Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, yesterday there was a vote by the Major League Baseball committee on who should be inducted into the Hall of Fame from a particular area. One of the players who was up for consideration--and, unfortunately, wasn't chosen--was Minnie Minoso, and it reminded me of the debt I owe Minnie Minoso. Minnie Minoso was the first African Latin baseball player. And in 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee--a town I was born in and a town in the Southern United States that was especially a part of the Jim Crow era--I went to a baseball game, an exhibition baseball game. And I was on crutches because I had polio. I had a Chicago White Sox cap on and a Chicago White Sox T-shirt. A player came to give me a baseball from the opposing team, the St. Louis Cardinals. I thanked him. And I went and told my father. And we came down to thank him. And he said: ``Don't thank me. Thank that player over there.'' He was the blackest player on the field, number nine, Minnie Minoso. He didn't feel comfortable in 1955 to give me a baseball. Yet he was the player with the most compassionate heart and humility on the field because that was the segregated South. Minnie Minoso became my hero, and I followed his career and became friends with him. We exchanged gifts. He came to Memphis, and I went to Chicago.…”