Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Mandy Connell. That's Zach seekers In for Anthony Rodriguez.
(00:03):
And I go on LinkedIn like once every six months.
And I don't even know why I go on it
every once every six months. I feel like I should, Like,
I think, if you're a grown up and you're a
responsible person and you have a job, you have to
go on LinkedIn like once every six months. But I'm
glad I did because I happened to see a story
from a friend, Justin Adams, and even though it already happened,
(00:25):
it's such a cool story. I was like, Justin, come on,
I want to have you on the show to talk
about this, because you are the guy who sort of
got this whole ball rolling to make sure that a
gentleman of the name of Theodore Bubbles Anderson made it
into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
First of all, welcome back on the show, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thank you so much for having me. It's to see you.
Good to see.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yes, tell me a little bit about how you became
aware of Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah. So Theodore Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
So, for those who don't know, he is the only
Colorado native to play in the Negro leagues, and so
did that at the age of seventeen, and is believed
that he was the youngest individual to play in the
Negro leagues as well. And so how this all started
for me was I was just talking to a friend
fresh out of college and he mentioned something about black
baseball and Denver and so I was like, well, do
(01:13):
we ever have a Negro league team? And he said no,
but we had a team called the Denver White Elephants,
which was the longest, last seen all black baseball team,
kind of a semi pro team.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Knows here the.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
White Elephant, the white Elephant. Where did that name come from?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Funny? And so that name alone is like you know
what you think about white elephant gas.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That you have in a bag?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Right, So it's different individuals, all black baseball players who
were able to come together and just played for the
semi pro team. And so there was this fifteen year
old Bubbles Anderson who played for the White Elephants at
the time. And so he went from there and was
able to go play in the Negro leagues.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
How long did he play in the league.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So he played in the Negro leagues for four years. Yeah,
and so played for the Kansas City Monarchs.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And when was this?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So this was nineteen twenty two, Holy count just yesterday.
He didn't worry about it, right, So he played from
nineteen to twenty two all the way to nineteen twenty five,
so four seasons total. Two seasons with the Kansas City Monarchs,
and they played with the Birmingham Black Bearings, the Washington Potomacs,
and then finished up his career with the Indianapolis Abcs.
But he finished playing baseball in the Negro Leagues at
(02:15):
the age of twenty. So I always tell people think
about your favorite athlete and think about them finishing their
professional career at twenty done.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So yeah, so what happened to him after? What became
of him?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
So, actually that's kind of a little bit of a
tragic story that happened from there. So Bubbles Anderson finished
up when he was twenty years old. And then as
he was actually going, you know, from Indianapolis to Kansas
City to play the Monarchs, he fell ill, got really sick,
and was also homesick too, right, and so he went home.
And you have to think about this, how would people
get home? They're not taking I seven the right So
(02:53):
you have to go take the train. So takes the
train right back to Denver and he becomes a janitor.
He serves as World War two. Oh wow, but then
he dies in nineteen forty three of a gastric ulcer.
I was only thirty eight years old when he passed away.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Holy cow, goll lee. What a story.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So tell me about how he became a part of
the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame's first or twenty twenty
five class. And we just got inducted.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, So just got inducted a little bit ago in April.
It was a huge project in order to get him there.
And so just with the work that I did, I
actually first nominated him in twenty seventeen, and it took
me some time to be able to go and get
him to the finish line. And what I've learned because
I'm the only African American on the voting committee, so
I'm on the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame voting committee,
and I learned that yes, it's an African American story, right,
(03:40):
so black history story, right. But it's also the way
that I presented it is, Hey guys, it's our.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Story, all Colorados. It's our story.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
And so what I was able to tell them, was like, hey, guys, look,
as a Hall of Fame, we would be incomplete if
we don't have Bubbles Anderson in because he's the link
for us to the Negro Leagues, the only link that
we have. So we got to make sure that we
get him. Man it So it took a little bit
of time, but man, praise God, we got it done.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So does he have any living relatives or their descendants?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Where are they aware of this?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:11):
So this is where it really gets tough. So he
was never married, never had any kids, wow, not that
we know of. And Jay Sanford, who was a Hall
of Fame, a Nigger League Hall of Fame historian, said
that he spoke to either his cousin or his aunt
in nineteen ninety one and the woman was already up
in age and.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That was it. So you talked about the lineage of
Bubbles Anderson and it is none. There is none.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's a holy cow.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, what an interesting story. How did he get the
name Bubbles?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Do we know?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
You know? I don't know.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
No. No, there's one side where Jay Sanfer was saying
he had a bubbly personality.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Okay, so you know, we just hold on to that.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
But that's kind of one of the fun ways of
It's kind of a scavenger hunt for me, like to
be able to try to find little things about him,
Like I'll give you an example in the Kansas City
Star in nineteen twenty two, so in his first season
it says that he would cry in the dugout after losses,
and I was like, I.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Could identify with that.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's very Nolan Aernaudo, right, I mean Nolan. One of
the things that.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Endeared me to or endeared that made me love Nolan
Aernauto was when he admitted that all the way almost
through high school, he cried after every loss because he
hated losing so much. Yes, that he would cry after
every loss. And he's like, and my friends would make
fun of me, but that's how much I hated losing.
I just didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And he was so a kid, he was like a baby.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
He was a baby seventeen years old. So think about this.
Would you send your kid, by the way, you know,
eight hour train rides, eight hour train ride and said, hey,
go and play with some grown ups, play with some
guys who are thirty eight, thirty nine years old.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Sure, it'll be fine.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah. Oh, by the way, this league that you're playing in,
it's just three years old. Go ahead and don't play them, right.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, but I mean you cannot compare.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
We kind of laugh about this now, Like even my
daughter who is sixteen, you know, I look at her
and I think to myself, I've talked to World War
Two veterans in the past that lied about their age
to go fight at sixteen.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Right, I'm fifteen.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And now we won't even let them get their driver's
license in a timely fashion because we don't trust their confidence,
because we finally realized that children are still children.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
He was a baby, yeah, just a baby. But he
played so well. It was one of the great players
that we had. And I would argue, obviously we don't
have any video of him playing, but I would argue
that if you have an individual who you have other
newspaper articles that will say when he came back after
his first season, that there will be an elevation for him,
that people.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Would waiting for him to be.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So he was a little bit of a star.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
So he was a star. That's really really, really cool.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I mean, you never think about stuff like it's always
kind of weird, and I know it happens all the time.
And now we have a bunch of people who are
saying they're not going to have kids. But to be
the end of the line right for your lineage is
kind of it's kind of a.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I don't know, a punctuation mark in a weird way.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
And think about this too, Mandy.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
When he passed away, So he died in nineteen forty three, right,
he died in an unmarked grave. Oh so he's actually
you could find his grave right now the Fairmont Mortuary Mertinary,
which is right by George Washington High School. Right. The
only way that they knew about him where he was
at was because they would keep obviously a chart of
where everybody was buried at. It wasn't until two thousand
(07:12):
and five that he finally had a headstone on his grave.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh my gosh, you got the headstone there in two
thousand and.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Five Jay Sanfords.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
So he had some help as well, so he was
able to go put that together. But it was with
a foundation within the Fairmont Mortuary as well.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
But it wasn't until this So you think about it.
Somebody who died in the middle of World War two.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Yeah, to finally have his headstone in two thousand and five,
and then to finally be honored in the Colorida Sports
Hall of Fame in twenty twenty five. Just so this
just shows the significance of him as well. So it
was really interesting to be able to be a part
of this project and put it together. I was very
very happy that he is in the Hall of Fame.
But my biggest thing is this, we all have to
(07:52):
learn history like this because it just leads to other
different stories as well.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
So let me give you another one real quick.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
So the owner of the Denver White Elephants we talked
about it was Albert Henderson Wade Ross, so A. H. W.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Ross for short.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
If you go down to five points, there's a place
called the ross Sonian Hotel that is named after Albert
Henderson Wade Ross.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Now I was he an African American man, a black man.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
He was an owner of politician prominent, right, And so
when you look at that, you're like, oh wow, now
we get to be able to go and get a lens.
It's a history with him as well. What else was
going on there in that time, right, And that's really
why it was so important for bubbles Anderson to be in.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Culturally, Tell me about Denver at that point for black people,
I mean, where was it heavily segregated? I mean I
grew up in the Deep South, and even in my
hometown that I grew up in, you still understood where
the segregation lines were were even in the seventies. They
weren't enforced in any measure, but they were there.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Was it like that in Denver? Did everybody live in
five Points?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
What?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
What was that like for him?
Speaker 4 (08:52):
That's the reason why five Points were so important because
that's where all the musicians came. So when you think
about jazz artists, when you think about other art that
just came from there. Where you think about just churches
right there, there are churches that have been around. Zion
Baptist Church, for example, is the oldest African American church.
It's around five Points, right, And so when you think
about all these other different cultural places.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's the reason why five.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Points were so important because, hey, you have black owned
businesses that was there. You had so many places where
people can go and just do life and enjoy life
as well. You didn't have, you know, sixteenth Street mall
or anything like that. Right, And so that was the
place for everyone to be and it was a huge
economic hub at the time.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Was it was it easy or difficult to be a
black person in Denver back then? Do you think I'm
looking I can say unequivvalently.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
In my hometown, it would have been difficult, you know what.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I think that is a great question.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
And I guess you have to put in the context
of the time.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
You do have to put in the context of the time.
But I would say this, maybe for us, we could
look at it and say it was very difficult, right.
But I would argue that during that time, there was
more community driven than it is today. There was more
of a community of hey, African Americans coming together because
you have to think of what it come from, where
it came from, right, So you either coming from the
Deep South, like you said, you also maybe come from Kansas, right,
(10:06):
because you're making that journey over to Denver and then
you stop here in Colorado. So you had a small group,
but they were able to come together and quickly build
a community. And in many respects, that's what's missing from
time to time today.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I think that I mean, in a bigger conversation, I
think that's missing just in society. And you know, we
now see like epidemics of loneliness and kids that are
going and using ai chat bots as their friends because
they don't have any and that that's something that concerns me.
But I love stuff like this because you don't necessarily
think about, you know, the history of black people in Colorado,
(10:39):
right because it's not a huge, uh part of the demographic.
I mean, it's a limited part of the demographic.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
But I think it's very.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Cool that you kind of made this your mission to
make sure that this guy got the the you know,
recognition for being our representatives in the Negro leagues.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
When people go to Denver Broncos games, right, so you
go to see bow Nicks, you see the team do
their thing. There's a little area where it says Colorado
Sports Hall of Fame. And to know that somebody's going
to walk by and say, Okay, I know Chroy to Luwitzky,
I know MICHAELA.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Schriffin, but who the heck is this the Getter Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
That's what matters right there, because somebody is going to
ask the question and then they're going to go on
that scavenger hunt like I did over a decade ago,
and you're going to find out some beautiful.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
History about Colorado.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
You're going to learn some wonderful history about black baseball
that we had here.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And I'll give you one more. Two.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
So, there used to be a thing called the Diver
Post Tournament, obviously way back.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
You know, and in the day.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
And in nineteen thirty four, the Kansas City Monarchs came
obviously from Kansas City, and they played in the Denver
Post Tournament. That is the first tournament in American history
that was integrated.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So you think.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
About Jackie Robinson, what happens in nineteen forty seven with
him reintegrating the game of baseball. Because he didn't integrate
the game of baseball, Jackie Robinson reintegrated it. The first
guy who integrated the game was a guy by the
name of Moses fleetwood Walker. I'll say it again so
you could search it at home, search up Moses fleetwood Walker.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
He was the first black, a.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
First African American to play in the major leagues. But
I would argue that if you don't have the Denver
Post Tournament, and if you don't have the integration, happen
in that tournament in nineteen thirty four. You probably won't
be able to see Jackie Robinson play in nineteen forty seven,
So you played the groundwork.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
How did it segregate?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Again, what happened there?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Obviously don't know enough about baseball people understand how these
things happened.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
You know, collusion is a word that we could use,
and there's a certain word that was used, as you
know in the South, but it was to get them
individuals out of here. The owners came together and said,
we do not want these individuals played in our sport
long and short, and so that you had decades where
literally you didn't have African Americans place. But what happened
(12:50):
from there what they couldn't play in the major leagues.
But in nineteen twenty you have Rube Foster who said, hey,
let's go and start.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Up our own league.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
And that's where you developed with the negro leagues. And
without the negro leagues, you don't have night baseball, right,
you don't have hidden runs. There's so many different things
that we have because of the negro leagues that have
now come to the game that we know love today
in baseball.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I got to tell you the whole concept of the
negro leagues is fascinating to me in terms of the
statistics in the negro Leagues versus the statistics of the
major leagues at that time. And when you look at
some of the athletes that played in the negro leagues
and the kind of numbers that they put up, whether
it's just a batting average that's insane, or or you know, pitchers.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
That putched multiple, you know, complete games.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
On a regular basis, that kind of stuff. It always
aggravates me when people sort of downplay that, right because
the assumption is, well, they weren't as good as the
white athletes, and I'm like that they had nothing. Skill
had nothing to do.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
With it exactly. It was just location, It was proximity.
It was I couldn't play in the same league because
owners literally barred me from being able to play, So
I'm going to play in my own league.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
And oh, by the way, immediate.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Respect, you could say it was even tougher to play
the negro leagues than to play in the major leagues,
whether it's because you know, different circumstances that could have
been around. But at the same time, you had so
many wonderful names Satchel Paige played there, right, wonderful pitcher
also pitched here for a little bit too for the
Denver Bears had an appearance around, So it's pretty cool
to see him in.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Denver for a bit. But you also have Josh Gibson, that.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Amazing, amazing hitch hitter who was a catcher, Oscar Charleston,
the names go on and on and on and oh,
by the way, and all those different names. You have
a seventeen year old who came from the Male High
City from five Points who was able to play there.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Bubas Anderson, have you always been? Are you a baseball fan?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Has this turned you into more of a baseball fan
or is this something you already love.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I've always been a fan of sports since I was
six years old. I knew that I wanted to be
a part of sports, that I wanted to make an impact.
And so to be able to have something like this
and to be a part of something like this is
truly a blessing. And you know, I work right now
as a reporter and anchor at CBS Colorado, but I
know for me that this is what.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I want to really do, This is what I want
to be a part of for the rest of my career.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
It's to be able to tell stories of of people
overcoming a huge circumstances, not just the box scoring sports,
but also to be able to tell our story.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Again, it's not just an African American story.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
It is all of our stories, and it's one that
comes together.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
So that's what I want to be a part of
for the rest of my career.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I love you know, football has a rich history, but
it's a lot shorter than baseball. Yeah, and basketballs is
even shorter when you get right down to it. So
I feel like baseball would do well. And I was
talking to Justin off the air about my favorite segment
in the Rockies pregame show, his Jesse Thomas's used to.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Be pioneers of the game. I don't know what it's
called now.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I love that segment because it's all the history of
baseball and these funny names and the you know, the
cool stuff that happened or the crazy stories from back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And I think that baseball, just from.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
A marketing perspective, would do well to lean into all
of this, do you know what I mean? Like, yes,
they would do well to bring more of this kind
of conversation and talk about this seventeen year old who
you know went homech.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Monny, why did he quit?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Did he just go home because he was sick and
it was just ill and some people didn't know why.
They thought maybe it could have been a virus or
anything like that, and so you know, he went home.
But you think about it if I'm seventeen, and I
understand it could be a different day, but there's some
things that still remain the same. Once you leave home
as a teenager. Yeah, you come back in an off season,
but once you leave home. And then after his second
(16:18):
season playing for the Kansas City Monarchs, and again we're
talking about Theodore Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
After his second season, he followed his.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Manager that he was with with the Monarchs, so he
followed him to Birmingham to play with the Burnham Black Parents.
Now here's the crazy part about it. His manager left
Birmingham after four games. So imagine being nineteen eighteen, nineteen
years old, you follow a person that you trust, and
again it's not written specifically, but you start to kind
(16:45):
of put the pieces together and you say, okay, now
you're leaving this individual in a foreign land. He's as
he's probably ever been in his life. Yeah, and say, oh,
by the way, play baseball. So it makes sense that
he played with the Birmingham Black Bearons and then left
from there, playful to Washington puts home its that same season,
and then finished up with the Indianapolis ABC's and then
(17:05):
you're sick, also sick and come home.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Golly. I mean, just the things you know we and this.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Is going to sound like a big fact criticism, but
it's really not, because I think it's probably better that
we allow people to mature.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
A little bit more.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But the things that teenagers did and were capable of
back in the day when their life expectancy was fifty
five sixty years.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yes, so it's like when you're only gonna list so long.
Now we have the luxury of a longer view. But
it's always fascinating to me to think.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
About the stories that you just talked about, because when
we lived in Fort Myers, there's a minor league baseball
franchise down there for the Minnesota Twins, and I met
all of these retired folks and they basically like took
these young minor league baseball players in and they lived
like some of them lived with these older folks.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yes, And I was talking to.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
One of the women about it one day and I said,
how did this even become a thing? She said, My
husband and I were sitting in the stadium watching these
boys that looked like they were twelve years old trot
out onto the field, and we thought, where are they living.
They cannot be living in an apartment by themselves, because
some of them have literally just graduated out of high school. Yes,
and they're making no money, by the way, they're making
(18:17):
like twenty grand a year playing baseball in the minor
minor leagues. And so she and it was already an
existing thing, but she's like, we signed up right away.
And I just think maybe Bubbles had somebody that did
that for him.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
He did, you know what I mean? He did.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
So the older players were taking care of him, and
that's one of the things that they had. So I
talked to Bob Kendrick, who is the president of the
National League of the Negro Leagues, and he tells me
about that, how, hey, they will actually take these younger
players in. And yes, they're all competing for spots, right,
we're all competing for a paycheck, but they would be
the caretakers of.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
These individuals, these young men, and make.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Sure that they are okay, you know, make sure they
knew how to talk to a lady right, make sure
they knew how to do a little bit of everything right,
so they.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Knew how to sit at the table probably the man.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
And the way did I it with teenagers and with
you know, young folks today, is that when we grew up,
we do every number that we needed to know correct.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Bye bye buyer. I mean, I have to think about
my home number right now.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I know my home number, my best friend's number, my
grandma's number.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
One.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Let's tell you this. I couldn't tell you my dad's
number right now.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I have to look on my phone.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, this gets my mom's fault, though she moved anyway.
Justin Adams is our guest. You can see him on
CBS Colorado, CBS four, so many different places, in so
many different ways. This is a fascinating story, and good
for you. Your passion for this just comes flying out
of here. So I look forward to seeing the next
story that you put together on this and continue the
(19:37):
conversation about this important part of our history. Because I
love baseball and I want to make other people love
it too.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
If that sounds weird, you know, it's the passion.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That comes from you.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
And you know what, other people will catch that passion
as well, just like I did with Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
All right, justin, thanks for coming in, man, We will
see you again soon.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
We'll be right back
It's Mandy Connell. That's Zach seekers In for Anthony Rodriguez.
(00:03):
And I go on LinkedIn like once every six months.
And I don't even know why I go on it
every once every six months. I feel like I should, Like,
I think, if you're a grown up and you're a
responsible person and you have a job, you have to
go on LinkedIn like once every six months. But I'm
glad I did because I happened to see a story
from a friend, Justin Adams, and even though it already happened,
(00:25):
it's such a cool story. I was like, Justin, come on,
I want to have you on the show to talk
about this, because you are the guy who sort of
got this whole ball rolling to make sure that a
gentleman of the name of Theodore Bubbles Anderson made it
into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
First of all, welcome back on the show, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thank you so much for having me. It's to see you.
Good to see.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yes, tell me a little bit about how you became
aware of Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah. So Theodore Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
So, for those who don't know, he is the only
Colorado native to play in the Negro leagues, and so
did that at the age of seventeen, and is believed
that he was the youngest individual to play in the
Negro leagues as well. And so how this all started
for me was I was just talking to a friend
fresh out of college and he mentioned something about black
baseball and Denver and so I was like, well, do
(01:13):
we ever have a Negro league team? And he said no,
but we had a team called the Denver White Elephants,
which was the longest, last seen all black baseball team,
kind of a semi pro team.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Knows here the.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
White Elephant, the white Elephant. Where did that name come from?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Funny? And so that name alone is like you know
what you think about white elephant gas.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That you have in a bag?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Right, So it's different individuals, all black baseball players who
were able to come together and just played for the
semi pro team. And so there was this fifteen year
old Bubbles Anderson who played for the White Elephants at
the time. And so he went from there and was
able to go play in the Negro leagues.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
How long did he play in the league.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So he played in the Negro leagues for four years. Yeah,
and so played for the Kansas City Monarchs.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And when was this?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So this was nineteen twenty two, Holy count just yesterday.
He didn't worry about it, right, So he played from
nineteen to twenty two all the way to nineteen twenty five,
so four seasons total. Two seasons with the Kansas City Monarchs,
and they played with the Birmingham Black Bearings, the Washington Potomacs,
and then finished up his career with the Indianapolis Abcs.
But he finished playing baseball in the Negro Leagues at
(02:15):
the age of twenty. So I always tell people think
about your favorite athlete and think about them finishing their
professional career at twenty done.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So yeah, so what happened to him after? What became
of him?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
So, actually that's kind of a little bit of a
tragic story that happened from there. So Bubbles Anderson finished
up when he was twenty years old. And then as
he was actually going, you know, from Indianapolis to Kansas
City to play the Monarchs, he fell ill, got really sick,
and was also homesick too, right, and so he went home.
And you have to think about this, how would people
get home? They're not taking I seven the right So
(02:53):
you have to go take the train. So takes the
train right back to Denver and he becomes a janitor.
He serves as World War two. Oh wow, but then
he dies in nineteen forty three of a gastric ulcer.
I was only thirty eight years old when he passed away.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Holy cow, goll lee. What a story.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So tell me about how he became a part of
the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame's first or twenty twenty
five class. And we just got inducted.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, So just got inducted a little bit ago in April.
It was a huge project in order to get him there.
And so just with the work that I did, I
actually first nominated him in twenty seventeen, and it took
me some time to be able to go and get
him to the finish line. And what I've learned because
I'm the only African American on the voting committee, so
I'm on the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame voting committee,
and I learned that yes, it's an African American story, right,
(03:40):
so black history story, right. But it's also the way
that I presented it is, Hey guys, it's our.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Story, all Colorados. It's our story.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
And so what I was able to tell them, was like, hey, guys, look,
as a Hall of Fame, we would be incomplete if
we don't have Bubbles Anderson in because he's the link
for us to the Negro Leagues, the only link that
we have. So we got to make sure that we
get him. Man it So it took a little bit
of time, but man, praise God, we got it done.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So does he have any living relatives or their descendants?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Where are they aware of this?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:11):
So this is where it really gets tough. So he
was never married, never had any kids, wow, not that
we know of. And Jay Sanford, who was a Hall
of Fame, a Nigger League Hall of Fame historian, said
that he spoke to either his cousin or his aunt
in nineteen ninety one and the woman was already up
in age and.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That was it. So you talked about the lineage of
Bubbles Anderson and it is none. There is none.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's a holy cow.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, what an interesting story. How did he get the
name Bubbles?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Do we know?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
You know? I don't know.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
No. No, there's one side where Jay Sanfer was saying
he had a bubbly personality.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Okay, so you know, we just hold on to that.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
But that's kind of one of the fun ways of
It's kind of a scavenger hunt for me, like to
be able to try to find little things about him,
Like I'll give you an example in the Kansas City
Star in nineteen twenty two, so in his first season
it says that he would cry in the dugout after losses,
and I was like, I.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Could identify with that.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's very Nolan Aernaudo, right, I mean Nolan. One of
the things that.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Endeared me to or endeared that made me love Nolan
Aernauto was when he admitted that all the way almost
through high school, he cried after every loss because he
hated losing so much. Yes, that he would cry after
every loss. And he's like, and my friends would make
fun of me, but that's how much I hated losing.
I just didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And he was so a kid, he was like a baby.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
He was a baby seventeen years old. So think about this.
Would you send your kid, by the way, you know,
eight hour train rides, eight hour train ride and said, hey,
go and play with some grown ups, play with some
guys who are thirty eight, thirty nine years old.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Sure, it'll be fine.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah. Oh, by the way, this league that you're playing in,
it's just three years old. Go ahead and don't play them, right.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, but I mean you cannot compare.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
We kind of laugh about this now, Like even my
daughter who is sixteen, you know, I look at her
and I think to myself, I've talked to World War
Two veterans in the past that lied about their age
to go fight at sixteen.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Right, I'm fifteen.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And now we won't even let them get their driver's
license in a timely fashion because we don't trust their confidence,
because we finally realized that children are still children.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
He was a baby, yeah, just a baby. But he
played so well. It was one of the great players
that we had. And I would argue, obviously we don't
have any video of him playing, but I would argue
that if you have an individual who you have other
newspaper articles that will say when he came back after
his first season, that there will be an elevation for him,
that people.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Would waiting for him to be.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So he was a little bit of a star.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
So he was a star. That's really really, really cool.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I mean, you never think about stuff like it's always
kind of weird, and I know it happens all the time.
And now we have a bunch of people who are
saying they're not going to have kids. But to be
the end of the line right for your lineage is
kind of it's kind of a.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I don't know, a punctuation mark in a weird way.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
And think about this too, Mandy.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
When he passed away, So he died in nineteen forty three, right,
he died in an unmarked grave. Oh so he's actually
you could find his grave right now the Fairmont Mortuary Mertinary,
which is right by George Washington High School. Right. The
only way that they knew about him where he was
at was because they would keep obviously a chart of
where everybody was buried at. It wasn't until two thousand
(07:12):
and five that he finally had a headstone on his grave.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh my gosh, you got the headstone there in two
thousand and.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Five Jay Sanfords.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
So he had some help as well, so he was
able to go put that together. But it was with
a foundation within the Fairmont Mortuary as well.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
But it wasn't until this So you think about it.
Somebody who died in the middle of World War two.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Yeah, to finally have his headstone in two thousand and five,
and then to finally be honored in the Colorida Sports
Hall of Fame in twenty twenty five. Just so this
just shows the significance of him as well. So it
was really interesting to be able to be a part
of this project and put it together. I was very
very happy that he is in the Hall of Fame.
But my biggest thing is this, we all have to
(07:52):
learn history like this because it just leads to other
different stories as well.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
So let me give you another one real quick.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
So the owner of the Denver White Elephants we talked
about it was Albert Henderson Wade Ross, so A. H. W.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Ross for short.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
If you go down to five points, there's a place
called the ross Sonian Hotel that is named after Albert
Henderson Wade Ross.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Now I was he an African American man, a black man.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
He was an owner of politician prominent, right, And so
when you look at that, you're like, oh wow, now
we get to be able to go and get a lens.
It's a history with him as well. What else was
going on there in that time, right, And that's really
why it was so important for bubbles Anderson to be in.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Culturally, Tell me about Denver at that point for black people,
I mean, where was it heavily segregated? I mean I
grew up in the Deep South, and even in my
hometown that I grew up in, you still understood where
the segregation lines were were even in the seventies. They
weren't enforced in any measure, but they were there.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Was it like that in Denver? Did everybody live in
five Points?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
What?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
What was that like for him?
Speaker 4 (08:52):
That's the reason why five Points were so important because
that's where all the musicians came. So when you think
about jazz artists, when you think about other art that
just came from there. Where you think about just churches
right there, there are churches that have been around. Zion
Baptist Church, for example, is the oldest African American church.
It's around five Points, right, And so when you think
about all these other different cultural places.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's the reason why five.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Points were so important because, hey, you have black owned
businesses that was there. You had so many places where
people can go and just do life and enjoy life
as well. You didn't have, you know, sixteenth Street mall
or anything like that. Right, And so that was the
place for everyone to be and it was a huge
economic hub at the time.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Was it was it easy or difficult to be a
black person in Denver back then? Do you think I'm
looking I can say unequivvalently.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
In my hometown, it would have been difficult, you know what.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I think that is a great question.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
And I guess you have to put in the context
of the time.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
You do have to put in the context of the time.
But I would say this, maybe for us, we could
look at it and say it was very difficult, right.
But I would argue that during that time, there was
more community driven than it is today. There was more
of a community of hey, African Americans coming together because
you have to think of what it come from, where
it came from, right, So you either coming from the
Deep South, like you said, you also maybe come from Kansas, right,
(10:06):
because you're making that journey over to Denver and then
you stop here in Colorado. So you had a small group,
but they were able to come together and quickly build
a community. And in many respects, that's what's missing from
time to time today.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I think that I mean, in a bigger conversation, I
think that's missing just in society. And you know, we
now see like epidemics of loneliness and kids that are
going and using ai chat bots as their friends because
they don't have any and that that's something that concerns me.
But I love stuff like this because you don't necessarily
think about, you know, the history of black people in Colorado,
(10:39):
right because it's not a huge, uh part of the demographic.
I mean, it's a limited part of the demographic.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
But I think it's very.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Cool that you kind of made this your mission to
make sure that this guy got the the you know,
recognition for being our representatives in the Negro leagues.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
When people go to Denver Broncos games, right, so you
go to see bow Nicks, you see the team do
their thing. There's a little area where it says Colorado
Sports Hall of Fame. And to know that somebody's going
to walk by and say, Okay, I know Chroy to Luwitzky,
I know MICHAELA.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Schriffin, but who the heck is this the Getter Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
That's what matters right there, because somebody is going to
ask the question and then they're going to go on
that scavenger hunt like I did over a decade ago,
and you're going to find out some beautiful.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
History about Colorado.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
You're going to learn some wonderful history about black baseball
that we had here.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And I'll give you one more. Two.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
So, there used to be a thing called the Diver
Post Tournament, obviously way back.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
You know, and in the day.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
And in nineteen thirty four, the Kansas City Monarchs came
obviously from Kansas City, and they played in the Denver
Post Tournament. That is the first tournament in American history
that was integrated.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So you think.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
About Jackie Robinson, what happens in nineteen forty seven with
him reintegrating the game of baseball. Because he didn't integrate
the game of baseball, Jackie Robinson reintegrated it. The first
guy who integrated the game was a guy by the
name of Moses fleetwood Walker. I'll say it again so
you could search it at home, search up Moses fleetwood Walker.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
He was the first black, a.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
First African American to play in the major leagues. But
I would argue that if you don't have the Denver
Post Tournament, and if you don't have the integration, happen
in that tournament in nineteen thirty four. You probably won't
be able to see Jackie Robinson play in nineteen forty seven,
So you played the groundwork.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
How did it segregate?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Again, what happened there?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Obviously don't know enough about baseball people understand how these
things happened.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
You know, collusion is a word that we could use,
and there's a certain word that was used, as you
know in the South, but it was to get them
individuals out of here. The owners came together and said,
we do not want these individuals played in our sport
long and short, and so that you had decades where
literally you didn't have African Americans place. But what happened
(12:50):
from there what they couldn't play in the major leagues.
But in nineteen twenty you have Rube Foster who said, hey,
let's go and start.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Up our own league.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
And that's where you developed with the negro leagues. And
without the negro leagues, you don't have night baseball, right,
you don't have hidden runs. There's so many different things
that we have because of the negro leagues that have
now come to the game that we know love today
in baseball.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I got to tell you the whole concept of the
negro leagues is fascinating to me in terms of the
statistics in the negro Leagues versus the statistics of the
major leagues at that time. And when you look at
some of the athletes that played in the negro leagues
and the kind of numbers that they put up, whether
it's just a batting average that's insane, or or you know, pitchers.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
That putched multiple, you know, complete games.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
On a regular basis, that kind of stuff. It always
aggravates me when people sort of downplay that, right because
the assumption is, well, they weren't as good as the
white athletes, and I'm like that they had nothing. Skill
had nothing to do.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
With it exactly. It was just location, It was proximity.
It was I couldn't play in the same league because
owners literally barred me from being able to play, So
I'm going to play in my own league.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
And oh, by the way, immediate.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Respect, you could say it was even tougher to play
the negro leagues than to play in the major leagues,
whether it's because you know, different circumstances that could have
been around. But at the same time, you had so
many wonderful names Satchel Paige played there, right, wonderful pitcher
also pitched here for a little bit too for the
Denver Bears had an appearance around, So it's pretty cool
to see him in.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Denver for a bit. But you also have Josh Gibson, that.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Amazing, amazing hitch hitter who was a catcher, Oscar Charleston,
the names go on and on and on and oh,
by the way, and all those different names. You have
a seventeen year old who came from the Male High
City from five Points who was able to play there.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Bubas Anderson, have you always been? Are you a baseball fan?
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Has this turned you into more of a baseball fan
or is this something you already love.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I've always been a fan of sports since I was
six years old. I knew that I wanted to be
a part of sports, that I wanted to make an impact.
And so to be able to have something like this
and to be a part of something like this is
truly a blessing. And you know, I work right now
as a reporter and anchor at CBS Colorado, but I
know for me that this is what.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I want to really do, This is what I want
to be a part of for the rest of my career.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
It's to be able to tell stories of of people
overcoming a huge circumstances, not just the box scoring sports,
but also to be able to tell our story.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Again, it's not just an African American story.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
It is all of our stories, and it's one that
comes together.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
So that's what I want to be a part of
for the rest of my career.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I love you know, football has a rich history, but
it's a lot shorter than baseball. Yeah, and basketballs is
even shorter when you get right down to it. So
I feel like baseball would do well. And I was
talking to Justin off the air about my favorite segment
in the Rockies pregame show, his Jesse Thomas's used to.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Be pioneers of the game. I don't know what it's
called now.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I love that segment because it's all the history of
baseball and these funny names and the you know, the
cool stuff that happened or the crazy stories from back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And I think that baseball, just from.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
A marketing perspective, would do well to lean into all
of this, do you know what I mean? Like, yes,
they would do well to bring more of this kind
of conversation and talk about this seventeen year old who
you know went homech.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Monny, why did he quit?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Did he just go home because he was sick and
it was just ill and some people didn't know why.
They thought maybe it could have been a virus or
anything like that, and so you know, he went home.
But you think about it if I'm seventeen, and I
understand it could be a different day, but there's some
things that still remain the same. Once you leave home
as a teenager. Yeah, you come back in an off season,
but once you leave home. And then after his second
(16:18):
season playing for the Kansas City Monarchs, and again we're
talking about Theodore Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
After his second season, he followed his.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Manager that he was with with the Monarchs, so he
followed him to Birmingham to play with the Burnham Black Parents.
Now here's the crazy part about it. His manager left
Birmingham after four games. So imagine being nineteen eighteen, nineteen
years old, you follow a person that you trust, and
again it's not written specifically, but you start to kind
(16:45):
of put the pieces together and you say, okay, now
you're leaving this individual in a foreign land. He's as
he's probably ever been in his life. Yeah, and say, oh,
by the way, play baseball. So it makes sense that
he played with the Birmingham Black Bearons and then left
from there, playful to Washington puts home its that same season,
and then finished up with the Indianapolis ABC's and then
(17:05):
you're sick, also sick and come home.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Golly. I mean, just the things you know we and this.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Is going to sound like a big fact criticism, but
it's really not, because I think it's probably better that
we allow people to mature.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
A little bit more.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But the things that teenagers did and were capable of
back in the day when their life expectancy was fifty
five sixty years.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yes, so it's like when you're only gonna list so long.
Now we have the luxury of a longer view. But
it's always fascinating to me to think.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
About the stories that you just talked about, because when
we lived in Fort Myers, there's a minor league baseball
franchise down there for the Minnesota Twins, and I met
all of these retired folks and they basically like took
these young minor league baseball players in and they lived
like some of them lived with these older folks.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yes, And I was talking to.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
One of the women about it one day and I said,
how did this even become a thing? She said, My
husband and I were sitting in the stadium watching these
boys that looked like they were twelve years old trot
out onto the field, and we thought, where are they living.
They cannot be living in an apartment by themselves, because
some of them have literally just graduated out of high school. Yes,
and they're making no money, by the way, they're making
(18:17):
like twenty grand a year playing baseball in the minor
minor leagues. And so she and it was already an
existing thing, but she's like, we signed up right away.
And I just think maybe Bubbles had somebody that did
that for him.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
He did, you know what I mean? He did.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
So the older players were taking care of him, and
that's one of the things that they had. So I
talked to Bob Kendrick, who is the president of the
National League of the Negro Leagues, and he tells me
about that, how, hey, they will actually take these younger
players in. And yes, they're all competing for spots, right,
we're all competing for a paycheck, but they would be
the caretakers of.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
These individuals, these young men, and make.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Sure that they are okay, you know, make sure they
knew how to talk to a lady right, make sure
they knew how to do a little bit of everything right,
so they.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Knew how to sit at the table probably the man.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
And the way did I it with teenagers and with
you know, young folks today, is that when we grew up,
we do every number that we needed to know correct.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Bye bye buyer. I mean, I have to think about
my home number right now.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I know my home number, my best friend's number, my
grandma's number.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
One.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Let's tell you this. I couldn't tell you my dad's
number right now.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I have to look on my phone.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, this gets my mom's fault, though she moved anyway.
Justin Adams is our guest. You can see him on
CBS Colorado, CBS four, so many different places, in so
many different ways. This is a fascinating story, and good
for you. Your passion for this just comes flying out
of here. So I look forward to seeing the next
story that you put together on this and continue the
(19:37):
conversation about this important part of our history. Because I
love baseball and I want to make other people love
it too.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
If that sounds weird, you know, it's the passion.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That comes from you.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
And you know what, other people will catch that passion
as well, just like I did with Bubbles Anderson.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
All right, justin, thanks for coming in, man, We will
see you again soon.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
We'll be right back
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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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.