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Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been a Baseball Fan?

Dec 28, 2009
By .
History, Sports

Found a quirky story over the break. About a time when the Communist Party USA had a sportswriter. His name was Lester Rodney, and he was an amazing man. Mr. Rodney was one of the earliest and strongest voices calling for the integration of major league baseball.

Writing for the Daily Worker (the organ of the Communist Party in the US) Mr. Rodney constantly browbeat baseball commissioner Landis to bring black players into the major leagues. Here's a sample of his writing:

“You, the self-proclaimed ‘Czar’ of baseball, are the man responsible for keeping Jim Crow in our National Pastime. You are the one refusing to say the word which would do more to justify baseball’s existence in this year of war than any other single thing.”

Imagine any sports league in this day and age credentialing a reporter from the Communist Party? It's hard to believe. It's also hard to imagine that the press and the people acknowledged the efforts of the Communists here.

Mr. Rodney died last week, at the age of 98. He really led an extraordinary life.

Last 5 posts by Ezra

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  1. piperTom  •  Dec 29, 2009 @7:27 am

    No, I have never been a baseball fan. But this story does remind me of an old saying: "even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then."

  2. ASRSPR  •  Dec 29, 2009 @6:02 pm

    I was under the impression that Communism and Communists have had a pretty good record on things like race and gender equality, preferring (in the case of Communism) to tell people equally what they weren't allowed to do.

    Soviet women snipers in World War II and Communist Chinese women serving in the Sino-Japanese and Chinese Civil Wars are well known. Valentina Tereshkova flew in space 20 years before an American woman astronaut. Alexandra Kollentai was an important Old Bolshevik and the first to fully support Lenin's April Thesis. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara ostensibly fought for the freedom of the peoples of Latin America from foreign capitalist exploitation. And the First World's history of imperialism has long been a staple theme of any foreign policy proclamation from the Second.

    Yes, alot of it is empty rhetoric and dishonest ideology and propagandic dog-and-pony-show, but much of it is actually real.