By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uninterrupted
One of my favorite parts of this job is historical research. I love accessing newspaperarchive.com (free with a Hutchinson Public Library card) and stepping back in time. This week was the most fun I’ve had with it, learning about all the times the legendary Kansas City Monarchs came and played down here at Carey Park. Next time I’m there, I’m going to have a whole new appreciation for the place. Treading the same grounds as these baseball legends gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
An extremely valuable resource for me has been old newspaper archives. In my research, I kept coming across the writing of a columnist, a man who in hindsight, had no idea where the wind was blowing. Now, I’m going to keep this man’s identity a secret, as I would rather he be an example and not a punching bag, as he has since passed and cannot defend himself.
The first column I’m going to talk about here comes with a very important lesson. Do NOT get wrapped up in the issue of the day. The column was about Branch Rickey, the former general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who signed Jackie Robinson in 1945 and eventually called him up to the major leagues in 1947, breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier. In a surface reading of Rickey’s story, he is a hero; ESPN named him the most influential figure of the 20th century in sports. The more critical reading of Rickey’s life is that of a self-interested, contradictory businessman. Regardless, one thing he is certainly not remembered for was the address he gave to Wilberforce State University; in fact, if you even know what I’m talking about, cut out this column and deliver it to my desk to receive an award because you are “Brendan’s Knower of the Week™.”
This columnist still had it stuck in his craw that during the Wilberforce State University Football Dinner, Rickey had accused MLB of trying to create a rule that banned black players from ever playing in the league, before Robinson’s signing. This accusation was unsubstantiated, but also deeply believable considering they hadn’t had a black player since 1887. This columnist, however, didn’t seem to be buying it.
“Many a man has scratched a gopher match and set off an explosion, but few have ever set spark unwittingly to a greater parcel of dynamite than did Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers while trying to glorify himself before 250 persons with his ‘I alone stood up for the Negroes’ speech at Wilberforce.”
Sometimes you have to ask yourself, “Will people still care about this in a year?” and if the answer is no, do not waste that much ink on it.
The second column here is the doozy, and frankly, one of the most shockingly sexist things I’ve ever read in my life. It was a column about Toni Stone, the first woman to play in a predominantly male baseball league.
In the column, he includes the standard talk about why men are better athletes, saying “For throwing real hard they’ve the wrong kind of springs. For running real fast they have the wrong kind of gears, and too wide a wheel base.” etcetera, etcetera. He calls her a tomboy who never got over it. All disrespectful, but not terribly unexpected, unfortunately.
The real jaw-dropper for me was the part of the article where he says that there are some sports women can be good at, in fact, “They’re terrific swimmers as all persons who have seen a bathing beauty contest will attest.”
If I ever submitted something like that, I’d hope Adam, Charles, Charissa, hell, even you, would walk up to my desk and break my computer over my head.
More than anything, reading this made me glad to live in a time when such talk is widely viewed as, at minimum, extremely crude.
I think some people, even well-intentioned people, fear that one day their beliefs will be viewed as regressive and taken out of context. The key, in my opinion, is to be respectful. If you can realize, looking at someone, that even if you don’t understand them, they are a person just like you, it can take you a long way.