The white man who broke MLB's color barrier

(565 words)

I’ll be taking our 10-year-old to the 12:30 Pirate game today because it’ll simultaneously allow me to achieve two things foremost to my existence: one, have fun; two, brainwash my offspring into believing the old man was once wise and nimble-minded.

It’s easy for me to do today because I’m a student of the game.

I’ll tell Lucy stories of Pirate greats Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Honus Wagner and, of course, Jackie Robinson, eternally famous for breaking baseball’s color barrier.

The story of the hallowed Robinson is why I’m chagrinned I’ll be able to relate so little about forgotten Eddie Klep.

Eddie Klep was the Jackie Robinson of baseball 11 months before Jackie Robison became famous for being Jackie Robinson.

Klep broke the color barrier by being the first white to play in the Negro Leagues. 

It happened May 29, 1946, when he pitched seven innings for the Cleveland Buckeyes in what many sources say was an 8-6 win over the Chicago American Giants.

And that’s about the only relevant thing I know about this pale pioneer.

Sadly, the only other thing I know is — God help us — his life story was sold to Adam Sandler’s film company.

So that means, perhaps, sometime in the next 10 years we’ll see an entire movie that’ll play out like the fish-out-of-water Dexter Lake Club scene from “Animal House.”

“Can we dance wit yo’ dates?”

I read about Klep, who died in ’81 at the age of 72, in my go-to source for baseball minutia: The “On This Day in Baseball” feature that runs in wee print on the days when there’s leftover room beneath the newspaper box scores.

Fun fact for Pirate fans: It was 37 years ago today MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti permanently banned Pete Rose for betting on baseball.

I don’t think Rose should be permanently banned for gambling. I think he should be banned for having one of the worst hair cuts of any public figure for the last four decades.

Fun fact for non-sports fans: Bart Giamatti, about whom there is much to admire, is the father of actor Paul Giamatti, about whom there is much to admire (loved him in “Sideways” from ’04).

So many questions about Klep, who was born in Erie in 1918.

Robinson was mercilessly heckled with white fans — and opposing teams — making monkey sounds and screaming the n-word.

Robinson took it all and kicked historic ass.

Did anyone heckle Klep? Was he treated differently? And was he any good?

Most sources I see say he was 1-0, which percentage-wise would make him one of the all-time greatest pitchers. 

But the encyclopedic BaseballReference.com says Klep lost his only game, which percentage-wise would make him one of the all-time worst pitchers and thus a suitable candidate to start for the Bucs from ’93 through ’12.

But what about the man?

Was he trying to make a civil rights statement? Did he feel he’d done something significant? Where his fans called Klep-to-maniacs?

It is said he died of alcoholism in 1981.

What drove this man to drink?

Was it fear he’d be remembered? Or fear he’d be forgotten?

I’ll bet I know.

He had a premonition one day someone like Adam Sandler would be primarily responsible for telling his life story.

Related …

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The Bucs, the duck and playoff baseball

I play centerfield

Roberto Clemente: Mr. 3,000

Who can help me quit caring so much?

(605 words)

I wonder if caring too much is going to kill me.

I care so much about so much.

Do you care that I care?

I care whether you do or do not.

I care the bees are disappearing. I read all the stories that say the bees are like the canaries in mines. Once they go, that’s it. We’re toast.

I care that prior to sensitive air monitoring systems many innocent canaries in mines were poisoned through no fault of their own. What a sad fate that was for so many sweet, lovely birds.

I don’t think she really cared, but I cared very much last week when an area school superintendent e-mailed and nonchalantly informed me a scheduling change meant she’d be canceling my Thursday motivational speech to her 150 teachers.

Gone was the tidy honorarium and the $1,800 worth of books she was going to buy for her teachers.

I care I’m still the kind of imperfect human who nurtures bitter intentions to exact petty revenge. I wish that wasn’t part of my make-up but, alas, it is. And I’ll be sure to let you know if I do something sly and dastardly to get even.

I care so much about my children. That’s mostly natural.

But I care about yours, too. All the children. I really do. Nothing breaks my heart like seeing a child with no chance. 

I care when I see so many people who don’t care one bit. I know all their carelessness can cancel out a lifetime of my really caring the hell out of things. The equation is patently unfair.

If I didn’t care so much about avoiding a lengthy prison term, I’d shoot all the miserable bastards.

Boy, do I care about the environment. I care that California is mired in a devastating drought and is becoming burnt to a crisp.

I care the EPA inadvertently released one million gallons of toxic water into the Animas River near Denver. Will I have to choose sides if the EPA decides it has no choice but to sue itself?

I care that it’s likely you’re working too many hours and I’m working too few.

I care that we’re living in times of such wanton disparity between the rich and the poor and so many people are fundamentally screwed.

I care that so many seemingly sensible people think the solution to all these troubles is to elect an irredeemable jackass like Donald Trump.

I care too much about things I understand are silly.

For instance, I care enormously whether on any given night the Pittsburgh Pirates win or lose.

In fact, it depresses me more when they lose or a key player like pitcher A.J. Burnett goes on the disabled list than it does when I hear a killer typhoon is zeroing in on some hapless Pacific island full of strangers I never met.

What’s wrong with me?

I care that people may misconstrue this arbitrary Monday post about how much I care into thinking I’m in a sour mood.

I’m not. I rarely am.

I just wonder if I care too much about so much that’s entirely out of my hands.

I care even though I know there’s nothing I can do about racism, injustice, gun violence, climate change, incivility, hopelessness, parental dementia, rising drug use, epidemic suicide among our vets, the Keystone Pipeline, distracted driving, male pattern baldness, ISIL, and the horrifying certainty America will likely for the next three decades be subjected to dozens of reliably awful new Adam Sandler movies.

We’re all going to die anyway.

So who cares?

I do, goddamn it.