Published in the Daily Breeze
April 20, 2008

July 21, 1972
To Mr. Clyde Sukeforth
Waldoboro, Maine, 04572

Dear Clyde:

I have been very appreciative of the fact that whenever there were problems in the earlier days, I could always go to you, talk with you, and receive the warm and friendly advice that I always did. Where there has not been enough said of your significant contribution in the Rickey-Robinson experiment, I consider your role, next to Mr. Rickey's and my wife's - yes, bigger than any other persons with whom I came in contact. I have always considered you to be one of the true giants in this initial endeavor in baseball, for which I am truly appreciative. With profound gratitude and warmest wishes.
Most sincerely, Jackie.

Three months and three days later, Jackie Robinson died. His last letter to Clyde Sukeforth, the scout who followed him and served as a person he could trust in an unstable time, is buried inside a file cabinet at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

That letter, from a former ballplayer to a colorblind scout, stands as a larger testament than any gesture today.

You can't slap a 42 on everyone's back and call Robinson's job finished.

You can bandy all the reasons in the world that black kids don't want to play baseball - lack of money, interest, opportunity and social conditions -- but nothing has changed because baseball hasn't changed.

This game maintains a mentality of “If they won't come to us, we won't come to them.”

So when Torii Hunter predicts the number of black players in baseball will drop from eight percent to four percent, don't be shocked if he's right. When Rachel Robinson says black kids don't play baseball, it should be a call to action, not a footnote to the celebration. Wouldn't a better tribute to Robinson be trying to fix the problem?

I have a hard time believing Robinson would confuse modern players wearing his jersey number with actual progress.

Instead, destroy the rules and stomp upon them as he did. Honor him by continuing his fight.

Branch Rickey broke all the rules to acquire Robinson.

He wasn't a saint about it. He defied the system in every way and stepped on tradition, which is what baseball needs now. Just as Rickey stole Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs without compensation, decreeing that a Negro League contract wasn't valid in the eyes of organized baseball, the modern baseball industry must disregard institutionalized obstacles.

The powers that be inside front offices around the game will say black players are not developed enough as amateurs to be signed. This philosophy has single-handedly removed baseball as an escape from the ghetto. Quietly there are always fears that black players from the inner city will embarrass the game, but as time has shown, not more than players of any race with access to a pharmacy have.

Rickey defied 15 other owners who wanted to collude against integration. He also wasn't completely altruistic.

Robinson was what Rickey called a "goose shooter," the player he acquired to get the players he really wanted. He also wanted the attendance that came with black baseball, and he put black teams out of business to pad his and the Dodgers' pockets. Rickey was creative and cutthroat in every way.

If memory serves, Robinson was a great athlete first and a baseball player second. This alone would have him crossed off the lists of many modern scouts. Few if any could ever dream to have the insight, aptitude, knowledge or character Sukeforth possessed.

Robinson today would be characterized as an unfinished find, a player who divided his attention between multiple sports. There would be modern scouts who would dismiss his competitive nature as an attitude issue and call it detrimental to an organizational model.

There were those who questioned if he could hit in 1947. There would be those who would ask the same question in 2008, yet football coaches would love his athletic ability.

Robinson left behind scores of more advanced players in the Negro Leagues. His athleticism, desire and discipline allowed him to succeed at the highest level.

But if Robinson was a high school player today, he probably would not have the same chance because it would be incredibly difficult to convince any team to spend the money to buy him out of playing football at UCLA. Baseball would not come to him. He would have to come to baseball.

Baseball has fallen in love with skills in domestic players, tools in foreign players, and no longer wants to develop black athletes into baseball players. This is why black kids do not see baseball as an option. Baseball is not coming to them, so don't blame them for not coming to baseball.

To fix the problem, baseball and its teams should examine why the player it honors would probably be excluded today.

Like Rickey destroyed the system, baseball itself must take the lead and pressure its clubs to change the way they scout and sign players.

There is a way around this, but it has to come from the top. Baseball needs to initiate pressure upon its clubs if it is serious about raising the numbers of black players.

The only young black players baseball is getting are those from club baseball. As long as baseball teams continue to draft solely from that talent pool, it will be limited to the few elite black players who choose baseball. The Upton brothers came from showcase baseball, but Kirby Puckett went from the ghetto to the big leagues in three years. Puckett would have no chance today. How many college basketball point guards could hit but never knew it?

You have to take many more inferior players to find the superior players. This is the premise of signing players from Latin America - throw enough players against the wall and some of them will stick. If teams can spend money on the Dominican Summer League, they can afford to launch what Rickey might call Urban Developmental Leagues, not for amateurs, but for entry-level pro players.

To fix the system, you must break it first. Introduce pay-for-play. Create entry-level teams that pay a small stipend. From those teams, the best prospects can be signed to contracts with built-in salary limits.

Develop scouts who work like Sukeforth. This, too, is part of the problem. If you make your scouts fear turning in black athletes, it's a problem.

You will find kids who didn't know they could play and for whom a $15,000 bonus would feel like $15million. This is the same premise that is applied in Latin America, but instead, baseball has chosen to outsource its talent.

Rickey knew that diversity meant dollars. The NBA and the NFL know this. Baseball is building without the black kid. It must force the Player’s Association, which controls signing bonus mandates, to make special amendments for such players.

Once those players are signed, be patient. Another, lower tier of player development needs to be initiated - something like an extended spring - to cultivate those players. If you can sign a Dominican kid under the premise that if you sign 100 athletes and you have something if one of them can hit, you can do it with a black kid. That adjustment, far more than any player wearing No.42, would be a monumental tribute to Robinson, because it would be a step forward and not a look back.

This model goes against the grain because it has to.

You can't expect players like Hunter and C.C. Sabathia, who pay for amateur baseball out of their own pockets, to be among the only significant people in baseball reaching out. Money has to be spent wisely, not on ceremonies, but on reform. You can't expect the RBI program or the Urban Academy to do this alone.

Baseball needs to learn from the player it is honoring. It needs the courage to challenge the system and the stagnant thinking that has allowed the numbers of black players to continue to decline.

Until baseball changes, the game will be left to the past. All it will have left is a letter from an old player to an old scout, a reminder that what once was will never be again.