Jake Powell: The John Rocker of the 1930s
On January 31, Commissioner Bud Selig suspended John Rocker of
the Atlanta Braves until May 1 and fined him $20,000 for a series
of tasteless remarks about, among others, immigrants,
homosexuals, and Japanese women drivers. (There is apparently no
truth to the rumor that Rocker has been hired to write speeches
for Pat Buchanan.) Announcing that the MLBPA will appeal
Rocker’s suspension to baseball’s impartial
arbitrator, union spokesman Gene Orza claimed, “It is
literally unprecedented to impose a penalty on a player for pure
speech, offensive though the speech may be.”
Actually, it’s not.
The pregame interview show has a long history. Ever since the
1930s, broadcasters have filled time before the first pitch by
lobbing softball questions to visiting players and the hometown
heroes. White Sox broadcaster Bob Elson hosted one such program.
On July 29, 1938, his guest on WGN’s pregame show was Jake
Powell, a reserve outfielder for the New York Yankees. Elson
asked Powell how he spent the offseason. Powell responded that he
was a policeman in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. Elson asked
Powell what he did as a policeman. Powell replied, “I crack
niggers on the head.” WGN’s switchboard lit up.
Powell was promptly suspended for ten days by Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who described Powell as acting not
“intentionally, but carelessly.” When he returned to
the lineup, fans threw bottles at him as he stood in the
outfield.
The black press hailed Powell’s suspension. One white
columnist, Westbrook Pegler of the Chicago Daily News,
accused Landis, a strong supporter of the color line which kept
blacks out of Organized Baseball for the rest of his life, of
attempting to “placate the colored clientele of a business
which trades under the name of the national game, but has always
treated the Negroes as Adolf Hitler treats the Jews.”
Meanwhile, The Sporting News, which excused or explained
away anything which might embarrass Organized Baseball, argued
that the real villain was the pregame interview itself.
TSN took the curious position that baseball players were so
stupid, or so bigoted, that they couldn’t help embarrassing
themselves if allowed to voice their unedited thoughts over the
radio.
“The player’s mind, naturally, is on the game in
which he is about to participate, and his ‘ad lib’
comments in these interviews frequently lead him to indiscreet
remarks, which he would not make, if given an opportunity to
think, or if furnished a script.
“Powell was on the spot and was the victim of
circumstances, which should not be held against him by the fans.
Other players, in other instances, might offend other groups. The
remedy, as we see it, is to relieve the players of such
assignments. Put them on the radio, assuredly, but under more
propitious conditions, where they can do themselves and the game
justice, without being forced to run the gauntlet of questions to
which they cannot give some thought, and commit further
indiscretions, unconsciously.”
Powell later proved that even when not under the pressure of an
on-field interview, he couldn’t help patronizing
African-Americans. During an August 20 visit to the New York
office of the Chicago Defender, Powell issued an apology
which read in part: “Honest, you can believe me when I say
I regret the slur as I had no intention to hurt anyone, or their
feelings. Members of the Negro race have helped to earn my bread
and butter and no one knows that better than I do. . . . I have
two members of your race taking care of my home while myself and
wife are away and I think they are two of the finest people in
the world. I do hundreds of favors for them daily.”
Powell remained in the majors until 1945. Three years later, he
was arrested in Washington, DC for passing bad checks. While in
the police station, the former Dayton policeman shot himself to
death. He was forty years old. [Recent research has discovered
that Powell was lying about his offseason job -- he was
not a policeman. Good thing, too.]
Copyright © 2000 Doug Pappas. All rights
reserved.
Originally published on the Boston Baseball Website in
March 2000.
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