2008 Major League Draft
On June 5, 2008, Major League Baseball held a special draft of the surviving Negro league players to acknowledge and rectify their exclusion from the major leagues on the basis of race. The idea of the special draft was conceived by Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. Each major league team drafted one player from the Negro leagues. Bobo Henderson, Joe B. Scott, Mule Miles, Lefty Bell, James "Red" Moore, Mack "The Knife" Pride and Charley Pride (who went on to a legendary career in country music), were among the players selected. Also drafted, by the New York Yankees, was Emilio Navarro, who, at 102 years of age at the time of the draft, was believed to be the oldest living professional ballplayer.
Read more about this topic: Negro League Baseball
Famous quotes containing the words major, league and/or draft:
“Seeing our common-sense conceptual framework for mental phenomena as a theory brings a simple and unifying organization to most of the major topics in the philosophy of mind.”
—Paul M. Churchland (b. 1942)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)