From the Sidelines: Not even Alcatraz can escape the power of sports
Sports reporter
Note: Mike spent four days last week in San Francisco. One afternoon was dedicated to visiting "The Rock," better known as Alcatraz Island.
The views from the steps couldn't be any different.
To the west sits the internationally recognized Golden Gate Bridge and the crystal clear San Francisco Bay.
A slight turn to the north and the view is of faded concrete and a large patch of sun-dried grass.
It once was heaven and hell to hundreds of men who were deemed unfit for society.
Heaven, because the faded concrete once was an open area to exercise and the grass a baseball field.
Hell, because the bridge and the bay represented everything they wanted but couldn't have.
For one hour on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays, the men, who lived in a room barely large enough to stretch their arms, were able to play baseball.
For one hour, the prisoners in good standing on Alcatraz Island had something in common besides crime.
The field sat well below the entrance steps to the recreation yard and a giant wall that blocked the outside they knew was there, but pretended not see.
It was torture to look over the wall as they headed back to the cell house. One prisoner said in all the years he spent on Alcatraz he looked out his window no more than three times.
The island sits just one mile from San Francisco, but it might as well be 10,000.
The only prisoners who managed to escape from the island were never accounted for, but more than likely drowned or froze in the frigid bay.
So instead, most prisoners carried out their sentence, and played baseball, as well as chess, shuffleboard, backgammon, and other games.
Sports can be a lot of things to a lot of different people. They can be a passion, a hobby, or even a waste of time. But the most amazing thing about any sport is the ability to draw all types of people and personalities together.
While some may think the prisoners on the island were all the same, they were vastly different. Sure, they all committed crimes, but like anyone else, they came from different backgrounds, were different races, and had different ideas about the world.
No matter what happened before they arrived on "The Rock," for that one hour the prisoners were brought together and their pasts erased.
At the same time young boys and girls across the country were playing the sports they loved, grown men who had murdered, raped, robbed, and stole, were doing the same thing.
Was it fair? Should they have been allowed to do so? Those are debatable questions. But what cannot be debated is that sports can turn even the meanest of incarcerated men into young boys again.
And that's something powerful.
