AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Little League Baseball rights a racist wrong

In last week’s column we wrote about the joys of watching the Little League World Series (LLWS), seeing baseball played for the pure fun of the game.

This week we stay with the LLWS, concentrating on the issue of racism in America and the bold steps the LLWS took to correct a horrible wrong it committed back in 1955.

This story of courage, racial segregation and moral bravery goes back 70 years, when the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars from South Carolina – a team comprised of African American boys – was denied the opportunity to play in the 1955 Little League World Series because of one reason: the colour of their skin.

Despite new federal laws that segregation was over and racial integration had begun, no teams in deeply racist South Carolina wanted to play a team of Black boys, so the Cannon Street All-Stars won all their games – and the state championship – by forfeit.

The team wasn’t allowed to play in the LLWS because of a technicality – the All-Stars won their games by forfeit, not on an actual diamond.

Racism was so entrenched in the deep south that 390 leagues – first under the title “Little Boys League” and later “Dixie Youth Baseball” – prohibited Black players.

Just think of how much hatred you have to have in your heart to deny young kids from enjoying sport because of their skin colour.

The Governor of South Carolina at the time was worried that if baseball could be racially integrated, so could schools, swimming pools and parks, and that just wasn’t acceptable in the Confederate States of the deep south.

In an inspiring gesture to right the racist wrongs of its past, this year’s LLWS organization bravely decided to honour the eight living players from the team that was robbed of playing in the LLWS simply because they weren’t white.

Fast forward 70 years and the 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars were celebrated in a moving ceremony before the 2025 championship game.

In a heartbreaking interview, one of the surviving players said it was bittersweet watching the 2025 LLWS. He and his teammates, all in their eighties, were excited to see the final game and were

impressed by the skill level of the Little Leaguers, but they were sad they never got to live their dream and play in the LLWS.

To conservatives out there, especially those who profess to be Christians and will criticize what the LLWS did as “woke” in the Christian Right’s tiresome (and sacrilegious) efforts to make ‘woke’ a bad word, I remind you that Jesus was the poster boy for woke and that the core message of Jesus’ life – helping the poor, the sick and the needy, showing compassion and kindness to others – is essentially a woke manifesto. The New Testament oozes social justice and wokeness, no matter how hard you pathetically try to pretend it doesn’t.

What the LLWS did wasn’t woke; it was right.

Given President Trump’s ongoing efforts to whitewash references to slavery and racism from American life, while simultaneously erasing the accomplishments of Black Americans, what Little League baseball did was incredibly brave. Seeing Ivy league universities, media conglomerates and big law firms bow to the president’s efforts to rewrite America’s racist past, the LLWS deserves enormous credit for having the courage to do the right thing and highlight the tragic story of the Cannon Street All-Stars.

In today’s MAGA climate, where cruelty and blatant racism rule the day, it’s inspiring to see the LLWS publicly acknowledge its racist past, apologize for it and try to make amends for what it did seven decades ago.

Seventy years is a long time, but acknowledging the wrongs they committed by not allowing the South Carolina state champions to play in the LLWS, most certainly falls into the “better late than never” category.

Once again, it is sport – in this case, the Little League World Series – that is shining a powerful light on racism in America.

Here’s hoping other institutions will follow the courageous lead of Little League baseball and refuse to cave to the whims of a racist president.