THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-EDSATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2020 Y A
M
OSTbaseball fans have probably never heard
of John Donaldson, a hard-throwing pitcher
who drew sold-out crowds around the coun-
try for an astonishing three decades before he
hung up his glove in 1941. His statistics establish him as
one of the greatest to ever play America’s pastime. Yet he
died in obscurity.
Now, Donaldson’s towering contributions to the Negro
Leagues are being slowly res-
urrected after decades of ra-
cial injustice and institutional
neglect. That’s thanks to the
efforts of a white guy who
drives an Uber in Minnesota
and to a network of amateur
researchers that he organized
to reconstruct Donaldson’s ca-
reer and push for his admis-
sion into the Hall of Fame.
It’s been an arduous task;
records about his life and ca-
reer were scattered and often
difficult to find. An earlier ef-
fort to elect him to the hall
failed when a panel of histori-
ans considered experts on the
Negro Leagues declined to se-
lect him in 2006. At the time,
many of his career numbers
were still not known. No expla-
nation was given.
But Donaldson may have
another shot in December,
when the hall’s Early Baseball
Era Committee meets to con-
sider a roster of players, man-
agers, umpires and executives
whose greatest contributions
to baseball took place before- Any candidate whose
name appears on at least 75
percent of the ballots will be
inducted next year into the
National Baseball Hall of
Fame, joining 35 other Negro
League players. The 10 candi-
dates will be announced this
fall.
The first step to righting an
injustice is to admit that it oc-
curred. That’s why this small
group of baseball activists, led
by Peter Gorton, the Uber
driver, have been assembling their evidence and telling
Donaldson’s story.
Perhaps one day the Hall of Fame will listen. It cer-
tainly should. His story is more than about baseball. It’s
about the pain of social change. It’s probably not a co-
incidence that Donaldson attended seminary, but, against
his mother’s wishes, ultimately chose to preach by exam-
ple the gospel of change on the field of dreams.
Mr. Gorton has so far uncovered 413 wins by Donaldson
and 5,091 strikeouts. This means, according to Mr. Gor-
ton, that Donaldson had more wins and strikeouts than
any pitcher in segregated baseball — in the Negro
Leagues, on barnstorming teams and in the semi-pros —
before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.
He was one of the biggest stars in the game’s barn-
storming era, a time when Black players risked their lives
to play in towns where lynchings were carried out with
impunity. Barnstorming players competed in matchups
between Black and white teams that included major
leaguers in the off-season, among them Babe Ruth. Don-
aldson played in at least 724 cities in the United States and
Canada, according to Mr. Gorton’s research, and pitched
14 no-hitters and two perfect games. A power pitcher, he
was far ahead of his time in his technique.
He was also a leader. He was among the founders of the
Kansas City Monarchs (he is credited with coming up
with its name), the Negro Leagues team that was a train-
ing ground for the Hall of Famers Ernie Banks, Satchel
Paige, Robinson and other great players.
After Donaldson’s famed pitching arm wore out, he be-
came one of the first Black scouts for Major League Base-
ball, working for the Chicago White Sox, where he spotted
talents like the young Willie Mays (though the White Sox
didn’t sign him). He mentored many players on and offthe field, including Robinson.
Yet for all of his accomplishments, he spent his final
years on the overnight shift as a postal worker in Chicago
and his days teaching baseball to children in Chicago’s
parks system. For decades after his death, his grave was
unmarked.
The slow detective work that pieced together this story
came about by accident, when Mr. Gorton saw Donald-
son’s photo in a museum in Minnesota in the early 2000s.
He stared at the photo, startled by the sight of a racially
integrated baseball team (there were a few, like the All
Nations team, for which Donaldson once played) well be-
fore Robinson put on a Brooklyn Dodger uniform.
While most are familiar with the Negro Leagues, the
practice of Black teams playing white teams of that era isoften overlooked but was important in showing that ra-
cially integrated baseball could succeed. Or, in the case of
the All Nations team, that a single team could be racially
integrated, play nationwide, and thrive.
For Mr. Gorton, a middle-aged white man and impas-
sioned baseball fan, the reconstruction of Donaldson’s life
and career has meant confronting inconvenient truths
about the country and the sport that he loves, and about
the nation’s history of redlining, violence, segregationist
school policies and racist unions. He has spent 20 years
and filled his basement with towers of paperwork as he
amasses ever more evidence for his second appeal to the
Hall of Fame to admit Donald-
son this year, the centennial
year of the Negro Leagues.
Donaldson’s story had long
been buried. It’s part of a
larger story about the wall
that kept Black players out of
“the Show” — the major
leagues. Even today, statis-
tics from the barnstorming
era and the Negro Leagues
are played down, even
though those players had no-
where else to showcase their
talents.
Mr. Gorton said he is trying
to call attention to Donaldson
because his life was a lesson
in resilience and being an
agent of social change. “Don-
aldson’s story was a life-or-
death struggle,” he said. “A
huge part of the Black base-
ball struggle in America is
misunderstood. Everyone
thinks that it’s chiseled in
stone in 1947, but we’re learn-
ing something new every day.
We need to figure out that his-
tory.”
Donaldson’s story also re-
veals a hard truth about
progress — that it’s messy,
complicated and almost in-
stantly rewritten by those
who tried to slow it down. We
love to trumpet Robinson’s
career, for example, and
should, but seldom mention
his post-retirement advocacy
work against racial injustices
including redlining.
The world is full of Donald-
sons, people who change
things for the better, their
contributions unnoticed. Telling their stories matters im-
mensely not merely in building the arc of progress, but
also in showing the world as it really is. “The ability of
John Donaldson to have a lasting legacy was systemat-
ically eliminated by both baseball and the society he lived
through,” Mr. Gorton told us.
“He never had a chance,” he added. “Not only with ‘on
the field opportunities’ but in life as well. History cannot
remember what it knows little about, and actively tries to
minimize.”
Perhaps the truth about baseball, and any kind of seis-
mic change, is an inversion of the fabled line from “Field
of Dreams.” No one built it for players like Donaldson. But
they came anyway.
And we are all are better for it. 0Why Isn’t John Donaldson in the Hall of Fame?
Mary Pilon and Travon FreeMARY PILON, a former sports reporter for The Times and
author of “The Monopolists,” and TRAVON FREE, a televi-
sion writer, are the screenwriters of “Barnstormers,” a
film in development about John Donaldson and Peter
Gorton.A pitcher with more wins than any
other in segregated baseball.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK HARRIS; PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE JOHN DONALDSON NETWORKI
T’S been six months since the United
States reported its first coronavirus
case, and getting a test can still take
days. National labs are over-
whelmed, leaving people to wait as much
as two weeks for results. Every day that
testing falls short is another day the vi-
rus can spread undetected, costing lives
and delaying the reopening of our econ-
omy, schools and society.
As states try to control the virus and as
Congress considers the fourth Covid-
relief bill, New York offers important
lessons on how to fix the testing mess.
Over the last 10 weeks, New York has
used testing to not only flatten the curve,
but actually reduce the rate of infection
since our phased reopening started. We
have kept our testing rates high through
partnerships with federal and local gov-
ernments. In February and early March,
New York worked with the Food and
Drug Administration to gain the neces-
sary approvals to begin using our own
coronavirus test and mobilize a network
of hundreds of labs. In April, when our
labs were struggling because of short-
ages of a necessary chemical ingredient,
reagents, President Trump and I
reached an agreement that helped dou-
ble New York’s capacity.
Here’s what states should do to build a
sustainable testing operation, and how
Congress can help.
Mobilize smaller local labs. Almost all
states are now using a handful of na-tional testing companies, and they are
overwhelmed. New York has managed to
avoid the delays because more than 80
percent of our testing does not depend on
the national laboratories experiencing
long turnaround times for results.
In the early days of the pandemic, New
York organized hundreds of local labs to
conduct as many tests as possible. We
moved equipment sitting idle to labs that
could run them around the clock. Today,
more than 250 labs in the state report re-
sults each day — some conducting 10tests daily, some thousands. All together,
New York can now conduct on average
65,000 tests a day.
And while any lag time is not ideal,
over the past week, more than 85 percent
of New York’s tests took a median of just
two days (and an average of three days)
from collection to result, and lags will
continue to shorten as we move tests
from labs with backlogs to labs without.
Each state should mobilize its own net-
work of laboratories, which will take
pressure off the major national labs, re-
duce reporting times and arm states with
data that can help slow the spread of the
virus. Congress should dedicate money
to help develop the capacity of local lab-
oratories and ensure federal agenciescan provide speedy approvals and tech-
nical assistance to states.
Streamline the supply chain.In New
York and other states, there are high-ca-
pacity labs running at partial capacity
because they don’t have enough sup-
plies.
How can it be, six months after Ameri-
ca’s first case was reported, that the
United States still doesn’t have an ade-
quate supply chain? What labs need —
reagents and plastic pipette tips — are
not complicated to manufacture. They
can, and should, be made in mass quan-
tity, immediately, and here at home.
New York invested $750,000 in
Rheonix, an Ithaca-based manufacturer,
to build lab instruments and make re-
agent kits, which are now being used for
thousands of tests daily. States should
tap their local manufacturing companies
to compensate for international short-
ages, and Congress should allocate fund-
ing for businesses that fill these needs.
Invest in innovative solutions. The Food
and Drug Administration recently ap-
proved pooled testing, where multiple
samples are run at once, increasing ca-
pacity and saving lab supplies. But for
one national lab, the approved pool size
is just four samples. In Wuhan, China, up
to 10 specimens were pooled, allowing
the city to increase its capacity to 1.5 mil-
lion tests daily, up from 46,000 tests daily.
The federal government should direct
research money so that labs can increase
their pool size, while ensuring accuracy.
With flu season on the way, Congress and
federal agencies should also invest in de-veloping widely available single tests
that can detect multiple respiratory vi-
ruses, including the coronavirus and dif-
ferent types of influenza.
Congress should also invest in devel-
oping more tests that can give results in
minutes and that can be administered at
workplaces, not just labs. The F.D.A. has
approved only a handful of these devices,
and they are not widely available.
Fund all necessary testing. Currently,
under federal rules, “medically neces-
sary” testing is free for those with
Covid-19 symptoms, as well as asymp-
tomatic people who have been exposed
to the virus.
But states should be able to conduct
broad community screening — 40 per-
cent of infected people are asymptomat-
ic — to detect the virus and control its
spread. For example, Congress should
ensure testing is free for individuals who
attend mass gatherings, regularly ride
public transportation or interact with
members of the public at work.
New York is proof that a real testing
strategy can control Covid-19. But our fu-
ture success depends on other states to
do the same — a virus anywhere is a vi-
rus everywhere.
There can be no economic recovery
without each state having a sustainable
testing strategy. New York has already
advised other cities, and we stand ready
to help any state or local government
replicate our success. 0How to End the Wait for Test Results
Andrew M. CuomoANDREW M. CUOMOis the governor of New
York.Look to New York’s
strategies for quicker
coronavirus screening.
IT WAS CLEARwhen President Trump
woke up on Thursday morning, with no
pollster left to lie to him, and not enough
Fox News sycophancy to fill his cereal
bowl, that he would have to play one of the
last tricks in the dictator’s handbook.
He floated the idea of breaching the
Constitution by illegally delaying the na-
tional election. It follows his logic on a pan-
demic that has taken more than 150,
American lives. If there were less testing
for the coronavirus, cases would go down.
Ergo, if there were no election on Nov. 3,
he couldn’t be booted from office in a wipe-
out. The stable genius strikes again!
Here’s a better suggestion: As a mortal
threat to those looking for life-or-death
guidance from the White House, he should
do humanity a favor and surrender now.
He can quit while he’s only behind by 10
points or so. More important, by walking
away today, he can save many lives of sup-
porters who have listened to the lethal
quackery from the presidential podium.
He gave up in the war on Covid-19 from
Day 1, when he declared that there was
nothing to worry about, it would all soon
disappear like magic. And his throw-in-
the-towel tactics continue to this day, as he
promotes the harmful and bizarre sugges-
tions of a woman who also believes in de-
mon sperm transmitted through dreams.
And here’s the net result of a country
run by a crackpot: On a single day this
week, there were nearly twice as many
Covid-19 deaths in just one American
state, Texas, than in the five major coun-
tries of Western Europe combined. On
that same day, Thursday, the Covid Track-
ing Project reported 1,400 American
deaths, the most in a single day since May
15.
Trump publicly quit on his country two
years ago, when he chose Vladimir Putin’s
word over that of American intelligence
officials, the infamous sellout in Helsinki.
So it was no surprise when the two leaders
spoke by phone this week that Trump did
not even raise the question of Russians
paying a bounty to have American sol-
diers killed in Afghanistan. That is dere-
liction of duty, son.
He quit on the economy in early spring,
when he pushed for a widespread reopen-
ing, even though health experts warned
that the results could be catastrophic. And
thus, this week we saw the largest drop in
economic output on record, as people
were afraid to resume normal commerce
in a country fevered with viral hot spots.
Trump has yet to realize what every
sensible business owner knows: The only
path back to prosperity is through the
managed economic sacrifice and uniform
health guidelines needed to get the virus
under control.
He quit on the Constitution, obstructing
Congress and abusing power, in the
scheme to tie aid to a struggling ally to a
demand that Ukraine dig up dirt on a polit-
ical opponent.
From there, he’s become increasingly
authoritarian. Clearing a park full of
peaceful protesters by force in order to
stage a photo op with a Bible was just the
start.
Of late, Trump has been itching for a
riot. With buildings aflame, windows
smashed and mobs in the streets, he could
fulfill his prophecy of being the only man
able to fix the American carnage he
warned us about. Majorities support
changes needed to root out systemic rac-
ism. The only way that Trump can hold
back the tide is to change the story.
Except, some of the players are not who
we think they are. The police have identi-
fied the man who turned largely peaceful
Black Lives Matter protests into mayhem
in Minneapolis — the window-smashing
Umbrella Man — as a white supremacist.
Sending Trump’s troops into American
cities appears to have backfired, even as
the president announced plans to possibly
send new federal agents into Cleveland,
Milwaukee and Detroit, counting on
swing state showdowns for the Fox News
machine.
If Trump were to quit, he would join
Richard Nixon in disgrace — he’d be an
impeached president (Nixon quit on the
brink of impeachment) forced from office.
Except, Nixon is a notch higher in the hell-
scape, given his diplomatic openings in
China and his signing of landmark envi-
ronmental laws.
Delaying the Nov. 3 election is not only
illegal, it would be unprecedented. Lincoln
held the regular election during the Civil
War, and Franklin Roosevelt faced voters
on time during World War II.
If Trump were to walk away today, the
likely nominee of his party would be Mike
Pence. And Democrats shouldn’t be afraid
of facing Pence. He’s Trump with a pious
veneer, the man sent to the border to jus-
tify putting kids in cages, the Stepford
veep always there with a timely bootlick.
And of course, he carries a portfolio of fail-
ure as the man chosen to oversee the fed-
eral government’s disastrous response to
the pandemic.
Quitting before an election would de-
prive Americans of the satisfaction of re-
jecting him by an overwhelming margin, a
national shower to clean off four years of
his grime and grift.
Trump could play one last gambit in the
dictator’s checklist and refuse to leave of-
fice on Jan. 20 — election or no election —
as required by the Constitution. If he does
this, a weary nation would be rewarded
with a presidential perp walk, as Trump is
escorted out of the White House and into
infamy by the military police. 0
TIMOTHY EGAN
Trump, Please
Quit Before
You’re Fired
He should do humanity a
favor and surrender now.
I
HAVE voted Republican in every
presidential election since 1980, in-
cluding voting for Donald Trump in- I wrote op-eds and a law review
article protesting what I believe was an
unconstitutional investigation by Robert
Mueller. I also wrote an op-ed opposing
President Trump’s impeachment.
But I am frankly appalled by the presi-
dent’s recent tweet seeking to postpone
the November election. Until recently, I
had taken as political hyperbole the
Democrats’ assertion that President
Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is
fascistic and is itself grounds for the
president’s immediate impeachment
again by the House of Representatives
and his removal by the Senate.
Here is what President Trump
tweeted: “With Universal Mail-In Voting
(not Absentee Voting, which is good),
2020 will be the most INACCURATE &
FRAUDULENT Election in history. It
will be a great embarrassment to the
USA. Delay the Election until people can
properly, securely and safely vote???”
The nation has faced grave challenges
before, just as it does today with the
spread of the coronavirus. But it has
never canceled or delayed a presidential
election. Not in 1864, when President
Abraham Lincoln was expected to lose
and the South looked as if it might defeat
the North. Not in 1932 in the depths of the
Great Depression. Not in 1944 duringWorld War II.
So we certainly should not even con-
sider canceling this fall’s election be-
cause of the president’s concern about
mail-in voting, which is likely to increase
because of fears about Covid-19. It is up
to each of the 50 states whether to allow
universal mail-in voting for presidential
elections, and Article II of the Constitu-
tion explicitly gives the states total
power over the selection of presidential
electors.
Election Day was fixed by a federal
law passed in 1845, and the Constitution
itself in the 20th Amendment specifies
that the newly elected Congress meet at
noon on Jan. 3, 2021, and that the terms of
the president and vice president end atnoon on Jan. 20, 2021. Even if President
Trump disputed an election he lost, his
term would still be over on that day. And
if no newly elected president is available,
the speaker of the House of Representa-
tives becomes acting president.
President Trump needs to be told by
every Republican in Congress that he
cannot postpone the federal election. Do-
ing so would be illegal, unconstitutional
and without precedent in American his-
tory. Anyone who says otherwise should
never be elected to Congress again. 0Trump Wants to Postpone the Election. He Can’t.
Steven G. CalabresiSTEVEN G. CALABRESI is a co-founder of the
Federalist Society and a professor at
Northwestern University’s Pritzker
School of Law.