Here’s a little companion piece to my last post about Jewish journalist Haskell Cohen and the archives of The Jewish Advocate and The Jewish Exponent. To complement that previous article, I’ll look at a few of the editorials the two newspapers wrote over the years about baseball, race, bigotry and integration.

I’ll forgo a lot of my own blather and just feature direct quotes from the editorial pages of the two illustrious publications. First from The Advocate:

April 10, 1947, about Opening Day

“To people, visiting our shores for the first time, the shouting and yelping of fans at a baseball game might seem an incredible display of mass hysteria and a useless waste of human energy. But to us of America the crowd at a baseball game is America.

“It has been said by educators that the key to the elimination of prejudice among the youth lies in the playground. Let children of all races, creeds and faiths play together and they will grow to understand each other and respect each other. If that is the truth, then baseball is the best example of that verity.

“As this season opens there are a number of Jewish players on several major and minor league teams. But a sign of the times is the expected inclusion of a Negro on Brooklyn’s baseball club. A sport that can break such barriers is a wholesome contribution to American life.”

April 12, 1951, about that year’s start to the baseball season

“And yet, there is another under-current of the game – the gathering of men and women and children of all colors and races and faiths under one roof in tribute to artists of the game whether they be white or black or Jewish or Christian We know of no study estimating the value and influence of baseball in breaking down racial and religious barriers. But no one who ever visited a great ball park can ever cease wondering at the basic amity of the fans, at least while the ballgame is in progress.

“There were times when big league baseball was only a white man’s game. But since courageous and imaginative Branch Rickey dared the innovation of Negro players, the game has taken on a truly national character.”

July 12, 1951, in response to an ugly, violent incident of bigotry-driven heckling and trash-talking at Comiskey Park

“One of the greatest baseball traditions is the right of fans to freely boo and applaud. But when a bunch of rowdies abuse that prerogative by venting abuse against ballplayers merely because they are Jews or Negroes, the national game is facing a situation it must eradicate at once if it is to survive within our democratic pattern. …

The hoodlums who vituperate Jewish and Negro players are not baseball fans. They are fanners – fanners of hatred and racial bigotry.”

“Baseball is our national game, and it is, therefore, painful to see its precincts transformed into an avenue of bigotry. Fortunately it can be said that the game is largely free of the evil of which we are now complaining. What the rowdies did was not only anti-Jewish but anti-American as well. The hoodlums who vituperate Jewish and Negro players are not baseball fans. They are fanners – fanners of hatred and racial bigotry.”

Here’s now a few from The Jewish Exponent:

April 20, 1951

“The story of widespread prejudice against Negroes in organized baseball is well known. Five years ago it would have been unthinkable to suggest that Negroes could make their way into the baseball picture. But few remember that 30 years ago the same hostility was felt toward Jewish ballplayers. Every method calculated to keep the Jew away from Big League diamonds was employed – but, of course, to little avail.”

July 13, 1951, concerning the same incident of bigotry at a White Sox game mentioned above

“Ordinarily, sportsmanship and tolerance go hand in hand. These virtues apply equally to players and spectators. That, at least, is what we like to think. But experience has proved that this is not true. …

“ … Scarcely more than four years ago, one Big League manager [likely Ben Chapman] was cautioned for making gestures about Hank Greenberg’s ‘Jewish nose.’ This same manager made life miserable for Jackie Robinson when the great Negro star broke into [organized] baseball. Today, both Robinson and Greenberg are still in the Major Leagues while that manager is down in the lowly minors – perhaps not even low enough for him.

“Can it be that after the ‘color line’ has been broken down in baseball, there still is resentment over a ballplayer’s religion? Why should this be in view of the tremendous examples of fair play, decency, integrity and athletic ability exhibited day in and day out over a period of years by the Greenbergs and the Robinsons?

“Apparently such unsavory practices as ‘throwing a game,’ hitting below the belt and downright cheating must move over to make room for a bosom companion – prejudice.”

“Apparently such unsavory practices as ‘throwing a game,’ hitting below the belt and downright cheating must move over to make room for a bosom companion – prejudice.”

Aug. 21, 1953, in a piece by sportswriter Bill Wolf

“The ugly face of race prejudice has once again been seen in sports, this time in major league baseball. The victims: Dodger catcher Roy Campanella and infielder Jackie Robinson.

“While the incidents do not involve any Jewish players, they are of paramount interest to Jewish sports fans. For as it has been demonstrated time and again, when racial attacks are made on Negroes, the danger of anti-Semitic incidents increases.

“Fans will recall the incident a number of years ago, when Sid Gordon was the target of anti-Semitic remarks in St. Louis. Two years before that St. Louis players had also hurled insults at Jackie Robinson. Bigotry is a common enemy of all who seek democracy in sports.”