Baseball To The Rescue

A pennant race is a welcome diversion from the high anxiety of Wall Street and the election. At least the games are a welcome diversion.

Hit the mute button. Sports talk on the radio and TV isn't all that different from political and economic commentary. It's shrill and self-important, delivered with an urgency that suggests you've got a hundred dollars bet on the game and only ten dollars in your pocket. The style is the substance. All the hype doesn't approach the tension from needing a two-out hit with the tying run on second base. The chatter, stats and posturing mean you care, but, to quote Yogi: "In baseball, you don't know nothin". What Yogi means is all the thought and analysis and preparation doesn't predict the outcome.

It's hard to ignore the crash on Wall Street, but don't you think the Seattle Mariners should get some of the bail out?...and the whole National League too, except "da Cubs". It's been 63 years since the Cubs were in the World Series. They lost to the Tigers in 1945 and 1935, the Yankees in '38 and '32, the Philadelphia Athletics in 1929, the Red Sox in 1918 (Babe Ruth pitched and won 2 games for the Red Sox). A hundred years sinced they won it! They beat the Tigers in 1907 and 1908. I think they're going to make it to the World Series this year. However, "in baseball you don't know nothin".

Twins comeback against the Rays last Thursday night made Friday dawn brighter. Friday and Saturday the starting pitchers got smoked early. Liriano to the rescue on Sunday, and it was bombs away last night in the first game against Chicago. Twins win, 9-3. Twins are young and fun, but their inexperience has been a weakness down the stretch. It's no coincidence that Mauer and Morneau are the most consistent hitters. They are the "old" guys who been through the pressure before. Over the last six weeks their good young pitchers have been inconsistent and run out of gas early. Blackburn tonight, Slowey on Thursday. Can they win the division? Sure they can; however, in baseball you don't know nothin'.

Best baseball book ever: "The Glory of Their Times" Lawrence Ritters' collection of stories told by baseball players who played between 1890 and 1920.

Sports Page Fallout, Gopher Football: Tom from Hibbing called last Thursday morning after the Sports Page: "C'mon, Scott, how can you and Fred not know who the Gophers are playing this weekend? It's Florida Atlantic! You guys gotta be on stuff like that!" Before I got deeper in Tom's doghouse by asking who is Florida Atlantic and why are the Gophers playing them, Tom reminded me that they beat Minnesota last year. Oops...
BTW, Gophers won,...Ohio State this week. The Gopher are big underdogs, however, in football you don't know nothin'.

In October, John Bauer starts his eighth year as coach of the Itasca Community College Women's Basketball team. His teams are well-coached, always hustle and will probably be one of the top teams in the state again. However, in basketball, you don't know nothin.

Indians, Racism and Sports

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That's a picture of Charles Bender on the left and Louis Sockalexis on the right. Both of them were Native American ballplayers who played in the major leagues between 1897 and 1915. In the 1890s and early 1900s there were a lot of Indian athletes in college and professional sports. They endured intense racial abuse, most of them were nicknamed "Chief" as in Chief Bender, Chief Meyers and Chief Sockalexis, but unlike blacks, they weren't explicitly banned from the games.

Charlie Bender was an Anishinaabe born and raised in the Brainerd area. He was an outstanding pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, helping them win three World series before World War I. Before Dave Winfield in 2001 and Paul Molitor in 2004 were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Bender was the only native born Minnesotan in the Hall of Fame.

Louis Sockalexis had a much shorter major league career. He was born in Maine, a member of the Penobscot tribe there. Sockalexis was a good-hitting, mediocre outfielder who played three years (1897-99) for the Cleveland team, then known as the "Spiders".

Most Indian athletes blend in easily with the multi-ethnic sports scene today. Twenty-two year old Winnebago, Joba Chamberlain (below), made a big splash as a rookie pitcher with the Yankees this summer. But look closely at the pictures of Charles Bender, Louis Sockalexis, and Joba Chamberlain and consider the dominant images of Indians in sports today: the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins.

For seventy years the professional football team in Washington, D.C. has been called the Redskins. I'm amazed this "mascot" identity has lasted that long. There are positive and even noble meanings associated with "Braves" and "Warriors". I've never heard the word "redskin" spoken in way that didn't imply a prejudice toward Indian people. It's a racial slur. As we followed the tragic story about the Washington pro football player who was shot and killed last Monday, I was reminded how comfortable most sports reporters are using the nickname. A "White, Brown or Black-skins" mascot sounds absurd and no doubt would offend a lot of people. Most ethnic slurs common before 1960 would offend today. So why is "redskins" still OK? Certainly it's not OK with a lot of Indian people. The Indian population is relatively small and widely dispersed around rural America. Perhaps offending Indian people isn't bad for business or politics.

Another take on the same subject: When I was growing up in Missouri in the 1950s, the image white America wanted me to have of African Americans was that of a bright-eyed, big-smiling happy people content with their lives of second class status. That image was shattered in the 1960s, but when I recently saw the Cleveland Indians logo on their caps and publicity material, it was the same happy, buck-toothed image in red face instead of black.

We give lipservice to respect and tolerance, but commercial and political consequences are still the most powerful agents of change, and I guess Native Americans don't have enogh clout in either of those spheres. Are sports reporters as naive and clueless as many of the young athletes they cover? Or do many of them feel the same commercial and/or social and political pressure to not make waves about such flagrant symbols of racism in sports?