I’ve been writing Charlie Robertson Saturday previews this winter. Robertson is an Austin College Kangaroo who pitched a perfect game in 1922 at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium.
Tiger Stadium is long gone, but the ballpark remains. It’s now used by the city for various community activities. I like that. Historical locations don’t need to remain as is, but they should be remembered well for posterity sake. A designated public space, or at least a smaller public area within a larger private space, is a good way to do.
Ebbets Field is not the way to do it.
Today would have been the 100th birthday of Jackie Robinson, one of many civil rights pioneers and American heroes. His athletic talent, combined with his immunization “by god from catching the diseases that he fought” (to borrow the words of Reverend Jackson), helped to painfully overcome yet another legacy of America’s original sin of race. Robinson’s #42 jersey from his Brooklyn Dodgers is appropriately retired on every Major League team.
The park where he courageously faced the hate on a near daily basis, Ebbets Field, is long gone too. In its place is an apartment complex. And not even a terribly pleasant looking one. You’d never know the history of the block if you drove by.
I lived in New York in the 1990s, and made my way one weekend to the location of the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. I knew I’d be disappointed, and I was. Not only should old ballparks be retired with dignity, they should especially be honored when they share historical space with civil rights locations such as the Lorraine Motel, the Greensboro Woolworth, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Ebbets Field is even a part of Roo sports history. There were two Brooklyn Dodgers franchises in the 1940s; both shared Ebbets Field. Branch Rickey’s baseball Dodgers played in the summer, while Dan Topping’s football Dodgers competed in the fall. Pete Cawthon, one of the most famous coaches in AC history from the 1920s, was Topping’s guy. For two seasons in 1943 and 1944, Cawthon paced the sidelines of Ebbets Field as his Dodgers faced the best the NFL had to offer.
Robinson arrived three years later in 1947. Baseball history was made, but the pain for Jackie was just beginning. Yet through it all, Robinson remained “a figure in history, a rock in the water creating concentric circles and ripples of new possibility” (again, borrowing the words of the good Reverend).
Numerous newspapers on April 1st of 1947 reported that recent news indicated “a final decision on whether Robinson will be promoted to the majors has been made.” A final decision had been made; Robinson started on Opening Day. Right next to a photo of Jackie was an news release about Cawthon. He was announcing his retirement after years of coaching at “Alabama, Austin [College], Rice, and Texas Tech.” He had departed Ebbets Field in 1945 for Detroit, where he finished his coaching career as an assistant for the Detroit Lions.
He coached his last game at Tiger Stadium in Detroit, where Robertson threw his perfect game in 1922. The field where Robertson threw and Cawthon coached remains today and is appropriately honored.
