MLB Negro Leagues brought back to life

While the Tea Party of Tennessee (and other states) wage war on history and attempt to ‘soften’ the read of slavery as concurrent with and even a founding element to America’s exceptionalism, I was wondering about applying their logic of “negative light” to the history of baseball, and in particular the Negro Leagues of the late 19th and early 20th century.

The “patriots” who align themselves with the Tea Party argue against the truth of history, and go so far as to suggest associating America’s founders with the institution of slavery should be removed from textbooks that are used to teach our nation’s public schoolchildren. But as a lover of baseball – the American sport – and especially fond of the diversity of history of baseball, would the Tea Party also argue for removing the “negative light” of race segregation from the history of America’s past-time? It makes no sense. It’s a complicated part of history, it’s a negative element of the sport (and of our Founding Fathers), but it shouldn’t be removed, intentionally un-taught, in classrooms. Could you imagine Bob Costas (another St. Louis native) talking about baseball but never using language that in any way mentioned the “negative light” of baseball’s troubled past? Likewise, steroids are a problem – so much so while we all know they’re still being used, they’ve been consolidated into a period of time known as “the Steroid Era”. Do we not talk about this era, this history of excessive use of drugs for personal statistical gain? History happening is one thing, but committing to a path of not teaching it is another, and is so far removed from the notion of patriotism it’s repulsive.

Being from St. Louis, being born in February (a la Black History Month), and being a baseball fan, the Negro Leagues are very much a part of my person: The St. Louis Stars played on the SE corner of Compton and Laclede (image, above), what is now part of the Harris Stowe campus and which I drove by quite often zipping around the city as a teen. So I was hugely impressed with the story of Arlington, MA teen Cam Perron (big surprise, he’s a Bosox fan) and his near-muckraking journalism and reporting on the contributions of African-American players to the sport:

MLB Negro Leagues brought back to life

His story is impressive, his empathy is amazing, and his Patriotism is Grand.

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