[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 15, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3228-S3229]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            JACKIE ROBINSON

 Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to 
Jackie Robinson, a true American hero. Born in Cairo, GA and raised by 
a single mother in Pasadena, CA, Jackie Robinson integrated major 
league baseball 50 years ago today. It was not an easy task. He faced 
outright prejudice from fans, other teams, as well as his own 
teammates. He was cursed and spit upon. It is hard to imagine how one 
man could endure such circumstances. But, he persevered and paved the 
way for young blacks who had long dreamed of wearing a major league 
baseball uniform. His courageous actions forced all Americans to face 
the issue of integration, and he helped to jump start the civil rights 
movement.
  Jackie Robinson was deservedly elected to the Hall of Fame in 1962, 
his first year of eligibility. He had a career batting average of .311 
with the Dodgers; won the 1949 batting title with a .342; was selected 
as National League MVP in 1949; and named National League Rookie of the 
Year in 1947.
  As my dear friend, Hank Aaron, wrote in an op-ed piece which ran in 
the New York Times on Sunday, April 13, 1997, ``Jackie showed me and my 
generation what we could do, he also showed us how to do it. By 
watching him, we knew that we would have to swallow an awful lot of 
pride to make it in the big leagues.'' Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron 
not only made it in the big leagues, but they also succeeded with their 
lives.
  Mr. President, I ask that the entire text of Hank Aaron's op-ed that 
appeared in the New York Times on April 13, 1997, be printed in the 
Record.
  The material follows:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 13, 1997]

                         When Baseball Mattered

                            (By Hank Aaron)

       Atlanta.--Jackie Robinson meant everything to me.
       Before I was a teen-ager, I was telling my father that I 
     was going to be a ballplayer, and he was telling me, ``Ain't 
     no colored ballplayers.'' Then Jackie broke into the Brooklyn 
     Dodgers lineup in 1947, and Daddy never said that again. When 
     the Dodgers played an exhibition game in Mobile, Ala., on 
     their way north the next spring, Daddy even came to the game 
     with me. A black man in a major-league uniform: that was 
     something my father had to see for himself.
       Jackie not only showed me and my generation what we could 
     do, he also showed us how to do it. By watching him, we knew 
     that we would have to swallow an awful lot of pride to make 
     it in the big leagues. We knew of the hatred and cruelty 
     Jackie had to quietly endure from the fans and the press and 
     the anti-integrationist teams like the Cardinals and the 
     Phillies and even from his teammates. We also knew that he 
     didn't subject himself to all that for personal benefit. Why 
     would he choose to get spiked and cursed at and spat on for 
     his own account?
       Jackie was a college football hero, a handsome, 
     intelligent, talented guy with a lot going for him. He didn't 
     need that kind of humiliation. And it certainly wasn't in his 
     nature to suffer it silently. But he had to. Not for himself, 
     but for me and all the young black kids like me. When Jackie 
     Robinson loosened his fist and turned the other cheek, he was 
     taking the blows for the love and future of his people.
       Now, 50 years later, people are saying that Jackie Robinson 
     was an icon, a pioneer, a hero. But that's all they want to 
     do: say it.
       Nobody wants to be like Jackie. Everybody wants to be like 
     Mike. They want to be like Deion, like Junior.
       That's O.K. Sports stars are going to be role models in any 
     generation. I'm sure Jackie would be pleased to see how well 
     black athletes are doing these days, how mainstream they've 
     become. I'm sure he would be proud of all the money they're 
     making. But I suspect he'd want to shake some of them until 
     the dollar signs fell from their eyes so they could once 
     again see straight.
       Jackie Robinson was about leadership. When I was a rookie 
     with the Braves and we came north with the Dodgers after 
     spring training, I sat in the corner of Jackie's hotel room, 
     thumbing through magazines, as he and his black teammates--
     Roy Campanella,

[[Page S3229]]

     Don Newcombe, Junior Gilliam and Joe Black--played cards and 
     went over strategy: what to do if a fight broke out on the 
     field; if a pitcher threw at them; if somebody called one of 
     them ``nigger.''
       In his later years, after blacks were secure in the game, 
     Jackie let go of his forbearance and fought back. In the 
     quest to integrate baseball, it was time for pride to take 
     over from meekness. And Jackie made sure that younger blacks 
     like myself were soldiers in the struggle.
       When I look back at the statistics of the late 1950's and 
     60's and see the extent to which black players dominated the 
     National League (the American League was somewhat slower to 
     integrate), I know why that was. We were on a mission. And, 
     although Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Willie 
     Stargell, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson and I were trying to make our 
     marks individually, we understood that we were on a 
     collective mission. Jackie Robinson demonstrated to us 
     that, for a black player in our day and age, true success 
     could not be an individual thing.
       To players today, however, that's exactly what it is. The 
     potential is certainly there, perhaps more than at any time 
     since Jackie came along, for today's stars to have a real 
     impact on their communities. Imagine what could be 
     accomplished if the players, both black and white, were to 
     really dedicate themselves--not just their money, although 
     that would certainly help--to camps and counseling centers 
     and baseball programs in the inner city.
       Some of the players have their own charitable foundations, 
     and I applaud them for that. (I believe Dave Winfield, for 
     instance, is very sincere.) But as often as not these good 
     works are really publicity stunts. They're engineered by 
     agents, who are acting in the interest of the player's 
     image--in other words, his marketability. Players these days 
     don't do anything without an agent leading them every step of 
     the way (with his hand out). The agent, of course, could care 
     less about Jackie Robinson.
       The result is that today's players have lost all concept of 
     history. Their collective mission is greed. Nothing else 
     means much of anything to them. As a group, there's no 
     discernible social conscience among them; certainly no sense 
     of self-sacrifice, which is what Jackie Robinson's legacy is 
     based on. It's a sick feeling, and one of the reasons I've 
     been moving further and further away from the game.
       The players today think that they're making $10 million a 
     year because they have talent and people want to give them 
     money. They have no clue what Jackie went through on their 
     behalf, or Larry Doby or Monte Irvin or Don Newcombe, or 
     even, to a lesser extent, the players of my generation. 
     People wonder where the heroes have gone. Where there is no 
     conscience, there are no heroes.
       The saddest thing about all of this is that baseball was 
     once the standard for our country. Jackie Robinson helped 
     blaze the trail for the civil rights movement that followed. 
     The group that succeeded Jackie--my contemporaries--did the 
     same sort of work in the segregated minor leagues of the 
     South. Baseball publicly pressed the issue of integration; in 
     a symbolic way, it was our civil rights laboratory.
       It is tragic to me that baseball has fallen so far behind 
     basketball and even football in terms of racial leadership. 
     People question whether baseball is still the national 
     pastime, and I have to wonder, too. It is certainly not the 
     national standard it once was.
       The upside of this is that baseball, and baseball only, has 
     Jackie Robinson. Here's hoping that on the 50th anniversary 
     of Jackie's historic breakthrough, baseball will honor him in 
     a way that really matters. It could start more youth 
     programs, give tickets to kids who can't afford them, become 
     a social presence in the cities it depends on. It could hire 
     more black umpires, more black doctors, more black 
     concessionaries, more black executives.
       It could hire a black commissioner.
       You want a name? How about Colin Powell? He's a great 
     American, a man more popular, maybe, than the President. I'm 
     not out there pushing his candidacy, but I think he would be 
     great for baseball. He would restore some social relevance to 
     the game. He would do honor to Jackie Robinson's name.
       It would be even more meaningful, perhaps, if some of 
     Jackie's descendants--today's players--committed themselves 
     this year to honoring his name, in act as well as rhetoric.
       Jackie's spirit is watching. I know that he would be 
     bitterly disappointed if he saw the way today's black players 
     have abandoned the struggle, but he would be happy for their 
     success nonetheless. And I have no doubt that he'd do it all 
     over again for them.

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