Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Black Material Culture


 "BASEBALL"




Baseball is a sport that is named as Americas Pastime played nation and world wide.  It is the bat and ball sport that consist of nine players on two different teams.  The object of the game is to hit a thrown ball with a bat to score runs by touching four bases around a ninety-foot diamond.  Players on the batting team switch off hitting a pitcher of the team that is fielding.  The team that is fielding is tying to keep the batting team from scoring runs by recording three outs, then the teams switch.







ITS MADE OF!!!


The ball is made up of yarn wrapped around a rubber cork, which is wrapped around leather.  It is 9x 9 1/4 inches in circumference and 2 7/8-3 inches in diameter.   the unique thing about the yarn is that it is no shorter than a mile long. The outside of the ball is made of white leather that has red seems. 
In the United States we have the Major League Baseball aka the MLB.  The MLB is made up of thirty teams that is divided into the National league and the American league.  They are divided into three different devisions East, West, and Central.  







HOW LONG ITS BEEN AROUND














Baseball has been around since the mid 1700’s world-wide.  In the mid 1850’s baseball went professional in America, around this time is when journalist named baseball Americas pastime.  This league was only for whites only at the time.  African Americans played this game on slave plantations in their little free time they had.  Since African Americans were not aloud to play in the MLB at the time they made their own leagues called National Negro League (NNL) and the American Negro League (ANL).  They played each other until the league was no more, the last game dated was in the 1960’s.






BASEBALL AND PAN AFRICAN STUDIES







Jackie Robinson was the first well known African American to play in Major League Baseball.  He broke the color barrier for African Americans being aloud to play in the Major Leagues.  Robinson played for the known as today the LA Dodgers, back then they were the Brooklyn Dodgers out of New York.  The decision of letting him play in the Major Leagues gave a lot of people mixed emotions.  For example, some of the Dodger players insinuated that they rather sit the bench then play alongside Robinson.  They felt this way until the manager told the team "I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded." Jackie also had many players from other teams shout racial slurs at him when he was playing.  An example is players from the Cardinals were calling him a ‘‘nigger’’ and saying things like “ go back to the cotton fields where you belong”.  Robinson never retaliated, the only thing he ever said in his defense to the press was “ You can hate me for many reasons, color is not one of them”.  The MLB now has a day during the season that is called Jackie Robinson day in honor of him.
Most all African American players and a lot of other races where his number on that day 42 to honor the man that changed the color barrier in the MLB.







LIFE WITH "BASEBALL"









Me and other African Americans could not live our lives comfortable without baseball.  Baseball is a very big spectator sport.   In the MLB the lowest race to play is African Americans, it also is slowly declining, but thats not to mention how many African Americans are in the Minor leagues.  I have to say that Jackie Robinson and some others really set the foundations for African American baseball players.  We would have to play in our own leagues if it wasn’t for Mr. Robinson like he had to before. If I were to actually be able to talk to Mr. Robinson I would have to thank him for setting the foundation for me and others that play baseball at the collegiate level and higher.  My senior year of high school I was offered many scholarships to play D1 baseball.  I was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2010, my senior year.  I decided to turn down the contract they gave me to attend college and get an education and then after a few years be drafted again.  If it wasn’t for Jackie Robinson none of my accomplishments to get to the level of baseball I have got to and plan on getting to would have happened.  



SOURCES 

http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016431.html

http://www.jackierobinson.com/

http://www.nlbpa.com/history.html


http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/mlb_negro_leagues.jsp

http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp



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