Latest / 4DAFAM / Ep. 28 - Negro Leagues: Legends, and the Fight for the Game
Transcript
- 0:00Thank you.
- 0:06Let me in your ear. I got something you need to hear.
- 0:09Turn the volume up so it's loud and clear. A podcast where we talk about politics
- 0:14and culture and scooping the limits like a 504 soldier. We're not pretenders. Ain't no agendas.
- 0:19Our only plan is to keep it 100 and do it for the fam. Yeah.
- 0:26What up, what up, what up? What's going on? I'm Six Mill, keeping it true. It's your boy, KG.
- 0:33Welcome to episode 28 of Futter Fam Podcast.
- 0:37I'm going to show your team some love today. We're going to do the Kyle Hendricks
- 0:41episode, The Professor.
- 0:46Hey, we could use The Professor right about now. Pitching is still terrible.
- 0:51Oh, man, don't tell me. Man, don't I know it over there on the south side.
- 0:55Jeez, old Pete. So what's been good, bro?
- 0:58Oh, man, not much. I was sick last weekend. So, well, not sick, just worn out.
- 1:04So, apologize for that, but this week was a lot better.
- 1:08Yeah, yeah. I mean, what he means by that is we didn't record last week.
- 1:14So, if you guys were looking for an episode, yeah, sorry, we didn't record because
- 1:18my brother wasn't feeling well.
- 1:20But we back. We good. We about to get it.
- 1:23So, what we getting into today, bro? And today, we're going to talk about the
- 1:27Negro Leagues. The Negro Leagues.
- 1:29Yes, sir. It's very apropos, given that baseball season just started.
- 1:34Yes, sir. All right, let's get it.
- 1:37So I want to start with some recent news. Okay. You know the Indianapolis Clowns are back. Yep.
- 1:44No, I didn't know that, but okay. And the Banana League, with the Savannah Bananas,
- 1:48all the teams they got. Okay, okay, okay. So they revived it.
- 1:51Guess who they just signed the other day? Lonee Davis.
- 1:55Is that right? Yep. That's what's up. She is now officially an Indianapolis Clowns. Clown.
- 2:01But they did that back in the day also, though, right? Didn't they sign a woman?
- 2:06Like, actually, two women. Yeah, they were. Like, revolutionary in there.
- 2:10Yeah, they were way ahead of that time with signing women.
- 2:15Yep. And we'll get more into that as we go on. We'll name those ladies by name. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 2:21They've always been ahead of the curve as far as signing women to play with the men and everything.
- 2:27So, yeah. Yeah. Kudos to them.
- 2:30Mm-hmm. So, all right, bro, where do you want to start with this?
- 2:33So first I want to start, for those who don't know,
- 2:35we want to go over some of the teams, the heavyweights, and then some of the,
- 2:40you know, there's a couple of teams that most people hear the name and just
- 2:44know, oh, yeah, that's from the Negro League.
- 2:46And then what we'll do is we'll go over just some of the notable franchises.
- 2:49We won't spend too much time on each one.
- 2:51So you had the most famous franchises, Kansas City Monarchs. Yep.
- 2:57Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson. Yep. Played for that team.
- 3:00The Homestead Grays, Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard was on that team.
- 3:06Crawfords, Pittsburgh with Oscar Charleston and Cool Papa Bell.
- 3:11The Chicago American Giants, which was the initial squad founded by Rube Foster.
- 3:18So they were the Negro National League, basically.
- 3:23The Birmingham Black Barons, where Willie Mays got his start.
- 3:28The Newark Eagles, and that was owned by Effa Manley, where they had,
- 3:34we'll go into their famous million-dollar infield, Indianapolis Clowns,
- 3:39which they were listed as the Masters of Entertainment.
- 3:43We'll get to that. Yeah, and they were actually the very last team to fold for
- 3:49the original Negro. Correct.
- 3:51And that's where Hank Aaron got his start. Correct. The original Indianapolis
- 3:55squad, the ABCs from the 1920s,
- 4:00And then some of the other ones, the Baltimore elite Giants, the St.
- 4:04Louis Stars, Detroit Stars, the New York Cubans, the Philadelphia Stars,
- 4:10who won the championship in 1934, Hilldale Club, the Memphis Red Sox,
- 4:17Cleveland Buckeyes, the New York Black Yankees, and my favorite,
- 4:21the Atlanta Black Crackers.
- 4:25Man, I saw that and I bust out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 4:29That's a very, very, very inventive name.
- 4:32I want to go in a different direction with this.
- 4:37Not a different direction than you've laid out, but just a different topic or
- 4:42point that I want to hit on.
- 4:44Why was there a Negro Leagues? Why was it necessary?
- 4:50Well, in the late 1800s, because see, most people don't realize black folks
- 4:55played professional baseball.
- 4:56And then there was an unwritten rule which banned black players.
- 5:00Banned. Banned them. Banned. Not say, hey, you got to leave.
- 5:06It was, hey, get the hell out of here. You're no longer wanted here.
- 5:10For all of the structural racism don't exist, people.
- 5:14Correct. The only reason there was a Negro Leagues is because they weren't allowed
- 5:20to play with the white players. Yeah. Yeah.
- 5:23Go ahead, bro. The most famous person before 1900 was Moses Walker,
- 5:27who played, what they call him, Fleetwood, who played in the Negro Leagues.
- 5:32And then by 1890, it was basically a gentleman's agreement, a handshake amongst
- 5:37all the white owners that said, yo, they got to go. Mm-hmm.
- 5:41Yeah, cool. So here's something that a lot of people probably don't know,
- 5:46much like the Harlem Globetrotters, who perhaps maybe we should do. Mm hmm.
- 5:52These were real athletes. Yeah. And they were really good.
- 5:58How good, you say?
- 6:01Well, the Negro League World Series actually drew a better crowd than Major
- 6:10League Baseball World Series.
- 6:14That's how good these players were.
- 6:18When you talk about Satchel Paige, the oldest rookie to ever appear in Major
- 6:26League Baseball at the golden age of 42.
- 6:31So you may mention this, so I apologize if I'm stepping on your toes.
- 6:37It was said that he used to walk the bases loaded, instruct the outfielders
- 6:43to sit down and then strike out the side. To prove his point. Yeah.
- 6:48Yeah. You know how crazy that is? 42, your career's ending, bro. And he was still good.
- 6:54He played an additional, what, like 16, 17 years? Yeah. Yeah.
- 7:0017 to 60. Yeah, exactly. He was 59 when he retired, bro. Mm-hmm. That's nuts.
- 7:07Yeah his man just just imagine in
- 7:11his prime years how good that dude must
- 7:14have been you know what i'm saying at 42 usually your arm is shot your fastball
- 7:19ain't the same so imagine if you will now bo jackson is a favorite of both of
- 7:24ours for sure imagine if you will a baseball field full of him that's what a
- 7:32lot of these negro league players were,
- 7:34They weren't out there working out, bench pressing.
- 7:38They were just top-tier natural athletes. When you think of Bo Jackson,
- 7:43it don't matter who you talk to.
- 7:44Black, white, young, old, they all say we never saw him working out. Right.
- 7:51Which is crazy. Like when he ran that 40 time because he didn't run for the
- 7:57NFL. He was at baseball practice in full clothing and ran a 4-2. Right. Right.
- 8:05Let's let's let's talk about something that's very popular in Major League Baseball today. Night games.
- 8:11The Kansas City Monarchs basically were the pioneers of night games.
- 8:18MLB got that idea from the Negro Leagues.
- 8:24Going back to what we were talking about on a previous episode with the black
- 8:27inventors and how they don't get credit. Mm hmm.
- 8:31This is another thing we can add to the list that these guys pioneered,
- 8:37but won't get their credit for. Let's talk about Josh Gibson.
- 8:43The black Babe Ruth, which I hate that, by the way, because Babe Ruth should
- 8:50be the white Josh Gibson, which a lot of people say, no, no,
- 8:55no. He was the white Josh Gibson.
- 8:58Yeah. We should also add that Babe Ruth loved the jobs. Yeah.
- 9:03He thought that he he saw him play and thought that he was one of the greatest
- 9:07hitters he'd ever seen. Yeah.
- 9:08Yeah. So let me just read a little bit about Josh Gibson.
- 9:13Josh Gibson was a prolific catcher for the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords.
- 9:19While official stats were difficult to track, we'll get into those stats.
- 9:24It is estimated that he hit nearly 800 career home runs.
- 9:29The legend goes that he once hit a ball so hard at Yankee Stadium that it actually
- 9:36flew out of the park. That means it cleared the bleachers.
- 9:44Now, for those who are real diehard baseball fans, think about Aaron Boone's
- 9:50home run to send the Yankees to the World Series and how high that ball went
- 9:55to the third or fourth deck. Mm hmm.
- 9:57He hit it further than that. Right. And that's one of my favorite MLB highlights.
- 10:04Yeah. Was him hitting that home run. Well, there's there's the urban legend
- 10:09that Barry Bonds taking BP at Rigby Field actually broke one of the windows
- 10:15across the street. Yeah.
- 10:17Which I can see. Yeah. Yeah. Was on one Waverly. Yeah. Yeah.
- 10:22That that is nuts to hit a ball that freaking hard, bro.
- 10:28So you mentioned the Black Babe Ruth. Mm hmm.
- 10:32There's a pattern. Buck Leonard, the Black Lou Gehrig. Mm hmm.
- 10:38No, I'm just Buck Leonard, bro. Right. I'm not the black man. Right.
- 10:42I had something else. Go ahead.
- 10:45No, no, no. I was just going to piggyback on that just to say that it's crazy how the comparisons,
- 10:57when it comes to baseball, the comparisons are always he's the black version
- 11:02of this, that, and the other.
- 11:03And it's just like no actually these
- 11:06guys were probably better they just
- 11:09didn't get their chance to shine and those guys in the majors they acknowledged
- 11:14yeah how great the negro league players were and and and this is this is why
- 11:19we probably should do an episode on the harlem globetrotters but like the uh
- 11:24minneapolis lakers who were the gold standard for the NBA back in the day.
- 11:29They wanted to play the Harlem Globetrotters.
- 11:34They didn't publicize those games. They played in closed gyms.
- 11:39That was the real championship.
- 11:42The Minneapolis Lakers versus the Harlem Globetrotters and the Harlem Globetrotters
- 11:47would win some of those games.
- 11:50So that's what they really like missed their opportunity.
- 11:54They should have took like the World Series champion of MLB back then and had
- 12:01them play against the Negro League and see who would have came out on top.
- 12:05They missed an opportunity for that.
- 12:09They missed an opportunity to get embarrassed. Well, I mean...
- 12:16But imagine the crowd draw, right? How much money they potentially would have
- 12:22made off of that, bro. They would have sold out.
- 12:24They would have had to play that in Astro, though. Of course,
- 12:27I know this is long. Sure, sure, sure.
- 12:29They'd have had to play that shit in Astro. Without a doubt.
- 12:31Without a doubt, bro. I mean, just
- 12:34based on the racial superiority complex alone, It would have been huge.
- 12:39So they totally missed an opportunity on that.
- 12:44So one of the things that the Negro Leagues were one of the things that that
- 12:48just just black athletes in general in baseball had to do after the gentleman's
- 12:52agreement is they had to travel.
- 12:54And they called it what a barnstorming the barnstorming
- 12:58era where they would travel around and just
- 13:01play anybody white black professional amateur it
- 13:05didn't matter and they would sometimes play two to three games a day just to
- 13:11survive which is why ernie banks had that legendary saying let's play too that
- 13:17that's that's where that originates yeah um let's talk about the style of play.
- 13:22The high-speed play style, the Negro Leagues utilized a small ball style of
- 13:28play that focused on speed and aggression.
- 13:31Players like Cool Papa Bell that you just mentioned were so fast,
- 13:37That it was a joke that he could turn off the lights, which Ali stole.
- 13:40Oh, yeah, yeah. He could turn off the lights and be in the bed before the room got dark.
- 13:45Which is, hey, which is just wild. Wild to even imagine, right?
- 13:50Yeah. So the style basically put an emphasis on hit and run, stolen bases.
- 13:57Like I was just saying, utilizing their speed and agility as opposed to just
- 14:03trying to do the long ball.
- 14:05So one of the things with him, too, is there were famous stories of him scoring
- 14:09from first base on sacrifice butts. Crazy.
- 14:14Sacrifice butts. And I mean, like, what's up, boy, De La Cruz for Cincinnati?
- 14:19Yeah, that dude's fast. Yeah, like when he, like, what did he steal,
- 14:23like three bases consecutively a couple years ago?
- 14:26Oh, I love it. When we were all like, oh, my God.
- 14:29Imagine that. imagine not just de
- 14:33la cruz but all of those guys being able
- 14:36to do that yeah yeah and the negro leagues were
- 14:39famous for you know now we we think of
- 14:42we watch baseball and we go oh this is a hit run situation every situation was
- 14:47a hit and run correct you know because it's like all right well it's two outs
- 14:51you got a man on second you down by one hit run let's go mm-hmm them no outs first base,
- 15:01they got a lead. No, I'm going. Right, right, right. I'm running.
- 15:04Did you find your black comparisons that you wanted to get back to?
- 15:08No, no. Okay, okay, okay. Let's just move past it. Shit, I got so much.
- 15:14All right. Where do you want to go next, bro? So-
- 15:17Defense. So. Most infielders in the Negro Leagues barely used their gloves.
- 15:25Everything was a barehanded. That's crazy. Up off the ground.
- 15:30Which is hard to do. Takes a lot of focus and skill and it still hurts.
- 15:36The shadow ball origins made famous by the clowns. They used the routines that
- 15:43just made it blend into regular baseball.
- 15:47So it looked...
- 15:49Impossible. Well, I mean, sorry, it was impossible. Right. They made it look
- 15:55so effortless. Correct.
- 15:58So going back to what you said a minute ago, they missed a huge opportunity
- 16:03to put these people together. But again, the times, I understood why they didn't. Right.
- 16:10If you'd have threw Josh Gibson on the field with Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson
- 16:13hit five home runs against the best pitcher in
- 16:16major league baseball probably a riot oh game's
- 16:19over remember when the in the south one jackie robertson
- 16:22when the sheriff i know some of it was yeah hollywood we'll get to that but
- 16:28things like that happened now y'all gotta get you gotta get this boy off this
- 16:33field you know he don't deserve to be out here playing with these uh these boys
- 16:38correct correct let's talk about the all-star game, the East West All-Star Game,
- 16:42established in 1933, and it was actually more popular than the World Series.
- 16:51Hailed annually at Old Comiskey Park, it frequently drew more than 50,000 fans
- 17:00becoming the centerpiece of African-American sports events.
- 17:06I mean, just again, give these guys Their recognition They were instrumental
- 17:13I'm going to piggyback on that Because it wasn't until Let me get down in my notes I'm sorry y'all.
- 17:19It wasn't until recent, December 2020, that Major League Baseball officially
- 17:28absorbed the statistics from the Negro Leagues.
- 17:34That's six years ago, bro. Yeah. So all of that time, these dudes were kept out of the record books.
- 17:42You know how many of these dudes should probably be in, where's the Baseball
- 17:47Hall of Fame? I was about to say Canton.
- 17:49Cooperstown. Thank you. I was about to say Canton, but that's football.
- 17:52Yeah. Cooperstown. How many of these dudes are not in Cooperstown? It should be.
- 17:56A long time ago. A long time ago, bro. Only because the color of their skin.
- 18:01I'm sorry to harp on this race thing, y'all, but it was the only reason why
- 18:06these guys were not giving their flowers.
- 18:10So the one thing that made me happy when they integrated the statistics,
- 18:14it wasn't the Babe Bruce thing, because historically, Babe Ruth would be in
- 18:20the hood in a lot of these places that they went to.
- 18:24It was Josh Gibson passing Ty Cobb and everything.
- 18:29The hits guy. The slugging, the single season, the all-time averages.
- 18:37So I want to piggyback off the East-West game. So it was basically,
- 18:42I saw on the internet, the Met Gala of Black America.
- 18:47Everybody put on all their fancy that which by
- 18:49the way if you go back and even watch any mlb footage from
- 18:52back in those days everybody got on fedoras everybody
- 18:55yeah suits yeah yeah yeah for sure for
- 18:58sure for sure it was it was an event it was an event so in
- 19:031934 in one of the east west games satchel page was in the east they won one
- 19:10to nothing and what they consider one of the greatest dueling's pitching duels
- 19:16in all-star history and it wasn't even close like it dominated and it was a one to nothing score.
- 19:23So, they had a game in, let me see, 1939 was at Yankee Stadium.
- 19:29There were eight Hall of Famers on the field. Eight. Or managing.
- 19:35That was Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston were three of the notable ones.
- 19:41Think about that. In a Negro League East-West game, 1939, there were eight Hall
- 19:49of Famers involved in that game.
- 19:51Mm-hmm that's crazy they weren't good enough to be in the league we'll come
- 19:56around sorry good not good enough to be in the right right right right we will
- 20:01definitely come around to that,
- 20:03let's go back to the Indianapolis Clowns since since you know we live here so
- 20:10you already mentioned that Hank Aaron played for the Indianapolis Clowns you are excuse me you
- 20:17I already mentioned that they had a woman join the team,
- 20:20but it was there.
- 20:22How do I want to put this there? They would they would they would basically
- 20:27clown around before before the games.
- 20:31Like I said, they were compared to the Harlem Globetrotters as far as they're clowning around.
- 20:36But they would do these skits where they wouldn't even have a ball.
- 20:40Oh, yeah. But they were so good that it fooled fans into thinking that there
- 20:47was actually a ball being thrown.
- 20:50That's how good they were. Their movements, their actions, everything was mimicked
- 20:56down to a science. And that was one of the big draws for the Indianapolis Clowns,
- 21:02also the name the clown, basically, because they clowned around a lot.
- 21:05But but yeah, the fact that they would they would put on these like comedic
- 21:08routines before the game started and actually like even during in between innings,
- 21:15I guess I'm trying to say they would put on these comedic skits,
- 21:18which was a big draw for the clown, which is also probably the reason why they
- 21:22lasted longer than the other teams, because it was entertainment and not just sports.
- 21:28So for those who don't know, the Savannah Bananas are literally the direct descendant
- 21:33of the Indianapolis Clowns.
- 21:35The guy who started the Savannah Bananas said the whole origin of the Savannah Bananas is the Clowns.
- 21:42He said, make no mistakes about it.
- 21:44I started this team as the Indianapolis Clowns with a different name.
- 21:49So if you've gone to see the Savannah Bananas, that's who the Indianapolis Clowns
- 21:54were. and now since they're back, going to be going forward.
- 21:59Mm-hmm. I want to give the ladies their flowers. Mm-hmm. So-
- 22:06The ladies who actually played for the Indianapolis Clowns, let me see here.
- 22:12Then this was in the 1950s, y'all. All right.
- 22:15So Tony Stone played second base, the first woman to ever play a regular season game.
- 22:24Who she replaced, though, at second base. Oh.
- 22:27Hank Aaron. Was it Hank Aaron that she replaced? Okay. Very good.
- 22:32Very, very good. She was she was later joined by pitcher Mamie Johnson.
- 22:38Imagine that a woman out there throwing hard enough to strike out men.
- 22:43Not to be confused with Bunker Johnson's wife. No, no, not at all.
- 22:47She went 33 and eight in her career with the clowns. Fantastic.
- 22:53Fan-freaking-tastic. And then there was also the infielder, Connie Morgan.
- 22:58So we just wanted to take that time who replaced Toni Stone.
- 23:01Right, right. After she replaced Toni Aaron. Right, right.
- 23:04Excuse me to shout out the ladies. Yeah, they were also holding their own.
- 23:09They weren't just out there as a gimmick. They could actually play.
- 23:13Anything you want to add to that, bro? I got one more thing.
- 23:18So let's go to pop culture. Okay. The movie, the bingo long Traveling All-Stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 23:26With James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Billy Dee Williams. Yeah, all those guys.
- 23:30That movie is based on the clowns. Oh, really? Yes, sir. I did not know that, bro. Yeah.
- 23:35That's interesting. Not loosely based. It is them.
- 23:40Yes, sir. Now I got to go rewatch that. I saw that like when I was looking up
- 23:44some stuff. I saw Richard Pryor's name.
- 23:47Richard Pryor? No, the movie's actually good. I just haven't seen it in a long
- 23:50time. So I started reading. I go, oh, that movie was about the clowns.
- 23:55I didn't know that. Yep. Okay. All right. Cool. Cool. Cool.
- 23:59Anything else? Or you want to? On the clowns? On the clowns.
- 24:04Because I do have more historical stuff.
- 24:06So, no, not really. Because, I mean, I think if anybody, especially nowadays,
- 24:12I mean, you have to be under a rock to not know who the Savannah Bananas are.
- 24:15So, you know, if you watch them, which I actually enjoy, like I enjoy watching them.
- 24:21If I see them on TV, I'll take a look at it. But that's pretty much who the clowns were.
- 24:26And of course, we mentioned Monet Davis at the beginning. Yep, yep, yep.
- 24:31You good on that? Yep, yep. All right, so this is why we can't get past the
- 24:38racism, or at least why I can't get past the racism.
- 24:43So Jackie Robinson made his debut in 1947.
- 24:48It's long been rumored that Jackie Robinson wasn't the best player from the Negro Leagues.
- 24:56He just fit, quote unquote, fit the bill. And he knew he wasn't the best. Right.
- 25:03So in the first three years of the integration, only a tiny fraction of talent was signed.
- 25:13Seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven black players joined MLB
- 25:21teams in the two years following Jackie Robinson.
- 25:25All that talent going to waste Why?
- 25:30Because they had a black player quota Again, the systemic racism,
- 25:38y'all When people say it doesn't exist It's just like, what planet do you live on?
- 25:45So you've heard me mention And when I say you, I mean people listening You've
- 25:49heard me mention the white savior in movies before So let's talk about Branch
- 25:54Rickey Branch Rickey is regarded in a lot of spaces as a pioneer.
- 26:00I think his exact quote about the Negro Leagues was it was a racket.
- 26:05It was a racket. So like in the movie, it's like, oh, man, I'm achieving this
- 26:10great thing by signing Jackie Robinson.
- 26:13He looked at the Negro Leagues as a racket. And the reason I bring that up is
- 26:17because they basically raided the Negro Leagues. It wasn't a merger.
- 26:24It wasn't a back and forth. How?
- 26:28Collaborate so because i can give you about 12 well well
- 26:31well this is this is this is how they basically made
- 26:34them go under as far as like financial well yeah
- 26:38yeah yeah so so so what they would do because they
- 26:42had more money they would wait until negro
- 26:45league's contracts expired and then
- 26:48just offer more money and that's how they
- 26:51kept ciphering off the talent or siphoning
- 26:54off the talent and and eventually the
- 26:58negro league wasn't able to compete financially not
- 27:01athletically but financially and that's
- 27:04how they did it by siphoning off the top talent now they did that to some most
- 27:09of it was they just came and took them offering more money it wasn't until uh
- 27:15the newark eagles owner uh he for manly he sued the cleave well he yeah he's yeah basically.
- 27:23Forced, because nobody wanted to tussle with Ephra Manley,
- 27:26to give them $10,000 for Larry Dope, because they were just coming in and raiding
- 27:32the Negro Leagues, and they weren't paying the players when Branch Rickey famously
- 27:37said, well, why would we pay them? It's just a racket.
- 27:40He didn't look at them as a legitimate league, because most of the financing
- 27:44was done in the Negro Leagues by the numbers racket, because they couldn't find
- 27:49financing anywhere else.
- 27:51So they had to do what they could to make sure that they were okay right that's interesting,
- 27:57the whole racket part because i remember and you probably remember this also
- 28:03we're the same age when they used to say that rap was a fad rap music would
- 28:08never last it's just a fad it'll go away in a few years and now it's the number
- 28:12one genre in the world in the world so yeah,
- 28:16Again, when we talk about the structural racism type stuff, it's real.
- 28:22All right. It's real.
- 28:24Anything else you want to touch on as far as Negro Leagues, bro?
- 28:28That's one more thing that that they would do as well. So they would they would
- 28:32drain the talent, only take the players and leave behind the managers.
- 28:36And I don't want to say the quote because I cannot find it. I've been kind of scrolling through.
- 28:42But there was someone that said that that laughed off a reporter's question
- 28:46about black people managing a baseball team.
- 28:49And they laughed it off and walked away from the reporter.
- 28:52Basically saying that they weren't intelligent enough. How dare you even ask
- 28:56that question? The black quarterback trope, basically.
- 28:59Which we lived through. Correct. Correct. Yeah.
- 29:03So in order, before they started being pilfered by MLB, they made their money
- 29:11by playing international.
- 29:13They would often play games in Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.
- 29:20And that allowed players to play where they were treated like superstars and
- 29:25they can garner more money. And that that kept the money flowing throughout
- 29:29the winter seasons, basically.
- 29:30So. So, yeah, America, again, behind the eight ball,
- 29:34like many players do, they go internationally or they go international when
- 29:40they want to blow up, not to Europe, but to go south where we are treated as equals.
- 29:47And like we were saying, what, a couple episodes ago, look how many of these
- 29:52players from these regions, Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela,
- 29:58how many of those guys are in Major League Baseball today?
- 30:04Probably inspired by the players from the Negro Leagues. And I mean, let's just keep it 100.
- 30:10Might be some of the great granddaddies or granddaddies. I'm just saying.
- 30:15I'm just saying. Grew up watching it. Right, right. So I hate to keep going
- 30:18back to him, but I love tearing down these saviors.
- 30:22So another thing that Branch Rickey did in 1945, he created it.
- 30:27Supposedly all-black baseball league called the United States League, and it was just a front.
- 30:32And what it was is it was a way for them to send white scouts to the games to,
- 30:39well, obviously to scout the players, and then pilfer them from the teams.
- 30:44And then it folded when they pilfered all the black talent that they wanted to pilfer.
- 30:50Yeah, yeah. And the reason he did it is so he wouldn't tip off other white owners,
- 30:56So he would be the only person trying to stack the deck, trying to stack the deck. Wow.
- 31:03Well, I guess it's not unbelievable, but yeah.
- 31:07History. History, right? History, they get swept under the rug in a lot of cases.
- 31:12And once the truth comes out, you just realize some of these guys that we worship
- 31:17probably does not deserve it.
- 31:20And it's one of those things where history is history. You don't have to like it.
- 31:25It doesn't change the fact that it happened. It doesn't change the fact that
- 31:28it actually happened. Yep. I still like 42.
- 31:32Yep. I still watch it. Yep. Like if I'm scrolling through, if it's,
- 31:37oh man, 42, I ain't seen that in a couple of years. I'll watch it.
- 31:42I'm not going to stop watching it because Branch Rickey wasn't this great guy
- 31:46like everybody's seen before us.
- 31:49I'm going to save my comments for 42 when we get to our five on the black hand side movie review.
- 31:54All right, y'all. With that being said, we're going to leave that right there.
- 31:58We're going to transition into current events.
- 32:01It's been rough, bro. this news
- 32:05cycle is incredible so much
- 32:09is happening so quickly we can't
- 32:13keep up we really so there are things that i'm about to mention that i feel
- 32:18like are old news they just happened two weeks ago well i mean two weeks is
- 32:26donald trump's that's his thing so i mean this news Psycho is vicious, bro.
- 32:32So, so, so anyway, with that being said, I want to talk about the Ghanaian president
- 32:37introducing or well, I guess he did introduce it that that I don't want to say legislation.
- 32:45But anyway, it was it was basically stating that the transatlantic slave trade
- 32:53was the worst crime ever committed against mankind.
- 33:02Fifty two European countries decided not to vote. They abstained from the vote.
- 33:08Three countries decided to vote against it.
- 33:15I understand why the fifty two European countries said we don't want to vote.
- 33:22And, you know, most of them gave the politically correct answer.
- 33:25We don't want to have a tragedy Olympics.
- 33:29OK, cool. I get that. Yeah, it's a good political answer.
- 33:34But the real reason you don't want to vote is because you participated.
- 33:38I get why Israel voted it down.
- 33:43The three countries that voted it down were United States, Israel,
- 33:49Argentina. Argentina, I have no, there is no logic for Argentina voting it down.
- 33:54I get why Israel votes it down because they want to have the monopoly on tragedy.
- 34:01So I get them saying, no, no, no, I can't vote for that because where does that put us?
- 34:08Then we can't be the world's victims anymore.
- 34:11So the United States. Really?
- 34:16Really? Really? Really, United States? But you know why?
- 34:21You know why they say it? Because if they say yes, then they got to,
- 34:24hey, next comes this reparation legislation.
- 34:28I think somebody in the administration or somebody close to Trump said,
- 34:31well, it wasn't illegal at the time.
- 34:34Poor excuse. What? Poor excuse. It wasn't illegal at the time.
- 34:38Yeah. You know what used to be legal?
- 34:41Cocaine during surgeries. That was anesthesia. Correct.
- 34:45Correct. Right. When you mention that to people now, they look at you and go,
- 34:48no, that's wild. I can't believe anybody ever did that. But when you mention slavery in the same way.
- 34:53Yeah, man, but that was so long ago. Yeah.
- 34:57Look, the bill is coming due.
- 35:00You won't be able to run from it for long. It's coming due. At some point,
- 35:05I just say you don't have to shit or get off the pot.
- 35:08It's time to pay. It is. It's just that simple.
- 35:11You can't run from this. You've been running from it forever.
- 35:14It's time to pay up but that's why in my opinion at least why those two people.
- 35:22That's why the United States and Israel voted against it again.
- 35:25Argentina, I have no idea why Argentina would vote against it.
- 35:29I'm just like, you don't even have a dog in this fight, do you?
- 35:32Argentina probably called and was like, what y'all doing?
- 35:35Yeah, yeah. That's what we're doing? Alright, cool, cool. Exactly,
- 35:38exactly. Just going along to get along.
- 35:41I wanted to touch on that real quick and I want to touch on the Artemis landing,
- 35:47the Artemis slingshot and the Artemis landing.
- 35:51I have to admit, bro, it was cool as hell.
- 35:55I watched the blast off. I watched the landing yesterday. And I'm just like,
- 36:01man, this is really, really cool.
- 36:04Doesn't mean I changed my position. I still feel like it's a waste of money,
- 36:09but it was cool to see. It was cool to watch.
- 36:13I just still feel like those billions of dollars
- 36:16could have been used to at least address address
- 36:20homelessness and hunger issues
- 36:23those are my current events bro so i
- 36:27want to talk about something going on right now or i don't know
- 36:29maybe they sleep now or maybe they're up doing whatever these people doing negotiations
- 36:36i want to talk about jcpoa yeah yep so for those who don't know it's the Joint
- 36:44Comprehensive Plan of Action. Mm-hmm.
- 36:48So, some years back, Iran gave up 97% of its enriched uranium, and they dismantled.
- 36:56How much? 97%. Mm-hmm.
- 36:59Thousands of centrifuges. Mm-hmm.
- 37:02International community had free reign
- 37:05over any remaining nuclear facilities
- 37:09in the entire country of iran that means they could show up at three o'clock
- 37:13in the morning three o'clock in the afternoon seven days a week 365 days so
- 37:18they complied with they complied they were complied did i mention that there
- 37:22were cameras in all facilities that everyone had access to Let me say that again.
- 37:27There were cameras in the facility that countries like the UK,
- 37:33France, Germany, Russia and China, Russia and China were behind this.
- 37:39So it was a good deal. It's a good deal. OK.
- 37:42So in exchange, a lot of economic sanctions were lifted on Iran. Mm hmm.
- 37:49So here's the consequence of 2018.
- 37:54We pull out of said deal.
- 38:01One thing I will agree with this administration, they were a lot closer to a
- 38:07bomb than they've ever been.
- 38:09But it's because of your administration that they are.
- 38:13Mm hmm. What? What did they do? just ripped
- 38:16up the deal oh okay just ripped up the deal so here's what happened when you
- 38:23ripped up that deal now when people show up at three o'clock in the morning
- 38:27they get straps pulled on correct get the hell out of our country correct you're
- 38:32no longer welcome correct now,
- 38:35iran has free reign now they're pissed yep so
- 38:38you know what we're gonna do whatever the hell we want to do we're
- 38:40going to give more money to hamas hezbollah to
- 38:44the houthis that's what we're gonna do with our money
- 38:47basically fueling the catastrophe that's going on in the middle east hell since
- 38:54long before we were born and our parents were born so then what do we do in
- 39:002026 we launch a military invasion operation epic fury mm-hmm.
- 39:06Strait of Hormuz closed, drone ships, naval mines.
- 39:12Then we hear our president. I'm sorry, the president of the United States,
- 39:17not our president. Correct.
- 39:18He says, well, they're going to open the strait. We don't use the strait,
- 39:24but other countries are going to step in.
- 39:2620% of all oil used in this world flow through there just consistently. Right?
- 39:33We're going to open it up. It was open four weeks ago. Correct.
- 39:41That is correct. How do you go from hundreds of ships a day to less than 10 a day?
- 39:47And it's being said, not loud, not out, that Iran is charging a million dollars a vessel. A toll.
- 39:55Yeah. A toll. A toll. And now it's being said that in this negotiation,
- 40:00they're requesting cryptocurrency.
- 40:03Controversy untraceable bro so
- 40:09so so so so basically this whole
- 40:12thing is a self-inflicted wound is what you're saying correct so
- 40:16here's where the issue lies going forward if
- 40:19you're iran now keep in mind people listening we're not
- 40:22sitting here advocating for iran no why would
- 40:25i trust you correct why the hell would i make a deal with you right
- 40:28when the next president could just come in and rip it up correct get
- 40:32the hell out of my country they have no incentive i have no incentive yeah
- 40:36unless you give me some money to help rebuild the things that you blew up which
- 40:41is what we are wonderful at that oh for sure we will blow up an entire civilization
- 40:46yeah air quotes an entire civilization and then rebuild it and say sorry yeah
- 40:51unless you're black yeah Exactly.
- 40:54No, it was it was legal. So it don't matter. Right. Right.
- 40:58So if these negotiations fall through in the next day or so,
- 41:02whatever, you know, that's going on over there.
- 41:05Now what? Because now he will he will paint it as, well, we've achieved our
- 41:12objectives, so we're pulling out.
- 41:15But if it was a Democrat in office and they pull out, because remember when
- 41:19Joe Biden did what he approved, which was pull out of Afghanistan.
- 41:23Right. He was weak. Right.
- 41:25Pathetic. But they were all talking about we need to end the war.
- 41:29But when he ended the war, yeah, he was he was he was criticized for it.
- 41:33I can't believe he did that. We're weak. We're weak because of it. Yeah.
- 41:36You're the one that told them to pull out. Right.
- 41:39And in exchange, and look, I know I'm going way back, but in exchange for pulling
- 41:43out, didn't he release the leader of the Taliban who then went straight back
- 41:49to Afghanistan and took it right back over?
- 41:52Yep. That's exactly what happened.
- 41:54You know also the the the part of that one
- 41:58is that obama brokered the deal correct so that that
- 42:00always pissed him off the signature on the damn contract is
- 42:04the only thing he hated about yep yep yep
- 42:07so that was that was that was that was the main thing that pissed him off
- 42:10is that obama brokered the deal and the lie
- 42:13that they always tell about we gave them whatever
- 42:16that amount of money was oh yeah the money we had yeah
- 42:19it was it was their money we didn't
- 42:22give them any money it was
- 42:25their money that we basically just gave back to them because we had been holding
- 42:29it as a sanction yeah we froze their account as a sanction yeah we lifted the
- 42:34sanction yeah given their money back yeah and they dismantled 97 of their which
- 42:40is how a negotiation goes.
- 42:42You give something to get something. It's not a negotiation.
- 42:48If you go, I'm getting all the marbles and you're not going to get anything.
- 42:52No one's going to agree to a deal like that. Nope.
- 42:55No one in their right mind would. That's not a negotiation. That's a takeover,
- 43:00a hostile takeover, which let's just be real.
- 43:04I think that's kind of what he wants is a
- 43:07hostile take over which he let slip
- 43:10we want the oil well we're
- 43:13gonna go in there and take the uranium yeah no you're not you're
- 43:17totally not so you think we the the
- 43:21military is just gonna go into a country right with 93 million people and just
- 43:27take it over that's the other funny part to me is like you started a fight and
- 43:32then you're pissed because they're fighting back that's that's that That's weird
- 43:37to me. But you know what, though?
- 43:39Even people that you and I respect and listen to on some of these news programs,
- 43:43when they were interviewing the guy from Iran, and they were talking about attacking
- 43:48military bases, and that dude was like.
- 43:51Defending ourselves. Right. Yeah, but you're attacking military base.
- 43:55What? You started to fight, fool. We were over here just minding our own business.
- 44:01They always say death to America. So what?
- 44:04That's like the weakest talking point that I've heard. They've been saying death to America for 50 years.
- 44:11They're saying it, but they're not doing anything.
- 44:14Who cares? Right. Set your butt over there. Right. Every president has been
- 44:19like shooing Iran away. Let go. That's like me.
- 44:22Man, hey, old boy said he was going to whoop you, man.
- 44:25Old boy been saying he going to whoop you since high school.
- 44:27And then I'm going to burn his house down.
- 44:29Exactly. And he ain't done nothing. And he ain't done nothing.
- 44:31So what? So what? It makes no sense. And you know what? Let me take that back.
- 44:37Not that they're not doing anything, because they are sponsored.
- 44:40They are terrorists. Sure.
- 44:42Like, imagine me burning down somebody's house because he was doing something
- 44:46to his next door neighbor.
- 44:47Like, he threw a rock to his next door neighbor. Got nothing to do with you.
- 44:50You got nothing to do with me. So I'm going to be like, well,
- 44:52yeah, man, I got your back. I'm going to go ahead and burn your house down for you. Yeah.
- 44:55Yeah. You got nothing to do with you. Meanwhile, that neighbor is taking over
- 44:59the next neighbor's house. You ain't here, man.
- 45:01Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
- 45:04It's crazy, bro. I mean, when you actually break it down and get into the nuts
- 45:08and bolts of it, the whole thing is absolutely bonkers. But were you finished with that?
- 45:14All right. Cool. We're going to go right into our rant about a random topic,
- 45:20everyone's favorite, my favorite, and I'm just going to continue on this conversation
- 45:25we've been having about Iran.
- 45:27I was thinking about saving this for a main topic, but I can't.
- 45:34Frank me if I'm wrong on this. We're the only country to ever drop a nuclear
- 45:39weapon on another country. Correct.
- 45:41The United States. Let me say that again. The United States is the only country
- 45:47to ever use a nuclear weapon.
- 45:52How would we feel if China said, hey,
- 45:56y'all need to get rid of y'all nuclear weapons, get rid of y'all nuclear stockpile,
- 46:02because y'all are the only ones who ever dropped a nuclear weapon.
- 46:08You're terrorists. And then they got Russia to back them.
- 46:12And this is the logic that's being applied to Iran.
- 46:16They're being bombed for
- 46:20something that they've never even done let me
- 46:24say that again they're being bombed because they might enrich their uranium
- 46:31and they might drop a bomb on israel i mean because that's who it's really about
- 46:39we're living in minority report,
- 46:41exactly you're you're being punished for
- 46:44or they're being punished for a crime that they might
- 46:47or might not commit the whole thing
- 46:51is so foolish thought process but here's two thoughts here one one country should
- 47:00not be able to tell another country what kind of weapons that they get to possess
- 47:04that's like your neighbor telling you hey i got a gun but you can't have one.
- 47:10Why? Who the hell are you?
- 47:15Who are you to tell me I can't have a gun, but you got a gun?
- 47:18It's so crazy, but here's my,
- 47:23issue. Perhaps no one should have nuclear weapons.
- 47:30Maybe everyone should get rid of their stockpile.
- 47:34And I mean, everyone, every country that has nukes should have to get rid of it.
- 47:40That doesn't mean that, you know, the technology goes away because you can't,
- 47:44once you know how, you know how.
- 47:47But if you're really after world peace, then no one should have a nuclear weapon
- 47:53because no one wins a nuclear war.
- 47:57It's nuclear holocaust. The majority of the world's going to die.
- 48:02If they don't die from the initial blast, they're going to die from the fallout, the radiation, etc.
- 48:08Watch the TV shows.
- 48:11No one should have a nuclear weapon. So the whole thing about We don't want
- 48:16them to have nukes. Well, I don't want us to have nukes.
- 48:19I don't want China to have nukes. I don't want Russia to have nukes.
- 48:22I don't want Israel. Yes, Israel has nukes. I don't want Israel to have nukes.
- 48:27I don't want Pakistan to have nukes.
- 48:29No one should have a nuke. What good is it going to do?
- 48:34Drop theirs we drop ours boom end of the world excellent no one's here no one's
- 48:40here to celebrate no one's here to enjoy it be like uh the show uh what was
- 48:44the silo exactly it's so stupid it it the whole the whole thing just baffles
- 48:50me because it's like if you really want to negotiate for peace,
- 48:53and this isn't just u.s and iran this is everyone if you really want to negotiate peace,
- 49:00everyone would get rid of their nukes that's a progressive world in my opinion,
- 49:06that's my right I know I probably went on longer than I should have but yeah I get,
- 49:12fired up over that because the conversation just drives me crazy who should
- 49:17and who shouldn't have nukes no no one should have nukes we want to well we
- 49:22complain about being the world police yeah but then we constantly do the things
- 49:29that people who police the world do.
- 49:32Like, look, a lot of the complaints that Donald Trump has had over the years, some are very valid.
- 49:37Why are we sending so much money to X, Y, and Z? For sure. We should be doing
- 49:41this, that, and the third. For sure.
- 49:44But then you turn around and spend a billion dollars a day for a month straight
- 49:50to get nothing out of it. To get nothing out of it.
- 49:54No, no, I take that back. You've made the economy worse. The global economy
- 50:00worse, not just American economy, by the way. OK, fine.
- 50:04J.D., you are against this war. Go negotiate. What?
- 50:08And you're going to send me over here with your punk ass son in law.
- 50:12Who isn't a government official at all. He's part of what? What do they call it?
- 50:17The peace, which is man. Yeah.
- 50:22Man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- 50:27And and and and and listen, I get it. I get it. OK.
- 50:33For the nuclear enthusiast, it's a deterrent. No, it's not.
- 50:39It's not a deterrent. All it is is the carrot dangling in front of the rabbit.
- 50:47Well, if they got nukes, then I need to do everything in my power to get nukes. That's all it is.
- 50:53It's not a deterrent. It just pushes everyone else to get nukes because they're
- 50:57like, hey, in order for me to fight, I got to have a nuke.
- 51:02You got a gun. We got beef. I don't have one.
- 51:05I need to go get a gun. Exactly. I mean, that's all the nuclear weapon does. It's not a deterrent.
- 51:14Puts the world in danger well because these
- 51:17other countries they know in this climate you're
- 51:20not stupid enough to launch it at least
- 51:23that's the hope that's the hope but but that tweet
- 51:26last easter but the thing is is when your
- 51:29president is a senile yeah borderline yeah
- 51:32patient yeah i mean how do you get rid of a
- 51:35civilization by dropping a nuke on them that that's
- 51:38how i read it which he doesn't understand you'd have to drop three or four to
- 51:41annihilate that country yeah which would again which in turn but it wouldn't
- 51:46fall out exactly that part that part it wouldn't just get iran it'll get all
- 51:52of their surrounding neighbors iran iraq kuwait correct correctamundo,
- 51:58yeah i'm that i'm sorry bro no you're
- 52:01good i'm done with my right for real this time y'all so mine is pretty pretty
- 52:07quick and it's something that everybody is dealing with as well so did you know
- 52:11that the average family today is spending $740 more a year than they did last
- 52:17year in groceries. So those prices didn't come down?
- 52:21$740 more. So the tariffs didn't work? Nope.
- 52:26Now, here's where it gets into something that you and I both saw firsthand.
- 52:31Working for a company that shall remain nameless. Nobody want no lawsuit.
- 52:36These corporations jack up the price. And then months after they jack up the
- 52:40price, they shrink the box. For sure.
- 52:42When they think you're not paying attention. For sure. I saw it in a meeting.
- 52:47I heard the logic given by one of the executives.
- 52:50And I remember looking at the dude next to me and he was like,
- 52:55capitalism, brother. Capitalism.
- 52:57So we're basically paying a premium for air.
- 53:02Without a doubt. For air. Without a doubt. So the soda mini cans...
- 53:09That quote well what's that that number they say it's costing over 120 percent more per ounce,
- 53:18in those mini camp which i've never bought it no no it's a sip they're like eight dollars,
- 53:24cereal boxes are holding fewer servants and they cost 50 percent more which
- 53:28my house we still eat a lot of cereal so i see it and then the nitrogen and
- 53:35the chip bags bro all air in your bag.
- 53:40I'm probably one of the few people that love Fritos.
- 53:44I just love them. Chili cheese to be exact.
- 53:48Bro, I bought one the other day. A third. The bag was this slim. It looked taller. Yeah.
- 53:55Now Frito bags have always been stuffed because of how they're made.
- 53:59But the bag was slim as hell.
- 54:03The product is taking up a third of that package.
- 54:06Not half, a third of
- 54:09it just keep that in mind next time
- 54:13you buy a bag of chips open it and before
- 54:16you take one out just flatten it
- 54:19to see how many chips you actually got in
- 54:22that bag you'll be surprised yep you will be absolutely shocked by this yeah
- 54:28it's it's crazy bro and it's like you always say once prices go up they're not
- 54:34coming down they're never coming back down there's no The only prices that fluctuate,
- 54:40prices that fluctuate, like gas.
- 54:41There were gases, $3.80 a day.
- 54:44Damn, it went up to $4. And then three days later, it's $3.40. Correct.
- 54:49A 20-ounce drink.
- 54:52A dollar 25 15 years ago now they're
- 54:55up to 269 279 that's not
- 54:58coming down it's not because there's no incentive to bring
- 55:01it down why would they be taking money out of their pocket right yeah you running
- 55:06a business why the hell would i do that yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like you said
- 55:10if you're willing to pay this price then why would i the only way prices are
- 55:17ever going to come back down Lord forbid,
- 55:20is we have just a major recession.
- 55:23That's the only way.
- 55:26It'll force them because no one will have any money to spend.
- 55:29It's the only way prices are coming back down. Like I said, Lord forbid.
- 55:34But that's sort of the remedy, unfortunately.
- 55:39You finished with that, bro? All right, cool. Let's transition into Five on
- 55:44the Black Hand Side, our Black movie review.
- 55:47And the movie we chose this week is very apropos to the conversation we were
- 55:52having about the Negro Leagues, because the movie is 42 about Jackie Robinson.
- 55:59Go ahead, my brother. Take it away.
- 56:01So 42 came out in April of 2000. Wait, what's today?
- 56:07Today is the 11th. Yeah. It came out April 12th, 2013.
- 56:14Movie stars, Chadwick Boseman. Late, great Chadwick Boseman. Jackie Robinson. Yep.
- 56:21Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. Yep. Nicole Behari as Rachel Robinson,
- 56:25which is Jackie Robinson's wife. Mm-hmm. Andre Holland as Wendell Smith.
- 56:29Yep. Now, for those who don't know, Wendell Smith was a black sports writer
- 56:34who basically traveled and chronicled his entire career. Yep.
- 56:37Yep. Which a lot of his feats and everything would have been swept under the
- 56:41rug had that black reporter not been there to document it.
- 56:45Christopher Maloney as Leo DeRocha.
- 56:49Lucas Black as Pee Wee Reese, who was the famous Dodgers shortstop.
- 56:55Alan Tudyk as Ben Chapman. He was the racist manager of the Phillies.
- 57:02John C. McGinley as Red Barber. He was the Dodgers play-by-play announcer.
- 57:07The movie itself had a budget of somewhere between $31 to $40 million,
- 57:12and it made $97.5 million worldwide.
- 57:1742 earned $27.5 million as opening weekend, which was the highest grossing opening
- 57:23weekend ever for a baseball-themed movie in Hollywood history.
- 57:27Most of that, at least in our opinion, we know about Chadwick Boseman,
- 57:32was contributed to him as well. This is the movie that sort of,
- 57:38catapulted his career. This is what made people recognize that he could be a box office draw.
- 57:45We paid black folks paid attention for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
- 57:48yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, this was before Black Panther and all of that stuff, guys.
- 57:53So the director was Brian Helglin.
- 57:56He actually did the screen. He was a screenwriter for two of the best movies
- 58:00ever made, L.A. Confidential and Mystic River.
- 58:04Really good movies, by the way. Mystic River was one of those movies, though. One time.
- 58:09That's it. Too hard to watch? No, can't watch it. I hear you.
- 58:12No. You're talking about the death of a child and then... Yeah.
- 58:16Really good movie, though. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was.
- 58:19I watched LA Confidential a couple weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 58:23So, little known Spike Lee was supposed to do 42 back in 1995.
- 58:32Wow. Yep. So, it was going to be a turn of pictures. Take a wild guess who Jackie
- 58:39Robinson was going to be.
- 58:41Wesley Snipes. Nope. Denzel Washington. Yes, sir. My goodness.
- 58:46So, it was supposed to be a... Hold on a second.
- 58:52I forget what issues they had.
- 58:55Was it related to funding? Yeah, creative differences and funding issues was
- 58:59the biggest one. I'm glad you said that.
- 59:022004. Somebody else stepped in trying. Robert Redford.
- 59:07Interesting. Yeah. So he set up a separate biopic project where he intended
- 59:13to produce and co-star as Branch Rickey. Mm hmm.
- 59:18But it was already it was stalled during development. I've always heard that
- 59:22he was a huge baseball fan.
- 59:24Oh, yeah. Robert Redford. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that that totally
- 59:27makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.
- 59:29So, OK, I guess I'll save that comment for later.
- 59:35This movie was impactful, probably came out a decade too late.
- 59:46I let me just touch on those creative differences that you were speaking about with Spike Lee.
- 59:51I was going to say, but I can't. I can imagine what those creative differences
- 59:56would have been as Spike Lee did this movie.
- 59:59Because I felt like the same as I feel with Red Tails, I kind of feel like this movie was Disney'd up.
- 1:00:08And what do I mean by that? Just go watch Richard. That's what we mean by Disney'd up. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:00:16The racism that this man experienced was probably 50 times worse than it was in this movie.
- 1:00:22You know, there were a few scenes of the overt racism.
- 1:00:28For the most part it was come on jackie hey jackie just like man knock it off
- 1:00:32we know it wasn't you guys were not that accepting of this guy and and and that's
- 1:00:39those creative differences that i bet you spike lee was like no we're gonna
- 1:00:44yeah i want to go hard at that and they were probably like no.
- 1:00:48And the fact that you always bring up the fact that they made him testify against
- 1:00:53Paul Robeson and none of that stuff was mentioned in the movie,
- 1:00:58which is why I always say Jackie Robinson wasn't the best player.
- 1:01:02He was the right player and right player at the right time. Correct.
- 1:01:06Yeah, they were right. They weren't going to put Josh Gibson. Exactly.
- 1:01:10Exactly. It's it's the Kobe AI argument, if you will. You know, A.I.
- 1:01:17Was probably top one, top two in his prime in the NBA.
- 1:01:22But, you know, he didn't fit the bill.
- 1:01:25He didn't have the right look. He didn't have the right attitude.
- 1:01:28He didn't speak well enough to be the face of the league.
- 1:01:33But A.I., whether they like it or not, he kind of was the face of the league. Yeah, he was.
- 1:01:38But, you know, they didn't promote him as the face of the league like they should have.
- 1:01:43Josh Gibson notoriously was just like Babe Ruth. Yeah.
- 1:01:50Babe Ruth was not a pillar of the community. He was an alcoholic. He was an alcoholic.
- 1:01:55Yeah. Josh Gibson was notorious for smoking cigars. Right. Just stuff like that.
- 1:02:02Right. But Babe Ruth got away with it.
- 1:02:06But yeah, Jackie Robinson, right place, right time.
- 1:02:09But going back to what you were talking about with the races.
- 1:02:14He was physically assaulted while running races. Interesting.
- 1:02:19He was being elbowed, knocked down. Yeah. Like, verbal assaults from the dugouts,
- 1:02:24being headhunted by pitchers. Yeah.
- 1:02:27Constantly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's throwing so many bases because he got hit by so many balls.
- 1:02:32Right. Right. And on top of that, they wouldn't pitch to him either.
- 1:02:35Yeah, they wouldn't pitch to him. They wouldn't, you know, no,
- 1:02:37we won't give you a good ball to hit.
- 1:02:39Which is the same thing they did to Barry Bonds after he hit those 73 home runs.
- 1:02:43The next season, he broke the record for walks because no one would pitch to him.
- 1:02:48As opposed to Mark McGuire, you know, they just lobbed the ball over.
- 1:02:52Let me just stop right there. So Dixie Walker, who played for the Dodgers after
- 1:02:58Jackie Robinson was accepted on the team, started a petition to be traded because
- 1:03:03he'd rather be traded than play alongside a black man.
- 1:03:09Crazy. You know how crazy that has to be? Yeah. Like you play baseball with all these other dudes.
- 1:03:14Yeah. and bringing a black man in is somehow
- 1:03:17taped uh-huh the the
- 1:03:21same thing they'd say about jim brown like there
- 1:03:24were dudes on that line who literally said they
- 1:03:27were not going to block for he didn't need and he didn't need it yeah yeah they
- 1:03:32weren't going to block for him just because he was black it's just just amazing
- 1:03:36bro imagine having imagine going on the on the road with your team can't can't
- 1:03:42stay with them and i'm using i'm gonna use indianapolis as an example so for
- 1:03:45anybody who has ever been here,
- 1:03:49Say this is a hotel where you live. I used to live, what, eight minutes down the road.
- 1:03:55I'm staying here as Jackie Robinson. My players are downtown. Correct.
- 1:04:02Downtown is what? 15 miles from here? Yeah. Or maybe a little bit closer.
- 1:04:07But yeah, Jackie, I know it's two in the morning. Yeah, but you got to go over there.
- 1:04:11You got to drive out west down these two-lane dirt roads and find colored only accommodations.
- 1:04:17Yeah. nuts. And it was acceptable, bro.
- 1:04:22That's the crazy part is it was just accepted as the norm.
- 1:04:27Do everything y'all do except i
- 1:04:30can't eat sleep or shit where
- 1:04:34y'all eat sleep and shit in sanford florida
- 1:04:37this is the scene from the movie where the guy
- 1:04:40came on the field and forced jackie robinson
- 1:04:43off the field the dodgers themselves the
- 1:04:47whole team used to get locked out of
- 1:04:49stadiums so they couldn't play their exhibition game
- 1:04:53yeah in the south during spring training yeah it's crazy are we talking about
- 1:04:59the film or are we just talking about Jackie Robinson a lot of this stuff we're
- 1:05:04mentioning was not in the film the Sanford part was but the other stuff was
- 1:05:10the travel accommodations,
- 1:05:11the spring training in the deep south which I found interesting too now I got
- 1:05:17what you're saying we're talking
- 1:05:18about Jackie Robinson not the damn movie right Right, right, right.
- 1:05:25Hey, all that shit should have been in the movie. It should have been,
- 1:05:28which is what I was hinting at about the creative differences.
- 1:05:33I don't know. I mean, I found the movie to be entertaining, but I feel like
- 1:05:40it could have been so much better had they introduced, if not all,
- 1:05:45but just some of those points that we were just making.
- 1:05:48I just feel like it didn't get gritty enough I wanted to see the grit not just
- 1:05:55the highlight reel because that's kind of what I felt like is the movie was just a highlight reel.
- 1:06:02So I wanted more from the movie.
- 1:06:06And in my opinion, I mean, even like less baseball and just more about his life,
- 1:06:14I guess, is a movie I would have preferred to see. Yeah, because we know about the baseball.
- 1:06:18Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, to compare it to Ray, right?
- 1:06:24When I watched Ray, there were a lot of things that I was just like,
- 1:06:28oh, I had no idea that Ray would did this, that and the other.
- 1:06:32Ray Charles was, he was, I mean, I don't want to use the wrong word,
- 1:06:37but we love, like, Ray Charles was the man.
- 1:06:41Like, what you mean Ray Charles was addicted to heroin and got arrested and
- 1:06:44ended up? All things we never knew, right?
- 1:06:47And that is what I expect to see from a biopic, not just the highlight reel,
- 1:06:55the cookie cutter stuff.
- 1:06:56I want to see the dark, gritty stuff that no one actually knows about.
- 1:07:00I want to see the conversations that he had.
- 1:07:04If you don't testify against Paul Robeson, we're going to do this, that and the other.
- 1:07:10I want to see what motivated him to go against that other black man.
- 1:07:15That's the stuff I want to see.
- 1:07:16And this is why I'm not excited to see Michael, because I'm like, what?
- 1:07:21What are you going to tell me that I don't already know?
- 1:07:25Are you going to get gritty, grimy?
- 1:07:28Probably not. Are you going to show his relationship with Tatum O'Neal? Brooke Shields. Right.
- 1:07:35Are you going to show those things? Right. Or are you just going to do the shit
- 1:07:39that we already pretty much know? Yeah.
- 1:07:44That's kind of how I feel about 42. So one of the scenes from the movie that
- 1:07:47kind of stands out, when he played for Kansas City, and they went to the gas
- 1:07:52station, he wanted to use the restroom.
- 1:07:54And when the guy told him, you can't use it. And he says, we'll just take the
- 1:07:58holes out. We'll just buy our gas elsewhere.
- 1:08:01Do you think that happened that easy? Right.
- 1:08:03But as you said, you Disney'd that portion of the movie. So you think a racist
- 1:08:10white gas station owner.
- 1:08:13Oh, here, go ahead. Use the bathroom because you don't want to spend your what?
- 1:08:19Ninety nine cent for gas. Right.
- 1:08:22Well, at that time in history, ninety nine cent. No way. Probably more like 30 cent. Right.
- 1:08:29Man, that white dude would have pulled that thing and been like,
- 1:08:31fine. Right. Get your butt on down the road. Right. And I hope you run out of gas.
- 1:08:35Right. Because I'm about to call ahead and tell my boys. And we're going to
- 1:08:38be waiting on you. We're going to be waiting on you.
- 1:08:40Even if you don't run out of gas, I'm calling my boys. And we're going to be waiting on you.
- 1:08:46Yeah. That's exactly how that would have ended up.
- 1:08:54The Pee Wee Reese.
- 1:08:56Scene when they were playing in Cincinnati and the Pee Wee Reese walked over
- 1:09:01to him and started talking to him, put his arm around him and all that stuff.
- 1:09:07Come on. But it's also been said Jackie Robinson was very militant.
- 1:09:12He didn't accept a lot of this stuff.
- 1:09:16What did you just finish saying earlier in this podcast?
- 1:09:20The white savior. Always got to be one in there.
- 1:09:25Always got to be one, bro. Let me put my arm around it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:09:30I'm going to be the one that says, it's okay. Really?
- 1:09:35I'm just going to ask. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
- 1:09:40And it, yeah, it's just, the whole meritocracy thing is just such a scam because
- 1:09:47we know that those standards don't apply when you're black.
- 1:09:54Even to this day, more so back then but even to this day that meritocracy doesn't
- 1:10:02apply i was talking about the art of mislanding if it was up to this administration
- 1:10:08that black pilot he gonna be scratched out of the record books but you know
- 1:10:12they were happy to have that dude from canada,
- 1:10:15was on that mic just praising donald trump where are you from canada i mean
- 1:10:21we look 40 years from Now we'll be doing another Black History episode going,
- 1:10:25hey, did you know the black dude was the pilot on Artemis 2?
- 1:10:29What? For real? Yes. He was the damn pilot. Yeah. Yeah. He'll be eliminated from the record books.
- 1:10:37And again, I'm sorry, y'all. I keep getting off this movie, but.
- 1:10:45I said because I just found it to be cookie cutter. Can I add something to that?
- 1:10:48Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cookie cutter portion.
- 1:10:50When I mentioned Jackie Robinson was very militant, he was court-martialed.
- 1:10:54Court-martialed, right. Which
- 1:10:55they actually made a movie about the court-martial of Jackie Robinson.
- 1:10:59For refusing to go to the back of the bus. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:11:03Let me say that again for anybody that's not understanding.
- 1:11:07He basically was court-martialed. So, no, no, no.
- 1:11:11I'm going to use a different analogy. I walked into the gas station and stole
- 1:11:14a Chico stick and got 20 years in prison for it.
- 1:11:19You might want to change that Chico stick reference, though.
- 1:11:22I love Chico stick. I know, but that's dating us, man. People probably don't know what a Chico is.
- 1:11:27Like, what the hell is a Chico stick? So the one by the apartment,
- 1:11:32right at the register, he got a box.
- 1:11:35A Chico stick? It just sit right there. How much are they?
- 1:11:39$0.35, $0.30. He don't charge a lot. But you know they were a dime when we were kids.
- 1:11:43Bro, but yeah, you know what I was about to say? The Boston Dine fans,
- 1:11:49Lemonheads at the Little League Field.
- 1:11:51A dime for a box.
- 1:11:54Good old days. Good old days. You're right. My bad, bro. I totally... No, no. It's all good.
- 1:11:59But no, just to mention how Disney these movies are.
- 1:12:05And it's not just that one. It's a lot of... Yeah.
- 1:12:08Like I mentioned Richard earlier. Yeah. With Will Smith.
- 1:12:11I don't want to see a Disney version of what Richard Williams went through to
- 1:12:15get his daughters on the tennis court. Right.
- 1:12:18I want the raw. I want the raw. Like remember he got his ass whooped by some brothers. Right.
- 1:12:24That's what you put in there? Right. That's what you put in there? Right.
- 1:12:28You're not showing where the white tennis court owners and people were like
- 1:12:33man if you don't get your blankety blank away from there. Correct.
- 1:12:37Correct. The gatekeeping. Right. But you sure put in there him getting beat
- 1:12:43up for sure by some people in county. For sure. For sure.
- 1:12:47Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta. Oh, man, that is I don't I don't have much
- 1:12:52more to say about 42, bro. You want to just go ahead and rate this thing there?
- 1:12:57Oh, man. Because of the historical significance, I'm not just going to totally crap on this movie.
- 1:13:04So I'm going to give it two and a half high fives on the black hand side.
- 1:13:09How much? Two and a half.
- 1:13:11I still think it was entertaining.
- 1:13:14Just the fact that we know that they left a lot out.
- 1:13:19I can't go higher than the two and a half. So if this was about...
- 1:13:23If this was just a Jackie Robinson conversation, I'd go five. Mm-hmm.
- 1:13:28But I would say probably three. And the reason I'm giving it a little bit more is because it was made.
- 1:13:34The fact that somebody said... I feel that. You know what? Let's go ahead...
- 1:13:40Feel that. And make this. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that. I hear you.
- 1:13:46I'm still gonna stick with my two and a half, though.
- 1:13:51Alright, y'all, that's our five on the black hand side movie review of the movie 42.
- 1:13:58Go watch it. It's worth a watch. If you got a couple of hours to kill,
- 1:14:02you're a baseball fan, there's a lot of baseball highlight scenes in there, so go watch it.
- 1:14:08You'll understand why they were 42 why every major league baseball player wears
- 1:14:1442 on Jackie Robinson Day.
- 1:14:17You'll understand more about the significance and why they do that.
- 1:14:21All right. We're going to go into our closing monologue.
- 1:14:25KG, the floor is yours. So today I don't really have much, but I want to talk
- 1:14:33about the Negro Leagues.
- 1:14:35We're going to continue on it. So basically from the Clowns to the Grays,
- 1:14:40these brothers weren't just playing for a box score.
- 1:14:43It was for their dignity, basically in a country that tried to keep them in the shadows.
- 1:14:48They had their own stars, their own legends, and a style of play that was faster,
- 1:14:52bolder, and louder than anything that the majors have seen, maybe until recently.
- 1:14:58So when we talk about the good old days of baseball, which we just talked about,
- 1:15:03let's make sure we're telling the entire story. because the game didn't start being great in 1947.
- 1:15:09It just finally opened its eyes.
- 1:15:12I like that. Excellent. All right, y'all.
- 1:15:16That concludes this episode of For the Fam Podcast, episode 28.
- 1:15:22We hope you guys enjoyed. I want to take a moment to shout out some new international
- 1:15:28listeners that we've gained over the last couple of weeks. We see you guys.
- 1:15:34We recognize it. And I'm going to give you guys an assignment.
- 1:15:37Share this with two friends. All right.
- 1:15:41International and domestic.
- 1:15:44Like what we do, if you enjoy our conversation, I'm sorry, share this with two
- 1:15:50friends, alright? Send them the link.
- 1:15:53Uzbekistan, brother. I don't even know where the hell that's at.
- 1:16:00I saw that and was like, what? All I know is it's Eastern Europe.
- 1:16:06Uzbekistan. Alright, alright. Shout out to Uzbekistan. I hope we're pronouncing
- 1:16:10that correct. Probably not.
- 1:16:14All right, y'all. Well, we're going to leave it there for now.
- 1:16:17Again, we thank you guys for tuning in. I'm Six Mill, keeping it true.
- 1:16:22It's your boy KG. And we'll holler at y'all next time. Peace.