Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
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THE ROAD THRU HARRISBURG
I had traveled near or through Harrisburg, PA, many times, without ever
really stopping there, and until now, that is how I regarded that old state
capital, a place to go through. I was wrong. It is a place to visit and stay
and savor, and not just because it has one of the planet's most unique
ballparks. The road through Harrisburg, I know now, takes you to history.
On August 4-5, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Negro
League Committee held its third annual conference in Harrisburg, the site of
its first national meeting in '98. I joined SABR around 1991, but knew little
about the committee or its work, except that they published a wonderful book on
the Negro Leagues that all SABR members received in 1994. I was drawn to
Harrisburg by the promise of lots of research presentations, the chance to talk
baseball non-stop for a couple days, by the opportunity to see that island
ballpark, and the possibility of pilgrimaging to nearby Lancaster -- birthplace
of APBA, that addictive board-and-dice game I discovered in 1958.
I was unable to make that trip to APBA (more on APBA later), but hit
all the other goals. This issue of Notes is a journal of the trip, not
some kind of official report. I suspect that I shall return to Harrisburg from
time to time, if not for future conferences, then for many other reasons. For
example, I barely saw the city itself, and it seems worth a good long look. One
meal at a Dutch Kitchen hardly qualifies as a taste of the Amish country, and
then there's APBA, and my wife will want to see the Ephrata Cloister again (she
got there last summer.) And Reading is not far off (see Notes #189 in
the Archives for my description of that road trip), and I'd like to revisit
there, too.
The history I found in Harrisburg this time around had nothing to do
with hex signs and horse-drawn carriages, a world in the eye of the hurricane
most of us live in daily. But it was a history of black-and-white, and worlds
that were kept apart far too long. The Negro Leagues were doomed once Jackie
Robinson crossed the line; Jackie was alive and well in Harrisburg. So were the
Negro Leagues, not just in the lectures and conversations at the conference,
but in the eyes and voices of the men (and women) who were there, who
played in leagues of their own because it was the only place they were allowed
to play the game until Jackie. Meeting Willie Fordham (among many others), and
learning about Spottswood Poles (among many others) were unquestionably the
highlights of my trip, and my souvenirs.
WAKING UP IN A DIFFERENT PLACE
The drive to Harrisburg from the Shadows of Cooperstown is not that
long, about six hours, which book tapes can turn into minutes. But I got a late
start on Thursday, August 3, and after circling the H'burg Hilton and Towers a
few times (like my hometown Pittsburgh, downtown H'burg is mostly one-way
streets, but an easy-to-read grid, unlike The 'Burgh's crazy maze), I was
exhausted, and although I had a good book along, was soon sleeping.
I woke up in a world filled with unfamiliar names, where baseball was
still the game, but a pastime in a nation divided into separate societies. The
Negro Leagues (there were many, just as there have been many major leagues) are
much more than Shadow Ball, tall tales of Josh Gibson clouting and Satchel
Paige clowning, and much more than I could take in, in just two days. If I
skimmed the city of Harrisburg, I feel I did the same with the Negro Leagues.
As with any subject, the more I learned, the more I knew there was to be
learned. But this was a good start.
I met Ted Knorr, one of the conference coordinators and a Negro League
Committee member, on the internet and telephone the week before, and he turned
out to be the leadoff man of the presentations, too, along with Calobe Jackson,
Jr. Black Ball has roots in Harrisburg that go back at least as far as 1867.
H'bg native Jack Frye was the second black pro player (after Cooperstown's own
Bud Fowler); he was one of two blacks on the city's teams of the 1890s. Danny
McClellan was the first Negro to toss a perfect game, in nearby York; Clarence
Williams caught it, in 1903. That year the unofficial "Colored Championship of
Baseball" was decided at Harrisburg's Island Park, with Rube Foster's X-Giants
coming out on top.
Spottswood Poles played some ball in Harrisburg a little later. While
the previous paragraph suggests that "you can look it up" in the different
place where I woke up, the mention of Spot Poles reminds us that the task is
not easy. History is not an exact science anyway, but baseball researchers at
least have access to neatly organized newspaper accounts of games, and often
can check out the accounts of the same game in different papers and different
cities. But we may never know for sure if the fleet Spottswood Poles is the
only person to bat over .400 lifetime. Or if he was faster than Cool Papa Bell.
Or how many bases he stole (that stat can be elusive for other folks, too, like
Sliding Billy Hamilton, as the definition of the steal changed.)
I am skimming again, but you get the idea: Harrisburg has a long and
rich history of Negro League baseball, which is full of nuggets worth mining.
The city also played a role in inspiring Robert Peterson to pen Only the
Ball Was White, a book that I recommend as a good first door to this
different place. I reviewed the book in Notes #134 (6/3/96) and was
delighted to meet Robert Peterson in Harrisburg, and give him a copy of that
issue. He was the keynoter in '98, but just a fan this time.
MOVING RIGHT ALONG
If I spent a page or two on each session of the conference (and I
could), this issue would be far too long. I will skim.
Jeff Eastland gave a nice, crisp talk on Lazaro Salazar,
"Baseball's Most Underrated Winner" -- he played on or managed no less than
eighteen different pennant-bound teams, in four different countries,
including his native Cuba. (Salazar is a Hall of Famer, by the way -- not
Cooperstown's, but both Mexico's and Cuba's.)
According to the first law of ecology, everything is connected to
everything else, so no matter where you start, if you keep going, you will
eventually cover a lot of ground. If you start with Salazar, you will soon be
exploring connections with Mexico and Cuba. If you look him up, it will help to
know some Spanish. And soon you will discover something that has nothing to do
with baseball. Black ballplayers "south of the border" -- in Mexico, Cuba,
Venezuela, and the Caribbean -- may have left the USA for better pay and
steadier work, but they often stayed away because they found that their color
made no difference there. They could eat in restaurants, stay in hotels, walk
the streets, without worrying that a wrong word or look could lead to a
lynching. In short, they found freedom and equality, things we hardly associate
with Castro's communist Cuba today, but which are still vividly recalled by the
blacks who traveled there.
Lazaro Salazar has a long way to go to make Cooperstown, but his
considerable accomplishments on the diamond aside, he has one unique claim to
more fame than he has now. He died with his spikes on, suffering an apparent
heart attack while sitting in the dugout, managing the Mexico City Reds in
1957. He had taken that club to a championship the previous season.
* * * * *
Doug and Jane Jacobs started not with a player, but a ballpark.
Dexter Park, "Brooklyn's Other Ballpark" (OK, it's just across the
Queens line, but why quibble?), was originally a roadhouse and a place to park
your horse, but by the 1880's they played ball there. The black Brooklyn Royal
Giants leased Dexter (it was named after a racehorse, not a wealthy owner --
that's refreshing -- rumor had the equine burial plot somewhere in right field)
in 1905. The main inhabitants of Dexter Park were, however, the Bushwicks, a
semipro white team, which was good competition for visiting black teams, for
several decades. If you find a time machine and decide to aim for Dexter Park,
set the dials for the day Joe "Cyclone" Williams fanned twenty-five Bushwicks,
but lost the game. The Jacobs say that you will notice that Dexter will
resemble Bowman Field, alive and well today in Williamsport, PA -- not that far
from Harrisburg, and yet another reason to put this excursion south of the
Shadows on your itinerary.
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! (REVISITED)
It is a sad fact of life that baseball, as mesmerizing as it is for
hard-core fans, can be boring to watch, even if the games are cheap or free.
And even loyal fans can be fickle, and will find better things to do when their
team is out of the pennant race, or just too terrible to watch. Pro baseball is
a sport, but also a business, and if nobody comes to the games, the players may
not get paid, and the teams may cease to exist. More leagues, black and white,
have gone under, than are alive today. This has been an issue for pro ball
since the first turnstile clicked.
The issue is hardly new to Notes -- probably my longest and best
treatment was in #167, written after visiting the fledgling Bridgeport
Bluefish in Connecticut, and Syracuse's new park. And I'm sure it will come up
again.
It came up in Harrisburg, thanks to Ray Mohl and his talk on
Clowning Around: The Miami Ethiopian Clowns and Cultural Conflict in
America. If you start learning about the Negro Leagues with the Ethiopian
(later Indianapolis -- Hank Aaron batted cross-handed for them before moving on
up) Clowns, you will find yourself asking how serious a game is baseball,
anyway?
Teams who belong to baseball leagues have the problem of drawing fans,
and try to solve it by adding the excitement of pennant fever and publicizing
"marquee players" (see #218.) But barnstorming teams, perhaps depending
on the gate for the money they need to keep their next engagement, have to work
a little differently, advertising their games in advance, just like the
visiting circus. Or the Harlem Globetrotters.
And there's the rub. When you go to a Globetrotters' game, you expect
to be entertained. You know who will win, and you won't care a hoot about who
scores how many points. If baseball was mainly entertainment, they might not
even keep score, let alone track stats and be sure everyone bats in order. In
the film Soul of the Game, Jackie Robinson is portrayed as resenting
this aspect of the Negro Leagues. At first, he refuses to leave the field, when
Satchel Paige enters the game to confront Josh Gibson, and waves everyone off
the field except the catcher. The fans love it -- it's what they came to see.
The players tease and taunt, the fans love it. That's entertainment.
Syd Pollock and Abe Saperstein saw the Clowns as entertainers. A team
booked to visit a city as Ethiopian Clowns (or Harlem
Globetrotters) was a better draw than, say, the Harrisburg Senators. More fans
would pay to see The House of David play, because their players all wore long
beards. If the Clowns showed up in whiteface, and real clown costumes, fine.
(Before they were the Clowns, the "Zulu Cannibal Giants" wore grass skirts to
the park and in warm-ups before their games.) No doubt, this was always
controversial, but the Clowns played long before political correctness, and
before the country developed a sensitivity about the demeaning stereotyping of
Amos and Andy, slapstick comedy. Vaudeville, remember, thrived on ethnic humor,
and while I'm no expert, I'd guess that no nationality was exempt. So ball
teams featuring real clowns -- or women like Toni Stone (there were even whole
teams of women!), or pinch-hitting dwarfs (not Eddie Gaedel, either), or
one-armed players, or catchers who played their position in rocking chairs
(hey, that would prolong careers, wouldn't it?) -- were good draws.
Entertainment.
Like those teams of traveling Orientals and bloomer girls, the clowning
black teams, whether barnstorming or anchored in the Negro Leagues, were out to
make people laugh. But they also were excellent ballplayers, who knew how to
win a game as well as a smile. Fans would come early to watch players do their
thing, whether it was Max Patkin-type baseball humor, or that razzle-dazzle of
shadow ball: tossing invisible balls around the infield, or hitting them, and
making it look so real that it was hard to believe the balls weren't
there.
Tom Turner played against the Clowns, and was on hand to provide a
glimpse into what it was like for the players. He played baseball with Goose
Tatum, and with a catcher who they called King Tut, who wore an oversized
glove. They clowned before games and between games of a doubleheader --
sometimes one game was pure clowning, the other serious, a compromise that
aimed to satisfy both the fans who came to see good baseball, and those who
came just to be entertained -- maybe the majority. Thomas Hailey was also on
hand to describe the antics he used at first base. So what if the player goes
up to bat wearing a swallow-tailed suit and top hat, and argues with the ump
because he has no bat -- until he pulls one out of his costume? It was
fun.
Fans got their money's worth, whether they paid a quarter or fifty
cents to get in. New fans today may be surprised to find major league games
"distracting" fans from the action on the field with jumbo-tron scoreboards
that lead cheers or ask trivia questions or feature short cartoons. But that's
all the humor that seems to be provided these days. Nobody sends in the clowns
anymore.
But the need to entertain is still with us, and at today's prices,
teams need to be creative to consistently draw well. In the minor leagues, the
pressure is higher, because there are no big bucks from cable or national
licensing agreements. I think fans get the biggest return on their dollars
today in the minors, and especially in the independent leagues -- where the
players could dress up as clowns, if they wanted, and no commissioner would
raise an eyebrow.
But the baseball has to be good, too. Bill Veeck could fill the park
despite lousy St Louis Browns' teams, but not forever. The passing of the Negro
Leagues may have been caused by Jackie opening the door for the best players to
leave. But perhaps, like vaudeville, they were also a victim of a changing
sense of humor.
PANELS
I've been to a couple of national SABR conventions, and have found the
panels to be high spots, much more engaging than any lecture, however
well-delivered. This was the case with the program presented by Penn State
Harrisburg & SABR, too, and there were three of them, two with former Negro
League players (one with Harrisburgers), and the other with various women with
Negro League ties.
Friday's panel featured Russ Royster, Tom Hailey and Willie Fordham,
"part of history here," in the words of moderator Mark Green, a local TV
person. Willie, signed by Brooklyn, believes many blacks "had they ability" to
play ball at the major league level, but before Jackie, they never had the
shot. Tom, an A's prospect, recalled playing on the only team in the league
that had a permanent field. Russ signed with the Indians in '51 for $2,000 and
a car, and soon found himself the only black on the Batavia team, which was OK,
"except for that ruckus in Jamestown" (he didn't elaborate.) Thirteen months in
Korea ruined Russ' arm, but he could still play for the H'burg Giants.
These men all recalled playing with and against others who did
make it to the majors, Brooks Lawrence and Charley Neal and Mudcat Grant. Tom
recalled the incident that earned him his release -- he picked his manager off
base in an intersquad game. They recalled problems with teammates, too, who
made deliberate errors when black pitchers were on the mound. Poor W-L records
meant no advance thru the minors. Off the field, acceptance took time coming --
one player recalled being taken in by a group of Cubans in Florida, so he could
eat in a restaurant, as long as he kept quiet and pretended to understand
Spanish. Cubans, OK.
The panel swapped stories about how integration unfolded on teams, as
the civil rights marched slowly ahead in the fifties. Being the only black
player, or one of a few on a roster, was more than playing baseball. There were
Jackie Robinsons in every organization. (But Jackie was unique, and despite his
role in the Negro Leagues' demise, he seemed to be universally held in the
highest esteem ("he's on a pedestal, he's my idol") by the black players
present at the conference.) And there was an echo of Buck O'Neil in each of
them, too -- no regrets, no bitterness about the past -- and a deep
appreciation of the recognition they are receiving these days. At last!
Saturday's first panel included Bill Cash, Ernest Burke, and Thomas
Turner. They noted that Jackie was not the best black player, but he was the
best educated, and that made him the best choice to get the wrecking ball
rolling. He also brought to baseball some of the excitement on which the Negro
Leagues thrived -- not just excellent play, but a style of play that
thrilled the fans. "That's what made him great."
The moderator of this panel seemed to have a few axes to grind. She
asked the players about their reaction to Marge Schott and John "Off His"
Rocker. But these guys would not bite -- no doubt, in their days they heard
things on the field and off that would make the infamous Rocker remarks seem
utterly tame.
Bill Cash would not punish people for their ignorance or their words.
"Sometimes those things just come out." He would do what he did all his life --
treat others like a person, like you want them to treat you.
Ernest agreed. "We're all human beings. Overlook it, overcome it." In
other words, get over it.
Thomas Turner is a Cincinnatian, and had nothing bad to say about Marge
Schott. "Marge was treated like I don't know what." I believe he meant by the
media, as much as by her fellow owners, who were all sinless, of course. Tom
was asked by a Cincinnati paper for his opinion of Marge Schott, and gave an
interview, but it never showed up in the story that was printed. When he called
up to find out why, he was told "we lost it." Tom was very strong on this
point: "My comments [about Marge Schott] were so favorable, that she might
still be the owner" [if they were made public back then.] "She got a raw deal."
I agree.
Many SABR members researching the Negro Leagues are sure that many more
ought to be honored at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. So many players were asked
who they thought might be worthy of future induction. There is no
consensus, but I think many feel that the next players ushered in should be
living players, who could appreciate the honor and recognition. Because
there are not many left (more on that later), and before long, there will be
none living at all. Tom Turner shared my view: "Everyone who played should be
in!" Plaques all around is my idea, larger ones for the best players, fine, but
write all the names on the walls. The Vietnam memorial is an example.
They all served.
Asked about their family life and baseball -- the two often do not mix
well, thanks to road trips -- Bill said he traveled with his wife (of nearly
sixty years now.) Ernest wasn't married ("I was a free-lancer"), but noted that
the teams became families, "we looked out for each other." Tom married his wife
while playing in Mexico, before she spoke any English. He recalled how
difficult it was leaving her and their baby for spring training, to see if he
made the team. He left the Negro Leagues to take care of his family, rather
than take a pay cut.
Asked about the fans, the players had mostly fond memories. Players
often stayed in private homes, not in hotels. Bill Cash said even the
Philadelphia fans were great -- forty thousand might come out on a Monday night
(the only night Shibe Park was available for black baseball), versus ten
thousand for an A's or Phillies' game. Bill loved catching 1-0 games -- "my
head hurt from thinking" after they were over. Ernest's grandson Jamal was
called on for his teenage view of the Negro Leagues, and summed it all up:
"Baseball wouldn't be where it is today without them."
LADIES HAVING THEIR DAY
The second panel on Saturday was part of a program sponsored by the
Pennsylvania Humanities Council, and was open to the public. Gathered at the
City Island Carousel Pavilion were Floross Fox, the daughter of Buck Leonard;
Lugenia Leonard, Buck's widow; Geraldine Day, Leon's widow; the current Mrs.
Thomas Turner; and Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, who actually played baseball with
the Indianapolis Clowns -- making her the first professional female pitcher, a
title she wears proudly.
While these gals all had connections with the Negro Leagues, those ties
varied greatly. Mrs Turner never heard of them until 1995, when she accompanied
Tom to a reunion, now a highlight of their life. (We tend to think, especially
after Ken Burns' film, that everyone knows there were Negro Leagues, but
this is not at all true. Bingo Long was not must-see theater, Soul of
the Game was restricted to HBO, and many fans do not follow the Hall of
Fame inductions that closely.)
Mrs Day married Leon seven years after his career ended, but his
stories made her feel "like I was there." When she met later Satchel and Cool
Papa, "it was like I already knew them." The only time she saw Leon play was in
Old Timers games, in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Buck Leonard must have been a
great story-teller, too. His daughter said "when dad told you stories, you felt
you were in the stadium." Buck especially liked to talk about his games in
Yankee Stadium. You can look this up -- in Buck's book.
Peanut Johnson echoed the earlier panel on how to deal with racism.
"What they said didn't mean anything." The players then dealt with things in a
different way, keeping above all their self-respect, taking care of problems
without lowering themselves. Imagine Peanut, good enough to play with men, but
politely rejected after a tryout with the AAGPBL, which perhaps should have
added a "W" (for Whites Only.) Before Jackie, of course, so no "W" necessary.
Peanut has, however, no regrets. "I'm glad, it made me who I am today" ... Toni
Stone had paved the way for Peanut to play pro ball in the Negro Leagues, and
this bit of history reminds us that there are still lines and barriers that
exclude. Peanut later stated that women "still aren't recognized the way we
should be -- as ballplayers."
Moderator Leroy Hopkins noted that there were some black women's teams
in the nineteenth century.
Geraldine Day, whose speech in Cooperstown when Leon was inducted was,
as I recall, remarkable, recalled that event. She had very mixed feelings:
happy for Leon, but sad because he "should have been there." Another vote to
induct the living, while they can enjoy the recognition themselves.
Responding to questions, the panel mentioned grandsons (or
great-grandsons!) in Little League, and Floross Fox has a girl friend
whose son visited Buck Leonard a lot -- "He plays ball, loves it, and we call
him Little Buck!"
Oddly enough, one of the Negro League issues most touchy and
controversial came up during this panel, and not in any of the SABR sessions.
And that would be the question of pensions.
Major League Baseball recently announced that they want to spend a
quarter of a million dollars on researching the Negro Leagues. Peanut reacted
to that: "That's all nice, well and good," but they need to give some more
money to the widows. The Commish has made some promises, she said, but that is
not enough. "I got a check in July for $3.26!" The moderator suggested that we
all write Bud Selig, but Peanut was on fire.
She thought MLB pledged or gave the Board of Veterans of the Negro
League ten million dollars, which disappeared. Bill Cash, a member of the
Board, denied this. He explained that Bud Selig did agree to offer pensions to
players from the 1945-48 seasons, and it was "take it or leave it." Never mind
that one Negro League broke up in 1950, but another played on. So the pensions
are limited to something like 150 out of 400 living players (by another
estimate, only 73 are still living, by another 88, and I suspect the variance
depends on which leagues are included.
Thomas Turner recalled that before the Negro Leagues Reunion in 1995,
it seems no one was getting a pension. There was a Jackie Robinson, all right,
but no black equivalent of Marvin Miller. At the reunion, there was an
agreement to divide up the profits from the sale of Negro League memorabilia
(there was a lot of that going on in Harrisburg, too) among the 244 veterans
that could be located. Just 88 of those are still living, but the amount they
receive has not changed.
Peanut Johnson was feisty and insistent. "We were all there, why don't
we all qualify?" Turner was more philosophical, "We are all richer today, even
without the money, and money can't buy the feeling I have today," he said,
congratulating all of the researchers present. The moderator ended the debate
with the advice, "Don't let economic issues divide us."
I understand that Major League Baseball has no legal obligation to the
remaining Negro League vets and their families. At least not until a good
class-action lawsuit is filed and won. But I cannot help but believe that MLB
has a definite moral obligation to do more. So does the Players' Association,
which has been reluctant to share their pot of gold even with the minor
leaguers, most of whom will never strike it very rich.
It would be different if MLB was impoverished, but it is not. It is a
billion-dollar industry which surely can afford to share some small fraction of
its wealth with those who need it. Letting Jackie play ball, MLB set an
example. Do it again, Bud.
AROUND THE HORN
I hesitate to use this phrase, since last issue I had Cape Horn in
Africa, instead of the tip of South America (thanx to Chuck Carey for noting my
compass had me 'way off course) ... but how to better sum up the rest of the
conference presentations?
Ralph Christian introduced us to James L. Wilkinson, the only
white owner in the Negro Leagues (no one talked much about Eddie Klepp, a white
player) ... before starting up the KC Monarchs in 1915, "Wilkie" clowned around
some with teams with players from nine different countries ("Can Your Local
Nine Beat the United Nations?" is how we'd bill that today) and with "girls who
can really play the national game." but I think his best idea was portable
shade -- a 1200' long canopy for sweltering fans.
Fred "Fredrico" Brillhart, who not only marches to the beat of a
different drummer, but is a percussionist himself, took us Barnstorming in a
Parallel Universe. This included much speculation about who might hold
records if blacks and whites played separately after 1947 (black and Hispanic
players have been dominant in many offensive categories.) He also asked a
question new to me -- should the Negro Leagues be given major league status?
Weren't they higher caliber than the Federal League? Hard to say, given the
sketchy records we have so far. Fredrico insists that to be brought into
balance, Cooperstown needs to admit about fifty-four more pre-1947 black stars.
And he has a list. My notes here are fuzzy, but the top candidates seem to be
Biz Mackey (I thought he was already in), Mule Suttles, Newt Allen, Minnie
Minoso, Lazaro Salazar, and Orlando Cepeda's father. A final thought to ponder:
"Rickey [Henderson] would still be trying to break Cool Papa's [SB] record," if
Bell had been allowed to play in the majors.
Then there was a short presentation on the latest HOF inductee,
Norman "Turkey" Stearnes ... Irv Goldfarb of ABC read a great memoir of
his meeting with Buck Leonard ... Amy Essington shared the info she
found rooting thru Hall of Fame Questionnaires in that Cooperstown
library ... Rick Morris talked about the salaries Negro Leaguers were paid
(there was a time when players were paid according to their position, eg, a
catcher might earn $18 per game, an infielder $15.)
Besides the panel on the Women and the Negro League, at the City Island
Pavilion, there was a primer on how to do research by Dick Clark ... a dramatic
reading of a short play, "A Victim of the Line," by Sammy Miller ... a rousing
performance by the Southside Steppers, Crispus Attuck's Drill and Dance Team
... and a Youth Trivia Contest on Negro League baseball (questions 'way too
tough for Jeopardy!)
If it sounds like the schedule was jam-packed full both days, it was.
But what else would you expect at a Negro League event, except lots of hustle,
entertainment, and fun.
THEN THERE WAS THE APBA THING
Growing up in Pittsburgh, I had wanted to visit Gettysburg since I
first heard about the Civil War. And I have wanted to visit Lancaster, PA, also
near Harrisburg, since I first got hooked on APBA baseball, in 1958. I couldn't
work in that pilgrimage to the birthplace of APBA (in 1951) this time around,
but nevertheless I enjoyed the conference's APBA Tournament.
Ted Knorr had sixteen Negro League teams ready to square off -- in
APBA, "You are the Manager." However, only ten of us paid the entry fee for a
chance to win subscriptions to several baseball publications, but I wasn't
there for the money.
I was not familiar with the teams, but Ted showed me how each was
assessed by SABR and other expert sources within APBA, and I wound up managing
the 1925 Hilldale Daisies. They were a fine team, all right, but had just one
ace pitcher (Nip Winters), which could be a problem in a series.
I landed in a bracket with Ted Knorr, who managed the Chicago Giants.
Down 3-0, the Daisies came back to tie the game in the fifth, then added three
in both the eighth and ninth for a 9-4 victory in the opener. Game Two went
fifteen innings, before a two-out double by Judy Johnson gave the Daisies a 5-4
win and the series. Phil Cockrell, rated just C, tossed a gem.
So I was in the Final Four. Next opponent, the St Louis Stars, managed
by Dick Clark. I had hot dice early, and Nip Winters cruised to an easy 7-0 win
in the opener. Then the dice went cold, and the Stars came out on top in Game
Two, 6-3. It was best-of-three, sudden-death in Game Three.
I was hanging in there, down just 2-0, until the sixth, when my thin
pitching evaporated. The Stars poured across six runs and had an 8-0 lead. What
could I do, but switch dice. And it worked, a run in the seventh, five more in
the eighth, and suddenly I was alive, it was an 8-6 game with the bases loaded
and one out. But Nip Winters, my ace arm who also played centerfield and batted
fifth, grounded into a rally-ending DP.
And that was that. My bench was depleted and I went quietly in the
ninth. I had used all sixteen players -- the whole team. I congratulated Dick,
and wished we could have played best-of-seven.
The championship was decided in a one-game playoff, with Dick's Stars
being humbled by the Crawfords of Satchel & Josh, 10-0. Fredrico was the
manager with the hot dice at the end. This game was made more fun, because it
was literally broadcast to fans in the City Island Pavilion, by Mark Mattern,
the voice of the Harrisburg Senators. A couple of APBA company reps were on
hand for the final game, and I found out how I might obtain the Negro League
player cards ... yes, I see a new crop of rookies ready to join that League of
My Own, already in progress.
LAST UPS
I did not catch the paid attendance at this conference, if it ever was
announced, but that's not such an important stat for me. I do wish more had
come, because it was so worthwhile.
And there was much more to it, than what I've summed up here. Often it
is the exchanges between sessions, over meals, or at the ballpark, that turn
out to be most memorable.
For example, I had a couple of nice breakfasts at greasy spoon diners a
block or two from the Hilton. I also enjoyed a great banquet (without any
long-winded speeches!) on Friday night. There I had the pleasure of meeting
Willie Fordham and his wife Jessie. We ate at the same table but not close
enough to talk much. However, after the meal, I cornered Willie and asked him
if he wanted to trade -- his book for mine.
My book, Romancing the Horsehide, has nothing to do with the
Negro Leagues, but it does include poems on Satchel, Josh and Cool Papa -- one
of my favorites. Willie accepted, and we traded book and autographs, and I
promised to send him my review. I also asked him a couple of questions.
Toughest pitcher he ever faced? Satchel. I asked if batters went up
against Paige looking for those special pitches he threw, or came back to the
dugout warning others about the "Long Tom." Willie shook his head. When you
went up against Satch, you just hung in there and prayed. Willie did recall the
"hesitation" pitch as particularly nasty (it is demonstrated very nicely in
Soul of the Game, that HBO flick.) I am looking forward to reading
Willie's book, I Gave It My Best Shot, and when I review it here, I'll
tell you how to order it.
Finally, there was RiverSide Stadium, nestled on City Island, within
walking distance of downtown Harrisburg. As I strolled across the pedestrian
bridge (there's a separate one for cars) spanning the Susquahanna, I wondered
how it would feel walking next summer to PNC Park, across one of Pittsburgh's
bridges.
RiverSide Stadium in not old, 1987, but feels broken in, like a
comfortable baseball glove. Any park where you can buy a hot dog for a buck
can't be all bad. (They had Primal Scream Sausage, too, but I judged that to be
a bit risky for someone with a long drive ahead.) The hometown Senators wore
Harrisburg Giants uniforms, which were gray with floppy sleeves. Oscar
Charleston was honored in a pre-game ceremony, along with the other Negro
Leaguers who had starred at the conference.
I had to leave the game early, but saw Pete Rose, Jr, bat, and he was
cheered some. Driving home, I listened on the car radio as Pete, Jr, was
walked, and wondered if he sprinted to first, the announcer didn't say one way
or the other. I guess it doesn't much matter. I was on my way back home.