On the Braves, the passage of time, and an aging generation of Black ballplayers
In the 20th century, baseball took a more active role in reminding its fans of the passage of time. Almost every team hosted an annual old-timers’ game. People watched the spectacle for its therapeutic blend of nostalgia and comedy.
The tradition started in the 1870s, but old-timers’ games didn’t really take off until the heroes of the new mass media age became vestiges of their former selves.
At Yankee Stadium in 1966, fans cheered because “…the great DiMaggio had returned, they were young again, it was yesterday.” ¹
We no longer gather for that secular communion. The stars of yesterday are relegated to the couch, the stands, the broadcast booth, or — if they’re really lucky — the top of the dugout stoop.
That’s where Dusty Baker will be on Tuesday at the World Series when his Houston Astros face the Atlanta Braves, a team he played for from 1968-75.
I’ve been a Braves fan my entire life. Growing up, I don’t recall seeing the team honor Baker. That makes sense; for most of those years, he managed rival National League teams.² But I think we missed an opportunity to learn more about the days of Henry Aaron.
It was Aaron who promised Baker’s mom that he’d take care of him in the minor leagues. Aaron regulated Baker’s sleep schedule and ensured he was attending church. Years later, it was Baker who stood in the on-deck circle as he watched his friend finally put an end to the most miserable time of his life — the chase for a white man’s record of 714 home runs.
It was Baker who drove every spring from California to Florida, stopping in Ruston, Louisiana, to pick up Ralph Garr. They were from two different worlds, but they understood each other well. I like to imagine their conversations on those trips. Maybe they’d speak with reverence of Aaron and his ability to cope with it all. Maybe they’d make fun of his quiet personality. Maybe they’d sit in silence and just look out the window, daydreaming about the season to come.
Aaron is gone now, dead at 86. The Braves commemorated him this season in part by painting “44” into centerfield, a jersey number the team’s traveling secretary randomly assigned to him.
Baker and Garr (who resides in Houston and will surely attend some World Series games) can give better insight into Aaron than any number or record. But with no old-timers’ games, we rarely witness our old heroes at play again.
That’s a shame. The two friends, along with other former players like Braves third-base coach Ron Washington, stand as the last reminders of a bustling era of Black baseball. They’re now witnessing the game they love lose sway with African Americans.
But Baker still shows up to the ballpark every day, ready for another day’s work.
Last night marked one of the best moments in my life as a sports fan. Every year, I believed in the Braves. Every year, they let me down.
But I kept watching anyway, waiting for a reward that might never come. But my efforts paled in comparison to Brian Snitker.
Think of all the rainy April afternoons, humid August evenings, windy and cold fall league nights. Snitker showed up every day, every year, toiling away in places like Danville, Greenville and Myrtle Beach.
He couldn’t expect a reward like the one last night to come.
“I thought of (my wife), Ronnie,” he said. “She’s the one who dragged our kids all over the Southeast. I would leave in February and come home in September, and she would hold a job and cheerlead and all that, and it was a lot of that stuff. The kids set up a pro shop in Myrtle Beach, and my daughter would get on a chair and singing, ‘Root, root, root for my daddy’s team,’ at the seventh-inning stretch.”
Not unlike myself and every other fan, Snitker couldn’t help but use this moment to think of his former selves, the lives he used to live.
Baseball is good at that, even without the old-timers’ games. In the past 150 years, baseball’s seasons have advanced like rings on a tree, callous reminders of the distance between then and now.
It’s a barometer for where we’ve been and how we’ve changed. It’s said that baseball mirrors life in a lot of ways. Never is it more clear than in its pace.
The games are daily, an opportunity to make right on the mistakes of yesterday. And most of the time, they’re incredibly boring.
No other sport has baseball’s metronomic beat, one pitch leading to another and another and another and before you know it, the summer is over, spring training has started, all your favorite players have retired.
The process is slow, but every now and again there is a moment worth savoring — like a historic World Series berth or the reunion of old baseball greats less than a year after the death of their best friend.
That’s the thing: “Baseball is boring. And then it isn’t. And that’s the magic.” ³
¹ Gay Talese in “The Silent Season of a Hero”
² Braves’ history lessons tend to focus mostly on the 1990s, the jubilant decade where everything was going right. People were moving to the city in droves, the Olympics were coming and the local baseball team kept winning, day after day, series after series, year after year. Its one and only championship title was almost beside the point.
³ Credit goes to Joe Posnanski for this line.