Gift from MLB, players spurs dialogue on race

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If anyone thought the Adam Jones incident at Fenway Park last month was going to just blow over, yesterday was a reminder of how the conversation about race in Boston and the country is far from over.

On a day when the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum celebrated a gift of $1 million from Major League Baseball and its players association, NLBM president Bob Kendrick said institutions such as his museum offer a needed home base to continue a dialogue that did not begin with segregated baseball leagues and is far from over now, as the Jones case confirms.

It’s a bittersweet brand of irony that Jones and the Orioles came to Kansas City on their first road trip after the incident, and that Jones made a $20,000 donation to the museum, a benevolent gesture that was planned before what happened at Fenway.

“Sometimes timing is everything,” Kendrick said of the Jones visit. “We were able to take a negative and shine a light on it and open up a needed dialogue. We still have issues as it relates to race in this country. We talk about it from the context of segregation, as segregation is seen through the eyes of a child. Very simple, that was done.

“Sadly there are still those who hold on to those kinds of beliefs for whatever reason it is, but it’s great that Adam could come here and be able to have a place where this conversation about race and sports should occur.”

From 1920-1960, AfricanAmerican players banned from the major leagues played in their own league. The careers of Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Ernie Banks began in the Negro Leagues, where others toiled for all or most of their careers and forged legends of their own, including Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige.

Yesterday’s donation will help expand the museum’s reach.

Said Kendrick: “It is also great that players like Adam and those that are of African-American descent, have a place where they can come and draw inspiration, they can draw from what these men had to do, and thankfully they don’t have to sleep on buses and eat peanut butter crackers.”

Former Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard used to stop at the museum on his way to spring training, said Kendrick, “because this was almost his rite of passage. He would come here and I think he figured that no matter how difficult things would get, it would never get as difficult as it was for these men, and drew strength from that. And these men, they didn’t cry about social injustice, they went out and did something about it.

“So, nothing’s solved about this story. This is a celebration, it is the celebration of the power of the human spirit to persevere and prevail. We need those lessons now probably more than any time ever in the history of this country. And we’re here to do that and we’ve got great partners to help carry this message forward.”

In attendance at the museum ceremony were baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, Players Association executive director Tony Clark and Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.

Said Clark: “Having the conversation and having dialogue has value. Often times when it is pushed aside and it isn’t part of the general conversation, you may make assumptions that those challenges still don’t exist, you may make assumptions that everybody is fine with how things are going but the truth is, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”