An update on some previous stories in this space, after-the-jump ….
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Four months ago, I wrote about the life of baseball pitcher Ralph Branca— the horrible fifty years he spent after surrendering the most dramatic home run in baseball history ….. and the remaining fifteen years of salvation in his life, when new details about an unfair advantage his opponent had during that at-bat, his newfound ancestry and receiving overdue recognition for welcoming Jackie Robinson as a teammate (and thus playing a role in helping race relations at a critical moment) became more known.
That essay can be found at this link.
Now …... an update
In reading about a player who helped befriend Jackie Robinson the prior year (in the minor leagues) before he met Ralph Branca: it might do well first to look at that prior year … as it took place in Montreal, Québec seventy-five years ago.
When the Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie, he felt the best place for him to start was at the team’s minor league franchise named the Montreal Royals— as he felt there would be less discrimination there.
(Rickey made a similar decision to start his next two black players — Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella— at his Class B franchise in Nashua, New Hampshire with a sizable French-Canadian textile mill worker population, with both players reporting good community relations).
Rachel Robinson confirmed that Branch Rickey’s calculation was valid:
“Montreal was a near perfect launching place for Jackie because of the atmosphere. We had many special times in Montreal. It was a harmonious atmosphere. We enjoyed our stay there.”
Not only did the Montreal Royals win the 1946 International League title — and he was mobbed by fans when they won the decisive game — Jackie was voted the Most Valuable Player (with a batting average of .349, 40 stolen bases and 66 RBI’s). It made it easy for the Dodgers to promote him to the major leagues next year, and while the stadium the Royals played in no longer exists: there is a plaque at the corner of Delorimier and Ontario Streets marking Jackie’s record there.
The first game of the 1946 season for Montreal took place on April 18, 1946 … at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey — which also no longer exists. And the most famous photograph from that contest is after Jackie hit a three-run homer and had a teammate shake his hand upon reaching home plate.
In his 1948 autobiography, Jackie Robinson: My Own Story, Robinson recalled the moment: “When I crossed home plate, George Shuba was waiting for me. ‘That’s the way to hit that ball, Jackie,’ Shuba said. ‘That’s the old ballgame right there.’ He shook my hand.”
George Shuba was a utility outfielder who made it to the Dodgers in 1949 and thus was teammates again with Robinson through the 1955 World Series championship. Yet he faded from memory until years later, when people (including his son Mike) asked about the photo.
Mike Shuba, now 60, says he asked his dad repeatedly about the stories and context behind the handshake, and to see other mementos from his playing days, but was rebuffed.
About all the elder Shuba would convey was that on Robinson’s momentous day, his own move was a basic one, the right one and an example of how Mike and others should behave.
George Shuba died in 2014 at the age of eighty-nine. Yet just-this-week: a statue of the handshake was unveiled in Youngstown, Ohio— George Shuba’s birthplace.
Before finishing this topic, let’s bring it back to Ralph Branca. In my original essay, it was noted that — although Branca had only attended New York University for one year — it gave him a bond with Jackie Robinson, a UCLA graduate during an era when baseball players who had attended college were uncommon.
UCLA earlier this year announced that it would upgrade its baseball venue, named Jackie Robinson Stadium. And part of that upgrade is to install an (adjacent) state-of-the-art practice field … to be named Branca Family Field.
Donations for the entire project came-in from the late Ralph Branca’s nephew John (a UCLA law school graduate) and also several former and current major-leaguers who also played at UCLA, such as Troy Glaus, Chase Utley, Eric Karros and Gerrit Cole.
Three months ago, I dedicated an essay to the Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney— whose poetry inspires Joe Biden and whose rendition of one of his poems was played on Irish national TV on the night he was declared the presidential winner.
That essay can be found at this link.
Now …... an update
Just this month, it was announced that four short films are to be made about his life … with poetry and commissioned music. Some of the material comes from the archives he donated to the National Library of Ireland two years before his death in 2013 at the age of seventy-four.
Also this month, his alma mater (Queen’s University, Belfast) announced its 2021 Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize— given to a writer whose first collection has been released (by a publisher in Ireland or the UK) in the previous year — worth €5,000 and invited to participate in the university’s offerings.
This year it went to a rising star in the US, the Massachusetts-born Sumita Chakraborty— now a visiting professor at the University of Michigan.
As a student at Wellesley College, she said she was inspired by Heaney’s poem Kinship (and specifically, this stanza):
I grew out of all this Like a weeping willow Inclined to The appetites of gravity
Finally, I have written on more than one occasion about the jazz musician Gary Burton— and noted in 2017 (at the age of seventy-four) that he decided he was no longer able to perform at a high level anymore. As he had been outspoken in his criticism of musicians who hung-on when they could not longer play: he felt that he should practice what he preached …. and set-up a relatively short farewell tour. You can read my original 2014 essay at this link.
Now …... an update
It turned out his medical condition had been much worse than I had imagined … and so this six-minute video gave a nice explanation and overview of his last tour.
Now, on to Top Comments:
From inkstainedwretch:
In the diary by Dartagnan about the change in tone from many in the GOP due to Covid variants now harming Republicans — DrDiva replying to Frenchwordsmithillustrates Republicans 'morality' … values selfishness over everything.
Highlighted by mustnthappenhere:
In the front-page story on how the FBI did not pursue the Kavanagh case — this comment made by praxEs.
Highlighted by mozartssister:
In the front-page story on the GOP succeeding to well in creating an alternate universe for their base — this comment made by dennis503.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about merely the latest transgression from Eric Clapton— whom I loved seeing at two of the Cream reunion concerts in London and New York in 2005— comments from Elwood Dowd and dvogel0308 brought a smile.
And in the front-page story about the Gaetz-Taylor Greene tour losing money— Lincoln green offers a theory as to why their crazy train keeps a-rollin’.
Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.
TOP PHOTOSJuly 21st, 2021 (NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.) |
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
2) [image] by rudewarrior +17012) McCarthy just pulled all of them. by jqjacobs +9315) well, so we have : … by marsanges +9017) Good call by Pelosi. by DLup +8818) It will be much better without them by exlrrp +8530) Good call by Pelosi. by DLup +71