Anthony and Filomena Fiacco never dreamed when they planted a blue spruce in their front yard nearly 30 years ago that the tree would someday be on display in Albany as an official state holiday tree.
Unlike blacks, American Indians good enough to earn a spot on Major League Baseball rosters early in the 20th century weren’t told they couldn’t play.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that despite an unofficial policy that worked something like “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” American Indians were often targets of the same racially based vitriol that marked Jackie Robinson’s entry into the game in 1947. Keeping a low profile may have worked for some, but for men like Louis Francis Sockalexis, prejudice was very much a part of the game and their lives....
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