\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scott Smalley<\/p>\n
Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n Throughout the course of this research, the underlying theme has been the consideration of slavery in small things.<\/em>\u00a0 That is, how many personal, everyday objects were shaped by or were a product of slavery.\u00a0 The reality is that slavery had effects that lingered on long after its abolition. \u00a0\u00a0The Chatham-Kent Black Historical Museum has many artifacts. This project focuses on the 2002 replica baseball jersey of the Chatham-Kent Coloured All-Stars, a baseball team comprised entirely of black players that was in the Ontario Baseball Association for seven years, and who won its championship in 1934.\u00a0 In 2001 and 2002 the Toronto Blue Jays commemorated the team by wearing their jersey for a game.\u00a0 I will argue that the commemoration of historical experiences must be careful not to compartmentalize the people being commemorated, as this segregation is what they fought against.\u00a0 I suggest that inequality cannot be effaced through symbolic gestures without understanding the deeper meanings behind that which is being commemorated.<\/p>\n The Good<\/strong><\/p>\n Commemoration of the past is an opportunity for visibility and celebration.\u00a0 For modern audiences who believe themselves removed from a period of inequality, commemoration represents the effacing of inequality through symbolic gesture of inclusion.\u00a0 One example is the comic book depicting the final game of the 1934 OBA Championship written by author and cartoonist Scott Chantler, a white man, in 2019. Chandler\u2019s work is part of the digital history project on \u201cBoomer\u201d Harding and the Chatham Coloured All-Stars. [1]<\/a> \u00a0Early on in the comic he includes themes of racism to add more context to the story, so that readers gain a deeper understanding of race relations within the sport and its fandom at the time.\u00a0 The comic could be interpreted as celebration of humanity and the effacing of race hierarchies by an author \u00a0who is passionate about telling the story of victory of an all-black team in the face of racial adversity.<\/p>\n The 2001 and 2002 commemoration of the Coloured All-Stars\u2019 jersey is also part of a larger celebration and commemoration of the Negro Leagues[2]<\/a> of the early 20th<\/sup> century, which existed in advance of the integration of Major League Baseball.\u00a0 In 2001, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars jersey was worn at Shea stadium when the Blue Jays faced the New York Mets. The Mets, for their part, wore jerseys commemorating their local Negro League team.\u00a0 While it is unclear whether Major League Baseball sought to celebrate the Negro Leagues\u2019 contribution to baseball, the contribution of black players to baseball, or both. This symbolic gesture reminds baseball fans of players who came before and who paved the way for a more equal present.<\/p>\n However, the actual historical experience of black players was one of struggle. Black men who wished to transcend the race barrier in baseball did so by scoring higher than any other players.\u00a0 Baseball is not a democracy, and if players wished to break into baseball\u2019s highest levels, they had to fight for it.\u00a0 Take Jackie Robinson\u2019s career statistics: he had a career batting average of .311, which is quite good, and an above-average on-base percentage of .409.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 He was good enough to make it to Major League Baseball in 1947, and break a colour barrier that had been in place since the 1883-89 career of \u00a0baseball\u2019s first black player, revered catcher Moses \u201cFleetwood\u201d Walker. \u00a0Whites were forced to accept the accomplishments and integration of blacks if it was to the advantage of the team as a whole.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Sports also provided economic opportunities for Walker and others. In Chatham, the 1934 Championship title meant that All-Stars such as Wilfred \u201cBoomer\u201d Harding was able to find better work, because \u00a0his on-field performance made him and his teammates local celebrities.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 These rewards, were hard-won, as players also faced racial discrimination in hotels and restaurants as they traveled \u00a0around to the games.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n The Bad<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>When it comes to commemoration, it\u2019s important to understand what we\u2019re celebrating, and to be sensitive to it.\u00a0 It seems logical to think that Major League Baseball (MLB) wanted to celebrate the Negro Leagues, or Negro League players who didn\u2019t make it to MLB but were nonetheless contributors to the history of the sport.\u00a0 Teams across the league commemorated their local Negro League teams by wearing their jerseys, so they were paying tribute to either one or the other.\u00a0 What\u2019s interesting then, is that the Chatham Coloured All-Stars were in the Ontario Baseball Association.\u00a0 They were never a Negro League team.\u00a0 They never played a major league \u201calternative\u201d to MLB in the Negro Leagues, they played what amounted to minor-league baseball in what could be considered an integrated league by virtue of their existence within it.\u00a0 Could the commemoration of the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, bunched together with the Negro Leagues, be considered a lapse of judgement, insensitivity, or unintentional racism?\u00a0 Did the Blue Jays just select the All-Stars\u2019 jersey to wear because it was the closest thing to a Negro Leagues team that Canada had, and if so, was the choice appropriate?<\/p>\n It\u2019s great that MLB pays tribute to the black players who didn\u2019t have access to the league of yesteryear, but only it representation has significantly changed since then.\u00a0 Black representation in baseball is still<\/em> a point of contention.\u00a0 Former Baltimore Oriole Adam Jones in 2016 made headlines when he opined that only 8% of current MLB players were black and suggested that baseball is still a \u201cwhite man\u2019s sport.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 While basketball is more inclusive as the \u00a0sport of choice among black inner-city youngsters due to the minimum \u00a0space and equipment needed (a ball and a hoop), and the self-teaching potential of the game,[8]<\/a> this doesn\u2019t explain the lack of representation in baseball \u00a0from blacks living in rural settings.\u00a0 Further, it doesn\u2019t explain why Native Americans or Cubans faced lower barriers to entry than did American blacks in the early 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 It was widely accepted that Cubans and Natives were seen as \u201cwhite enough\u201d to play, while black players were excluded.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Black players would sometimes pretend to be Cuban, as whites could label them as \u201cforeign\u201d, unconnected to domestic race problems, and therefore would see them as \u201cacceptable\u201d athletes.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Mulatto players like Fleetwood Walker might face lower barriers to access to the game due to his \u201cwhiteness\u201d, but his status as a mulatto reminds us that someone had breached a racial gap in a most intimate\u2013 way.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 If Major League Baseball wishes to pay tribute to those who were denied \u00a0access to the game at the its highest level, perhaps it should first look at its current practices before effacing an inequality that remains a deep stain.\u00a0 MLB cannot simply celebrate the Chatham Coloured All-Stars simply because they were black, and that Canada lacked a Negro League team.\u00a0 It is important when commemorating a people who have been marginalized that we don\u2019t unwittingly make gross generalizations or categorizations ourselves.<\/p>\n The Ugly<\/strong><\/p>\n This section really isn\u2019t about the \u201cugly\u201d, insofar as we have a chance to make pretty something that could be ugly.\u00a0 In other words, it\u2019s up to us to do our best to interpret the best of intentions.\u00a0 The Blue Jays and MLB clearly wanted to pay its respects to a generation of athletes that never had their chance (comeuppance is negative) due to racial segregation.\u00a0 the celebration of blacks in baseball, whether in commemoration in 2001 and 2002 or in 1934 when the All-Stars won the championship reminds us that \u00a0race barriers in sport can be removed in order to win. \u00a0\u00a0Conversations emerge, times change, and the distillation of experience into commemoration must be sensitive to not further compartmentalize those who are being celebrated. t.\u00a0 The effacing of inequality through symbolic gesture depends on us understanding deeper meaning, and that we don\u2019t allow ourselves to be hypocritical in the face of contemporary racial challenges.<\/p>\n Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBig-League Honour for Chatham Team.\u201d The Globe and Mail, April 12, 2018. https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/sports\/big-league-honour-for-chatham-team\/article18416279\/.<\/p>\n \u201cBits about the Stars.\u201d\u00a0Welland Port-Colborne Tribune<\/em>. September 25, 1934.<\/p>\n Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” Harding & the Chatham Coloured All-Stars. http:\/\/cdigs.uwindsor.ca\/BreakingColourBarrier\/<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n Dubroff, Rich, Matt Weyrich, and Rachel Hopmayer. \u201cJones Will Use His Forum to Speak Out.\u201d NBC Sports Washington. Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic LP, September 13, 2016. https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/washington\/baltimore-orioles\/adam-jones-stands-behind-comments-race-baseball.<\/p>\n Laliberte, David J. “Foul Lines: Teaching Race in Jim Crow America through Baseball History.”\u00a0The History Teacher<\/em>\u00a046, no. 3 (2013): 329-53. www.jstor.org\/stable\/43264128.<\/p>\n Matheny, Timothy Michael (1989).\u00a0 Heading for Home: Moses Fleetwood Walker\u2019s Encounter with Racism in America (Thesis).\u00a0 Retrieved from Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin OH.<\/p>\n \u201cMLB Stats, Scores, History, & Records.\u201d Baseball Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Accessed December 3, 2019. https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/.<\/p>\n Shreve, Ellwood. \u201cSharing 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars Story with New Generation.\u201d Chatham Daily News, April 29, 2019. https:\/\/www.chathamdailynews.ca\/news\/local-news\/sharing-1934-chatham-coloured-all-stars-story-with-new-generation.<\/p>\n \u201cStars That Shine.\u201d\u00a0Chatham Daily News<\/em>. September 27, 1934.<\/p>\n “Where Have You Gone, Jackie Robinson? In College Baseball the Diamonds Are Almost All White.”\u00a0The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education<\/em>, no. 32 (2001): 50-52. doi:10.2307\/2678767.<\/p>\n Zang, David W.\u00a0Fleet Walkers Divided Heart: The Life of Baseballs First Black Major Leaguer<\/em>. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” Harding & the Chatham Coloured All-Stars \u00a0http:\/\/cdigs.uwindsor.ca\/BreakingColourBarrier\/<\/a> ; Ellwood Shreve, \u201cSharing 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars Story with New Generation.\u201d<\/em> Chatham Daily News<\/em>, April 29, 2019.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Canadian Press. \u201cBig-League Honour for Chatham Team.\u201d The Globe and Mail<\/em>, April 12, 2018.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> \u201cMLB Stats, Scores, History, & Records.\u201d <\/em>Baseball Reference.\u00a0 Sport Reference LLC. Baseball-reference.com<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Timothy Michael Matheny. Heading for Home: Moses Fleetwood Walker\u2019s Encounter with Racism in America <\/em>(Thesis). Oberlin College Archives, 1989. 25<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ellwood Shreve, \u201cNew Generation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Rich Dubroff, Matt Weyrich and Rachel Hopmayer. \u201cJones will Use His Platform to Speak Out.\u201d<\/em> NBC Sports Washington. Comcast Sports-Net Mid-Atlantic LP. September 13, 2016.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> \u201cWhere have you gone, Jackie Robinson? In College Baseball the Diamonds are almost all white.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education no. 32 (2001), 52.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> David J. Laliberte. \u201cFoul Lines: Teaching Race in Jim Crow America through Baseball History.\u201d <\/em>The History Teacher 46, no. 3 (2013), 331.<\/p>\n