In a swift and unexpected political power reach, a congressional committee spearheaded by Senator Samuel Watson (D-VA) announced it’s multi-month investigation into the Legacy Baseball Academy League’s recruiting methods.
The Legacy Baseball Academy League (LBAL) is a conglomeration of secondary schools across the nation privately chartered by the Legacy Baseball League. These schools provide a stable education and professional development in baseball skills for particularly talented young men who are scouted and invited, free of charge, from across the country. Recently, however, an investigative congressional subcommittee under Senator Watson claims that LBAL has been less than scrupulous in its recruiting methods.
For several years, Senator Watson has led a political wing of congress devoted to the prevention of racial integration in and outside of professional sports. His efforts have been most felt in the Legacy Baseball League–a federally subsidized sporting organization with a written ban on non-white players and coaches.
According to the 154-page investigation published by a sub-panel of the Congressional Ways and Means Committee under Senator Watson, the Legacy Baseball League administration under Commissioner Jacob S. Parker “permitted wanton disregard for the directives delivered [to the LBL] by the Supreme Court,” who established a “separate but equal” ruling on LBL players in the aftermath of Fowler vs. The Legacy Baseball League in April of 1900. According to the congressional report, over 120 players across the Academy League “pool” of players eligible for the 1908 LBL draft were deemed “of questionable racial heritage, to include (but not limited to) Negro, Mexican, Indian, and all other calamitous combinations of impurity…”
This move by Senator Watson is just the most recent in a silent feud between the progressive Parker and the conservative congressional faction under Senator Watson, primarily comprised of southern senators and representatives. In October of 1904, Watson temporarily prevented the LBL’s first inter-racial game, until President Theodore Roosevelt sent federal troops to Philadelphia to force peace and compliance during the game between the Philadelphia Brewers and the Chattanooga Nickajacks.
In a scathing rebuttal in The New York Independent, LBL Commissioner Parker lambasted Senator Watson and the Ways and Means Committee, citing “unparalleled disregard for common decency” and “a primordial obsession with the proliferation of human bondage.” However, since Congress retains the power to nationalize and seize control of the LBL at any moment, Parker begrudged “no choice but to temporarily comply with this heinous and imperial ultimatum.”
Promising to take the entire matter of racial separation to the courts, Parker’s progressive and aggressive tone was perhaps even more outspoken than usual, as he went so far as to promise “A final political solution to the meddling discriminations of men borne from the evil yoke of plantation aristocracy” and “legal recourse from professional sporting segregation, which defies both human reason and almighty God.”
While LBL Commissioner is a lifetime appointment, swift backlash from multiple LBL owners and fans, particularly in coastal cities and southern states, is expected in the coming months over Parker’s strong, pro-integration messaging.