New York sports legends help give Sports Angels its wings

April 15th saw the fourth annual Sports Angels Spring Fundraiser take place at the Pig and Whistle on 36th Street. The dinner and auction served to support and raise awareness for Sports Angels' campaign to assist local youth sports organizations. Sports Angels is headed by former Baseball Hall of Fame president Ed Stack, Brooklyn Dodger great Ralph Branca and Joseph Salerno. Bobby Hoffman was honored at the event with the Community Service Award for his dedication to the Manhattan Youth Baseball program.

In attendance were a variety of New York sports legends including Branca, Bud Harrelson, Jeff Nelson, Roberto Clemente Jr., Howard Cross, and Greg Buttle. On the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's 1947 debut, Branca conveyed sentiments that were echoed by many in attendance, tonight was about helping children to play sports.

"I enjoy that we can help others, and that's what we really look forward to," Branca said. "We see some new and old friends and we want to build up an entourage of people that support us to help raise enough money to help the kids."

Stack added that the organization has seen it's greatest impact on the local level.

"We're reaching out to grassroots organizations that need help," Stack said. "They may not need a lot of money, but need uniforms and equipment and we're there to give them help so they can charge ahead."

Nelson, the former Yankee reliever and current XM radio host, saw the event as a chance to use his stature to give back to legions of kids that admire the pro athletes from afar.

"Anytime you deal with kids and sports, and you are an athlete, it's a great opportunity to help," Nelson said. "It's nice that athletes give back. The kids look up to athletes on the field and there are a lot of them here tonight. They're giving back to a good cause; I know it touches all of their hearts."

Clemente Jr. felt that the charitable nature of Sports Angels compelled him to be there. He said he was following his family legacy by supporting the event.

"Anytime you have the opportunity to help an organization like Sports Angels, you have to be present," he said. "It's a natural thing to do [help others]. If you take a look at my life and my parents lives, it's something that we do, since I was a kid. To say no to a kid or an organization that is doing well, I can't say no. It's what we do."

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Ralph Branca to appear at Rye Library May 6, 2010 at 7PM

Ralph Branca will be appearing at the Rye Library on May 6, 2010 at 7PM alongside author Joshua Prager, who wrote: The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World. For details and more information on the event, click here.

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Book Review: Ed Stevens: The Other Side of the Jackie Robinson Story

With Major League Baseball's celebration of Jackie Robinson's debut earlier this month, a lesser known version of that historical day has been illuminated by the voice of Ed Stevens.

Ed Stevens - The Other Side of the Jackie Robinson Story / Tate Publishing

Who is Stevens, and why should you care about his story? He is the man who faced the following question for the past 60 years, "How did you let a black man take your job?"

Stevens was the starting first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1946 season, placing second on the team in home runs. He rightfully bested a handful of Dodger hopefuls during their 1947 spring training to earn the starting nod at first base. Stevens was ready to go on Opening Day, until a last minute decision by Branch Rickey to insert Jackie Robinson befuddled the upstart from Galveston, Texas.

"The Other Side of the Jackie Robinson Story," details the never before told story of the man who was displaced by Robinson. Stevens is one of the last living Dodgers who was there for Robinson's debut, and gives an excellent behind the scenes look from the perspective of a talented ballplayer who was pushed aside by the Brooklyn Dodger organization so that Robinson could take the field.

Bitter Stevens is not; he shows no ill will or animosity towards Robinson. "The Other Side," presents the unheard emotions of a man who returned home to the heavily segregated South to face the snickers and sneers of people who could not understand how a white man "let" a "ni--er" take his job.

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Baseball Happenings featured on ESPN.com

ESPN.com's senior baseball writer, Rob Neyer featured Baseball Happenings in his Sweet Spot column this past week. He featured our article on Tuffy Rhodes from a few weeks back discussing his prospects of playing another season in Japan. In addition to writing for ESPN, Neyer is an accomplished author, writing or co-writing seven baseball books, some of which are listed below. They're all recommended reading.

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A Bitter Cup of Coffee | How Douglas Gladstone's book goes to bat for MLB retirees

A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB and The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve
Douglas J. Gladstone -
Word Association Publishers, 2010.
192 pp.

For the 874 retired Major League Baseball players who played between 1947 and 1979 that did not play long enough to qualify for a pension, they have been left with an awful taste in their mouths over the amended vesting requirements of the 1980 contract. Players who entered Major League Baseball after 1980 have only needed one day of service credit for health benefits and 43 days to be eligible for a retirement allowance.

Douglas Gladstone's new book, "A Bitter Cup of Coffee", released in April 2010 by Word Association Publishers, details the plight of the aforementioned players, many of whom are of retirement age, in their quest to get the Major League Baseball Players Association to retroactively amend the vesting requirement to include them. In an April 2010 interview with the author, Gladstone reveals his impetus for championing the causes of those that came along too early.

"I hope that my book would in some small way, change the landscape for these guys," Gladstone said. "These 874 guys, they're dying at a rate of three per month. They're not getting any younger. Given the economy, alot could use pensions to supplement their income. These guys were dues paying members, and now they're being told that all of their contributions went for naught."

His journey began innocently last year with an interview of Jimmy Qualls, who was the young rookie that broke up Tom Seaver's perfect game in 1969. Gladstone described how he was stumped by Qualls when discussing the subject of a pension.

"Last year was the anniversary of Tom Seaver's "imperfect game" and I did some research, knowing that Seaver now has this large vineyard in Napa Valley, but that Jimmy Qualls had it hard after baseball," he said, "It seemed to be a perfect David vs. Goliath image, Seaver went to the Hall of Fame, and Qualls is struggling.

"For the piece, I interviewed Qualls and we had two to three sessions of about 30-45 minutes each. In the last one, he just innocently said, 'Mr. Gladstone, I had a great career in the show. I'm happy, just a country farmer. I just wish I had received a pension.' I knew a little bit about vesting. I asked him why he thought he deserved one when he wasn't clearly vested. He said, 'you don't understand, it's not as cut and dry. Number one, I could accept that it was not mine to begin with. Number two, in 1980, they gave instant pension eligibility, and they never changed the vesting requirements. In 1997, MLB conferred as charitable donations, payments to veterans of the Negro Leagues. I just think it's unfair that they never retroactively amended it.'"

Gladstone wanted to find out if there were other players out there who felt strongly about baseball's failure to include their predecessors in their pension amendments. He wasn't aware they gave Negro Leaguers these pensions, but this book isn't about race. According to him, this is an issue of legal interpretations.

"To me this is an employment and labor law issue," he said. "You can't give a pension to people who had no contractual relationship with this employer."

While some may argue that because Major League Baseball coded the payments to the Negro Leaguers as charitable contributions that a precedent wasn't set, but how were they funded ahead of members that actually paid into the system?

A Bitter Cup of Coffee seeks to answer why these men have been rebuked by their own union and fellow family of baseball players. With the large salaries going to current players who are immediately vested into the pension program, couldn't they spare a little bit of their future earnings for those who paved the way before them?

With the issues of retroactively adjusting the vesting requirements on the table for the 2011 collective bargaining negotiations, Gladstone has posed the following questions to the current union reps.

"I would ask every ballplayer who has been a player rep since 1980, to look into their heart, and look into their soul and say to them, why didn't you do this?" he said. "Is it a question that you didn't want your piece of the pie diminished? Would paying these guys detract from the revenue share stream that you are going to get? I would hate to hear that come out of the mouth of any current ballplayer. I really hope that isn't the current prevailing attitude. The other question I raise, is have these guys even been told about this? The guys on the pension committee, they really believe to a man, that Donald Fehr and Marvin Miller to a lesser extent, never told these guys about the situation. Whatever occurred, either scenario is reprehensible."

Let's see if during the next series of contract negotiations that the MLBPA rights this wrong. Gladstone's A Bitter Cup of Coffee is definitely one that will fire up discussions in hot stoves across the country.

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