Baseball in the snow, rain, heat or gloom of night? Not exactly

It seems Major League Baseball would like to think of itself as the equivalent of the United States Postal Service.

Would Chicago baseball really be better if this monstrosity had been built nearly 30 years ago? Image provided by StadiumPage.com

You know, that jazz about snow, rain, heat or gloom of night not keeping the postman from fulfilling his rounds? Professional baseball teams began their 2018 season back on March 29 with the same theory that they weren’t going to let inclement weather prevent them from playing their games.

THAT’S NOT QUITE the reality of this season, which is now about two-and-a-half weeks old.

All throughout the East coast and Midwest – whose ball clubs are the heart-and-soul of professional baseball – there have been reports of teams playing in crummy weather (rain and snow) on occasion. Although the inclement weather has been more likely to cancel ballgames.

Just this weekend, the Chicago White Sox traveled to Minneapolis for what was supposed to be a four-game series against the Minnesota Twins – only to have three of the games cancelled due to snow. No word yet on when those games will be made up – other than the fact that having to make up that many games in one shot will be an inconvenience later this season.

Sunday was Jackie Robinson Day across baseball, but ...

In fact, the White Sox have had four of their 16 scheduled games thus far called due to inclement weather. That’s one-quarter of the season.

IT’S NOT JUST the White Sox. The Chicago Cubs had their Opening Day last week delayed due to snow. On Sunday, their Wrigley Field game against the Atlanta Braves was postponed due to this weekend’s heavy rainfall. Which means we won’t get to see either Chicago ball club take part in the annual April 15 tribute to Jackie Robinson and professional baseball’s racial integration where everybody wears uniform number 42.

... since neither Chicago team played, ...

Some people might have rejoiced in the Saturday ballgame in which the Cubs came from behind to win 14-10. But Cubs manager Joe Maddon grumbled about the rain that soaked the playing field so thoroughly he was convinced the ballgame should never have been played.

... No. 42 locally remains with these two

Moments like this get a certain type of person all worked up in saying baseball is stupid for even bothering to play ballgames this time of the year. They should know better than to fight against Mother Nature, because she’s a tough ol’ broad who never loses.

Some argue baseball shouldn’t begin play until sometime in May. While others argue that the first few weeks of the season should all be played in southern or west coast cities – or in places where the locals built stadiums with the retractable roofs that could keep the field (and fans) dry while games take place.

IT’S AN ARGUMENT I really don’t buy into – largely because I could see how it would put teams at a disadvantage if they had to play the first few weeks of the season on the road.

The first ballgame ever in Toronto (1977) saw White Sox infielder Jack Brohamer having to be innovative to get across the snow-covered turf of Exhibition Stadium

Plus, I’m sure those west coast and southern cities with teams would complain about having to stage so many of their home games so early in the season – which would wind up with them being road-bound at season’s end. If they’re actually contending for a league pennant, that would seriously stink.

But why I really don’t get into the idea is the fact that, as I wrote earlier, those Midwestern and Eastern cities are the ones with the long-standing baseball franchises with history and tradition.

Sun-shiny days like this will be with us soon enough

Part of that “tradition” is that fans know if they’re going to attend an early-season game, you bundle up to cope with the weather. It’s part of the reason why baseball attendance goes up come June – that and the coming of summer break means kids attending a game can actually contemplate staying for the whole thing (10:30 p.m. is NOT an uncommon finishing time for a ballgame).

YES, IT WAS kind of freakish last week when on the same day the Cubs’ Opening Day game at Wrigley Field was delayed because of snow, the White Sox managed to play (their home Opening Day had been the week before, so it was just an ordinary ballgame).

Official attendance for that game was just over 10,000 tickets sold (which is probably mostly the season ticket base), although reports indicated only about 900 people showed up – and I saw one broadcast type who said her personal count of people in the stands was about 300.

It’s quirks like this that can make baseball and its fans interesting – far more than those people who think ball clubs are entitled to have 40,000-or-so capacity crowds for all 81 home games.

So no, I’m not for delaying the start of baseball. For I actually get a jolt from seeing regular-season games taking place in the cool of a Midwestern spring. I also see the presence of baseball as evidence that these outbursts of wintry-like weather are merely the final strands of winter – and that we’ll soon move on to complaining about the 100-degree temperatures and how “It’s too hot!” to live here.

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EXTRA: Who won’t Pat Quinn pay tribute to? Remembering a 67-yr-old Opening Day, and who made it unique

I’m used to the idea of political people finding off-beat things to pay tribute to – reflecting in the glory of others.

But Gov. Pat Quinn trying to gain himself some attention off the memory of Jackie Robinson? That’s a stretch!

BUT IS what Quinn chose to do on Tuesday – which is the 67^th anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Opening Day in which Robinson made his appearance in the line-up as the first openly-black ballplayer in the U.S. major leagues in modern times.

“Jackie believed that ‘life is not a spectator support,’ and he lived his life with that in mind,” Quinn said, in his prepared statement. “He broke the color barrier in the major leagues, became the first black (Most Valuable Player) and took his team to the World Series” six times in 10 seasons as a ballplayer.

“At the same time, he fought for black athletes and Americans of all colors and creeds to be treated equally,” said Quinn. “This is why his number was retired by (Major League Baseball) and why he received two of our nation’s highest honors – the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

Impressive, in its own way, and worthy of honors. Although I'm not sure how much is added to the Robinson legacy by having Quinn try to attach himself to it. Or how ridiculous the governor comes across for doing so.

Check out the pants number

ALTHOUGH I SUPPOSE things could be more ridiculous -- particularly if Quinn were trying to give such glory to the athletic legacy of one of our city's ballplayers. Who would he pick? Carmen Fanzone? Harry Chappas?

Or did you think that “42” that the Chicago White Sox have posted along with their other retired player numbers was meant to honor the memory of Ron Kittle?

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Call it a refreshing reaction to repulsive attitude once mistaken for acceptable

I was at a theater this weekend with one of those types of crowds that insists on talking back to the screen. Or maybe I was just seated right in the middle of a group of a dozen people who were particularly vocal about their reactions.

We all were watching “42,” the new film that purports to give us the story of Jackie Robinson’s beginning in baseball back in the years following the Second World War.

THE FILM HAS the potential for controversy because the producers didn’t go out of their way to couch the ways in which southern ballplayers and fans (both Yankee and Dixie) were blunt in their use of epithets and other means of expressing their displeasure with the breakdown of the major leagues as a white-only entity.

I have no doubt that such words really were used. In fact, there was hardly anything in the film’s facts that hadn’t been documented excessively elsewhere. This film does not give us any new information or different understanding of the facts.

It does depict anecdotes that we have all had the opportunity to read for decades. I suppose for people who don’t want to read and need things visualized, this film is a plus.

So for me, the intriguing part of seeing this film was literally listening to the reactions of the people sitting around me. They were appalled at so much of what came from the mouths of actors portraying Dodger ballplayers Dixie Walker and Kirby Higbe and Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman.

I CAN’T RECALL the last time I heard so much booing and hissing and chants of “You suck!” being hurled at the screen every time somebody said something scurrilous, scandalous or just downright mean and vile!

And no, this wasn’t in a movie theater in a predominantly African-American neighborhood. I’m sure at least a few of the people who were in attendance were amongst the types of individuals who believe that racism is something that certain people in our society exaggerate in order to gain something for themselves at the expense of the greater good! (My fingers feel like they went to the toilet just typing up that line of hooey).

To see that so many were so offended at a reminder of just how blunt and guttural the racist expressions once were is truly evidence of how much our society has changed for the better. Perhaps we need more reminders of what “Jim Crow” once was to keep us from reverting back as a society?

If anything, that scene where actor Alan Tudyk (who portrayed Chapman) is the part that will forevermore stick in my mind. The endless flow of slurs – taken from what really happened when Brooklyn first played the Phillies in ’47 – sticks in my mind more than anything actor Chadwick Boseman said or did while portraying Robinson himself.

PERSONALLY, I WONDER if those people who wanted to make a campaign issue back in 2008 about Barack Obama and his family once being members of a congregation presided over by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (he who has been captured on video saying “God Damn America”) have second thoughts.

Since what Wright was expressing anger over with such rhetoric was a society that once thought people like Chapman were completely acceptable – and ones who bought into the explanation that Chapman really did give to reporters to explain his on-field rhetoric.

That ballplayers like Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio were able to “laugh about it” when they were hit with on-field taunts for being Jewish and Italian, respectively. Anybody who has ever read anything about Greenberg, at least, knows he didn’t think it was humorous.

We are now able to look back and see just how ridiculous such trash-thought truly was. Just like last year’s BIG film “Lincoln” made some political interests look downright ignorant for the way they tried defending the institution of slavery.

IF ONLY WE could keep this thought in mind – how will people some 50 years from now look back at us when they have to think about an issue such as gay marriage, or perhaps the immigration reform spectacle?

Which means Jackie Robinson’s life story may still be teaching us some life’s lessons – or at least more than the 1950 film “The Jackie Robinson Story,” notable only because it starred Robinson as himself in a fictionalized account of his life.

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Jackie Robinson ‘Day’ brought to mind memories of Dick Allen, and how things don’t change as much as we’d like

It was Major League Baseball’s annual Jackie Robinson tribute on Sunday – the one where every single ballplayer wears Robinson’s uniform Number “42” on his uniform as a tribute to the first black ballplayer of the 20^th Century in the “white” major leagues.

Yet since the ballgame I watched on Sunday was the Detroit Tigers at Chicago White Sox, the Robinson tribute got mixed in with another tribute.

FOR THIS IS the season that the White Sox are paying tribute to their 1972 team that came so close to winning a division title (who’s to say how far they would have gone in the playoffs and World Series that year, if they had made it).

All the White Sox ballplayers were wearing the bright-red and white uniforms that the team wore that season, and they’re going to do so for every Sunday home game.

It was like a whole playing field of Dick Allens were out there. Allen, of course, was the first baseman who was traded away by the Dodgers in ’72, only to have him become the American League most valuable player whose big bat nearly put the White Sox in the post-season that year.

Now what’s the point of thinking about Dick Allen on a day when the “story” is supposed to be sepia memories of Jackie Robinson? Actually, I can’t help but think the two, along with many other ballplayers throughout the years, are intertwined.

FOR THE DAY’S proceedings included the telling of stories about the level of racial harassment that Robinson faced during his first two seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The reality is that those were the two seasons that Robinson was under orders not to fight back or retaliate in any way.

Yet the way the stories get told now, it sounds almost like those were the only two years of harassment, with the rest of baseball coming to accept Robinson and his racial ilk. Now, everything is lovely and peaceful and charming and ….

Nonsense!

The real story of racial integration of professional baseball in this country is that for every ballclub that was willing to advance the “cause” (Brooklyn, the New York Giants and Bill Veeck’s ownership of the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns), there were other ballclubs more than willing to “hold out” in hopes that this “fad” would wither away.

THERE ARE MANY one-time minor league cities that no longer have professional baseball because the teams (and in some cases, entire low-level leagues) preferred to cease to exist – rather than let their on-field activity become “mongrelized.”

This carried well into the 1960s, which is when Allen first came up to the major leagues with the Philadelphia Phillies (who were the last National League team to integrate).

A lot of the incidents that gave Allen a reputation as a head case who was totally disagreeable and not worth having on a ballclub no matter how well he hit can be tied back to people who would have preferred to think of their “colored” ballplayer as some sort of role-playing specialist – rather than as the “star” of the team.

Heck, even the case of his name is a controversy – which is so stupid when you think about it. Allen (it’s Richard Anthony Allen on his birth certificate) always went by “Dick.”

YET BASEBALL OFFICIALS preferred calling him “Richie.” Perhaps the Phillies thought it was colorful. Allen thought it made him sound like a little boy. White fans of that era probably thought he was being “uppity” for complaining.

Part of why Allen had his big year with the White Sox in ’72 (and in general, some competent play until he walked out on the team at the end of 1974 following feuding with team-mate Ron Santo) is that they respected his desires. Although there are countless fans to this day who use “Richie” as a way of disrespecting him.

They may not appreciate the racial overtones, or how they’re carrying on an attitude that should have died decades ago. Actually, it should never have been in place, but that is a debate for another days’ commentary.

Anybody who thinks this is an old issue has obviously forgotten the more recent days of Albert Belle – who went through a similar issue.

HIS FULL NAME is Jojuan Albert Belle, and his original ballclub (the Indians) liked calling him “Joey” – even though Belle hated it for the same reason Allen hated “Richie.”

I can remember once sitting in the right-field stands at then-New Comiskey Park and hearing someone sitting to my right taunting Belle with his chants of “Joey, Joey!”

When I asked him what his point was, he told me, “I’ll tell that n----r what his name is.” This was in 1999 – which means it’s not a lesson in “ancient” history by any means. Considering that the only “black” ballplayers some major league teams now have are the dark-skinned Dominicans and Cubans (like White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez), it only adds to the image some people have of baseball as a sport that’s not really interested in celebrating its integration.

Which is my larger point. Trying to remember Robinson and the attitudes against him as some sort of aberration that withered away is completely inaccurate.

IT’S JUST ONE one step away from trying to claim that no one was ever hostile toward Robinson, or black ballplayers in general.

Just like Dick Allen, who is supposed to be on hand for the White Sox’ game against the Milwaukee Brewers on June 24. It’s too bad the whole team couldn’t wear the number “15” that day, as a reminder of how long it took to truly integrate – and how some people were determined to hold out for an all-white game.

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What constitutes “history?”

It is somewhat interesting to know that U.S. officials on Monday cooperated with officials in Montreal have decided to erect a bilingual plaque at an apartment where Jackie Robinson lived during the one year he played minor league baseball – prior to joining the Brookyn Dodgers in 1947 and ending the concept that pro ball was for “white” people only.

Some may have their qualms about U.S. officials designating a historic site in Canada, although that doesn’t bother me so much as the idea that we’re honoring an apartment – one that is at least six decades old – or that they waited until the absolute last day of Black History Month to do this.

WITH THE EXCEPTION of that one summer of 1946 when Robinson was with the Montreal Royals of the International League and lived there with his new wife, Rachel, I doubt there is anything about this particular place that is different from any other apartment building still standing from that era.

Or from any apartment building still standing in Chicago, or any other city in this country or on the North American continent.

The one-time student of history in me fears that by going out of our way to designate every single bit of minutia related to Robinson’s life, we’re taking steps toward trivializing it.

The “great” things that Robinson did were accomplished because of his activity on the ball field (where local officials long ago placed a plaque marking the spot of the old Delorimer Stadium to honor Robinson and the Royals), not after work when he ate and slept. Do we really learn much from a bilingual plaque whose contents can be summarized as “Jackie (once) slept here.”

WHICH IS WHY a part of me was always glad to see that city officials have never tried to turn 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. into anything resembling a historic site.

For those of you too young (or too absent-minded) to remember, that was the address of an apartment building where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., lived for one year of his life – at $90 per month for rent. It was the summer of 1966 (I was not quite one year old back then) that King was going to make the country realize that racial segregation wasn’t just a Southern problem.

While the Northern states never had the blatant “Jim Crow” policies written into the law, the separation of the races and tensions between them could be just as bad. And King chose our very own Chicago as the first place to demonstrate it.

Of course, we lived up (or is it “down”) to King’s expectations by being the city where he got hit in the head with a brick during a local protest march. Places like Marquette Park, Gage Park and Cicero (the suburb, not the avenue) are where King made his presence felt locally.

I’M NOT SAYING we place a plaque on the spot where King stood when that brick came crashing upon him. But it would be more intriguing to know how many of the locals have a clue what once happened in their midst, rather than seeing the place where the reverend ate breakfast,.

Of course, the building is long gone. It wasn’t much to begin with, and after the urban riots that followed King’s assassination in 1968, much of the North Lawndale neighborhood was reduced to vacant lots that no real estate developer would even dream of touching.

Which is why we have had for decades the joke about Dr. King living in a vacant lot. In fact, one website devoted to Chicago tourism goes so far as to include an entry for the empty lot, and telling us that one of the highlights of this particular attraction is “free admission,” while also telling us that we should also check out the church at 3413 W. Douglas Blvd. – where a church at which King once spoke still stands.

That might be a better sight to see than the one-time apartment lot, which actually is finally being “filled in,” instead of being the equivalent of a cavity in the teeth of urban planning.

CONSTRUCTION BEGAN LAST year on a proposal for the “Dr. King Legacy Apartments,” which would include 45 units of housing and some retail space, which is something the neighborhood could use more than just a plaque that way too many tourists would be too scared to come see anyway.

Now in the current economic climate, I’m not sure how quickly the housing will go. While there is a need, there also is a chance that developers could get too greedy and price themselves out of what the market would bear.

It also is what makes me reluctant to think much of the talk in recent years of the MLK Historic District – meant to turn the entire area around 16^th and Hamlin into a destination of sorts.

But at least someone is trying to think of the neighborhood’s future. If it were to work, it would do more for its surroundings than that plaque being erected at Jackie Robinson’s old apartment ever would.

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Baseball off-base in way it perceives race

Major League Baseball will pat itself on the back Saturday night (or will it behave like a true ballplayer and give itself a pat on the rump?), giving itself praise for some of the great African-American ballplayers who have thrilled us throughout the years with their athletic skills.

From Jackie Robinson to Willie Mays and running to the present of Ken Griffey (Sr. & Jr.) and Dontrelle Willis, we may even get to hear the saga of the Hairston family – one of only three in which three different generations (grandpa, pa and son) all played baseball for major league teams.

FOR TONIGHT IS the Civil Rights Game, at AutoZone Park in Memphis, Tenn., which is becoming a pre-season tradition where two teams get to play an exhibition game that is dressed up with ceremonies commemorating the contributions of black ballplayers.

But when our very own Chicago White Sox take the field tonight against the New York Mets in their last pre-season game before heading for Cleveland to begin their regular season on the road with a series against the Indians, we ought to think seriously about the role professional baseball has played in the culture of our country, and realize that much of the pablum we’ll be fed tonight is a crock.

I have lost count of the number of times people come up with statistics that show baseball, our “national pastime” and truly one of the great ballgames in existence, just doesn’t have much appeal to people in the United States who are not white.

It does continue to appeal in a very big way to people outside the United States, particularly those from Latin American countries. It is often the growing presence of Spanish-speaking ballplayers (roughly one in four major leaguers comes from a Latin American country, and two in five is Hispanic), combined with the growing number of Asians, who are giving this game its feel of diversity.

IF NOT FOR the foreign elements to Major League Baseball, the professional game in this country would be even whiter than it was in the days prior to 1946 – the year Robinson played his one season of minor league ball prior to joining the Brooklyn Dodgers.

To me, the World Series in 2005 is memorable for several reasons – from watching Roger Clemens fizzle out after just two innings to seeing White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe make a diving catch into the stands on a foul ball that helped preserve a 1-0 White Sox victory in Game 4 to that game that felt like it would never end (Game 3, at 14 innings, lasted until just after 1 a.m. – and remains the longest World Series game ever).

That is all memorable on-field activity. But there’s one other factor that is memorable about the World Series that year. The National League champion Houston Astros didn’t have a single U.S.-born black player on their roster.

Not that the White Sox were much better that year. Outfielder (and Series MVP) Jermaine Dye and designated hitter Carl Everett were the sole African-Americans on the team that year (long-time White Sox star Frank Thomas would have been a third, had he not suffered a nearly season-long injury that kept him from playing in the World Series).

SADLY ENOUGH, THIS is not some extreme situation.

It is common for most of the melanin complexion on a ball club to come from players who were born in other countries, and to whom the United States is a place where they work during the summers before returning to their home countries for the winter months (where some insist on playing in the professional baseball leagues scattered throughout Latin American countries).

Some people want to downplay this fact by claiming that many of the Latin American players themselves are very dark-skinned and obviously have African ethnic origins in their genetics. That is true, but it doesn’t mean that baseball is doing itself or society any favors by replacing the number of black ballplayers with Latino ballplayers.

Perhaps it is appropriate that the White Sox are one of the participants in Saturday’s exhibition. The very question, “Who was the first black ballplayer ever for the White Sox?” highlights the confusion.

THE FIRST BLATANTLY dark-skinned Sox player was Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso, the Cuban who joined the team in May 1951 and became one of the White Sox’ top players for the 1950s. Three months later, a second dark-skinned player, Mississippi native Sam Hairston, joined the team.

Hairston was a catcher who only played part of that one season in the major leagues, and hung around the minor leagues for several more years hoping to get another shot at playing ball. He didn’t, but he went on to become a talent scout who had two sons and two grandsons who all played major league ball.

I’d argue that Hairston is the first African-American player for the White Sox, noting that Miñoso wasn’t even the first Latino ballplayer with the team. That doesn’t take away from his skills.

But this type of debate (which I have read way too much of on various web sites trying to discuss the racial makeup of modern-day professional baseball) reeks too much of a mentality of there being “white” ballplayers and “other” ballplayers, as some fans don't like having to acknowledge any difference between dark-skinned Latin Americans and African-Americans. That attitude, in and of itself, can make many promising African-American athletes look to other sports.

WHY SHOULD THEY play something that tries to make them feel like an outsider, or that wants them to believe they should be grateful anyone is even allowing them to play?

It is true that many athletes who once may have thought of playing baseball now turn to sports like basketball or football, both of which use major college athletics as their developing ground for talent – compared to baseball which still relies on minor leagues that are located primarily in the rural south.

The thought of a college scholarship (which makes it sound like the person is going off to be a student, even if some of them will never open a textbook during their time on campus) can sound much more promising to a young black man than the chance to play (and fail) for the Bluefield (W.Va.) Orioles in the Appalachian League.

I often wonder myself if a Jackie Robinson these days would even want to play baseball professionally. After all, he was a college football star (UCLA), and conceivably was a good enough athlete that the National Football League might be an option.

NOW PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL in this country is taking a step in the right direction with its RBI program, which tries to run camps in inner-city neighborhoods to show youngsters the intricacies of baseball. On a certain level, baseball views its Civil Rights Game as yet another chance to show off the history of athleticism amongst African-American ballplayers.

Yet I could see how such action would go against the game. Reminding people of the players who once took the field for various teams in the old Negro leagues is a nice gesture. Paying attention to the contributions of Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron is interesting.

But it has the potential to make baseball appear to young black people to be a game that grandpa once played. It doesn’t do much of anything to show off the current talent and make the African-American youth realize baseball is a game that can use their talents as well.

It also doesn’t help that so many baseball fans want to dump the single-season and career home run records set by star slugger Barry Bonds, and seem particularly gleeful that he is having trouble finding a ball club interested in using his hitting talents this season.

STEROID-LADEN OR not, he still managed to hit all those home runs. Unless baseball is prepared to start nullifying its past decade of existence (which would seem too much like bitter griping against a black athlete), it is going to have to accept his accomplishments.

Now some are going to note that the person who is now beloved for the home run record – Hank Aaron – is also African-American. But back when Aaron approached the record in 1973, he was subjected to so much hate mail that the perception exists that baseball fans are just bitter cranks whenever a black man comes close to a record-setting achievement.

This is the attitude that needs to be dealt with and changed if baseball is truly interested in gaining more fan support from African-American people.

This is where baseball commissioner Bug Selig ought to be focusing his attention Saturday night in Memphis, instead of getting caught up in hero worship for his boyhood idol Aaron – who despite his past greatness is now little more than just another ex-athlete.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Major League Baseball is determined to pay tribute to the Civil Rights movement (http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/civil_rights_game/y2008/index.jsp) with an annual exhibition game in the same city where the National Civil Rights Museum (http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/) is located.

Sam Hairston is not only the first African-American to play for the Chicago White Sox, he also is the head of one of only three families (the Boones and the Bells are the other two) in which (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07EFDF1239F93AA35752C1A961958260) three generations played major league baseball.