Sorry ... little action on the blog lately. That's what having eighty-some papers to grade will do to a person. ... And still not out of the woods ...
I did, though, take a few moments last Wednesday to send comments to two individuals whose work I have engaged recently on this blog. First, I sent a comment to Le Anne Schreiber, the ESPN Ombudsman, expressing my gratitude for her continuing excellent work in critiquing ESPN. I also referred her to my blog entry in which I both express that gratitude and suggest the need to add further consideration to her treatment of "East Coast Bias." Then, I sent a comment to Lou Dobbs, the CNN program host, referring him to my blog entry in which I critiqued his treatment of the subject of English-only policies in schools.
I heard back from Schreiber on Friday in an email message expressing her gratitude to me for my message and the sentiment that comments like mine help in her efforts at ESPN. Thank you to Ms. Schreiber for her response. Her sentiments help me in my efforts as well, as it's nice to know that I may be contributing to the bettering of that which I am so often critiquing.
I have not heard back from Mr. Dobbs, though, which is not to say that I expect a response or wish to demand one. Rather, it is to say that I would welcome the response and I would note it here. I'll let you know if I hear anything ...
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Jules Tygiel
Upon receiving my September/October newsletter from SABR (The Society for American Baseball Research) this weekend, I was incredibly saddened to find out that Jules Tygiel passed away at the age of 59 this past July.
Tygiel is most known for his book Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy, which was first published in 1983. I feel confident in saying that this is the most definitive historical account of the racial integration of Major League Baseball that has been published. I also think that this book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in the study of the history and social significance of baseball. On page 9 of the book, Tygiel argues that “the integration of baseball represented both a symbol of imminent racial challenge and a direct agent of social change. Jackie Robinson’s campaign against the color line in 1946-7 captured the imagination of millions of Americans who had previously ignored the nation’s racial dilemma. For civil rights advocates the baseball experience offered a model of peaceful transition through militant confrontation, economic pressure, and moral suasion.” In some of my own work I have suggested that the agency that Tygiel ascribes to integration in this work needs to be tempered with a fuller recognition of the politics of integration—i.e. that the way it occurred served to reinforce white privilege by consolidating control of professional baseball in the United States under white ownership. However, even as I have offered this suggestion, I have always claimed that we should not entirely discount Tygiel’s argument here. Integration as it proceeded had both its progressive and its conservative aspects. Based on other things I’ve read from him and from the one time that I spoke personally with him, I think that Tygiel would not disagree.
I met Tygiel once—at the NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture conference in Tucson, Arizona, in the spring of 2004. He attended the panel on which I presented a paper based on interviews that I had done with folks who had been Dodger fans when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn. He participated in the discussion afterward and spoke with me personally after the panel had concluded. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, though I later regretted that I didn’t politely ask him one question for which I had wanted an answer for awhile: how to pronounce his last name. I had never met anyone else who, upon my asking, knew for sure how to pronounce his last name. Meanwhile, I had always felt a little embarrassed every time I had to say his last name while citing him in a presentation—which was often, since I’ve been studying the Brooklyn Dodgers, including their role in integration, for years—since I was unsure whether or not I was saying it correctly. That conversation in 2004 had been my chance to ask him directly and hours later I realized I had blown it. Unfortunately, it was his obituary in the New York Times that finally gave me my answer when I read it today.
Tygiel is most known for his book Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy, which was first published in 1983. I feel confident in saying that this is the most definitive historical account of the racial integration of Major League Baseball that has been published. I also think that this book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in the study of the history and social significance of baseball. On page 9 of the book, Tygiel argues that “the integration of baseball represented both a symbol of imminent racial challenge and a direct agent of social change. Jackie Robinson’s campaign against the color line in 1946-7 captured the imagination of millions of Americans who had previously ignored the nation’s racial dilemma. For civil rights advocates the baseball experience offered a model of peaceful transition through militant confrontation, economic pressure, and moral suasion.” In some of my own work I have suggested that the agency that Tygiel ascribes to integration in this work needs to be tempered with a fuller recognition of the politics of integration—i.e. that the way it occurred served to reinforce white privilege by consolidating control of professional baseball in the United States under white ownership. However, even as I have offered this suggestion, I have always claimed that we should not entirely discount Tygiel’s argument here. Integration as it proceeded had both its progressive and its conservative aspects. Based on other things I’ve read from him and from the one time that I spoke personally with him, I think that Tygiel would not disagree.
I met Tygiel once—at the NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture conference in Tucson, Arizona, in the spring of 2004. He attended the panel on which I presented a paper based on interviews that I had done with folks who had been Dodger fans when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn. He participated in the discussion afterward and spoke with me personally after the panel had concluded. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, though I later regretted that I didn’t politely ask him one question for which I had wanted an answer for awhile: how to pronounce his last name. I had never met anyone else who, upon my asking, knew for sure how to pronounce his last name. Meanwhile, I had always felt a little embarrassed every time I had to say his last name while citing him in a presentation—which was often, since I’ve been studying the Brooklyn Dodgers, including their role in integration, for years—since I was unsure whether or not I was saying it correctly. That conversation in 2004 had been my chance to ask him directly and hours later I realized I had blown it. Unfortunately, it was his obituary in the New York Times that finally gave me my answer when I read it today.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Politics as Usual?
Count me among those who see the reasoning behind John McCain choosing Sarah Palin for his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. I’m not going to rehash all of the reasons for choosing her, since all of that can be found in the many accounts that have discussed the choice over the past week. Suffice to say that I see the logic of it and, while I’m not going to try to act like I know enough to say if she was the “correct” choice, I’ll say that I think Palin as McCain’s choice makes sense and, while I don't want to say I "like" the choice, since I tend to disagree with a lot of Palin's positions, I certainly see good reasons for choosing her. (Of course, what do I know? When George W. Bush was elected president in 2000, while I was an ardent supporter of Al Gore, I said that at least Bush wouldn’t screw up the country …)
Since McCain’s announcement of Palin as his running mate, members of the Republican Party have utilized the choice of Palin to attempt to align their party and their nominees with rights and opportunities for women. Indeed, it appears that that was one of the reasons why Palin was chosen and, in line with that, many attempts have been made, by Republicans and by others, to portray Palin as a kind of legacy of the women’s rights movement. We have even seen in the past week that, as a woman, Palin faces rather explicit sexism in the United States, as her ability to perform on the job when she has a number of children at home has been called into question in a way that is seldom asked of a man.
Yet, if we want to identify Palin with the women’s rights movement, we might examine the depth of her understanding of that movement and the way in which it proceeded. In particular, I would ask that we look more fully at the way in which her speech in accepting the Republican nomination for vice president characterized the role of community organizers. At a couple of points, Palin’s speech suggested that community organizers do little real work. This was obviously meant as a direct reference to Barack Obama’s experiences as a community organizer. Yet, to disparage the work of a community organizer is to deny what has been a very important role in many movements for equality throughout the history of the United States. Community organizers have been key figures in the development of many social movements, including the Civil Rights Movement, the gay rights movement, and the women’s rights movement. Indeed, if it wasn’t for many community organizers throughout the history of the women’s rights movement, Palin herself might not have had the opportunity that she accepted tonight. By calling into question the work that community organizers do, Palin has failed to recognize the contributions of many women and men who have helped her occupy the position she is in today. Additionally, by extension, Palin has called into question the women’s rights movement that has depended on these community organizers’ work.
I tend to think that Palin did not mean to disparage the good work of these people. Her reference seemed to be meant as one of the several sarcastic one-liners that were included in the speech in an attempt to create a usable sound byte that challenged the qualifications of her political adversary—in this case questioning Obama’s experience. These kinds of remarks are a convention of the genre of a campaign speech. They are, basically, a part of politics as it is played in America. We should though, make note of the hidden politics that are reinforced in the process of playing such politics. While sexism takes its more explicit forms in the kinds of remarks that Palin has had to face, it also takes its more implicit forms in the many other ways in which the contributions of women and the struggle for equality for women go unnoticed. With that in mind, I would ask Palin to reconsider her use of this particular one-liner.
Since McCain’s announcement of Palin as his running mate, members of the Republican Party have utilized the choice of Palin to attempt to align their party and their nominees with rights and opportunities for women. Indeed, it appears that that was one of the reasons why Palin was chosen and, in line with that, many attempts have been made, by Republicans and by others, to portray Palin as a kind of legacy of the women’s rights movement. We have even seen in the past week that, as a woman, Palin faces rather explicit sexism in the United States, as her ability to perform on the job when she has a number of children at home has been called into question in a way that is seldom asked of a man.
Yet, if we want to identify Palin with the women’s rights movement, we might examine the depth of her understanding of that movement and the way in which it proceeded. In particular, I would ask that we look more fully at the way in which her speech in accepting the Republican nomination for vice president characterized the role of community organizers. At a couple of points, Palin’s speech suggested that community organizers do little real work. This was obviously meant as a direct reference to Barack Obama’s experiences as a community organizer. Yet, to disparage the work of a community organizer is to deny what has been a very important role in many movements for equality throughout the history of the United States. Community organizers have been key figures in the development of many social movements, including the Civil Rights Movement, the gay rights movement, and the women’s rights movement. Indeed, if it wasn’t for many community organizers throughout the history of the women’s rights movement, Palin herself might not have had the opportunity that she accepted tonight. By calling into question the work that community organizers do, Palin has failed to recognize the contributions of many women and men who have helped her occupy the position she is in today. Additionally, by extension, Palin has called into question the women’s rights movement that has depended on these community organizers’ work.
I tend to think that Palin did not mean to disparage the good work of these people. Her reference seemed to be meant as one of the several sarcastic one-liners that were included in the speech in an attempt to create a usable sound byte that challenged the qualifications of her political adversary—in this case questioning Obama’s experience. These kinds of remarks are a convention of the genre of a campaign speech. They are, basically, a part of politics as it is played in America. We should though, make note of the hidden politics that are reinforced in the process of playing such politics. While sexism takes its more explicit forms in the kinds of remarks that Palin has had to face, it also takes its more implicit forms in the many other ways in which the contributions of women and the struggle for equality for women go unnoticed. With that in mind, I would ask Palin to reconsider her use of this particular one-liner.
Monday, September 1, 2008
I Apologize in Advance for This One
While reading Jayson Stark's column from August 28, I discovered what Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn from Major League did after his playing career ended: public relations for the Tampa Bay major league baseball club. Check out Number 2 here to see. From the California Penal League to public relations ... Wow!
Okay, I'm sure that guy gets this kind of joke all the time, but I couldn't help myself.
Okay, I'm sure that guy gets this kind of joke all the time, but I couldn't help myself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)