Given last week’s federal commemoration of Juneteenth, I wonder if the timing of MLB’s Negro League tribute game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama was intentional. Certainly I could look into it to know for sure. But for the purposes of this opinion piece, it’s not necessary to know for sure. Though I’m not the biggest fan of baseball, I happen to stumble upon coverage of this tribute game. It caught my attention because of the recent passing of Willie Mays. Also because I follow Derek Jeter on Instagram, where he posted photos about bringing his dad to the tribute game.
Though I loosely followed Derek Jeter’s career, I began following him on IG a couple of years ago when I watched The Captain series and got caught up to speed on his baseball career. It was the equivalent of The Last Dance, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I enjoyed it because I was reliving an era that I was a die-hard fan of. With this series about DJ, I just wanted to learn. Same thing with the game at Rickwood. Because of Derek’s IG post, when I scrolled upon coverage of the game on YouTube, I decided to watch and learn. To my surprise, I found myself binging the videos, including the video with legendary Reggie Jackson.
When I first watched the video, I listened intently. The video landed pretty normally with me. But the next day, I realized the video landed differently with others. Not in a bad way, but a surprising way, at least I was surprised by the reaction. Though it shouldn’t be a surprise to me. After all, I just wrote about how the marginalized, specifically black people, are the unsung balancers of society.
For those who balk at moments like these or think that Juneteenth as a federal holiday is meaningless, listen up! Though we are not that far removed from this particular history (Reggie Jackson is only 78 years old), we can be easily detached from it. While I don’t think A-Rod’s question was some naive prompt, I do think that everyone expected Mr. October to be so caught up in the pageantry, the proud gazes at him and deliver a response of heartfelt honor.
Mr. Jackson instead served as a balancer of history in that moment. He sobered everyone up from all the pageantry and alerted everyone to the reality that all of the pageantry didn’t bring up good memories. He was reminded of awful times. He brought back to the fore why the Negro Leagues existed in the first place. I don’t know that the producers of the show expected his segment to be that long. But he spoke with such poignancy that everyone had to sit there and absorb his sobering reminder. The producers wouldn’t dare cut away…
Moments like these conjure up mixed feelings for me. As I mentioned earlier, the video landed normally with me when I watched it the first time. It was normal because the history is not news to me. The knowledge of these events does not have to be stirred up within me. Yes it needs to be stirred up within younger generations that are none the wiser. But when my peers and even those older than me seem to be so novelly moved, I become a bit bothered. Our collective detachment from history makes our very real history so hard to fathom that we miss present-day warning signs of danger ahead.
At the same time, I’m quite thankful that his comments landed differently. Our unsung balancers need to keep singing. Even though I didn’t expect it, the history balancing conversation continued as it should and those none the wiser, whether young or old, are more wise now.
Onward to more telling of the truth, shaming the devil and Harmonious Balance, my friends!
Johanna
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