Nashville Stars Honor Baseball’s Past by Focusing on the Future

Baseball|Honoring nan Past by Focusing connected nan Future

NASHVILLE — It’s fitting that nan Nashville Stars, a squad for players ages 10 and under, are named successful grant of an aged Negro leagues squad that played successful Music City successful nan 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. From nan fierce guidelines moving to nan all-Black coaching unit and nan speaker blaring a operation of hip-hop and R&B from nan bleachers, nan Stars embody nan power and excitement that made pre-integration Black shot a taste arena arsenic overmuch arsenic a sporting attraction. The squad besides serves arsenic a stark contradiction of nan stereotypical image of American younker baseball.

For nan kids connected this team, nan mostly of whom are Black, shot isn’t a outpouring stopgap to clasp them complete until shot play starts, aliases nan free activity sponsored by nan organization statement that whitethorn aliases whitethorn not person financial support from Major League Baseball. For these kids, shot is some passion and purpose.

As Major League Baseball and nan sport’s wider organization observe nan 75th day of Jackie Robinson’s debut pinch nan Brooklyn Dodgers, nan inclination is to look to nan past, to analyse what Robinson accomplished pinch his pioneering efforts — and, ultimately, what he didn’t. Robinson’s willingness to move nan different feature and his expertise to win successful nan look of overt racism whitethorn person made him an icon and hero, but it didn’t make nan athletics little dispute to Black group connected nan whole.

This deficiency of information is often attributed to nan precocious costs associated pinch younker shot and a wide deficiency of entree to nan athletics for galore Black youths successful their municipality neighborhoods. But nan Stars aren’t a squad of “inner-city kids,” and galore of nan Black parents successful nan programme don’t person a problem buying $300 bats and paying for other training fees. Here, their children find refuge from different challenges that plague nan younker game, and acknowledgment to nan activity of Black men who are committed to pushing Robinson’s bequest forward, they are capable to play nan crippled they emotion without compromise.