He Didn’t Know He’d Made History

 Today I am invoking, once again, my Howard Cosell Rule:  This post won’t be about bicycles or bicycling.

Almost any someone breaks a barrier—whether it’s based on race, gender, social class or some other trait—that person is referred to as the “Jackie Robinson” of their field. In fact, I had that title bestowed on me when I was the first person to “change” gender in my workplace.

I took that both as a compliment and a warning: I think some were trying to alert me to what I might (and indeed did) face.  On the other hand, I felt honored to be compared to someone I so respect as a human being as well as an athlete.

That respect and admiration is not abstract or idolatory:  I actually met the man when I was very young and—as I could not have known—he was a few years away from the end of his too-brief life.  Years later, I met his widow Rachel, a beautiful and formidable woman.

The man I am about to mention also, when he was very young, met Jackie. At that time, Robinson was in the prime of his baseball career.  And the subject of the rest of this post would embark on his own athletic career, in a league where no one like him played before.

Sixty-six years ago yesterday—18 January 1958–Willie O’Ree’s skate blades glided across the ice in the Montréal Forum.  The hometown fans cheered him and the following day, the city’s sportswriters—lauded his fast, smooth skating.

That Montréal scribes could pay homage to the abilities of á forward who didn’t skate for the hometown Canadiens (Les Habitants) wasn’t unusual, Their praise, however, was particularly interesting given that O’Ree wore the sweater (they’re not called jerseys in hockey) of the Boston Bruins, whose rivalry with the Canadiens is as intense as the enmity between the Red Sox and Yankees.

Oh, and he just happened to be the first Black player in the history of the National Hockey League. That night, Willie was trying to prove himself and win a permanent roster spot in the sport’s top league.  “I did not realize I had made history,” he recalled.

Somehow it seems fitting that he is a descendent of slaves who escaped from the United States into Canada via the Underground Railroad. His family was one of two in Fredericton, the capital of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Like many of his peers, he grew up as a fan of the Canadiens.

His NHL career was brief, but he played professional hockey—and won scoring titles—well into his 40s. I can’t help but to think that as supportive as his teammates and the league’s fans—in Boston, Montréal and Toronto, anyway—were, racism, conscious or not, on the part of management hindered his development. After all, he had enough natural ability for Montréal sportswriters and fans to notice. But he needed to stay in the NHL longer than he did—parts of two seasons—to refine his skills in the way only nightly competition with and against the best players in the world could have. That is what Jackie Robinson was able to do during his decade with the Dodgers.

Happy Ramadan, Passover, Good Friday—And Jackie Robinson Day

 Today I am invoking the Howard Cosell Rule. Today’s post, therefore, will not relate to my rides or bikes, and may not be connected to much else in the cycling world.  But what I’m about to mention is just too important to ignore. 

The athlete I’m about to mention has something in common with Simone Biles, Colin Kaepernick, Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali and “Major Taylor.  Like them, he was a pioneer, not only in his sport, but in the struggle to be recognized and understood as full-fledged human beings.  In other words, they (have) had as much impact away from the field, court or track as they had on it.

On this date 75 years ago, a second baseman took his position at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field.  At 28 years old, he was older than most rookies. But that wasn’t because he was a “late bloomer.” Rather, his debut in Major League Baseball was delayed by his World War II military service, where he experienced the very thing that kept him from playing for the Dodgers earlier than he did.

When he was drafted into the Army, he applied for Officers’ Candidate School, for which he was qualified.  His application was delayed for several months.  When he was finally accepted, he led soldiers who, like him, were racially segregated from other soldiers as they fought for the freedom of people in faraway countries.

What this man had in common with the other athletes I mentioned, with the exception of Billie Jean King, is that he was Black.  So, upon returning to the United States, he played a year for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues and another for the Montréal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top minor-league team.

When Jackie Robinson took to the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on 15 April 1947, he was the first known Black major-league player* since Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884.  Robinson’s debut also came half a century after “Major” Taylor, the record-setting cyclist, became the first Black world champion in any sport. 

Consider this:  When Robinson played his first game as a Dodger, the United States armed forces had yet to integrate.  Yes, you read that right:  Black soldiers could still be sent to fight for freedoms they couldn’t enjoy themselves.  And, a year later, Strom Thurmond would run for President on a platform of “Segregation Forever!”

All right, this post does relate to cycling in at least one way:  In spite of his accomplishments on and off the field, Jackie Robinson, like Taylor before him, had to endure insults, indignities and even death threats. And, in a sort of parallel, Robinson had to go to other leagues, as Taylor had to go to other countries , for professional opportunities commensurate with their talents and work ethic.

So, if Jackie Robinson doesn’t deserve a mention on this or any other forum, I don’t know who does.

*—For all of the respect I have for Jackie Robinson, I am willing to entertain the notion that he wasn’t the first Black major league player since Walker.  It’s entirely possible that some Black player who “passed” as White—including, it’s been rumored, Babe Ruth—could have played in the major leagues.  

Black Cyclone Coming

There are a number of athletes I admire for their accomplishments in their sports.  But there is a much smaller number whom I respect equally, or even more, as human beings.  They include Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaerpernick, Simone Biles--and Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor.

Some day, I'm sure, a documentary or biopic will be made about Ms. Biles.  Films have already been made from the triumphs and struggles of Robinson and Ali.  Five years ago, "Battle of the Sexes" focused on King's 1973 match--which she won--against Bobby Riggs.  While it was a good film, I think it also helped to reinforce the tendency to think of Ms. King only in terms of that, and not on, not only of the way she dominated her game as Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams would later on, but also of her advocacy for women and LGBTQ folks. 

But, to my knowledge, Major Taylor hasn't received cinematic canonization.  One reason for that may be that there isn't anybody alive who saw him ride or can even remember how he dominated bike racing to the same degree as the other athletes I've mentioned towered over their sports.  Thus, most people who aren't familiar with the history of cycling or African Americans don't realize that he was the first African American champion of any sport half a century before Robinson set foot on a Major League baseball field.

Clement Virgo (l) and "Major" Taylor

It seems that situation is about to change.  Canadian director Clement Virgo, who also helmed feature films "Rude" and "Lie With Me" as well as the six-part miniseries "The Book of Negroes," has been tapped to direct "Black Cyclone."  The title comes from one of the more flattering nicknames given to Taylor. (As a black man in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, he also was called names that I, someone who isn't exactly profanity-adverse, won't repeat.)  John Howard, a three-time Olympic and four-time U.S. Road Champion cyclist (who also set a land speed record that stood for a decade) will serve as a consultant on the project.

Production is set to begin next year.   

Jackie In The Jersey Theater

Today I took a ride into New Jersey for the first time, I think, since the pandemic began.  I know, that sounds odd, considering how often I’ve pedaled to Connecticut. But I finally got up the courage to board the ferry—which, much to my surprise, was nearly empty—to Jersey City.

I’d forgotten just how odd and interesting parts of the city are.  In Journal Square stands this monument to one of the icons, not only of sports, but also of racial equality and human rights:

Jackie Robinson is one athlete I wish I could have seen in his prime.  What I learned from looking at this sculpture, though, is the emotions he tried not to show, and the ones that he couldn’t help but to reveal.

Sporting events at their best are theater, or at least dramatic. So, perhaps, it’s not surprising to see this theatre across Kennedy Boulevard:

It’s long fascinated me that during the 1920s, when movies first reached mass audiences and studios built towering, cavernous shrines to them, Art Deco and a fascination for all things Egyptian defined the visual style of the time just as jazz was its soundtrack.  Looking at buildings like the Loew’s Jersey, though, shows me how congruent those things were: the lines and shapes of Art Deco building details and Egyptian carvings mirror each other as much as they echo the tempo changes of the era’s best music.

So a theater stands across from a monument to a man who played out one of this country’s real-life dramas.  To his right, across Pavonia Avenue, stands another former movie theater:

Like many other former cinematic cathedrals, it’s become a house of worship. That makes sense, as the interior dimensions of those old movie houses closely resemble theaters.  And when you come down to it, a mass or service is a kind of theatrical performance—just like a ball game or bike race.

And I got to see the theater of the street from my bike.

A 400-Year Debt

My birthday is 4 July:  US Independence Day.  So, what I am about to say may seem treasonous, or even sacrilegious, to some.

The most important, if not the singular defining, event of US history did not happen on 4 July 1776.  Rather, it occurred 400 years ago on this date.

On 20 August 1619, the White Lion (you can't make this stuff up!) landed in Point Comfort, near present-day Hampton, Virginia.  Of the White Lion's commander, one Captain John Jope, colonist John Rolfe wrote, "He brought not any thing but 20.  And odd Negroes, which the Governor and Cape Merchant bought for victuals."

The details that would have fleshed out Rolfe's clinical description are lost to history.  Did he mean that  twenty-some-odd black people disembarked from the vessel?  What sort of "victuals" were exchanged for the captive human beings?  Peanuts?  Corn?  Barley?

What is not in doubt is that the dark-skinned arrivals from Africa were the first documented black slaves in America.  This does not mean, of course, that they were the first black slaves in the so-called New World:   Columbus reportedly brought slaves on his second voyage, and some historians argue that there were Africans--who may or may not have been slaves--on this side of the Atlantic even before Columbus' arrival.  But the arrival of black slaves on the White Lion is the first documented importation of African slaves to the soil of what would become the United States.  Moreover, it is the first documented sale of slaves.

The White Lion was not the first ship in which those slaves would be imprisoned on their way from the West Coast of Africa to the East Coast of North America. They started their terrible journey on the San Juan Bautista (really), bound for the Spanish colony of Vera Cruz on the coast of what would become Mexico.

But just a couple of days before the San Juan Bautista would have reached port (Transatlantic journeys in those days typically took about two months), it was attacked by pirates looking for Spanish gold.  Some of those pirates were on the White Lion; the others sailed on the Treasurer, which would arrive in Virginia a few days later.

As James Baldwin has pointed out, African-Americans are the only race of people (save for Native Americans) to be conceived in America.  And, at the time he was writing his seminal essays, the United States was the only nation besides South Africa that had a legal definition for black people--and used it to subjugate them.

I believe, as some black historians and writers believe, that the arrival of slaves (even if they weren't the first) on this date 400 years ago marks the real beginning of American (or at least US) history.  For one thing, it marked the beginning of European subjugation of a land and its people, which would not have been possible (at least under the conditions that prevailed) without the forced labor of black people.  The wealth of this country was built, literally, on the backs of Africans, even in those parts of the country where there weren't plantations and slavery ended before the Emancipation Proclamation.

What is commonly forgotten is that during our Civil War, there were large pro-Confederate contagions in some northern cities.  In fact, New York, which then consisted only of the island of Manhattan, was a bastion of Dixie sentiment, as many of the city's bankers and merchants had ties to the cotton- and tobacco-growing industries of the South.  (In contrast, Brooklyn, which was then an independent city and didn't have the same ties to plantation owners--and where freed and runaway slaves settled in Weeksville and other communities--was staunchly pro-Union.) 

So, no matter where one was at the time of the Civil War--or long afterward--its economy was, in some way or another, a product of slavery.  Everyone in this country is a beneficiary, in some way or another.  I include myself:  My grandparents, as poor as they were, still had more rights in this country than any African (or Native American) had the day they arrived in a port built, at least in part, by the labor of those people who had no freedom--and the profits of those who traded them, or traded with plantation owners, merchants and others whose prosperity built by them.

Of course, it wasn't just our economy that "benefited" from slavery.  The terrible experiences endured by slaves--and their children who were "freed"--were the raw material of some of the greatest art this country has produced.  I am talking, of course, about works by writers like Baldwin and Toni Morrison, but also jazz--the only truly American musical genre besides country and western--which has influenced all of the music, everywhere in the world, that's come along since.

And, finally, it's hard not to think that the "generational trauma" and prejudice experienced by the descendants of slaves motivated some of the greatest athletes this country has turned out.  Forget about "some of":  I am willing to say that the four greatest athletes to come from the United States are Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, Jackie Robinson and, of course, "Major" Taylor, the incomparable cyclist who became the first African-American champion in any sport.  

The country in which I was born and have spent most of my life owes, I believe,  much more to what took place on this date 400 years ago than most people realize--or I was taught in school.

(In my next post, I'll return to matters more directly about cycling--my own and in general!)

Jackie Robinson

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of one of the most important events in US history.  It, and the actor in the drama, if you will, should be commemorated--though not exactly for the reasons that they are.

On 15 April 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first regular-season game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  It is often said that on that day, he "integrated" the "national pastime."  It is true that he was the first openly, visibly black man to appear in a modern major league baseball game.  That is, if you define "modern major league" as today's National and American Leagues.  Before 1901, though, the American League didn't exist and the National League's chief competition--the other major league, if you will--was the American Association.

The Toledo Blue Stockings joined the Association, as it was called (in contrast to the NL, which was usually referred to as "The League") in 1884.  Prior to that, it had played five years in a minor league.  On its roster was a fellow named Moses Fleetwood Walker.  

He was a slick-fielding, light-hitting catcher who joined the Blue Stockings in 1883 and remained with them when they made the move to the Association the following year.  During that time, "Cap" Anson, player-manager of the Chicago White Stockings (one of the powerhouse teams of that time), refused to let his squad play a rival with a black man on its roster.  Of course, Anson didn't refer to Walker--who was usually known as "Fleetwood"--as a black man.  Rather, he used a word that rhymes with "bigger".

Injuries limited Walker to one season on the 'Stockings.  He extended his playing career in the minor leagues by another five seasons.  By that time, his injuries (In those days, catchers didn't have mitts, or any of the other protective equipment they have now!) and the racism he endured took their toll on him.  During his teams' road trips, he sometimes slept on park benches because no hotel or rooming house would accommodate him, and he endured everything from insults to death threats to having projectiles hurled his way.

Jackie Robinson signing autographs on the steps of his Brooklyn home.  His wife, Rachel, is at his side.  Today, at age 94, she is strong and beautiful.

Robinson endured all of those things, too, throughout his career.  Add that to the fact that he made his debut at age 28--five to eight years later than players typically begin their major league careers (Prior to his Dodger debut, Robinson played in the Negro American League and served in World War II.)--and you realize that it's a miracle he lasted ten seasons in the major leagues.  He retired when the Dodgers traded him, saying he didn't want to play as a shadow of what he had been.  But it's hard not to think that, as tough as he was, he'd simply had enough.


So, when I bring up Walker, I mean absolutely no disrespect to Robinson, who remains one of the athletes I admire most.  After Walker retired, Anson--who had a lot of influence among baseball administrators and team owners of the time--got the major leagues to make a "gentleman's agreement" not to hire black players.

And major league baseball teams followed it, until Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey brought Robinson aboard.  At least, they believed they did.  I can't help but to think that other black men played "stealth" on major league rosters before Robinson.

Long before Spike Lee made his claim, rumors abounded that Babe Ruth was black.  Part of the reason for that is that he had some Negroid features. Also, he was born in a section of Baltimore where many African-Americans lived and ended up in an orphanage there.  Beyond that, few details about his childhood exist.  Throughout his life, Ruth had many black friends, was a denizen of Harlem during the "Roaring Twenties", played in--and sometimes organized--exhibition games between white major leaguers and Negro Major League players (something the owners of major league teams as well as the major league baseball commissioner frowned upon), and voiced his wish to see the major leagues integrated.  For all of that, he was taunted and threatened, by fans as well as players like Ty Cobb, who once refused to go on an off-season hunting trip because he didn't want to share a cabin with "no N----".

Whether or not Ruth was in fact black, I can't help but to wonder whether other light-skinned black players donned major league uniforms.  After all, more than a few such people--including the father of a friend of mine--essentially changed their racial status by moving from the South to the North or the West Coast.  My friend's father was born and raised in Virginia which, like other Southern states, had the "one drop" rule. He came to New York, which had no such law and where no one questioned his race.  He married a white woman whose parents, from what my friend tells me, never realized that their daughter married a "black" man!

Now, if he and others changed their race by changing their abode, who is to say that some baseball player or another didn't do it--and make it to the major leagues?  I'm not saying that such a thing indeed happened--I have no evidence for that--I am only raising the possibility that it could have happened.  

Whether or not it did, and whether or not Babe Ruth was black, or whether or not any blacks wore major league uniforms during the six decades between Walker's retirement and Robinson's debut, Jackie Robinson should be honored as a hero.  He was ineffably and openly black at a time when even the Armed Forces (in which he served during World War II) were segregated.  And, even though Major League audiences didn't get to see him during what might have been a couple (or even a few) of his best years, he retired as one of the best second basemen in the history of the game. (Some say he was the best.)  He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer and, in perhaps his greatest baseball honor, in 1997 his number (42) became the only one that, to this day, is "universally" retired by all major league teams.