D’oh!

Among the first of many idiotic decisions during his 14-year reign as baseball's commissioner, Bowie Kuhn announces 53 years ago today that Negro League stars will have a separate wing in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

The decision creates, as it should, a firestorm of controversy.

Satchel Paige

Kuhn's plans quickly are overturned and players from the Negro Leagues who are voted into the Hall of Fame rightfully take their place alongside the game’s great White players, against whom they are not allowed to compete on a level playing field until the 1947 major league debut of Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Later in the summer of ’71, Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player inducted into the Hall of Fame – which other than the aforementioned Robinson (Class of 1962) and former Brooklyn teammate Roy Campanella (Class of ’69) – is comprised solely of White inductees prior to Paige’s election.

Following Kuhn's initial announcement regarding the Negro League stars of yore are other lamebrain moves that include Kuhn’s on-going, petty feud with Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley, his snub of Hank Aaron during Aaron’s historic pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record, and his banishment from the game of Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for being little more than greeters and golfers at Atlantic City casinos.