WASHINGTON – Rep. Marc Veasey is urging Major League Baseball and the Texas Rangers to remove a recently installed statue at the team’s ballpark that he says honors a law enforcement officer linked to segregation-era resistance to school integration.
In a letter sent to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and Rangers representatives, the Fort Worth Democrat raised concerns about reports that the statue commemorates a Texas Ranger connected to efforts to block the integration of Mansfield High School in 1956 after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.
League and team officials could not immediately be reached.
Veasey said honoring a figure associated with resistance to school desegregation conflicts with the inclusive ideals baseball has long promoted.
“Ballparks should be places where families gather, where children fall in love with the game, and where fans of every race, faith, and background feel welcome,” Veasey said in the letter. “Honoring a figure tied to resisting school integration — and doing so with imagery that evokes racist violence — sends exactly the wrong message about who belongs in that space.”
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The congressman argued that such a tribute undermines the legacy of players who helped integrate the sport, including Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, whose breakthroughs opened Major League Baseball to Black athletes and helped reshape the game’s identity.
Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, while Doby became the American League’s first Black player that same year with the Cleveland Indians.
The Texas Rangers have said the statue at Globe Life Field is meant to recognize the broader history of the law enforcement agency that inspired the team’s name, not any single historical figure.
In a statement about the installation, the team said the monument “commemorates the legend” of the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency and honors the long history of those who have served in it.
The club also noted that while the franchise was named for the agency, the baseball organization “has forged its own, independent identity since our founding in 1971.”
The statue, titled “One Riot, One Ranger,” previously stood at Dallas Love Field for decades before being removed in 2020 amid scrutiny of its historical associations.
The statue was installed on the left-field concourse at Globe Life Field, where it greets fans entering through the north entrance of the ballpark.