Iatesta Week 8

I find it really interesting how the one article speaks about the relationship between journalists and the organizations. It’s funny the parallel between the black reporters and the Negro League teams and Major League Baseball writers and the players like Babe Ruth. I mean that not only the situation was similar but the time period too. It talks about how after like 1925 this changed but this era matches up more or less.

The article about the East-West Classic shows the concept of media and sports needing each other to grow. The newspapers brought attention to the game but the Negro Leagues themselves helped grow the black papers like the Pittsburgh Courier. It’s amazing for me to think that in a time of massive legal segregation, a Negro League all-star game could bring so much attention to mainstream media and make it clear MLB would integrate. To see the integration eventually mean the end of the Negro League must have been bitter-sweet for the community. I find it interesting that this article talks about how it ended up being barnstorming baseball and there is now a youth black baseball team in Philadelphia that goes on barnstorming tours.

It’s interesting to me to see how things happen in different events and how similar they are. The one from the reading is how Wendell Smith is overlooked in Robinson’s ascent to the Major Leagues and credit is given to Branch Rickey. Historically Paul Revere is given credit for warning that the British were coming and although he did do this there was another patriot who rode for much longer to warn people. It is just weird to see how in historical events someone is given more credit than they are necessarily due and people don’t question it because they don’t know any better.