Archive for June, 2008
See Part 2
• RELIEF FUND UPDATE •
June 26, 2008 — MiLB.com has stepped up and contributed to relief efforts by donating $50,000 to the four Iowa cities hit hardest by recent flooding: Burlington, Cedar Rapids, Davenport (Quad Cities) and Des Moines. Thank you, Minor League Baseball and a very special thanks to Jonathan Mayo for helping to make this happen. You da’ man!
• RELIEF FUND UPDATE •
June 26, 2008 — A local relief fund has been established to aid the flood victims in Cedar Rapids. I will leave the original links to the Red Cross and United Way on the blog, however I would like to encourage readers to send a check to the local fund, which directly assists the Cedar Rapids community.
Please make your checks payable to “Kernels Foundation Flood Relief” and mail them to:
Kernels Foundation Flood Relief
PO Box 2001
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
June 18, 2008 — This week, all eyes are on Cedar Rapids, IA. That is what I wish, however it seems not to be the case. FutureAngels.com has been posting news of the catastrophic floods prior to evacuation of the city. Today’s update noted that after making a scan of Angels’ fansites, not a single one of them made any mention of the worst flooding in Iowa history. Hardest hit of all was Cedar Rapids, home to the Cedar Rapids Kernels Single-A affiliate of the LA Angels, where the crest of the floodwaters exceeded the previous high by 12 feet (recorded in 1929).
Likewise at MiLB.com, Jonathan Mayo expressed disappointment over the apparent lack of interest by minor-league baseball in general. The worst of the flooding occurred right in the midst of the Midwest League Double-A All-Star break, and yet he noted:
. . .there wasn’t at least a moment taken over the course of the All-Star Game celebration here to reflect on what’s befallen some of the Midwest League’s communities. That would have been, of course, simply a gesture. What happens going forward, as the waters recede and the 25,000 people in Cedar Rapids who’ve been homeless since Friday try to reclaim their lives, will be more important. [source: "Perspective: Iowa floods hit close to home," Jonathan Mayo, www.MiLB.com, 18JUN08]
Perhaps this is one of those sad cases of people being bombarded by too much bad news on a daily basis to care about a town located thousands of miles away. Or perhaps it’s a case of secretly thinking, “I’ve got my own problems too.” Or even, “Thank goodness it didn’t happen here.”
Who knows? All I know is what rattles around in my cranium as I read the latest update on our baseball brethren in the Corn/Beef/Bible Belt. I’ll readily admit that the Kernels don’t come to mind much during the good times (sorry fellas!). I don’t read draft picks or scouting reports. I don’t keep on the lookout for the next Garrett Anderson, Howie Kendrick or John Lackey. Honestly, I don’t pay much attention to any of our younger farm-system guys until they magically appear at Franklin Covey Field as nearly-Major Leaguers. I’m Triple-A spoiled that way.
When I think of the disaster that has befallen Cedar Rapids, I’m not really thinking of Veteran’s Stadium, Manager Keith Johnson or any particular Kernels ballplayer. (Well, except for my favorite backstop. How’s the skull, BTW?) Rather, my heart goes out to the Cedar Rapids Kernels’ host families who make up the “community of baseball.”
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, so too does it take many helping hands to foster a young athlete from Rookie Ball to The Show. Host families are among the first to join the barn-raising efforts that go towards building a young ballplayer’s career. The Cedar Rapids Kernels is the next-to-lowest rung on the player development ladder for the Angels organization. (The only lower-level team is the Rookie-A/Short-Season-A Orem Owlz.) So we’re talking about a lot of high-school draft picks, teenagers, being sent out on their own for the first time in their lives. Moving to a strange town with no friends or family, figuring out how to budget your per diem, AND learning to hit .300 (or throw 85mph strikes) is asking a lot of a kid who was only licensed to drive two or three years ago. If they’ve been recruited from another country, such as the Dominican Republic, Latin America or Australia, the change in scenery can be even more disconcerting.
These host families (follow link and scroll down to May 16, 2008) provide a homebase-away-from-home for many of these kids, helping them ease into their new profession/language/lifestyle. Host families volunteer to house ballplayers in something like a foreign student exchange program—they house, feed and transport one or more ballplayers for the entire season, absorbing all costs of their stay. Although this financial aid is a big part of the host family’s contribution, their spiritual and emotional support is even more valuable. Year after year, host families welcome these young ballplayers with open arms and warm hearts.
As the players progress up the ladder (hopefully), most of them will never return to these Single-A towns ever again. While not exactly forgotten, it would be naïve to think that every Major Leaguer still remembers to send a Christmas card to their host parents. And yet, many, many everyday MLB players got their start in organized baseball under the nurturing wings of one of these incredible families.
There’s no September call-up for minor-league host families. They are the ones left waving in the rearview mirror every year. They do it for the love of the game and out of compassion for their boys. A few lucky parents manage to stay in touch with a favorite or two, and perhaps even watch their MLB debut in person. More likely though, the demands of time and distance slowly replace the old “family ties” with new ones. Experienced host families understand how the system works, and most are content with a precious collection of photos, memories and keepsakes from the good times spent together.
Except now, the families in Cedar Rapids have lost everything but the memories. As I read the latest report in The Gazette, I imagine dozens of photos, letters and cards floating down the Cedar River and washed out to sea. These are the visions that swirl and dance before my mind’s eye. And these are the baseball people who occupy my thoughts. Bye for now!
Donate to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
or
Donate to the United Way of East Central Iowa
June 18th, 2008
June 15, 2008 — If you did NOT think Brad Pitt, then I will venture you are either a Baby Boomer or baseball nut, or perhaps both. In that case, you might recall Game #1 of the 1952 World Series—Brooklyn Dodgers versus New York Yankees (who else?). Sadly, I arrived on this planet just a few years too late to watch the first African-American pitcher to win a World Series game. His name? Joe Black.
In fact, I didn’t even know who Joe Black was (the real one) until decades later. I had just discovered the joys of baseball. Being a woman of color, my interest quickly turned to the before-and-after history of integrated baseball. My personal library quickly swelled with volumes about the Negro Leagues along with the beginnings of integrated MLB, circa the years 0-10 A.J. (After Jackie).
Sometime during that maiden summer, I discovered The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn. And I fell in love—deeply, passionately—with baseball. Kahn did something unusual for a baseball book of the time; he talked about the human beings under the flannels. And that’s how I “met” Joe Black.
As I read about Black’s high-school days, memories came flooding back of my own childhood. I was one of a handful of minority kids in a conservative, predominantly blue-collar, historically anti-Jap neighborhood. I actually got a bit nauseous reading about when Black first felt the shock of cold, hard reality being shoved right into his face.
[All block quotes from “Black is What You Make It,” The Boys of Summer, Roger Kahn, 1971]
“How come you sign up all these guys and don’t sign me?”
The scout blinked. “Colored guys don’t play baseball.”
“What? You crazy? You’ve seen me playing for three years.”
“I mean Organized Baseball.”
“This is organized. We got a coach and uniforms.”
“I mean there’s no colored in the Big Leagues.”
That night he took his scrapbook from a drawer and studied it. Every face, Gehrig, Ott, Waner, Derringer, the others, all were white. Without tears, Joe began to shred the book in his big hands. But before his did, he carefully clipped a picture of Hank Greenberg, crashing out a home run. He could not bear both, to have the dream dead and to have nothing, nothing at all to show from the scrapbook of his boyhood.
Kahn did something else unusual for a baseball book; he told the story of what happens to ballplayers after they stopped playing. Certainly, I admired what Black did on the field—pitching 3 out of 7 World Series games before the age of relievers and closers, winning World Series Game 1, getting named NL Rookie of the Year. His MLB career, however, was a short one. After 1952, Manager Charlie Dressen decided Black needed more than two pitches and started fiddling with his mechanics. In the process, Black lost control of his fastball and curve. Five years after realizing his dream of being a major leaguer, he was out. Just like that.
Black was a fascinating man. And it was what he did after baseball that made him unforgettable for yours truly. Thoughtful and easygoing, he spoke about race relations with the same measured confidence he had as elite athlete. He was an usher at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was Vice President of Special Markets (aka ethnic and cultural minorities) for the Greyhound Corporation at a time when African-Americans were still struggling to find their voices in society as a whole, much less acceptance in the ruling class of white, corporate executives. He handled executive life like he handled Game #1 of the World Series, with incredible grace under the pressure of being the “lone raisin in a pan of milk.”
Looking for a home to buy for his growing family, Black made an appointment with a R.E. agent. When he showed up for the meeting, he was turned away by the R.E. agent, who was suddenly and literally faced with the “problem” of a black family moving into an upscale New Jersey suburb. Joe’s response?
“Something like that happens to you every day in your life if you’re black.”
No angry diatribes about the social injustice or stickin’ to the man. Instead, he would visit schools and talk to inner-city parents and kids, using his own black experience to make his point.
“This reawakening of racial pride,” he tells black adults, “is a fine thing. African styles in clothing, jewelry and hairdos are important. But what’s more important is what we do to solve community problems. The future is the young; it’s in the schools. A new hairdo solves no problems, but wearing the new hairdo to PTA meetings is something else. That’s feeling racial identity and trying to make the ghetto school a better place. But if you had to pick one to skip, skip the hairdo. Make the PTA.”
“Our efforts have to be more positive than shouting, ‘Sock it to him, Soul Brother,’ or, ‘We are victims of a racist society,’ or, ‘Honkey!’ . . .By now some of you may be saying I’m a Tom, a window-dressing Negro. But I learned two things early. A minority cannot defeat a majority in physical combat and you’ve got to let some things roll off your back. Because my name is Joe Black, whites called me ‘Old Black Joe.’ After a few years of scuffling, I still hadn’t silenced all of them and throwing all of those punches made me a weary young man. Call me ‘Old Black Joe’ today and you agitate nobody but yourself.”
The chapter ends with a simple exchange between Black and Kahn that distills everything into one poem.
At lunch, [Black] handed [Kahn] a sheet of paper, “This is part of my philosophy,” [Black] said. “And by the way, notice the use of English vocabulary.”
| [Kahn] read: |
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blackball, |
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black book, |
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black eye, |
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black Friday, |
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black hand, |
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black heart, |
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blackjack, |
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black magic, |
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blackmail, |
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black market, |
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black maria, |
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black mark, |
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aaaaaaaaalittlei |
black sambo. |
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i |
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white lies. |
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Black is Beautiful. |
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aaa |
“If that’s what you make it, Joe,” [Kahn] said.
“Well,” [Black] said. “You got the point.”
A few years later, I took a chance. I looked up the corporate address of Greyhound. I knew that Joe had since left; perhaps if the gods were smiling upon me, someone might know where he went. The proverbial note in a bottle sent, I promptly chalked up the experience to having at least tried.
Several months later, a letter showed up in my mailbox with a return address I didn’t recognize. I opened it up and read the following handwritten note:
Dear Ms. Tsuchiya:
As you know you purchased a mailing address from a collector. Greyhound Towers was demolished in 1989. A bundle of mail was forwarded to me recently and yours was included. My uniform number for the Baltimore Elite Giants was #. Thanks for the interest.
It was unsigned. A sad reminder of how a signature will be valued more than an act of kindness. I quickly penned an enthusiastic ‘thank you’ note and sent it to the address on the envelope. Just a couple years later, I learned of Joe Black’s death from cancer.
Thanks Joe. Because of you, I’ll keeping trying to make the best of it. Bye for now!
June 15th, 2008
June 08, 2008 — Baseball websites long ago discovered that a sure-fire way to rack up the visitor count is to post online ballplayer journals. There’s something about sports fans’ insatiable appetite for information (yours truly included) that keeps us constantly on the prowl for the “inside scoop.” You can find player journals everywhere: MLB (gotta admit, Bengie Molina’s blog is good), Yardbarker, ESPN, Baseball America, MiLB, the list goes on and on.
Of course, big-name sites want big-name authors. Thus you’ll find most of the player journals are bylined by established starters or highly ranked prospects. Unfortunately, these mass-market diaries read like their brethren, the mass-market memoir, meaning they don’t usually give us anything new to think about. Even blogs written by sports-beat writers are rarely more than sports-tickers—notes jotted down during the game that will eventually form the nugget of tomorrow morning’s full 600-word feature.
However, there are hidden gems out there for those interested in real honest-to-goodness storytelling. These tales are not flashy or scandalous, and yet are filled with details about what goes on between the foul lines, as well as outside the ballpark. I’m talking about the kinds of personal perspectives that flesh out what it’s like to squat down behind the plate, step into the batter’s box or walk out to the mound.
Take for example Chris Rosenbaum’s fascinating, first-person account of life in the minors: Looking Through the Mask.
Rosenbaum’s May 18 entry talks about balancing competitive drive with mental stability; “an even keel” is how Kernels manager Keith Johnson puts it. That advice reminds me of an interview with Scot Shields from spring training. Most of it covers Scottie’s rehab and season projections, and then near the end the interviewer asks about mental attitude.
Rosenbaum delivers quite the eye-opener with his June 4, 2008 entry, in which he plots out the timeline for a 24-hour period during which the team plays three ballgames and he catches two of them. High-schoolers take note—this is the glamorous life of the professional ballplayer. And if you want to laugh out loud, check out the Comments section and read Mrs. Rosenbaum’s post.
What I find most refreshing about Rosenbaum’s insights is he focuses on the community aspect of the pro athlete’s life. This is not some all-about-me spotlight on the triumphs and slumps of #9 / B-R / T-R. It’s really about the relationship he shares with teammates, coaches, families and fans.
While Rosenbaum’s stories are hardly the kind to make sports media outlets sit up and take notice, they in fact reveal the experience of the vast majority of ballplayers chasing their major-league dreams. Rosenbaum was 23 years old last year (2007) when he signed with the Angels as an undrafted free agent. Right now he is playing single-A ball for the Cedar Rapids Kernels. In layman’s terms, he’s a real long shot to make The Show. So what? He gives us great stories, filled with honest insights about what it’s like to be a professional ballplayer. And let’s not forget, even the lowest-ranked minor-league ballplayer is a pretty d*mn fine athlete.
Check out his blog every once in awhile; I think you’ll enjoy it. Bye for now!
June 8th, 2008
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