Canada Ping!
Posted on 05/09/2015 3:15:46 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
He was the first African-American man to play integrated baseball, taking the field at slouching old Delormier Downs on Ontario Street for the Montreal Royals’ first homestand. If the American sporting world regarded — and, in some ways, still regards — Canada as an ice hockey backwater, that week it became a beacon for black athletes dreaming of making the major leagues. Suddenly, Jackie Robinson was playing among white men for the blue-crested Royals; in Canada; in a place called Quebec.
The city was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league, AAA team. It was also a wildly open place. In 1946, it jitterbugged with gangsters, cabaret singers, burlesque performers, restaurateurs, impresarios, poets, hockey stars and thousands of Jews, Blacks, Arabs, Italians, Irish, Frenchmen and Englishwomen; all of them kneeling at the altar of possibility in a mid-century era struggling to move past the sorrow of its war-torn first half. If the rest of Canada was temperate-minded and careful and Protestant and straight, Montreal in 1946 was beyond any of the country’s — or continent’s — imaginings; safer — if no less corrupt — than Chicago; more beautiful than Toronto or Vancouver; and more progressive, and multi-racial, than New York City. Here, Rufus Rockhead ran the first integrated jazz club in North America while Lili St Cyr played sold-out shows at the Gayety, every night like New Year’s Eve. It was against this backdrop that the greatest story in the history of pro sport began; a story that would change and affect the way we live.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
Canada Ping!
“It was against this backdrop that the greatest story in the history of pro sport began; a story that would change and affect the way we live.”
Really? I hear we’re just as stupid and beknighted and rascist as we ever were. Ask the president and his wife and the atty general ...Hell, it’s in all the papers.
It’s 2015 and I am sick unto death OF Jackie Robinson stories. He changed bla bla bla but honkies still suck.
I just don’t care anymore.
“He was OUT!”
Yogi Berra and the video
Yogi still thinks he was out, but takes a more philosophical attitude. He figures that picture kept him as much in the public eye as it did Robinson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR2gnABXhA
It certainly looks like Berra would have been called for catcher’s interference of the batter had swung. (I think the umpire should have called catcher’s interference anyway, Berra clearly interfered with the batter’s opportunity to swing.)
Montreal was the #1 city in Canada for a long time, and Toronto was an industrial backwater... then the separatists took over the Province, and drove all the vibrancy out.
Drive thru Montreal today and you see a lot of vacant decaying factories and For Rent signs.
Toronto should put up a monument to the Parti Quebecois, thanking them for building it up like they did.
Massachusetts? That explains it. ; )~
Attempting to steal home preempts a batters rights.
Jackie Robinson isn’t responsible for what his self proclaimed admirers try to make of him. He served as a First Lieutenant in the Army during World War II, commanding white troops as part of an Army experiment. He was a fine sportsman and great athlete, who still had to wait too long for his shot at the majors. He was subjected to vile abuse, threats, resentment from other players, including his teammates. He carried burdens few of us can imagine, and he did it graciously and - I can find no other words - with nobility and class.
I do not know if it is “the greatest story in the history of pro sport”, but it was an opening that reversed a shameful era in American history. To compare segregation in baseball to the holocaust is intellectually lazy and trivializes both. But for thousands of perfectly capable black players, and for millions of American blacks it was supremely frustrating and humiliating. One my troop’s assistant scoutmasters left one his hands in Europe. When he got off the troop ship in New York, he was greeted with a sign directing “Colored Troops This Way”. “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of bigotry.” He was entitled to say it.
So, yeah, I like Jackie Robinson.
I was not aware of that rule. Can you site the rule? I take it the pitch does not count then.
If the catcher is in possession of the ball how can the batter be interfered with?
Give credit to Robinson for going through what he did, but a number of owners were itching for the opportunity to use black ballplayers. Few people know that later in 1947, Robinson's first year in the majors, another black player, Larry Doby, debuted for the Cleveland Indians.
In short, the time for black players in the majors had arrived. Whether Robinson or Doby failed (and Doby, who became an excellent player, had a poor rookie year), there was no stopping what would be a flood of black players in all pro sports.
Interestingly enough, a few years ago I read an article that in 1938, almost ten years before Robinson debuted in the majors, a poll was taken among white major leaguers as to how they felt about black players in the majors. According to the poll, about 80% said they had no objections.
7.07Catchers interference does not usually result in a dead ball, the ball is live, play continues and the manager of the team at bat can choose to accept the play. When play stops, the batting team, at their option, can treat the situation as if the ball were dead, and the runners return to their previous bases, and the batter is awarded first base. For instance if a runner on second advances to third subsequent to catchers interference, the batting team can decline the interference call and accept the result of the play (the pitch being called a ball or a strike). If the runner were thrown out, the batting team can accept the interference call, the batter is awarded first base and the runner returns to second.
If, with a runner on third base and trying to score by means of a squeeze play or a steal, the catcher or any other fielder steps on, or in front of home base without possession of the ball, or touches the batter or his bat, the pitcher shall be charged with a balk, the batter shall be awarded first base on the interference and the ball is dead.
Race goes out the window when it comes to sports. There are some sports where blacks excel more than whites and some sports where whites excel but for true fans, we don’t care.
Modern comments on race in baseball have a lot less to do with race than they do with money. Regulation and cost have crushed baseball for kids in America. In central and south America kids play baseball or soccer and they do it on the cheap which naturally mean they produce players.
So, yeah, I like Jackie Robinson.
Good.
American attitudes were and are nothing near what is implied or claimed by the Left. My grandfather, b.1883 was not racist. My father b.1922 was not racist. I b.1958 am not racist. Screw the people who dig up Jackie Robinsons corpse and drag it around the bases to both talk about the change he effected and call me and mine stinking rotten people.
he was behind the plate and step forward AFTER he caught the ball, part of one fluid movement ...just watched it.....
and either way that was NOT the call...the call was SAFE. not because Yogi interfered with the batter, but because the ump saw him not tagging out Robinson...which he most certainly did tag him out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XY-XshGhMU
I agree, Robinson looks safe.
At 10-11 seconds, Berra is over the plate without the ball, constituting interference. At 12 seconds he catches ball and at 13 seconds (or so) applies the tag, but if looks like Robinson is already safe. Hard to tell whether of not he beat the tag, but clearly he interfered.
Interference Not called. A non Issue
Robinson was clearly OUT. Berras gloved hand was what Robinson touched first
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.