The Magic of #42

There are moments in time where time itself demands change. There was such a moment in the Spring of 1947 when an African American baseball player named Jackie Robinson stepped up to the plate and changed the face of the game. It is an honor for me to pay homage to Mr. Robinson whose character, stature, and integrity was beyond reproach.

Born January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in the so-called major leagues in more than fifty years. Throughout his decade-long career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he made advancements in the cause of civil rights for black athletes. In 1955, he helped the Dodgers win the World Series. He retired in 1957, with a career batting average of .311.

Now, as is often the case with His-Story much of what we know about history is a myth. Let me use a quote that I often use by the prolific French writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire who said, “History is a pack of trick we play upon the dead”. What I mean by that is this dynamic historical event actually was a simple as a black man being allowed to play a game with white people as a result of the rigid “Jim Crow” laws mandated by the law of the land – America.

At the time, the sport as well as America was segregated. African-Americans and whites played in separate leagues with Robinson who played in the famed Negro Leagues, but was chosen by Branch Rickey, a vice president with the Brooklyn Dodgers, to help integrate major league baseball. He joined the all-white Montreal Royals, a farm team for the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1945. He moved to Florida in 1946 to begin spring training with the Royals, and played his first game on March 17 of that same year.

Now, we have been told that Branch Rickey did this out of good conscience and for the cause of civil rights. Well that is not exactly true. Rickey saw an opportunity to make money. The Negro league was prospering and the white league was barely surviving. He knew if he could convince one Negro player, and Robinson was not the best player in the Negro league, Rickey knew others would follow, and they did. Hence, the Negro league ceased to exist. Let me add that Mr. Robinson, an average player, was better than all of the white players playing in the white league at the time.

It is not my intention to neither demean nor take away from the significance of the huge step toward equality. Despite the racial abuse, particularly at away games, Robinson character prevailed as he endured the most brutal harassment, threats, and derogatory language hurled at him on and off the field. It is because of his superb character that we should celebrate this great man.

Jackie Robinson succeeded in putting the prejudice and racial strife aside, and showed everyone what a talented player he was. In his first year, he hit 12 home runs and helped the Dodgers win the National League pennant. That year, Robinson led the National League in stolen bases and was selected as Rookie of the Year. He continued to wow fans and critics alike with impressive feats, such as an outstanding .342 batting average during the 1949 season. He led in stolen bases that year and earned the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award.

Robinson also became a vocal champion for African-American athletes, civil rights, and other social and political causes. In July 1949, he testified on discrimination before the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1952, he publicly called out the Yankees as a racist organization for not having broken the color barrier five years after he began playing with the Dodgers.

In his decade-long career with the Dodgers, Robinson and his team won the National League pennant several times. Finally, in 1955, he helped them achieve the ultimate victory: the World Series. After failing before in four other series match-ups, the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees. He helped the team win one more National League pennant the following season, and was then traded to the New York Giants. Jackie Robinson retired shortly after the trade, on January 5, 1957, with an impressive career batting average of .311.

Let me close with what really happen that day – number 42 was just a number until Mr. Jack Robinson wore it! And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective.

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The Nittany Lions Got Hammered

I will admit that I am like most men a huge sports fan and I love football; now to my many readers in England, I am not talking about soccer. I am talking about the self inflected tragedy at Penn State; more commonly known as the Nittany Lions football program. This is a school that promoted itself on the grandeur of ethics that has raised billions on the backs of young men. Today the college paid the price for its ethical ineptitude.

The NCAA hammered the Penn State football program for its role in concealing the Jerry Sandusky’s sexual molestation acts, leveling Coach Joe Paterno’s once revered team with stiff penalties and unprecedented fines that will hurt in ways worse than death. Here are the sanctions:

• A $60 million fine, with the money going to an endowment to benefit the welfare of children.
• A four-year ban on postseason play, including the Big Ten championship game, bowls or the playoffs coming in 2014.
• A reduction in the maximum allowance of scholarships offered to incoming players from 25 to 15 a year for the next four years.
• Any entering or returning player is free to transfer without restriction (such as sitting out one season). Others can maintain their scholarship at Penn State and choose not to play.
• The vacating of all victories from 1998-2011, which strips Paterno of his title as the winningest coach in college football history (now Grambling’s Eddie Robinson) and Division I-A (now Bobby Bowden). Paterno, for the record, loses 111 wins and now ranks 12th with 298.
• Five-year probationary period and the hiring of an academic monitor of the NCAA’s choosing and so forth.

Penn State will not appeal the sanctions. School president Rodney Erickson signed a consent agreement with the NCAA and “accepts the penalties.”

Penn State President Mark Emmert said at a press conference in Indianapolis that “The penalties reflect the magnitude of these terrible acts but also assures Penn state will rebuild an athletic culture that went horribly awry… Football will never be put ahead of educating, protecting and nurturing young people.”

With the amount of money that this equates too – I have to ask, if Penn State and its fans who have always proclaimed the program was about more than winning. They will have the next decade to prove this theory. There is only one program that has been handed the death penalty – SMU in the 1980s. The reason it has struggled to find success since then isn’t because of that penalty. It’s because the school de-emphasized football.

The Nittany Lions football program was believed to be “too big to fail, indeed, too big to even challenge, has now been destroyed. It’s going to be nearly impossible to recruit a great or even good player when he knows he can’t participate in the postseason until he is, at best, a senior. These cuts in available scholarships not only limit the new coach’s ability to bring in top-flight talent but will create significant depth problems for years.

It won’t be until the 2020 season that Penn State would have a full complement of scholarships across all four of its classes. This leaves the once mighty giant a pile of rubble with an uncertain future. The good thing about this sanction is that Paterno is no longer the winningest coach in college football history. This honor is now returned to its rightful owner Grambling’s Eddie Robinson.

I rarely if ever write about sports because frankly it’s a game like Pimps and Hoes where the organization gets the money and the players for the most part are taken advantage of in every sense of the word, and most of the players are of color. This despicable incident proves the power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. To which I am one who says “it did not go far enough”.

And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

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Legacy – A New Season the sequel is now available on Kindlehttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HJRPE0

Gone Too Soon

Former NFL linebacker Junior Seau was found dead Wednesday morning at his Southern California home. He was 43 years old. The ex-linebacker’s girlfriend found the NFL legend with a fatal shotgun wound to the chest. Reports confirmed that police received a call to 911 at 9:35 a.m. reporting a possible suicide, per Oceanside police Chief Frank McCoy. Officers found Seau in a bedroom with a gunshot wound to the chest, and efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. Reports indicate that a handgun was found by Seau’s side.

“Obviously, it’s shocking,” said Sean Spanos Sandigo Chargers team president. “It makes you feel very sad. He’s brought so much to this community over the years. A good person, a good friend. He was the fabric — really a part of this community. He was the heart and soul of our team for so many years. Seau committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest, it is similar to the way former Chicago Bears great Dave Duerson ended his life.

Seau, a 12-time Pro Bowler and 6-time First-Team All-Pro, was selected fifth overall in the 1990 NFL draft after an outstanding collegiate career at USC. He played with the San Diego Chargers through the 2002 season, spent 2003-2005 with the Miami Dolphins, and then signed with the New England Patriots in time for the 2006 season. In New England’s perfect regular season of 2007, he played in all 16 games and started four.  Seau first retires after that season, only to come back and play in 2008 and 2009 before finally leaving the NFL for good.

“I’m going to go surf,” he told Showtime upon his January, 2010 retirement announcement. Whatever happens, I can honestly say, that that probably was my last game.” Seau is the eighth member of the Chargers’ 1994 Super Bowl team to pass. We will keep you updated on this story as more news is confirmed. Even after he left, his roots and his home were still here. …people loved him and admired him.”

My prayers go out to his family and my he Rest In Peace.

WHOSE THE BLAME?

I’m someone who believes “Knowledge is power and that power produces an understanding that education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair.”

With that said, I read an article on the Urban Source blog that spoke to the issue of how the educational system has failed the black male for three reasons. Before I continue I want to give credit to the written for this profoundly enlightening piece, which I wanted to add a thought or two and share with you.

The article began with this statement: “This article is going to make many people mad but I ask you to just think about what I am saying. The First, Parents are not involved in the education process. Second, Instead of praising education we marginalize it as African Americans. Third, we accept mediocrity as the standard in the Black community.” I will capture and quote parts of the article because I think the writer was on point.

It was this point that got my attention and feel it deserving of our attention. “How can a single parent, who works 45 to 50 hours a week at a full time job, cook, clean, and still have time to help with a child’s homework. Since most of our boys are being raised by, under educated women – education is not instilled in them.” Hmmm! I can’t say I completely agree with that but it could be argued.

The author went further adding; “Look at the Statistics 65% percent of the prison population are black males. Out of that 65%, 80% do not have a G.E.D. and, 74% percent come from single parent households. Here is where the marginalization comes into play with a lot of or boys. Instead of saying, you have a one percent chance of going to the NBA or NFL… let us become an Engineer or Doctor the parents’ pushes the black male to a less than realistic dream.”

You can’t argue with numbers. We all know the prison industrial complex was and is designed to be the “New Jim Crow”. Actually,  it goes beyond that and I will say it – “Slavery”. We know that this concept is as American as apple pie and has been used effectively since the nation was born. Now, the problem, as I see it, rests solely on the foundation of the home and the dysfunction within our community. Somehow a proud race of people has become confused and fooled.

“… It is not the people who call you nigger that’s racist but, it is the people who lower standards and give us a handout that are they true racist. …Let’s stop saying the Pinnacle of success is LIL Wayne or Lebron James, because to be honest they are not – they keep us entertained and black people loved to be entertained. We are better than that our ancestors who taught the Greeks math. We built the pyramids. We need to get back to basics – it starts at home. We need to stop failing our boys. It is easier to build a man than fix a broken one.”

This kind of thinking and truth is not rare among us, and there are many black men who are holding it down. The system, wink, has used the ol’ divide and conquer strategy throughout time against naive people. Ladies, if you say or don’t believe you need a man. Your children do!!!

We should have listened to Dr. Woodson, Malcolm, Martin, and Garvey – and if we had we would know that we are better than that. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

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The Greatest Pitcher Never Known

I was listening to the Tom Joyner Morning Show and I must say it is a great source of empowerment for our community – thank you Mr. Joyner and the crew. He has a thing once a week called the Little Known Black History Fact. This particular fact got my attention because I am a huge fan of the players who have been virtually erased from the book of history or at least and for sure His-Story.

Sure we know Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige but that is about the extent of our knowledge of a game African Americans championed. We this story was about the man referred to as “The Greatest Pitcher Never Known” and his name was Will “Cannonball” Jackman. Jackman joined the Boston Colored Giants in the 1924-1925 season and played ball until he was well into his sixties. He won more than half of the 1,200 games he pitched over 20 years, with nearly 800 strikeouts and more than 40 shutouts. His record was 52 and 2.

Sometimes nicknamed the “Satchel Paige of New England,” it was reported that Will Jackman earned $175 a game and $10 per strikeout. But later in his career, he reportedly received $500-$800 for playing against white semi-pro teams in the exhibition games. This was only a portion of what the white players received, but on the high end for most black players. Jackman’s worth, however, was said to be more than the combination of several white players; New York Giants coach John McGraw was recorded saying he would “pay $50,000 to the man who could make Jackman white.”

The actual date of his birth was stated between 1897 or 1899 in Carta, Texas. He may have found his love of baseball while watching the nearby spring training camp of the New York Giants in San Antonio. Jackman started playing with the Houston Black Buffalos, drifting to Maryland and New York before actually joining the Boston Colored Giants in 1925.

Although he was payed for his crowd-appealing pitches, Will Jackman took a side job as a chaffuer to send money to his family, keeping his job during the off seasons and well into retirement.

The Negro League pitcher left a trail of strikeouts while playing with teams in Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. Throughout his career, Will Jackman went on to play for the Philadelphia Giants, the Philadelphia Tigers, the Brooklyn Eagles, the Newark Eagles, and the Boston Royal Giants. In the 1952 Pittsburgh Courier’s player-voted poll of the “all-time great Negro League players,” Will Jackman was voted number one.

When the Boston Red Sox were scouting for African-American players to finally join their roster in the 1950’s, they looked to Will “Cannonball” Jackman for guidance and recruiting.

Will “Cannonball” Jackman died on September 8, 1972 surrounded by friends and family. In his honor, the Cannonball Foundation, an organization that promotes baseball play among youth in low-income urban communities, was formed.

This was, I thought, an amazing story of one of the greatest to ever play the game and because he received no acclaim I want to say I honor you, and thank you. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

Source: The Little Known Black History Fact
TJMS

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NASCAR’s First Black Driver

There are millions of NASCAR fans all over the world but do you know that the first NASCAR driver was Wendell Oliver Scott from Danville, Virginia. History has recorded Scott as the only black driver to win a race in what is now the Sprint Cup Series. He could be compared to Jackie Robinson in the sense that he broke the color barrier in Southern stock car racing. The memorable day occurred on May 23, 1952, at the Danville Fairgrounds Speedway.

Scott gained experience and winning some local races at various Virginia tracks before becoming the first African-American to obtain a NASCAR racing license. It is unclear when the license was issued in 1953, although NASCAR does not have the exact date. As you can imagine, Scott’s career was repeatedly affected by racial prejudice and problems with top-level NASCAR officials. However, his determined struggle as an underdog won him thousands of white fans and many friends and admirers among his fellow racers.

It is said from the day was born he wanted to be his own boss. In Danville, two industries dominated the local economy: cotton mills and tobacco-processing plants. Scott vowed to avoid that sort of boss-dominated life. He once said, “The mill’s looked too much like a prison. You go in and they lock a gate behind you and you can’t get out until you’ve done your time”. From boyhood, Scott raced bicycles against white boys. In his neighborhood, he said, “I was the only black boy that had a bicycle.” He became a daredevil on roller skates, speeding down Danville’s steep hills on one skate.

He ran an auto-repair shop. As a sideline and for fun, he took up the dangerous, illegal pursuit of running moonshine whiskey. This trade gave quite a few early stock car racers their education in building fast cars and outrunning the police. The police caught Scott only once, in 1949. Sentenced to three years probation, he continued making his late-night whiskey runs. On weekends, he would go to the stock car races in Danville, sitting in the blacks-only section of the bleachers, and he would wish that he too could be racing on the speedway.

Scott was thirty years old at the approximate times when he was sitting in the bleachers of local speedways, watching white men race. Up to then, he had lived his whole life under the rigid rules of segregation. He could neither use a white bathroom or a white drinking fountain nor eat at a white restaurant. Nothing in his past had prepared him for the unusual, life-changing experience that was about to take place.

The Danville races were run by the Dixie Circuit, one of several regional racing organizations that competed with NASCAR during that era. Danville’s events always made less money than the Dixie Circuit’s races at other tracks. “We were a tobacco and textile town — people didn’t have the money to spend,” said Aubrey Ferrell, one of the organizers. The officials decided they would try an unusual, and unprecedented, promotional gimmick: They would recruit a Negro driver to compete against the “good ol’ boys.”

To their credit, they wanted a fast black driver, not just a fall guy to look foolish. They asked the Danville police who was the best Negro driver in town. The police recommended the moonshine runner whom they had chased many times and caught only once. Scott brought one of his whiskey-running cars to the next race, and Southern stock car racing gained its first black driver.

Some spectators booed him, and his car broke down during the race. But Scott realized immediately that he wanted a career as a driver. The next day, however, brought the first of many episodes of discrimination that would plague his racing career. Scott repaired his car and towed it to a NASCAR-sanctioned race in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. But the NASCAR officials refused to let him compete. Black drivers were not allowed, they said. As he drove home, Scott recalled, “I had tears in my eyes.”

A few days later he went to another NASCAR event in High Point, North Carolina. Again, Scott said, the officials “just flat told me I couldn’t race. They told me I could let a white boy drive my car. I told ‘em weren’t no damn white boy going to drive my car.” Scott decided to avoid NASCAR for the time being and race with the Dixie Circuit and at other non-NASCAR speedways. He won his first race at Lynchburg, Virginia, only twelve days into his racing career. It was just a short heat race in the amateur class, but for Scott, the victory was like a barb on a hook. He knew that he had found his calling.

He ran as many as five events a week, mostly at Virginia tracks. Some spectators would shout racial slurs, but many others began rooting for him. Some prejudiced drivers would wreck him deliberately. They “just hammered on Wendell,” former chief NASCAR photographer T. Taylor Warren said. “They figured he wasn’t going to retaliate.” And they were right–Scott felt that because of the racial atmosphere, he could not risk becoming involved in the fist-fights and dirty-driving paybacks that frequently took place among the white drivers.

Many other drivers, however, came to respect Scott. They saw his skills as a mechanic and driver, and they liked his quiet, uncomplaining manner. They saw him as someone similar to themselves, another hard-working blue-collar guy swept up in the adrenalin rush of racing, not somebody trying to make a racial point. “He was a racer — you could look at somebody and tell whether they were a racer or not,” said driver Rodney Ligon, who was also a moonshine runner. “Didn’t nobody send him [to the track] to represent his race — he come down because he wanted to drive a damn racecar.” Some white drivers became his close friends and also occasionally acted as his bodygards.

Some Southern newspapers began writing positive stories about Scott’s performance. He began the 1953 season on the northern Virginia circuit, for example, by winning a feature race in Staunton. Then he tied the Waynesboro qualifying record. A week later he won the Waynesboro feature, after placing first in his heat race and setting a new qualifying record. The Waynesboro News Virginian reported that Scott had become “recognized as one of the most popular drivers to appear here.” The Staunton News Leader said he “has been among the top drivers in every race here.”

In 1961, he moved up to the NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) division. In the 1963 season, he finished 15th in points, and on December 1 of that year, driving a Chevy Bel Air and won a race on the one-mile dirt track at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida becoming the first and to date only top level NASCAR event won by an African-American. Scott was not announced as the winner of the race at the time, presumably due to the racist culture of the time.

Ironically, the second-place driver, was initially declared the winner, but race officials discovered two hours later that Scott had not only won, but was two laps in front of the rest of the field. NASCAR awarded Scott the win two years later, but his family never actually received the trophy he had earned till 2010–37 years after the race, and 20 years after Scott had died.

He continued to be a competitive driver despite his low-budget operation through the rest of the 1960s. In 1964, Scott finished 12th in points despite missing several races. Over the next five years, Scott consistently finished in the top ten in the point standings. He finished 11th in points in 1965, was a career-high 6th in 1966, 10th in 1967, and finished 9th in both 1968 and 1969. His top year in winnings was 1969 when he won $47,451 ($300,723.94 in today’s money).

This is not unlike much of what the ghost of the greats had to endure but their sacrifice changed the sport and the world. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

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(Resource: Wikipedia)

 

The Washington Deadskins – Shame on you!!!

This is the first time I’ve delved into the sports arena via this blog, but as you know I might share a Thought Provoking Perspective on any topic, particularly if it relates to an African American issue. I must admit, I normally reserve my comments for those subjects that are more meaningful to life’s issues. Nonetheless, as I watched the Dallas Cowboys/Washington Redskins game yesterday I had a flashback with respect to the Redskins organization, which has a long history of mistreating African American player.

As I watched Donavan McNabb on the sidelines during the game I realized as sure as something’s change they remain the same. Many Washingtonians, as well as fan in many other places, are endeared to the Redskins football team, which is their personal choice. Unfortunately, I am not of them, and not just because of the team’s name. In my view it is akin to calling African Americans the “N-Word”, which surely must be the view of Native American’s; disrespectful at best.

Back to McNabb, seeing what appeared to be humiliation on his face caused the hair on the back of my neck to rise, because of the teams sorted past and there long history that support this position. The NFL’s color barrier was broken in 1946; it inexplicably took George Preston Marshall, the team’s owner, 16 more years amid legal threats and community pressure to bring Bobby Mitchell, their first black player, to the Redskins. Former quarterback Eddie LeBaron, who knew Marshall, said he never believed he was a racist. However, they were the last team in the NFL to sign a black player and were forced to do so.

In more recent memory, do you remember Quarterback Doug Williams? He was sent packing a season after he made history winning the Super Bowl. Now, let’s look at what happened to Jason Campbell last year when no one in management stuck up for him while he’s getting killed behind his offensive line. I won’t even mention Big Albert’s treatment this year.

In the latest episode, Donovan McNabb suddenly is bad at understanding the playbook. This is a seasoned professional, who’s a six time Pro Bowler and a player sure to reach the Hall of Fame, who by the way has played football since he was 10 years old. The team’s management has disrespected him in every way imaginable from claiming he was out of shape to not being able to understand the offense to benching him for a quarterback far less capable, culminating with benching him for the rest of the season. Was this due diligence on the part of wrong-way Mike or something more ominous?

I’ll say Wrong-way’s benching of McNabb in the final two minutes in Detroit permeates my point, so let’s get right to the point. Is there an elephant in the room: RACE? Surely this is noticed and reverberates in the minds of those who know and remember the history of this organization, which is significantly rooted in questionable decisions concerning black players. Looking back at this history, what happens is you start to wonder.

Kevin Blackistone an AOL Fanhouse columnist and Washington native remarked, whether Shanahan had any understanding of the organization’s history, the city’s composition, or the feelings that linger; he should be sensitive enough to understand that “this ain’t Colorado.” In 1965, his father, James Sr., wrote a letter to the acting president of the Redskins, Edward Bennett Williams. Like most African American fans at the time, James Blackistone was offended by the Confederate flags in the stands and the band’s playing of “Dixie” during games. Less than a month later, Williams wrote back to Blackistone, saying he agreed. After 1965, the Redskins band did not play “Dixie” at another game.

When Wrong-way questions the intelligence of McNabb, black fans should ask themselves, what is he really saying? I want to be very clear that I’m not saying it was his intention to make McNabb sound dumb, incompetent or lazy. But it was and is shameful and disrespectful the way he has handled it, like the Big Albert’s situation, he insults the player. When it keeps happening, there is a fine line between coaching and hegemony.

The history of why African Americans are so sensitive is not made up or unfounded, particularly in light of segregation, Jim Crow, and slavery. The prevailing thought, in my mind, is leadership and they may have issues with the complexion of the leader. Hmmm.

How many great African American players have come out of this organization? They were the last team to integrate with Bobby Mitchell. Then Bobby was never given a shot to be the general manager. You throw in Doug Williams dismissed after he was the Super Bowl MVP, Art Monk and Brian Mitchell unceremoniously going to Philadelphia, and the list goes on.

There always seems to be an undertone, at the very least disrespect, with this organization that is not easily dismissed. Now, they limped into Big D, lost, and the pundits proclaimed Rex the future. Let’s look at it this way; they played a Dallas team that is not very good – ok. Then they put forth a game plan to justify the decision. For example, Rex threw all day and if you do that you will get stat’s both good and bad, which he did. There were no running plays to speak of – 55 yards accumulated the entire game.

Former team player Doc Walker said a few weeks ago, “Whenever anything happens involving a player of color in Washington, the bottom line is the old wounds are opened… The last two minutes of that game brought back 30 years or more of undertones. You don’t necessarily say, ‘That’s what it is,’ but you do pause and think about it… Given what’s happened here, it’s only natural.”

This is the very reason why there are so many Cowboy fans in Washington, because many black fans refused to support a team that would not employ an African American player for so many years. So they became fans of the team’s arch rival. They have kids and they became Cowboy fans – and so on and so on – and most of them have never even been to Dallas. I agree totally because that is why I am a Dallas Cowboys fan.

My last point, keep an eye on the NFL MVP to be awarded. Let’s see if the rightful recipient Michael Vick receives the much deserved award or….