This week I have been struggling some, in my chosen profession. I might blame my struggles on my schedule, flying to Denver and then driving back and forth to the ballpark and various other places. But I tend to find fault within myself, not my conditions. So this time I will attribute my struggles to my own weaknesses, which I must admit are legion.
Which is all a roundabout way of explaining why it's taken me this long to write about Mo'ne Davis (and other things), and why it probably still wouldn't have happened without my friends Emma Span and Steven Goldman, who have both written well and movingly on this subject already.
Speaking of movingly ...
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
I believe that's true. But how long is that arc? If you're born into poverty and your parents can't find good work and your school can't afford textbooks, do those words about the moral universe have any consoling power? Of course the standard response in some quarters is, "Work hard, keep your nose clean, and you can be whomever you want."
Maybe, but if it were really so easy, a lot more people would do it.
In my experience, the truth is that while the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice, it bends very slowly ... and even more slowly if we assume it will bend its merry way without any help. For his part, Dr. King grew mighty impatient with the people, right-thinking white people among them, who sympathized with the socially and economically disadvantaged, but thought progress might best be accomplished with patience rather than protests.
What does all this have to do with baseball? I'll try to get around to that. First, a little history lesson from Emma Span's op-ed in The Times:
In 1931, a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell of the Chattanooga Lookouts struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig consecutively in an exhibition game. Mamie "Peanut" Johnson pitched against male players in the Negro Leagues for several seasons. Women's teams played one another during World War II, as depicted in the movie A League of Their Own. But in 1952, Major League Baseball officially banned women's contracts.
A bit of history, which I'm sure Emma knows all about, but might be unfamiliar to the average New York Times reader ... Jackie Mitchell and Peanut Johnson were nowhere near major-league quality, or even minor-league quality. Mitchell's appearance was a one-time stunt, while Johnson made a good living pitching for the Indianapolis Clowns in the 1950s, when the Negro Leagues were essentially finished as a competitive enterprise; the Clowns, in particular, were known more for their clowning than their baseballing (Hank Aaron notwithstanding), and also featured a female second baseman. As for 1952, Major League Baseball didn't ban women's contracts because of some worry about women actually earning jobs in the major leagues. Bill Veeck had unveiled Eddie Gaedel in 1951, and the Lords simply wanted to forestall some similar stunt.
Now, if the point is simply that yes, women have been playing baseball for a long, long time ... Yes, of course that's true. Emma's thesis, and I'm sorry if this is unfairly reductive, is that girls can play baseball, but have been needlessly steered away from baseball -- hell, for a long time they were banned from youth baseball all over America -- and directed instead to softball. Today, it's illegal to ban girls from school-sponsored baseball teams. Nevertheless, last year only 1,259 girls played high-school baseball ... which, quite frankly, is more than I would have guessed.
Emma's big finish:
What if we just admitted that softball and baseball are not, in fact, "separate but equal" but entirely different sports? There is no rational basis to claim that girls can't throw overhand, run 90 feet between bases or handle a hardball. And there is no reason but sexism to prevent them from doing so.
Well, it's not just sexism, is it? If you were the parent of a 12-year-old girl who loved baseball, or just a 12-year-old girl who wanted to play competitive ball into your early 20s, which sport would make more sense? Baseball, where a girl's likely to be physically overmatched by her male peers shortly into high school? Or softball, where a highly skilled young woman might gain a college scholarship?
I would absolutely not steer my baseball- or softball-loving daughter, if I had one, toward one game or the other. I would simply lay out the options and let her decide for herself. I suspect that's what Emma would do, too. I think that's her point, that girls should have a choice. And of course she's right. And many girls do, I think. But if Emma's suggesting that every high school and college that has one baseball team should have two baseball teams ... I'm not sure the benefits of that would outweigh the costs. It's a hard truth, I know, but sometimes our ideals do run up against practical considerations. Which is one reason, though hardly the only one, why the arc is so long.
We might assume that Emma's essay, or at least the commissioning thereof by the Gray Lady, was inspired by the explosive popularity of 13-year-old Mo'ne Davis. Except it wasn't. The essay ran in June. It's just now getting passed around again. But while Emma didn't write specifically about Davis, a lot of professional writers have. But I believe that Steve Goldman wrote the best thing. I recommend the entire essay, and it's not a short essay. But instead of finishing big, Steve starts huge. Here's his headline and his sub-headline:
Mo'ne Davis is a kid, not a gender pioneer. And she's sure as hell not a painting. Treating her as anything but what she is, a 13-year-old, is the height of objectification, making her a symbol instead of a kid playing a kid's game. Her future can wait until it arrives.
This is what I wanted to write earlier this week, except I was trying to come up with 800 words when all I was really feeling were Steve's 51. Even before he wrote them.
I don't watch the Little League World Series. I don't think we should be watching children competing on television, especially when the whole thing stinks of money. I also don't think we should be putting children on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Let's think about all the teenagers who have become famous in show business -- and let's be honest, network television is show business, whether it's sports or Diff'rent Strokes -- and then wonder how many of them have handled that fame well.
Now, I know that every teenager is different, and what happens next depends on a great number of factors. Being on the cover of Sports Illustrated might be the best thing that ever happens to Mo'ne Davis, and I mean that in a good way. But if you were running the Universe, would you take that chance? I wouldn't. Sometimes things don't work out well at all. I would let her play her game, feature her in "Faces in the Crowd" -- I mean, if that feature were still in the magazine -- and might even have someone do some reporting and write a one-page feature. But the cover? No 13-year-old in history deserves that weight.
I'm thrilled about a girl starring in a baseball tournament, and I hope she gets to play baseball for as long as she likes, and do whatever else makes her happy.
Alas, we've been reminded lately, in the starkest of terms, that the color of Mo'ne Davis' skin might limit her opportunities. Yes, roughly a half-century after Dr. King spoke so movingly so many times, blacks and whites are having the same old arguments, both sides feeling as if those people with different-colored skin just don't understand how things really are.
You can probably guess where my sympathies lay. Especially if you follow me on Twitter, which of course is the best way to know what's really in someone's heart. But I've noticed something about the whole affair: If your sympathies lay on one side, you're not allowed to even consider another's sympathies. There's a bright yellow line running down the middle of the road, and you're supposed to choose one side. Choose, and at least you'll have some friends. Don't choose, and you're on your own. Which is one of the most disheartening things about human nature, unless you're too enlightened to become disheartened.
Earlier this week, I publicly wondered where the St. Louis Cardinals have been during all this ugliness in that St. Louis suburb. Back in 1967, when parts of Detroit were going up in flames, Tigers outfielder Willie Horton stood atop a car for days on end, imploring his fellow citizens to end the violence. Why, I wondered, wasn't someone associated with the Cardinals making some similar gesture in Ferguson? Baseball is a social institution, after all. Or so they keep telling us.
But I missed some things. For one thing, Horton's pleas went largely unheeded. Scores died, hundreds of city blocks destroyed. You can still see the ruins in Detroit. For another, whatever standing Baseball might once have had in these affairs, it's lost. Horton was black, as were a few of his better-known teammates.
Today's Cardinals? They have one American-born black player: Sam Freeman, a relatively obscure relief pitcher. There's nobody on the roster who could stand atop a car in Ferguson with any real authority.
For which I don't blame the Cardinals. Most of the people who run baseball teams are solid people who would love things to be different. They just don't know how to change things. You probably don't know how to change things. I don't know how to change things.
But you know, making sure there's a place in baseball for a 13-year-old black girl from Philadelphia does seem like a decent enough start. I hope Mo'ne Davis has bent the arc just a little. I think she probably has. But let's figure out that part a half-century or so from now. Today, let's just enjoy the moment.
No, scratch that. She's 13. Let's just let her enjoy the moment, without any help from the adults. We'd screw it up, like usual.
