Spring Break
Standing alone together
By: Brad Cox
Issue date: 2/20/09 Section: Sports
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The Dodgers sent Jackie Robinson, a 28-year-old black man, to play first base in Brooklyn's season opener against Boston.
More than 60 years after the color barrier was broken in baseball, A&M ballplayers Kyle Colligan and Randall Thorpe do not face the same difficulties Robinson faced in the 1940s.
The outfielders, the only black ballplayers on Texas A&M Head Coach Rob Childress' team, do not have to worry about their teammates rebelling, opponents going on strike or restaurant and hotel owners turning them away. Still, 60 years of change has not been easy.
Thorpe, a freshman from Grapevine, Texas, said he played in hostile environments in high school and summer leagues. He said he often heard racial slurs from the stands and opposing coaches and players.
While playing against the Dallas Mustangs, a summer league team, the Mustangs were walking off the field when a player yelled, "No. 14, you're a…," Thorpe said, pausing to indicate a racial slur.
In June 2008, Thorpe was playing for Team Texas at the All-Star Senior Sunbelt Baseball series in Oklahoma when he encountered more racism. Thorpe was at bat against the Oklahoma team when he started jawing with the catcher. He hit a three-run home run and was rounding the bases when the Oklahoma coaches started arguing the home run.
"They were disputing the call because they thought it was a foul ball," Thorpe said. "The coaches went out arguing and the Oklahoma coach says to the umpire, 'look at this kid acting like a" - he paused, again, to avoid saying the slur - "out here, can't let that happen.' I was pretty mad about that."
Though Thorpe could have chosen basketball, a sport he played in his youth, he came from a baseball family. His father, Randy Thorpe, played baseball at the University of Texas-Arlington from 1978 to 1981.
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