MLN MAJOR BLOGS - www.majorblogs.net - Whomever runs the Hair-Brained Schemes department at Major League Baseball, really, my hat is off to you! This year's madcap MLB misadventure, the Civil Rights Game, was not only a snooze, but also you managed to ding the very thing that you were supposed to celebrate.

Okay, on paper it sounded great: Baseball would honor Jackie Robinson, and the message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by hosting a final pre-season exhibition game at AutoZone Park in Memphis, Tennessee, the town in which Dr. King was assassinated. That motel in which the life of the great civil rights leader was tragically taken has now become the home of the National Civil Rights Museum educating future generations.  

The museum and the home of the Memphis Redbirds, proud Triple-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, are two of the great showpieces of the city.

The goals of the Civil Rights Game were a bit less noble, though. MLB has been looking to reacquire the rapidly-shrinking African-American baseball fan base in major league cities.  They also needed to find an 11th hour solution to replace the ill-concieved World Baseball Classic, which screwed up Spring Training last year, sending players to mythic national teams hither and yon.

The Civil Rights Game was announced during the Winter Meetings in November, 2006 with great ballyhoo, to much clucking and positive tongue-wagging by the major league media, most of whom grow increasingly younger by the day and have only read about the Civil Rights Era and this time period of baseball in history books.

For many of you kiddies who picked this up in US Civ, or American Government 101, gather ‘round:

MLB hosting a civil rights game is like Michael Richards (aka ‘Kramer’ on Seinfield) emceeing a Kings of Comedy show. 

Major League Baseball, in its position as the national pastime, was one of the most visible standard-bearers of racial segregation through its white-only player hiring practices for more than half a century.

Long before there was political correctness rehab, Branch B. Rickey, the white general manager (GM) of the Dodgers, knew that there was great talent in the Negro Leagues and wanted to finally tap it and bring an end to segregation in baseball.  

Rickey selected  Jackie Robinson to be the first player to break the color line.  Robinson, a UCLA graduate, was a phenomenal athlete and a person of squeaky-clean character.  He almost did not get the opportunity, though, because he was famous for having a temper, particularly over matters where his race came into question.  Rickey made him promise to stand up to the tidal waves of negativity that were expected from the players, the white-owned media, and white fans without going negative himself.  Branch wanted no excuse to show that African-American athletes could be denied a place in the game.  Robinson understood, and held back his anger even when the most determined players and reporters pushed his good will to the limit.  

Yet Rickey, the father of the modern farm system and the man who single-handedly turned around half a century of MLB bigotry got no real props from the big TV civil rights showcase.

Celebrating removing the barriers that your predecessors imposed on the game needs sensitive handling. None of that was in evidence in a night that seemed focused on a very narrow message without much research into the history that was being celebrated.

The majors  slighted the Triple-A Pacific Coast League (PCL) twice.  At first it was in a more minor way: MLB failed to acknowledge them in the November press release as part of their props to AutoZone park and the Memphis Redbirds, who play in the PCL. The bigger, and more egregious gaffe, was in failing to connect the dots between Rickey and the PCL, and cash in on it for their Civil Rights homage.

Rickey’s grandson, Branch B. Rickey III, is not only the president of the Pacific Coast League, but one of the most articulate and intelligent spokespeople for the game of baseball. How hard would have been to invite him to attend the game in one of his league’s own parks, and give his grandfather the props that he deserved?

The match-up was  a problem.  The World Champion St. Louis Cardinals were the right pick: They are number one in the game coming into 2007.  They have a large African-American population in St. Louis. There is a huge base of Cardinals fans in Memphis, as the Redbirds are their Triple-A club.

Who thought, though, that calling out the Cleveland Indians to a civil rights night was a smart move?  For a business celebrating its racial awareness, it is awkward penciling in the Indians when Native Americans are still clashing with MLB over the use of names like the Indians and the Braves, claiming them to be racist.

The event also went off without so much as a mention of how long it  took other players of color, Hispanics or Asians, to break into the game.

Hispanics had always been able to blend into the game if their skin color was not an issue. Ted Williams was part Hispanic, but he could “pass.”  Dark-skinned Hispanics always found themselves staying in their country of origin, or, if they were born in the United States and had exceptional talent, scrounging games in the Negro Leagues.

The Civil Rights game dredges up another baseball myth. The official line is that Jackie Robinson out-played white baseball in 1955 with dignity, and racism in baseball fell like the Berlin Wall.   Tell that to Sadaharu Oh.

Oh, the Hank Aaron of Japan, could rough up ambassador teams like the Cincinnati Reds when they toured Japan, but he was never sought out for an MLB tour of duty. Now the Boston Red Sox will pay collectively between his Japanese team and the player, around $110 million to have Dice-K pitch for them.  Up until the late 1980s, it was the conventional wisdom that players from Japan weren’t strong enough to play in the Major Leagues. Nomo, Ichiro, and others paved the way in the 80s and 90s to prove that they belong, yet there wasn’t even a short plug for any of them.

This is a made-for-television event was produced by shallow-pond thinkers at MLB for an audience they figure can’t remember who won American Idol two years ago, let alone all of this boring history.

Cut to the chase: How was the event? How was the game?

MLB handled the whole shebang, from start to finish. The Redbirds were largely cut out of the publicity and promotion of the event in their own park. Too bad, though because the minor league club knows how to turn out the Memphis faithful in one of the best run stadiums in the minors.

After three months of promotion, the turnout wasn’t that good: The crowd shots on TV for this game showed a lot of green seats unfilled, most embarrassingly behind home plate during every televised pitch.

The game itself was a pretty run-of-the-mill spring pre-season tuner, punctuated with an endless stream of cutaways to Dave Winfield, and a few other great African-American athletes sitting in camera-friendly seating around the prime part of the stadium. The commercials, provided by civil rights organizations, were actually the best part.

If MLB wanted to really rev the game up, they should have invited the Boston Red Sox to the party to stir up a little fire in the Cards bellies.  Have Dice-K earn some of those 51 million samoleons and prove your point by having a Japanese pitcher play alongside white and African-American athletes in a civil rights opener. Provide some grist for the national media, which largely ignored the whole affair after it was over.

The team whose bus crashed played their first game since that fatal accident on Saturday night.  UCLA was eliminated by Florida and Ohio State beat Georgetown to kick off the Final Four weekend of March Madness.  The Civil Rights game got its props on ESPN, but on local television and on CNN and FOX, it barely got a mention.

I know that it just tweaks the powers-that-be to acknowledge that the season needs to start a week later, to give college basketball’s national tourney its due, but the World Baseball Classic or the Civil Rights Game are not going to shift away that focus, particularly as badly orchestrated as they have been.

What’s next year’s season opening stunt?   Going to the big Acme filing cabinet of ‘Toon-approved goofy gags, how about:

Bungee Baseball – Fielders suspended from cranes try to field while dangling up and down over their positions;

Bud® Ball – Substitute the players with bottles of Bud and Bud Light battling for pre-season supremacy!

Dancing with the Baseball Stars – Big Papi and Jennifer Love Hewitt take on Pete Rose and Morgan Fairchild in the finals of this five week competition pairing baseball greats with Hollywood celebs.

COPS: Baseball – BJ Upton, Elijah Dukes, and Delmon Young run their mouths about the D-Rays, then bolt in a stunt car pre-prepped with short-dog empties and small bags of marijuana for a hilarious hour-long high speed car chase special.

MLB- WWE Smackdown! – Bud Selig challenges Vince MacMahon to a showdown of his best players against the monster WWE wrestlers, on the ring and on the field .  Selig cuts off his head if he loses; MacMahon explodes his.

OR:

How about just waiting out the Final Four, and starting opening day with a simple AL-NL showcase game featuring the World Series Champs and an opposing club that will get the fans into high gear: Cards – Red Sox, or Yankees.  These  pre-season “special events,” range from the incompetent to the embarrassing.  Ditch ‘em.