March 20, 2023 • 21 mins
Each player in the Negro Leagues developed into a professional player through different paths. For a lucky few, organized baseball helped them rise, however for most the love of the game, the ability to play many positions, and sometimes luck were the development path for most Negro League players. Common to all players was learning from the older veterans as a key to success.
Narrated by Bill Overton
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi. I'm Bill Overton, and we continue our series with
our second episode, which centers around how players from the
Negro leagues developed into professional baseball. Some players were able
to take advantage of organized baseball in high school or
organized league play in the cities they grew up in.
Most of those use their athletic skill and love of
(00:30):
the game to reach professional levels in their teenage years.
Imagined playing professional baseball when you were fifteen or sixteen
years a combination of mostly self taught skills, love of
the game, and advice and knowledge from older players with
the building blocks of the professional Negro league players. Here's
(00:55):
Ron Barr from Sports Byline in USA talking with pitcher
Lenal Westbrook about his early years playing baseball. Willie Mays
is a friend of mine, and I remember talking to
Willie about the Negro Legs and he was saying he
was sixteen years old and he was playing professional baseball
with the Birmingham Black Barons at that particular time, and
I'm just wondering, that's amazing to think that all these
(01:18):
players when they were sixteen, seventeen, even younger fifteen years old,
were playing professional baseball. You know, I was playing with
lots of full grown men at the age of probably
fourteen and fifteen years old, and we were it was
a mixture of thirteen and fourteen year old kids like myself,
(01:39):
my brother and others that was playing. Like I said,
playing with these grown ups someone probably in their thirties
and maybe forties, and they were very good ball players.
But we was able to compete. And I remember when
I came here at seven team there was in the
(02:02):
Chicago area. It was almost like a Class A WA baseball,
you know. And immediately after I got here, it was
a team by the name of Chicago Cardinals, mister Thomas.
And as soon as I got here and here had
me to go out and pitch, and I wondered, I said, well,
(02:24):
I'm not sure how I'm going to stare out here,
because these guys probably have much more experience than I have.
But I was able to go out there and compete,
and it turned out that I ended up being his
number one pitcher. Former catcher and pitcher Ernest Fan remembers
that they would do anything to find a way to
(02:46):
play baseball. When he was young. We didn't have any
day A short page. Badfood, won't sticking the cannonball or
whatever kind of stick we can shape like a band,
and we would be out there all day. On a Saturday,
we couldn't go out there on signing mother leaders go
(03:07):
to church. But that's how I learned how to play baseball.
Picture Dawn Woods recalls that the talent level was extremely
high even when he was young. Well, I tell you
what happened, especially with the players of my age. We
(03:27):
were the players that played day and night. We went
out on the summertime, played early in the morning all
the way into the evening. And the community in which
I lived, I felt that quite a few of them
were very athletic and possibly possibly could have been been
a focal point in the Major League and trying to
(03:48):
make their niche into the baseball game. Dawn was one
of the few who was able to rise and organize
the youth leagues. It was pretty popular where I was.
They had a a Woodbine Boys Club who had a league,
and when they were maybe eight or nine teams who
competed at the high school level. There was a teams
(04:11):
from different sections of the city who competed for a
citywide championship and went on to represent Chicago and various
other entities to our Chicago land area. Many others had
to learn the game to unorthodox means, especially in the South.
Here again is Leo Westbrook was able to do things
(04:36):
with the white kids and adults. And I'll tell you
this story real quick. We lived in the country, you know,
a good while early on, and the first football, baseball,
and basketball I have a touch was a young white
(04:58):
boy that lived over from us, his parents on the plantation,
and his mother and father they allowed us to come
over and play a Jim quarter and his sister was Kate.
They allowed us to come over and play with with
him anytime we wanted to, and we was able to.
We had was that limited to do whatever we wanted
(05:23):
to do as long as we've been what young kid's
supposed to do. And I never forget this is the
thing I remember the most. We had played outside for
quite a lot and was hot, and we Jim said,
well it's time for us to a break. Let's go
in and get some something cold to drink. He said,
We said, okay, So we headed to the back door.
(05:46):
Said where you all going? He said, we're going to
the back to Uh he said, I know for what
we told him, said, we're a jim. We don't know that.
You know, it's proper for us to come. He said, look,
he Leo and Joe is lowing you here, playing with us.
This is totally appropriate, and I don't ever want to
(06:09):
see guys heading to the backdoor, not here. So uh,
and I tried to look him up and let him
know how things, what he'd done, what Potted played with
my brother and I, what we'd done after we left
the South. So because he became he didn't play professional baseball,
(06:31):
but he became a lieutenant of police force and a
chief of police in a small town in the suburbs
of Dalton. So I just wanted him to know that
what he'd done for us didn't go to waste. You know,
in the country we played, there were um what they
(06:52):
called sandlot baseball teams around the country, and that was
the height of a baseball playing in the South. So
from what I understand that some businessman's got together and
(07:12):
put together some teams that turned out to be the
Messas Red Sox of Birmingham, Black Barrens and can't sit
in minas and on and on and from that, baseball
begin to grow and we didn't have no coaches or
managers that had any experience in baseball. But we was
(07:35):
able to get our knowledge from some of the older guys.
But I guess they just kind of learned it on
their own and and that's how we really got started.
And that was the pretty much a big thing, you
know down there, that satellite baseball playing out in those
(07:58):
pastures in different whoever they did enough land. As Leo mentioned,
many of the players relied on the older, more experienced
players to teach them the finer points of the game
and of my life. He's Dennis Biddle, forming picture and
head of yesterday's Nego Leagues Baseball Players organization. Remembering the
(08:19):
influence of the older players, I looked back and I said,
we were like the kids they were daughter. We were
like see the bus, were like at home and they
were and we did something wrong, we got yell at
and uh and and and so many the time the
(08:40):
older guy would would put us in position where we
had to make decisions that would help us later on
in life. And I'm appreciated, appreciate you for to this day. Yes,
I did a lot of thing that because I was
(09:04):
I had too. But I consider learning life, learning about life.
When I look back over my life in those years,
I'm thankful to those old men who took us young
men under their wings and prepared us for life. Professor
(09:26):
Leslie Heffy, baseball historian, discusses the impact of the older
players providing leadership and advice to the young players. It's
a fascinating thing to think about, because I think on
the one side, for the young the young guys coming
up right getting that chance to meet not just meet
(09:47):
players that they had heard about, right the Satchels, the
Josh Gibson's of the world, but now they're getting to
play alongside and to learn from. And so there's that
sense of all sense of you're joining something that is
clearly important, that clearly is something to be proud of
(10:11):
that you're and so therefore there's an expectation of behavior, etc. Etc.
That you hope to learn from these players because you
recognize that your participation in the negro leagues is something
that your families are proud of, your communities are proud of.
They're going to look to you, and so how do
you learn those kinds of things? And so looking to
(10:33):
these older players to provide some of that and on
the reverse side, you know, you've got Jackie Robinson, right, who, Yeah,
when he enters the major leagues is twenty seven years old, right,
But he's also encountering Satchel Page and others who are
certainly older than he is. And that year when he's
(10:54):
with the Kansas City Monarchs, the whole idea that he's
there to learn and that they're going to provide guidance
for I'm not just on the field, but in life.
And so there's a lot of that that goes on
as well, because you know, William Mays when he's seventeen, sixteen,
seventeen years old, is experiencing a world he's never experienced.
So who does he learn from? Who does he turn
(11:15):
to to watch to ask questions to learn to grow up? Right,
it's going to be these other players who've had these
long standing and have had these experiences for many, many years.
Pitches Eugene Scrugs and Dennis Biddle. Remember the opportunity to
play with some of the biggest stars in baseball, Well,
it was you know, I was used to play him
(11:36):
maybe once a week, but when I got to the
point where I was playing every day, it was a
whole lot different. Baseball had come into a grown van game. Man.
You know I would gets a boy. You know it
was you had hard you had some heavy hitters on
them teams at that time. You know, kid like Herman
(11:57):
green One. So they you know, I'm seventeen years old.
I'm traveling with these old superstars. I'm listening to them
talk about what has happened out Tom. I consider I
(12:20):
was learning about life. My mom and dad raised me.
I left home to go to play in the Negro
baseball There here I am in this mean world. I'm
learning about life from these old living legends. Although the
younger players lack experience, their athletic ability and their prowess
(12:43):
to play multiple positions made them ideal players in the
Negro leagues. His picture Hank Mason. I think the talent
that that we had, we could do almost anything on
a baseball field. You know, there were some guys that
could catch, could play first base, could play second base,
(13:05):
but I think I could pitch and play third base
and out feel and everything like that. Because if you
were going to stay in a game, you had to hit,
you had the bunt, you had to do everything right.
And every pitcher in the Nick League wanted to stay
in the game just as long as they could, and
(13:26):
I wanted to stay in the game. I could lay
down a bunner. I could hit the right field behind
the runner. I could hit. Not as good as some
of the other hitters that was at the plate every day,
but I could hit the ball. We had to play
everything if we wanted to stay on the team. Again,
(13:50):
we hear from picture Dennis bit back when I played
how real I could run, real fast, I could really hit.
I bet switch on the left on the right side.
I would more valuable to the team than some guys
that was just an average player because ACTOR played many positions,
(14:12):
and nobody that could play that way in the Negro
League was more valuable to the team because of that.
For many, the opportunity to enter the league came down
to injury and the need of a team to immediately
filled the position. His second basement Nate dancing Okay. The
first time that I got introduced to the Negro League
(14:34):
was in Missus, Tennessee, the Little rest Hoxe and then
the manager was the Goose Curry. Mister Goose Curry and
my brother played first base for the rest sox and
I went over to see him play, and the and
the shortstop got hurt, so they didn't have nobody else
to play, and my brothers and my father. My brother
told or the manager said my little brothers that he
(14:54):
can play in field. And he said wait, he said,
sending the stand. But he came over and asked me.
He was answered, what was it you play? I played
singing basis shortstar. I didn't wear an infield and outfield.
I just I played baseball, So yes, you keep playing
a short stup. I can show I could play okay,
and and uh after when that first half I got
(15:15):
a chance to play, he said, you got a glove like, yes,
I got my glove ray I had a twist up
and back in my back pocket. So he come right,
and they gave me some uniform. Gave me a uniform.
I dressed the dug and when the right on the
field started playing, and the first time I got up,
I hit a single up to the the middle and turned
it to turn singing into the double. And they told
me said, oh, you run too, and they was the
(15:39):
exciting play I remember because the guy hit a baseball
hit LL hit a shot in the hole and I'm
back handed and turned the guy out at first meet
and didn't have all the people that stand the still
up and employed me. And ever since then I was
I really was too young to be playing, but mister
Curry got it. My friends to signed to consent for
me to play. And that's how I side again't we
(16:02):
here from picture Dennis Bent. A lot of time the
Nigro legg player would get injured. The manager will try
that players no use for the team, the team that
we were playing against. And we played a lot of
local teams. This is how the Nigro League was made up.
(16:23):
A local team but they call it bomston it. But
that was a wad a life for the Nigro Baseball
League and some of those teams. And I can truth
to set us because I was there. Some of those
teams we played local was just as good as we were,
but they couldn't leave him home and travel like we did.
(16:44):
But if a player got hurt on our team, the
manager will try the players from the other team. The
best player they assume he was the best player, the
player they liked. They would try to get him to
come over and travel and play with the Negro League team.
(17:07):
This is how a lot of players had the opportunity
to play in a Negro baseball league. This is how
I was done. A lot of time, a player would
get hurt, he's no good to the team anymore that year,
so they would contract another player from the other team
(17:28):
that we were playing again to play in a Negro
baseball Others like picture Hank Mason got their chance, but
lacked perspective on how talented they were until they played.
And I didn't think that I was a caliber of
baseball player that could play with the Kansas City Bernards.
(17:49):
And after I got there, you know, when I went there,
I was a third baseman and a pretty good one.
It's that. And he told me, he said, he hit
me some balls down to third base. And he said,
now listen, Hank, I I've got a good third basement.
(18:10):
Is it anything else you can do? And I said, yeah,
I can pitch some. He said, okay, then I want
you to go down in the bullpen and get loosen
up real good, and I'll be down there a little bit.
I said, okay. So I went down and I got
my arm loosen up real good, and he came down
and I threw him a couple of fastballs about ninety
(18:32):
five miles an hour, and he said, you got anything else?
I said, yeah, I got a curveball, slider change up.
And I threw him a slider and a curveball, and
he said, hey, do you think you can be up
here tomorrow at ten o'clock because we're going south. I
said I think so. He said, well, I want to
take you with me. Oh, that's the first time I
(18:55):
met Buck O'Neill. One of the things that surprises me
hack about what you just said. Had you been a
picture before, because you said that you were a third baseman,
but yet you had an array of pitches. Where did
you develop those pitches? If indeed you were not a picture?
You know, I really don't know. I guess uh, it
was just a gift from God. H I played third
(19:17):
base for the Marshal BLUESX most of my life, and
then when they didn't have a picture, they would say, hey,
can you pitch the day? I said, yeah, so I
pitched the day, you know, and another guy named George Walker. Uh,
he would teach me, you know, some things about pitching.
(19:38):
But I think it was just a gift from God.
Picture Dead has been ENSI episode with an antidote memorializing
an older mentor they called cool Papa Bell. I remember
one game and I saw this three mister James Bell.
(19:59):
They called it Papa beds Now. He was fifty years
old and he was training us hut around the basin
at old Chamisica Park in Chicago. I'll never forgive him.
He was in an exhibition game we had it somewhere
and he stole sucking and then he stole first a kid,
(20:20):
just to prove how fast he was. But this was
just clouding in the game. But the man was known
as the fansiest human to play baseball. And he told me,
he said, you heard that line sight to page said
about me. He called me kid to all of them
called me kids. I said, no, he said, sight, I
(20:40):
told a lie about Come on, he could. I was
so fast that you could turn the light out in
the room and I could be in the bed before
they ever got down. He said. But I was faster
than that. He said, I'm the only baseball players that
can hit the line drive over sucking and then get
called up when the ball hit me in the bank,
(21:01):
when a round a second behind the barrier. Voices from
The Negro Leaves is narrated by Bill Overton, produced by
Taylor Haber. Executive producers are Jason Whitehelt, Darren Peck, and
Ron Barr. Please check out our next episode as well
as the episodes in this series. This series is distributed
(21:23):
by Sports Byline USA and the eight Side Network
Hi. I'm Bill Overton, and we continue our series with
our second episode, which centers around how players from the
Negro leagues developed into professional baseball. Some players were able
to take advantage of organized baseball in high school or
organized league play in the cities they grew up in.
Most of those use their athletic skill and love of
(00:30):
the game to reach professional levels in their teenage years.
Imagined playing professional baseball when you were fifteen or sixteen
years a combination of mostly self taught skills, love of
the game, and advice and knowledge from older players with
the building blocks of the professional Negro league players. Here's
(00:55):
Ron Barr from Sports Byline in USA talking with pitcher
Lenal Westbrook about his early years playing baseball. Willie Mays
is a friend of mine, and I remember talking to
Willie about the Negro Legs and he was saying he
was sixteen years old and he was playing professional baseball
with the Birmingham Black Barons at that particular time, and
I'm just wondering, that's amazing to think that all these
(01:18):
players when they were sixteen, seventeen, even younger fifteen years old,
were playing professional baseball. You know, I was playing with
lots of full grown men at the age of probably
fourteen and fifteen years old, and we were it was
a mixture of thirteen and fourteen year old kids like myself,
(01:39):
my brother and others that was playing. Like I said,
playing with these grown ups someone probably in their thirties
and maybe forties, and they were very good ball players.
But we was able to compete. And I remember when
I came here at seven team there was in the
(02:02):
Chicago area. It was almost like a Class A WA baseball,
you know. And immediately after I got here, it was
a team by the name of Chicago Cardinals, mister Thomas.
And as soon as I got here and here had
me to go out and pitch, and I wondered, I said, well,
(02:24):
I'm not sure how I'm going to stare out here,
because these guys probably have much more experience than I have.
But I was able to go out there and compete,
and it turned out that I ended up being his
number one pitcher. Former catcher and pitcher Ernest Fan remembers
that they would do anything to find a way to
(02:46):
play baseball. When he was young. We didn't have any
day A short page. Badfood, won't sticking the cannonball or
whatever kind of stick we can shape like a band,
and we would be out there all day. On a Saturday,
we couldn't go out there on signing mother leaders go
(03:07):
to church. But that's how I learned how to play baseball.
Picture Dawn Woods recalls that the talent level was extremely
high even when he was young. Well, I tell you
what happened, especially with the players of my age. We
(03:27):
were the players that played day and night. We went
out on the summertime, played early in the morning all
the way into the evening. And the community in which
I lived, I felt that quite a few of them
were very athletic and possibly possibly could have been been
a focal point in the Major League and trying to
(03:48):
make their niche into the baseball game. Dawn was one
of the few who was able to rise and organize
the youth leagues. It was pretty popular where I was.
They had a a Woodbine Boys Club who had a league,
and when they were maybe eight or nine teams who
competed at the high school level. There was a teams
(04:11):
from different sections of the city who competed for a
citywide championship and went on to represent Chicago and various
other entities to our Chicago land area. Many others had
to learn the game to unorthodox means, especially in the South.
Here again is Leo Westbrook was able to do things
(04:36):
with the white kids and adults. And I'll tell you
this story real quick. We lived in the country, you know,
a good while early on, and the first football, baseball,
and basketball I have a touch was a young white
(04:58):
boy that lived over from us, his parents on the plantation,
and his mother and father they allowed us to come
over and play a Jim quarter and his sister was Kate.
They allowed us to come over and play with with
him anytime we wanted to, and we was able to.
We had was that limited to do whatever we wanted
(05:23):
to do as long as we've been what young kid's
supposed to do. And I never forget this is the
thing I remember the most. We had played outside for
quite a lot and was hot, and we Jim said,
well it's time for us to a break. Let's go
in and get some something cold to drink. He said,
We said, okay, So we headed to the back door.
(05:46):
Said where you all going? He said, we're going to
the back to Uh he said, I know for what
we told him, said, we're a jim. We don't know that.
You know, it's proper for us to come. He said, look,
he Leo and Joe is lowing you here, playing with us.
This is totally appropriate, and I don't ever want to
(06:09):
see guys heading to the backdoor, not here. So uh,
and I tried to look him up and let him
know how things, what he'd done, what Potted played with
my brother and I, what we'd done after we left
the South. So because he became he didn't play professional baseball,
(06:31):
but he became a lieutenant of police force and a
chief of police in a small town in the suburbs
of Dalton. So I just wanted him to know that
what he'd done for us didn't go to waste. You know,
in the country we played, there were um what they
(06:52):
called sandlot baseball teams around the country, and that was
the height of a baseball playing in the South. So
from what I understand that some businessman's got together and
(07:12):
put together some teams that turned out to be the
Messas Red Sox of Birmingham, Black Barrens and can't sit
in minas and on and on and from that, baseball
begin to grow and we didn't have no coaches or
managers that had any experience in baseball. But we was
(07:35):
able to get our knowledge from some of the older guys.
But I guess they just kind of learned it on
their own and and that's how we really got started.
And that was the pretty much a big thing, you
know down there, that satellite baseball playing out in those
(07:58):
pastures in different whoever they did enough land. As Leo mentioned,
many of the players relied on the older, more experienced
players to teach them the finer points of the game
and of my life. He's Dennis Biddle, forming picture and
head of yesterday's Nego Leagues Baseball Players organization. Remembering the
(08:19):
influence of the older players, I looked back and I said,
we were like the kids they were daughter. We were
like see the bus, were like at home and they
were and we did something wrong, we got yell at
and uh and and and so many the time the
(08:40):
older guy would would put us in position where we
had to make decisions that would help us later on
in life. And I'm appreciated, appreciate you for to this day. Yes,
I did a lot of thing that because I was
(09:04):
I had too. But I consider learning life, learning about life.
When I look back over my life in those years,
I'm thankful to those old men who took us young
men under their wings and prepared us for life. Professor
(09:26):
Leslie Heffy, baseball historian, discusses the impact of the older
players providing leadership and advice to the young players. It's
a fascinating thing to think about, because I think on
the one side, for the young the young guys coming
up right getting that chance to meet not just meet
(09:47):
players that they had heard about, right the Satchels, the
Josh Gibson's of the world, but now they're getting to
play alongside and to learn from. And so there's that
sense of all sense of you're joining something that is
clearly important, that clearly is something to be proud of
(10:11):
that you're and so therefore there's an expectation of behavior, etc. Etc.
That you hope to learn from these players because you
recognize that your participation in the negro leagues is something
that your families are proud of, your communities are proud of.
They're going to look to you, and so how do
you learn those kinds of things? And so looking to
(10:33):
these older players to provide some of that and on
the reverse side, you know, you've got Jackie Robinson, right, who, Yeah,
when he enters the major leagues is twenty seven years old, right,
But he's also encountering Satchel Page and others who are
certainly older than he is. And that year when he's
(10:54):
with the Kansas City Monarchs, the whole idea that he's
there to learn and that they're going to provide guidance
for I'm not just on the field, but in life.
And so there's a lot of that that goes on
as well, because you know, William Mays when he's seventeen, sixteen,
seventeen years old, is experiencing a world he's never experienced.
So who does he learn from? Who does he turn
(11:15):
to to watch to ask questions to learn to grow up? Right,
it's going to be these other players who've had these
long standing and have had these experiences for many, many years.
Pitches Eugene Scrugs and Dennis Biddle. Remember the opportunity to
play with some of the biggest stars in baseball, Well,
it was you know, I was used to play him
(11:36):
maybe once a week, but when I got to the
point where I was playing every day, it was a
whole lot different. Baseball had come into a grown van game. Man.
You know I would gets a boy. You know it
was you had hard you had some heavy hitters on
them teams at that time. You know, kid like Herman
(11:57):
green One. So they you know, I'm seventeen years old.
I'm traveling with these old superstars. I'm listening to them
talk about what has happened out Tom. I consider I
(12:20):
was learning about life. My mom and dad raised me.
I left home to go to play in the Negro
baseball There here I am in this mean world. I'm
learning about life from these old living legends. Although the
younger players lack experience, their athletic ability and their prowess
(12:43):
to play multiple positions made them ideal players in the
Negro leagues. His picture Hank Mason. I think the talent
that that we had, we could do almost anything on
a baseball field. You know, there were some guys that
could catch, could play first base, could play second base,
(13:05):
but I think I could pitch and play third base
and out feel and everything like that. Because if you
were going to stay in a game, you had to hit,
you had the bunt, you had to do everything right.
And every pitcher in the Nick League wanted to stay
in the game just as long as they could, and
(13:26):
I wanted to stay in the game. I could lay
down a bunner. I could hit the right field behind
the runner. I could hit. Not as good as some
of the other hitters that was at the plate every day,
but I could hit the ball. We had to play
everything if we wanted to stay on the team. Again,
(13:50):
we hear from picture Dennis bit back when I played
how real I could run, real fast, I could really hit.
I bet switch on the left on the right side.
I would more valuable to the team than some guys
that was just an average player because ACTOR played many positions,
(14:12):
and nobody that could play that way in the Negro
League was more valuable to the team because of that.
For many, the opportunity to enter the league came down
to injury and the need of a team to immediately
filled the position. His second basement Nate dancing Okay. The
first time that I got introduced to the Negro League
(14:34):
was in Missus, Tennessee, the Little rest Hoxe and then
the manager was the Goose Curry. Mister Goose Curry and
my brother played first base for the rest sox and
I went over to see him play, and the and
the shortstop got hurt, so they didn't have nobody else
to play, and my brothers and my father. My brother
told or the manager said my little brothers that he
(14:54):
can play in field. And he said wait, he said,
sending the stand. But he came over and asked me.
He was answered, what was it you play? I played
singing basis shortstar. I didn't wear an infield and outfield.
I just I played baseball, So yes, you keep playing
a short stup. I can show I could play okay,
and and uh after when that first half I got
(15:15):
a chance to play, he said, you got a glove like, yes,
I got my glove ray I had a twist up
and back in my back pocket. So he come right,
and they gave me some uniform. Gave me a uniform.
I dressed the dug and when the right on the
field started playing, and the first time I got up,
I hit a single up to the the middle and turned
it to turn singing into the double. And they told
me said, oh, you run too, and they was the
(15:39):
exciting play I remember because the guy hit a baseball
hit LL hit a shot in the hole and I'm
back handed and turned the guy out at first meet
and didn't have all the people that stand the still
up and employed me. And ever since then I was
I really was too young to be playing, but mister
Curry got it. My friends to signed to consent for
me to play. And that's how I side again't we
(16:02):
here from picture Dennis Bent. A lot of time the
Nigro legg player would get injured. The manager will try
that players no use for the team, the team that
we were playing against. And we played a lot of
local teams. This is how the Nigro League was made up.
(16:23):
A local team but they call it bomston it. But
that was a wad a life for the Nigro Baseball
League and some of those teams. And I can truth
to set us because I was there. Some of those
teams we played local was just as good as we were,
but they couldn't leave him home and travel like we did.
(16:44):
But if a player got hurt on our team, the
manager will try the players from the other team. The
best player they assume he was the best player, the
player they liked. They would try to get him to
come over and travel and play with the Negro League team.
(17:07):
This is how a lot of players had the opportunity
to play in a Negro baseball league. This is how
I was done. A lot of time, a player would
get hurt, he's no good to the team anymore that year,
so they would contract another player from the other team
(17:28):
that we were playing again to play in a Negro
baseball Others like picture Hank Mason got their chance, but
lacked perspective on how talented they were until they played.
And I didn't think that I was a caliber of
baseball player that could play with the Kansas City Bernards.
(17:49):
And after I got there, you know, when I went there,
I was a third baseman and a pretty good one.
It's that. And he told me, he said, he hit
me some balls down to third base. And he said,
now listen, Hank, I I've got a good third basement.
(18:10):
Is it anything else you can do? And I said, yeah,
I can pitch some. He said, okay, then I want
you to go down in the bullpen and get loosen
up real good, and I'll be down there a little bit.
I said, okay. So I went down and I got
my arm loosen up real good, and he came down
and I threw him a couple of fastballs about ninety
(18:32):
five miles an hour, and he said, you got anything else?
I said, yeah, I got a curveball, slider change up.
And I threw him a slider and a curveball, and
he said, hey, do you think you can be up
here tomorrow at ten o'clock because we're going south. I
said I think so. He said, well, I want to
take you with me. Oh, that's the first time I
(18:55):
met Buck O'Neill. One of the things that surprises me
hack about what you just said. Had you been a
picture before, because you said that you were a third baseman,
but yet you had an array of pitches. Where did
you develop those pitches? If indeed you were not a picture?
You know, I really don't know. I guess uh, it
was just a gift from God. H I played third
(19:17):
base for the Marshal BLUESX most of my life, and
then when they didn't have a picture, they would say, hey,
can you pitch the day? I said, yeah, so I
pitched the day, you know, and another guy named George Walker. Uh,
he would teach me, you know, some things about pitching.
(19:38):
But I think it was just a gift from God.
Picture Dead has been ENSI episode with an antidote memorializing
an older mentor they called cool Papa Bell. I remember
one game and I saw this three mister James Bell.
(19:59):
They called it Papa beds Now. He was fifty years
old and he was training us hut around the basin
at old Chamisica Park in Chicago. I'll never forgive him.
He was in an exhibition game we had it somewhere
and he stole sucking and then he stole first a kid,
(20:20):
just to prove how fast he was. But this was
just clouding in the game. But the man was known
as the fansiest human to play baseball. And he told me,
he said, you heard that line sight to page said
about me. He called me kid to all of them
called me kids. I said, no, he said, sight, I
(20:40):
told a lie about Come on, he could. I was
so fast that you could turn the light out in
the room and I could be in the bed before
they ever got down. He said. But I was faster
than that. He said, I'm the only baseball players that
can hit the line drive over sucking and then get
called up when the ball hit me in the bank,
(21:01):
when a round a second behind the barrier. Voices from
The Negro Leaves is narrated by Bill Overton, produced by
Taylor Haber. Executive producers are Jason Whitehelt, Darren Peck, and
Ron Barr. Please check out our next episode as well
as the episodes in this series. This series is distributed
(21:23):
by Sports Byline USA and the eight Side Network
Host
Bill Overton
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!