Dear Adam Jones,
“I hope you strike out. Every time.” But only at the plate.
The Milwaukee Brewers fan in me would yell that at you if you're within earshot when your Orioles play my hometown team over July 4th in the Brew City.
But know one thing: It is only because of the orange and black (instead of Milwaukee blue and gold) on your jersey. Never, ever, ever because of the color of your skin.
Yes, I'd be bench-jockeying you from the stands, but I'd make sure to also scream comments that balance out a few things to counteract some of the unconscionable comments that have been sent your way in recent days, like what you most recently endured in Boston.
Like what I'm sure you've probably had to endure in some fashion for much of your life.
Like what Jackie Robinson endured 70 years ago when he broke baseball's ridiculous color barrier. Like what he underwent throughout his entire career, reportedly including when he came to the Brew City when his Dodgers played the Braves.
Like what I've seen many African-American, Latino children or kids from other ethnic backgrounds endure today – seemingly more than I've ever seen. Either by word, by untrusting glance, or by action, they let it be known that they're either not welcome, not important or not worthy of equal respect in another person's mind.
Adam, I would bet you might see it a lot where you live. I see it here, in one of America's most segregated cities, a city which appears to have some similarities to your home in Baltimore.
We're a beer-loving, blue collar sports town on a beautiful body of water in the shadow of a much larger metropolis.
For your crabcakes, we have bratwurst. For your Johnny Unitas, Lenny Moore, Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson, we had Bart Starr, Willie Davis, Hank Aaron and Robin Yount.
(Our Bucks even beat your then-Bullets in the 1971 Finals.)
We're also a city with lots of racial and socioeconomic issues that are similar to Baltimore's. For your Freddie Gray, we have Dontre Hamilton.
Milwaukee is a wonderful place in such an incredibly long list of ways. I'm proud that it's my hometown.
I'm not proud that it's a place where there is often an invisible wall that people who look like me aren't willing to cross, where hundreds of thousands who have minds and hearts like mine live, and perhaps might not encounter others of a different “race” who believe that and act like it.
Where is the exception? Often, it's found at the game.
Sports is one of the few places, at least in Milwaukee, where people of different ethnic backgrounds tend to congregate in big numbers.
Maybe it's because we all can relate to it. We all can relate to the ideal of a meritocracy, with a truly even playing field – what the ideal of America actually is – and what you do and your teammates do directly effects whether you achieve your goal or not.
Sadly, too many of us experience a world where we perceive it to not be the case, and that perception comes from hard, painful and morally wrong events in our lives.
Including being called words that make someone feel they are not as equally human. Words that have no business being uttered anywhere, especially at a gathering place where parents take their kids.
Perhaps too, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King's words, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” maybe people of goodwill need to speak up. Even at a game.
So, if for some reason, our family gets super-close seats to the Orioles dugout that series, you might hear my sometimes-annoyingly loud voice trash-talking you, solely because of your jersey color not matching that of my favorite team for nine innings.
But in response to what you've endured, I might add:
“Adam, you belong here. You deserve this spotlight.”
“You are as American as I am. Any one of your minority teammates as well, you are all chasing the dream that the American national pastime offers, and you belong on this field. You've earned it.”
“I'm proud to watch you. You belong here.”
I'd even be proud to clink beer glasses with you and have you join my family at any Milwaukee restaurant or pub, on either side of the artificial divide of our city.
Because I want our son, the biggest Milwaukee Brewers fan I've ever met, and – if your wife and son are in the stands and in earshot – your son to know that he is special, and people who may not look like him are just as special, just as wonderful, just as blessed, and just as worthy of respect and compassion as he is, and deserved to be embraced just as they are.
I want our son to know that your son matters just as much to the world as our son.
