This is Philadelphia.
The boys are enrolled in a winter batting class. It’s taught by Jerry, a legendary local artist and baseball fanatic. Jerry has been helping kids become artists and athletes for decades now. He’s a fixture in the neighborhood.
Last night, Jerry spent the first ten minutes of practice sharing a book with the four boys that showed up on a cold, January school night – a book he bought with his own money just for this occasion. It was a stunningly beautifully illustrated children’s book about the best players of the negro leagues.
It’s not lost on me that here in Philadelphia discussions about race and race relations are on the table and, for the most part, not avoided. I loved seeing the boys with blonde hair and the boys with black hair studying their baseball history before they studied their batting stance and all of it wrapped up in a lesson about recognizing our mistakes and how we can all get along.
Yes, this all happened in a dilapidated, tragically under-funded public school gymnasium, but that did not deter another beautiful Philadelphia moment from blossoming between races and generations.
This is my city…at its best.
(The name of the book is “We are the Ship” by Kadir Nelson. The big take away for the Kelsh boys—and what we talked about on the drive home—was that Josh Gibson was known as the “black Babe Ruth”. In fact, some fans at the time who saw both Ruth and Gibson play, called Ruth “the white Josh Gibson”.
Gibson never played in the major leagues because of an unwritten “gentleman’s agreement” policy that prevented non-white players from participating. In 1972, he was the second player after Satchel Paige who had played in the Negro leagues to be inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Gibson is on the cover of the book.)
