Yeah, fine, in this case, First isn’t worst, and far from it. But what I’m interested in here is the guy who came in Second. Twice.
I was in my bunker powering through the first three pages of Tristram Shandy on Sunday, so I missed mentioning this then, but July 5th marked the date when Larry Doby became the second player to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball, coming in just a few months behind Jackie Robinson.
What’s more, in 1978, Doby became the second black manager in Major League Baseball, after Frank Robinson in 1975.
Larry Doby dealt with essentially all of the same things that the guys who came in “first” had to deal with, but he gets basically no recognition for it. How many of you have heard of Larry Doby? (It’s possible our readers are not a random sample. Even so.) Everyone’s heard of Jackie Robinson. And all baseball fans have heard of Frank. (Incidentally, what do the Robinsons of the world have against Larry Doby? Jeez, give the guy a break.) Certainly, Doby didn’t have to bear the weight of being the icon that Jackie Robinson was, but he did have to experience every bit of the virulent racism that Robinson did, without the support of that iconic status.
Doby twice led the league in home runs, once hit for the cycle, and became the first black player to hit a home run in the World Series.
And, to be fair, Doby was the first black player in the American League. He was also the third American ever to play in the Japanese Nippon Professional League. Which means that, all told, Larry Doby was the worst, the best, and the one with the hairy chest.
Doby died June 18th, 2003.
Here is Larry, doing his best Lil’ Freedom impression, and again, a little older:
Fletch
Jeremy
Zack!
joshuastough
pfe115
vkoneonefive
My complaint about Terrace Agenda
The topic I want to cover in this letter is big and complex, and I don’t have much in the way of scientific data on it. Nor do I have a lot of hard statistics, just a number of general observations and a good bit of specific anecdotal material. For starters, Terrace Agenda either is or elects to be ignorant of scientific principles and methods. It even intentionally misuses scientific terminology to move increasingly towards the establishment of a totalitarian Earth.
We have a right, an indisputable, inalienable, indefeasible, divine right to proscribe Terrace Agenda and its fans as the most dangerous enemies of the people, period. “What’s that?”, I hear you ask. “Is it true that Terrace Agenda’s the type of organization who would intensify or perpetuate communism if it got the chance?” Why, yes, it is.
On several occasions I have heard Terrace Agenda state that its doctrines are all sweetness and light. I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a comment. What I consider far more important though is that in order to convince us that it is a spokesman for God, Terrace Agenda often turns to the old propagandist trick of comparing results brought about by entirely dissimilar causes. If I hear Terrace Agenda’s admirers say, “Embracing a system of sadism will make everything right with the world” one more time, I’m indeed going to throw up. Everything I’ve written in this letter amounts to this: I want to speak in the strongest possible terms against Terrace Agenda’s methods of interpretation.
________________________________________
Too bad, that comment would have been way more fun if it had popped up on one of our typical posts and not one about, um, Larry Doby. Unfortunately, now I don’t even get to hope secretly that it’s somehow real. There is some useful stuff in there, though– I like the bits about sweetness and light, and about sadism making the world right. That’s excellent, whoever thought that up.
I don’t really get the angle here, but I’m disappointed that this isn’t somehow real.
Actually, now I’ve re-read it and it’s pretty clever. Good on ya. I still don’t get the angle, unless it’s just someone wanting to be clever, to which I say: Good on ya.
Yeah, I really don’t see how this addressed Larry Doby at all. You are one confused sort Alaister Poindexter, if this is indeed your real name!!