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BV Sports Salutes Less-Heralded Heroes
By Ray Holloman, AOL BlackVoices
You won't find Muhammad Ali or Jackie Robinson on this list. Jesse Owens, Joe Louis -- you know their stories like you know your own last name. The stories below you may not know. They once had their faces on bubble gum cards, their names called out on the radio. But for whatever reason they've faded from the public consciousness, forgotten like a once-familiar song. Some were flawed men, some just had the misfortune of playing out of the spotlight. But in their own way, each contributed to the pantheon of black achievement.
On the playing field, where wins and losses are tangential, they served as living, breathing, tactile testaments to the ability of African Americans, from the fists of Jack Johnson to the desk of Ozzie Newsome. They earned their way onto the list because with each home run they hit or title they won, they created an identity of black self-respect that built drop by drop into the tidal wave of the civil rights movement and the executive frontiers of today.
They may not receive the accolade of Robinson and Ali or fit in neat texbtook anecdotes. But they are all heroes.
After all, herosim is what you do when the spotlight isn't on you.
Johnson Strikes First Blow for African Americans
Jack Johnson
Long before America knew the name Jackie Robinson, Jack Johnson sent a racist America running for cover.
Barely two decades removed from Reconstruction, the bold, brash and articulate Johnson roared into the center of America, swinging haymakers and uppercuts at a society that had no idea what hit it.
Before there was Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson was the greatest of all time.
In 1908, Johnson won the world title from Canadian Tommy Burns and on July 4, 1910, he landed the most important knockout punch in American history, flooring former champion Jim Jeffries. But make no mistake about it, it wasn't a single punch Johnson landed, it was the first expression of black self-respect in post-Reconstruction America, a single drop that would build into the tidal wave of Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and Martin Luther King.
Johnson was a man of vice and a man of excess, but he redeemed the power of black America in every haymaker he landed and in every title he held triumphantly above his head, titles that exclaimed with every angst-filled yelp that black America wasn't a second-class society.
Black America was Jack Johnson, world heavyweight champion.
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Doby's Legacy Greater Than Trivia Question
Larry Doby
For a man who was a pioneer on the highest order in American history, Larry Doby has spent an awful lot of time in the shadows.
Called up on July 5, 1947, Doby was the first African American to play in the American League. It should have guaranteed him the eternal lionizing of pioneer and hero. But because Jackie Robinson had been called up in the media center of New York three months earlier, Doby’s time in Midwest stopover Cleveland earned him the honor of being marginalized as a trivia question.
Question: Who was the first African American in the American League? Answer: Larry Doby.
Don't you ever forget it again.
He dealt with the same issues as Robinson: the isolation, the loneliness, the cruelty. When Doby first arrived in Cleveland, his manager wouldn't shake his hand. He led the American League in homers in 1952 and 1954. Over his career, he played longer, hit more homers, drove in more runs and retired with a near identical career OPS (.876) as Robinson. In 1998, the seven-time All-Star was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 1976, Doby even pioneered as a manager. But even then he was second –- months behind Frank Robinson.
But for the civil rights movement, it's not where you start, but where you finish. And none ran the race better than Larry Doby.
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Modern Players Owe Large Debt to Flood
Curt Flood
Black or white, every professional athlete in America should thank Curt Flood each night before they go to bed and twice when they wake up.
Tragically, most of them don't even know who he is.
In centerfield, Flood was sublime. A three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner, Flood is the brand name of center field defense, a player by whom those before and those after are judged. In 1966, he set an unbreakable record, posting a 1.000 fielding percentage for the season.
On the field, he was a star. Off the field, he became a hero.
His 1969 landmark case against the St. Louis Cardinals –- who had tried to trade him to Philadelphia –- eventually brought down baseball's reserve clause and ushered in free agency as we know it today.
But to view Curt Flood solely as the protagonist in the battle over money is to marginalize all that he truly accomplished.
In 1970, Curt Flood didn't simply strike a blow for labor, he took a stand against the power of corporate America that even the greatest white athletes were afraid to take.
It cost him his career. In 1998, Flood died of throat cancer, a tragic tale of muted brilliance.
But the greatest tragedy lies ahead, as Flood’s name and memory slips into the past while his martyrdom earns so much for so many.
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Gibson Carried Harlem to Wimbledon
Althea Gibson
There are no two places on Earth that seem farther apart than Harlem and the meandering cobble streets of Wimbledon, England.
But in 1957, Harlem came to Wimbledon.
Harlem represented.
Althea Gibson was born far removed silver spoons and lunch on the green. There were no silver spoons in Harlem. For the Gibsons, a family on welfare, even the regular kind were hard to come by and the only greens she knew were on her plate.
She was a client of the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She struggled in school and ran away from home.
Don't ever listen to Anna Kournikova tell you she had it tough in Florida.
Althea Gibson had tough for breakfast.
But before she retired to play professional golf, Gibson became the first woman to compete in, win and utterly dominate women's tennis. She won 100 titles and five singles grand slams on tour. In 1957, she won both the singles and doubles title at Wimbledon, tennis Holy Grail.
Long before the Williams sisters took tennis out of the Compton 'hood, they had the groundwork laid for them -- Althea Gibson, the archetype of what it was to be black, to be female and to be proud.
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Sifford Faces Robinson's Struggles Without Publicity
Charlie Sifford
Jackie Robinson knows racism. And when Jackie Robinson warns you about what you're doing, you better well listen.
Charlie Sifford listened. And he became a legend.
But Jackie was wrong. It wasn’t just hard. It was excruciating.
While Robinson suffered the pains of integrating a sport in New York, he at least had the visibility of the Dodgers and a nation, if not cheering his every move, certainly watching them. Robinson had the inevitable tide of public opinion and his team's front office with him. Sifford had unwelcoming clubhouses, himself and a tour full of white golfers.
Welcome to the world of Charlie Sifford. Out of the public eye, but just as determined as Jackie Robinson or Muhammad Ali, dangling a cigar contemptuously between his lips as he rips the big dog down the fairway.
In 1961, the 41-year-old Sifford -- past a prime that saw him dominate the United Golfer's Association, the Negro Leagues of golf -- finally became the first African-American golfer on the PGA Tour.
Sifford eventually won more than $1 million on the PGA tour, most on the Senior's tour and in 2003, he earned the highest honor golf can bestow, induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Despite what Nike might tell you, golf didn't start with Tiger Woods.
It started with Charlie Sifford.