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By MILTON RICHMAN UPI Sports Writer MIAMI (UPI) — Baseball people ordinarily do not stay awake nights thinking up nice things to say about football people. What for? They don’t care for them that much. Furthermore, there’s a rivalry between them although neither side admits it, Football only thinks it is the national pastime, Baseball knows it is. So it was rather surprising to hear one of the most celebrated figures in baseball describe Vince Lombardi as ‘‘one of the few really great men in the country’? the other day. ‘Lombardi did in Green Bay what everybody in America is trying to do now and can’t’’, said this baseball man, ‘‘He taught white men and Negroes not only how to get along together, but how to work together and create the best team there is. You never heard of any racial friction among the Packers when Lombardi was coaching them. He worked his players hard but he treated them all alike and made them operate as a unit. They ought to give him the Nobel Peace Prize.”’ It was a point well taken, and if Lombardi deserves some kind of special prize for cementing race relations in football, then Frank Lane rates one for what he has accomplished in base ball, Branch Rickey broke baseball’s color line but Frank Lane erased it altogether. For some reason, Negro ballplayers have always liked Frank Lane more than they generally liked other major league officials, Minnie Minoso, the Cuban outfielder, liked him so much he called him ‘*My But there were others also, Vic Power, Sam Jones, Larry Doby and Earl Battey to name only a few, Mention Frank Lane to Jim ‘*Mudcat’’ Grant and his eyes light up. Negro ballplayers like Frank Lane because they trust and respect him. “I have no set formula with them,’’ says the man who once was general manager of the Cardinals, White Sox, Indians and A’s and now is assistant personnel director to Harry Dalton with the Orioles. ‘Negro or white makes no difference to me. All I want to know is can he play ball. Any time I dealt with a Negro ballplayer, any ballplayer, for that matter, it was always on a man-to-man basis. I never tried to bulldoze a Negro ballplayer and I was never condescending. I treated them all the same way. Like athletes. That’s all they really ever want. That’s all any ballplayer really ever wants’’. Frank Lane admires great ballplayers like Frank Robin son, Willie Mays, Bob Gibson and Lou Brock but he certainly doesn’t help worship them. Nor does he believe in knuckling under to anybody regardless of color. He remembers being with the White Sox 10 days as general manager when a group came to him and threatened to picket Comiskey Park unless the club signed a Negro player. ‘*Whenever I find a ballplayer who is a recognized major leaguer, I'll put him on the club, regardless of what his race, color or creed is’’, said Lane. ‘Well, if you don’t have one by August 1, we’ll have pickets in front of the ball park,’’ said the group spokesman, a white girl. **Young lady,’’ answered Lane, ‘‘go get your picket signs ready, because we won’t have any Negro ballplayer on this club unless I can find one of major league ability’’. The White Sox went without one the rest of that year but they weren’t picketed. The following year, in 1950, Lane obtained Minoso in a three-way deal. Minoso was the White sox’ first Negro and Lane later paid him $55,000 a year. Commenting on the race problems besetting the nation now, Frank Lane says: “*I think we’re stressing the need for more police too much. The money required could be better used to rectify a poverty situation. Then there’d be less need for police’’. Lane made his comments at Miami Stadium Thursday while watching an Oriole workout, Chico Fernandez, a Cuban native and an infielder belong ing to Baltimore, walked by and saw Lane, whom he had never met before, ‘Seen your son lately?’’ he called out, ‘Meaning who?’? said Lane, who doesn’t have any son, ‘*Minnie Minoso, who else?’’ Said Fernandez, ‘‘He always told me _ you where his ‘Papa Numero Dos’ ‘Papa No. 2,’ Frank Lane smiled, He looked pleased, MANCHESTER (49) Mone 10 3 23 Kilburn Bourn 15 Laguna Cairns Roberts Baker Totals 22 49 SACRED HEART (21) Moore Allen Young Thompson Cross Murray Yarnell Thibodean Caron Brown Totals 10 21 ST, FRANCIS (31) Ryan Babcock Livingston Perrotta LaCroix Carmody Maguire Knapp Totals 13 31 ARLINGTON (28) Thompson Hall Dusha 12 Owen Howard Halbsur Burke Hawley Totals 8 12 28
Newspaper Details
Bennington Banner
Bennington, Vermont, US
Fri, Feb 23, 1968
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Steven B.
USA 10 Aug 2026
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