African Americans in the Sports World

[Jackie Robinson]

-The Struggle Continues-
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The last few weeks African Americans have dominated the sports world but still have to deal with bigotry and hate. What’s Going On?

Baseball
April 15, 2007, will mark the 60^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and breaking Major League Baseball's color line. Mr. Robinson was an All Star, Rookie of the Year, and Most Valuable Player six times. He started a new Black civil rights movement in baseball, having many conferences with commissioner Bowie Kuhn on the issue of African American Coaches. He was invited to attend the 1972 World Series but refused the invitation because there was no Black coaches in the Major Leagues.

Mr. Robinson would be happy and sad today at baseball’s progress or regression. Jackie would be proud of the two African American Baseball managers--Willie Randolph for the New York Metropolitans and Ron Washington for the Texas Rangers. Last year Willie Randolph guided the Mets into the National League Championship against the St. Louis Cardinals. This year will be Mr. Washington’s first year as head coach, after his tenure  as the third base coach with the Oakland Athletics.

Mr. Robinson would be very disappointed with the current participation of young African Americans in the sport. Currently there are only eight percent of African Americans wearing baseball uniforms, and in college it's worse with only six percent. In the 1970’s over 26 percent of baseball players were Black. Currently predominantly African American universities, the Mid East Athletic Conference, and the South West Athletic Conference are now filling positions with Latino and White players. Baseball has a lot of work to do to reverse this very disturbing trend.  

With this new season Barry Bonds (SF Giants) is expected to break the home-run record held by Hank Aaron (Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers). Many Americans are ambivalent about this record because of the allegations of steroids and hormones drugs. Many baseball fans outside of the Bay Area do not like Barry Bonds. The venom in the media cannot be denied. Many sports writers have citied Barry for not coming clean. Major League Baseball has not put in place a complete drug testing program. But where was this questioning of records when the hulk-looking Mark McGwire hit  homeruns in St. Louis and Sammy Sosa hit homeruns in Chicago. Has anybody questioned Roger Clemmons about his increase in body size from his Boston Red Sox playing days to his Toronto Blue Jays employment?                      

Most of the sports writers in America are white males, maybe, just maybe, that is the cause of the recent backlash against Barry Bonds and his attending the homerun record. JUST PLAY FAIR and leave Barry Bonds alone; remember, it’s only a game, not life or death.  

Basketball
Coach Vivian Stringer guided her Lady Knights, Rutgers (New Jersey) University woman basketball team into the NCAA Woman’s Finals. They made it there but did not play well against the star studded University of Tennessee Lady Vols. A day later the story moved to New York City when WFAN radio host Don Imus and his co host Bernard McGuirk (white-males) thought it would be funny to call these very talented and intelligent African American ladies “tough jiggaboos, wannabes, and tattooed nappy headed hoes.” It was not funny and WFAN-New York Radio got that message from African Americans; Don Imus had to be fired.   

The (NABJ) Association of Black Journalists, (NAACP) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jessie L. Jackson wanted a boycott of CNBC –MSNBC and their affiliates. Don Imus has done this before with many racist and sexist remarks. This was not the first time, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.   MSNBC announced Wednesday April 11, 2007  that The Imus In The Morning Show, will not be simulcast, and many sponsors have pulled their commercials off the program.               

The Reverend Al Sharpton interviewed Don Imus on April 9, 2007 just to clear up the details in this story. Imus has apologized over and over again, but the damage caused by his insensitive comments are insurmountable. Imus stated that it was not a racist statement but it was a very bad and thoughtless joke. But if you look at his comments they smack of the same slave-master mentality of one hundred and fifty years ago. Most of the Rutgers Lady Knights are beautiful, dark hued intelligent African Americans ladies while many of the African American females on the Univ. of Tenn. are light skin. Tenn.’s star Candace Parker is a very stunning female and has the smile and basketball talent to match. How long do we have to entertain the Imus kind of racial attitude by some Americans?

April 11, 2007 Imus was suspended from WFAN for two weeks and many African Americans thought that was not enough; he should be fired was the call. What Don Imus did has reminded African Americans that institutionalized racism is always with us and African Americans have to be on guard all the time!  If  Mr. Imus had any class, he should have resigned as a proper gesture to the ladies of Rutgers University and to the State of New Jersey's Black residents. But class is not a word ever associated with Don Imus.

Tennis
Both the Williams sisters have returned to the court after an 18 month absence. Serena Williams won the Australian Open, her first Grand Slam in two years. The Williams sisters showed the world that both can still play the game of tennis and dominate matches. Serena had to play mind games with the fans because she has received verbal and racial threats from an unhappy white male fan. Serena was lucky because other fans pointed out this crazy person and the arena security force escorted him out of the stadium. 

Tennis fans are more aware of the dangers since a German fan jumped on the court in the 1993, stabbing incident in Hamburg, Germany, putting the number one player, Monica Seles out of the competition for many years.

African Americans have to deal with issues that other cultures do not. African Americans have to deal with dangers other players do not. Yet they continue to exceed and excel in every sport. These past few weeks reflect how African Americans are dealing with these very sensitive issues.                        

  THAT IS THE GRAYLINE

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