By Guest Columnist/cleveland.com on October 18, 2013 at 4:39 PM ORONO, MAINE -- The Cleveland Indians organization has never had any real understanding -- or appreciation -- of what it has in the historical figure of Louis Sockalexis, a man who almost certainly broke professional baseball’s color barrier, a man who was definitively the first-known American Indian to play, a man who went through the exact same experience Jackie Robinson endured 50 years after him but never gets any comparable … [Read more...]
Archives for 2013
Orono journalist continues quest for recognition of Native Americans in Baseball Hall
By Jon Ouellette, Special to the Bangor Daily News Journalist Ed Rice of Orono has been an advocate for Native Americans’ rights in sports since the 1970s. He has written commentaries, given speeches and penned a book titled “Baseball’s First Indian, Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian,” where he argues that Sockalexis deserves recognition as baseball’s first Native American ball player. Rice, 65, has spoken twice at the Hall’s baseball writers’ symposium in the last … [Read more...]
Will Baseball HOF finally start honoring the game’s native pioneers?
9/7/13 (Indian Country Today) The stated mission of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, New York, is “to preserve history, honor excellence and connect generations.” It fails on all three counts where Native American players and history are concerned. For even as its exhibition walls feature portraits of pioneer players and time-lines for Afro- American players, Hispanic players and women players, no such recognition and celebration exists for the American Indian … [Read more...]
Maine students should protest, end Native American school mascots
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News From our Colonial period right through to the present day, Native Americans have always been the victims of an intrinsic “institutional racism” in the United States. Or, put more bluntly, it’s always been okay to be flat-out disrespectful. Don’t think so, huh? Ready to join the gutless, no name-given and no address-given e- mailers who will undoubtedly post their “enough with the political correctness” mantra to this commentary on this … [Read more...]