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Congressman Cohen Sponsors Resolution Honoring Contributions of Negro Baseball Leagues

March 5, 2007
Floor Statements

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Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 162, which recognizes the contributions of Negro Baseball Leagues.

The Negro Baseball Leagues are part of our history when segregation was the rule, segregation was the law. It is an unfortunate, most unfortunate part of America's history, part of a blemish on the soul of America, part of the blemish on the Constitution, on our laws, and the basis of the founding of the country.

No Nation has a more distinguished, honorable, and respected foundation conceived in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and equal justice for all. But in so many institutions it wasn't true, it wasn't real, until about the 1960s. The work of a great Democratic Congress and President Johnson and others, Republicans as well in a bipartisan move, overcame and repealed Jim Crow laws and passed amendments and laws that allowed people to use public facilities and to have integration in this country and to give everybody the American Dream, which had been denied for over 200 years in this country.

The baseball leagues that were reserved for Negroes were an example of that. There were great players who didn't have the opportunity to perform and achieve until integration. Branch Rickey of the Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson up in the 1940s, and there were great players that didn't have that opportunity.

I want to tell you one story about one particular baseball player who is in this resolution. He is in this resolution because he deserves to be in any resolution about baseball, about discrimination, and about kindness, Minnie Minoso. Minnie Minoso was a Cuban, African Cuban, who came to this country. I guess he would be an African American.

Minnie Minoso started his career in the Negro League, and didn't get to the Major Leagues until he was about 28 or 29 years of age. He had a great career. He led the American League in triples and doubles and stolen bases, one time in RBIs, received three or four Golden Glove awards, named to the All-Star games many, many times, and had statistics with home runs and batting average at nearly .300 for his career that should have qualified him for the Hall of Fame. But he hasn't gotten into the Hall of Fame, and he is not going to get in the Hall of Fame because he wasn't allowed to start in Major League Baseball until he was 28 or 29 because of discrimination.

Well, in 1955, at a spring training game in Memphis, Tennessee, at Russwood Park, I went to a ball game in Memphis. I had had polio the previous year, and I attended the game with my White Sox cap and White Sox T-shirt, on crutches. A player came up to me and offered me a baseball; I was down by the railing trying to get them. The player was named Tom Poholsky, who was white. And I thanked him, but he told me, You shouldn't thank me. You should thank that player over there, number 9, Minoso. Minoso gave Poholsky the ball and wanted me to have it. But because of segregation in this country, Minnie Minoso, one of 60 players, they hadn't cut the rosters yet for spring training, was the only player who had the kindness in his heart to see somebody who was a ball fan who couldn't play at the time because he was on crutches. But in a segregated South, he couldn't give me that ball. He couldn't have a decent act of kindness because of segregation.

Well, I got the ball, and I went down with my dad and we got to know Minnie Minoso, and it started a friendship that has continued to this day. Minnie Minoso was a class act, a wonderful human being who goes beyond baseball, the most popular player ever to wear a White Sox uniform, and a person who has given his life to baseball. But because of the denial of segregation, not allowing him to play in the Major Leagues until he was 28 or 29, he will not get the respect he is due, just like other players in the Negro Leagues didn't. So many of them who were great players, who would have led the majors in stolen bases, in doubles, in triples, in home runs, in RBIs, or average, as shown over the years by great players like Maury Wills and Bob Gibson and so many other great players who got the opportunity to play and show they could perform.

This year in Memphis on March 31, the major leagues are having a civil rights game. The last exhibition game of the season will be in Memphis at Auto Zone Park; it will be the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Cardinals play. There will be a special luncheon the day before the game where the widows of Roberto Clemente and Buck O'Neal will be honored, as well as Spike Lee, for contributions that baseball and civil rights have given to the growth of this country.

It is somewhat ironic in a way that we now see what baseball did to help integrate our country. And this resolution, which is part of the process of showing what this country has gone through, is about a time when we had segregation. Baseball helped integrate society. It helped get little young white kids to appreciate black players and see simple acts of kindness and see the absurdity of segregation. It gave me the opportunity in 1961 in Memphis to go to the Lorraine Hotel, then an all-Negro institution, and see a hero and other players like Walter Bond and Dick Powell staying in the segregated black hotel when the Caucasian players were at the Peabody, and see how ridiculous is this that my hero, an All-Star, a Golden Glove award winner, has to stay at the Lorraine Hotel which was not up to standards.

Baseball has come a long way. The Negro Leagues did a lot to give entertainment to Negroes and Caucasians who went to those games, and gave players an opportunity to play. And it is unfortunate they had to exist, but they did. They gave these players a great opportunity, from Josh Gibson, the great catcher, Satchel Paige, Buck O'Neal, and so many others who are enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Kansas City where there is a Negro League Baseball museum. But they also gave this country the opportunity to look at segregation for what it was, stupid, ignorant, retarded, and gave a process by which we overcame.

Sports have been a great vehicle to overcome discrimination and prejudice, and it was done in baseball, through heroic works by Branch Rickey, heroic at the time of Jackie Robinson who took all kinds of taunts. Now there is a Hall of Fame and there are players in there of both races, and you get there by talent. And that needs to happen all throughout this society and all throughout this country.

I was pleased to bring this resolution because of my experience with Minnie Minoso, my love of baseball, and the fact that baseball gave me an exposure to the horrors of segregation and what it did to my hero and a man who was kind to me through the years, Minnie Minoso. But there were so many others. I went to games at Martin Stadium in Memphis, which is the home of the Memphis Red Sox, and it was all Negro players. They were great players. They didn't get an opportunity to show their skills. They later did.

I urge all my colleagues to support House Res. 162, recognizing the contributions of the Negro Baseball League, but at the same time reflect on how sad it was that there had to be a Negro Baseball League, and to reflect upon the need to make amends, not just to African Americans who were enslaved by this country's laws and limited and punished and enslaved by Jim Crow laws, but at the same time to think about the greatness of our country and mend a fault and a tear in our Constitution and our soul and civic justice, and put it together and apologize for slavery and Jim Crow, and make our country more whole and do the right thing. When you are wrong, you apologize. When you do evil, you do apologize, and you move forward. They are different bills, and I hate to mix them, but they are all part of the same story.

America needs to move forward, and progress has been made. We need to appreciate the past, but see where we were and move forward. And I am honored to be with the other sponsors of this bill, I think there are hundreds of them, and recognize the contributions of the Negro Baseball League and the story that baseball has played, and ask everybody in America to pay attention on March 31 to the final exhibition game of the season which will be televised on ESPN, a civil rights game that will highlight the civil rights heroes through sports, where Julian Bond will speak at a luncheon at the Peabody Hotel and tell a story of integration and success through sports that came too late in this country's history.