Dave Winfield remembers what Major League Baseball and WWII movies forget

Today is the anniversary of D-Day. The invasion of Normandy. And the major media barely takes notice. I mean in an environment where ultra-liberals are screaming that America turn tail and run away from Iraq, and cities slap insult after insult on our military – refusing to allow recruiters to do their jobs and hiding our Armed Forces in the back doors of airports if they let them into the ports at all [look up San Fransisco or Marines at VASS]– how do we expect more?

But America is not just forgetting to remember the sacrifices of the old and current soldiers that ensure the freedoms we enjoy without a second thought. In our luxury of sitting in our homes and the only bomb blasts occurring on our HDTV screens, we forget that 2302 days have passed without a single terrorist attack in America. If anyone thinks this is not because of our brave men and women, and their sacrifices, they are in my opinion fools and willfully ignorant.

America loves to forget the things in our past that don’t match with what we want to think of today. Like past wars and the soldiers that fought them. Like the decades it took for the Tuskegee Airmen to get the recognition they deserved, or the fact that beyond Spike Lee’s upcoming film I cannot name another major (or minor) movie that recognizes that African Americans served in WWII. Then again you would be hard pressed to find Hollywood mentioning that Blacks have served in ever war or conflict America has ever had including the American Revolution.

Along those same lines of forgetting selected parts of our past, there is an example of someone that is remembering. Dave Winfeild, former NY Yankee, has not forgotten those that came before him and enabled him (and every other non-White pro team athlete) to enjoy being the pinnacle of American major league sports. Who has he remembered that was forgotten? The players of the Negro Leagues.

The original National Association of Base Ball Players, formed in 1867, banned black athletes. In 1920 the Negro National League was formed. It would be another 27 years before Jackie Robinson would break the barrier created 80 years prior. But Jackie Robinson was not a man in a vaccum, nor plucked from some street corner. He was one player among a league of hundreds, a number of which are believed to have been equal or superior to Robinson – each of them denied solely because of the color of their skin.

Today there are hundreds of players that are of virtually every race found on the Earth in American major league sports. Yet even the most avid fans in the nation’s preimer sport are hard pressed to name more than 2 players from the Negro Leagues – Jackie Robinson and Saitchel Paige. Such a shun and a desire to ignore the racist and ill-concieved past of the nation and baseball is maddening. And while it’s many years too late, Dave Winfeild has made sure something is done about it.

30 members of the Negro Leagues, people that I doubt most sports fans have ever heard of – because the history books and stadiums were closed to them – are to be recognized in a way that at least symbolically ensures their place in baseball history. These men will be drafted by the major teams prior to the MLB amateur draft. Emilio “Millito” Navarro, now 103 and the first Puerto Rican to play in the Negro Leagues, will be drafted by the New York Yankees.

In a country finally celebrating the potential of the first African American that may become the President of the United States, finally recognizing that African Americans fought and died as bravely in every war we ever fought, finally recognizing that Blacks have been as integral to the foundation and growth of this nation as any (and perhaps more) other group, I say that such recognition is beyond long overdue.

The major media may feel such events are cursory. They may feel that focusing on a fist bump by Senator Obama on the night he locked the Democratic Presidential nomination is more news worthy. But I will not allow my blog to miss these important facts. I remember those that came before me, I thank them. And I will share that acknowledgement. If nothing else, it’s the very least we can do.

Don’t you agree?