Baseball Hall of Fame to Create New Exhibit in Race

Jackie Robinson lived as a Hall of Famer for only ten years. He had diabetes and died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 53. Robinson united the big leagues a quarter of a century ago and has never stopped striving for social justice.

“I’m amazed at how much this man has accomplished in such a short time,” said Doug Glanville, a former major league player and ESPN analyst who named his son Robinson. “He’s lived about five lives. He was in his 50s when he passed away, and you’re sitting there and you’re like, ‘How did he do all this? How did he take on all this?”

Glanville teaches a course on sport and society at the University of Connecticut and teaches students Robinson’s Rev. NAACP Robinson co-founded a Black-owned bank in Harlem, wrote a column for New York newspapers, and wrote in his autobiography that he couldn’t stand and sing the national anthem.

In other words, his contributions went much deeper than joining the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947. Major League Baseball celebrates the 75th anniversary of Robinson’s debut, while his legacy is undergoing extensive reexamination at Hall. Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY

Hall will announce on Friday that it has embarked on a two-year project to create a permanent exhibit on Black baseball. This will replace the current Ideals and Injustices, set in 1997 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s debut.

“We know there’s probably more depth to these stories that hasn’t been told in the past, including more Black perspectives and commentary,” said Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch.

“This is all really important stuff if you consider the research that has been done and how society now understands the racism that has existed before and since Jackie Robinson.

The project’s advisory board will include historians and representatives from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, along with several former players including Glanville, Adam Jones, Dave Stewart, and Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Larkin, and Dave Winfield. , Mo. and the Players Alliance, a nonprofit made up of current and former players. Rawitch also spoke to existing players who might be involved, such as Washington Nationals’ Dee Strange-Gordon.

With a mostly white staff and a predominantly white community, The Hall has also created a new full-time position for someone to help coordinate the project from a different perspective.

“We should be able to tell the story literally,” Rawitch said. “So, we’re looking for a curator who has had this experience either through their race, their work, or their understanding of what it’s like to experience what these players have been through.”

Winfield noted that the Hall of Fame has appointed even more Black players and officials since 1997—more than three dozen, including pioneers like Bud Fowler, Minnie Miñoso, and Buck O’Neil, to this year’s class—and a new era He said it’s time. to look.

“The biggest thing is that so much more history is being researched, uncovered and brought to light – and that’s American history,” Winfield said. “Of course it’s baseball history, but baseball is an integral part of America. You hear many times that people try to erase or launder the past, and that’s not good. It is very important that valuable people can take their place and be recognized.”

MLB officially Recognized the Negro leagues as the big leagues It’s late 2020 and Salon grappled with how to acknowledge some of its promoters’ efforts to preserve its color line. He held all the records, selecting context instead of deletion: A sign located near the gallery entryway now reminds visitors that “the celebration reflects the perspective of the voters during the election.” The sign adds that the museum and library provide a deeper analysis — brilliant and embarrassing — of the candidates’ careers.

This kind of accounting will be crucial for the new exhibition and with over 150 years of history, its review is a major undertaking. Glanville said he prefers the term exploration to advice because blacks have a lot to learn about the baseball experience and it continues to evolve.

“Even in 2022, there is still some common ground,” Glanville said. “Front efforts, whether Ketanji Jacksonanyway – too much barbed wire, too much pain, too much familiarity with some of the obstacles Robinson faced.

“There is also a lot to celebrate, a lot of hope. Because when you are the first and you open certain doors, you see possibilities.

Rawitch said the exhibit will have a digital and traveling component for those who can’t make it to Cooperstown. It will highlight not only the challenges, as Glanville suggests, but also that the Black experience enriches and reinvigorates baseball—a useful reminder as the sport seeks to increase black attendance numbers, which have fallen sharply since its peaks in the 1980s. .

It was Winfield’s biggest success, and he said he hoped it would include videos of Dave Parker on-screen stars like Griffey and Bo Jackson – and yes, himself – climbing walls that seemed unscalable, Rickey Henderson stealing bases at rates unheard of today. rounding the bases with a peculiar flair.

“Speed, style, power – just a unique style of play,” said Winfield. “You’re telling people what most of these players have accomplished, it’s almost incomprehensible.”

That’s the Hall of Fame’s mission, reflected again in its newest project: to bring the incomprehensible to life, contextualize and glorify the game-changers. Jackie Robinson is just one of many.