Time to Forgive Dixie Walker?

Transcription

1 Vol. 7 No. 1 Time to Forgive Dixie Walker? J an., 2017 JOIN OUR LIST To join our list send us an at: bjhm@bham.rr.com IN THIS ISSUE age 2 Note from the Director Featured New Artifact ages 3-4 Time to Forgive Dixie Walker? age 5 The Day Jackie Was... age 6 Donating Items to the BHC age 7 Favorite hotos th Street North, Suite 401, Birmingham, AL Tel/Fax Thomas E. Jernigan, Sr. Memorial

2 Note from the Director age 2 Nìng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luàn lí rén, is a Chinese curse that dates at least from the 17 th century which has been translated and revised down to May you live in interesting times. Certainly 2016 will go down in American History as an controversial year, ranking with 2001, 1968, 1941 and 1929 as some of the most interesting years of the past one hundred. For the Birmingham History Center, 2016 was again a holding year. While we remain without a permanent home we continued to provide services for our community. During the year we processed over 700 new artifacts, adding to our now over 14,000 item collection. We maintain artifact cases for the viewing public at the Alabama Theatre, the Tutwiler Hotel and the Mountain Brook City Hall and we make public presentations to local civic groups. rediction events will unfold for our enterprise in 2017, check back in this space in the near future for some interesting news. Artifact of the Month 1950s Coca-Cola Cooler This raised-letter Coca-Cola Cooler was recently donated by Lindsay and Jason uckett. Very popular in the 1940s and 1950s for family picnics and going to the beach, this cooler is unique for the IN BOTTLES lettering. It weighs about 20 lbs. and measures 24 x 12 x 16. It has a built in bottle opener and tank drain on the side. It sold for about $12.50 new and could hold about twenty-four 6 ounce bottles. For an extra $10 you could order a stainless steel liner and tray, instead of its standard lead liner. As the foremost interpreter of metropolitan Birmingham s history, we will enable the public to understand more about the city s past and present and to shape its future.

3 Time to Forgive Dixie Walker? age 3 Walker s career value ranks higher than thirteen current members of the Hall of Fame, including Hack Wilson, Red Schoendienst, Lefty Gomez, ie Traynor, and Roger Bresnahan. He won a batting title in 1944, was a National League All-Star five times, finished second in the Most Valuable layer award in 1945 (getting more votes than anyone except Stan Musial) and was so popular with the other players in the National League that he was chosen as the first player representative in 1946, helping to devise the first player pension plan. On January 18 th the Baseball Writers of America will cast their ballots to elect the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The other way to get into the Hall is to selected by a Veterans Committee for deserving players who could not get 75% of the writer s votes. There are some chosen who probably don t deserve to be there, there are many others who probably do but will never be chosen. In the later category stands the baseball career of Fred Dixie Walker of Birmingham, Alabama. Question: Which of these four players has the highest career batting average - Hank Aaron, ete Rose, Willie Mays or Dixie Walker? That s right, the answer is Dixie Walker. Over the course of an 18 year major league career (the average career for a ball player in the majors is 5.6 years), Dixie Walker hit.306. This is the 99 th best career average in major league history. However, his election to the Hall of Fame is forever blocked by two factors. First, his best years in the majors were played during World War II, when most of the top players were off fighting Germans or Japanese. Second, and probably most important, Walker opposed the promotion to the team in 1947 by the Brooklyn Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in Major League baseball. Dixie Walker (right) and his brother Harry Walker shaking hands with their father, Fred Walker before a game at Ebbets Field in Dixie and Harry are the only brothers in major league history to both win batting titles. Every museum needs help to achieve its vision. Fortunately, we are not alone in wanting to help people make meaningful and personal connections to history. Throughout greater Birmingham, there are many who share this passion. We need their help.

4 Time to Forgive Dixie Walker (cont.) age 4 Top: Image of actors playing ee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson from the movie 42 filmed in part at Rickwood Field Bottom: hoto of Robinson and Reese from Dodgers locker room. There is some controversy about which Dodgers player initiated the petition to Branch Rickey, the general manager of the team, opposed to Robinson s promotion to the team. Walker s family maintains that he did not. However, in an interview with sports writer Roger Khan in 1976, Walker admitted that he started the petition. I organized that petition in 1947, not because I had anything against Robinson personally or against Negroes generally. I had a wholesale business in Birmingham and people told me I d lose my business if I played ball with a black man. He also sent a letter to Rickey requesting that he be traded for the good of the team and himself (at that time, ball players depended on off-season income as the years of mega contracts were years away. Walker himself never made more that $30,000 in one season as a ball player). It is true that Walker and Robinson never got along during the one year that they played together. Walker was traded to the ittsburgh irates in Rickey did attempt unsuccessfully to trade Dixie during the 1947 season. Robinson's play that year gained Fred's grudging respect, and eventually he requested that Rickey return his letter and later told Khan that the petition was the stupidest thing he had ever done. At season's end, Fred told the Sporting News that no other player had done more to put the Dodgers in the pennant race than Robinson and that he was everything Branch Rickey said he would be when he came up. Following his last year in the majors as a player in 1949, Dixie Walker became a minor league manager. He managed the Atlanta Crackers ( ), the Houston Buffaloes ( ), the Rochester Red Wings ( ), and the Toronto Maple Leafs ( ), winning pennants in 1950 and From 1960 through 1982, he was a coach for the Cardinals and a scout and coach for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. Fred Dixie Walker married Estelle Shea Walker, and they had six children. He died in Birmingham, Jefferson County, on May 17, Dixie Walker s grave marker Elmwood Cemetery, Birmingham We will recognize our responsibility to help build a better future locally, regionally, nationally, and globally through history. We will bring a credible and authoritative historical perspective to bear on civic issues, and we will help to shape the future by fostering historical scholarship and understanding.

5 The Day Jackie Was... age 5 The day Jackie Robinson was called a coward. Following the end of the baseball season in 1953, Jackie Robinson, star player of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the first black player to break the color barrier in the major leagues, went on a barnstorming tour of the South. His Robinson All-Stars for the first time included three white players - Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges and former Brooklyn pitcher Ralph Branca and St. Louis Browns second baseman Bobby Young. One of the tour's stops was in Birmingham, on Oct. 18. Because there was a local ordinance in force at that time precluding black and white players from competing in the same contest, Robinson benched his white players. This resulted in strong words of condemnation from Emory O. Jackson, editor of the Birmingham World, Alabama s largest Negro Newspaper. "Chalk up another victory for bigotry in Birmingham," Jackson wrote. "Add Jackie Robinson's name to America's shame list. He gave in to racial intolerance. We aren't rooting anymore for Jackie. From now on, Jackie should keep his mouth shut about racial discrimination because what he did in Birmingham outrages his fine utterances on fair play." This was followed by a string of additional editorials, including a guest column by Howard B. Woods of the St. Louis Argus (at left) in which Jackie s lack of bravery on that day was contrasted with Branch Rickey s courage in 1946 in signing Robinson to a contact. Birmingham World editorial October 27, 1953 In justifying his decision to play the game under segregated conditions, Robinson said he was influenced to play the game by the opinions of local citizens, both black and white, and by his teammates. Robinson said the biggest mistake was in booking the game in the first place. At a press conference, Robinson said he planned another barnstorming tour in 1954, and would again field a team of mixed black and white players. He declared that proceeds from that tour would go to local charities in the South to repay "the people of the South for being so nice" to him. We claim Birmingham. We will leverage our history, expertise, collection, location, and reputation to stake our position as the best resource for understanding the city and its place in the United States and the world.

6 Donating Artifacts to the BHC age 6 From Left to Right: Lindbergh Reception Committee in (1927), Edison honograph (1903), Stain Glass from Terminal Station (1909), Elyton Land Company Stock Certificate (1890) The History Center ensures that: collections in its custody support its mission and public trust responsibilities. collections in its custody are lawfully held, protected, secure, unencumbered, cared for, and preserved. collections in its custody are accounted for and documented. access to the collections and related information is permitted and regulated. acquisition, disposal, and loan activities are conducted in a manner that respects the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources and discourages illicit trade in such materials. acquisition, disposal, and loan activities conform to its mission and public trust responsibilities. collections-related activities promote the public good rather than individual financial gain. competing claims of ownership that may be asserted in connection with objects in its custody should be handled openly, seriously, responsively and with respect for the dignity of all parties involved. To donate artifacts related to the history of the Birmingham region, please call or bring items to the Center at th Street North, Suite 401, Birmingham, AL Fuel for advancing out vision is tangible in the dedication of our trustees and in the passion and commitment that staff and volunteers bring to their work.

7 Favorite hotos 2009 to 2016 age 7 As the foremost interpreter of metropolitan Birmingham s history, we will enable the public to understand more about the city s past and present and to shape its future.

8 Birmingham History Center The Birmingham History Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed in 2004 by a group of preservation-minded citizens who wanted a repository and exhibit platform for artifacts of local history Thanks primarily to a bequest from the Thomas E. Jernigan, Sr. foundation and other donors, the History Center operates from offices at th Street North, Suite 401 in Birmingham, across from the Lyric Theatre in the ythian Building. Mission Statement The Birmingham History Center seeks to educate and entertain the general public by collecting, preserving and presenting the comprehensive history of the Birmingham region th Street North, Suite 401 Birmingham, AL Stamp Officers Dr. Bayard Tynes, Chairman Fox De Funiak, III, Co-resident Garland Smith, Co-resident Samuel A. Rumore, Jr., Vice-resident Alice Williams - Treasurer Board of Directors William A. Bell, Jr. Harry Bradford Thomas Carruthers, Jr. atrick Cather Wyatt R. Haskell Anne Heppenstall Mary Hubbard Thomas E. Jernigan, Jr. John Nixon Terry Oden William A. Tharpe Scott Vowell Lee Woehle