Conservative Donnybrook

I’ve been trying to rekindle my love of baseball lately. To that end I have started to rewatch the Ken Burn’s Baseball series. As some of you may know George Will is one of the commentors and has a great quote on the second DVD:

“I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, which is midway between Chicago and St. Louis. I played baseball briefly and badly in Little League for the Mittendorf Funeral Home Panthers. And at an age too tender for making life decisions, I had to make a choice between being a Cub fan looking north and a Cardinal fan looking south. All my friends became Cardinal fans and grew up happy and liberal. I became a Cub fan and a gloomy conservative.”

Being a Cub fan and a conservative myself, Mr. Will has certainly hit a chord. I know that this quote will resonate with a couple other contributors to this site as well.

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Torii Hunter of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (which, by and by, is not even in the same county as Los Angeles) thinks that a baseball team that does not have any black players should refrain from wearing number 42 to honor the late great Jackie Robinson.  Torii said that it should be an honor to wear number 42.  According to Pro Sports Daily, Torii believes that “a roster with no black players did not represent the progress for which Robinson stood, and baseball celebrated….”

Torii completely misunderstands or misconstrues what Robinson did for culture, society and baseball.  It is not simply one race that benefited from his groundbreaking achievement but all of them. Torii’s comments can be thrown on to the heap of racist garbage Mr. Robinson helped defeat.

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