THE RIGHT CALL AT LAST!

For the Lord will not forsake his people;
    he will not abandon his heritage;
for justice will return to the righteous,
    and all the upright in heart will follow it.

psalm 94:14-15

Major League Baseball’s announcement that it will integrate Negro League records into its statistical database prompted me to take a nostalgic look at the books and articles I’ve collected over the years regarding the Negro Leagues and Latin American Baseball.

The change will turn baseball on its ear. Ty Cobb’s leading all-time batting average is now second to Josh Gibson. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. To call this move controversial doesn’t even begin to describe it. The critics are already out in full force!

But blacks played baseball long before 1947, the year Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is to be applauded for, at the very least, opening up another avenue of discussion into American History and the inequalities that have plagued society since this country’s very beginnings.

As I scanned my bookshelf, my heart was filled with gratitude for those authors whose assiduous research validated the efforts of those players that labored in obscurity because they were denied an opportunity to showcase their talents on a wider stage.

But I am most grateful for my father, who instilled in me early the love of the game by carrying me on his shoulders nearly every weekend to Sixto Escobar Stadium in San Juan, to watch these players perform in the Puerto Rican winter league, where there were no racial restrictions, and players were judged by their skills on the field and not by their color.

Although I was only five or six years old, I can still recall his joy at being able to share his baseball knowledge with me, who were the better players and the fun we would have watching games together. I wrote a blog post about this three years ago, “The Bonds of Baseball,” which you can read by clicking on the title.

It wasn’t until my teenage years that I understood why he lavished so much praise for the achievements of men like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and “Perucho” Cepeda (Orlando Cepeda’s father, who some say was more talented than his Hall-of-Fame son).

Now that those statistics have been legitimized, I am eager to reread all these pages and immerse myself in the stories that I first learned to appreciate from my father. Though he never expressed any resentment (at least not to me) over the injustices of Major League Baseball, I’m sure he would have felt vindicated that a great error has been corrected. My father would have been basking in the glow of this day.

Who knows? If there’s baseball in heaven, he’s probably there cheering!