I love baseball. There is something majestic and peaceful about it.
Some of the best times of my life have been spent with family and friends watching and discussing my beloved Cincinnati Reds.
It is fascinating. The only game where the defense gets to have the ball. The only game that has a long game time but very little actual playing in it.
One of the most interesting players in baseball history is Charles Grant.
Charlie was a second baseman around the year 1900. But since he was a African American, this only meant that he could have a small job of working as a bellhop at the Eastland Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas for little pay to never realize his dream of being a major league player. There was a guy named John McGraw, who was a owner and talent scout for the and the new American League’s Baltimore Orioles began training that season in Hot Springs and staying at the Eastland. McGraw saw Grant playing baseball with his co-workers around the hotel and recognized that Grant had a level of talent suitable for the major leagues. McGraw decided to disguise the light-skinned, straight-haired Grant as a Cherokee and gave him the name Charlie Tokohama, because it seemed more feasible for a Native American to play pro ball than a black man.
It was all going well and through training and practice, Grant actually earned the spot as starting second baseman for the Orioles, ten years before Jackie Robinson would officially break the color barrier for the Dodgers.
The stage was set and good old Tokohama was almost ready to play, when, they went to his home town of Chicago for a game and many of his black friends showed up, so excited that he was the 1st black player, held a small ceremony for him and even presented him with a bouquet of flowers.
After this, the owner of Chicago protested and outed him as a black player, and Baltimore has “no choice” but to take him off the roster and he would never play in the major leagues officially. Charlie would later play a great career in the Negro leagues and eventually die as a janitor in Cincinnati after a tire exploded and killed him.
Now why do I being this up?
Because, he was living under the impression that, if he pretended, if he lived a lie, then people would accept him enough to do what he felt he was destined to do.
Are you like that?
Can you not be totally venerable with people?
Do you feel like at church, at work, at home, on dates or with friends, if you are the real you then you will never be accepted?
Never be promoted?
Never be…
Loved?
Sometimes we just have to look ourselves in the mirror…
examine our scars…
our mistakes…
our disorders…
our addictions…
our lies….
and say to ourselves….
I forgive you. God forgives you. He made you in his image and he is here with his people, waiting to help and love you. Today is a new day and…
It is time to heal and be real.
