1888 N162 Cap Anson (SGC 20) For Trade / Sale

[Scocs]

Again, last time I'll say this: of course team owners and Landis all saw fit to maintain their "gentlemen's agreement" from the late 19th century through the mid-twentieth century. My point is that Anson, as the most powerful, respected, and visible professional baseball figure of his era, set the whole pendulum in motion and no one until Chandler, Rickey, and Robinson was willing to stop it.

Adrian Anson saying that my Chicago baseball club -- and any and all professional baseball clubs -- will not not play against any team that has an African-American player on it simply held much more weight than if some generic racist player had said the same thing.

And as far as that earlier "PC nonsense" comment goes: consider yourself lucky that you were born a white male when you were, and consider yourself existentially lucky had you been born a white male a hundred years ago. Because if you weren't, and you had all the talent and skill of Ruth, Wagner, and
Johnson, you would have toiled in near obscurity in the Negro Leagues. That's not political correctness -- that's reality.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame one individual for institutional racism, but in my opinion, Anson used the power and privilege of his own skin color to exclude multiple generations of very deserving and gifted athletes from playing the game at the highest level, the game they loved just as much as he did.

Scott