I recently had the pleasure and privilege of meeting The Wizard of Oz, Ozzie Smith. It was quite a thrill as I attended his 2002 induction ceremony near my home town of Cooperstown, New York.
Upon his retirement from baseball, Ozzie has become a Baseball Ambassador. He participated in a Baseball Hall of Fame exhibition named "Baseball: The Ultimate Educational Tool" that I recently attended in Midtown Manhattan. The seminar lived up to its billing as baseball is a common identifying point across different generations, ethnic, religious, racial backgrounds, and socio-economic backgrounds.
Ozzie was a 13 time Gold Glove Winner but homework always came first at the insistence of his Mom. After he finished his homework, she played catch with Ozzie. She raised Ozzie and five sisters.
The exhibition illustrated that baseball teaches many things like statistics, civil rights, special abilities, cultural diversity, physics, leadership, honor excellence, preserve history, connect generations, mathematics, the business of baseball, character, education, American history, fine art, communication arts, geography, industrial technology, labor history, women's history, milestones and history makers, interaction with legendary leaders.
He almost quit playing baseball but his Mom and high school coach talked him out of it. Two weeks later, the starting shortstop hurt his ankle and Ozzie stepped in. The rest is history.
When facing adversity, Ozzie wisely said that no one faced anything like Jackie Robinson did. Keeping that in mind got him through the tough times like being traded from San Diego to Saint Louis. "Turn the other cheek and keep moving," he said.
Ozzie was also in a video showing the history of WWII Japanese-American internment in Manzanar, California. The interned Japanese-Americans played baseball in the camps. They had leagues and watched baseball movies like "Pride of the Yankees", a classic in any day. They had to make their own bats. It was fascinating. It showed that baseball got people through the hardest of times.