Amir Garrett is preparing physically for the chaotic, aborted 2020 baseball season. That is the easy part for the 28-year old. He is a gifted athlete with a range of skills that few have. What's more difficult is how he fits in socially.
Garrett is a member of a minority of two in a business requires working with well as a group. He and Phillip Ervin are the only two African American players on the Reds' roster.
"It was difficult coming through the minor leagues," Garrett said. It has been 73 years since Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play in the Major Leagues. The perils Robinson faced were more open and hostile. That part has improved for African American players in the Major Leagues. They can now stay in the same hotel with teammates. They can be served without incident in fine restaurants around the country.
What is not as easy is the more subtle but persistent challenges of modern baseball and American Life.
"I never wanted to feel like a victim," Garrett said. "I never want people to feel sorry for me. I feel I'm more mature now. As an African American playing the game of baseball, you fell like you're out of the loop. I have good teammates who are there for me. When things like the George Floyd things happen you want to be around someone, who can really relate to you, so I'd go to Phil. He is the only one who is going to know, exactly how I'm feeling, the rage, the pain. If something doesn't directly affect us, you don't worry about it too much. I'm guilty of that."
Something changed perhaps the maturity kicked in but instead of using Ervin with his intimate undetrstanding as a crutch. Garrett broadened his outreach to express what he was feeling. It was as if, this time he would make it a point to have an uncomfortable conversation with another player, a white player to see if he could help them understand what the African American is feeling and the unique challenges they face.
Joey Votto was the teammate he chose to reach out to this time. After George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, Garrett sent Votto a video of Floyd's death.
"Joey is one of the smartest people I know," Garrett said. "He and I have discussions frequently about different things but he didn't really hear me out at first, which is o.k. We had a dialogue. And he came back a couple of days later and told me he was sorry."
Votto, who is eight years older than Garrett, wrote an op-ed published in the Cincinnati Enquirer relating what he had learned from the conversation with his younger teammate.
"I think I've changed as a man," Votto said. "My perspective has changed. "I didn't want to speak up but I couldn't sleep. There was a long stretch where I couldn't sleep. When it affects me that deeply, I felt strongly about saying something and learning. Every day I'm trying to learn."
Garrett merely wanted his older, wiser teammate to understand how he was feeling. It was never his goal to use Votto as a surrogate to speak for him. Votto wrote the opinion for the Enquirer on his own.
"It showed the kindness of his heart to do something like that," Garrett said.
The Reds held a Zoom meeting with 130 people throughout the organization on Saturday, the 4th of July with Tru Pettigrew ( www.Tru-Access.com) on this topic.
"It meant a lot to me. It showed me that I have a lot of support from the organization," Garrett said. "It took a lot for me to get vulnerable with my teammates like that."
Garrett was reluctant to tell the media in a Zoom meeting on Monday morning about a personal incident in which he was involved as a 17-year old in the Los Angeles area. He and a friend were driving to basketball practice in his friends car, playing their music loud. The police pulled them over and were aggressive from the beginning of the incident.
"My friend told me to relax and put both hands on the dash," Garrett said. "They asked us if we had any drugs. We didn't. They told us to get out of the car. They slammed us both against the hood of the car and patted us down aggressively. As a human being, when you're being handled like that, I don't care what anybody says, your reaction is to resist. I wasn't resisting too much because I knew we hadn't done anything. I just asked what did I do?"
The officers took everything out of the car, searching for drugs. They just left the items in his car strewn along the pavement.
Garrett had the audacity to ask the officer why he was being treated like this. The officer's reply was, "Give me a reason and I will really fuck you up."
"I was really scared. I thought I was going to get hurt," Garrett said. "I was lucky. They let us go. They didn't even give us a ticket. They told us don't come around here playing your music so loud. We won't be so nice next time. My friend said to me. 'My parents are going to be mad. Look what they did to my car' "
The story is common among young black males. They are told how to deal with the police at an early age. They are constantly told to be respectful and just follow the law. It is just not that simple. Black youths are too often treated like this even when they follow the law.
Garrett has decided to speak out after being reluctant to do so for a long time. As a man not yet established in baseball, he didn't want to end up like Colin Kaepernick. Now he is willing to speak his mind after George Floyd, Armaud Arbry and Breonna Taylor because too many young African Americans aren't being heard. He wants to be the man in the locker room that young players like Hunter Greene and Taylor Trammel can talk to about their experiences.
"I saw what happened to Kaepernick in 2017. There are so few African Americans playing in MLB. I was afraid I would get pushed out of the game," Garrett said. "With my little voice I was no where near Colin Kaepernick. But the time is now. I feel like a lot of people aren't being heard. I want to be the one to listen to them. In my heart I feel like I am able to speak for them and take the consequences to help people grow."
"If you got into a poor neighborhood and the police come, you see all the kids start running even if they're not doing anything. They don't call the police. They don't trust the police," Garrett said. "I know there are a lot of good police. I have a good friend who is a policeman. We have to weed out the bad ones."
Garrett wants to be ready to have children and be able to educate them.
"I feel like a lot of people who aren't black have shifted their mind a little bit to having a more open mind," Garrett said. "I want to help them grow too. I don't want to tell my kids how they should act with police. I want the world to change so much that I can tell the police are there to protect and serve and that you can call the police and feel safe."
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