President Biden signs the "Jackie Robinson Ballpark National Commemorative Act"

President Biden signed the "Jackie Robinson Ballpark National Commemorative Act" on Saturday. It designates Daytona Beach's 110-year-old Jackie Robinson Ballpark as a commemorative site and "makes it a part of the African American Civil Rights Network," according to a story in Monday morning's Daytona Beach News-Journal.

The article caught my eye because it was headed by a big photo of the ballpark's statue of Jackie Robinson handing a baseball to two young fans. Robinson's jersey said "Royals." This isn't news to locals as Robinson first played here for the Triple-A Montreal Royals on March 17, 1946. That was more than a year before his April 15, 1947, MLB debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson is celebrated every April 15 on his namesake day at every MLB park. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He broke every record worth breaking. He died way too young in 1972. He's idolized by millions.

But the 1940s were no picnic for a black big-league ballplayer. He was all alone in Daytona and Brooklyn and every ballpark he played in. He got death threats and hate mail. He was yelled at by hateful whites. Some players refused to play with him. 

It was hell playing in Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Chicago. Imagine how hard it was to play in Deep South Daytona. Some will say that a beach town in Florida was different, say, than Selma or Little Rock. There was prejudice but it was a more laid-back wastin'-away-in-Margaritaville kind of racism. But it was in the air and on the ground. And in some dark hearts.

When my family moved to Daytona in 1964, blacks were not permitted on the beachside after dark. They had their own beach named for the Bethune family of educators, a family so esteemed there is a college named in their honor and Mary McCloud Bethune's statue was installed in 2022 in the Florida display in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building, the first statue of an African-American in that hall. Many whites in Daytona called Bethune Beach "N-words Beach." The first black surfer I surfed with appeared at our beach in 1969. Coaches at my Catholic high school recruited black players for our football and basketball teams which made us the only integrated high school among the four in Daytona (the rest weren't integrated until the 1970s).

But worse things happened in this part of Florida:

From a "Freedom Never Dies" special on WUCF, a PBS station at University of Central Florida in Orlando: 

By 1930, four thousand blacks had been lynched nationwide by white mobs, vigilantes, or the Klan. Most of these occurred in the Deep South, many with law enforcement complicity. And while Alabama and Mississippi had more total lynchings, it was Florida, surprisingly, that had the highest per capita rate of lynching from 1900-1930.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore" documentary debuted on PBS stations nationwide 24 years ago Jan. 12. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee narrated. Sweet Honey In The Rock and Toshi Reagon performed original music. Here's some background information from the WUCF web site:

Combining Murder Mystery, Incisive Biography and an Eye-Opening Portrait of Jim Crow Florida, "Freedom Never Dies" Sheds New Light on one of America's Earliest and Most Fearless Fighters for Civil Rights.

In 1951 after celebrating Christmas Day, civil rights activist Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette retired to bed in their white frame house tucked inside a small orange grove in Mims, Florida [Mims is in north Brevard County, a 45-minute drive from Jackie Robinson Ballpark]. Ten minutes later, a bomb shattered their house, their lives and any notions that the south's post-war transition to racial equality would be a smooth one. Harry Moore died on the way to the hospital; his wife died nine days later.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore" explores the life and times of this enigmatic leader, a distinguished school teacher whose passionate crusade for equal rights could not be discouraged by either the white power structure or the more cautious factions of his own movement. Although Moore's assassination was an international cause celebre in 1951, it was overshadowed by following events and eventually almost forgotten.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore"  produced by The Documentary Institute, restores Moore to his rightful place in the Civil Rights saga.

Saying goodbye to a friend, Dick Lechman

A eulogy for a friend from a friend: 

Books, books, books.

Dick Lechman had thousands of books at one time at his Old Grandfather Books in downtown Arvada. He had books in the store, books in a garage, and a few in his apartment and his car. I loved going into the Arvada store because I could always find something I didn’t know I was looking for. A history of World War I, a coffee table book of Colorado maps, an unread early novel by one of my favorite writers. If I couldn’t find anything, Dick would always suggest something. His interests centered on spirituality and religion as befits a one-time practicing priest. But his imagination wandered far and wide. My daughter Annie, Dick’s goddaughter, liked the bookstore too. She was little and liked to get lost in the stacks to discover intriguing books about dinosaurs and unicorns, sometimes in the same book. I never met with Dick that he didn’t have a book for me. I might be interested in it or maybe not. But someone who will gift you a book is someone to spend time with.

After Dick and his wife Mary bought a house in Arvada, I sometimes journeyed down from Cheyenne to play ping pong in his garage/office. Books lined the shelves there too. Dick usually won the games and then we retired to the garage’s book section. Dick also built and installed a Little Free Library in his front yard. I like those and usually stop to peruse the library when I see one. It’s like hidden treasure – there could be anything in there. And often was.

Dick was a writer too, a poet with philosophy in mind. He always emailed or mailed me his poetry. I usually commented on it because I know, as a writer and writing teacher, that every written thing deserves attention. In his poetry, Jesus played baseball and so did his disciples. Amazing flights of imagination. I liked the way he always worked friends and family into his poems – that made it very personal. I didn’t understand all of it but appreciated that he spent time and energy writing it down.

Dick was a conscientious godfather. He always brought Annie books and wrote her poems. He went out of his way to help her when she was in a variety of mental health treatment centers, in Colorado, Wyoming and a few neighboring states. It’s sometimes hard to know what to say to a loved one with mental health challenges. Just being there in a big deal. Yourself, listening. Chris and I always appreciated Dick’s attention to our little bird trying to fly.

Dick was one of the first people Chris and I met when we decided to abandon traditional Catholic churches for something different at 10:30 Catholic Community. Some of us gathered together in a men’s group and it turned out we had a lot to share with one another. We went on jaunts to the mountains. I moved away from Denver, first to Fort Collins and then to Cheyenne, and some of the guys went down to Arizona for Rockies’ spring training. Dick liked his Rockies and so did Mary. We all were committed fans and one of my great memories was attending a Rockies-Dodgers game with Dick and Mary and Dick’s brother and sister-in-law. Summer night at Coors Field. Sure, you might get heartburn from the hot dogs and the Rockies relief pitching. But always the best place to be in summer.

It's sad to say goodbye to Dick. The memories remain. He was a good guy with a big heart. And a fine friend.

Dick was always learning. This is some of his commentary on an Easter poem he sent me in April 2022: Remember that is just Dick's two cents/And each of you have your two cents/So it seems this Easter is better than last Easter./Cuz I didn't understand the resurrection of the spirit till/I was 83 years old.

He was 85 when he passed from this life last week. 

2022 was Dick’s final Easter on this planet. He also commented on the afterlife, saying that he hoped there was no paperwork there. By that, I'm guessing he meant PAPERWORK, you know, the kind we all hate to fill out. He didn't mean the paper of books because that meant so much to him. I do believe there is poetry and books, lots of books, in the afterlife. What would heaven be without them?

Dick loved sports and especially the Colorado Rockies. If there's room for books in heaven, there must be be a snowball's chance in Hades that the Rockies can find consistent pitching and go on to win a World Series. We can all keep praying for that. 

Baseball in the time of Coronavirus w/u

So many good causes in this time of COVID-19. Health professionals need PPE. Local small businesses need us to buy their wares so they can survive the pandemic. Elderly and disabled need neighbors to bring food and meds.

Speaking of food, there are those who have none and rely on food banks to survive. Food Bank of the Rockies serves those facilities in Colorado and Wyoming.

On Friday. The Colorado Rockies Baseball Club Foundation joined with Food Bank of the Rockies for the Stay at Home Opener. On what was supposed to be opening day 2020, the Rockies broadcast nine innings of opening day highlights dating back to the team's first game in April 1993. Highlights included the first inning of the first match-up at the old Mile High Stadium vs. the now defunct Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals). Attendance was 80,000-plus, an MLB record that still stands. There was rookie Trevor Story's two home runs in 2016 and some fine pitching in 2018 by Denverite Kyle Freeland. On opening day 2014, Charlie Blackmon tied a hitting record held by Hall-of-Famers Ty Cobb and Jimmie Fox.

While the highlights played, donations rolled in for FBOR, the first $300,000 matched by the foundation. During commercial breaks, players urged us to stay at home and stay well.

Opening day in Denver is a holiday. Its absence, due to the Coronavirus, created a void that the Rockies tried to fill. Baseball seems insignificant when compared to a pandemic from a virus unknown on opening day 2019. That really sunk in when Friday's broadcast featured the player intro from last April. So much is promised when baseball starts. Dreams of a World Series, home-run records shattered, some 9th inning nailbiters.

But the big thing is sitting in the stadium on a warm summer night. You are with family and friends who may love baseball as you do or at least pretend they do. Added bonuses include beer and hot dogs, pricey but necessary.

Opening day begins the possibilities. It also gives me something to dwell on beside COVID-19. Baseball highlights took Chris and I away from bad news for awhile. We all need that. It also gave us an opportunity to make modest donation to FBOR.

We need food for the body and food for the soul. And a home run or two.

Updated 4/8/20: A Colorado Rockies press release:

Over 1,100 individuals made donations during a “Stay at Home Opener” broadcast and “Feed the Rockies” fundraiser, as the Rockies Foundation provides funds for two million meals. 

The Colorado Rockies Baseball Club Foundation announced today that a total of $502,425 was raised for food banks in Colorado and Wyoming during the “Stay at Home Opener: Feed the Rockies” event that aired on AT&T SportsNet and on Rockies.com on Friday, April 3 at 2 p.m. MDT – the date and time of the originally scheduled Rockies home opener.  

A total of 1,134 Rockies fans and players made online donations throughout the weekend, totaling $102,425. Additionally, it was announced Friday that the family of Rockies first baseman Daniel Murphy had donated $100,000 to the effort. The Rockies Foundation, which had pledged to match all donations up to $300,000, donated the entire $300,000 pledge, bringing the grand total to $502,425.

Avid baseball fan (and political organizer) Christine Pelosi to speak at Dems' dinner

Political organizer Christine Pelosi will be the special guest for the 2015 Nellie Tayloe Ross Gala put on by the Wyoming Democratic Party on Feb. 7 at the Holiday Inn in Cheyenne. Get your tix here.

I read Christine Pelosi's bio on Huffington Post, where she's a columnist. I absorbed all of the stuff about her famous mom, political organizing, the books she's written, and so on. But then I got to the important stuff: "An avid baseball fan, she lives within walking distance of her beloved World Champion San Francisco Giants."

OK, so I'm a Rockies fan and it may be decades before the Rox knock off the Giants for National League West dominance. But still -- walking distance of an MLB ballpark? Color me jealous. 

Here's the rest of the bio:

Attorney, author, and activist Christine Pelosi has a lifetime of grassroots organizing and public policy experience. She conducts leadership boot camps based on her books Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders (2007) and Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 (2012). Both books emerged from her years of grassroots activism and service with the AFSCME P.E.O.P.L.E. Congressional Candidates Boot Camp, which worked with approximately 120 challengers from 2006 to 2012, 33 of whom were elected to Congress. Her trainings with candidates, volunteers, and NGO leaders span over thirty American states and three foreign countries. She appears regularly on national television and radio. Her blog postings at the Huffington Post focus on current events as well as the role of social media networks, technology in politics and the unique leadership challenges for women candidates. Her next book, Women on the Run, will be released in 2014.

Christine holds a JD from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She has served as a prosecutor in San Francisco, a special counsel in the Clinton-Gore administration, and a chief of staff on Capitol Hill. A former executive director of the CA Democratic Party, Christine chairs the CA Democratic Party Women's Caucus, led the CA Democratic Party Platform Committee for thirteen years, has been elected five times to the Democratic National Committee, where she cofounded the DNC Veterans and Military Families Council and serves as a vice chair, and serves on the Stakeholder Board of the Young Democrats of America. 

An avid baseball fan, she lives within walking distance of her beloved World Champion San Francisco Giants and serves on the Giants Community Fund board of directors. She is married to Emmy-nominated filmmaker Peter Kaufman; their daughter Isabella was born in 2009. An advocate for working moms, Christine traveled with her infant daughter to 21 states and 3 foreign countries performing campaign boot camps to advance Democrats and democracy.

Colorado Rockies get desperate as another season tanks

This is the most ridiculous promotion I've ever seen. Rockies Faith Day? Why not call it Rockies Sucking Up to Churches Day? Or maybe New and Interesting Ways to Fill the Ball Park as the Rockies Choke Day? Maybe Rick Perry could conduct the opening prayer?

Weird.

If this is a trend, sign me up for Rockies Flying Spaghetti Monster Day.

Go to http://mlb.mlb.com/col/ticketing/faithday.jsp?partnerId=aw-5951796513581239158-1070

Can Progressives be REAL sports fans?

Phoenix Suns wear "Los Suns" jerseys for Game 2 of NBA playoffs. Christian Petersen, Getty Images

Can Progressives be sports fans? Real fans, not just bowtie-wearing George Will-style life-is-like-baseball-and-vice-versa fans. I mean real fans, those who follow their team's ups-and-downs, cheer wildly when they win and suffer publicly in defeat.

Another question: can sports teams be politically active for Progressive causes? Professional teams are corporations and, as corporations, must be politically savvy. They cannot afford to piss off potential fans, especially rich ones who buy skyboxes. Rich fans who buy skyboxes tend to be corporate titans with similar business interests. They speak the same languages -- money and conservative politics. These traits were put on public display with news that the owners of the Arizona Cardinals NFL team were backers of the awful Arizona anti-immigrant law. The Phoenix Suns offered a counterpoint when its players wore "Los Suns" jerseys for their NBA playoff game on Cinco de Mayo. Two amazing things about this: 1. it was the owner's idea; 2. it actually happened. Thus, a pro sports team is now on record opposing a loony right-wing law, even though some of its ticket holders are undoubtedly loony right-wingers. It is Arizona, right?

Here are a few paragraphs about the Suns' decision by Michael Wilbon, sports columnist for the Washington Post:

Instead of embracing a convenient neutrality that might have helped the bottom line with a great many locals who favor a new law that requires local police to check the legal status of suspected undocumented immigrants, Suns owner Robert Sarver called the law "flawed" and "mean-spirited" and asked his players what they thought of wearing "Los Suns" jerseys during Wednesday night's playoff game. Depending on your point of view, it was either an act of support for the Latin community, whose members feel targeted by the law, or an act of defiance toward those in the larger community who are angry over illegal immigration in a border state and rail at any dissent.

The folks here who wanted, at worst, silence picked the wrong team. The Suns locker room has too many independent thinkers, too many activists, too many players whose experiences and sensibilities are, thankfully, a lot broader than most of their neighbors. Sarver's players not only had no problem wearing "Los Suns" jerseys, they felt, to a man, pretty much the same way he did, damn the backlash, and were quite willing to say it. And there was plenty of backlash. Suns Coach Alvin Gentry, an hour before Game 2 against the Spurs tipped off, pointed to his computer, referring to the angry e-mails from folks who wanted the players in lockstep with the state's misguided new law.

Big-time college sports teams, particularly BCS football, love rich alum who buy skyboxes and sink tons of money into the university, usually in the sports programs -- but not always. Coddling rich conservative patrons of its sports programs was behind the University of Wyoming's refusal to let sixties radical Bill Ayers to speak on campus last month. Good to know that your state's only university considers building a few more skyboxes more important than freedom of speech.

What kind of politics are on display at NFL games? The Star-Spangled Banner, military aircraft fly-overs, tributes to veterans, Honor America Day, etc. Sports team wear their conservative politics openly when they name their stadiums after corporations. That's one conservative corporation wearing the banner of another conservative corporation. A wolf dressed in wolf's clothing.

When U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, Arizona State University and the Arizona Cardinals fell all over themselves celebrating his sacrifice. On Sunday, September 19, 2004, all NFL teams wore a memorial decal on their helmets in honor of Tillman. One of Tillman's former teammates was Broncos QB Jake Plummer. He wanted to continue to wear the Tillman decal through the rest of the season just like his former Arizona mates. The NFL said no, that Plummer's helmet would not match those of his Bronco teammates. So Plummer grew a beard and long hair to celebrate the pre-Army Tillman.

He was indeed a brave and principled man who gave up big football bucks to join the Army. Then we discovered that the Pentagon covered up the fact that Tillman was killed by his own men. Tillman had become outspoken in his disenchantment with our overseas misadventures. The public celebrations of heroism evaporated into the mists of history.

What would happen if the NFL declared "Man Enough to Wear Chartreuse" day. Pro rodeo marks "Man Enough to Wear Pink" days to declare its support in the fight against breast cancer. But "Man Enough to Wear Chartreuse" day would mark the struggle for LGBT Equal Rights. How many NFL players and rodeo bareback riders would support that? How many NFL fans would complain, making loud empty threats about turning in their season tickets?

As a prog-blogger with a healthy skepticism, I simply cannot engage in unbridled hero worship. I'm a fan, but a jaundiced one (and I don't even like yellow). I am happy that University of Florida's Tim Tebow was chosen by the Denver Broncos in the NFL draft. I plan to buy a No. 15 Tebow Broncos jersey and wear it publicly. Will Tebow become another Hall-of-Famer like the legendary John Elway? Elway is a Republican, conservative enough to spurn a post-Super-Bowl appearance at the Clinton White House. Tebow is a conservative, a fundamentalist Christian anti-abortion crusader. I am on the opposite end of that issue, as I've written here before. Tebow has enough guts to declare his views publicly on a Super Bowl ad. I'm man enough to support his NFL aspirations. Until he fails and is traded to the Dallas Cowboys. Sure, Tebow is a Gator. But a dedicated Denver Broncos fan cannot cheer for the Dallas Cowboys, no matter whom the quarterback is.

A real fan, Progressive or not, has scruples.

"Play Ball!" -- and remember the sport's complicated history

My sister Eileen in Orlando sent me information about an Negro League Baseball exhibition at the University of Central Florida. She also sent a link to an Orlando Sentinel article about Orlando's strong ties to the Negro Leagues and to Jackie Robinson. Two years after breaking Major League Baseball's "color barrier" in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson played an all-star game at Orlando's segregated Carter Street Park. This was 10 minutes away from the whites-only Tinker Field. "10 minutes, a thousand miles and a thousand years," as Negro League player and civil rights pioneer Nap Ford once described it.

Twenty years later, I was playing basketball against teams from segregated high schools throughout central and north Florida -- including Orlando. You'd think history would move faster than that. Sometimes it just has to play catch-up. Jackie Robinson broke the minor league baseball color barrier in 1946 in Daytona Beach, where I played b-ball at Father Lopez High School. The town's baseball field is now called Jackie Robinson Ballpark.

The exhibition, co-sponsored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Library Association, is "Pride & Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience." Read the Sentinel article by Joy Wallace Dickinson at http://tinyurl.com/yafdk5r

I'm not one who sees baseball as a metaphor for all things. But baseball in the 20th century did reflect the realities of American life. And not just in the South.

The University of Wyoming is hosting an exhibition about the history of the semipro baseball league that featured teams from southeast Wyoming, northern Colorado and western Nebraska. Nicknamed the "sugar beet league," it was made up of agricultural workers who worked the fields of the Great Western Sugar Company. Here's info about it, from a UW press release:

The University of Wyoming's Chicano Studies Program will host a public event April 1, celebrating Hispanic contributions to baseball at both the regional and national levels -- a start to the Major League Baseball season.

Adrian Burgos Jr., University of Illinois associate professor of history and author of "Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line," will give a public lecture about sports promoter Alex Pompez at 5 p.m. in the Wyoming Union West Ballroom in Laramie. Pompez helped hundreds of young baseball players from the Caribbean make the leap from sugar cane fields to major league ball fields.

Following Burgos' lecture, Gabe and Jody Lopez, finalists for the 2009 Colorado Rockies Adult Hispanic Leadership Award, will open in Ross Hall their exhibit "From Sugar Beet Fields to Fields of Dreams: Mexican/Spanish Contributions to America's Favorite Pastime."

The exhibit documents the history of the Rocky Mountain Semipro Baseball League, which got its start among Hispanic agricultural workers in the 1920s and quickly spread throughout northern Colorado, southeast Wyoming and western Nebraska.

"It was dubbed the ‘sugar beet league' because it came out of the Spanish colonies built by the Great Western Sugar Company beet field laborers," says Ed Munoz, UW Chicano Studies Program director.

A reception and book signing will take place in Room 109 of Ross Hall, where books by Burgos and the Lopezes will be available for purchase.

"Mexican baseball teams helped solidify Chicano communities during the 20th century," Munoz says. "They provided a break from hard work in the fields or on the railroad and they also served as social and political outlets for the players and their fans."

Through research, the Lopezes have located information about Wyoming baseball teams in Albin, Bitter Creek, Burns, Carpenter, Casper, Cheyenne, Cody, Creston Junction, Hanna, Laramie, Lusk, Newcastle, Piker Spring, Pine Bluffs, Rawlins, Riverton, Sinclair, Superior, Torrington, Wamsutter, Wheatland, Worland and Yoder. The exhibit will be expanded to include some of this information.

"We invite the players and their families to the exhibit to relive their playing days," Gabe Lopez says. "We want to hear their stories."

Event sponsors are the Wyoming Humanities Council, the UW Office of Diversity, Multicultural Affairs, Sigma Lambda Gamma, MEChA, Associated Students of UW, the Social Justice Research Center and KOCA 93.5 FM La Radio Montanesa.

FMI: Contact the UW Chicano Studies Program at Chicano_Studies@uwyo.edu or 307-766-4127.

Photo: The 1943 Cheyenne Lobos played in the Rocky Mountain League.