Jack Flaherty, a 24-year-old black man who seems passionate but ambivalent about the role of spokesman because of his willingness to be honest in public and the scheme available to reporters through Zoom, wants a few things: To better understand the specific actionable steps he can take to combat racism in this country, and to put a uniform front on Major League Baseball.
The first is a lifelong venture with no clear heading, but Flaherty – the young ace of the St. Louis Cardinals – is ready to put the work into action. He has talked to players around the league and in other sports. Educated himself through activism and activists in the NBA and WNBA. He regrets that he did not always seize opportunities to influence change. He wants to march with his friends to Washington, but he can not leave his team now due to COVID-19 protocols. He wants to be more involved with the charitable organization of New York Mets slugger Dom Smith. He participated in it twice, but he could go further. No excuses next time. He wants to start something of his own in St. Louis. Louis, he just does not yet know what it is.
“I’m frustrated I do not know what it is,” Flaherty said. “It sucks that that’s still my answer.”
The unit thing, though, that should have been easier.
But the pursuit of unity, and the solidarity it contains, suddenly becomes imperative when it is placed as opposed to standing alone as a Black player on a white team, in a largely white sport, which the past two chose not to out of their games to run days.
No league-wide action in MLB
Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday, starting a planned playoff game to protest against Jacob Blake’s police shooting and the continuing national indifference to the mistreatment of Black people in the hands of law enforcement, was incredibly courageous. They took a real risk, combining a calculated lashing of uncontrollable despair with definitive action and a direct statement directed at the Wisconsin legislature. “Data-reactid =” 27 “> What the Milwaukee Bucks did on Wednesday ran out of a planned playoff game to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake’s police and the continuing national indifference to the mistreatment of Black people in ‘ the hands of law enforcement, was incredibly courageous.They took a real risk, combining a calculated swearing out of uncontrollable despair with definitive action and a direct statement directed at the Wisconsin legislature.
That they were joined to their memory by the remaining players in the NBA bubble showed the power of collective action – athletes are the labor and the product and the marketing arm of basketball all wrapped up in one. The leverage over a lucrative sector is theirs alone, and they are right to flex it. That they were hit on their platform by the league itself, no matter how mollifying that may be, is a sign of progress. The WNBA organized, as they have repeatedly said on issues of social justice, an even more evocative demonstration. The postponement of their games also forced, but not before, they arrived in shirts with seven “bullet holes” in their backs, remembering where the police shot Blake for his children, according to Blake’s lawyer and family.
Cardinal thrower Jack Flaherty cut a message in the mound near a Black Lives Matter logo before launching in July. (Jeff Roberson / AP)
When the demonstration jumped to Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers made a bold statement about how the capacity for pain and the willingness to act on it is not limited to the overwhelming Black, politically more progressive NBA. Their decision to run out on their game was ratified by the Cincinnati Reds and echoes repeated over the past 24 hours as games around the league were postponed. Teams made joint statements with their rivals, Los Angeles Dodgers stalwarts stood next to Mookie Betts and promised not to play until he was comfortable. Managers spoke of procrastination to their clubhouse and reaching unanimity. Behind closed doors, the importance of being re-confirmed on the same site.
“But it was not a thing in the league,” Flaherty said.
A handful of players, all black, ran out of games played without them. Jason Heyward of the Puppies gave his teammates his blessing to leave him exceptional, which ironically was a much bigger display of support than what they showed him. Matt Kemp of the Colorado Rockies wrote on Instagram that he “could not play this game that I loved so much last night, knew the hurt and pain my people are feeling.” Cardinals Flaherty and Dexter Fowler were announced as healthy scratches Wednesday night.
In New York, Smith knelt alone for the national anthem and the Mets shared a photo of him, almost of every teammate, with the caption “We are united for change.” After the game, he only cried on camera as he struggled to articulate how hard it is to be a Black man in America, how hard it is to see that people do not care.
“It’s hard because yesterday would have been the day for action in the league, and it could not happen league wide yesterday,” Flaherty said Thursday.
A lot of it is just timing. Some games were already underway when the Bucks’ protest became clear, some were about to begin. It would have been an impossible struggle to coordinate a strike over baseball. Adjust.
“Hopefully it can happen today,” Flaherty said, “but it does not seem like it can happen today.”
express regret
that they had not walked next to Kemp on Wednesday. That’s when the Diamondbacks in turn, announced that they were ready to play. The Mets managed a whole mini-drama behind the scenes before taking the field next to the Miami Marlins for 42 seconds to only go out again without playing. “Data-reactid =” 51 “> The Rockies decided as a team not to play against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday, express regret that they had not walked next to Kemp on Wednesday. That if the Diamondbacks, in turn, announced that they were ready to play. The Mets managed a very mini-drama behind the scenes before taking the field along with the Miami Marlins for 42 seconds to only go out again without playing.Six teams playing Wednesday were free on Thursday. The Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels have been shut down by Hurricane Laura since the start of the protests. And the Cardinals, who played without Fowler and Flaherty on Wednesday, made a double-header against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday (who have also not played in the past two days).
Flaherty pointed out heavily how there had been a campaign among some players on Thursday to take unanimous action, but that talks revealed that some players “just do not feel fully supported, and continue with the question: ‘Well, why do you want to sit? Why? Why should we not play today? ‘
“It sucks because you like it to be a uniform thing.”
‘There are not many of us in this game’
Flaherty said he played his teammates support without him yesterday. He deleted a few tweets and pointed out that the NHL postponed their games en masse today, while MLB continued an ad hoc approach. Those tweets, he later tweeted, had “put my teammates in a bad position.” But again, he gets it on until the lack of a “uniform statement in the league.”
There have been a number of powerful moments in baseball over the past 48 hours. Many felt raw and powerful in their spontaneity. But it is worth considering, on the contrary, the power in organized unity. Especially when the effect of the disjointed reaction was often to highlight how many Black players there are in the game – 7.8 percent of the line-ups of opening day this year.
“There are not many of us in this game,” Flaherty said. “There are not many of us in the game trying to make a statement together.”
Veteran outfielder Dexter Fowler has opted to sit out Wednesday night amid protests over racial injustice in the league, but the Cardinals played through. (Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
Passive support, from the league or the teams that have chosen not to take collective action, is very much like giving their players permission to become interested in a baseball game – an almost gradual capitulation for that which they could not have controlled anyway.
It reduces violence against unarmed Black people to a niche issue instead of increasing it as a violation of human rights. It confirms that being emotionally influenced by videos of out-of-court violence is the kind of thing white people can choose in and out of, depending on the ease of the particular moment.
Let’s be clear: The sacrifice on the line just had to make a game as part of a double header at a later date. It would never be a loss, all sports classes are smarter than that. And at seven innings per piece, what else is there this season? What if your teammates or leagues or colleagues make it clear that there is a referendum at stake about their personality?
Flaherty also spoke about how he is “sick and tired of talking, but nothing happens, nothing happens, no changes are made.”
He is ready with just spoken out and ready to take action.
Shortly after his remarks, the Players Alliance, a consortium of 100 Black professional baseball players formed earlier this year, of which Flaherty is a member, announced that his players would donate their salaries from August 27 and 28 – that’s Jackie Robinson Day round MLB this year – to combat racial inequality and help the Black community.
Hopefully, that bodes well for a uniform, league-wide commitment.
