Blight

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aU TIT aT

on baseball

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Reserve clause keeps minor league stars from
advancing to majors, discriminates against Negroes

By LESTER RODNEY
eA Slance through the minor

qeeue baseball statistics dis-

lai ometaing that needs pub-
mettre are at least six Negro
ihe Starring in Triple A class
“wan also starred in Triple

ast year. They are, players
woe” all reasonable standards
cha figure to rate at least a
Woefyy to play for some of the
fy ully weak big league second
ary .o8 clubs, at big league sal-

d conditions.

ne © Dodgers own two of them.
Year Edmundo Amoros,” last
outs, Was a golidly established
A eld Star with St. Paul in the
hi Mean Association, where he
Ue ae with extra base power.
i) -@e up to Brooklyn at the
Well <n" of the season, and did
his ‘2 his brief appearances. In
boenve Cuba last winter
of the Was the run-away leader
ac, ,Strong Cuban Winter
Sue, hitting .373.

a look young fast star never got
Spring ever by the Dodgers this
trea} & ut was assigned to Mon-
Wag .°8 Son as he reported. This
the 2 fairly obvious bowing by
ide, Cd8er brass to the “quota”
Jim quince their bringing up of
eq . wlliam had reportedly rous-
€w racist remarks.

Dore EOS; at last available re-
ing t Was hitting 323 and lead-

€ International League in
“Ms. batted in. :

Sepy ee Pall, Moguls says the “re-
for clause,” binding a player
Organi” to the first big league
Necac tation he. signs with, is
tuy paety to preserve team struc-
the ..2%d league balance, keep
the Boer teams from buying
at en from the poorer teams

€nd of each season, ete.

the ah here in actual life we find
Ame. te clause, which forbids
Majo, ‘Ne right to play in the
Maiore When he is ready for the
tight 2 Which forbids him the
Sy tp © Negotiate -his services

i Bill Veeck and the power-
to ,,.2 St Louis Browns, acts

Clubs P talent from the weaker

Degtter the rules of baseball the

the “*S can option Omoros to

{op minor leagues next season

fhe third Straight time, even

8 oby: Its 399 this year. This
‘ously cockeyed,

* * *

The jj ;
"ain; Mcrow practices of the
Y of big league clubs,

t

which is really the number one
item the Supreme Court should
be Jooking over, keeps the other
clubs from buying Amoros from
the. Dodger chain, and thus acts
with the reserve clause to de-
prive a player of his right to a
big league chance.

In the same _ category of
“quota” players ironically trap-
ped in the farm systems of pre-
cisely those teams which blasted
the path in breaking the color
line are:

Bob Wilson, a third baseman
with the Dodgers’ St. Paul team
a second straight year. He hit
.334 there last year, was an All-
Star selection, and is currently
blistering the ball at .347.. Who
knows whether he has: already
matured into a big leaguer? He
got no big league lookover this
spring. Why should Brooklyn
be able to hold him down on the
farm and even next year, with
his logical progression thwarted
(and some big league clubs cry-
ing for third basemen who can
hit)? i

Cleveland, which happens to
be loaded with lefthanded hitting
outfielders in Mitchell, Doby and
Simpson, gave short shrift to
Outfielder Dave Pope, who led
the American Association in hit-
ting last year. Pope is now back
in Indianapolis; where he has al-
ready hit eight home runs.

On the same club is third base-
man Al. Smith, another Negro
player who at last figures was
leading the league in runs bat-
ted in.

The White Sox have just sent
down to Charlseton in the same
league Bob Boyd, a first base-
man who hit .320 with Seattle
last year, who has done well in
every minor league he has play-
ed in but who is denied a trial
with anv of the other 15 big
league clubs. some of whom may
not have a Ferris Fain on first.

* * *

Over at Kansas City we have
a different situation. Here is Vic
Power, a player who had a great
year in 52, who is, baseball peo-
ple consider, ripe for a big league
trial, who himself states he is.
ready for the big leagues. No
“quota” holds him from a trial
with the big league team which
‘owns Kansas City. The Yankee
quota is zero!

Power is currently hitting .358,
with 26 rbis. Someone might
say how about Bill Skowron, a

<

white player with the same team
who also hit very well last seas-
on and is currently at .344 with.
23 rbis.

The answer to that is simple.
Skowron.-had a lookover by Casey
Stengel this spring. Power was
denied even an invitation to
come to the Yankee rookie camp
for a lookover, though many with.
far .inferior records did. The
Yanks have converted Skowron
into a first baseman and intend
to bring him up. They have no
intentions whatsoever of bring-
ing up Power. They keep him
because he helps their Kansas
City farm draw fans and win
games, and allows them to say
that their system is not jimcrow.

Here is a blatant case of de-
priving a player of his right to
advance, the kind of a case a
real baseball commissioner would
act on. Another Negro player®
trapped on the Yanks’ dead. end
farm team in Kansas City, Reub-
en Gomez, had to BUY his way
out of the Yankee chain before

“he could get a big league look-

over. He is now with the Giants.

A couple of lawsuits might
have a salutary effect in these
situations. Though there is no
substitution for a trade union
in the long run.

Purchase of Tu

Tee becalbes teen

pose ico OF oe

Hoes racing is known as the
Sport of Kings, mainly be-
cause it had its beginnings
among the idle rich, especially
the nobility, who liked to race
their favorite thoroughbreds for
side stakes. Today the race tracks
are jammed with the proletariat,
but in some countries racing re-
tains a trace of the original snob-
bery with its emphasis on “royal
boxes” and such nonsense.

Contrary to horse racing, soc-
cer from its medern beginnings
was the Sport. of Commoners.
True, the ancient Greeks and
Romans played a sort of foot-

ball, from which the slaves were’

presumably excluded, but little
is known of that period. Modern
soccer began in earnest with the
industrial. development of Eng-
land in. the 19th century, when
thousands of country boys, trans-
planted into the grimy factories
of the big industrial cities, sought
an outlet for their recreational
urge by kicking an inflated pig-
skin around the green. Upper-
class youths turned up their

noses at this rowdy sport for.

many years, but the workers lov-
ed. it.

Team games became impera-
tive if the workers were to get
any recreation whatever, and
football sides consisted of as
many players as could be mobil-
ized. Football was strictly a
a kicking game at that time—
you kicked either the ball or
your adversary.

The game was forbidden from
time to time by royal decree,
but continued to gain popularity.
Finally the rich young gentle-
men at Eton, Harrow and Rugby
took it up and it became a na-
tional sport.

No leagues existed in those
days, and school games were
played between picked sides,
strictly as entertainment. One
day in 1823 an 18-year-old Rugby
student, William Webb Ellis by
name, got so mad because neith-
er side had scored in a school
game that he caught a punt in-
stead of heeling it for a free
kick at goal, cuddled the ball in
his arms and dashed through his
startled opponents to the goal
line, for the first touchdown in
history.

Young Ellis was roundly berat-
ed for his “lack of sportsman-
ship” at the time, but ball-carry-
ing became the rage at his school

lyar, last year’s Derby and St. Leger winner,

by the Irish National Stud for $750,000, caused heated debate in
the Irish parliament. Many speakers felt that the purchase was
a tremendous speculation in public funds and that the money
could have been better spent on improving Irish sports facilities

in general.

SPORTLIGHT

- By BERT WHYTE

and soon this type of game be-
came known as rugby.

Meanwhile soccer was also
thriving, and by 1850 several
club teams had developed. A
convention of 20 clubs at Free-
masons Tavern in London in
1863 drew up rules and founded
the London Football Association.
Blackheath withdrew and persist-
ed in playing the, ball-carrying
game, so in 1869 a rugby union
was formed.

British colonists to Canada and
the United States brought the
two games to this continent. Can-
ada developed a rugby-style game
of its own which was later taken
up by the Americans. In 1876
a convention was held in Spring-
field, Massachuseets and a Rugby
Union code drawn up. These
rules have been changed many
times since and present-day Am-
erican rugby bears little resem-
blance to the Old Country game.
-Canada and Mexico City are the
only places in the world where
anything resembling U.S. foot-
ball is played.

Soccer rules have changed very
little (fundamentally) in the past
decade, and the game itself has
become international. In fact, it is
no exaggeration to call it the
most universal of all sports.

*

“Why don’t you write a column
on soccer?” several readers have
asked me. Main reason is that
I know very little about the
game. While overseas with the
Canadian Army I was forced to
participate in several matches,
during which I ran frantically
about trying to avoid being kick-
ed by opponents as ‘unskilled as
myself. Whenever the ball came
near me I did my best to get rid
of it in a hurry.

Once one of our scrap teams
was thrown in against a British
eleven. At half time the score
was 24 to zero, guess in who’s

favor.
*

While browsing through refer-
ence books in the library to dig
up some soccer facts, I came
across an item dealing with
“Gaelic football” which indicates
that game was the roughest of
them all. Says the Encyclopedia
Britannica: e

“Gaelic football has no connec-
tion with either Association or
Rugby, being descended from
mediaeval melees in which en-
tire Irish parishes would align
themselves against each other
for day-long battles over liter-

ally square miles of territory,

starting from a central point be-
tween them.”

It adds that the game-— and
presumably the Irish — have
since become more refined. :

*

Although soccer is an inter-
national game, and has many fol-
lowers here on the West Coast,
it must be recognized that in this
country and in the United States
it is still a minor sport. As Dr.
Willy Meisl writes in the authori-
tative English magazine, World
Sports:

“For decades, soccer has strug-
gled in vain in the U.S. and in
Canada to become a major sport.
Not one American in 50 knows
anything about soccer, and hard-
ly one in 100 has ever seen a
soccer match—let alone kicked
a round ball.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 19, 1953 — PAGE iB

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