In memory of Hank Aaron
Posted: January 27, 2021 Filed under: 20th Century, 21st Century | Tags: Atlanta Braves, Baseball, Hank Aaron, history, Major League Baseball, MLB, Negro league baseball, sports Leave a commentMajor League Baseball and the Atlanta Braves held a memorial service for Henry Louis Aaron yesterday. If you haven’t had the opportunity to watch it yet, I found the service quite moving.
A few days ago, MLB had also put out a tribute video honoring Hammerin’ Hank. It is also worth a watch, if you can spare a few minutes.
The Kansas City T-Bones become the Kansas City Monarchs
Posted: January 22, 2021 Filed under: 21st Century | Tags: Baseball, history, Kansas City Monarchs, Kansas City T-Bones, Minor League Baseball, Negro league baseball, Negro Leagues, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, sports Leave a commentIn case you missed it, yesterday, the minor league team Kansas City T-Bones announced they have changed their name to the Kansas City Monarchs. The name change comes as part of a partnership with the Negro Leagues Museum (also located in Kansas City).
NLBM: Celebrating Buck O’Neil
Posted: November 14, 2020 Filed under: 20th Century, 21st Century | Tags: Baseball, Bob Costas, Bob Kendrick, Buck O'Neil, history, Joe Posnanski, Ken Burns, Negro league baseball, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, sports, videos Leave a commentIn case you missed the original livestream, the recording of the Negro Leagues Museum’s conversation about Buck O’Neil can still be watched on YouTube. The stories these gentlemen told about Buck were a joy to listen to, and they also had a great conversation about race and baseball in general. If you get the opportunity, it’s definitely worth your time.
Upcoming webinar: Negro Leagues 1920-2020
Posted: September 2, 2020 Filed under: 20th Century | Tags: Baseball, history, Negro league baseball, Negro Leagues, University of Kansas 3 CommentsFor anyone who is interested, the African and African-American Studies department at the University of Kansas has just announced that they will be holding a webinar about the Negro Leagues. The webinar will take place on September 17th at 7:00 pm Central Time.
Registration for the webinar is taking place here.
We are excited to announce this special event: Negro Leagues 1920-2020 [Sept 17 @ 7pm CST]
— AAAS KU (@KUafs) September 2, 2020
Join us for the conversation around the centennial anniversary of the leagues w/ @adburgosjr, @RaymondDoslelw, Leslie Heaphy & James Brunson
Free registration https://t.co/Kv7ikeulZO pic.twitter.com/xc3PhbvMG4
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Ken Burns’s Baseball: The Sixth Inning
Posted: November 20, 2017 Filed under: 20th Century | Tags: All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Babe Ruth, Baseball, Bing Crosby, Bob Feller, Boston Red Sox, Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodgers, Buck O'Neil, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Great Depression, history, Jackie Robinson, Jackie Robinson Day, Joe DiMaggio, Ken Burns, Larry MacPhail, Major League Baseball, Montreal Royals, Negro league baseball, Negro Leagues, Notre Dame, Ohio Wesleyan University, Philip Wrigley, Roger Angell, Rookie of the Year, Satchel Paige, St. Louis Cardinals, Ted Williams, World War II Leave a commentThe Sixth Inning of Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns explores the national pastime during the 1940s, which was quite the tumultuous decade in American history. It was a decade of war as the United States recovered from the Great Depression and found itself in a position of having to enter World War II. It was also the decade of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, of women’s professional baseball, and of Jackie Robinson.
In a chronological sense, the Sixth Inning was an easier one to follow along with than any of the Innings that preceded it. The first part of this disc was dominated by two of the game’s greatest hitters. 1941 was the summer of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, whose hitting performances captivated the baseball world. Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-six game hitting streak and Ted Williams’s .406 season average have both remained unmatched ever since.
The 1941 World Series resulted in a devastating loss for the Brooklyn Dodgers to the New York Yankees. At the end of the season, Dodgers general manager Larry MacPhail , drunk and belligerent, threatened to sell off all his players. The Dodgers instead opted to let go of MacPhail and brought in Branch Rickey, thus setting the stage for the breaking of the color barrier in the coming years.
When the United States entered the war, Franklin Roosevelt insisted that baseball ought to continue. The country would be working longer and harder, and thus recreation became more important than ever, he said. However, this didn’t shield players from the draft, and baseball still suffered as a result. Players like DiMaggio and Bob Feller joined the war effort. Meanwhile, baseball turned to signing players (and umpires) who didn’t meet the usual caliber of play just to keep going.
As the war also drew away a number of minor leaguers, Philip Wrigley came up with the idea of starting a women’s professional baseball league in order to fill the baseball void as minor league teams fell apart. Women from all over, particularly softball players, were recruited. They had to be able to play ball, but they were also required to remain unequivocally feminine. Off the field, any time they were in public, they were required to be in skirts, heels, and makeup — a requirement that I, for one, would find very difficult to swallow.
Following the war, the disc goes into the story of Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson. The story from Rickey’s time coaching at Ohio Wesleyan University, checking into a hotel in South Bend, Indiana to play Notre Dame, is absolutely heartbreaking, and certainly explains a lot regarding his determination to integrate baseball.
Branch Rickey certainly did his homework when choosing a player to break the color barrier, and clearly, he choose well. Promising not to retaliate and turn the other cheek for three years (three years!), Jackie Robinson signed with the Montreal Royals.
Burns breaks from the Jackie Robinson saga long enough to cover the 1946 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox. Though the Sox were the heavy favorites to win, the Cards employed the “Williams shift” to prevent Ted Williams from having much success at the plate. Thanks in part to this strategy, the Cardinals won that year’s Series. Roger Angell says it well when he explains that baseball is not a game about winning, like we think it is, but rather, it is a game about losing.
Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 was certainly an event, one that we continue to celebrate today. As expected, he endured an endless stream of taunts, threats, and even attempts at actual bodily harm. Through it all, he bit his tongue. Instead, he let his performance on the field speak for him. Not only was he named Rookie of the Year at the end of the season, he was also determined to be the second most popular man in America, after Bing Crosby. Robinson’s efforts eventually allowed other black players, including the great pitcher Satchel Paige, to break into the majors as well.
Ken Burns does a good job of pointing out that, for all the virtues that surrounded Robinson’s trek into Major League Baseball, it was a devastating event for the Negro Leagues. The Brooklyn Dodgers became the team of black America, and attendance at Negro Leagues games declined. As we know now, the Negro Leagues would eventually meet its end as a result.
The disc ends with the death of Babe Ruth in 1948. It’s only appropriate that the Sultan of Swat would receive this kind of nod (and convenient that he would die at the end of a decade — not to be morbid or anything). Burns never touches on what Ruth thought of Jackie Robinson, nor on what Robinson thought of Ruth. Perhaps nobody knows. But as Buck O’Neil points out, both men were giants in the game. Each of them, in their own way, changed baseball forever.
“Twenty-Six Years Now”
Posted: November 10, 2013 Filed under: Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, history, Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball, MLB, Negro league baseball, poetry, sports Leave a commentHere is a poem, written by an anonymous author, about the great Jackie Robinson.
*
After the war
After white on white on white
After Robinson
Yes,
Twenty-Six
years now
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
have come
And
Gone.
And the once empty rosters are no longer
Empty.
as the face of my mother
That day
My father spoke.
I remember the gloom of my fathers words
And what they did to my mother’s face
And what they did to my heart
– Those words my daddy spoke.
Daddy told us about
Josh Gibson
And how he was
Swatting white balls
In black parks
while Ruth and fellows
like Foxx
Were
Making hay.
Daddy told us about
Satch, Ole Satch
Lean and hummin;
Told about
Ole Satch
And how when Satch was
Striking black leather
In places
Like
Chattanooga
And Birmingham
And Pittsburgh
And Bismarck
And Cleveland
And Whichita
And Kansas City
And Havana
Told when
Satch was doing all those things
How
Grove and Dean and Feller
Were
Making Hay.
Yes,
Twenty-six years
since my father’s words
Twenty-six years
since his death
He had a belly laugh
My daddy did
And his laugh
if ever such a sound could reach your ears
Would be filled with the
Loud
and
Quiet joy
That men such as
Mays and Robinson and Aaron
Could have given him.
Not their booming home runs and feats of magic.
Just their faces
Just their faces
Just their faces
now.
This day in baseball: Paige gets the start
Posted: August 3, 2013 Filed under: 20th Century, This day in baseball | Tags: Baseball, Cleveland Stadium, history, Major League Baseball, MLB, Negro league baseball, Satchel Paige, sports 3 CommentsLegendary Negro League pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige made his first Major League start on August 3, 1948 at the age of 42. Paige earned the win as the Indians defeated the Senators 5-3. Paige improved his record to 2-1, striking out six batters in seven innings. 72,562 fans crowded in to Cleveland Stadium that night, setting a new attendance record for a Major League night game.