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Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Jackie Robinson’s cause stalls
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The conversation involved Jackie Robinson, a national treasure who died 35 years ago. He nevertheless lives forever after he used April 15, 1947 as his springboard toward immortality. He broke more than baseball’s color barrier back then. He unleashed the spiritual forces that would integrate everything from the military to restrooms to schools.
What would Robinson say today about baseball turning “diversity” into only a theoretical word in the dictionary regarding African-Americans?
What would he do?
Tommy Davis sighed over the phone from Los Angeles on Wednesday, and then the former Dodgers standout of the early 1960s said, “He’d probably march. Yeah, he’d probably do something, and I’m quite sure he could get an audience. I know he would get on television. I’m sure he could arrange a roundtable discussion about it, because there’s a problem here.”
A big one, and let’s start with the following: Baseball officials are sponsoring events this weekend in Memphis around something they are calling their inaugural Civil Rights Game. According to a press release from the Commissioner’s Office, this is to “honor [baseball’s] involvement in the historic struggle through which players of color broke barriers and made important contributions to American society.”
Well, if they say so. The NFL had more African-American head coaches during this year’s Super Bowl (two) than the number of African-Americans on the Braves’ current 40-man roster (zero). That’s compared to the 11 African-Americans on the Braves’ 40-man roster just a dozen years ago after they won their only Atlanta world championship.
This isn’t just a Braves thing. It’s a baseball thing. The Chicago White Sox’s Ken Williams is the only African-American general manager. Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers joins Willie Randolph of the New York Mets as the only African-American managers. In addition, the number of African-American players in the majors has dwindled from 27 percent in 1975 to 18 percent in 1982 to less than 10 percent last season.
And, please, no more silliness about how African-Americans are just not into the game anymore and preferring basketball and football.
“I’m not putting the Latins down, because they can play, but baseball has purposely built a bunch of camps and academies in other countries, and they’ve ignored areas in this country where you have African-American talent,” said Davis, telling the truth. As Hall of Famer Joe Morgan likes to say, “You won’t find African-American players if you’re not looking for them.”
Last summer I wrote about the gathering of more than a hundred African-American prospects from high schools across the South. They played at Georgia Perimeter College in Clarkston, and the pro scouts who bothered to come were significantly impressed.
Let’s just say it was a start toward shifting baseball back toward fulfilling Robinson’s legacy. To hear baseball officials tell it, so is this Civil Rights Game. It will be preceded on Saturday by a luncheon to honor Spike Lee, deceased Negro leagues legend Buck O’Neil, and Vera Clemente, the widow of Roberto Clemente. There also will be a group discussion involving various baseball personalities and others on baseball and civil rights.
Davis won’t be one of the panelists, but he should be. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he spent his youth watching Robinson terrorize Dodger, opponents with his bat, glove, legs and grit. In fact, Davis signed with the Dodgers instead of the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians or New York Yankees after a plea over the phone from his hero.
“When I heard his voice, I couldn’t believe it,” said Davis, now 68, still emotional with the memory. “Jackie obviously was a big part of my life. They should have a holiday, not only for Martin Luther King Jr., but for Jackie Robinson.”
They have an unofficial one in baseball, with every April 15 declared “Jackie Robinson Day.” Baseball also has ordered every team to retire his No. 42.
Now baseball has to retire its hypocrisy regarding it all.
Permalink | | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Today’s Final Four memory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
So there was Michigan, with much help from Glen Rice going nuts on offense, sliding by Seton Hall in overtime for the 1989 national championship in Seattle.
The ending was shocking, but only because of the beginning.
Not the beginning of the game.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four pageLet’s return to the beginning of the NCAA tournament that year for Michigan at the old Omni in Atlanta. Two days earlier, Wolverines coach Bill Frieder announced that he was leaving for Arizona State after the season. Then Bo Schembechler showed why he is one of my all-time favorite sports personalities.
Between growls, Schembechler barred Frieder from coaching Michigan in the tournament. Said Schembechler, the Wolverines’ legendary football coach and athletics director, “A Michigan team should be coached by a Michigan man.”
Goodbye, Frieder. Hello, Steve Fisher, Frieder’s assistant, who Schembechler promoted to interim head coach.
It got more interesting. Michigan opened with Xavier back then. When I glanced around the Omni before the opening tipoff, I saw Frieder sitting a few rows behind the Michigan bench. He was forced to buy a ticket for the game.
Frieder was besieged by so many Michigan fans and reporters that he decided to move around the arena. He settled underneath the basket near Xavier’s bench. That’s where he watched Michigan beat the first of six straight opponents along the way to an improbable title with a “Michigan man.”
Soon after the Wolverines’ first national championship in basketball, with Schembechler grinning as if he’d just whipped Woody Hayes or something, he told reporters of his plans for hiring a permanent head coach. “I think we ought to interview Steve Fisher,” said
Schembechler, grinning some more.
Permalink | | Categories: Final Four, Terence Moore
Today’s Final Four countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10 — Welcome, Final Four: Pine, Oak, Sweet Gum and Sycamore. All top seeds.
9 — So I was thinking between sneezes and wheezes, if you’re BoosterBreath from Georgia, what do you choose: Florida sports domination in your hometown? Or plutonium-infused leeches on your forehead?
8 — Is this worse the Jim Harrick era? “Yes.” Worse than losing Tubby Smith? “Yes.” And getting Ron Jirsa? “Oh, definitely.” Even worse than Ray Goff? “Um, well, yes.”
7 — This analysis came from Rick Franzman, Bulldogs’ Litter of ‘75, Marietta resident and furniture salesman. I asked Rick how he feels about the Gators trying to wrap up a second Final Four in the Georgia Dome, just weeks after they won another SEC championship in the Dome, which followed them winning the SEC football championship, which propelled them to the BCS title game, which of course they won. The Gators also have beaten Georgia nine straight games in basketball and, I believe, 2,987 out of the past 2,988 in football, given the one year that they laughed so hard that they passed out and the Bulldogs won on a safety, 2-0. Rick drove off the road. But he faxed me from purgatory.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four page6 — “This is really in your face, having to deal with that arrogance, and having to swallow it and like it.” I told Rick he didn’t really have to like it. Then he softened and admitted he actually started to pull for Florida in the BCS title game. Something about allegiance to the SEC. When I asked about him buckling, he backed off. He morphed back into ManDawg.
5 — “They’re a football school, and they took up with a Yankee basketball coach. That’s the other thing. [Billy] Donovan’s a Yankee. That makes it doubly hard to take. There is true venom for Florida. You know, the Bear [Bryant] once said that Florida was a sleeping giant. Then [Steve] Spurrier goes there and wakes them up and now they’re obnoxious beyond the pale. This is absolutely as hard to take as anything we’ve ever experienced. It’s like making that drive to Jacksonville every year and coming home with your tail between your legs.”
4 — Hey, at least Georgia got its coach signed to a new contract. What’s taking Florida so long?
3 — Nothing says NIT like Clemson-West Virginia.
2 — The AJC’s coverage of the Final Four this week will be exceeded only by the coverage of panda baby Mei Lan, which is why I can report that the cubbie would NOT come out of her cave Wednesday. Something about Carolina wrecking her bracket.
1 — There will be at least a half-dozen NBA lottery picks playing in the Dome Saturday. If even a blind NBA general manager couldn’t pick wrong, well, Hawks fans, you’re in luck.
— Jeff Schultz’s special Final Four edition of “The Countdown” will continue every day through Friday.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Final Four, Jeff Schultz
This Fiasco winner’s for the Dogs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Nobody picked the correct Final Four last year because George Mason messed everything up. Nearly everybody — actually, 225 of the 3,091 entrants in the 2007 Final Four Fiasco — picked it this time. Thus did we go to the tiebreakers, and thus, after two rounds of those, did Tim Vanderhoff of Loganville emerge victorious.
Vanderhoff, 32, is a Georgia grad. He played JV ball for South Gwinnett. (He’s 6-foot-4, which made him a center back then.) He works for a Snellville company that sells large-diameter steel pipes. He plays golf almost every day at Summit Chase Country Club. He watches basketball on a new Samsung HD TV, which sometimes displeases his wife Brandi, whom he met via the Internet.
“She was upset at me for watching that last game [Georgetown-North Carolina],” Vanderhoff said. “She gave me the silent treatment. She wanted me to turn the channel.”
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four pageBut when you’re playing for such stakes — as ever, the Fiasco champ gets an official Final Four sweatshirt — you’ve got to monitor your investment. Vanderhoff won because he had the exact Elite Eight and nailed 13 of the Sweet 16. He did not, alas, submit his bracket in a big-money pool: “We’ve got a small little office, and everyone here is a football fan. They don’t even follow basketball.”
He picked UCLA to win the West Regional because “I’ve never been a big Kansas fan — they seem like perennial losers, even though they’re good at getting to the Elite Eight.” He picked Ohio State in the South because he likes Greg Oden: “The oldest-looking 18-year-old in the world.” He picked Georgetown over North Carolina in the East because “you’ve got to pick your upsets.”
And he picked Florida in the Midwest despite strong personal feelings to the contrary. “When they played Ohio State [for the BCS title], all my buddies rooted for Florida because they were from the SEC. I thought, ‘Gosh, no. That’s all we [Georgia fans] need is for a Florida coach to wave a national championship ring in recruits’ faces.’ “
He likes UCLA to beat Ohio State in the title game. “They play such great defense, and they have such a great coach.”
Were the quirky Fiasco judged like an ordinary office pool — on the total number of games gotten right — Vanderhoff wouldn’t have won. He missed 11 of 32 first-round games. Alice Hardin of Dahlonega, the runner-up, got 29 of 32 (but only 12 of the Sweet 16) and submitted what I consider to be the best overall bracket in the history of this contest. For her sterling effort, Hardin will also receive a sweatshirt.
She’d never entered before. “It was a fluke,” she said. “Someone was talking about it, and I thought about how well I used to do [in her office football pools]. … I would win every week.”
A 1968 graduate of Emory, Hardin is a life coach and counselor. She watches some basketball — “what I can” — and gets advice from her office colleague. If not for her affection for Georgia Tech, she might have gotten 13 of the Sweet 16 and therby won the Fiasco on the final tiebreaker. She likes Georgetown to beat Florida for the title “in a low-scoring game.”
This being the 20th Fiasco, I want to thank everyone who entered this or any year, and I want also to thank all the AJC technical folks for making things run so smoothly. And special mention must go to Elizabeth Bradley, who’s 9 and who filled out her first bracket. She picked three of the Final Four. Her dad, who’s somewhat older, got two.
She kept telling me the Buckeyes would make it, but I wouldn’t listen.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Final Four, Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Mark my words: Gators win.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Nothing has changed. Way back when the Florida basketball team was sputtering down the stretch of the regular season, I said then what I’ll say now: This is the Gators’ Final Four to lose.
That said, the Gators could lose.
Rarely has there been a Final Four with every team owning nearly the same chance of going all the way.
Ohio State has those freshmen who function like seniors. Georgetown has the Karma that comes from Hoya fathers (the older John Thompson and the older Patrick Ewing) passing Hoya wisdom down to their Hoya sons (the older John Thompson and the younger Patrick Ewing). UCLA has that defense, Arron Afflalo and history.
Florida just has the same five starters who discovered ways to capture a national championship last year. They also remember how to do it again, because they’ve turned their slump near the end of February into a spurt near the end of March.
I’ll stick with the Gators.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Final Four, Terence Moore
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