BrokenCowboy: Sports Views with a West Coast Bias

Crossing the Line

There are few Americans who cannot tell you at least something about Jackie Robinson. His story has become ingrained into our cultural awareness through countless books, magazine articles, and songs detailing his heroic integration of the National League and his subsequent brilliant career. There are statues of his likeness, schools and streets bearing his name, and a plaque in baseball's Hall of Fame. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and there are plans for a Jackie Robinson Museum in New York City. He slides home triumphantly on a 33¢ stamp, and he even starred in a movie about his life. Thirty-five years after his death, Jackie Robinson is everywhere.

As we commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, it wouldn't seem that there would be a need for another book. Thankfully for baseball fans everywhere, Jonathan Eig thought otherwise. Only two years after producing his award-winning Lou Gehrig biography, Luckiest Man, Eig returns with another outstanding effort in Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season. It should be added to your reading list right now.

As suggested by the title, Eig's angle here is to focus on that historic season stretching across the spring, summer, and fall of 1947. By narrowing the view to this pivotal campaign, Eig reminds us of what we already know about Robinson while shedding light on aspects of the story that haven't been told, skillfully integrating the narrative of the baseball season with stories reflecting the social importance of Branch Rickey's "Great Experiment."

The author's stated ambition is to demythologize the story of Robinson's struggle, and he clearly achieves this goal. More importantly, however, he gives us a more detailed picture of the man before he became a legend. Leaning heavily on newspaper reports of the day and interviews with Robinson's wife Rachel and others who experienced the events of 1947 firsthand, Eig tells the story from a fresh perspective, free of the weight of the past sixty years.

Certain stories which we have come to take for granted might have been exaggerated -- or even concocted. Most notably, teammate Pee Wee Reese's famous embrace, meant to show support for Jackie in the face of abusive fans in Cincinnati, doesn't seem to have happened, at least not in 1947. Also, the threatened league-wide boycott which was rumored in the early days of the season appears to have been all smoke and no fire.

In debunking these myths, however, Eig does nothing to diminish the enduring power of Robinson's legacy. Instead, he actually strengthens it by detailing the enormous breadth of Robinson's influence, even in the early days of his career, and this is where the book shines. We have always known that as great a ballplayer as Robinson was (1949 NL MVP, 1955 World Series Champion, baseball Hall of Famer), his social and historical significance is much greater. Eig emphasizes this by telling the stories of individuals whose view of the world changed by watching Jackie's struggle. There was the white high school student who would eventually question the absence of black students at Stanford University, the black prisoner who would become one of the nation's most contraversial civil rights leaders, and the factory owner who saw Robinson's arrival in Brooklyn as a signal that he should integrate his business as well.

As triumphant as Jackie's rookie season was, Eig reminds us that he was far from the only hero. Branch Rickey took a considerable financial and social risk in pushing for integration, and Rachel Robinson was the rock that Jackie needed during his difficult year. The black press, especially Wendell Smith, served as shepherds for the entire integration process.

Jackie Robinson touched people then, and continues to be an icon today, almost fifty years after he hung up his cleats for the last time. So when you're finished reading stories this week about Major League Baseball's various tributes to Jackie Robinson, do yourself a favor and check out this book. You owe it to yourself -- and to Jackie -- to see where it all began, back when 42 was just another number.

Milton Bradley, Upon Further Review

Twelve hours after I wrote my initial post about the Milton Bradley-Jeff Kent situation in Los Angeles, I read it again and decided some clarification was necessary.

My first response was to comment briefly on the conflict without taking sides. I don't, afterall, have any access to the Dodger locker room, and I really only know what's been reported in the various mainstream media outlets. My mistake, though, was in ignoring the considerable amount of insight I do have. As I read what I had written on my first take, I saw that my attempt at remaining neutral might have lead some readers to believe that I had no opinion on the issue. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

First, a reminder of Bradley's words from Tuesday.

"The problem is, [Jeff Kent] doesn't know how to deal with African-American people. I think that's what's causing everything. It's a pattern of things that have been said -- things said off the cuff that I don't interpret as funny. It may be funny to him, but it's not funny to Milton Bradley. But I don't take offense to that because we all joke about race in here. Race is an issue with everything we do in here. White people never want to see race -- with anything. But there's race involved in baseball. That's why there's less than 9 percent African-American representation in the game. I'm one of the few African-Americans that starts here."

I know nothing about Jeff Kent beyond the statistics on the back of his baseball card and his reputation as portrayed by teammates and reporters, but I did have the opportunity recently to meet Milton Bradley, and I came away extremely impressed. He struck me as a considerate and contemplative young man who was sensitive to the issues confronting minorities in today's society. I have no reason to doubt anything he has said this week.

To be honest, though, my brief conversations with Bradley only marginally affect my reaction to this situation. Of deeper importance is my experience living as a black man in America, especially with respect to Bradley's comment that "white people never want to see race -- with anything." I agree with Bradley that this is a huge problem, not only in baseball but in America as a whole.

It is not uncommon to hear an otherwise enlightened white person disregard a minority person's claims of racism by wondering aloud, "why does it always have to be about race?" This isn't a sign of prejudice, merely a lack of experience. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of racism is that a single slight or demeaning comment can completely color an individual's perception of events throughout his or her life.

If you have been judged once based on the color of your skin, there will always be a question in your mind whenever a similar situation arises. Here's a quick example. Everyone has had the frustrating experience of sitting in a restaurant and watching as someone who was seated after you receives his or her meal before you. There are several possible reasons why something like this might happen, ranging from the complexity of the orders to the competence of the waiter, but whenever I find myself in this situation, I wonder if it's because of the color of my skin.

Obviously, we've come a long way in our society, and my life has not been colored by racism nearly the same way as that of my father, my grandfather, or my great-grandmother, who was born a slave. But while I've never awoken to find a burning cross in my front yard, I've still felt the effects of a different type of racism, one that lies beneath the surface of everyday interactions and sometimes treads lightly enough to escape notice.

When you've had a shopkeeper follow you through the aisles of his store, or had a nurse question whether or not you can afford health care for your son, it is impossible not to wonder if a white person would receive the same treatment. Sadly, when you begin to question certain individuals within society, it eventually becomes impossible not to question society as a whole. This is the chain that Milton Bradley spoke of, and he wasn't saying anything that most minorities in this country aren't already keenly aware of.

So this is why race is almost always an issue, whether we're talking about the media's persecution of Barry Bonds, the starting lineup of the Utah Jazz, or the job security of Tyrone Willingham and Sylvester Croom. Saying that we should just move past these issues is not demonstrating forward thinking, it's just plain naïve.

Milton Being Milton

"White people never want to see race -- with anything. But there's race involved in baseball. That's why there's less than 9 percent African-American representation in the game. I'm one of the few African-Americans that starts here." -- Milton Bradley

It will be tempting to dismiss Bradley's above comments as Milton being Milton, and I would tend to agree -- but I don't mean that in a negative way. From what I've known of Milton Bradley over the past year or so, he is nothing but unflinchingly honest. You might not agree with what he's saying, but you should at least pay attention.

He and fellow Dodger Jeff Kent had a disagreement this past weekend when Bradley failed to score from first on Kent's double, costing Kent an RBI but not affecting the outcome of the game, and Bradley spoke about the conflict at length before Tuesday night's game.

Bradley tossed some kerosene on a fire that seemed to be burning out when he opined that Kent doesn't know how to deal with African-Americans, and Kent predictably took offense.

As someone once said, what we've got here is a failure to communicate. Although it's been reported that Bradley has handled this particular situation calmly and smoothly, he has shown a tendency to respond emotionally. Kent, meanwhile, is notorious for being one of the worst teammates around. A conflict between these two should've been expected, but something good might come out of this.

There's almost certainly some truth to what Bradley is saying about the game. Since the percentage of black players in the majors has been on a steady decline over the past few decades, it shouldn't be surprizing that current black players might encounter varying degrees of prejudice while playing a game that's become increasingly dominated by whites and Latinos. The only way to address this problem is to bring it into the light, something that Bradley's comments, inflammatory as they may be, just might accomplish.

On the Warpath

In a curious announcement late last week, the NCAA banned the use or representation of Native American mascots by schools participating in any post-season tournaments.

What exactly does this mean? Schools like Florida State (Seminoles) or Illinois (Fighting Illini) will still be eligible to participate in NCAA tournaments, but they'll have to leave parts of their identities behind. There will be no dancing mascots during timeouts, and if their nickname normally appears on their uniforms, it will have to be either covered up or removed. It's my guess, however, that "tournament jerseys" bearing the schools' names rather than nicknames will be created and sell like gangbusters.

The deeper financial significance lies in the second tier of the NCAA's decree. No school with a Native American mascot or nickname will be allowed to host an NCAA tournament game, meaning that baseball powerhouse Florida State would have to give up the considerable revenue that comes from hosting NCAA regional and super regional baseball series. Either that or strip their field of all Seminole references and images. Illinois and Utah (Utes), both frequent sites for NCAA basketball tournament games, would face the same decision.

Though there are some who disagree with the edict, accusing the NCAA of strong-arming its member institutions in the name of political correctness, I think it's time these mascots were put to rest.

Certain forward-thinking schools came to their senses on their own. The Stanford Indians became the Cardinal in the early '70s, and more recently the Eastern Michigan Hurons switched to the Emus while St. John's dropped Redmen and now call themselves the Red Storm. Other schools, however, need the push that this rule will provide.

By forcing its members to rethink their nicknames, the NCAA is taking a stand against racial intolerance. We would not, after all, buy a jersey for a team called the Pittsburgh Negroes or the Kansas City Jews, but thousands of Seminole, Brave, Ute, Illini, and Chippewa jerseys are sold every year.

Hopefully the NFL and Major League Baseball are paying attention. The teams with probably the two most egregious examples of culturally offensive mascots are the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins. The Indians' mascot Chief Wahoo, with his hooked nose and enormous buck-toothed grin, seems to be from another century, during a time when racist caricatures were common and acceptable. In Cleveland the calendar appears stuck in the 1800s.

And the Washington Redskins? Schools like Florida State can at least argue that they are honoring a particular tribe's heritage and bravery in battle, but the professional football team that represents the capital city of the United States of America uses a racial slur as its nickname. Imagine if they were the Washington Japs or Niggers? How long would that last?

It's my hope that the NCAA's recent ban on such offensive mascots and nicknames serves as a wake-up call not only for colleges and universities around the country, but also for teams like the Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians, and Atlanta Braves. This is the 21st century, after all.

Is Cochell a Racist?

Is Oklahoma baseball coach Larry Cochell a racist, or is he just ignorant? Probably a little of both.

Flipped

It's hard to imagine that Duke guard J.J. Redick, possibly the best pure shooter on the planet, is only a junior. Can it really only have been three years that we've been watching him unconsciously sinking free throws and silencing opposing crowds with dagger-like three-pointers? If it seems like he's been at Duke forever, there's a simple explanation. He has.

As described in last week's Sports Illustrated, Redick is just the most recent in a long line of hated Blue Devils, a distinguished club of pretty boys who have relished in the role of public enemy number one. According to the article (I think you might have to be a subscriber to access the link), Redick embraces his role as the villain and most hated player in the ACC, but writer Grant Wahl raises an interesting point:

Yet there's something more at work here, something Redick is well aware of. Over time several Duke players have passed along the public-enemy title like a crown of thorns: Christian Laettner, Danny Ferry, Bobby Hurley, [Chris] Collins, Steve Wojciechowski. At the same time black Blue Devils stars such as Grant Hill, Jason Williams and Elton Brand have largely avoided becoming such targets. It may be un-PC to say so, but it's hard not to conclude that race is a factor.

This idea had never occurred to me before reading the article, but it makes some sense. Just off the top of my head, I came up with some of players that received the most abuse as they came through Maples Pavilion during my college days. Don McLean, UCLA. Matt Othick, Arizona. Steve Kerr, Arizona. All white.

What's the reason for this? First, there's the obvious racial stereotype that basketball is a black man's game. Blacks have outnumbered whites in the NBA for my entire life, and the idea has become so ingrained in our psyches that maybe it's gone from "blacks are better basketball players" to "white players don't belong."

The Duke players, especially the guards, all fit the same mold. Smart, tough, scrappy, hard-nosed players. Pains in the ass. Years ago these characteristics would've been glorified by racists in the press box and bleachers, implicitly or explicitly held up in direct contrast to the "natural talent" of the black players.

Now, however, everything's been flipped. It seems that those qualities are seen as negative. As a result, instead of acknowledging the brilliance of Redick's shooting stroke while cheering against him, opposing fans make sexual comments about his younger sister while wearing profane t-shirts bearing his name.

I recently had a discussion with a friend about how the traditional American values of hard work and perseverance have begun to disappear. Blue collar workers are scorned, union issues are trivialized, and the idea of slow and steady improvement seems as archaic as the Tortoise and the Hare.

If we look at basketball as a microcosm of our society, the scrappy Duke guards are clearly cast in the role of custodians working for a Forbes 500 company. (What, after all, is more blue collar than a jump shot, repeated thousands of times in the pursuit of perfection?) So what happens when your team is going up against Duke and the custodians are beating you? What does that say about your company?

And so just as a customer in a restaurant might look down upon the bus boy who clears away his dirty dishes, the college basketball fan sneers at these scrappy guards who have been foolish enough to work hard at their game. He curses them as they drain three-pointers, he yells mercilessly as they take charges, and he cries foul as they win games.

Aside from that, I don't have an answer. Do you?

The Race Card

It's been more than a week since Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson waded into the stands at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, swinging at anyone who breathed, and by now everyone who has seen the video footage has expressed an opinion.

In the minutes immediately following the melee, as the shocking clips were first spilling across the airwaves, ESPN's studio crew of Tim Legler, Greg Anthony, Steven A. Smith, and John Saunders took the suprizing opinion that the players had done nothing wrong. They were merely defending themselves.

Predictably, there was an immediate backlash. Rob Parker of the Detroit News criticized the players turned analysts, and labelled them as part of a new jockocracy -- players who have gained positions in the media based solely on their athletic experience as opposed to any journalistic training.

While Saunders, Smith, and the two jocks may have reacted a bit prematurely, they also missed a big part of the story since they were apparently reluctant to raise the issue of race. Allow me.

One of David Stern's great accomplishments has been his ability to sell the NBA to every corner of America. He had help, of course. Michael Jordan was a perfect ambassador -- that rare individual who cuts across all segments of society regardless of race, age, or gender. In recent years, however, Stern has had to deal with several other less savory players, people like Latrell Sprewell, Allen Iverson, and the recently besmirched Kobe Bryant.

As the league's popularity continues to fall amongst white fans, the last thing the league needed was what happened on the weekend before Thanksgiving. The incessantly spinning video has burned an image into our minds -- a group of enraged black men climbing into the stands to beat on some white folk. It could be argued that David Stern's suspensions were as excessive as they were because he needed to send two messages: one to the players, and one to the league's fans. Make no mistake, race is an issue here. Michael Wilbon even argues that the NBA's choice to embrace the hip-hop culture is partially to blame for all of this. (Of course, there are those who disagree.)

If we've learned one thing over the past several days, it's that the sporting world is not quite the meritocracy that it might seem. Consider:

• When New Mexico State University fired head football coach Tony Samuel last week, it brought the number of black head coaches at the Division I level down to three of 117 schools. (Tyrone Willingham, Notre Dame; Karl Dorrell, UCLA; and Slyvester Croom, Mississippi State.)

• Just a week previous to that firing, the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport released a comprehensive study on minorities coaching in college football. The study found that most university presidents and athletic directors are white males, and that they tend to hire coaches who look like them.

• Even the recent controversy surrounding the "Desperate Housewives" skit leading into Monday Night Football last week had racial undertones. Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy criticized the spot for casting Terrell Owens in the stereotypical role of the black sexual predator along side Nicolette Sheridan. The interracial aspect of this can't be ignored, either. Josh has a nice take on this at UndertheBleachers.org.

Ten days have passed since the ugliness in Auburn Hills, but the effects will linger for quite some time. The players will obviously have to live with their decisions to take the fight to the fans, but it's up to the rest of us to decide whether or not we're willing to accept the current inequities in the sporting world.

An Interview with Michael Sokolove, Part 1

Michael Sokolove is the author of the recent nonfiction book, The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw (click here for my review), as well as an earlier biography of Pete Rose, Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose. Last week he was kind enough to talk with me for a while about Strawberry, Rose, and a few other things of interest. Here's part one of our conversation. Enjoy.

An Interview with Michael Sokolove, Part 2

Michael Sokolove is the author of the recent nonfiction book, The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw (click here for my review), as well as an earlier biography of Pete Rose, Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose. Last week he was kind enough to talk with me for a while about Strawberry, Rose, and a few other things of interest. Here's part two of our conversation. Did you miss the first half? Click here for Part 1.

The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, by Michael Sokolove

When Darryl Strawberry was a seventeen-year-old outfielder for Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, stardom was guaranteed. He was a boy who had everything -- a god-like physique, lightning quick hands, and even a name that seemed to be made for bold headlines. The New York Mets didn't hesitate to use their first overall pick in the 1980 amateur draft to select Strawberry, a player whom scouts compared to such legends as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Ted Williams.

Early in his career, teammates, coaches, and managers predicted nothing but success for the young Strawberry, as they projected him into the Hall of Fame. Some felt he'd easily top five hundred homeruns, possibly even six hundred. He was thought to have the potential to be one of the greatest players ever to set foot on a baseball field.

Twenty years later, however, after multiple drug suspensions, numerous trips to rehab, a jail term, a cancer diagnosis, and enough disappointments to fill up the back of a baseball card, Darryl Strawberry's career can only be viewed in terms of what might have been, what we might have seen.

Strawberry is the hook that draws the reader into Michael Sokolove's insightful book, but there's a lot more here than just Darryl. Sokolove introduces the reader to a remarkable team, the 1979 Crenshaw Cougars, a group generally considered to be the most talented high school team ever assembled. Strawberry was the phenom who drew scouts and agents like flies, but in terms of actual performance, he was probably only the second or third best player on the team. Third baseman Chris Brown would eventually play for the San Franicsco Giants and join Strawberry in the 1986 All-Star game, quite an accomplishment for two high school teammates. In addition to Brown and Strawberry, more than half of the Crenshaw team would be drafted into professional baseball.

What separates Sokolove's book from more pedestrian sports profiles is his excellent research and reporting. He provides context for the story by both presenting historical background as well as painting a picture of the world inhabited by the Crenshaw players. He raises several important issues, including the impact of poverty and racism on these emotionally fragile players, the long odds against success for young black men in America, and the startling disappearance of black players from college and professional baseball. The title of the book refers to the strong emphasis the black community places on sports, and Sokolove discusses the pitfalls of viewing athletic talent as a "ticket out" of poverty and despair. He even devotes considerable time examining California's ridiculous Three Strikes Law and its effect on one of the Crenshaw players.

In the end, this is a book more about people than baseball players. Darryl Strawberry's trials and tribulations, the game-winning home runs as well as the drug arrests and suspensions, all played out in headlines and news updates for all to see, but his story is only a more public and extreme version of what happened to many of his teammates. The Ticket Out tells the stories of what has become of the Boys of Crenshaw, men who have struggled to find their way in a world without baseball. Some have found success, while others still haven't recovered from the loss of their dream. But even after twenty-five years, they all still share the bond that came from stepping on a baseball field as a unit and knowing that they couldn't be beaten, not by anyone.

This, perhaps, is the truth that Sokolove set out to find. Regardless of what has happened to these players, no matter what mistakes they've made or what obstacles life has set before them, one constant remains. They are still teammates. They are still the Boys of Crenshaw.