Apr.14

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This Week in Freudenfreude: A Diamond Anniversary

That headline would be even better if we'd been doing this feature in 2022, because then it would be 75 years instead of 76. It still works, though, for what turns out to be our second baseball-themed freudenfreude in 3 weeks.

Tomorrow, Major League Baseball will commemorate the anniversary of the day that Jackie Robinson integrated the sport (April 15, 1947). There will be some speeches and some other activities like that. Announcers will talk about Robinson during television broadcasts. All players will be wearing Robinson's #42 on their uniforms. For those who do not follow baseball, Jackie Robinson Day is the only time active players can do that, as the number has been retired throughout the sport, and the last active player who had a waiver (the Yankees' Mariano Rivera) is now retired.

Often, when the worlds of politics and sports intersect, many sports fans become irritated and insist that sports are meant to be an escape from the real world and that sports and politics don't mix. It is most common to see and hear right-leaning folks say this, though you occasionally hear it from some lefties, too. Whoever says it, it's nonsense. While sports may be an escape sometimes, the overlap between the worlds of sports and politics is frequent and significant. Even casual sports fans (and, probably, non-fans) can think of dozens of examples readily, from Jesse Owens and the Nazis to Muhammad Ali and Vietnam to Billie Jean King and the "Battle of the Sexes" to Colin Kaepernick and the National Anthem.

This is hardly a coincidence. Athletes, and their teams, get a lot of attention. It's far more plausible to be the change you want to see if you have a platform that gives you access to millions of people. Further, winning engenders a lot of, for lack of a better term, forgiveness from skeptical or hostile fans. There is a reason the Brooklyn Dodgers were able to put Robinson's name on a lineup card close to a decade before the Civil Rights Movement got underway in earnest. White fans and players were a lot more accepting of a Black player when he was able to prove he belonged, and was eventually able to help Brooklyn bring home its first World Series championship (in 1955).

We could devote this item to re-telling Robinson's story, as the pride of the Dodgers (and of UCLA) is a bona fide heroic figure. However, baseball fans surely know about Robinson without our help. And even non-baseball fans likely know, too, thanks to Robinson's prominent place in American culture, countless books on Robinson, and films like 42, The Jackie Robinson Story and Ken Burns' Baseball.

Point is, we don't have much to add on that subject. So, instead, we thought we would take the occasion of Jackie Robinson Day to take note of a handful of other historic Black baseball players, who tend to get overlooked because of the massive shadow that Robinson casts:

• William Edward White and Moses Fleetwood Walker: One of these two men was the first Black man to play professional baseball; which of them it was depends on your definition. White, who played a single game in June 1879, certainly came first. But, perhaps apropos to his last name, he appeared to be white and he identified as such. Walker played 42 games, 5 years later, for the Toledo Blue Stockings. He appeared Black, identified as such, and was the person who led professional baseball to establish the color line that Jackie Robinson would break nearly 63 years after Walker played his last game.
  
  
• Cumberland Posey: Posey was a gifted athlete, and integrated the athletic departments at both Penn State and Duquesne, playing both basketball and baseball. He then played pro baseball in the Negro Leagues, as the owner and one of the stars of the Leagues' best team, the Homestead Grays. Once his playing career ended, he continued to lead the team as owner and general manager, signing such stars as Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, and Cool Papa Bell, and winning nine Negro National League titles and three Negro World Series championships. Posey is the only person ever to be inducted into both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame.
  
  
• Buck O'Neil: He was a capable player in the Negro Leagues, if not a star. After his playing career ended, he worked tirelessly to preserve the history of Black baseball, particularly the pre-integration history. On top of all that, he was also the first Black coach for a Major League team (specifically, the Chicago Cubs). For all of these reasons, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, albeit after his passing.
  
  
• Curt Flood: For many generations, Major League baseball players were subject to the "reserve clause" that was a standard part of contracts. This bound them to the team with which they first signed, for as long as that team wanted their services. As you can imagine, if a team has a monopoly on a player, then that team is in a position to dictate salary terms. Players could hold out, and star players sometimes did, but that tended to damage those players' public image (and thus their potential to earn money as celebrity pitchmen). Also, if owners refused to budge in response to the holdout, the player was left with the choice of returning with his tail between his legs or else losing out on a year's salary. And, of course, pro athletes' careers are finite.
  
  Curt Flood did not much care for this state of affairs. And when he was traded from his original team, the St. Louis Cardinals, to the Philadelphia Phillies, he decided not to go along. Backed by the Major League players' union, Flood wrote a letter to then-MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn that's now famous among historians of baseball:

  December 24, 1969
  
  After twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States.
  
  It is my desire to play baseball in 1970, and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decision. I, therefore, request that you make known to all Major League clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.

  Flood noted to friends that he was significantly influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power, and he compared the reserve clause to slavery.
  
  This story does not have a happy ending, at least in the short term. Flood lost his court case; the more numerous conservative wing of the Supreme Court voted against him, while the smaller liberal wing voted with him. Please understand, that was back in the long-ago days that SCOTUS was highly politicized. Thereafter, Flood was blackballed from baseball and never played another game. He thus gave up a six-figure salary, a possible post-playing career as a coach or manager, and a very real chance at making the Hall of Fame.
  
  However, he nonetheless got the ball rolling, and the reserve clause was struck down less than 4 years later. Flood also lived long enough to see Congress pass, and Bill Clinton sign, a bill (The Curt Flood Act of 1998) which explicitly forbade the return of the reserve clause, should owners ever be tempted to try it.
  
  
• Frank Robinson and Ernie Banks: One of these two men was the first Black manager of a Major League team (for non-baseball fans, the manager is the highest-ranking coach, and is the "field general" who sets the lineup and makes tactical decisions). Generally speaking, Frank Robinson is regarded as baseball's first Black manager; he took over as skipper of the team then known as the Cleveland Indians (now known as the Cleveland Guardians) on April 8, 1975.
  
  However, many years later, someone noticed that on May 8, 1973, Chicago Cubs manager Whitey Lockman was ejected from a game, and on a day that both of his assistant coaches happened to be out sick. In view of this, as Lockman left the dugout, he instructed the team's most experienced player, Ernie Banks, to manage the remainder of the game. And so, while Banks never carried the title of manager, nor was he ever paid as such, he did manage two Major League innings nearly two years before Frank Robinson took over the Cleveland club. Both of these men are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, albeit primarily for their feats as players.

The celebration of Jackie Robison is, in many ways, a celebration of all of these folks who helped move the game forward in various ways. It's just a shame that, on the whole, their names won't be mentioned very much on Saturday. Still, they get a tip of the cap from us, at least. Have a good weekend, all. (Z)