Baseball Quiz: I don”t know about you but I”m ready for a little
baseball. Last spring I had a quiz concerning pitcher Mike
Morgan who set a record in playing for his 11th ML team. This
spring, Morgan will be attempting to make it 12 as he tries to
make the Arizona Diamondbacks squad. Morgan has a
whopping 134-180 career record but, as loyal readers know,
there are a lot of friggin” stupid people in this world and baseball
executives are certainly ranked among them. Anyway, who are
the 3 players who played for 10 teams in their respective careers?
In all 3 cases, the bulk of their career”s spanned the 1960s and
70s. Answer below.
Black History
For the rest of February, I will be profiling some individuals and
events from the African and African American experience. The
main source for this material is a phenomenal book that was
published last year, “Africana,” by authors Kwame Anthony
Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Stephen Biko
Biko”s death in South Africa at the age of 30 gave the
antiapartheid movement in that nation its most famous martyr.
He became an international symbol of the brutal repression
taking place there.
As a youngster growing up in the Eastern Cape, Biko and his
brother were expelled from a private school under suspicion of
belonging to the banned Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). After
finishing his schooling elsewhere he entered med school. There
he joined the National Union of South African Students
(NUSAS), a multiracial antiapartheid student group.
By 1967 (Biko is now 21 years of age), he began to question his
commitment to a nonracial approach. Much of Africa had only
recently won independence from years of white colonial rule and
the Black Power movement in the U.S. was on the rise.
In 1968, Biko founded the South African Students” Organization
(SASO). In a newsletter Biko wrote that black South Africans
could overcome injustice only by first defeating the mentality of
oppression. Meanwhile, falling behind in his studies, Biko
dropped out of Med School.
Biko then got involved in other organizations and in 1973 the
South African government placed banning orders on Biko and
other SASO leaders. His activities were limited to his old
hometown of King William.
After the Soweto student uprising in 1976, the government
increased its harassment of Bikko, one of the few leading figures
in the antiapartheid movement who had not been imprisoned or
exiled. He was detained twice under the Terrorist Act, and then
on August 18, 1977, he was once again taken into police custody,
where he was stripped naked and beaten for refusing to
cooperate. Less than a month later, his naked, manacled body
was found in a Pretoria jail cell.
An official investigation into Biko”s death cleared the police, and
in October 1977 the government banned all Black Consciousness
Movement organizations. The South African police for years
denied involvement, first saying that Biko had gone on a hunger
strike, then later that he had smashed his own head into a wall,
fatally fracturing his skull. In 1997, during testimony before the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the officers involved
finally admitted to having tortured and murdered Biko. He was
memorialized in the 1987 film “Cry Freedom.”
Lieutenant Vernon J. Baker
In 1996, the Department of Defense decided to honor seven
African Americans with Medals of Honor for their heroism
during World War II. During the war itself not one African
American soldier was judged worthy of the nation”s highest
military honor.
In a White House ceremony about two years ago, President
Clinton presented the Medal of Honor to the only survivor
among the seven recipients, Lt. Vernon Baker.
Back on April 5, 1945, Lt. Baker had led his 25-man platoon
against heavily fortified German positions. He killed two
Germans in an observation post and led his men on to destroy six
German machine gun nests while killing 26 additional soldiers.
Only Baker and six of his men survived the assault.
In presenting the medal, President Clinton declared: “History
has been made whole again, and our nation is bestowing honor
on those who have long deserved it. They were denied their
nation”s highest honor, but their deeds could not be denied, and
they cleared the way to a better world.”
When journalists asked Baker how he had felt about defending
his country in a Jim Crow army, he replied, “I was an angry
young man. We were all angry. But we had a job to do, and we
did it.”
*On a personal note, I had read of Baker”s story in an issue of
U.S. News & World Report back in about 1995. The next day I
wrote him, hoping to beat the flood of letters he was bound to
receive. Smart move on my part. He sent me a beautifully
autographed photo shortly thereafter. The man is a true
American hero. The sad part is, I wonder how many black
schoolchildren today know of his story? My guess…2%, max…
BUT THEY KNOW WHO PUFFY COMBS IS!!!
Texas Western
No recital of Black History would be complete without
mentioning the 1966 Texas Western (later UTEP) basketball
team which was the first to use five black starters in defeating
all-white Kentucky, 72-65, for the NCAA championship. At a
25th reunion in 1991 for his team, Coach Don “the Bear” Haskins
told his squad, “You guys got a lot of black kids scholarships
around this country. You helped change the world a little bit.”
Wolverines, Part II
HK from the Great White North, Canada, was perusing my 1/14
Bar Chat on the mighty wolverine and I just had to pass along
some of his thoughts:
“Wolverines can outrun even rabbits in the snow, because they
run on top of it rather than through it. Also, wolverines are
interesting because they are one of only a few species (humans
being the other one that springs to mind…particularly NFL
ballplayers, added the editor) that kills things for sport. A
wolverine will kill a deer, spray it with malodorous musk (so no
other animal can eat it) and then go kill another one. They will
also break into and trash a cottage or cabin. Bears will do this
too, but bears will wreck your place because they”re big and
clumsy and looking for food, while wolverines will wreck your
place merely to amuse themselves – they won”t eat anything, just
trash it.” [Ed. Note: If you saw Week III of “The Sopranos,” this
is kind of like what Meadow and her friends did to her
grandmother”s place.]
“Cool critters, wolverines.Still, pound for pound, there is
probably nothing as vicious and foul tempered as their little
cousin, the mink. Thank God they aren”t the size of wolverines,
or they”d probably be hunting us for sport!”
*Today”s Canada report was brought to you by Molson Golden.
Baseball Tidbit: Cleveland Indians prospect Russell Branyan has
tremendous power, 30 HRs in 395 at-bats in AAA last year. But
Branyan whiffed 187 times.
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/29/72: #1 “American Pie” (Don
McLean) #2 “Brand New Key” (Melanie) #3 “Let”s Stay
Together” (Al Green).
*In the 1/31 edition of Bar Chat, I alluded to George Harrison”s
troubles with the song “My Sweet Lord.” Since a good buddy
inquired, I thought there might be others who had forgotten that
Harrison was found guilty of plagiarizing the Chiffons “He”s So
Fine,” a #1, 1963 hit.
Quiz Answer: Tommy Davis, Bob Miller, and Ken Brett.
Next Bar Chat, Friday…Don King and friends. Ol” Don is in a
heap of trouble.
