Who is Dick Lundy?

Dear Coaches:

Back in February 2021, our SABR Chapter tried to organize an essay contest to benefit Dick Lundy,

1. ·         a former Negro League Baseball star,
2. ·         citizen of Jacksonville, born and raised where FSCJ’s downtown location now       stands,
3. ·         an alum of Edward Waters University (back when it was functioning as a high school)
4. ·         and Bethune-Cookman when it was Cookman Institute.

Lundy will be a candidate to join Lloyd in the baseball Hall of Fame if they take another shot at adding ex-Negro League players in 2021. He is reported to have missed election the last time the Hall of Fame addressed Negro Leaguers in 2006. Lundy was not only a great ball player, but a great mentor, manager and a person who worked with Hall of Famer Effa Manley to try and salvage Negro league baseball as an entity after they were raided of talent following the Jackie Robinson signing.

We would like to elevate his profile locally and nationally through different initiatives to assist his candidacy. I have been in contact with next of kin and they feel like it is too late to affect this kind of change. Lundy is a deserving Hall of Famer on and off the field, statistically and subjectively he should be the next guy in.

I am afraid that locally, we have done too little to help, and I communicated that to a frustrated family. Please, please, please help me convince them that it is not too late. Nationally, the candidacy is on solid ground, but there are candidates whose local PR machine is greater than ours. We can change that, even now.

I wish I had essays from students to demonstrate to the family the potential of this project. They have been beaten down by the past. Now we can be involved in helping change baseball history. What could be better than that? Even a one-page essay from students would help, I dare say, especially from HBCU’s where he attended. This is a great diversity, equality and inclusion project for students. He and others were rendered invisible by Jim Crow, we cannot allow that crime to be repeated.

Please help, time is of the essence and is now more an enemy than a friend to our effort. Thank you for your consideration. I will help in any way I can.

Sincerely,

Charles Slavik

(813) 335-8678

Founder of John Henry “Pop” Lloyd SABR Chapter   

https://twitter.com/theslav1959

https://twitter.com/Floridasabr

 

Research Resources for Students:

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/dick-lundy/

https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=lundy01dic

http://www.banishedtothepen.com/who-is-dick-lundy/

http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Hero/Richard_Dick_Lundy.pdf

 

The Civil War, Civil Rights and Black Baseball | The Hardball Times

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/civil-war-baseball-1863-padre-art.html?product=bath-towel

from FanGraphs:
https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/the-civil-war-civil-rights-and-black-baseball/

The Civil War, Civil Rights and Black Baseball

Shakeia Taylor

Union prisoners playing baseball at Salisbury, N.C, drawn from nature by Act. Major Otto Boetticher (via The Library of Congress)

For many, the conversation of black baseball and civil rights begins and ends with integration. The hardships endured by Jackie Robinson as he broke the color barrier, along with the slow march to integrate other greats of the Negro Leagues, occupies much of the popular imagination. But the story is much much older than that.

African-Americans were playing baseball at least 100 years before Jackie donned Dodger blue. Baseball, which played a vital role in northern Black communities before the Civil War, and was an important part of camp life during the war, was tied to African-American agitation for civil and political rights following the war.

During the 1840s and 1850s, Black ballplayers shared in the baseball mania that was spreading in the northeast. While many northern Blacks were impoverished, others could afford the time and expense of forming and joining their own ball clubs. In 1859, white, antislavery Republican Joshua Giddings, a congressman from Ohio, showed his support for desegregation and equality in baseball by playing in a game with African-Americans. By that year, African-Americans had formed three clubs in the Brooklyn area: the Unknown of Weeksville, the Henson of Jamaica, and the Monitor of Brooklyn. They were followed soon after by the Uniques and the Union, both of Williamsburgh.

The Civil War didn't disrupt the game; indeed, it spread the burgeoning pastime. The war promulgated the game socially, economically and geographically due to the large number of young men in army camps. Soldiers from different parts of the country taught the game to those from regions the game had yet to reach.

During the War, soldiers often played integrated baseball games to pass the time. Once Black soldiers returned from war, baseball would remain an important site of coming together for Black communities, drawing the notice of prominent leaders and serving as a literal field on which to agitate for change and inclusion.

Famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass was a fan of the game himself. His son, Frederick Douglass Jr., played baseball with the integrated Charter Oak Juniors in Rochester, New York in 1859. After the war, Douglass Jr. moved to Washington, where he helped found the Alerts Base Ball Club of Washington. His brother, Charles, was the third baseman for the team. Charles Douglass later joined the Washington Mutuals Base Ball Club.

One of the earliest Negro league baseball clubs, was the Pythian Base Ball Club of Philadelphia, founded in 1865. Founded by Jacob C. White Jr. and Octavius Catto — both educators, intellectuals and civil rights activists — the Pythians was primarily comprised of middle class professionals from the Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York areas. In the Civil War, Catto served on a committee that recruited soldiers for the Union Army and joined a local African-American militia. He also campaigned for the desegregation of Philadelphia's streetcars and for Blacks' right to vote.

Catto's enthusiasm for baseball and his desire for equal rights intersected. In February 2015, James Brunson, a professor at Northern Illinois and the country's preeminent expert on 19th-century black baseball told philly.com:

Catto's social and political connections with white businessmen and white baseballists were crucial to the team crossing bats with white organizations. … It is important to contextualize these efforts in relation to the efforts of other Black clubs during the period. Catto appears to have played hardball with the white organizers, and they responded in kind. It was as much politics as it was baseball. Many of these white players were hardcore Democrats; Catto was a Republican who pushed for Black male suffrage and citizenship."

Baseball's growing popularity helped drive his civil rights efforts.

During their first full season, just two years after the Civil War ended, the Pythians took on the Alerts and the Mutuals, in a home-and-home series. Frederick Douglass was in the stands to watch the games.

The Pythians were an extremely talented and capable baseball team among Black ball clubs, and they wanted equal consideration from white clubs. In 1869, they issued a challenge to every white team in Philadelphia: play us. Their challenge was accepted and they made history when they played the first documented game of interracial baseball against the Olympics, Philadelphia's oldest white baseball club.

Though the Philadelphia Olympics routed the Pythians, 44-23, The Spirit of the Times of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, declared, "old-time prejudices are melting away in this country." They went on to say, "It is not considered outside our own territory a lessening of dignity nor in the least disparaging to white men that they contend with blacks." That journal hoped that "now that the prejudice has been broken through here, it will be entirely swept away." The Pythians showed themselves to be worthy competitors for white clubs, and they went on to play white teams both locally and regionally.

The game continued to advance for Black ball clubs. In October of 1867, the Brooklyn Uniques played the Philadelphia Excelsiors, in the first recognized "Colored Championship." The one-game championship contest was played at the Satellite Grounds in Brooklyn. In the seventh inning, the game was called due to darkness. Though three different final scores were reported, Philadelphia won the game and became the first "Colored Champion" of black baseball in the United States.

After the war, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments redefined state and federal citizenship and extended civil and political rights, but the amendments included no provisions for equality in private, voluntary activities. The leading Black clubs of Brooklyn, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington sought equal treatment by the white ball-playing fraternity.

The Pythians believed that their club could gain official recognition from the Pennsylvania State Association of Base Ball Players, a subsidiary of the National Association, at its convention in Harrisburg in October, 1867. The Athletics, a white team, agreed to sponsor their application. After being told to rescind the Pythians' application or risk being blackballed, Pythians secretary Jacob White Jr. did just that, but the club decided to try to gain admission to the National Association at the annual meeting held in Philadelphia that December.

By Date and By Slate: When History Meets the Baseball Schedule

by John Paschal

At times, the calendar has space for world events and baseball events, no matter how big or small.

The December 19, 1867 The Ball Players' Chronicle said that the report of the nominating committee recommended the exclusion of African-American clubs from representation in the Association.

The stated reason for this decision was to keep out discussion of any subject having a political bearing; that such an exclusion was itself political seems to have escaped the committee's notice. The Association chose to exclude African-American ball clubs to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, and potentially, political ramifications. The Report to the Committee read as follows:

To the National Association of Base Ball Players:
The Nominating Committee beg leave respectfully to report:

First — That eight State Associations, representing 237 clubs, have applied for admission, and your committee recommend they be elected members, waiving such irregularities as are named in schedule №1 attached to this report.

Second — That they have elected eight clubs probationary members, according to Art. III, sec. 5 of the Constitution, and report favorably upon their election by the Convention, waiving such irregularities as are noted in schedule №2.

Third — That they report favorably upon the admission of twenty-eight clubs whose applications are correct as named in schedule №3.

Fourth — That they recommend the admission of eight clubs whose applications are more or less irregular, particulars of which can be found in schedule №4.

Fifth — That they find two memoranda received from the Recording Secretary (no doubt intended as applications from the Excelsior of Philadelphia and Crescent of — — -), which are too informal to be noticed by your committee.

Sixth — Your committee would beg to add, that it has been quite impossible for them to ascertain the condition, character, and standing of all the clubs, in different parts of the country, as required by the Constitution, and can only assume that the applications made are based upon good faith. It is not presumed by your committee that any club who have applied are composed of persons of color, or any portion of them; and the recommendations of your committee in this report are based upon this view, and they unanimously report against the admission of any club which may be composed of one or more colored persons.

/S/Wm. H. Bell, M.D., Jas. Whyte Davis, Wm. E. Sinn; Philadelphia, Dec. 11, 1867.

The Pennsylvania State Association's decision, however, was not isolated to rejection on a local level. Three years later, the New York Base Ball Association amended its rules for admission to bar baseball clubs composed of men of color entirely. And thus, the color line was born.

In 1871, Octavius Catto was murdered while on his way to vote. He used baseball as a means to accomplish more than wealth; Catto believed Black credibility and acceptance could be promoted by competing against white teams on a baseball diamond. It was sport as activism and activism as sport. It was a rather simple assertion of dignity, in the radical form of Black bodies pitched in equal competition against white bodies.

It would prove temporarily fruitless; the attempt to achieve equality through baseball failed. Author and researcher Neil Lanctot wrote in Negro League Baseball: The rise and ruin of a black institution, "Rather than actively agitate for participation in Organized Baseball … blacks began to build separate institutions of their own, forming their own amateur and later professional teams by the mid-1880s."

The Pythians went on to become a charter member of the short-lived National Colored Base Ball League (NCBBL). Baseball was still a vital part of the community, but the activism of the diamond changed, reshaped in separate leagues where credibility and some wealth and prominence could be obtained, until the day when white baseball had to make room for Black players.

The quest for equality on the baseball field, and in the rest of the United States, would continue for years to come. The slow trudge to Jackie, and Larry Doby, and Hank Thompson was too long a road. But it was one that started not just with Jackie's Montreal Royals, or Doby's Newark Eagles, but in the muddy fields of the Civil War, and Octavius Catto's Pythian Base Ball Club, and a series of dreams and leagues that came and went, but were tied closely to a simple, but clear request to be included. To be thought of as full people, on a green field, with belief that baseball might mean something more. That we might all be entitled to more.

References and Resources

• Zachary Brown, U.S. History Scene, "Baseball and the Civil War: Forging America's National Pastime"
• George Kirsch, The New York Times, "Blacks, Baseball and the Civil War"
• Mike Mencarini, Marquette University, "Baseball and the Negro Leagues: A Symbol of America"
• John Thorn, Our Game, the blog of MLB's official historian, "The Drawing of the Color Line, 1867"
• Ryan Whirty, Philly.com, "Philadelphia's Pythians made baseball history in 1800s"
• American Battlefield Trust, "Baseball and the American Civil War"
• BlackPast.org, "Negro Baseball Leagues (1920-1950)"
• History Detectives, Special Investigations, PBS, "African-American Baseball"
• The History Engine, "Race and Baseball during the Civil War"
• Wikipedia.org

What Chris Rock got wrong: Black Latinos and race in baseball | MLB | Sporting News

(Getty Images)

What Chris Rock got wrong: Black Latinos and race in baseball

Adrian Burgos Jr. Contributor @adburgosjr

May. 10, 2015

May 10, 2015 1:02pm EDT May 10, 2015 1:02pm EDT 

When do black Latinos count as black? The comedian ignored that crucial question.

We had two strikes against us: One for being black, and another for being Latino. — Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda

Cepeda shared this reflection with me a number of years ago in recalling his playing days as baseball's racial integration unfolded. Cepeda recalled numerous instances in which Americanos saw the Puerto Rican as just another black man when deciding to deny him services or in refusing him the same accommodations that his white teammates enjoyed. He also shared that on other occasions Americanos who he encountered saw him as a Latino, and proceeded to poke fun at his accent and his unfamiliarity with North American ways, which reminded him how they saw him as a foreigner in this land — even though his native Puerto Rico was (and remains) a U.S. territory.

Cepeda was not alone in enduring such encounters during that era. This treatment (and feeling they were consistently behind 0-2 in the count in their social encounters) was at the core of the critique that Roberto Clemente and Felipe Alou would make about how those within MLB circles (whether team staff, league officials, or the press corps) dealt with Latinos. Unfortunately, many of the issues about perceptions of those ballplayers who are both black and Latino continue in US baseball circles, particularly in discussions of race and the history of America's game.

Making the visibile invisible

Chris Rock's recent appearance on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" permitted the comedian to expound on the rocky relationship between African-Americans and baseball. Provocative as always, Rock also used his biting wit in detailing baseball's shortcomings that have effectively turned off African-American sports fans, preventing them from sharing his own love of baseball.

A diehard fan, Rock fondly remembered the days when it was much easier to spot African-Americans on the field, highlighting the Mets of the late 1980s with Dwight Gooden, Kevin Mitchell, Darryl Strawberry and Mookie Wilson. Interestingly, the 1986 Mets squad that claimed a World Series title included five key players who were Latinos, three of whom were Mexican American: Jesse Orosco, Rick Aguilera and Bob Ojeda.

One of the zingers Rock flung MLB's way prompted my memory of interviewing Cepeda. To illustrate his point about the disappearance of black ballplayers from MLB, Rock decried that the Giants won the 2014 World Series without a single black player. That statement surely must have surprised Pablo Sandoval, a black Latino from Venezuela. Sandoval, moreover, was not the lone Latino Giant who, had he played in the era when a color line determined opportunity in baseball, would have more likely been Negro Leaguers than major leaguers.

Rock, however, is not alone in making claims that the many Afro-Latinos in MLB do not count as black. A number of Jackie Robinson Day celebration back, Torii Hunter referred to black Latinos like Vladimir Guerrero as imposters. And this is not just a recent thing. Minnie Miñoso described in one of his autobiographies an uncomfortable clubhouse encounter with Cleveland Indians teammate Harry Simpson. The two spoke in unfriendly tones when Simpson insisted that Miñoso was not black. The claim flew in the face of the fact that both the U.S.-born Simpson and the Cuban native Miñoso began their playing careers in the Negro Leagues due to baseball's color line, and how both suffered from the indignities of Jim Crow in spring training camp, in the minor leagues, and when they traveled on the road.

Orlando Cepeda (Sporting News archives)

Undercounted: invisibly present

Herein lays a source of aggravation as a historian who studies race, baseball, and Latinos.  Who gets to count them? And, perhaps most significantly, how does this impact how we talk about race and baseball both in the current moment and historically?When do black Latinos count as black?

The stakes are significant. Not in terms of who gets to be black, which historically has not been the most enviable position in baseball circles, but rather in how MLB addresses its 21st century realities as a global sport that is heavily dependent on Latino talent on its baseball diamonds and that, purportedly, seeks to increase the African American presence on the field and in the stands.

The question also matters historically. Most baseball fans simply think that the Latino presence in baseball is a recent phenomenon that started in earnest in the early 21st century or perhaps as early as the 1990s.

Research undertaken by baseball historians Mark Armour and Daniel Levitt (which you can read here ) has effectively busted one of baseball's long-held myths that the zenith of African American participation in baseball was at 28 percent in 1975. While this number still finds its way into print, into the social media platforms, and onto the broadcast air, the research conducted by Armour and Levitt on baseball's integration uncovered that the 28% figure included many players who shared the distinction of being black and Latino with Cepeda, Clemente, and Miñoso.

Worth considering then is the manner that the 28% stat hid from plain sight the active participation of Latinos both in the years of pioneering integration and in the decades that followed. It also minimized part of Jackie Robinson's legacy; that the impact of racial integration was as much international in letting in black Latinos as it was about African American inclusion.

Keeping count

The findings of Armour and Levitt altered the timeline of not only when the zenith of African American participation occurred but also when Latinos began to outpace African American participation. Rather than 1975, MLB saw the largest participation of African Americans in 1981. Moreover, the high-water mark was 18.7% and not 28%. As for Latinos, after first reaching double-digits as a percentage of MLB players in 1967, they eclipsed African Americans in on-field presence (16.9 percent  to 16.8 percent) in 1993. Three seasons later Latino participation surged over 20% and reaching its zenith in 2009 at 28.5 percent.

These stats, I am convinced, are quite connected. After all, the professional baseball aspirations of African Americans and Latinos were interconnected during baseball's color line era. The overwhelming majority of Latinos who ventured to north to play professionally in the United States did so by performing in the black baseball circuit where over 240 Latinos participated. Conversely between 1902 and 1946, 53 Latinos (foreign and US-born) appeared in the majors. Moreover, when one looks at the Latino stars that emerged in the first decades of integration, the vast majority of them were Afro-Latinos; Luis Aparicio being the most notable exception.

Indeed, what discounting the status as fellow blacks of those from Latin America, the history of how profoundly the color line affected Latinos, especially black Latinos, is minimized. That also diminishes the vital role that the Negro Leagues played as the main professional circuit Latinos participated in during baseball's segregated era. It was there where José Méndez managed the great Kansas City Monarchs to multiple pennants in the 1920s; where Cristobal Torriente blasted home runs to pace the Detroit Stars and Chicago American Giants; where Martin Dihigo displayed a level of versatility and excellence that landed him in the Hall of Fame not only in the U.S. but Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, and Dominican Republic.

It also diminishes how important the Latin American leagues were in advancing black baseball talent on and off the field. It was in Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela where African Americans gained their first professional managerial experience guiding integrated ballclubs, managing teams that included white Americans, Latinos of all shades and hues, and fellow African Americans.

Indeed, not recognizing as black players like David Ortiz, Sandoval or Puig denies not only what is visible but also renders invisible the history of race in baseball (and Latin America) and, equally significant, of the choices MLB has made in pursuing Latin American talent after it had dismantled the black baseball infrastructure that had been established and sustained by the Negro Leagues.

SN contributor Adrian Burgos, Jr., is professor of history at the University of Illinois. His expertise includes Latinos in baseball and the Negro Leagues. The author of "Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball" (Hill & Wang, 2011) and "Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line" (University of California Press, 2007), he consulted for the National Baseball Hall of Fame's ¡Viva Baseball! exhibit, Ken Burns' "The Tenth Inning" and on the forthcoming "Jackie Robinson," among other exhibits and documentaries.

Sent from my iPhone

"Meet the Press" - By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

Another blast from the past. The entire interview excerpted previously by seamheads.com.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/jackie-robinson-baseball/articles-and-essays/baseball-the-color-line-and-jackie-robinson/meet-the-press/

"Meet the Press"

Trascript of television and radio broadcast

Program produced by Lawrence Spivak for the National Broadcasting Company, Sunday, April 14, 1957.
Published by National Publishing Company, Washington, D.C., vol. 1, no. 15.
(Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Lawrence Spivak Papers)

For additional information on the Spivak Papers you can leave this site and read a summary catalog record for the collection.

Produced by: Lawrence E. Spivak
Guest: Jackie Robinson
Sunday, April 14, 1957

Panel:
William H. Lawrence, New York Times
Frank van der Linden, Nashville Banner
Jim Simpson, National Broadcasting Company
Lawrence E. Spivak, Regular Panel Member

Moderator:
Ned Brooks

Announcer: Now, MEET THE PRESS. The prize-winning program produced by Lawrence E. Spivak. Ready for this spontaneous, unrehearsed conference are four of America's top reporters. Please remember, their questions do not necessarily reflect their point of view; it is their way of getting a story for you. Here is the moderator of MEET THE PRESS, Ned Brooks.

Mr. Brooks: And welcome once again to MEET THE PRESS.

Another baseball season opens tomorrow. Our guest is one of baseball's all-time greats, Jackie Robinson, the first Negro to break the racial barrier in the major leagues. During his 10 years with the Brooklyn Dodgers, they won six pennants. His greatness lay in his versatility and his competitive spirit. He played the infield and the outfield with equal skill. He set records in fielding, batting and base running, and in 1949 he was voted the National League's Most Valuable Player.

Jackie Robinson's activities have extended beyond the baseball diamond into the field of race relations. He has devoted much of his spare time to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and last year he was awarded the organization's highest honor for achievement, the Spingarn Medal. From the beginning of his career Jackie Robinson was a center of controversy. His baseball association ended on a controversial note when he was traded to the New York Giants and when he announced his retirement in Look Magazine. Since retiring he has become a vice president of the Chock Full O'Nuts Company of New York, and he is on the staff of Look Magazine.

Now, seated around the press table ready to interview Jackie Robinson are Jim Simpson of NBC, William Lawrence of the New York Times, Frank van der Linden of the Nashville Banner and Lawrence E. Spivak, our regular member of the MEET THE PRESS panel. Now, Mr. Robinson, if you are ready we will start the questions with Mr. Lawrence.

Mr. Lawrence: Mr. Robinson, for the first time in 10 years you are not in a Major League uniform finishing up the exhibition games before the pennant race opens tomorrow. How does it feel; do you have any regrets about retiring?

Mr. Robinson: None at all. I feel very, very good. I am awfully happy in my new job. I am with a bunch of fine people, and I like it very much.

Mr. Lawrence: Now that you are out of baseball, are you going to be a regular fan and root from the grandstand for your favorite team?

Mr. Robinson: My favorite team is the Dodgers, and I will root for them.

Mr. Lawrence: Will you be going to the games?

Mr. Robinson: I will occasionally, not too much.

Mr. Lawrence: Now that you are vice president in charge of personnel for a large concern in New York, what will your attitude be on Tuesday when a large number of your employees resort to that age-old dodge and report the sudden deaths of their grandmothers, so they can get the Opening Day off to see the season open?

Mr. Robinson: We are hoping that will not happen. I have had a very fine relationship with most of the people who are with us, and I do whatever I can to teach them or tell them the importance of being on the job all the time. We hope it is not going to happen.

Mr. Spivak: I would like to get to more serious matters. Congressman Celler recently made this remark: "The few who own the Major League clubs aren't trying to benefit the public but only to make all the money they can by moving players around like pawns and chattels." You were one of the players who was moved around. Do you think that statement is true or false?

Mr. Robinson: I can't say it is completely true, no. I think in most cases many of the club owners do have the thinking of the ball players in their hearts, but there are many, many instances where ball players are moved around. What the answer to eliminate it is, I don't know.

Mr. Spivak: Do you think the reserve clause which permits a ball club to exercise virtually monopolistic rights over a player is good, either for baseball or for the player?

Mr. Robinson: If there were some other means to handle the situation, I would think it should be handled, but I don't know of any other. If they didn't have the reserve clause, when we came down to the last month of the season where a ball club may need a good ball player to have them win the pennant, a club with a lot of money who would only be interested in a pennant could, by offering this ball player - if there wasn't some kind of a law to keep him from it - a lot of money, and I doubt very seriously if the player would refuse it.

Mr. Spivak: Isn't it true, though, that a team like the Yankees - that is, a club that is very rich - has been able to garner a great many of the best ball players simply by having money? Does the reserve clause stop that in any way?

Mr. Robinson: I don't think that is the reason why the Yankees are so successful. I think that, very frankly, a lot of ball players when they are young are very, very anxious to join the Yankee chain. I think that tradition that they hear about so much has a lot to do with it, and they get in the organization. I believe that is what it is, personally.

Mr. Spivak: Mr. Robinson, professional baseball is now, I think, the only professional sport which has specifically been held by the Supreme Court to be outside the anti-trust laws. Do you think baseball should be exempt on the grounds that it is a sport and not a business?

Mr. Robinson: I can't say that baseball is a sport, no, not if that is the reasoning. In my opinion, baseball is as big a business as anything there is. It has to be a business, the way it is conducted.

Mr. Spivak: Do you see any reason why it should be given special treatment when football, basketball and hockey have all been held to be monopolistic when they have special arrangements of the kind that baseball has?

Mr. Robinson: Since I don't know too much about the football and the basketball and the other situations, I would hate to get mixed up in it. I don't know what their situation is, actually. The only thing I know is that baseball, being the game that it is, there has to be some protection for them.

Mr. Simpson: Mr. Robinson, in this reserve clause, Robin Roberts, who is the representative of the National League Players, says that he feels there should be some kind of revision of the reserve clause. He did not say what it should be. He didn't like the idea that the player could be stuck in the minor leagues for 7 years before he could be drafted by some other club.

Affidavits evidently have been sent out to all players asking that they back up Major League baseball and its reserve clause. Eddie Yost of the American League feels that the players will be almost unanimous and back up the club owners and say the reserve clause is necessary.

As a former player and being just out of baseball, do you think it is necessary to run the sport, or business, of baseball?

Mr. Robinson: At the present time I would have to go along with it, because there has to be some sort of protection. Until they find some other way to handle all these situations, I think that - it is a personal observation, but I think they have to continue it. In all my years of baseball I have always expected to be traded. I never liked the idea. I expected it because that is the way baseball has been run all along, but I don't see at this time any way that they can handle the situation.

Mr. Simpson: Have you ever run across, aside from the obvious ones that have gone to court, anybody in baseball who is unhappy and dissatisfied because of the reserve clause? Specifically, can you tell us the case?

Mr. Robinson: Well, there have been - there is no need for me to mention any names - just fellows who feel they could be better off on another team, and because of the clause they can't display their abilities on another team. One ball club may be overloaded with talent. I have heard complaints that they can't show what they can do because they are on a team which has such good talent they sit on the bench, and, therefore, they are not able to do the things they would like to be able to do, at least insofar as their playing is concerned.

Mr. Van der Linden: Mr. Robinson, you are the Chairman of the Freedom Fund Campaign of the NAACP and, according to news reports, you are trying to raise $1 million.

Mr. Robinson: That is correct.

Mr. Van der Linden: If you get the $1 million, what will you do with it?

Mr. Robinson: Me personally, I am not going to do anything. It is going to be used in our efforts to secure first-class citizenship for all American citizens.

Mr. Van der Linden: As a leader of NAACP, would you use the money to hire lawyers, for instance, to press school segregation cases?

Mr. Robinson: I want to make one thing clear: I am not what you call a leader of the NAACP. I happen to be vice president of a restaurant firm. They have asked me if I would head the Freedom Fund for this year - their campaign - and I said yes. I just don't believe in being a person who signs his name to letters. If I am going to do something, I like to get in and do the job that I think can be done by actually applying myself.

So, if we are going to talk about, actually, the workings of - what the money is going to be used for, that is hard to say. I don't touch the money; I don't see it when it goes in. I have nothing to do with it.

Mr. Van der Linden: Of course, your name is being used to promote the campaign and secure money.

Mr. Robinson: That is right.

Mr. Van der Linden: And, of course, it would be of public interest to someone who is going to contribute to know whether the money would be used to hire lawyers, or to press for lobbying, say, for civil rights bills. I assume you favor the civil rights bill?

Mr. Robinson: I certainly do. The money, the way I see it, is going to be used in our fight to achieve first-class citizenship. We have had to, through legal means all of these years, go through the courts to get the things that are rightfully ours under the Constitution. We haven't picked up arms to do anything to achieve the rights that belong to us; we have done it legally through the courts. Money is needed to hire lawyers to handle these specific cases. I would imagine they are going to use a considerable amount of money. I don't know whether the Freedom Fund is used for lawyers or whether it goes through the other branch that they have.

Mr. Lawrence: I would like to return, if I might, to this reserve clause business a moment. In defending it, or saying it was necessary as you saw it, you cited the case of the closing days of a pennant race where a club with a chance to win might buy up all the players. Isn't that handled rather by the deadline on buying and trading players rather than by the reserve clause?

Mr. Robinson: If the reserve clause wasn't there, I think that they would be able to do so. I think that is one of the protections that the club owners are using the reserve clause for.

Mr. Lawrence: Doesn't the league lay down the date beyond which you may not buy a player and use him, or you may not trade after a certain date?

Mr. Robinson: Buying, I don't know - it is September 30 for buying of players; that is correct.

Mr. Lawrence: If that kind of control could be exercised so that you would avoid this problem of one club buying up all the talent, you know, towards the end of the season, what would be the defense of the reserve clause in the winter time when a ball player would have a better chance to move from some eighth place outfit that isn't making any money to a club that is in the contention and is drawing enough patrons that it can afford to pay him a decent salary?

Mr. Robinson: It is just simply that there are a lot of club owners, in my opinion, who could not compete in that market if they threw it open for actually bidding for services of all ball players. I think most clubs in the American League today have enough trouble competing with the Yankees without worrying about their finances, too.

In the National League where you have a ball club like Milwaukee, if they could get one man that would insure them the pennant, they draw so very, very well that they could do so - I am just using this as an example. I do not say they would do this, but they could in the winter time. They start figuring "How can we improve our ball club during the winter?" They would bid for ball players during the winter that would virtually assure them of a pennant during the next year, whereas, a ball club that hasn't been going well and hasn't been taking in money couldn't compete in that market, and fellows who are in baseball for the love of the game - I know very few of them.

Mr. Lawrence: Let's translate that to the player, though. We can't get much out of it as long as he is stuck with - I won't use the name, but the 8th place club that frequents this town - why shouldn't he have a chance to go out?

Mr. Robinson: I agree. I wish that there was some way that they could do something about it, but I doubt very seriously if everybody tried to get on the Yankee ball club that many people would come out the next year to see the ball game, if they were going to run away with it any more than they do now.

Mr. Spivak: Mr. Robinson, before your trade was announced, did the Dodgers discuss this with you at all? Were you sold and then told, or was this discussed with you, or were you just treated as a chattel and told where to go?

Mr. Robinson: I was told where to go.

Mr. Spivak: No discussion?

Mr. Robinson: No.

Mr. Spivak: Nobody discussed this with you; nobody asked you whether you would like to go or anything?

Mr. Robinson: No.

Mr. Spivak: Do you think that is a good system?

Mr. Robinson: I think it is until something better comes along. I don't know what the answer would be there. Frankly, I haven't given it too much thought because we, as ball players, have been under this rule for so long that we have accepted it in most part. I agree that if there was a vote taken that most of them would probably go along until something came along that was better.

Mr. Spivak: Why should baseball be any different from life? If you make a contract in business, and you are not satisfactory, and your company is not satisfactory, after the period of your contract you can go where you want and do as you please? Why shouldn't there be a system like that? A contract, yes - if a baseball club wants to sign a man up for five years and pay him a certain amount and take that obligation, fine.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Spivak, I don't know why I'm defending this reserve clause; really, I don't know why I am doing it, so, I will just say here, for the players' benefit certainly something should be done, but I hope it doesn't have to be done through the courts. I hope that the baseball owners will think enough of the ball players themselves to say, "Well, I'm going to do something for the players besides selling them whenever I can - maybe giving them a piece of the money when they are sold." I hope it's done that way rather than through the courts.

Mr. Spivak: You do feel that something ought to be done about it.

Mr. Robinson: Definitely, I think something should be done.

Mr. Spivak: I would like to switch, if I might, to another subject. You have become one of the leaders of your race. The rate of crime in the Negro race is much greater than the rate in the population as a whole. I know a good deal of the responsibility is on the white people, who have treated the Negro the way they have during these past years, but what do you see as the responsibility of the Negro himself and, maybe, of the NAACP in this area?

Mr. Robinson: It is a question that certainly should be pressing in the minds of all of us. I hope that the NAACP and all groups that are interested in that, not only in the Negro but in America, will try to do something for this particular problem.

I think, and I agree with you, if I can interpret what you are saying, that the Negro himself has a responsibility, here. As you say - and I agree also - a lot of it is due to the lack of opportunities that we have had, but I think it is the obligation of the Negro leaders, not only to seek their rights as first-class citizens, but, also, to impress upon all of our people that it is very important that they cut down anything that brings discredit to us.

Mr. Spivak: How do you answer those people who insist that the NAACP is moving very, very fast to get the rights for the Negro but seems to be doing not enough to impress upon the Negro his own responsibility as he gets these rights?

Mr. Robinson: When they say that the NAACP is moving too fast - you know, I heard that, Mr. Spivak, when I was out in Pasadena, California, trying to get into the YMCA: Take your time. Be patient. Patience is fine. I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens. "Be patient," I was told as a kid. I keep hearing that today, "Let's be patient; let's take our time; things will come." It seems to me, the Civil War has been over about 93 years; if that isn't patience, I don't know what is.

I agree, also, that perhaps we should emphasize the importance of cutting down upon the rate of crime. There is too much, but again we've got to understand that a lot of people are oppressed, and they run into these situations because of their surroundings. It is our responsibility as much as it is anyone else's, but I must remind - this is my own opinion - I think it is not only the Negro's obligation, but it is every American citizen's obligation, that if the Negro rate of crime is to great, then we should try to do something about it, not as Negroes but as Americans.

Mr. Simpson: You have been quoted several times as saying that you do not miss baseball. Is that because you have such a wonderful position and everything, or did you have any bad moments in baseball, or was baseball at the end of your career just a chore for you?

Mr. Robinson: Now, which one do we want to start with first?

Mr. Simpson: Let's start at the end: Did you enjoy your baseball career?

Mr. Robinson: I enjoyed my baseball career tremendously up through the years. I enjoyed it very much.

Mr. Simpson: In other words, you would recommend it as a career for someone else in spite of this reserve clause and all the rest of it?

Mr. Robinson: My little boy wants to play baseball, and I am going to help him in every way that I possibly can. I think it is a great game for youngsters. It gives them a chance to meet and know people of all faiths, and I think that is something that everyone should get an opportunity of doing.

Mr. Simpson: You were the first Negro in baseball. Now that you are out, are you satisfied with the Negro's position in baseball and in professional sports?

Mr. Robinson: Oh, no, I am never satisfied; let's face it.

Mr. Simpson: What are you facing now, if you are not satisfied? What do you think should be done, or must be done, that is not being done?

Mr. Robinson: Well, I don't know -

Mr. Simpson: Do you think anyone is being denied playing in professional sports?

Mr. Robinson: Not today; not in baseball; I will put it that way - not in baseball. I think they are in golf, but in baseball I think if a person has the ability to make the major league, he will be able to get there on ability alone. I think that is what nine out of ten of the major league owners are looking for, ability and ability alone.

Mr. Simpson: Golf is the only sport that you would put your finger on as one that does not allow an equal chance?

Mr. Robinson: I would say golf. In the over-all picture there are cases where Negroes are allowed to participate in the golf tournaments, but in the great majority of tournaments they are not allowed.

Mr. Brooks: You mentioned the circumstances under which you were notified that you were to be traded to the New York Giants. Hadn't you at the time made up your mind that you were going to retire this year?

Mr. Robinson: I had. As a matter of fact, I had placed a call to Mr. Bavasi, I got his secretary two days before I made my decision, or my final decision. My reason for calling Mr. Bavasi was to tell him not to get rid of Randy Jackson, that I wasn't sure what I would do the next year.

Mr. Brooks: But you had certain commitments that didn't enable you to tell the Dodgers that you were going to retire, isn't that true?

Mr. Robinson: That is correct.

Mr. Van der Linden: Mr. Robinson, you said a few minutes ago that you favored the Civil Rights Bill. There have been some amendments offered to the bill. Do you know of any reason why Congress should not adopt the proposed amendment which would give a jury trial to anyone who is accused under that bill?

Mr. Robinson: I know very little about that bill, Mr. Van der Linden.

Mr. Van der Linden: As an individual, yourself, if you should happen to be accused in any court case, on any matter, would you prefer to have a jury trial?

Mr. Robinson: I think I would, yes, as an individual, yes.

Mr. Spivak: Mr. Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers hired a clown, recently, for this season. Is that an indication that they don't think their ball team is going to keep the people interested?

Mr. Robinson: I hope not. I think that the Brooklyn Baseball Club will be a very, very interesting one this year. I think their pitching is as good as there is in baseball, and when you have good pitching, you have an interesting ball team.

Mr. Spivak: Sports Illustrated, I think, last week referred to them as a "team of old and ailing players." Do you think they are not too old and too ailing to win this pennant again, as you predicted?

Mr. Robinson: I certainly don't think so. I think when you have fellows on the ball club like Pee Wee Reese, for instance - I think Pee Wee is perhaps the oldest player outside of the pitchers on the ball club - even when he is ailing and hurting, he is out there playing better baseball than a lot of the younger fellows, so, therefore, he is able to do a good job. I think his leadership will enable them to do a good job again.

Mr. Spivak: May I ask you a personal question?

Mr. Robinson: Indeed.

Mr. Spivak: You seen so calm and gentle here today. How did you get your reputation for being so "tart-tongued" and "terrible-tempered?"

Mr. Robinson: I don't know, Mr. Spivak, very frankly. I am calm; I like to be calm. When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don't take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn't know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don't talk about baseball at home. I finish any game, give it all I have, but I don't take it home.

Mr. Spivak: Is it the game itself that stirred up the competitive spirit or was it partly the way you were treated as the first Negro in baseball that resulted in your so-called tart tongue and terrible temper?

Mr. Robinson: Oh, indeed not. Mr. Spivak, I can say this honestly; things weren't as bad as a lot of people would have liked to have made them out to be. I received very, very fine treatment in most cases. So, therefore, my activities on the ball field had absolutely nothing to do with the way that I conducted myself at any time.

Mr. Brooks: I am sorry to have to interrupt, but I see our time is up.

Our sincere thanks to Jackie Robinson, and before closing I would like to call your special attention to next week's program. Our guest will be Vladimir Poremsky, the head of the Russian underground called the NTS, and it is known by Soviet intelligence agents as the most dangerous enemy to the Soviet regime.

Again, thank you very much, Jackie Robinson, for being with us; now here is our announcer.

Sent from my iPhone

White Sox legend Minoso passes away | whitesox.com

Sad news this weekend, RIP Minnie Minoso. This has been a tough winter for Chicago, first losing Mr. Cub and now losing someone who could definitely be called Mr. White Sox.

from whitesox.com
White Sox legend Minoso passes away | whitesox.com:

Minnie Minoso spent 17 years in MLB, 12 of which were with his beloved White Sox. Early Sunday morning, the seven-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glover passed away at the age of 92.

Born in Cuba, he was, in the words of Orlando Cepeda, "to Latin ballplayers what Jackie Robinson is to black ballplayers." He began his American baseball career in the Negro Leagues, where he played, fittingly, with the New York Cubans from 1946 to 194

'via Blog this'

Once again, shame on the Hall of Fame voters. And really, how many times must we say "shame on the Hall of Fame voters before we take the job away from this pitiful lot? Is this really the kind of press the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball wants thrust upon it time and time again? It's getting a bit ridiculous and at times just indecent.

Shame on the whole sorry lot of them for their inaction.


from Yahoo Sports:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/taking-a-look-at-minnie-minoso-s-hall-of-fame-case-182819285.html

Minnie Minoso wanted nothing more than to be honored by his peers and recognized by the game he loved. As he stated many times, it was his final dream in life. Just to have that moment and know he truly belonged among baseball's elite.

“'My last dream is to be in Cooperstown, to be with those guys,”' Minoso said. “'I want to be there. This is my life's dream.”

It's a feeling Minoso carried with him and echoed right up until his final day. On Saturday, Minoso talked to Christina Kahrl of ESPN, and once again spoke of the heart break he felt after falling short on the Hall of Fame's Golden Era ballot this past winter.

Truly, I'm hurt. You know why? Because I've seen so many guys – and all of my respect is for them – get inducted [into Cooperstown], but my records are better. And I played more years. That's what's breaking my heart. I go to these card shows, and most guys there are Hall of Famers. Some of them got in later, but what difference should there be?

Making Minoso's disappointment even more disheartening is that it's an honor he deserved.

from Grab Some Bench:
http://grabsomebench.com/root/thoughts-analysis/minnie-minoso-hall-of-fame-worthy.html

 It is for these reasons and more that Minnie Minoso deserves the honor of being immortalized alongside the greats of the game in Cooperstown. He was a one-of-a-kind player, and those deserve to be remembered.

There is a quote on the wall in the third floor of the Baseball Hall of Fame from Minnie that says, “I gave my life to the game. And the game gave me everything.” I think the game owes him one last thing, and I think it’s time he got it.

Buck O'Neill Died Today at 94. Shame on Baseball.

Buck O'Neill died today at the age of 94. And now he will never have the chance to enjoy the induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame he so richly deseved. 17 former Negro Leaguers were inducted earlier this year after the Hall of Fame formed a committee to elect former Negro Leagues players and executives.

These so-called experts could see the value of inducting at least a dozen folks that even serious fans had never even heard of before or of dubious credentials, yet leave O'Neill short by one vote.

O'Neill died today and the cause of death was exhaustion. That he worked so tirelessly to get the 17 people elected would make his cause of death understandable, that baseball rejected his credentials so callously, one could have easily guessed a broken heart.

See Keith Olbemans blog re: the vote (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11478921/)
in which he says:

{Snubbing Minoso and O'Neil -- apparently for all time -- is extraordinary enough. But only baseball could make it worse. In honoring the Negro Leagues -- it managed to exclude O'Neill and Minoso -- but did elect two white people.

James Leslie Wilkinson was the founder of those Kansas City Monarchs -- Jackie Robinson's team before he broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wilkinson was a white businessman. And today's election also made a Hall of Famer out of Effa Manley... She was the owner of the Newark Eagles of the Negro American League. It sounds almost impossible to believe -- but she too was white -- married to a black man -- and she pretended to be -- as the term was, then, "passed" -- as a light-skinned black.

Most of the 17 electees yesterday were entirely deserving. Such legendary figures as Sol White and Biz Mackey and Jose Mendez will achieve in death and in the Hall of Fame something they were denied in life. Just to twist the knife a little further into Buck O'Neil, the special committee elected Alex Pompez, owner of the New York Cubans team... Also an organized crime figure... Part of the mob of the infamous '30s gangster Dutch Schultz... Indicted in this country and Mexico for racketeering.

He's in the Hall of Fame. For all time. Buck O'Neil is not. It is not merely indefensible. For all the many stupid things the Baseball Hall of Fame has ever done... This is the worst.}

COULD NOT AGREE MORE WITH KO.

This leaves another horrible stain on the so-called Hall of Fame and leaves the risk that in very short order this so-called monument to baseball's history, will become irrelevant. I think it's currently firmly entrenched in the "It's a joke" stage. A couple of more committee decisions like this and they might consider a name change to the Hall of Shame.

They curently have about a hundred people who clearly don't belong there based on almost any measure known to man. Which means there are hundreds of people who can make the argument that they belong based on the "well if he's in, then he belongs...." argument.

And yet they keep missing on guys whose credentials are beyond reproach. Who are so one of a kind that even if they were let in with whatever their perceived flaws are nobody woould raise an eyebrow.

I mean, if you miss on a Buck O'Neill, and these were supposed baseball historians and academics, what does that say about you? That you're criminally stupid, even though you may have some letters after your name? These morons should be ashamed of themselves and I truly believe I'm insulting morons today. All these supposed guardians of the integrity of the game do more harm to the game by the day.

RIP Buck O'Neill. Rot in Hell, Baseball Hall of Fame Morons.

BaseballLibrary.com entry for Buck O'Neill:
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/O/ONeil_Buck.stm