Frankly I think that is a lost cause.
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Posted on 06/19/2009 7:05:41 PM PDT by Artemis Webb
I was a little boy when old Satch pitched his last major league game in 1957, but I’m also a student of baseball history. When people like Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams (the best hitters of their era) praise Satch as one of the best, even the best, pitcher they ever had to face, I tend to beleive them. Neither Joe nor Ted had a habit of passing out praise where it wasn’t due.
Sorry for the typo.
Name a stadium after him. The pitching award already has a name.
While they’re at it, they need to rename the Black Sox scandal. After all, all of the players implicated in the scandal were white.
My favorite Satchel Paige quote...
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
More...here...
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/satchel_paige.html
He and Yogi had some great lines.
Change the name of the award? I say no, but I have no doubt that Satchel Paige was one of the greatest pitchers and one of the greatest ambassadors of the game of baseball.
I’m black myself, but I’m sick and tired of all this liberal guilt about the racism of the past.
It’s not Cy Young’s fault that baseball owners and fans of those days were racists.
And renaming the Cy Young award is not going to change the fact that Paige, and hundreds of other black players, were barred from playing in the “major” leagues during the prime of their careers.
But I’ve got a great idea... let’s give TWO awards each year. The Cy Young award can go to the best WHITE pitcher, and the Satchel Paige award can go to the best BLACK pitcher!!! That should make EVERYONE happy!!!
btw, why are you so anxious to have people forget Cy Young?
btw, I just had another idea.
In addition to the Satchel Paige award for the best Black pitcher, and the Cy Young award for the best White pitcher, we could present the following awards each year:
1) The Juan Marichal Award, presented annually to the best Latino pitcher in each league
2) The Dice-K award, presented annually to the best Asian pitcher in each league.
Are there any other divisions of race which need to be honored in this way?
Or the Al Hrabosky Award, presented to the best pitcher of Hungarian ancestry.
lol Hrobowski award! Excellent!
One thing I also would like to point out:
Yes, it’s true that guys like Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson etc, played in a “major league” which did not allow blacks to compete. Therefore, one could argue that they did not achieve what they did against “the very best” players in the world.
I would certainly agree that there were any number of players in the NL and AL who would not have been in the majors had blacks been allowed to play at the time.
But consider this: Satchel Paige ALSO competed in a league against players who were not necessarily of major league caliber.
There’s no reason to assume that every player in the Negro Leagues would have made the majors had baseball been integrated all along.
Therefore, one needs to ask “how many Negro League players who played against Paige were less-than-major-league quality?” The answer is probably “quite a few”.
The fact is, the major leagues would certainly have been “stronger” had they been integrated all along. But another fact is, that both the Major Leagues AND the Negro Leagues were less than optimal in terms of employing all of the best players in the United States.
One can’t just automatically assume that Paige played against only Major League caliber players in his games.
Same reason they renamed the Atlanta airport from Hartsfield to the name of some local “community organizer”. If they had to name it after an african-american, they could have at least renamed it to Henry Aaron, one of my heros in the 60s, loved that guy. And Satchel was still pitching when I was a kid. Pretty elderly though.
Is that true in the AL? I recall a world series with the White Sox against the Astros where it seems to me that each sox pitcher pitched a complete game, no relievers.
I know, let's call them "The Obamas"
Welcome aboard, BD001217! LOL (Hrabosky)!
Pretty bad form to take the honor from one man and give it to another.
Frankly I think that is a lost cause.
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Possibly the stupidest idea in the history of sportswriting, and filled with gratuitous abuse of Cy Young and a dwindling group of senior citizens. The joker who penned this garbage should be fired and blackballed.
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