Royals Rumblings - News for June 22, 2017

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association teamed up to donate $1,000,000 to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

The donation will be allocated from the Youth Development Foundation, which is run jointly by the MLBPA and MLB. Funds will help support NLBM's operations, museum services, expansion and educational and community programming.

"Because of the sacrifices and triumphs of the men and women of the Negro Leagues," Manfred said, "the Museum is an inspirational experience for fans of any age. We appreciate the Museum's contributions to baseball and the role it can play in encouraging young people to become a part of our game."

Some of the funds will help continue refurbishing the site at the Paseo YMCA, where the original Negro Leagues charter was signed in 1920. That site now has been renamed the Buck O'Neil Education and Research Center.

Joe Posnanski expounds upon the importance of the NLBM:

"The Negro League history," Clark said, "is indeed our game's history."

Yes, that's the point. The money donated will certainly help the museum a great deal in the years to come. But as Kendrick said, the money is the least important thing that happened Wednesday. The most important thing is the connection between the Museum and MLB, this whole new chance to tell the Negro Leagues story for years and years to come.

See, more than 100 years ago, when African-Americans and dark-skinned Latin Americans and others were denied the right to play in the Majors, they created their own league. They kept that league going, through sheer will and innovation and baseball brilliance, for decades, through Jim Crow, through a Great Depression, through a World War, all the way until Jackie Robinson and then beyond, for 15 more years, until every big league team had a black player.

"The amazing thing is that this story that began with alienation," Kendrick said, "ends up bringing us closer together. Their triumph inspires us even now. I know that Buck is looking down and seeing the Commissioner of Baseball at the Museum, talking about keeping this story alive. And he's just smiling."

Sam Mellinger wonders why it took MLB so long:

This moment is important beyond the dollar amount. For far too long, the museum has done its vital work in the dark, and alone. Baseball revenues have skyrocketed toward $10 billion, and the museum has been at best an afterthought.

There have been smaller donations from time to time — $25,000 here, or $10,000 there — but the treatment has bordered on condescension.

Baseball has generally viewed the museum too much like a charity asking for a handout, and not what it is — an inspiring place keeping alive a critical part of baseball and American history.

Eric Hosmer and Deven Marrero getting to play on the same field again looks to be a dream come true:

Hosmer and Marrero met when they started playing on the same baseball team when Marrero was 9 and Hosmer was 10. They went on to star together at American Heritage High School in Plantation, Fla., before the Royals drafted Hosmer third overall in 2008. They hadn't played on the same field since.

The same month Hosmer was drafted, Marrero's father, Luis, was arrested and later convicted on charges of sexual battery. In that time of crisis, Marrero said the Hosmer family helped look after him and his sisters. The Hosmers, who attended Tuesday's game, refer to Marrero as a third child, and Marrero considers the Hosmers family.

"I get chills thinking about these two on the same field again," Hosmer's father Mike said.

David Lesky looks at the kind of sad Royals rookie 10-dong club that Jorge Bonifacio just joined.

John Sickels profiles Royals rookie Ramón Torres.

Foster Griffin headlines Clint Scoles’s Diamonds in the Rough column.

Go out for fake lunch with Drew Butera.

Jeff Sullivan writes that Eric Thames has not been awesome.

Isabelle Minasian tries to examine the big picture with Cuban players.

Is James Paxton in trouble?

It looks like changes made by Jose Berrios might have fixed him.

Russell Carleton looks at the move toward teams drafting seniors in rounds nine and ten of the draft.

Mexico’s monthly murder rate hits a 20-year high.

Slashfilm tries to get to the bottom of why Chris Miller and Phil Lord were fired from the Han Solo movie.

The new season of Game of Thrones looks pretty big.

These Germans flirted via pneumatic tubes.

The song of the day is “Harper Valley PTA” by Clarence Carter.