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I’ve been writing about Black College baseball for the better part of a decade. As a former HBCU baseball player at Fort Valley State College and Tuskegee Institute in the early 1970s, I have a long history in the sport. I have watched the sport change over the years, and I have, on numerous occasions, documented those changes.
Greg “Goody” Goodwin and Tim Goodrum Pen Books on Baseball and Life
Cascade Publishing House is excited to announce it has reached terms with two first-time authors, Greg “Goody” Goodwin and Tim Goodrum. Both books have a baseball thread and will be among Cascade’s summer releases.
Greg Goodwin, known as “Goody,” by his friends, is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a descendant of J. H. Goodwin, who survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
When I was a high schooler in Macon, Georgia, I dreamed of playing collegiate baseball at Georgia Tech in Atlanta during the early days of school desegregation. In 1969, the year I graduated from the majority white high school that I had integrated four years earlier, there were no Black American baseball players on the Georgia Tech baseball team.
I’ve lived through three encounters with the police that could easily have ended in my death. Each time I see another Black man lose his life to a trigger-happy cop; it brings back that same dread I had on those three occasions.
In the mid-1970s, I was a young reporter covering the city hall beat for a Black-owned weekly tabloid. One day I went home for lunch with a couple of girls who worked in the newsroom. They were curious to know how I prepared a vegetarian hamburger. This was decades before the meat alternatives we have on the market today and a lot less appetizing.
Two months after a stunned, pandemic world watched the killing of George Floyd at the corner of 8th Street East and Chicago Avenue, a battery of civil rights attorneys filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the three cops who participated in Floyd’s death. The lawyers’ chief spokesperson is Benjamin Crump, who has built a cottage industry in police misconduct cases following the Trayvon Martin family’s representation nine years ago.
New Time Period Suggests Civil Case Settled Too Soon and For Too Little Money
Four early take-aways are evident after the first three days of testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
First, there is no doubt that Chauvin used excessive force from the get-go on Memorial Day 2020. After banging on the driver-side door of an SUV driven by Floyd, Chauvin immediately drew his firearm and pointed it at Floyd. The officer’s approach caused Floyd to cringe and beg for his life. He asked Chauvin to not shot him. Floyd never physically attacked Chauvin or any other police officer on the scene. He initially gripped onto the steering wheel of his SUV as he asked the officers why they were bothering him.
Lorenzo “Lo” Ogden Now Playing First Base With the Heavenly Host
When Lorenzo Ogden stepped on the Tuskegee Institute campus in1968, he was a tall, skinny kid off the sandlots of Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his summer days playing baseball during the week, but on Sundays, you could find him at old Rickwood Field watching the Birmingham Black Barons play the best competition in the Negro Leagues.
HBCU Alumni Proud of National Spotlight
HBCU Alumni Proud of National Spotlight
Marie Duval did not attend an HBCU; she received her educational experience at a predominately white institution, Mercer University, a private Baptist-supported school in Macon, Georgia, her hometown. The other half of the Duval family, Steve Duval, attended two HBCUs, Hampton University and Tuskegee University. The Duvals traveled 150 miles to witness a rare national spotlight shine on Black college baseball.
Why the Ralph Garr-Bill Lucas HBCU Baseball Classic Matters?
A faint breeze slightly chilled the night air, the sky tinted ocean blue, and patches of small fluffy clouds lingered in the afterglow of dusk, hinted at the artistry of the Divine.
Down below on a baseball diamond where Triple-A professionals dream of getting a call up to the big league are two historic Black universities, Florida A & M University and Grambling State University. Each is seeking their first win since the pandemic derailed their season a year ago, prepared to do battle in the first Ralph Garr-Bill Lucas HBCU Baseball Classic.
Many of the happiest days of my life are moments spent on a baseball diamond. Mostly sandlots: sometimes cow pastures turned into a ball field for Sunday baseball outings, some with meticulously kept lawns, and some in the oldest minor league ballpark in America, Luther Williams Field, in Macon, Georgia.