The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Revival rises above strife
While Major League Baseball misfires, newly reopened walk through history is a welcome respite.
‘The common working-class individual in this country could not relate (to the fact) people generating this kind of wealth could not come to some kind of accord. And then you had these guys who literally, literally, played for the love of the game.’ Bob Kendrick President, Negro League Baseball Museum
Amid the ever-present pandemic and sprawling protests of racial injustice, with baseball imploding and visions of opening day 2020 now seeming like a mirage, at least there was solace and perspective to be embraced Tuesday at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. And at least a fleeting sense that a semblance of reassuring order was restored to a world thrust off its axis.
“It won’t be business quite as usual,” NLBM President Bob Kendrick said as he finished giving a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the new “Barrier Breakers” exhibit. “But it’s back to business.
“And that’s a good thing.”
Then at 10:27 a.m. on “Re-Opening Day” after a dormant three months, Kendrick was in the lobby when he saw a woman navigating the entrance to become the first official visitor in the new world order.
“I think we need some balloons,” he said.
Alas, Kendrick had to hurry to a phone appointment before he could personally greet the appropriately masked Alexa Mathes, who was traveling from Brooklyn, New York, to Colorado with her husband — who was working Tuesday and unable to attend.
Knowing they’d be spending the day here, she had researched online what she could do to get to know the city in that time and found herself drawn to the NLBM in large part for its role as a symbol and repository of civil rights.
“I’m interested in learning more about the Black experience and the history of the Black experience and what that means in the context of today but also in the context of generations prior,” said Mathes, science editor for Newsela.
Noting that people who are not of color have work to do on developing “empathy and appreciation” of that experience, she later added, “I think we want to be on the right side of history. And it seems like there’s a choice you can make now, and there’s a choice you can make in the future. And I’d like to make that choice now for the future.”
The reinvigorated pursuit of police reforms and racial equality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd beneath the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin makes the reopening particularly relevant. But that’s not the only percolating current event that resonates with — or is it reverberates from? — the museum.
With the specter of the coronavirus pandemic hovering, a caustic breakdown in negotiations between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association has threatened the very season even as other professional sports leagues zero in on resumption of play in the near future.
From where we sit, the onus of this is on the owners. But be that as it may. “There’s a happy medium
somewhere, and hopefully we’ll get to it,” Kendrick said. “But I do hope that both sides understand that the country really does need baseball right now. Baseball has always been there for us throughout.”
Even when it was segregated.
With a laugh, I asked Kendrick what collective bargaining might have looked like when the Negro Leagues were born 100 years ago here in
Kansas City through their ultimate demise in 1960.
“No, no, no, no, wasn’t no bargaining,” he said, laughing
Which helps explain why NLBM founder Buck O’Neil always tended to side with unions and players to “get as much as you can while you can.”
Because as a player in the Negro Leagues, with little or no leverage or bargaining power, Kendrick figured a negotiation might go about like this:
“‘I hit .340 last year, and my wife’s about to have twins. I need a raise,’” Kendrick posited O’Neil saying.
“Answer: ‘Well, Buck, no. We’ve got somebody coming up now who can take your place.’”
The last time baseball went through such discord was in 1994, when the World Series was canceled, into 1995. It
took years for the game to recover from the fan fury, but there was an upside for the NLBM that was then in its infancy:
It was in September 1994 that Ken Burns’ documentary on baseball made O’Neil an overnight sensation at age 82, as Kendrick remembers a Kansas City Star headline proclaiming at the time.
“Here was ol’ Buck lighting up the screen,” he said. “People fell deeper in love with the Negro Leagues because of the romantic nature of these players who overcame such tremendous social adversity to play the game that they love.”
Somewhere in there is a message that might be of use in baseball’s impasse. Or at least a warning that it should heed.
“The common working-class individual in this country could not relate (to the fact) people generating this kind of wealth could not come to some kind of accord,” Kendrick said. “And then you had these guys who literally, literally, played for the love of the game.”
Guys we are privileged to feel a kinship with through the museum.
Even if much of the much-anticipated 100th anniversary celebration has been deferred to next year, and even if Kendrick is having to contemplate how to proceed with the mesmerizing in-person tours that he likes to give.
Luckily, the museum is well-configured for selfguided tours. But showing the way and shaking hands and hugging and posing for pictures has become such a part of Kendrick, he can’t envision his job without that engagement and nourishment.
So he is trying to figure out how he could make them work with a mask on, or at a distance or through some sort of virtual experience.
It’s an entirely new frontier in some ways. Then again, it’s actually business as usual in others. Or at least history repeating itself — and inspiring us again.
“We’ll be making it up as we go along,” he said, laughing. “But that’s the beauty of it. This will test every facet of creativity.
“I think at some point we’ll get to this comfort zone within an uncomfortable environment.”
Same as it ever was — even in this world of flux.