Civil Rights Game a Healing Process for Two Franchises

There’s symbolism in our sports ceremonies and uniforms, from memorial patches to American-flag decals to throwbacks of a simpler time or championship season.

 

At least that’s the goal: Unity through uni-forms.

 

It doesn’t always work. When the Phoenix Suns took the action of wearing the NBA's Noche Latina “Los Suns” promotional jerseys for a playoff game on Cinco de Mayo to take a stand against Arizona ’s new illegal immigration law, it proved to be divisive. While their statement was applauded by many, the roughly 70 percent of Arizonans who supported the new law didn’t see it that way. 

 

Major League Baseball’s Jackie Robinson Day and Civil Rights Game events are no different. They’re subtle stances for political unity disguised as historical observances. While even the most dedicated bigot would be hard-pressed to come out against those causes today, you can’t help notice bit of irony in Cincinnati’s second annual Civil Rights Game.

 

In the category of “slowest franchises to get on board and acknowledge equality,” it’s hard to do much worse than the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds.

 

The Cardinals? While general manager Branch Rickey—the man who signed Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers—may have developed their farm system and organization in the 20’s and 30’s, it was also the team that threatened to strike in 1947 rather than play Rickey's newly-integrated Dodgers.  Both the Cardinals' fanbase and player roster, comprised largely of territorial scoutings and signings, was heavily Southern in those days and resistant to integration, as were several other National League clubs.

 

In 1954, both the Cardinals and Reds debuted their first African-American players, Tom Alston and Chuck Harmon, respectively.

 

Over time and winning seasons, St. Louis fans came to embrace African-American and Latin stars like Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda, Ozzie Smith and Albert Pujols.

 

Cincinnati has its own issues. By most accounts, the city has done an admirable job hosting the event, selected in part because of the nearby National Underground Railroad Freedom Center , the museum celebrating the city's role as a northern terminus of the Underground Railroad in the southernmost “ free state ” in the 19th century.

 

But Reds’ fans were once notorious for the vicious taunts directed at Robinsonfrom the grandstand at Crosley Field, and even the team’s African-American players have endured love-hate relationships with fans of the Tri-State. Stars like Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Eric Davis and even hometown players Barry Larkin, Ken Griffey Jr. and Dave Parker have been the subject of controversies. As recently as the 1980s, former owner Marge Schott infamously referred to Davis and Parker as “million dollar n-----s.”

 

For two franchises (and cities) with checkered histories when it comes to race, the event is sort of a catharsis, a healing.

 

The teams will wear uniforms from the 1947 season, the year Robinson broke into baseball and was showered with abuse from the both St. Louis dugout and the Cincinnati stands.

 

Ironically, the Reds and Cardinals remind us how we’ve far we’ve come Saturday.