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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > June > 22 > Entry
Editorial: Baseball’s history still has power to connect
Bill Cosby, speaking to a crowd in Cincinnati during the weekend about racial integration in Major League baseball, said:
“You need to tell your children this was not a done deal. Henry Aaron had to hear people yelling, calling, telling him the same thing they told your great-grandparents: ‘You are not, you can’t be. And even if you did, it doesn’t mean anything.’”
Mr. Cosby was speaking on the occasion of the “Civil Rights Game.” That’s a promotion for baseball, a way of connecting the game with black Americans, with an eye on the fact that baseball doesn’t have nearly as many black players as it used to.
This useful promotion brings sport into contact with the issues of the larger society.
So often, the instinct of athletes and owners alike is to avoid those issues as diversions from their tasks, as potentially divisive, and, after all, as subjects that athletes are not uniquely equipped to deal with.
One result is that any time a social issue does show up in sports, the occasion is decidedly negative. Think drugs. Or money, as in the amount the big leagues charge for a ticket or a hotdog, and the amount they pay unimpressive players.
The Civil Rights Game saw legendary athletes — Mr. Aaron, Frank Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Tony Perez, Bob Gibson, Oscar Robertson — and Mr. Cosby talking about race in America and race in baseball, along with intellectuals and a former president. The athletes surely won the attention of some people who don’t typically pay much attention to such things, especially young people.
The game itself and ceremonies surrounding it were broadcast nationally, along with interviews with many of the big names and portions of President Bill Clinton’s speech.
That the event was held in Cincinnati made it a promotion for that city, too. Cincinnati was a great spot for a lot of reasons. It was the southernmost city with a big league team when Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s racial barrier in the late 1940s. When his team stayed at the Netherlands Plaza Hotel, he was not allowed to use the dining room or the swimming pool.
Even into this decade, Cincinnati has continued to have high-profile racial problems. That part of the history of southwestern Ohio — Dayton as much as Cincinnati — is something that should be remembered.
By the same token, though, Cincinnati was a key part of the Underground Railroad, the famed route for helping escaped slaves from the South make their way to freedom. Today that story is preserved by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which opened in 2004 and is next door to Great American Ballpark.
That was a big reason Cincinnati got the game, which was held experimentally in Memphis the last two seasons, with unofficial games featuring Major League teams.
It always made sense for the game to be in a major league city. The presence of the Freedom Center helped baseball justify the move for 2009 and 2010.
Whether the game can become a tradition isn’t certain. But that would be a good thing. (In Memphis, the crowds for the games were disappointing.)
Cincinnati and Dayton are at the northern end of a long bridge between the north and the south. They are cities where sports did much to break down racial barriers, being central to the cultures of two races.
They are places where baseball’s roots go deep. And baseball is a game whose roots go deep into American history — the worst and some of the best.
If a promotion can capture some of that and bring it to the attention of a community and part of a nation, that’s a pretty special promotion.
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