Civil Rights Game

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The Civil Rights Game is an annual Major League Baseball exhibition game (starting in 2007) that honors the history of civil rights in the United States and marks the unofficial end to the league's preseason. The intent of the game is to embrace baseball's history of African-American players, as well as to generate interest for future black players, after a demographics survey revealed that the percentage of black players in the league has dwindled over the past twelve years to just 8.4 percent.^[1] The game is sponsored by AutoZone and is held at AutoZone Park in Memphis, Tennessee.

1 Inaugural Game
- 1.1 Controversy
2 Notes
3 External links

[edit] Inaugural Game

The inaugural game was played on Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 5:30 PM and was broadcast nationally on ESPN and ESPNHD. It was announced by ESPN's #1 broadcast team of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, with Peter Gammons serving as a field analyst (his role during Sunday Night Baseball telecasts on ESPN). The game featured the St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Indians. Both teams wore uniforms reminiscent of those worn in Negro League games. The Cardinals won 5-1, receiving a solid five-inning start out of their 2006 closer Adam Wainwright, who got the win.

[edit] Controversy

Controversial Indians logo: Chief Wahoo.

Despite the good intentions of Major League Baseball in instituting the game, Commissioner Bud Selig has come under heavy fire from Native Americans who feel that the involvement of the Cleveland Indians is a slap in the face to the Cherokee people who still live in the Memphis area after the infamous Trail of Tears passed through less than 200 years ago. The New York Daily News called the situation a "primer on how to inadvertently stage an ironic insult to a local and large population of Natives" and insinuated that the league has (inadvertently) sabotaged the game by inviting the Indians.^[2] The popular sports blog Deadspin asked the profound question "If the Indians win, do Native Americans get civil rights?"^[3] It has also been argued that the over-politicization of an innocent sporting event is an all-too-common example of political correctness gone too far.

The unfortunate circumstances were also partially responsible for reenergizing the debate over the controversial Indians logo, which features a caricature of a Indian chief with bright red skin and perpetuates Native American stereotypes.