Teaching the pig to dance: a memoir by Fred Thompson

Author:Fred Thompson [Fred Thompson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographie
ISBN: 9780307460288
Published: 2010-08-15T07:00:00+00:00

This was during the time when an important social issue was beginning to be reflected on the sports field. By 1954, Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League, was playing center field for the Cleveland Indians. Therefore, he became one of my favorites. However, that was not enough to raise my social consciousness with regard to my own world. Playing Little League, for example, it never did occur to us that we didn’t have any black players on our team, or any of the opposing teams, for that matter.

This would have been in the period when “separate but equal” was accepted, and that meant the majority of black kids in our community were bused about twenty-three miles to the Mt. Pleasant community to go to school. For us kids, that was just a fact of life; we didn’t think much about it.

That didn’t stop us from competing. Some black teenagers had a pretty good baseball team, and some of us formed a team to play them. In all the games we played against each other, there were never any issues except some good-natured ribbing. One day we were playing and we had a middle-aged black fellow serving as umpire behind home plate, calling balls and strikes. I was up to bat. By then I was a lanky six feet, three inches or so. The pitcher threw a pitch that was probably three or four inches off the ground, and the umpire called it a strike. “That ball was barely off the ground. My knees are way up here,” I yelped, pointing to my knees as if he couldn’t see them.

Quick as a wink, he replied, “I can’t help it, buddy, I didn’t make you.” I don’t recall if I got a hit, but I laughed off and on for a couple of innings. I couldn’t wait to tell Dad, who naturally thought it was as funny as I did.

I could sense things changing, though in other ways. In high school during one summer, I worked for the “city” cutting grass along the highway with a “sling blade.” (I wondered why every little incorporated community in Tennessee called itself a “city” no matter how small the population. I guess “city police department” sounded better than “wide spot in the road police department.” But I digress.) One of my fellow members on the city “chain gang” was a black boy named Bobby, who was about my age. He was a nice enough guy, but he acted like something was on his mind all the time. He seemed studious and serious about his work, and I had assumed that he would be happy-go-lucky like I was. His demeanor registered with me, and I’d started to piece it all together.

The evolution in a lot of people’s thinking got a big assist from an unlikely source. Segregation was about to collide with another Southern institution: football. In this battle, segregation didn’t stand a chance. Bear Bryant, the legendary coach of Alabama, saw it coming and welcomed it.

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