Taking Offense

WHEN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN baseball player suggested in a "Sports Illustrated" article three years ago the he might serve as the "next Jackie Robinson", perhpas he revealed himself to be among those who subscribes to the false notion that "history repeats itself", which it most certainly doe not. There will never be "another" Jackie robinson", nor another you, whomever you are, not should there be. Once is enough for us all. Despite the declining percentage of professional baseball players who are African-American, it is to be hoped that it can safely be assumed that never again will there be a need for a brave, heroic person to "break the color barrier", as was the case in 1947. The interviewee further stipulated in the magazine article that he considered it his task to "make baseball fun again", as if it had ever stopped being "fun", which it most certainly has not. Jackie Robinson did not make baseball fun. He made it look at itself in the mirror, he made it come to terms with its mistakes and limitations, and with its racism, he made it change, but the change was painful, and not at all "fun". As Goethe said: "Only by mistakes which really irk us do we advance". Finally,k at long last, American society become sufficiently irked with racism in baseball to permit Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Mr. Robinson the opportunity, the necesity, of advancement. Behind them the rest of society begain to follow, painfully, without fun. And so the world and worm turned, and an "Anglo-American" player said to him, on the field, "hello Jackie". That's when the benches cleared, and the two teams engaged in a standing scrum at home plate, no punches thrown. According to the Anglo-American player, he had privately, in person, made the same joke to "Jackie" several times before, and both of them had laughed. suddenly, offense is taken. suddenlly, the joke becomes a racist remark. Meanwhile, Anglo had applied a tag to African on the bases a bit hard, thought the African, and, well, a needlessly hard tag is enough to change one's mind about whether words intend insult. Another blow to civility at the hands of abuse of political corectness, or "social correctness". When one presumes to consider himself the next Jackie Robinson, and to do so in a magazine article, one has opened the door, the door to jest and ridicule. We Americans have learned that when we take offense, we position oourselves as victims, and can then demand reparations. We have become the most easily offended people, the most voluntarily offended culture, in the entire history of offense-taking. We would all do ourselves a great service if we simply abandoned the pretense of righteous indignation-for-compensation, took the melt water from our snowflake selves, and refroze it into a solid block of ice. Baseball has always been fun, is fun, and shall forever remain fun, without any reincarnation of Jackie robinson, if only the players and fans will allow it to be.