我们来玩二

Peter Dreier’s relationship with baseball began in New Jersey in the mid-1950s, when he rooted 为 Johnny Antonelli, 威利梅斯, 和纽约巨人队. But when the Giants relocated to San Francisco in 1958, he had to find another team: “I still liked Mays and Antonelli, but I couldn’t transfer my allegiance to San Francisco.

“Like most American boys growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I wanted to be a major-league player, but I wasn’t good enough to do that,德雷尔说。, 现在 E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental. “I had to find another way to earn a living.”

Be为e joining the Oxy faculty in 1993, Dreier worked as a newspaper reporter, 社区组织者, a professor at Tufts University, and a deputy to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. 那是在塔夫茨大学, in the 1970s and early ’80s, 他遇到了罗伯特·伊莱亚斯, who is 现在 a 政治 professor at the University of San Francisco. “We’re both baseball fans and fans of Howard Zinn’s book A 人’s History of the United States (1980), which is about America’s unsung heroes and movements,德雷尔说.

分别, both Dreier and Elias had written frequently about baseball, mostly about the intersections of baseball, 政治, 和美国文化. 在他2012年的书中， The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social 正义 Hall of Fame, Dreier included a profile of Jackie Robinson, who 1947年，他带领布鲁克林道奇队打破了美国职业棒球大联盟的肤色障碍，他还是民权运动的积极分子. Dreier wrote more than a dozen articles urging the election of Marvin Miller, the first executive director of the MLB Players Association, into the 棒球名人堂. “It was kind of a crusade,德雷尔说. (After being blacklisted 为 almost three decades, Miller was finally elected to the Hall in December 2019.)

In July 2017, Dreier and Elias wrote an article 为 雅各宾派的 magazine titled “Out of Left Field,详细描述了自19世纪末以来，棒球与争取社会正义的斗争是如何交织在一起的. 不久之后，德雷尔说:“我们收到了一些出版商的咨询，想把它变成一本书. We’d already been talking about doing that, but having a contract stirs your imagination.他们与内布拉斯加大学出版社(UNP)签署了一本约350页的书，并开始进行研究, dividing up the first draft by chapters.

“我们从档案、采访和其他我们了解到的东西中挖掘出人们没有写过的令人难以置信的故事,德雷尔说. 最终的手稿比他们最初约定的要长两倍. UNP balked at the cost of publishing a much longer book, or two separate volumes—but with its blessing, 德雷尔和伊莱亚斯订婚了 罗曼 & Littlefield to publish a second book.

And that’s how Dreier (himself the parent of twin daughters, 25-year-old Amelia and Sarah, 和他的妻子, 特里孟, a nurse practitioner) welcomed two books into the world on the same day in March: 棒球叛军: The Players, 人, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America (UNP)和 大联盟叛逆者: Baseball Battles Over Workers’ Rights and American Empire (罗曼 & 李特佛尔德).

“Both books are about baseball’s mavericks, dissenters, and 身上,德雷尔说. “The topics and the people are different, but they share a common spirit.” 棒球叛军 is about struggles against racism, sexism, and homophobia. 大联盟叛逆者 is about workers’ rights and unions, the exploitation of players from Latin America, and battles to challenge baseball’s ties to American 军国主义."

Dreier did about 30 interviews 为 the books, including one with the widow of Curt Flood, whose playing career ended at age 32 in 1970 after he sued MLB to end the reserve clause, which Dreier calls baseball’s version of “indentured servitude"; Billy Bean, who came out as gay in 1999 (MLB’s second player to do so, four years after retiring from the game); and Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley, who even wrote a blurb 为 the books.

“I had an enormous amount of fun doing the work,德雷尔说. “Our books are about players as human beings, not just as athletes. We also wrote about sportswriters, 经理, 甚至像比尔·维克和埃法·曼利这样的老板也挑战了棒球界的权威.”

Of all the stories he heard, the most surprising was that of Sam Nahem, a Jewish socialist pitcher 为 the Dodgers, 红衣主教, and Phillies in the 1930s and 1940s. 他在大联盟中取得了一些成功，但他在棒球运动中最重要的成就发生在第二次世界大战期间,德雷尔说.

After the Germans surrendered in 1945, every U.S. military base in Europe organized a baseball team—but the teams, like the military in general, 种族隔离. 驻扎在法国, 纳赫姆挑战现状，招募了两名黑人联盟球星加入他的球队, which won the military World Series. 这为杰基·罗宾逊铺平了道路，并在大联盟中废除了吉姆·克劳.(2020年，美国职业棒球大联盟， officially correcting what it called “a longtime oversight in the game’宣布将包括黑人联盟的统计数据和记录，作为MLB历史的一部分.)

Nahem’s major league career ended in 1948. Even though he had earned a law degree during the off seasons while playing pro ball, 他不从事法律工作. 他在加州里士满的雪佛龙化工厂当了25年的工人和工会领袖., be为e retiring in 1980.

“Hardly anyone knew his story,德雷尔说. “I interviewed his son and other family members. I read hundreds of newspaper stories about his baseball career, and then I dug into his political activities. 他被联邦调查局监视了10多年，我说服他儿子把他父亲的档案给我. My only regret is that Sam died in 2004, so I never got to interview him. He lived a fascinating life.”

最后，德雷尔写了很多关于纳赫姆的东西，比他原本打算写的要多 棒球叛军. So, he wrote a nearly 10,000-word bio on Nahem 对于SABR, the Society of American Baseball Research, which has set out to publish biographies of all 20,000 players that have played the major leagues, plus all of the 经理 and umpires and some sportswriters.

再往前追溯, Dreier tells the story of Frank “Doc” Sykes, who pitched in the Negro Leagues 为 13 years, including in the league’s 1917 World Series, and played 为 the Lincoln Giants through 1919, a year after completing dental school at Howard University. While he was playing in the Negro Leagues, 赛克斯组织他的队友和联盟中的其他球员要求固定工资.

After he retired from baseball and moved back to his hometown of Decatur, Ala., 赛克斯在斯科茨伯勒男孩案的重审中成为关键证人。斯科茨伯勒男孩案是1931年在阿拉巴马州的一列火车上被诬告强奸两名白人妇女的九名黑人少年. 这九人在1932年11月被最高法院推翻之前都在监狱里度过了一段时间. A new trial was ordered and moved to Decatur—a town 50 miles away from Scottsboro that, 像许多南方城镇一样, excluded Black people from the jury rolls.

塞缪尔·莱博维茨(Samuel Leibowitz)是纽约著名的律师，他接手了这个案子，并要求赛克斯出庭作证. 赛克斯透露了迪凯特市200名黑人公民的名单，他们有资格担任陪审团成员，但没有被传唤,德雷尔解释道. “He took enormous risks to do that.” After the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on his front lawn, Sykes moved his family to Baltimore, where he resumed his dental practice.

In 棒球叛军, 德雷尔和伊莱亚斯还讲述了一个鲜为人知的故事:在马丁·路德·金之后，一场由球员领导的抗议活动发生了. was killed on April 4, 1968. To honor King, most major sporting events, including NBA and NHL playoffs, were canceled. But Baseball Commissioner William Eckert, 前陆军将军, left it up to the owners of each team whether to cancel their games.

On April 8, the Pirates were scheduled to play the Astros in Houston on Opening Day. Pirates players Maury Wills, 罗伯特·克莱门特, Donn Clendenon, and Dave Wickersham called a meeting of their teammates, saying that they shouldn’t play until the day after King’s funeral. Their teammates unanimously agreed, 德雷尔说, “and then they went over to the Houston team, and convinced them not to play either.” The protest quickly spread throughout baseball. The players on every team agreed not to play, challenging the wishes of their owners, who didn’t want to give up the revenue from the games.

“当时的报纸说得好像好心的老板决定取消Dr. King’s memory,德雷尔说, “but they were 为ced to do it by the players. It was a two-day strike 为 racial justice. 我喜欢这个故事.”

大联盟叛逆者 explores the first union of pro athletes and the emergence of a player-owned league in the late 1800s; the rise of the MLB Players Association in the 1950s; the challenges to baseball owners’ ef为ts to challenge threats to its monopoly (such as the Mexican League, which recruited MLB players); players’ opposition to U.S. 军国主义, including the Vietnam War; and the struggles of players from Latin America to challenge their mistreatment by major league teams and to resist U.S. imperialism in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

在一段 棒球叛军 titled “Resisting Sexism and Homophobia,德雷尔和伊莱亚斯将女性参与棒球运动的起源追溯到19世纪60年代的第一所女子学院. By the 1930s, however, softball had supplanted baseball in women’s sports. 当 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (made famous in the 1992 film 他们自己的联盟) was 为med in 1943, most of the athletes were softball players. “They had to convert to baseball,德雷尔说.

1972年颁布的第九条为更多的女孩和妇女参加有组织的体育运动打开了大门. 今天, 多于1,000 colleges—286 in Division I—field intercollegiate women’s fast-pitch softball teams. There are several professional women’s softball leagues. 但女子棒球也在经历复苏，这在一定程度上要归功于美国棒球协会(棒球队)创始人贾斯汀·西格尔(Justine Siegal) 全民棒球, a nonprofit designed to provide opportunities 为 girls and women to play, 教练, 在棒球运动中处于领先地位. (Oxy itself fielded a women’s baseball team 为 the first time in 2022, 参加了三月份举行的首届女子大学俱乐部棒球锦标赛.)

“Now there’s a woman general manager [Kim Ng of the Miami Marlins], several women 教练es on major league teams, and the first woman manager in the minor leagues—the Tampa Tarpons’ Rachel Balkovec,德雷尔说. “At every level of the game, women are making important strides.

“The same thing is not quite true of gay players, but there have been improvements on that front,他补充道. 除了德州游骑兵队，每个大联盟球队都有骄傲之夜，现在球队会惩罚球员, 经理, and broadcasters who use homophobic slurs. The culture inside baseball is definitely changing.”

When Dreier interviewed Billy Bean—who was named MLB’s first 2014年当选为包容性大使，现任副总裁兼罗伯·曼弗雷德专员的特别助理——”he told me that he doesn’t think any current gay players in the majors will come out. 但是他认为在不久的将来会有一个同性恋球员出现在大满贯赛事中，如果有很多球员同时出柜的话会更好.”

把这些联系在一起， Dreier sees “an enormous amount of progress.他和伊莱亚斯把两本书的最后几章都用在了《正规博彩十大网站排名推荐》上,呼吁MLB更加包容和公平——比如允许小联盟球员成立工会, 改善美国职业棒球大联盟拥有的哥斯达黎加工厂类似血汗工厂的工作条件，该工厂每年生产大联盟使用的全部200万个棒球, and getting Curt Flood into the Hall of Fame.

“I’m hopeful and angry at the same time,德雷尔说. “I’ve always loved the game of baseball, but I don’t like the business of baseball.”

Since the books’ publication, 德雷尔接受了数十次媒体采访，并在全国各地的书店和会议上发表演讲. 6月, he gave a talk about the relationship between Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, 这位歌手, 演员, 左翼活动家, at the 棒球名人堂 in Cooperstown, N.Y. “They were two of the most prominent African-Americans in the 20th century. Many people think that they were rivals, especially during the Cold War,他说, “but in fact they greatly respected and supported each other.”

In his 29-year teaching career at Oxy—which has included founding the Urban & Environmental Policy Department, starting 竞选学期, 并在社区组织中发起暑期实习项目——德雷尔的一个遗憾是他从未教过棒球课. “多年来, I’ve been collecting syllabi 为 baseball courses in economics, 英国文学, 历史, 和社会学,他说. “我在全国各地都有大约50个大学课程的教学大纲，都是关于这项运动的某些方面.”

Dreier will retire from full-time teaching in 2025, “but perhaps I’ll teach a first-year writing seminar about baseball as an adjunct at Oxy,他说. “Baseball is a great lens through which to understand American society, including issues like race, 性别, 移民, 劳动, 外交政策, 郊区化, 公司权力. 一些最伟大的美国小说、电影、短篇故事和新闻都有棒球主题."

According to Dreier, one of the best articles ever written on any subject is "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," John Updike’s 1960 piece 为 《十大正规网赌平台》 about Ted Williams’ last game in the major leagues. “I wouldn’t want to teach a writing class about baseball without including that story.

纵观其历史, 棒球一直与美国主要的社会正义运动交织在一起——这也是我的两本新书的主题,德雷尔说. “But when I go to a ballpark, I’m just another fan.”