Why just Jackie Robinson?
colebear
Posts: 886 ✭✭
So we all know that this is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's MLB debut. SO my question is why do we celebrate Jackie's debut and not the other players who broke color barriers. I had to look up the first Latino player on wikipedia. His name was Luis Castro and he played for the Phil. A's in 1902. I think it is important to celebrate Jackie's accomplishment but I am surprised nobody has brought up Latino or Asian players coming into the league. Any opinions?
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<< <i>Latinos and Asians came to this country on their own free will. Black folks were brought on slave ships. No comparison. >>
You make this your 5th quote?
Huh
<< <i>Latinos and Asians came to this country on their own free will. Black folks were brought on slave ships. No comparison. >>
I agree. Plus blacks probably had to face much more racism than the latinos/asians
<< <i>If only we could ask some of the Chinese slave laborers who built the western railroads how "free" they had it, country.
or their mother's who were imported as sex workers.
Let's give credit where credit is due. Gentlemen, I give you Moses Fleetwood Walker
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Huh??
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Latinos and Asians came to this country on their own free will. Black folks were brought on slave ships. No comparison. >>
Your right, people came and stole their land.
Fleetwood Walker, Armado Marsens, etc, etc, must not really count in being the 1st blacks ( skin colors ) because ^^^ READ THE ABOVE^^^I guess because someone ( Who was a very good and great player--My opinion ) went through more. My eyes and brain and historic record , clearly tells me that we are being lied too here.
If I hold up 3 fingers and ask you how many fingers do you see, you have a choice. You can answer 3 or guess at the answer that I want it to be. What kind of person am I , if I want you to answer 4 ? A liar , a deceiver .
What kind of person am I if you answer 3( the real answer ) and critisize and punish you , because I want you to believe me instead of the gift of eyesite and common sence. Don't you know that the facts lie.
Jackie Robinson was a great player and deserves to be in the HOF. If I lived back then , I wished he would have been on my team. A good or great ball player is just that. To say that he was the 1st black to play in the majors only spits in the face of the other " less worthy to you liars" blacks that clearly play before him.
I have 3 fingers that I'm holding up , how many do you see?
<< <i>So we all know that this is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's MLB debut. SO my question is why do we celebrate Jackie's debut and not the other players who broke color barriers. I had to look up the first Latino player on wikipedia. His name was Luis Castro and he played for the Phil. A's in 1902. I think it is important to celebrate Jackie's accomplishment but I am surprised nobody has brought up Latino or Asian players coming into the league. Any opinions? >>
Latinos (non black skinned) and asians were never banned from major league baseball. Latinos especially (mostly Cubans) enjoyed success in baseball very early on, however rampant racism did make life for minorities more difficult during this time. When Jackie Robinson broke the "color barrier", the number of players in all minority groups skyrocketed, including latinos and asians. So if anyone deserves credit for opening doors for latinos and asians, it's Jackie Robinson himself.
Fleetwood Walker, Armado Marsens, etc, etc, must not really count in being the 1st blacks ( skin colors ) because ^^^ READ THE ABOVE^^^I guess because someone ( Who was a very good and great player--My opinion ) went through more. My eyes and brain and historic record , clearly tells me that we are being lied too here.
If I hold up 3 fingers and ask you how many fingers do you see, you have a choice. You can answer 3 or guess at the answer that I want it to be. What kind of person am I , if I want you to answer 4 ? A liar , a deceiver .
What kind of person am I if you answer 3( the real answer ) and critisize and punish you , because I want you to believe me instead of the gift of eyesite and common sence. Don't you know that the facts lie.
Jackie Robinson was a great player and deserves to be in the HOF. If I lived back then , I wished he would have been on my team. A good or great ball player is just that. To say that he was the 1st black to play in the majors only spits in the face of the other " less worthy to you liars" blacks that clearly play before him.
I have 3 fingers that I'm holding up , how many do you see?
This has to be one of the more irrelevant and non-sensical posts I've read on this topic. Can I have my 90 seconds back?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Jackie surely was a good player and he definitely endured alot of racism but he wasnt the first African-American in the Major Leagues so why do we treat him like a deity?[/IMG] >>
I can't wait to get your thoughts on the Latin players now.
and showing how much bigger a man he was, than those that wanted to keep him down?
While Jackie Robinson was a very good baseball player, I am sure he would much rather be known for breaking
down any and all forms of racism, bigotry and hatred from those that were "SUPERIOR" to him.
On the flip side of this, many of his own people believed that later in life Jackie betrayed the very thing that he
fought for, that is, he did not speak out about the trouble blacks had in the south and the inner cities. I can't
speak to that, because I have no real knowledge of it, I have just read it several times in books and in print
in short essays that people have written about Jackie.
However, no matter what you do or do not believe, without a doubt, Jackie changed more than just baseball,
he changed the way ALL races of people were looked upon forever-and for that, he will ALWAYS be held in high esteem.
Tony
KalineFan
This isn't about someone "breaking" the color barrier in baseball. It's about the man, Jackie Robinson, and the way he handled the process of integration in Major League Baseball.
As a person of Japanese ancestry, I'd love to see Masanori Murakami honored for breaking the "Asian Barrier", but I know it ain't gonna happen. He never had to endure anything near what Jackie went through.
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Yup.
AND, the MLB-leaders who made it happen.
I do know that 'Dummy' Hoy was deaf and played around the turn of the century. Imagine how he must have been treated by his other teammates and oponents?
Also Indians, or 'Native Americans' were probably the first ethic race to play in the bigs but I'm not sure why we don't celebrate or honor their contributions to the game.
Part of my message board name is derived from Chief Bender. A HOF Native American pitcher.
Larry Doby in the AL for the Indians.
So to answer Colebear's post, I'm not sure why we don't honor other 'barrier' breakers in all sports history. Maybe Jackie Robinson is the easiest one to acknowledge and the fact that he was a HOF caliber player despite the long odds he must have had to face.
Interesting topic, and one I’ve been upset about myself ~ but for a completely different reason! I do, I like the idea of honoring Jackie as what he endured was extremely difficult, and the things he went through was much more than any of the races before or after to have a “first”. I’m more curious as to why we don’t celebrate Larry Doby, well… at all!
IMO the worst thing ever in the history of the game comes in the ignoring of this baseball great. Are we to believe that the troubles faced by Robinson somehow disappeared after just 2-3 months? Uhh, the answer to that question is a huge no! The truth is it was probably at its highest point because so many of the ‘back-wood towns’ folk’ who would be most enraged by this probably didn’t even know about it for a while since we didn’t have the internet in every house telling us the news instantly. It wasn’t a huge news event when it happened; it was just another day in baseball except for those right around the stadium that day. News would have spread kinda slowly of this event! What we do know is that Doby faced the same racism that Jackie did, but there is also one difference… he wasn’t the ‘first’ so he didn’t have as much support! Not all, but most black fans backed Jackie and his team because he was the first, all of a sudden Dodger fans popped up everywhere in mass amounts ~ not much changed for the Indians though; well other than the fact that there were now a thousand times the hate mail, threats and ignorant people spitting off at the mouth (literally most of the time)…
… so cut to 1997 and all of a sudden we are going to honor Jackie by making one of the biggest ta-do’s in the history of the country; Jackie long since gone from this world is honored in ways unimaginable back in 1947 ~ the still living Doby though? Well, he was pretty much ignored! A couple small articles were written on this tragedy and I guess it was enough for the Vets-committee to take a step back and say “huh, we might have screwed up by not even having Doby in the HOF” as they quickly added him to the Hall the first chance they got (thankfully before he passed), but what an injustice for 50years! A man who probably had an even harder time because of less support is completely ignored and only after it’s realized is he honored as an “oops”? Ten years later, 2007 ends up being no different and instead of seeing Jackie and Larry pictured together in commercials, broadcasts, banners & posters, etc, he is again just mentioned as an “also” in maybe 1/10 of the broadcasts.
People love to make a big thing out of stuff but are always so ignorant when they do it. If they were knowledgeable in their ‘honoring’ there is no way Doby could be left out; but instead they do things like “Jackie Robinson Day” as an attempt to get as attention for themselves as to the event… Where the act itself is great, I don’t think it could be any emptier! Honestly, if he was still alive in 97 I imagine Jackie himself would have been making a stink about this tragedy; if I was him I know I would be. It kind of takes all the respect out of it when the world honors 1 man for a 2 man struggle jut because it’s the trendy thing to do… “Jackie all alone endured so much racism…” ~ whatever!
Sidenote: Sadly this wouldn’t be the only time Doby would be forgotten in ‘race barrier’ steps he took. Almost everyone can tell you that Frank Robinson was the first black manager but not that many will be able to tell you Doby was second. Oh and I bet only 1 in thousands would be able to tell you he was just the third American to play in Japan ~ although not a huge struggle it is something special to say! Larry; not all of us have forgotten your struggles! RIP you truly great man!
Sidenote 2: Where other races have been able to play major league baseball without too much fan-fair, one is quite different. 50 years prior to Jackie and his struggles there was a young player named Louis Sockalexis who took the same abuse, albeit not quite on the same scale because there was even less media coverage and it would never become know in households across the country. Sockalexis did become the first Native American to play in the Majors back in 1897 though and his struggles have long since been forgotten by almost everyone. Luckily people celebrate this accomplishment 162+ times a year weather they know it or not; you can’t watch a Indians game without doing so! It wouldn’t become official till later, but the Cleveland Spiders had the nickname of the “Cleveland Indians” in both respect and insult back in Louis’s days.
Shea
Currently searching for 05 Upper Deck Origins & Old Judge Autos #/5 (Feller, Hafner, V.Martinez & Rosen)
and 06 SP Authentic “By The Numbers” Letter Autos (Sabathia, Hafner, Sowers, V.Martinez & Lee)
I called my wife and she knows very little of baseball but recognized Robinson's name but not Dolby. Maybe thats why?
<< <i>I know basically nothing about this.....so why do people credit Robinson if he wasnt the 1st ?? Was he proactive in race relations? >>
Nah, he wasn’t the first black to play in the bigs, he was just the first to play without having to sneak in. Others did play, but either they or the FO would say they were Spanish of Native American to get past the "no blacks' rule. Sad huh... When it was discovered that they were infact black they would quickly be booted from the league, but they never really suffered other than getting the boot because of the fact that no one ever knew they were black to hassle them until they were gone. There were also plenty of black players to play in the minor leagues until somewhere around 1890 when the league decided to stop approving any contracts for blacks. Don’t know why it was ok in the minors but not the majors prior to that time, but its all foolish ignorance so I guess it wouldn’t make sense.
In 1901 I know John McGraw (Manager of the Balt. Orioles franchise that would become the Yankees ~ long interesting story if you don’t know it!) tried to sneak someone in as a Native American but the team they were playing recognized him as a Negro League star and it failed before a game could be played. There is also record of one player getting a bit of time in until they played in his home town and the other team caught on when they noticed that the players family didn’t quite look like Native Americans
I think the first player that anyone tried to bring into the league as a black player was Josh Gibson (the guy who probably hit more than 1K homeruns) back atleast 4 or 5 years prior to Jackie but the commissioner wouldn’t allow it. The team might have been the Phillies or Pirates, not sure though and too lazy too look it up right now.
>>
I called my wife and she knows very little of baseball but recognized Robinson's name but not Dolby. Maybe thats why? >>
Yeah, that’s the point!!! How come someone who went through the same problems isn’t remembered for doing so? How can Player-A who did it, be cherished where Player-B who also did it such a short time later is forgotten? If it was a year or two later I would understand because the backlash would have fallen off some ~ but it was only 2-3 months later! The Media has correctly praised Jackie for his struggles IMO, but how could they be so single minded and not give credit someone doing the same thing?
Some have said “well Jackie did it allowing Doby and others to” but that is flat out untrue. There were actually about 5 blacks who were chosen from by the Dodgers alone to make the first appearance with the others to follow soon; but other teams were making the same choices of their own at the same time. Everyone was just hesitant because they didn’t know what the ramifications from the action might be, the Dodgers were ended up being the first to say “who cares what it does to our team and image”… After Jackie made his debut its thought that the Indians and everyone else sat back for a minute and said something to the effect of “lets make sure he isn’t killed right off the bat then we will add our players”. By July of 48 there would actually be about 8 or 9 blacks playing in the bigs so things really went fast after Jackie and Larry played a while. There might have even been as many as 4 by the end of the 47 season but I don’t remember specifically. It was a long time in the waiting and it really was a mini floodgate when it happened ~ Jackie and Doby endured the most though as they were so early in the whole thing.
The weirdest thing about the whole situation though, a good chunk of the players really didn’t care. The teams would almost always travel and play Negro League teams in the preseason, there is even a story about Dimaggio’s final test to see if he was ready for the bigs was to face Satchel Paige ~ and this was in the mid 30’s! I know Joe went 1-4 off of him and it was a big deal. Paige was that good! But there are tons of stories about ML vs NegroLeague teams and there was never problems that I know of. Some players of course would play against them but didn’t want to play on the same team with them because of their issues, but for the most part its believed most players wanted to face the best competition available which meant they were for integration.
Currently searching for 05 Upper Deck Origins & Old Judge Autos #/5 (Feller, Hafner, V.Martinez & Rosen)
and 06 SP Authentic “By The Numbers” Letter Autos (Sabathia, Hafner, Sowers, V.Martinez & Lee)