Dallas Stars

[galindoza]

they better not. their performance in game 1 is making me a little anxious though.

[Ticket Mouse]

Can you imagine if all we had was the Rangers to suffer through from May until football season? At least Craig and I would have NASCAR but all you other guys would be miserable.

[cowtownmike]

Don't forget the Desparados!!

[Ticket Mouse]

I already forgot.

[cowtownmike]

How about the Frisco Rough Riders or the Fort Worth Cats?

[Ticket Mouse]

Is Bobby Bragan still playing?

[cowtownmike]

Not with all them colored fellas on the team, he's not!

[Ticket Mouse]

He was a friend of the colored man.

[Ticket Mouse]

Your avitar is so appropriate.

[cowtownmike]

matt76201 said:

He was a friend of the colored man.

Signing a petition and telling management he wouldn't play with Jackie Robinson, sure was a funny way to show it.

[Ticket Mouse]

I didn't know that. He always championed himself as a friend of the black man.

[cowtownmike]

Actually; Bragan came around while playing with Jackie Robison during the 1947 season.


Randy Galloway: One man's story says it all
By Randy Galloway
In My Opinion
The way it was, 60 years ago today, in baseball:

Eddie Stanky was the leadoff man, and second baseman. Dixie Walker was the team's best hitter. Carl Furillo was a promising young outfielder pegged for future success.

When all three said no, absolutely not, to sharing a Brooklyn Dodgers' uniform with Jackie Robinson, their talent level could have, but didn't, impact Branch Rickey's monumental and historical decision. Maybe the most important decision ever in sports, and some even say in American society.

Then again, it took some gall for a 29-year-old backup catcher named Bobby Bragan to look his hero, Mr. Rickey, right in the eye, and tell him how much he was opposed to playing baseball with a "colored boy."

Rickey, the Dodgers' general manager, could have sent Bragan's butt packing on the spot, and it wouldn't have been a big deal.

"Mr. Rickey was the smartest man I've ever known, and not just about baseball either," Bragan said last week from his Fort Worth office. "I think he saw something that went beyond what I was at the time -- a product of my environment, where I was from, and how I was raised."

Today, Bobby will pause and celebrate, along with all of baseball, "No. 42 Day" in the game. April 15 marks the 60th anniversary of No. 42, Jackie Robinson, breaking the color barrier in the game.

But few are still alive who were actually part of the moment. Bragan, a local treasure for the last six decades, was there, front and center. I never grow tired of hearing Bobby tell this story, and I was listening again last week.

This is baseball history at its best, but also American history.

Tell me again, Bobby, how it was:

"In March of '47, Mr. Rickey took us to Cuba for spring training. He didn't say why we were in Havana, but we all knew. It was to take media pressure off Jackie. Mr. Rickey knew what he was going to do. He was going to make baseball history with Jackie.

"There were about 100 ballplayers in our camp. We had our Triple A guys there, too. All spring Jackie wore the Montreal uniform. Mr. Rickey didn't put him in a Dodgers' uniform. We had a real good team but, although none of us on the Dodgers would admit it, it was pretty obvious the best player on the field, out of the 100, was Jackie Robinson."

"We went over to Panama to play some exhibition games. I was told that Mr. Rickey wanted to see me for a meeting. Then I learned that Stanky, Dixie and Furillo were also going to meet with Mr. Rickey. I was thinking, 'Uh-oh, this is big.' We were the four guys that everyone knew didn't want to play with Jackie.

"I still see it written today that there was a team petition that most of the players signed, saying they were against Jackie being with us. But I never saw a petition, and never heard anyone say there was one. I think I would have known it if there had been one."

"Mr. Rickey called me in and asked if Jackie was on the team, would I want to be traded. I told him to trade me. Then he asked if Jackie was on the team would I not give my best at all times. I told him I'd always give my best, no matter what. That was the end of the conversation."

"We got back to Brooklyn, and at the team welcome home luncheon, Mr. Rickey made the announcement that Jackie Robinson would be in the starting lineup for Opening Day. That was that.

"Carl Furillo had been doing some loud talking, saying he wouldn't play with any black SOB. Dixie Walker had sent a letter to Mr. Rickey that was very strong in denouncing Jackie. Much later, Dixie felt so bad about that letter he asked Mr. Rickey to give it back to him. Mr. Rickey never did.

"But once Jackie was on the team, while a lot of us still didn't like it, it was time to play baseball."

"With the opening homestand over, we got on the train to start a two-week road trip. On those long train rides, that's when I really started to get to know Jackie. All of us did, actually. This man was about class, culture and courage. All my prejudices begin to slowly fade.

"I started off that trip determined to have nothing to do with Jackie. But when that trip was over, the team goes back home, then, when the second road trip started, I was one of those jockeying to sit next to Jackie on the train. Jackie Robinson, the person and the ballplayer, changed my views, and changed my life."

"Dixie and me, we were from Birmingham. Stanky was from Mobile. Furillo was from Pennsylvania, but in the beginning, his prejudice was the same as ours. To see all this change was pretty amazing.

"Jackie was not a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy. But Mr. Rickey had told him that whatever he heard, he had to let it all go in one ear and out the other. Jackie was a pioneer. Mr. Rickey told him he had to be special and be above all the insults. Amazingly, Jackie did it with class and dignity."

"At first, Jackie's treatment was bad almost everywhere. The worst was when we played Philadelphia. The manager was Ben Chapman, a Birmingham boy. He was a tough guy, real tough. Those of us from the South, he'd scream out of the dugout at us, 'Why don't you [bleep] go sit next to the [bleep].' Every insult you could think of, he yelled at Jackie or at us.

"Finally, Stanky had heard enough. He started yelling back at Chapman, cussing him good, defending Jackie. That was kind of ironic, two white Alabama boys, going at it over the issue of color."

"We were in Cincinnati one day, and there was a pitching change. Pee Wee Reese at shortstop went over to second base to talk to Jackie during the delay. They were having a discussion and Pee Wee put his arm on Jackie's shoulder as they talked. The cameramen went nuts. That picture went all over the world.

"Pee Wee was from Louisville, and a lot of people considered that the South. That one picture said a lot."

"When Mr. Rickey died, Jackie and I sat next to each other at the funeral. I still talk to Jackie's wife and his family. But I give Mr. Rickey all the credit for what my life became, not only with Jackie, but with everything. He sent me to Fort Worth in 1948 to manage the Cats. That began another part of my baseball life [Bragan became a longtime major league manager], but most of all I found my home right here in Fort Worth, Texas.

"I'm now 89, and standing in line."

And that's the way it was, 60 years ago today, in baseball.

Randy Galloway's Galloway & Co. can be heard weekdays 3-6 p.m. on ESPN/103.3 FM.

[sully]

Galloway is a freaking moron.

[Ticket Mouse]

Grampa Urine.

[fischer]

Galloway= way better than most of the idiots on the radio in dallas.

Both stations.



Now, Norm is the best all around, but galloway definitely isn't one of the worst.