You will forgive me if I hesitate to raise a glass in tribute to Commissioner Rob Manfred and the Lords of Major League Baseball for finally doing the right thing by the men who played in the Negro Leagues back when the bigotry that permeated this nation, both between and beyond the white lines of a baseball diamond, prevented African-American players from playing in the Major Leagues. This week's decision effectively reverses the 1968 decision of MLB's Special Baseball Records Committee, which voted to not deign the Negro Leagues status as a Major League. Fifty-two (almost fifty-three) years later, MLB finally got around to acknowledging the obvious. Mitch McConnell moves with a sprinter's speed in comparison to the Lords of Baseball.
Thousands of men played in the Negro Leagues. Earlier this year, which marks the centennial of their founding, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri estimated that only about one hundred former players are still alive.
Congratulations to those men and to all those who played in the Negro Leagues for finally getting the recognition they have always deserved.
-AK
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