
Nevertheless, I think that Jackie Robinson would prefer it if the historians were driving this bus instead of the men with all the coins. And I'm sure he'd find it silly that his number had been retired all across MLB and worn en masse for one day. That really constitutes an attempt to suppress history more than come to grips with it.
I always thought it was the week in June that I saw the Grateful Dead play three times in three different states. After the last show in Miami we ended up driving straight back home to Lexington, KY because we didn't have any money for a motel. It seemed like it was worth it at the time.
Caught a glimpse of an out-of-town scoreboard from somewhere -- Coors Field? -- and every pitcher in both leagues was 42, which was technically correct, of course, although not very informative. I like to think it was someone's subversive comment on the whole deal.
The minor leagues would not have survived if it were not for the major leagues taking them over. The PCL tried pseudo-independence in the 1950s, but they were no longer able to get young players (the major leagues got them all), only old washed up players.
Demonizing Tom Yawkey or other owners is, in my view, a misunderstanding of how America worked in the 1940s and 1950s (or later). I am not trying to say these people were saints, they were just American men, and this is what they did.
The problem with that is that while acting like a de facto George Wallace for over a decade might have been what Tom Yawkey merely "did", Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck were "just American men", too. People in the long run generally get the legacy they deserve, and Tom Yawkey richly deserves the one that history has given him.
I have spent some time imagining a world in which Jackie Robinson integrates the PCL with the Hollywood Stars. The PCL captures the imagination of the country, merges with MLB and relocation never happens.
That one you got right, especially since the decline of baseball attendance reached the Majors as well as the minors, and since the Game of the Week didn't even begin until several years after that attendance drop was already well underway.
What did hurt attendance beyond that, though, was the near-universal practice, most notably of the 3 New York teams, to televise only their home games and none of their road games. The NFL, showing an infinitely better understanding of the principle, mandated the exact opposite policy beginning in 1951, and you could see the results immediately.
George Wallace spewed racist nonsense for decades, incited racial violence, imprisoned integrationists, tampered with juries, etc.
Tom Yawkey did none of those things. Instead, his crime is that he hired his first black player in 1953 (8 years after Rickey) and integrated his team in 1959. In 1967, when George Wallace was at the height of his powers, Yawkey's very integrated team won the league championship and Reggie Smith doused him with champagne and kissed him on the cheek for the newspapers. At the time of his death, Bill Veeck called him one of the nicest men he had ever met, and said "Mr. Yawkey stood for genuine class." He had given millions to the neighborhoods of Boston, and his foundation is still giving millions.
We all have our litmus tests I suppose. If Tom Yawkey is in hell for dawdling on integration, then so is 90% of his generation. My judgment is different.
Technically, 85% of the audience. No way that many homes had TVs.
That is nonsense, Andy, and I think you know better.
George Wallace spewed racist nonsense for decades, incited racial violence, imprisoned integrationists, tampered with juries, etc.
I would have hoped that my "de facto" modifier would have forestalled that reaction to the comparison, but both Wallace and Yawkey used every tool at their disposal to delay the inevitable. Wallace was standing in the schoolhouse door nine years after Brown, while Yawkey was still standing in his "schoolhouse door" until a full dozen years after Jackie Robinson.
In 1967, when George Wallace was at the height of his powers, Yawkey's very integrated team won the league championship and Reggie Smith doused him with champagne and kissed him on the cheek for the newspapers. At the time of his death, Bill Veeck called him one of the nicest men he had ever met, and said "Mr. Yawkey stood for genuine class." He had given millions to the neighborhoods of Boston, and his foundation is still giving millions.
All of that is true, and it's also completely irrelevant. George Wallace himself was asking for forgiveness when his game was up, and even Strom Thurmond and George Preston Marshall finally got with the program. But you can't erase your history by citing what you did later as a result of outside coercion, and there are countless numbers of committed racists who were equally generous with their charitable contributions.
I'm not judging Tom Yawkey by any Platonic standard. I'm judging him by the parallel actions of his peers, and by that standard he was down there with Spike Briggs and Bob Carpenter, worse than Dan Topping (who BTW was a pioneer in pro football integration in the AAFC), and on a different planet from Rickey, Veeck, Lou Perini and Horace Stoneham. He doesn't get a pass on his racism just because he was a nice guy otherwise.
People grow. One of Bill White's best friends on earth was Harry Walker, who was a racist in the 1940s. Tim McCarver used a racial epithet in front of Bob Gibson in the early 1960s (which both men have acknowledged) and Gibson has praised the road McCarver traveled to get to true friendship. Red Barber almost quit when Jackie came to the Dodgers. All of these men, and I include Gibson and White, who had to overcome their own discomfort with white Southerners, learned and grew and evolved throughout their life. And so did Tom Yawkey. Isn't this worthy of praise, or at least acknowledgment? Blaming Tom Yawkey is lazy scholarship.
Compared to Dwight Eisenhower, Tom Yawkey was a maverick on race. Eisenhower was a politician, and he just wanted the integrationists to slow down. He did not think America was ready, and he was likely right.
My folks told me that the first person to get a TV would host a party at their house for I Love Lucy every week. There would be 20-30 people watching the show.
Yet, Eisenhower did the one thing that had to be done: he faced down a recalcitrant segregationist governor, or better than that, made it clear to everyone that he would see that we remained a nation of laws even if that meant military force. That can't be overrated, especially because Eisenhower was the last President who could have gainsaid the Supreme Court and got away with it. He didn't, and that made an incalculable difference--in ways good and bad, as has been argued on both sides.
why couldn't they do an arm patch with a 42 on it? in dodger blue, even.
By 1959, however, within Yawkey's context of the baseball world, the other 15 teams had integrated, and the Red Sox were floundering in mediocrity and dwindling attendance, having been out of serious contention since 1950. There was absolutely NO excuse for his dawdling that long while every other owner had figured out the score.
Your point about growth is perfectly valid, and I've seen countless examples of it in the course of my own life. I knew a son of a Birmingham "mule" whom I first encountered heckling us at a CR demonstration in 1963, only to wind up marching with us in Montgomery in 1965. People do change, and I'm fully cognizant of that.
But while most racists BITD had little or no personal power to spur or resist racial progress, Tom Yawkey had plenty. And until he was forced to by public pressure to capitulate, he resisted until everyone else had already passed the starting gate. And while there were millions of private racists who did little more to block progress than vote for the Wallaces of the world, when you possess the power of a baseball owner you have to be held to a higher standard.
Compared to Dwight Eisenhower, Tom Yawkey was a maverick on race. Eisenhower was a politician, and he just wanted the integrationists to slow down. He did not think America was ready, and he was likely right.
Sorry, but if anything you've got that exactly backwards. Eisenhower was the one who first ordered black combat troops to fight alongside white combat units in 1944 (during the Battle of the Bulge), a move that was fiercely opposed by his own Army Chief of Staff. He also carried out Truman's order to integrate the Army in 1948. He dawdled in implementing school integration after the Brown decision, but since education back then had little or no federal role, there was little he could do other than lend moral support---which he didn't do, no question about that. But in order to compare Eisenhower fairly to Yawkey, you have to compare what Ike did to protect his troops in 1944 to what Yawkey didn't do from 1945 (in that phony "tryout") all the way to 1959. There's simply no way getting around this well-documented historical record.
Now imagine a hundred to a thousand bars in each city with the TV set tuned to a Major League ballgame being played within the city limits, and imagine how many people were watching the game in that bar instead of buying their beers from a ballpark vendor, and you'll have an idea of what TV did to baseball in the 1950's.
I actually think they should have emphasized Jackie Robinson's name on the Rookie of the Year of the Award rather than retire his number. We don't have to explain that the Cy Young Award is for the Best Pitcher unless somebody asks. Like others, I believe retiring his number silences those who hold Robinson as a hero. Those players talk about Jackie just once a year instead of all year when they give interviews.
And yes, I'm pretty sure all the out-of-town scoreboards in MLB had #42 pitching for every team.
That's obviously a very specific case. More generally, though, baseball is a game often passed from fathers (and mothers) to sons (and daughters). It's not just for middle-aged sabermetricians and history buffs.
Having 1 player per team wear #42 will go unnoticed by many fans, and certainly most kids. When everyone wore #42 last weekend, I assume that around the country, a lot of kids asked their parents why that was, and that in many households sparked a good conversation about who Jackie Robinson was and why we should honor him--which is what I think the real goal should be.
They should havd made Rivera wear 24 on Sunday.
It's like the Soviet Union; whatever isn't illegal is mandatory ;-)
That works. Put me down as an unabashed fan of having every player wear 42. It is baseball's "I AM SPARTACUS" day! And I have no beef with what MLB does on April 15. Honoring more trailblazers (Doby, Minoso, all those up to and including Pumpsie Green) would be good on other days as well.
And I think we misjudge the pressure Yawkey was really under. The Red Sox signed two black players in 1953 who took six years to get to the majors. If Earl Wilson is not drafted into the army in 1957 he likely would have made the Red Sox, and we would not be talking about this today.
History is more complicated than people want it to be. Mike Higgins second stint with the Red Sox began in mid-1960. He immediately began playing Pumpsie Green more than he had been playing, played Willie Tasby (who Higgins had acquired as GM a few weeks earlier), and recalled Earl Wilson (who was back in Triple-A). A few weeks later he started three black men at the same time, something the Yankees first did in 1966. I am not trying to make a big point out of any of this, please understand.
I have read dozens of books about the Civil Rights period, and Tom Yawkey was not one of the top million villains.
And I think the lasting legacy of 1972 is a deep insecurity in Canada surrounding hockey. 1972 was the first time anyone had to face the possibility that maybe we weren't inherently the greatest hockey nation for all time. Things have shifted a bit now with America being the main rival in the World Junionrs and in Salt Lake and Vancouver. With the added pressure that for a nation that defines itself in opposition to America though it's inferiority complex hockey was always the one thing we could count on being better than them at. The feeling I had at beatin the US in those gold medal games was more relief than pure joy. Every Olympics is like a national mass panic until Canada wins (or in the case of them losing fresh rounds of recrimination and demands for a government inquest into the state of youth hockey that would allow such a disaster)
In my household, my son wanted to know why everyone was wearing #42, but he was already familiar with Robinson and the fact that his number is retired throughout baseball. When I told him they were honoring Robinson, his 11-year-old response was essentially "That's a stupid way to honor him. Either the number is retired, or it isn't. You know, there's a reason two players on a team don't wear the same number, and it's because it's stupid." Well, there you have it.
(He's OK with the grandfathering that allows Mariano Rivera to continue wearing it, FWIW.)
Mark, we're probably just talking past each other here. You're comparing Yawkey to George Wallace, while I'm comparing him to his contemporaries in baseball. That's the only meaningful point of reference. Of course Yawkey wasn't in the "top million" villains within the overall context of civil rights, but within the context of baseball at mid-century he was right there near the top.
And without any real excuses, either. The other owner in his own city (Lou Perini) was signing black players within a year or two after Jackie came up, and at the time he left Boston he had one superstar (Aaron), one solid regular (Billy Bruton), one former regular (Sam Jethroe), and one solid journeyman (George Crowe) either on the ML roster or in the high minors. And it wasn't as if Yawkey was operating a team in Birmingham or even in St. Louis (where the Browns integrated in 1947).
The Eisenhower comparison is just plain silly, because not only did Eisenhower act decisively in a positive direction when he had the power to do so (in 1944 and 1948), but there was little he could have done as president, given the national political situation of the 50's, other than lend what would have been meaningless moral support to Brown**, at a time when education was a purely state and local matter and when the Dixicrats had a stranglehold on any civil rights legislation. In terms of what he did compared to what he could have done within the context of his times, Eisenhower was no worse, and probably better than John F. Kennedy. Whatever progress Kennedy made in civil rights was 110% forced upon him by circumstances, and not by any independently felt moral imperative---the truth is that Kennedy's golden reputation as a civil rights icon was forged by the sights and sounds of thousands of demonstrators in hundreds of cities and towns, and his sole meaningful move in that direction (his famous June civil rights address, on the night of Medgar Evers' murder) came but five short months before his assassination. He was a prime embodiment of Johnny-Come-Lately to the cause of civil rights.
**A task which the Supreme Court itself backed away from in its 1955 "with all deliberate speed" followup decision, which effectively delayed meaningful school integration for over a decade.
While I generally like children more than adults, I admit I don't trust them 100% of the time as the sole arbiters of what is stupid.
Baseball, to some extent, has a liturgical year. First Spring Training Day. Opening Day. The All-Star Game. There are several. Jackie Robinson Day is, essentially, a Saint's Day for the guy whose place is baseball hagiography is that of "Patron Saint of Integration." The idea of everyone wearing 42 is, in my opinion, a good one. It forces TV announcers to go through the liturgy for that Saint's Day. Yes, it can become a circus, but, then, so is (Saint) Valentine's Day. The important thing is for new baseball fans to become aware of this very big deal. Overkill doesn't hurt anyone, except for veteran baseball fans who have to put up with a game's worth of repetitive cloying commentary. Better that than to just let it fade away.
And DL is correct about early TV. My family had the first one in the neighborhood, back when I was 2 or 3 (about 1950). The whole neighborhood came over to watch the prime shows, like Sid Ceasar's Your Show of Shows, I Love Lucy and the (very) occasional Cardinal game. They did this in spite of the fact that my younger brother was an infant who they were keeping awake. There was a lot bigger TV audience than the number of TVs would suggest.
- Brock Hanke
His excuse was that people were slow to change and learn and evolve. It was a sea change, and it was never going to happen overnight.
I brought up George Wallace because there are more George Wallace defenders today than there are defenders of Tom Yawkey. There is simply no sense of proportion here. I know that Wallace was 99% politician and 1% racist, but he harmed millions of people. He was a brilliant and effective politician, and even in Alabama (where I have lived) he might have helped turn things the other way, a little, had he so chosen.
(For what it is worth, I do not think Yawkey cared about segregation. He was just intellectually and culturally lazy, and did not really see what the big deal was. He was painfully shy, and rarely had his name in the papers.)
If Yawkey was even there.
First of all, I don't think his legacy is so terrible. They haven't re-named the street or anything.
And no, that is not the only "crime" of racism attributed to Yawkey.
I do not wish anyone to think I believe these acts to be trivial or unimportant. I believe that as time moves on people have tended to romanticize the America of the past. I grew up in the 1970s in Connecticut. One winter my father went to a Knights of Columbus (or maybe Lions Club, or something else) five miles from our house for a baseball dinner and met Johnny Pesky and Rico Petrocelli, and got their autographs for me. This was about 1973. I asked my Dad why he was not a member of this club, so he could go to more such events, and he told me that they did not allow either Jews or Blacks to join. My father was neither, so his words made a big impact on me. And yet, people still write stories about how Red Sox players went to integrated clubs in Winter Haven, Florida, in the 1960s. OMG, how could this have happened? Sorry, America, this is what the world was like. I wish I were wrong.
Robinson understood that the process was by no means complete, and that the symbolism that had taken hold in place of a full working-out of these lingering racial tensions would not be sufficient. Just nine days before he died, he addressed the issue of integration in all aspects of the game--the front office as well as the baseball field. He knew that without that step, the old ways would always cast a deep shadow. In his speech at the World Series in 1972, he pushed for that next step in integration. And this is the step that has continued to be problematic in baseball (and elsewhere) over the past forty years.
Baseball's "liturgical year" (a nice phrase from Brock) is certainly part of the ritual of the game, but I'm not sure that social, political and economic issues should be so neatly folded into a single data point. If the point is to honor those who contributed to integration, then more individuals should be commemorated throughout the year. MLB seems to think that putting some of the pioneering black writers into the non-player side of the HoF is sufficient unto the day. If we mention the names Wendell Smith, Sam Lacy, and Lester Rodney, even a large percentage of readers here are going to say "Who?"--and that is part of the reason that concentrating all of the attention on Jackie Robinson for one day is simply insufficient. MLB may be a monopoly, but it needs to resist the seductive appeal of continuing its "plantation" mentalities. The unsung heroes of racial integration deserve to have their voices heard, and should part of a more comprehensive program to honor those whose sense of social justice outweighed mere fandom.
The worries over Canada's performance in the the juniors or Olympics is irrational. It is a tourney in which the final result can turn on one shift. It is not an illustration of national hockey strength. Canada's depth in hockey talent is probably second to none irregardless of gold, silver or not.
The exciting days of Canada versus the Soviets was not just hockey but also political in nature which seemed to raise the stakes. I can remember the rivalry even existing in the World Championships in the 1970s even though the NHL didn't send its best.
The most exciting moment was 1972. The best display of hockey was the final three games of the 1987 Canada Cup. Like any rivalry each nation made each other better.
Six years after Robinson's debut most MLB teams were not integrated. By this time Yawkey had signed his first black player, in the minors, and was not the last owner to do so. This is a fact, and it is largely ignored.
Tom Yawkey is labeled a racist, fairly or unfairly I don't know; but the most-often-cited example of this is that the Red Sox integrated last, and 10 years after Robinson's debut. This is not evidence that Yawkey is a racist. It is evidence that he was (or his scout was) a poor evaluator of talent. Pumpsie Green? Of all the black players Yawkey could have signed in 1953, he went for Pumpsie. Many teams signed black players to minor-league contracts, then got them to the majors within a year or two. Some black players skipped the minors entirely, or had a cup of coffee down there before landing in the majors for good. Pumpsie took six years to get to the majors, and didn't do much when he got there.
And the Red Sox in the late 1950s and early 1960s were the product of such poor talent evaluation. It didn't matter who they got, nor their race; few of them deserved to be in the majors.
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