The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“REMEMBERING JAMES TIMOTHY ``MUDCAT'' GRANT, JR.” mentioning Sherrod Brown was published in the Senate section on pages S4732-S4733 on June 23.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REMEMBERING JAMES TIMOTHY ``MUDCAT'' GRANT, JR.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, last week, America lost a baseball legend, a pioneer in civil rights, Jim ``Mudcat'' Grant.
He joined the Cleveland Indians in 1958. He spent 14 years in the Major Leagues. I remember watching him play when I was a kid growing up in Cleveland in the 1960s.
Cleveland has been, more than any other franchise, perhaps, a pioneer for change in baseball. Cleveland had the first Black player in the American League, Larry Doby, Hall of Famer. He came into the league only about 2 months after Jackie Robinson integrated the National League. Cleveland had the first Black manager, Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. Cleveland also had ``Mudcat'' Grant, who refused to be silent in the face of segregated hotels and racist slurs and discrimination from management.
Grant was an accomplished singer with a beautiful voice. He organized the singing group ``Mudcat and the Kittens'' to make up the income he was denied that other players had, that White players had, in advertising and endorsements. Companies wouldn't hire a Black player. They toured the country during the off-season, performing with Johnny Carson and in places a little less known.
I remember Grant in later years serving as an announcer for Cleveland Indian games with a southern drawl that was unmistakable.
He didn't just use that voice, though, for entertainment or commentating on plays; he used it to speak out for civil rights.
During the national anthem at one game, predating Colin Kaepernick, Mudcat Grant--in the 1960s, before civil rights and voting rights had passed this Congress, he said this during the national anthem. He said:
This land is not free. I can't even go to Mississippi and sit down at a lunch counter.
A Major League Baseball player.
In 1958, he and his White teammate Gary Bell roomed together for away games, becoming the first time--players, in those days, when they were paid less than management, charged less, whatever, players roomed together. Two players would room together. Gary Bell and Mudcat Grant were the first Black and White roommates in the major leagues in 1958.
While running for President, Senator John F. Kennedy invited Mudcat Grant to breakfast. Grant didn't hold back. He talked openly with Senator Kennedy, with the future President, about the poverty he grew up in, the racism he endured every day--this was 1960--as a Major League Baseball player.
Of course, it wasn't only his activism we remember Mudcat Grant for. We know his talent on the field. He was Minor League's Rookie of the Year in 1954, only 7 years after baseball was integrated.
In 1965, he was the first Black player to win 20 games in the American League. He should have been the first, but listen to this: For years, major league managers conspired to prevent Black pitchers from becoming 20-game winners. That almost doesn't make sense.
Well, Grant said some catchers would tell the hitters, the opposing hitters, while they were catching, what was coming because they didn't want you to do well as a pitcher.
Other managers, when a player was reaching--a pitcher was getting close to 20 games, other managers sat the player down so he couldn't win 20 games as a Black man.
After Black players pass away, we often hear about how they were among the underappreciated talents of the game. That is not a coincidence. In addition to being a singer, Grant was also a writer. He published a book in 2007 called ``The Black Aces.'' It is about the great African-American pitchers. Part of his project is to tell more stories about Black players and to teach more people about the history of baseball integration.
It is the kind of stories we need to tell more often. Our country is richer, as the Presiding Officer representing Arizona knows--the country is richer when we tell people's stories.
Let's honor James Timothy Grant, Jr., by telling his story, by heeding his words. In his great poem ``Life,'' James Timothy Grant Jr. wrote:
Life is like a game of baseball, you play it every day. It isn't just the breaks you get, but the kind of game you play.
James ``Mudcat'' Grant, rest in peace.
I yield the floor.
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