My letter to Cardinals management. Could be better, but I have a day job!
William O. DeWitt, Jr.
CEO, St. Louis Cardinals
Busch Stadium
700 Clark Street
St. Louis, MO 63102
Dear Mr. DeWitt & other members of the Cardinals front office:
While I have never lived in St. Louis, I have been a Cardinals fan for 50 years. I was born in Belleville, Illinois, but never knew it as home. When the Cards made the World Series in 1967, however, I took them on as a my home team, and they’ve been that ever since. I’ve made several trips to St. Louis over the years, alone and with my family, to meet up with friends and to see games. I founded the Cardinals Hui on Facebook for writers (like me) who are also Cardinals fans. We often watch playoff games together on-line. My husband and I are White; our two kids are Asian American.
My first baseball heroes were Black: Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Curt Flood. Even as a child, I knew their careers were more difficult than they ought to have been. I remember reading Gibson’s From Ghetto to Glory early on, which confirmed my suspicions. More recently, I’ve read biographies of Curt Flood and joined his daughter’s movement to have him put in the Hall of Fame. Now my family and I follow Kolten Wong with particular interest because he’s from Hawai’i. So I was horrified when I saw comment streams on a Facebook page yesterday attacking Dexter Fowler in racist and otherwise ugly language. I put in my two cents on two of the threads, but that didn’t seem enough. I failed to write to you do so after Michael Brown was killed while wearing a Cardinals cap and the team remained silent, but I am writing to you now.
Fowler has every right to his opinion on the travel ban. That his wife is Iranian and can’t travel to see her family is a real problem for him. That her sister has a hard time coming to this country is another. What I would like to see from the Cardinals is some active support for him, our only African American player at present, and one whose family is from a country held under suspicion by our government. Perhaps baseball can bring us together rather than—like so much these days—tear us apart. But for it to do that will take some real effort from you. You might even need to break some eggs. St. Louis is a complicated community; acknowledge it as such, and help to bring people together. But above all, support players whose lives are affected by racism and immigration issues.
Thank you for the wonderful experiences we had at games in recent years. I hope that 2017 proves a successful season for our team.
Yours truly,
Susan M. Schultz