First Gloves: Joe Rudi

I’m about to be unfair. I’ll admit that up front, and I’m going to try to make some amends in advance, but on balance this is probably going to come off as unfair to Joe Rudi.

He doesn’t deserve that. Rudi was a really good player. A 3-time All-Star, 3-time Gold Glove winner, part of 3 consecutive World Series titles with the A’s. Twice he finished second in MVP voting, and though he probably didn’t deserve to finish that high in either year, it illustrates the importance he had on those teams and how he was viewed across the league.

On top of that, he was a good guy. Reggie Jackson commented earlier this year about how terrible it was to play in Birmingham as a Black man in the minor leagues. No one would rent him an apartment, and he received all sorts of racist abuse, but it was his teammate Rudi and his wife who took him in and let him stay with them until he could finally find a place, despite threats of having their apartment building burned to the ground for doing so.