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| 1954 by Bob Sandberg Look Magazine photographer via Wikimedia Commons |
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 Torii 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. Torii 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?
Does Torii Hunter and do other MLB players know about Earl Lloyd:
Lloyd was one of three African-Americans to enter the NBA at the same time. It was only because of the order in which the teams' season openers fell that Lloyd was the first to actually play in a game in the NBA. The date was October 31, 1950, one day ahead of Cooper of the Boston Celtics and four days before Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton of the New York Knicks.
Do MLB players realize that President Harry Truman started the integration of the armed forces in 1947 and that it was completed under President Dwight Eisenhower?
Do they know about the two Supreme Court cases (1954-1955) Mrs. Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, KS that started the integration of public schools?
Do MLB players even know that Larry Doby became the second in MLB and the first black player in the American League on Saturday, July 5, 1947 in Comiskey Park Chicago; attendance: 14,655, time of game: 2:28? That's less than three months after Robinson broke in.
The point is that somebody would have been the first somewhere between 1947 and 2012, probably much closer to 1947.
My recollection is that when this Jackie Robinson Day started in 2004 only a few players wore number 42, Robinson's number. I'm pretty sure only a couple of years ago when other Yankees were wearing 42, Yankee captain Derek Jeter was wearing his usual number 2. Yesterday I did see not any player on any team wearing a number other than 42.
Ironically, Torii Hunter got the number thing right in 2007:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson_Day
"This is supposed to be an honor," Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter told USA Today, "and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you've got entire teams doing it. I think we're killing the meaning. It should be special wearing Jackie's number, not just because it looks cool."
Did it become mandatory or is there simply so much peer pressure and pressure to conform that the players just mindlessly go along?
Shouldn't Robinson Cano, who is named after Jackie, be allowed to wear his regular number: 24?
Yesterday afternoon while I was watching the Knicks lose to Miami at the Garden I also had the Red Sox game on my second TV. They were interviewing Ralph Branca of all people and he was wearing a Red Sox uniform. I thought: what the heck? Branca had his best season in 1947 winning 21 and he is one of the few surviving teammates of Robinson from that first game. He's also Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine's father-in-law. Branca did a good interview and was not too sappy about Jackie. He also maintained the dignity he has displayed all these years about throwing the pitch to Bobby Thomson, which Thomson hit in the bottom of the ninth to win the 1951 NL pennant. Thomson to his continued discredit maintained to his dieing day that he could not recall if he knew what pitch was coming despite the fact that his Giants had been systematically "stealing" opposing team's signs for months. Branca snorted at that.
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!
5 comments:
Hey, I found your blog post while I was doing a search on this very question. It's really gotten out of hand. I remember when it first started, the black players would where the number and most of the non-black players wouldn't. This year, every-freakin' body is wearing it. I'm sure the word came down from on high but none of the comentators are going near it. I'm watching the Yankee/Twins game right now and they're still going on about it. We may not have segregation any more but it's not like we're all holding hands and singing either. Our racial tension is right at the surface. I just think they are making too much about the whole thing. Basically, baseball team owners want to win games and make money and they're willing to break the rules to do it. Jackie wanted to make a living playing baseball. I don't see anything heroic on either side. It's just people saying "$#%@ the rules and social conventions. I'm doing what I want to do!" If that makes a hero, then we're all heroes at one point or another. Anyway, I've said much more than I intended to. Thanks for your post. I enjoyed the history lesson and your point of view. Dave
Well said. I made a similar, though not identical, argument several years ago. http://images.salon.com/sports/col/kaufman/2007/04/12/thursday
Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to conquer Mt. Everest. No big deal. Someone else would have climbed that damned mountain eventually anyway.
Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic. Surely, some other brave pioneer of flight would have done so soon enough even if he hadn't.
Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. So what, they would have become free eventually anyway.
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. No big deal, American apartheid couldn't last forever anyway.
Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. Well, if not him, then it would have been someone else.
Our pioneers are always revered above and beyond all others who came later because, whether or not their accomplishments now seem inevitable in hindsight, such was not necessarily the case at the moment when they stepped across that threshold no other had crossed before them.
That we might grow tired of hearing about these people says more about us than it does about them.
Finally an intelligent comment on this topic.
Thank you. It is hard to find intelligent commentary on this subject. To find out who rules over us, look at whom we must not criticize. I think Voltaire said that. So will you tackle the overblown Robert Clemente celebrations, too?
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