Diversity

Doug Glanville: Lessons from the Times


For the 2009 baseball season, I will be discussing the lessons the Baseball Factory family may consider from my New York Times column, "Heading Home." Your feedback is welcome! Drop me a line at askdoug@baseballfactory.com!

My high school was in the town of Teaneck, New Jersey and it was a unique place. In 1965 it was the first high school in the United States to voluntarily integrate. This allowed people of all cultures and religions to attend the school.

Today, so much is changing and as a rising high school baseball player, it is important that you see the beauty and the lessons of being around different kinds of people. Maybe many of you are not growing up in a place where there is a lot of diversity, but these days, there are many more opportunities to interact with different kinds of people and it is important that you focus on the fact that we have so many things in common and so much we can learn.

Baseball is a game that has done so much in our country’s history to teach people about what we can learn from diversity. Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to break into the major leagues after years of quiet rules that kept African-Americans out of the game. But don’t think he was just important for the African-American people, he was a hero for all of America because he opened up the world to talents of people who had not been given a chance before. This allowed our great game to see a new perspective, to enjoy a different kind of game, and to see the power of overcoming adversity. Jackie ran hard, slid hard into bases. He was a great spark and a great ambassador for the game.

He also showed us the importance of learning from everyone, not just people who look like us. We found strength, we found honor, we found discipline, we found a passion for our game and opening the door to Jackie is what allowed us to find these things.

Every culture in our country has this kind of story. Whether your parent’s parents came from a far away place in Europe or whether your family had been living in the same house in Nebraska for 100 years. The story of baseball is about things greater than our color, culture, religion, or whatever makes us feel “different.” (So listen to your parent’s stories!).

If you watch baseball today, it is showing us what makes up not only our wonderful game, but our wonderful world of people. So see this as an opportunity to learn from all-kinds of people. You may have a teammate right next to your locker that can show you new things and this same teammate is the person you are working with to win a championship or figure out how to turn a double play. He has your back, you have his back and it doesn’t matter where he was born or what he looks like.

That is the true American story. A story of opportunity, of new ideas, of great games, of different kinds of people working together. Baseball is that entire story and I hope as a young player in this game, you take the time to learn your teammates and your opponents. You may be surprised where this takes you and how much you have in common.


Doug Glanville joined the Baseball Factory as a Special Consultant at the end of 2007. Glanville attended and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Systems Science and Engineering. Glanville was drafted 12th overall by the Chicago Cubs in the 1991 amateur draft. Glanville played nine seasons in the Majors, getting his break with the Cubs. He also spent six seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies and a portion of the 2003 season with the Texas Rangers. In 1999, Glanville batted .325 with 204 hits, 101 runs, six homeruns, 73 runs batted in and 34 stolen bases. He led the league in singles with 149 that year. To review other articles from Doug Glanville, including his New York Times column, please click here.