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JACKIE AND PEE WEE #1
A WEDNESDAY THAT CHANGED HISTORY
There was a front-page article in the L.A. Times a
few months ago — and then, lo and behold — Newsweek, the very same week,
had the same topic: SAT scores. How they work. How they don’t work. What’s
right and wrong with this frantic, high-priced, tutor-driven dash for
a perfect 1600?
And our hometown newspaper had a devastating series of bar graphs right
there on the front page. The racial “splits,” or test scores according
to a person’s ethnicity. And there were the painful gaps, in black and
white — no pun intended. In Verbal and also in Math, some groups’ scores
were just so far above other groups. And of course, with more and more
states ruling against the concept of affirmative action, and with top
colleges using the SAT as their main tool of evaluation, young men and
women who want to grab onto the ladder of achievement simply cannot even
hook onto the first rung. Enrollments for some ethnic groups are plummeting
at these schools; they just do not get in.
Well, that’s a tough thing to bring up, here on a United States holiday
that honors a man who, back in 1963, told the world that “he had a dream.”
And certainly it was a dream where every child’s dream could also come
true, where boys and girls of all colors could get good scores, go to
good schools, get a good job, and climb right to the top.
The Newsweek features described how a Harvard president, James Bryant
Conant, was one of the dreamers behind the SAT phenomenon. He had a vision,
borrowing from Thomas Jefferson, of something in this land called a “natural
aristocracy.” Bright, eager boys and girls, young men and women, here
and there, dotting the country, who were gifted and talented. Instead
of just rich kids going to Harvard, wealthy frat boys in their raccoon
coats, simply because Daddy went there too and gave a million dollars
to build a new chemistry building — this was a kind of “artificial aristocracy”
— couldn’t there be a way of testing everyone, and finding these plain
but potential jewels? Then they, because they had such wonderful SAT scores,
would be the ones to get top educations, get top jobs, and lead the masses
— who would then get along with a “more modest yeoman’s existence based
upon education through high school or perhaps junior college” — into a
brighter future for all.
Well, that was Dr. Conant’s dream. But now we see, and we have for decades,
that things like SAT scores often do the very opposite of what was intended.
With these racial gaps, with a painfully huge range from a high of 560
down to a low of 422 in Math, locked so firmly in place, how can this
natural aristocracy ever happen?
Friend, this isn’t a radio program that deals with social engineering,
or the politics of education. That’s not our specialty; we’re not well
versed in it. But I know that many good Americans — including the top
educators, the test-givers, the Harvard think-tank-ers — look at some
of these long-standing challenges . . . and want to throw up their hands.
No matter how much we try to improve education, SAT scores just SIT there.
Verbal just sits there at 505 no matter how hard teachers try or how much
overtime they put in. The gaps persist no matter how many good-hearted
teachers dig in and try to narrow them. No matter how many billions of
dollars are poured into special-ed projects, these entrenched bar graphs
stubbornly defy our every effort. What can we all do? Even more depressing,
what can one individual do? I’m just one person, and so are you. We can’t
topple these bar-graph giants alone.
So today, rather than just cry out how helpless we are, I’d like to simply
tell a story. What can one person do? Here’s a story, good for this Martin
Luther King, Jr. holiday.
It happened on a May 14, back in the year 1947. On a baseball diamond,
of all things. If you’re a sports buff, you might recall that 1947 was
the year that Jackie Robinson finally broke the all-white barrier of the
big leagues and was put on the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maybe you’ve
heard how Branch Rickey had a vision of finally tearing down this dividing
wall of race, and he asked Robinson: “Can you take it? Can you not retaliate
when a player spikes you, when opponents or even teammates call you names?
When restaurants on our road trips won’t serve you? Are you my champion?”
Robinson thought he was.
But on this May 14, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, the name-calling was
almost unbelievable. This wasn’t an occasional hoot from a loudmouth in
the third deck. No, the entire stadium was raining down obscenities on
young Jackie Robinson, this scared first baseman, a black player in a
baseball-roster-ocean of lily-white athletes. He was totally and completely
alone.
Baseball writer Roger Kahn describes the scene better than I could:
“As the Dodgers moved into infield practice, taunts
began. Fans started calling Jackie Robinson names: ‘Snowflake,’ ‘Jungle
Bunny,’ and worse. Very much worse. Some Cincinnati players picked that
up and began shouting obscenities at Robinson from their dugout. There
Jackie stood, one solitary black man, trying to warm up and catching hell.”
Can you imagine that scene, happening just over 52
years ago? Friend, I know there’s still racism in our world today; it
goes on. I know there are still ugly moments when the “N”-word is used.
But society HAS moved in the right direction. We say “‘N’-word” apologetically,
and it happens as a here-and-there, one-time moment of sickness. But there
in Crosley Field, an entire stadium of people were openly screaming at
Jackie Robinson. This was all society. This was everybody. Men. Young
wives. Kids. Grandparents. People who’d been to Sunday School and church
just three days earlier. Ballplayers: Cincinnati ones, and maybe even
some Brooklyn ones. More about that later. It was as though all of Adolph
Hitler’s armies of hate were marching down the first-base line, ready
to just destroy this one lonely man.
And then something happened. One man stepped forward. One man. He wore
number one on his uniform. His name was Harold Henry Reese. You probably
recognize the nickname instead. “Pee Wee” Reese. The Dodger shortstop.
He was a white player, of course, and also a Southerner — from Louisville,
Kentucky. He’d been raised hearing the “N-word” all his life. Here’s Roger
Kahn again:
“Reese raised a hand and stopped the practice. Then
he walked from shortstop to first base . . . and put an arm around Jackie
Robinson’s shoulders. He stood there and looked into the dugout and into
the stands, stared into the torrents of hate, a slim, white Southerner,
who wore No. 1, and just happened to have an arm draped in friendship
around a black man, who wore No. 42. Reese did not say a word. The deed
was beyond words. ‘After Pee Wee came over like that,’ Robinson said years
afterward, ‘I never felt alone on a baseball field again.’”
Well, friend, just a few months ago all of Southern
California mourned as Pee Wee Reese was laid to his rest. August 14, 1999,
at the age of 81. Let me ask you something. Do you think the papers and
the sportswriters made much of the fact that Pee Wee Reese played 16 years
for the Dodgers, that he got on the All-Star team 9 times, that he won
a world title in 1955, that he batted .269 for his career and had a .962
career fielding percentage? Is that what they wrote about? Not much. They
wrote about Crosley Field and this incredibly brave, symbolic, powerful,
wonderful, world-changing moment accomplished by ONE MAN.
Duke Snider, another great Dodger, was called on by reporters to make
a statement after Pee Wee’s death. He started out: “In my estimation,
Pee Wee Reese was the greatest Dodger who ever lived.” Then he changed
it: “He is the finest PERSON I think I’ve ever met.” Tommy Lasorda got
it right when he said: “He was a Hall of Famer as a PERSON.” In fact,
it says on the plaque for Pee Wee there in the Hall of Fame, where he
certainly did end up: “As much as anyone, he was instrumental in easing
the acceptance of Jackie Robinson as baseball’s first black ballplayer.”
Friend, I know that didn’t change SAT scores. I know America didn’t become
a spiritually integrated nation that day. But that one gesture, by that
one man, at least quieted down Crosley Field. It shamed and educated twenty
or thirty thousand fans. And then Jackie played that day. He survived.
Soon other courageous black players came along . . . and we’ve made some
good progress in the past half-century. But many people testify that you
could hardly measure how much progress was even made that very Wednesday
afternoon, that turning-point day, when Pee Wee Reese walked into the
maelstrom of hatred and put his arm around a black man and joined him
in staring into the eye of the storm.
Someday a Crosley Field moment like that might just come along for you.
Not as a shortstop, but as a person. One person. And you could join the
crowd in its meanness, its perpetuating of the way things are, with the
stereotypes, the ugly chants. Or you could do nothing: just stand there
at your position, waiting for the umpire to call out: “Play ball!” OR
you could walk over to that other person’s position, and put your arm
around them. And at least start to make a difference.
You’re just one person. But sometimes one is all it takes.
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