Childhood dream
Brunswick graduate Sabato drafted by the Twins in first round
Aaron Sabato will never forget this night.
Gathered with his family and friends Wednesday, Sabato heard these words from Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred — “With the 27th pick of the First Round, the Minnesota Twins select Aaron Sabato out of the University of North Carolina.”
And with that, Sabato, a 2018 Brunswick School graduate, who resides in Rye Brook, N.Y., realized his childhood dream.
“It is one of those things that I will never forget and something I’ve always dreamed of,” the 6-foot-2, 230-pound Sabato said of being selected in the MLB Draft. “It is one of those things that’s hard to put into words. I have dreampt of this day for so long.”
Sabato’s father, Teddy, has witnessed the effort his son has put into his craft since he was a youngster. Teddy Sabato, who played baseball at Mercy College, built an outdoor batting cage at their house approximately 10 years ago for Aaron and his older brother, Teddy, who pitched for North Carolina and Manhattan College. He also coached several of Aaron’s youth baseball teams.
“I built this cage for the family to have fun with the last 10 years and it’s been great,” Teddy Sabato said. “Aaron has always been locked in and driven to be the best he can be. I am so elated and so happy and proud of Aaron. It is what he’s worked hard for his whole life. Between Carolina and what he did there, I am still pinching myself. It is like anything you do in life, a lot of people don’t see the relentless hours and relentless pursuit that you put in to achieve a goal.”
As the first round of the draft progressed Wednesday night, Sabato’s anticipation built. And when the Twins selected him with the 27th pick, the next chapter of his baseball career was on his mind.
“I knew I had a chance to be drafted in the first round,” Sabato said. “I’ve been practicing ever since I can remember, to play baseball at the professional level.”
After excelling on the baseball diamond at Brunswick, Sabato burst onto the scene as a freshman at North Carolina in 2019.
He quickly made his mark once he put on a Tar Heels uniform, batting a team-best .343 as a fresh
who for whatever reason once had a MAGA hat in his locker — were among the 1,400 athletes, coaches and sports executives who sent a letter to Congress supporting the Amash-Pressley bill to end qualified immunity for police officers. Brees said he wants to be part of the solution.
Even NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, urged by 19 NFL black athletes and catching many owners by surprise, looked into a video camera and said: “We, the NFL, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people. We, the NFL, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the NFL, believe that Black lives matter. I personally want to protest with you and want to be a part of the much-needed change in this country. Without black players, there would be no NFL.”
Some don’t believe Goodell’s sincerity. They see him as a robot of convenience and a puppet of owners. Actions by Goodell, of course, will speak louder than any words. His track record is not one of strength on matters such as concussions and domestic abuse or, a few years ago, with the national anthem. Even last Friday, the commissioner did not address the elephant in the room — the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick.
Some don’t believe Goodell’s sincerity. They see him as a robot of convenience and a puppet of owners. Action, of course, speaks louder than any words and the NFL on Thursday did announce it is donating $250 million over 10 years to combat systematic racism and injustices against African Americans. Still, Goodell’s track record is not one of strength on issues such as concussions and domestic abuse, or with the national anthem. Even last Friday, the commissioner did not address the elephant in the room — the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick.
Should Goodell take a knee with players during the national anthem when the NFL reopens? That would be symbolically noble. More importantly, in a league that is 75 percent black, there are only four black head coaches, two black GMs and one black owner. What the NFL needs to do is make sure Kaepernick gets a legit shot on a team. The Patriots, undergoing a major position switch, would be a nice place to start. Out of the game for four years, if Kaepernick sucks, he sucks, and he’ll get cut. If not, quarterbacking in the NFL is where he belongs.
When Kapernick first sat and then kneeled during the national anthem in 2016, I argued he was throwing too large a historical blanket over something so immediate, vital and specific as police relations with the black community. After Ferguson, Dallas, Orlando and Baton Rouge, I had been heartened that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and others were making progress that Olympic summer in the area of gun violence and with police. My thought was that we can’t change slavery, but we can do something about holding bad cops accountable and forging a better understanding between blue and black.
I was afraid too much of the focus would go toward disrespecting the anthem and spitting in the face of veterans. And, of course, it did. I am no expert on the black American experience, but I do know white America and the power of sports in our nation. It wasn’t about the flag, but Trump made it all about the flag and he rode it hard.
A national database to keep track of cops who had been fired for abuse? Limited immunity and more independent counsel prosecuting cases? Better training? More testing? Getting both sides to understand each other better? All that stuff took a back seat to a national debate over kneeling football players.
It’s different this time. Black Americans have long voiced that they are sick and tired of being sick and tired. White Americans watched Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin put the weight of his knee on George Floyd’s neck, and beyond the horror of the cruel, emotionless killing, they, too, demonstrated a feeling of being sick and tired. This does not make us heroes or leaders or courageous or even fully understanding of black America’s pain and fears. Yet like Dr. King once said, “The time is always right to do the right thing.”
Can’t you hear the growing whispers? The time is right.
America is changing and no one knows exactly where it will take us. COVID-19 and all that it has done to us is part of it. Certainly, George Floyd is. More and more important people in sports suddenly aren’t afraid of Donald Trump and his pointed tweets. They see his power waning. Maybe they’re bending toward the righteous because of what it’ll do to their image and their pocketbooks, but hey, maybe they’re rediscovering their hearts.
There is enough room on the coming train for even the Roger- and Karencome-lately. We have to be big and well-humored enough to take some barbs about our “woke” moments. We have to be learned and thoughtful enough to understand all the tentacles of white privilege. There is a time to listen. There is time to be an ally. There is a time to realize this is much more about morality than politics.
There also is a time to be smart. And it is time to be smart enough not to allow the Great Deflector to make the two words “Defund Police” into the 2020 version of “If you kneel for the anthem you hate America.” Only an anarchistic fringe and Trump sycophants are promoting the idea that police will be eliminated entirely. Any good citizen, any collaborative person, understands we need the police. It’s about apportioning funds, manpower and focus on the myriad social and policing skills currently piled on the cops. They deal with drug addicts, mentally ill, domestic disputes, violent crime and fear of the unknown all at the same time every day. Let’s find some solutions.
Yes, there were looters and arsonists. Yes, there are some nitwits in Seattle trying to call a few city blocks a country. Yes, there are some who make a career of promoting victimhood. Yet the great majority of Americans are good people and want to find ways to get along, believe in justice and believe love will outshine the hate.
After the Charleston church massacre in 2015, NASCAR asked fans to stop bringing Confederate flags to races. It didn’t work. Bubba Wallace, the only African American full-time racer in the top series, had pushed for banning the flags, and judging by the 300 comments Thursday under a national story on Yahoo.com, wow, it isn’t pretty. One no-name truck racer quit.
Good for Bubba. Good for NASCAR. Good for seventime champion Jimmie Johnson, who said about Confederate flags, “I think they have a place in history and we need to keep them in the history books and not have them flying in the sky at the racetracks.”
Heritage? History? Go visit the Stars and Bars in a museum.
A couple of weeks ago, Jalen Rose, who has joined with LeBron, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Trae Young in a group called More Than A Vote, said, “I wish America loved black people just as much as they love black culture.”
That one stopped me because it rang so true. The good news? We can work on the love.
The group is about registering and getting black people to vote, but it’s also about working against voting suppression of minorities. You know, vital stuff, not symbolic, even as moving as the symbolic can be at times.
The train is coming. We must not let it be derailed by too much focus on a knee and a flag and too little focus on a knee and a man’s neck.