There was a time when black men were not allowed in major league baseball. Shameful. I am glad that when I started following baseball in the 1960’s that was not the case. My Detroit Tiger heroes back then were Al Kaline and Willie Horton. What a one-two punch. Those guys had it all and when they came to bat you knew magic could happen. Games turned on their at-bats (and Al’s arm). I happened to grow up in an all-white city so naturally my friends were all white; but we could care less the skin color of our Tigers. We rooted just as strongly for Willie, Gates Brown, and Earl Wilson as we did for Al, Norm Cash and Bill Freehan. And that’s the way it should be.

Back then I listened to almost every game on the radio. My mother and my grandfather grew up with the Tigers and I followed suit. The radio was my comfort as I listened to the easy tones of broadcasters George Kell and Ernie Harwell. What a pair. BTW, the now legendary Ernie Harwell played 2nd fiddle back then to Mr. Kell. He only announced the middle innings of the game as George was the main play-by-play man.

Listening to a game is different than watching it. For one, unless you know a player you don’t know his skin color. It’s irrelevant. What matters is how well the guy plays. What a shame that so many people have spent so much time disliking someone because of the color of their skin. Just saying it sounds ludicrous.

Anyway, my point is that radio had an equalizing effect. A name had the winning hit. A name had a pinch hit home run. A name regularly pinch hit even though he was a pitcher. Yes, I knew that Willie, Gates and Earl were black but over the air everybody was the same. I like that.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Among his many quotes is this, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Maybe it’s a stretch to apply that to what I’m talking about here but you get the point.