Baseball used to be a staple of Black culture and an integral part of life in Black communities, she says. She hears stories from people who used to go to church with their families, stop for lunch and then go enjoy a baseball game. Alexander Tuerk produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Camila Beiner adapted it for the web.
Skip to main content. Close close Donate. Listen Live: Morning Edition. Close Close. After Abe died in , Manley moved to Washington, D.
She married twice more calling both mistakes , and remained active in causes for the disabled, the arts and the African American community. They knew what it was all about. And I think they knew what would happen is just what has happened. The Negroes would come in and would start wrecking records. Overmyer believes Manley's success eventually opened doors for Ng. But the Marlins' GM says Effa faced much higher hurdles.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. And her belief in herself was unwavering. Recommended for you. It seemed that every team had star Black players. That's an average of five players per team. Fans were used to seeing Black players being among the best players in the game. Plus, I felt we were the next generation of the best players in the game, and baseball was the No.
I felt it was somewhat like taking a handoff from the older generation to the younger one. Dave Roberts, MLB outfielder to , current Dodgers manager: "When I was playing, first off, there were considerably more Black players in baseball. I felt that baseball was moving in the direction of being more diverse. Unfortunately, we've gone backwards. I think Black players have always felt that they had to conform.
That's just the facts. I experienced discrimination, but in different ways. My dad, who grew up in Houston, talked about the issues he faced. It was very tough for him being the only Black man in his [Marine] battalion, the only Black man at his high school.
And I was raised to not really see color. Now, it's almost as if you have to flip the script and recognize color in order to understand that people have different experiences. We have to give that power, because the world looks at people of color differently.
To say that you don't and everyone's the same isn't a reality. I should have been more vocal about being a Japanese American. But I think that I have always done the best I could at [trying] to do right by people. And I guess I didn't want to come off as 'the angry Black man' or 'the angry biracial man. Baker: "Back then, we had a lot more African American players, a lot more African American stars; a lot of African Americans played baseball, a lot more African American fathers were involved with baseball.
They would never room a white player with a black player. Before, there were only two jobs that you could get, really: batting coach or first-base coach. Manager, pitching coach, third-base coach, bench coach, those were jobs that the black players didn't get. That's when it was really tough. They had segregated housing.
It was a great awakening to what it was all about. And I was fortunate enough to be around Hank Aaron at 19, 20 years old, when Hank was the most sought-after dude in the country. It really helped me a lot as a young person -- to be around Hank, seeing how he handled it.
I would see him get all these letters, and he wouldn't show them me. He would just throw them on the floor.
I'd pick them up and read them, and some letters would say that somebody was going to shoot him today. To see how Hank never feared, how he focused everything into excellence, was the best lesson for me. Those leagues would not exist without Black players. Gwynn: "In order to become professionals, baseball players have to go through a long process before they can get where you could be that type of player that can speak out.
But numbers are one of the most important factors, because there are so many more African American players in both of those leagues. Those leagues absolutely couldn't exist without them. That gives them leverage to be able to do it, to be able to do some of the things we've seen them do. Players only feel empowered to speak out once they are established ballplayers at the big league level.
Because it takes a long time to get there, you don't have the numbers that you have in basketball or in football. It's gonna take me, what, six years at the big league level for the most part, before I have a platform where I feel comfortable to speak my mind.
Think about Adam Jones -- Adam has been outspoken, but he really became outspoken after he was an established big leaguer. I think there's not a Black man that plays the game of baseball that at one time hasn't felt like that. Maxwell: "It's a numbers game. It really is. Power and numbers, honestly. I personally think, people in baseball, they don't give a s what happens to players off the field, white or Black, especially Black.
They don't give a s what your home life is like, where you have to travel back to, unless you're Mike Trout or something. If they band together, they have to listen. In baseball? There's nobody that can speak out against what baseball is doing or how they conduct themselves, because they'll be gone the next day.
Hawkins: "African American players in baseball don't feel empowered to speak out. I always had a voice, and I always thought that when I walked in a room, I commanded that type of respect from my teammates. Whether they liked me or not, I commanded that type of respect, but only because I gave that type of respect.
This is not about the flag. It has nothing to do with the flag or being unpatriotic. Everybody wants to hijack the narrative, but at the end of the day [former Green Beret] Nate Boyer told Kaepernick to kneel because that's a sign of respect. And once again, the flag doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. It doesn't. That flag does not stand for liberty and justice for all. For all. We know that's not true because of the injustices practiced all over the country every day.
Roberts: "I definitely think that people can change their views with more information. Initially, when Kaepernick was taking a knee, I focused [in ] on my father and I equated it to what he did for our country.
As I have learned more, I have come to understand that it was a peaceful protest. Black people have tried different means and haven't been heard. We can't have it both ways, wanting people to protest peacefully, but then when they do it, that's wrong, too. This country is built on freedom of speech. I've certainly softened on [my] stance.
But I do understand that there is social inequality and we still have a long way to go. And to be quite honest, if that's what it takes to keep momentum and keep it front of mind, then it's a good thing.
Heyward: "For me, it's about all of us coming together and saying, 'This is what we're going to do. We all know what the flag stands for.
My family is military. My mom's father was in Vietnam. We have now seen the NFL apologizing to Kaepernick for shaming him the way they did. Like Dave Roberts said, even someone who is African American, he has changed his stance once he got more educated. I understand that. But we're not being respected back. We're part of this country, too. If you want us to be proud of that, then we need to treat everyone in this country equally.
That's the unfortunate truth. That's what peacefully taking a knee, not making a sound, was all about. And not only that, imagine it from this aspect, like in my family, people are out there fighting for their country and that flag, and then come home to be treated worse.
That's a tough pill to swallow, even for some of those that are in armed forces right now. Maxwell: "Yes, I think I was blackballed out. I feel like I was pushed out of the game of baseball by everybody, not just by the A's. I definitely had a target on my back for kneeling. Heyward: "Once it happened, our reaction was, 'Well, that's why we don't do that, because that's what's gonna happen to us.
Then maybe we could have gotten something done.
0コメント