CINCINNATI -- Baseball's Civil Rights Game is one part
celebration and one part reminder: There is reason to celebrate
the game's role in the struggle for civil rights in America, but
there is also the reminder that, in this area, there always is
much more work to be done. The Civil Rights weekend began with a
roundtable discussion of the topic: "Baseball and the Civil
Rights Movement." The panel was suitably distinguished. The
venue for the discussion was ideal -- the National Underground
Railroad Freedom Center. The moderator of the panel, Charles
Ogletree, a professor of law at Harvard University who mentored
both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama,
suggested that Harriet Tubman herself was looking down with joy
at this gathering. Why not? Both the subject and the site were
exactly what this occasion merited. But the celebration of the
game's leadership in civil rights, with Jackie Robinson breaking
the Major League racial barrier in 1945, always is leavened with
the knowledge that, in th