.
AS the votes trickled in,millons of americans held their breath.
arguably the most consequential election in recent us history took
five days to be called in favor of the democratic candidate joe biden and,
for many people,the wait was unbearable.
While the ballots were being tallied in states from nevada to pennsylvania,
the baseball player bruce mawell was grateful for a distraction,he was
in training but still paying veru close attention to the news.
For maxwell,the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was personal and,
for him,those anxious days would come to represent a conclusion of interwining
narrative arcs that were both devastating and inspiring.
Growing up in alabama,baseball has been the story of maxwell life,his dream
was fulfilled when he arrived in major league baseball as a catcher for the
oakland as.
But it also led him to the darkest place that anybody could imagine,
contemplating the ace of suicide.
Speaking to cnn,maxwell vividly recalled the moment when his life almost
came to a premature end,a desperate hour spent alone with a gun pointing at
his forehead.
All had to do was pull the trigger, he said , recalling those moments of
intense despair.
I felt like I was in a never-ending hole,i could talk on the phone, i couldnt
talk to my family.i felt like my family and the people tha knew me were better
off without me.
And yet,this is a man who took an historic stand in his sport,an athlete whose
name deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the nfl iconic
protester colin kaepernick or tommie smith and john carlos,the american
aprinters who defied the us olympic committee whe their infamous black
power salute in 1968,
in217 ,maxwell became the first major league baseball player to take a knee
to protest olice brutality and racial injustice,but it took another three years
for anyone else to follow his lead in the big leagues.
The son of a mixed-race couple in the deep south ,he didnt see many people
that looked like him. he told cnn that baseball is not a very popular sport
among the african american community down where im from.
As he grew up,he began to notice there were less and less of us on the field,
i felt out of place.
according to a usa today report in august 2020.only 7.8% of the league was
made up of black players.
it may have felt uncomfortable at times,but baseball was also giving him a
blueprint for life in general.
Ahead of the game against the texas rangers that saturday,maxwell took the
knee.he immediately exerienced a rush of confilcting emotions, i was heavy
hearted,i was nervous,i was almost kind of refreshed.i felt like there was a
weight lifted off my shoulders,for hiding whats been going of in my life and
to my own people.
※ 編輯: benben668 (36.225.179.165 臺灣), 01/17/2021 23:59:52
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