R.I.P. Broglio and Pumpsie Green

A pair of former ballplayers saw their demise in this realm of existence yet the significance of their stories within the baseball world continue to live on. They’re not to be forgotten anytime soon.

Cubbie blue never agreed w/ Broglio

One of the players was pitcher Ernie Broglio – who during his time with the St. Louis Cardinals won 70 games, including one 20-win season and another where he came close.

THE CHICAGO CUBS acquiring him in 1964 should have been the kind of move that added a potential ace to their pitching staff. Looking particularly good since all the Cubbies gave up for Broglio was an outfielder who barely hit .250 and didn’t even come close to the home run power they always dreamed he had.

The outfielder, of course, was Lou Brock, who upon going to the Cardinals suddenly discovered he could steal bases – some 33 in that partial season alone and more than 900 over the course of his two decades as a major leaguer.

The reason why he’s a member of the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Immortalized in bronze – even though there are some who like to think Brock is a perfect example of a ballplayer who wasn’t that special.

All he could do, after all, is steal bases – better than anybody else who had played prior to his arrival in baseball. Personally, I always viewed Brock as the perfect example of Cubs’ mismanagement – thinking your leadoff hitter and star base thief was a slugger just because he was one of the few who ever hit a home run into the center field bleachers at New York’s old Polo Grounds – a shot of at least 460 feet.

Cubs misjudged Brock as a ballplayer

AS FOR BROGLIO, the former ace pitcher suddenly “lost” it. In two-and-a-half seasons pitching for the Cubs, he won a total of 7 ballgames.

And now, Broglio popped back into the news briefly – he died from complications due to cancer Tuesday in San Jose, Calif., at age 83. I’m sure Cubs fans are hoping this puts that long-ago trade (that some baseball fans consider the worst ever, aside from maybe Frank Robinson to Baltimore for Milt Pappas to Cincinnati) to bed, once and for all.

But Broglio isn’t the only late ballplayer of significance this week.

For Elijah Green, nicknamed “Pumpsie,” met his maker Wednesday at age 85 at a hospital in San Leandro, Calif. His family said he had been ill for the past five months.

Pappas later redeemed rep after becoming a Cub

GREEN WAS A ballplayer who made his Major League debut as a pinch runner for the Boston Red Sox in a game July 21, 1959 at Comiskey Park. He finished out that game playing shortstop.

Which is significant because he was the first black ballplayer to play for the Red Sox, which made them the final ball club to finally give in to the integration trend started some 12 years earlier when Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Considering that Boston’s other ball club, the Braves, had integrated as far back as 1950 and that Chicago’s two ballclubs (the White Sox in 1951 and Cubs in 1953) also had made the move toward integration, it could be said that it took the Red Sox long enough to get with the program of trying to truly put together the best ball clubs possible.

Or we could celebrate the notion that the integration of the game that likes to use “the National Pastime” label to describe itself finally wasn’t a joke. Maybe it finally bore a bit of legitimacy.

AND AS FOR the memories baseball fans will have of both Broglio and Green, one doesn’t have to be of Hall of Fame statistical ability to be an interesting story.

His historic moment occurred at Comiskey

Which is why it is encouraging to learn that Green never viewed himself as some sort of racial pioneer, while Broglio didn’t let his life sink into a quagmire of sorts because the guy he was traded for went on to become a super star – and he didn’t.

Both are amongst the ranks of those who tried to play baseball professionally AND wound up making it up to the game’s highest ranks. They got their lines of type in the Baseball Encyclopedia to confirm it.

And I’m sure both of them went to their graves this week thinking of themselves as Major Leaguers – a label no one could take away from them.

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EXTRA: Three more counties, 96 to go

Three more counties across Illinois let it be known Thursday they would have their clerks start issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, and one more county said they may be at it by week's end.

Macon County (the Decatur area) is the one that may be up and running soon, while Jackson County (the Carbondale area, which means Southern Illinois University's presence), Cass County (a rural place located northwest of Springfield whose most notable feature is the Jim Edgar fish and wildlife park), and St. Clair County (which is half of the Illinois-based suburbs of St. Louis) are the places that are now prepared to issue licenses.

OF COURSE, THAT still leaves some eight dozen counties that are refusing to get along. Some of the reasons I have read in various reports are laughable.

Such as the counties where the clerks say they're too busy to address the issue because of the upcoming March 18 primary elections to the ones who don't see the stupidity in having a situation where Illinois gets a split personality on this issue.

Then, there are the ones who will wait until June 1 before they feel they're forced to do it. I'm curious to see which ones try to find legal reasons to try to hold out even longer than that.

Which Illinois county will become the government equivalent of the Boston Red Sox, who when they signed infielder Pumpsie Green in 1959 became the last ball club to take a black ballplayer on their roster. A stigma that still gets used against the Red Sox, from time to time.

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No rushing the Illinois Legislature on anything. It acts when/if it feels ready

My memories of covering the Illinois Legislature taught me one lesson that prevails over all – the Legislature will act on any given issue whenever it feels ready to do so.

QUINN: It's time, ...

Imposing deadlines on the Legislature (such as has been tried in recent years with regards to pension funding reform)? Pointless. Just look at how long issues such as casino gambling and a new Chicago-area airport have lingered at the Statehouse.

SO WHEN I learned about how Gov. Pat Quinn is trying to put the pressure on the Illinois House of Representatives to act NOW with regards to gay marriage, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

If anything, the only effect that Quinn’s comments will have is to make the representatives even more lethargic when it comes to taking some action.

There are those legislators who disrespect Quinn’s image so much that they openly look for ways to snub him. They gloat over the various polls showing Quinn with low levels of support – while ignoring the fact that other polls show that people think equally little of legislators as they do their chief executives.

Falling short of final passage on this particular issue would fall into that category – as well as appease all those pastors who are going about these days trying to show off who can sound like the most intolerant nitwit in Illinois.

THERE IS NO pushing the Illinois Legislature, which always seems willing to put off until tomorrow something that probably was needed yesterday.

... but will legislators listen?

Some might say our elected officials are merely being cautious. What is really amounts to is that they’re being cowardly – they’re desperately afraid of taking a vote that will come back and bite them on their collective behind!

Of course, by their inaction they risk having that come back to kick them in the butt! But these are the kind of people who will argue about the significant difference between voting “present” and not voting at all.

Even though many people will equate such actions as having the same end result as a “no” vote.

IF ANYTHING, ON the gay marriage vote the legislators probably will have to be shamed into taking action. Something is going to have to happen to make them feel like they risk being the 50^th (and final) state to approve such a measure – making them the equivalent of the Boston Red Sox and their first black ballplayer in 1959 (some 12 years after one J.R. Robinson joined the Brooklyn National League ballclub).

Baseball equivalent of Ill. gay marriage?

Do we really want our state’s gay marriage measure to be the equivalent of Elijah “Pumpsie” Green?

I have that thought because it ran through my mind when I learned earlier this week that Delaware managed to approve the issue and sign it into law. We got beat by Delaware! Somehow, the idea that we’ll probably beat Mississippi and Alabama to the punch on this issue just doesn’t sound that encouraging.

The issue in Illinois has been on hold, for all practical purposes, since Valentine’s Day – the date on which Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, got cute and staged the vote of approval nearly three months ago.

I COMPREHEND QUINN’S frustration. He has made it clear from early on that he wants to approve this overdue ideal into law. He wants the moment of glory when he can have a bill-signing ceremony, while also sticking it to the conservative ideologues who are always on his case because they couldn’t defeat him at the polling place back in 2010.

But in hearing Quinn say, “It’s time to vote,” I can’t help but also hear in my mind the Legislature saying “We’ll say when it’s time to vote.”

Which will probably be slipped into the Legislature’s final day of action on May 31 before they take a summer break – probably slipped in between other controversial issues out of some delusional hope that nobody will notice what they wind up doing.

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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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We’re not there, yet

Government bodies of all types have their moments when they dwell on things that the general public could care less about.

SUFFREDIN: Speaks a rare truth



Take the Cook County Board, which on Wednesday met for a few hours and spent quite a bit of time reviewing resolutions meant to pay tribute to a new brigadier general from Chicago and a former staffer with the assessor’s office who recently died.

THEY EVEN HAVE their humorous moments – such as when county board President Toni Preckwinkle had a slip of the tongue and inadvertently referred to Commissioner John Daley from the South Side as “Mayor Daley.”

Not that I’m saying Wednesday’s meeting was anything exceptional. If anything, it was a typical gathering of government officials trying to do “the people’s business.” You have to be an insider to care about 90 percent of it.

Which is what makes it all the more special when a government official manages to say or do something that hits upon an essential truth. It becomes a little gem amidst the blather that occupies too much of the time of most government business.

Take Commissioner Larry Suffredin of north suburban Evanston, who managed to say something so incredibly honest that it will stand in my mind for a long time – even though it didn’t relate in any way to anything that was likely to get covered in the newspapers or on broadcast news programs.

FOR WHEN THE county board felt the need to pass a resolution praising the idea of February being African-American History Month, Suffredin felt the need to say that passing mere resolutions isn’t enough.

“When we pass these kind of proposals, it is incumbent upon us to reach out and tell people we still have a lot to do,” he said.

How true!

Too many people seem to want to think that “the war’s over” and now we can go back to the way things were. The “war” being the fight for any sense of equality or elimination of laws that are meant to keep certain people in check.

SUFFREDIN HIMSELF CITED the recent study by the Manhattan Institute that found traces of segregation that still remain, and that there are neighborhoods where non-white people remain either under-represented or over-represented.

Although the modern day reality of our society is that there are few lily-white communities that still exist – and the ones that do are usually in places so isolated that one can make the argument that they are cut off from the majority of the population.

DALEY: President, Mayor, or brother?



In short, it takes a lot of effort for someone with segregationist sensibilities to truly cut themselves off. But it doesn’t mean by any means the fight is over – which too many people seem to want to believe.

So to hear something from a public official like Suffredin is encouraging – even though his comments will get overshadowed (the “official” story from the county board on Wednesday was their decision to have their Finance Committee study further the situation at the Cook County morgue – where the bodies have been piling up high in recent weeks). This account here may well be the only recognition of what happened.



JUST AS I’M sure I may also be the only one to acknowledge Preckwinkle’s gaffe – which caused Daley to sigh and everybody else in the county board chambers to laugh vigorously.

For as Daley (the brother of the retired hizzoner) himself said, he often gets people describing him in just the wrong way.

“The other day, I was called both ‘president’ and ‘Bill Daley’,” said John – as though he was the esteemed Barack Obama, or his other political brother (the returned-to-Chicago White House chief of staff).

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It’s nit-picking time – Miñoso wasn’t city’s 1st African-American ballplayer

I’m not sure if it was the Chicago White Sox who messed up, or if there are just some reporter-types who are a bit too careless with details related to ethnicity. But I couldn’t help but notice many stories circulating around Thursday connected to the White Sox’ Opening Day events that stated one-time All Star outfielder Minnie Miñoso threw out the “first pitch” of the 2011 season to pay tribute to his being the team’s first African-American player.

MINOSO: Doing the honors on Thursday



No. No. No!!!!!

IT IS TRUE that it has been 60 seasons since a Chicago baseball club got with the program and realized that this new “fad” propagated by the Brooklyn Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, New York Giants and St. Louis Browns of signing black ballplayers was here to stay.

It was in 1951 that the White Sox took Miñoso on their team, acquiring him in a trade with the Indians – where he likely would have languished for several seasons in their minor league system.

And yes, one look at Miñoso then, and now (he works for the White Sox by making public appearances on behalf of the ballclub), makes one realize he has African genetics in his racial breakdown.

But, strictly speaking, Miñoso isn’t an African-American ballplayer. He is a native of Cuba who came to this country back before Fidel Castro ever came to authority (and who decided upon Castro’s rise to power that he was better off living full-time in this country, ultimately becoming a U.S. citizen in 1976).

HE’S A CUBAN-American, if you want to do the label correctly. He is a dark-skinned Latino.

But African-American does imply U.S.-born and NOT of some Spanish-speaking origin (although Latinos who are honest admit that there probably is some trace of African in our family trees).

HAIRSTON: The 1st African-American player



Which is why I think that by saying Miñoso was the first African-American ballplayer in Chicago, we’re short-changing the man who truly was the first African-American ballplayer on a Chicago ballclub.

That would be Sam Hairston, a catcher who played in the old Negro leagues who was acquired by the White Sox in mid-season of 1951 and played that one season in the major leagues, before becoming a perennial White Sox minor leaguer who might have had more of a major league career if White Sox catcher Sherman Lollar had ever suffered a serious injury.

HAIRSTON, WHO ULTIMATELY became a scout for the White Sox after retiring as a ballplayer, has an even more intriguing story when one considers that he had two sons, Jerry and John, who both made it to the major leagues (Jerry with the White Sox and John for part of one season with the Cubs).

He also has two grandsons (sons of Jerry) who currently play in the major leagues (Jerry, Jr., of the Washington Nationals, and Scott, of the New York Mets).

The White Sox’ first African-American ballplayer creates a family dynasty that churns out ballplayers – none of whom would have been able to play in the “old days” – unless Jerry, Jr., and Scott could have passed for “Mexican” (their mother is a Mexican-born Latina) and were of light-enough skin tone to not offend the sensibilities of the bigots who sat in the box seats (while black people at the old Comiskey Park who attended White Sox games in those days were unofficially relegated to the seats near the right-field foul pole).

In many ways, the Hairston family story says a lot about our society and where it has come to racially, and also how baseball has managed to adapt with the times.

SO EVEN THOUGH I understand that Miñoso was on hand to throw out the first pitch on Thursday, while Sam Hairston died some 14 years ago, I’d hate to think his tale was lost in the shuffle just because somebody wants to use “African-American” as a generic label for all people who don’t fit their ideal of being “white.”

Then again, it probably was nice to see Miñoso get a little bit of public attention, considering that the next time the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., considers old-time ballplayers (defined as anyone who retired prior to the early 1990s), his name will likely be on the list of potential honorees.

Lost in the continuing saga over whether or not one-time Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo belongs in the Hall of Fame is the fact that Miñoso also has a legitimate case, which some like to accentuate based on the fact that he lost a few major league seasons at the beginning of his career playing for the New York Cubans of the old Negro National League.

He deserves better



As a result, his “major” league career statistics fall a little short of the numerical standards that some voters like to see, while he didn’t play long enough in the Negro leagues to qualify for admission to the Hall of Fame through that route.

SO FOR THOSE of us who want to remember Miñoso, that’s fine. He had a substantial career that doesn’t need embellishments (and is certainly worth more attention than the stunt pinch-hitting stints he did in 1976 and 1980).

But let’s not forget the fact that it was he AND Hairston who integrated the White Sox’ major league roster two seasons before the Chicago Cubs – and some eight seasons before the major league-holdouts (the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Red Sox) – finally got with the program.

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