Sports and Social Change

I would like to clarify my views on the role sports has played in social change. I don't know if this will surprise or even upset some folks, but it's fact. Jackie Robinson and the integration of the Major Leagues was an early and major step in the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, in my classes I spend a good deal of time on this. Without going into the entire lecture, I'll cite a few things. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King told the great black Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe, "Don, you and Jackie [Robinson] and Roy [Campanella] will never know how easy you made it to do my job." A dozen years or so earlier, the actress Tallulah Bankhead (who won a number of "best actress" awards), said, "The Negro [baseball] stars have certainly done something for baseball and baseball has done something for Negroes, too. If nothing else, it's unbigoted some bigots." Add Jim Bouton's comments in his book Ball Four. "They [blacks] were better players and Willie [Mays] was the best. There were a lot of kids who learned to love him before anybody told us we couldn't." Yes, sports can and have played major roles in furthering corrections to wrongs in US society. For that matter, the NFL players kneeling or at least not standing for the National Anthem doesn't bother me. (I should note that I really don't follow the NFL much.) Oh, I don't like it. I think it is short-sighted and, in fact, ignorant. But if this is how some players want to express their views, that's fine with me. But I also believe that if a team's owner says no to kneeling, players who are paid by the owner must follow his wishes--or they could quit playing. I understand NBA and NCAA teams bear woke slogans on their jerseys. (Again, I don't watch or follow these leagues/teams.) I just wonder where all this wokeness has been when, say, innocent black kids have been gunned down in Atlanta, Chicago, DC, LA, Detroit, etc. by thugs. Why didn't and apparently don't these basketball players think the lives of these black children "matter?" MLB moving the All-Star Game is, again, I suppose the league's right. But I think it is very wrong. It is not furthering corrections to wrongs in US society, not at all. For one thing, from the statement put out by the commissioner (or his office), the stance of the league is based upon falsities and even deliberate lies. I'd almost think that once the MLB was exposed to the truth, that is the lies upon which their decision was based, the league would reverse its decision. Almost..... Wokeness means ignoring reality, facts, and truth. Such things don't matter. Another aspect of the MLB decision in this is its hypocrisy, which also seems a mainstay of wokeness. The commissioner is a member of the Augusta golf club (whatever it's called, the site of the Masters). So far, he has not voluntarily canceled (ha ha ha) his membership. And baseball showed its real colors in making a deal with the commies in China (some streaming deal?). So, it's OK to protest lies and misinformation about the Georgia election law, but it's not OK to make money with a country that practices slavery, genocide, etc.? Hmmm..... Where are the "values" the MLB commissioner talked about? As the O'Jays sang, "Money, Money, Money, Money--Muh-nay!"