Mixing Up the Mixing Up the Medicine:Medicine:

Anthony Anthony Giacalone Giacalone

Baseball and Baseball and America in the America in the Summer of ‘65Summer of ‘65

National National League League

IntegrationIntegrationThe NL’s three most

integrated -- San Francisco, Los Angeles

and St. Louis -- won every pennant between 1962-

1967.

The 1965 The 1965 Philadelphia Philadelphia

PhilliesPhilliesTheir historic 1964 collapse obscured

the fact that the Phillies, the last National League team to integrate, had become the league’s most integrated

squad by 1965.

Containing no less than a dozen African-American or Latino ballplayers, the 1965 Phillies were the favorites to

win the N.L. pennant.

July 3: July 3: Allen – Thomas FightAllen – Thomas Fight

Saturated with the increasingly

contentious issue of race, the fight

between the Phillies 35-year old Frank Thomas and their

sophomore superstar, Dick “Richie” Allen

hampered the talented team’s

ability to compete for the rest of the

decade.

The Folk Music RevivalThe Folk Music Revival

The undisputed messiah of the folkies was Bob Dylan. Unlike others, Dylan wrote songs of

protest with figurative language and elusive imagery. His best

compositions were hailed as true art and served as generational

anthems.

In the late-1950s and early-1960s,

American folk music enjoyed a popular revival,

as performers like Pete Seeger, the

Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez

and Phil Ochs sold millions of records.

July 25 -

--

July 25: Dylan Goes ElectricJuly 25: Dylan Goes ElectricEven as he was being anointed the King of Folk, Dylan rebelled

against those expectations. Coupling that need to “strike

another match, go start anew" with the discovery that rock

music could be more than just superficial, Dylan

revolutionized popular music. The revolution began at the 1965 Newport Music Festival when Dylan abandoned his

trademark acoustic guitar/harmonica for a

deliberately distorted set backed electric instruments.Ending his short set to a mixture of

boos and cheers, Dylan was coaxed to return to play something acoustic. He fashioned the epitaph of the folk movement as he sang “It’s all over

now, Baby Blue.”

July 28:July 28:LBJ Escalates the War in LBJ Escalates the War in

VietnamVietnam

Ultimately, his decision to

fight in Vietnam would

produce the nation’s greatest internal

conflicts in a 100 years, cost

50,000 lives and bring down two Presidents.

Faced with an impasse, President Johnson Faced with an impasse, President Johnson announced that the nation’s existing draft call announced that the nation’s existing draft call would be doubled to send 50,000 more U.S. would be doubled to send 50,000 more U.S. troops to Vietnam, bringing the number of troops to Vietnam, bringing the number of

American servicemen there to 125,000 (and to American servicemen there to 125,000 (and to over 200,000 by the end of 1965)over 200,000 by the end of 1965). Trying to

have both “guns” for Vietnam and the “butter” for his Great Society reforms, LBJ would lose both.

In January 1965, two of the Civil Rights Movement’s key organizations chose to

march for voting rights in Selma, AL. Martin Luther King and the Movement’s leaders played Selma’s Sheriff Jim Clark “like an

expert playing a violin,” inducing the volatile Clark into flights of violence against the

protestors, thereby eliciting waves of support from non-Southern white Americans.

Selma: The “High Water Selma: The “High Water Mark” of the MovementMark” of the Movement

Skillfully using the Bloody Sunday

rampage of Clark’s Troopers on

integrated marchers in March, President

Lyndon Johnson appealed to and won

from Congress a Voting Rights Bill.

August 11-17:August 11-17:The Watts RiotsThe Watts Riots

Watts proved the limits of M.L.K’s influence as he was scorned by L.A. residents and derided by it’s Mayor.

To King, the lessons of Watts demonstrated both the need for a

Northern Movement and it’s perils. By the time the riots finally burned

themselves out, 34 people were dead, nearly 1100 injured, almost

1000 buildings destroyed and 4,000 persons arrested.

Spurred by a routine traffic stop, the riots took flame due to a combination of

frustration, poverty and rumor. When the L.A. Police proved unable to quell the

violence and destruction, California sent in National Guardsmen on the riots’ fourth day.

Popular music provided important, albeit limited opportunities for African-

American performers. Singing of well-produced non-threatening songs, artists like Sam Cookie, Martha and the Vandellas, the Miracles dominated the R&B

charts in the early-1960s. The Temptations and Four Tops

followed this pattern with big hits in the first half of 1965.

August 7: August 7: Billboard R&B Charts Get EdgyBillboard R&B Charts Get Edgy

However, the same week of the Watts riots, Wilson “Wicked”

Pickett’s brassy “In the Midnight Hour” assumed the #1 spot on

the charts to be followed by eight weeks at #1 for funky,

grunting James Brown.

August 8-20:August 8-20:Lowndes County Lowndes County

Freedom Freedom OrganizationOrganization

In March 1965, Kwame Ture (nee Stokely

Carmichael) began to organize a black political party in Lowndes County, AL, where the Klan made sure than not one of the counties 12,000 African-

Americans were registered to vote.

The Summer of 1965 ended in Hayneville, AL, with the unpunished killing of seminarian

Jonathan Daniels and wounding of Chicago priest, Richard Morrisroe.

Ture authorized the expulsion of all whites from the increasingly radicalized S.N.C.C., differed strongly

Black Panthers and Black Black Panthers and Black PowerPower

Inspired by an Atlanta college’s mascot, the L.C.F.O. adopted a black panther as their symbol. Others would co-opt it.

The effort to fashion an all-black political party in Lowndes County pushed Ture down the road of African-American self-reliance.

with M.L.K. in declaring that “Integration is a subterfuge for white supremacy” and coined the term “Black Power.”

The fight was at least partly influenced by both the riots in Watts and the ongoing revolutionary conflicts in the Dominican

Republic and it reflected the ongoing uneasy relationship between African-American and

Latino ballplayers.

Johnny Roseboro, the Dodgers fiercely combative catcher, and Juan Marichal, the Giants proud, competitive starting pitcher,

exchanged blows on August 22nd. Noteworthy in that Marichal hit Roseboro with his bat

several times, the fracas symbolized many of the tensions that were tearing at both baseball

and American society around it.

August 19-22: August 19-22: Marichal – Roseboro Marichal – Roseboro

FightFight

August 30: August 30: Casey Stengel RetiresCasey Stengel Retires

Having broken his hip halfway through the 1965 season, the 75-year old

Casey Stengel made permanent his retirement

from baseball at the end of the Summer.

A symbol of the dominant pre-integration Yankees, particularly, and the pre-

war, pre-civil rights 1950s, more generally, Stengel’s

departure drew the curtain on that era.