The Church

In our first episode we look at the importance of the church and it's role in Negro League baseball. The church was important as a community center, a financial supporter, and a place to physically play baseball. The church was also was also a reason to dress in your Sunday best and head to a ballgame as long as the preacher finished in time!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hi, I'm Bill Overton. Thank you for listening to behind
the barrier voices from the Negro Leagues. Before we get
into our first episode, the producers of this podcast would
like to note a few details that helped frame the
episodes you're about to hear. We are here to celebrate
and share the voices and experiences of the players from

(00:36):
the Negro Baseball League. As of today, there are only
one hundred living players from the Negro League era. This
is not a historical project meant to tell the complete
history of Negro League baseball, but instead our project to
allow the player's voice to be heard on topics that
many of them share their thoughts and memories from. Through

(00:58):
the incredible work a broadcasting legend Ron Barr and Sports Byline,
we were able to access over fifty interviews of Negro
League players in the Sports Byline Library. Ron has made
it a point to find and interview as many living
players as possible for a Sports Byline radio show. We

(01:19):
were lucky enough to go through these interviews and find
some common themes from the interviewed players that allow us
to hear what topics meant that most of the players
themselves in their own voices. We have audio from Hank Aaron,
Willie Mays, Eugene Scruggs, Russell Patterson, Dennis Biddle, and many more,

(01:41):
as well as contributions from renowned baseball historian Professor Leslie
Heffey and other authors in his stories. We hope you
enjoy this series and that it gives you a perspective
and some knowledge of one of the greatest sporting leagues
in our country's history. Episode one, The Church and Baseball.

(02:09):
The church was central to the development and nurturing of
Negro League baseball. The church most importantly offered a safe
place for boys and men to gather and play baseball.
The church had land, and most public park or recreational
areas excluded African Americans from using much less letting a
group assemble and play baseball. The churches often had baseball

(02:33):
leagues and helped the most qualified players or local teams
with funding to continue to play the game of baseball.
The church also helped turn baseball games into cultural events.
The biggest games of the week were on Sundays, and
patrons of the church not only dressed up service, but
also dressed up in their Sunday best to go to

(02:54):
the games and celebrate baseball. Games were a place to
be seen, a play sticks, rush yourself, and a place
to see the most popular sport in America. He was
Ron bar from Sports Byline USA, who points out the
relationship with the church in baseball. I remember talking to
Mudcat Grant one time and we were talking about the

(03:15):
nigger legs in the importance of baseball to the black community,
and I told him I was driving to the airport
in South Florida one time and I looked over to
my right and there was a little white church out
in the middle of a field, and behind it were
a group of African Americans and they were playing baseball.
They were in their white shirts, they still had their
ties on from church and everything, and that was such

(03:37):
a vivid picture in my mind. And he told me
about how important it was for black people to be
able to have something that they could call their own.
And usually you could find a baseball ground right behind
the church. I couldn't remember, just like we was getting

(03:58):
ready to go back then player right now, and this
kind of was the beginning of lots of the parent
who really wasn't that interested in baseball, but it was
kind of the beginning of them getting to like baseball
and they saw that their kids were stayed out of trouble.

(04:23):
The one that I was in yags in baseball. So
it began to grow just from that. The churches, you know,
having the space in the back, and that enabled us
to play. And we had some pretty good guy and
I remembered just a little boy, but we had some

(04:46):
good teams back there. That was Negro League. Picture Leo
Westbrook recounting his days as a child in the church.
Kent State Professor Leslie Heffey weighs in on the importance
of the role of the church. It support. It's that
support side of things, I think. So you have black
church UM often in some communities, particularly smaller communities, being

(05:09):
that centerpiece and so sometimes providing the actual um monetary
support for for local teams, for kids to get their starts. UM.
It was a place where the community went to sort
of start their day. Picture Eugene Scrugs remembers his days

(05:31):
of playing at the church baseball fields. Yeah, we played,
we played there and growing up and from I'd say
from like a teen years old, hua weise in school
we played on this SI field and we played on
the field after we got had grown enough to play.

(05:52):
Um Sambo Baseball Hall of Fame manager and first basement
Buck O'Neill remembers the rivalries. But when the churches during
that era, most churches, now this is this is semi tho,
you know, just all towns they had baseball, but they
had they had church. The Methodists against the bed and

(06:19):
one had to get out of the country. Right. The
church in the black community is really this and has
long been, so it's not unique to the time period
you're talking about the mid twentieth century. The centerpiece of
many of the black communities, the place that they turned
to for um, both the spiritual side of things, but

(06:41):
also um community and support. Right. Um. So often the
only place that historically in this country black communities could
turn to were the was the church. And so the church,
you know, um became that place where people found a
safe haven, a place to find others that they could

(07:04):
connect with. And so it really was and said, that's
why the black the black preacher, right has played such
a central role historically for the black community. It's one
of those very often educated individuals who people could turn
to for advice and help and somebody who understood their
experiences in a way obviously that going to a white church,

(07:27):
even though the religious side is the same, isn't going
to get the experiences. The black church was often the
place where you not only went to go to church,
but you went for meals, you went for Bible studies,
you went the church often supported community other community events,
things like that, and so you know, it was also

(07:48):
the place in Kansas City is a good place to
see this. Um. We have a lot of discussion in
Kansas City of the idea of the black church being
the place, for example, on Sunday go to church, and
then you leave straight from there to go to to
go to the baseball park and to watch the and
so it was a chance to dress up, it was
a chance to show off, UM, and that was important

(08:10):
as well. Weren't necessarily often lots of places to do that,
and so the church certainly played that role. Picture Eugene
Scruggs remembers the crowds attire and likens it to a
religious happening where you know and back in the day
that back in the day, the people will always come
to the lead church can come to the ball game.

(08:32):
They have the hats and their suits and whatever they
had to wear. It was all spoted and dressed up. Uh.
And they would come out to the game and you
would think you would be um had a baptism somewhere,
but but it was you know, that's the type of

(08:52):
that's how he would care to say. Back then he
would go to the game to leave church, can go
and come three go a ball BA catch in relief picture.
Ernest Fan remembers how baseball changed the way that church
sermons would deliver. If you look at it on a true,
true point of view, that's all we had baseball. That's

(09:13):
all Black African mayorn had were baseball. That's the reason
tho a certain point and then that will pop that
on Sunday the shortest sermon a preachy with pree. That's
when when it's trying to play baseball. Baseball Hall of
Fame manager and first baseman Buck O'Neill remembers how baseball

(09:35):
was a common ground for social activity. Oh one and
the old man that the black culture that Nigo League
was something. It was actually quite an event. It was
not on this sport. It was a social event. Uh huh.

(09:56):
And you know when when actually the in flux of
blacks and World War One when the first came up
to work in the factors. Then then they organized the
niggro leagues and the people played then coming up at
World War two, same thing. And actually Niggle League was

(10:21):
just about everything I picked. Just say, Washington, DC at
the people that's coming up from the soft someone with
more or less. A lot of them was illiterate, coming
out off of the cotton fields and all. And in Walkington,
d C. The Black bouge wal well, and these people

(10:43):
couldn't hang with them, so but they knew baseball. So
that was the the Pittsburgh Crawford, the Homestead Prize, Baltimore,
Eli John's knew Eagles. Well, they just blocked at these
ball games. New York Black gangs and all. It was

(11:03):
quite a sight and you should have seen them. Everybody
looked through. It weren't actuality. It was but people getting together.
People getting together. It was a social affair. And it
wasn't too many places that that that the black folk

(11:26):
could go then Jordan himself, other than church and uh
maybe church and jazz. So they just block to the
baseball park. Now today we go to a game and
we wear our jeans and T shirts and things, and
we wear the colors of the team. That wasn't the

(11:48):
way most fans went to see a game um through
the forties. Certainly by the fifties that starts to change.
But everybody dressed up in a way that because it
was an event. No matter when you went right, it
was something that you were that was outside the norm.
It was something you were paying for. It was something
where you and you knew you were going to be seen.

(12:08):
And so that's part of it. And you're representing your community,
and particularly within the black community, that idea of representation
I think is very significant as well. And so didn't
Yes Sunday maybe added that extra layer to it because
you're already going to church. But that was also true
on other days as well, particularly if a big team

(12:28):
was coming to town, you know, one of the if
the Crawfords or the Grays or somebody like that, as
opposed to well it's just the local community playing. You're
still going to go out and support, but it's not
quite the same thing as you want to You want
to put it on the good display. You want to
make sure that those out of towners know that you
are supporting your community. You're supporting your boys. Here is

(12:50):
pitch at Dennis Biddle, the youngest living Negro League Baseball
player and president and CEO of Yesterday's Negro League Baseball Players.
The organization helps support the surviving members of the Negro
League Baseball teams to defend their economic interests. Dennis remembers
when a game was in town, you could leave church early.

(13:12):
All you have to do is look at some of
the old films, old pictures of the Nigro leg game
games they played on Sundays. If you look at the stands,
you will see people with necktie, women had had some

(13:35):
and you will say why why they coming to the
game all dressed up? They was coming from church. The
minister will turn church out early on Sunday, so the member,
you go to church. This happened time and time again
and so on Sundays. As as a good example, again

(13:57):
using Kansas City, one of the things that we saw
happening was people go to church, they get all dressed up,
and the minister knew that the Kansas City monarchs were
going to be in town, for example, this Sunday, and
so you weren't going to go over in terms of
me because nobody was going to stay and literally wouldn't
and so it affected something as simple as how long

(14:19):
is your sermon going to be? Because you knew that
everybody was there and expected to head out to join
the parade that would often lead the players to the game,
and so that was not an uncommon So you know,
one Sunday, your sermon might be forty five minutes because
the Monarchs are and the next Sunday it might be
twenty five because the Monarchs are in town. And often

(14:40):
there would be references to the game and to going
out there and supporting the team appropriately and giving that
you know, kind of support to it. And so that's
one of the I think one of the best examples
of some of that, as you say, intersection between is
just thinking about literally what happened on a Sunday morning

(15:01):
and the recognition in Chicago, in Kansas City and some
of the bigger cities that hey, if your team's in town,
that's where everybody is planning them going, so you better
not interfere with that. Author In Negro League Baseball, researcher
Ken Parent discusses the popularity of negro league baseball, but
the Negro League had at a large stand base going

(15:23):
back to the thirties and forties. They would get more
people to come to their all Star game than the
major leagues. It was the third largest black business in
the country. People would go to the games. If you
look at old video clips, people would be dressed in
their Sundays best at these games and it was really
just a great community. Pitcher Eugene Scruggs and author Don
Rogerson discuss how not every church community felt the same

(15:46):
way about playing baseball on Sundays. Well, in m Bottom
that we didn't you know, my parents, my grandmother know,
they thought he was a sin. See baseball own Sun,
and so we didn't play on Sun. And we u
we will play on sair that instead the Sun. But

(16:09):
it was the black of in the of a way
up in the follow days before we started playing home
Sunday because that that was something that they think you
should go to Churchill Sun who won the baseball back
yere in Alabama at that time. So there was a
feeling that in some of the black churches, you don't

(16:32):
you don't play ball on Sunday. And of course Sunday
was an important day off, so you get it both ways.
For example, Setul page Uh says, you know, his mother
never saw him play. She didn't approve of playing on Sunday,
and so I think it cuts both both ways. It

(16:54):
was an entertainment, you know, in the days before air
conditioning particularly, and before basketball became big, baseball was everything.
Pitchers Leo Westbrook and Dennis Biddle discussed how the popularity
of the new Negro leagues started to make some changes
on Sundays. You know, I was playing with lots of

(17:14):
full grown men at the age of probably fourteen and
fifteen years old, and Babe will come to I can't
remember them coming to our home and begging my mother
to let us come out and play, and it included
playing on Sundays. And my mother rejected to that, but

(17:36):
they were so insistent that eventually she's as well, as
long as you all go to church and them, you know,
come to church in the morning, I let you play
in the afternoon. So that's you know, that was the
breaking point, and we were it was a mixture of
thirteen and fourteen year old kids like myself, my brother,

(18:00):
others that was playing. Like I said, playing with these
are grown up and I'm probably in their thirties and
maybe forties. When I was growing up. The last punishment
I got was going to play baseball. The center team

(18:23):
offered me seven to five cents to pitch for them.
They was playing a game and I was supposed to
have been at Sunday school church. But for severny five cents,
I went to the ball game and I was pitching
when my daddy came in and got me off the

(18:43):
field and took me back to church. Uh. That was
embarrassment to me for my dadda to do that, but
I had disobeyed something I was supposed to. I'm done
to do what I wanted to do. The next Sunday,

(19:06):
I sneaked off. We went to spring Yill lose Ana,
and I sneaked off and went with the teams because
I had picked a couple of endings. And I asked
my souvern five Saturday, I said, you didn't pitched the game.
So next time I went to losing and I did
get paid my seven five s. But that was and

(19:30):
my dadda never said anything else to me about playing,
even though I was you know, I grew up in
the church, but I knew that was something I wanted
to do and I'm I'm getting the leage now and
uh uh overlooked it. Behind the Barrier Voices from The

(19:58):
Negro Leaves is Narrow, rated by Bill Overton, produced by
Taylor Haber. Executive producers are Jason Weiheldt, Darren Peck, and
Ron Barr. Please check out our next episode as well
as the episodes in this series. This series is distributed
by Sports Byline USA and the eight Side Network