Gentlemen, scholars, athletes, let us imagine what would have happened had Babe Ruth, the greatest player of all time, had had a Negro doppelganger, let’s call him Benjamin Smith. The Sultan of Swat went to a prestigious white Catholic school where he played in competitive leagues with all the best white players of his generation. He was, it is well known, a strong boy famous in his community from a young age for crushing long balls through the streets of Pigtown and into the windows of neighboring houses. His heroics on the field at St. Mary’s during his schoolboy days had given him a taste of his future and he needed more, seeking out a new opportunity in Baltimore with the Orioles. He quickly got to work at the plate, making a name for himself …show more content…
He worked as a sharecropper alongside his parents and siblings, playing catch with the other kids from the community of former slave families unable to take advantage of their newfound freedom and leave the plantations which had been a prison for the last century. He was not sent to school and did not play in the top junior baseball leagues, or any leagues at all for that matter. He had no chance of getting his hands on a new glove or bat, and it was unlikely he’d even had the opportunity to use secondhand equipment. At best he may have picked up a ball now and again, likely weather worn with fraying stiches. His parents were good-natured people and caring parents but had a family to provide for. They loved their son and more than likely the boy’s athletic prowess made him his father’s pride and joy. Perhaps on a warm day after the harvest had been reaped, Ben and his father would play catch and using a makeshift bat he would demonstrate his skill as a hitter. Soon however, it was time for him to accept his place in society as a sharecropper, living in the shadows of slavery. He begged and pleaded with his parents to help him find a way to escape his fate but they knew of none, they too had been ensnared from a young age and had always seen a life on the plantation as an inevitability rather than an option. They in turn beseeched him to not do anything rash, and to stay