Beneath the Skill, Courage

The groundbreaker, the pioneer, someone in every endeavor forces open a door for others to follow, and the successors know in their bones that if it weren’t for that first achievement, theirs, however greater, would not have been possible. Now, in the course of a week, we celebrate two historic racial breakthroughs, in the sports of baseball and golf.

Tiger Woods, who astounded the golf world by breaking the course record at the Masters at Augusta, acknowledged the black pioneers, telling reporters that the careers of Lee Elder, Charlie Sifford and Ted Rhodes paved the way for young African American players like himself. Elder was the first black pro to play in the Masters at the rigidly segregated Augusta National course, in 1975. Sifford never got the chance, although with two wins on the PGA Tour, including a victory in the 1969 Los Angeles Open, he should have been invited. When Rhodes played 50 years ago, black golfers were not allowed to compete on PGA courses, but they played wherever they could and drove holes in the color line that had made golf the most segregated American pro sport.

Tiger Woods’ achievement honors them all.

In baseball, the door was kicked open by Jackie Robinson, the first four-letter man in UCLA athletic history and, like Woods, a Southern Californian. Robinson integrated the major leagues with a tough, in-their-face career. Today, in New York, the game between the Mets and the Dodgers will be briefly stopped to mark the 50th anniversary of his first game with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers.

The national pastime had rejected generations of outstanding black ballplayers. They were relegated to the old Negro Leagues. Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs until the Dodgers chose him to break the color line in the major leagues. He endured cruelty, hatred, death threats and humiliating racial epithets on and off the field. But he and the Dodgers won.

There may have been better black ballplayers--Mays, Aaron, others--but who among them could have blazed the path that Robinson did? He led the Dodgers to six World Series appearances in 10 years, and the championship in 1955. He knocked the cover off racism in baseball, but now, a half-century after he broke in, minorities still face hurdles in the game. And on the golf course.

The examples of Robinson and Woods should inspire them. They do us.