The Smithian

[on the move]

Amidst the hoopla surrounding the…movie ‘42’ and Jackie Robinson’s heroic integration of major league baseball in April, 1947, the media has all but forgotten Larry Doby’s integration of the American League less than three months later. Unlike Robinson who spent a year with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm team, Doby moved directly from the Negro League Newark Eagles to the Cleveland Indians. In his first full season in 1948, Doby helped the Indians win the World Series, a feat that Robinson did not accomplish until 1955.

more.

“Watch out. Robinson’s looking for you.”

[meaningful glance]

Elian Herrera came to Arizona to work…He was born in the Dominican Republic. He has dark skin, and though he speaks English, he does so deliberately, in a way that reveals that his first language in Spanish. In Los Angeles, Herrera is a backup outfielder with the Dodgers. Here at spring training, he’s the type of guy who could arouse “reasonable suspicion.” A person who’s “reasonably suspicious,” according to Arizona’s immigration law, is one who looks like he or she might be in the United States illegally…The Arizona law, known as SB 1070, went into effect in September. Six months later, half the players in baseball have reported to the greater Phoenix area. More than one-quarter of those players are Latino…Talk to Latino players in Arizona and you find them constantly patting their pockets for licenses, green cards, passports. “I carry them all the time,” says Martin Prado, a Venezuelan-born third baseman with the Diamondbacks. “Just in case. You never know.”

more.

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art:

Elian Herrera…leaps over a sliding Shane Robinson…of the St. Louis Cardinals as he…completes a double play…May 2012, Los Angeles, California.

“The biggest issue is the lack of virtually any minorities in college baseball…”

Hall of Famer Darryl Strawberry (second to last, middle row) was born on this day in 1962.

Can one make the case that Mariano Rivera is the best pitcher of all time?

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art: drawing by Time Souers

Populous.

more, plus trailer, here.

I’m hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I’d be pulling for him. —Hank Aaron

Henry ‘Hank’ Aaron was born on this day in Mobile, Alabama, in 1934.

[on the move]

The story takes place in a wartime Japanese internment camp and follows Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura as he pursues his dreams of playing professional baseball.

more.

My name is Jake Wrather, which doesn’t mean much to you, and it doesn’t mean much to me either. I never knew my father who gave me my last name, and my mother left two years ago to visit down south and never came back. I room with my Uncle Lenny and he doesn’t care about anything except music. We get along fine because I don’t care about anything but baseball. He plays his music in Detroit at night while I’m sleeping, and I play baseball during the daytime while he’s sleeping, so it works out fine. I like being on my own. Nobody tells me when to go to bed, what to eat. I do what I want to do. I take what I want.

from an excerpt of Alfred Slote’s Jake. ESPN 30 for 30 short is airing. more, plus clip,  here.