by Troy Soos
“No, I don’t. If Foster only hires experienced umpires, and only white men have been given the opportunity to become experienced, then colored umpires will never get a chance. Negro baseball is something of ours; we should have our own people officiating the game, even if it takes them a while to become proficient at it.”
I was happy when the game started, and hitting and pitching became the focus of our attention, instead of racial issues.
Through the first couple of innings, there was more to admire in the pitching than in the hitting, as Dizzy Dismukes of the ABCs and the St. Louis Stars’ Jimmy Bell were both hurling shutouts. I had assumed that since Bell ran so fast, his pitches would also have lightning speed, but he didn’t have much of a fastball, instead relying on a nasty curve and a dancing knuckleball. Dismukes threw harder, submarine style, and with pinpoint control. I suspected that I would be unlikely to hit either of them.
I said to Aubury, “Bell’s slow curve reminds me of Slip Crawford’s.”
“There are a lot of good curveball pitchers in the Negro Leagues,” he replied. “They have to work so many games that fastball pitchers tend to burn out their arms.” He marked down Bell’s latest strikeout on his scorecard.
I noticed Aubury used a fountain pen, instead of a pencil, which prompted me to ask, “What if you make a mistake?”
He smiled, apparently amused at the notion that he could make a scoring error.
I hailed a passing vendor and bought two soda pops, handing one of them to Aubury. The vendor gave me a disapproving stare. Maybe I violated some kind of rule by crossing the rope barrier, I thought. But no one came to throw me out of the park for the infraction, and I went back to watching the game.
As the innings went by, Aubury told me stories and statistics about most of the players on the field. Many of the Stars had once played for the ABCs, and vice versa. It sounded like Negro League players changed teams more often than I did.
“Does every player end up playing for every team?” I joked.
Aubury’s answer was serious. “Almost. That is one of the problems that has always plagued colored teams: instability. The clubs are always strapped for cash. If they miss a paycheck, their players go elsewhere; if they miss a rent payment, they have to find another park to play in. There are a couple of teams who play their entire schedules on the road.”
“Any Negro League clubs have their own ballparks?”
“No, the closest is Rube Foster’s American Giants; they own their grandstand, but not the field. When Stars Park opens in St. Louis, it will be the first to be wholly owned by a colored ball club.”
The score was tied 1-1 in the sixth, when Stars’ catcher Dan Kennard lifted a long fly to right field, and we both stood up to cheer.
“Go! Go!” yelled Aubury in a most unlawyerly squawk. When the ball carried over the fence for a home run, he screamed, “Yes!” Hometown partisans hurled a few taunts at Aubury, and he sat back down. To me, he said sheepishly, “The Stars are ahead, so now I’ll root for the ABCs.”
The next couple of innings were quiet, and Aubury returned to the subject of league organization. “Rube Foster is doing his best to bring stability to the game, but the Eastern owners will have a definite advantage in that regard.”
“How so?”
“They have more ready access to ballparks. And it’s easier to travel in the East; all of the cities have large enough colored populations that players can find places to eat and sleep. In the Midwest, a team can go hundreds of miles with no bed or food, and where the only toilet is the bushes and the only bathtub is a pond. If they—”
An explosion of cheering drowned him out as the ABC’s Crush Holloway led off the bottom of the ninth with a line-drive double. Indianapolis now had the tying run on second base. Ben Taylor tried to sacrifice him to third, but Kennard pounced on the bunt so quickly that Holloway couldn’t advance. Bell struck out the next batter, but walked the man after that.
With two on and two out, the powerfully built Oscar Charleston strode confidently to the plate. The crowd was on its feet, screaming wildly for the Indianapolis slugger to win the game with one swing of his bat.
Aubury held out his scorecard for me to see. With his pen, he marked a home run for Charleston. “That is how certain I am,” he said.
But he forgot to tell Jimmy Bell about his prediction. The wily kid slipped a couple of slow curves past Charleston for strikes, then wasted two pitches. Needing one more strike, Bell went into a twisting windup and delivered a knuckleball that took about five minutes to reach home plate. Charleston swung mightily, but missed, ending the game and giving Bell and the Stars the victory.
Aubury was about to tear up his scorecard, but I asked for it, and he gave it to me. I wasn’t going to read about these players in The Sporting News or in most daily newspapers, and I wanted something with a record of their names.
“How about dinner later?” I asked as we filed out of the park.
“I’d better pass,” Aubury said. “I’m going to try to set up a meeting with some of the players for you.”
“The ABCs?”
“We’d better try for the Stars tonight. They won, so they’ll be in a better mood.”
“All right. Gimme a call.”
We then parted to go to our separate hotels in different parts of the city.
The speakeasy on Indiana Avenue, in the heart of Indianapolis’s most prominent colored neighborhood, might as well have had a sign posted on its front door. Although its brick walls were completely unadorned, anyone walking within half a block of the place could tell what was going on inside. The sound of a jazz band rumbled from within, and automobiles were parked in tight formation all along the curb. Stylishly dressed men and women were clustered outside the club’s entrance, waiting to be admitted; several made the wait more tolerable by sipping from pocket flasks.
Franklin Aubury led the way past the crowd, and said a few words to an enormous black doorman. Despite some loud protests from those who still had to wait, we were immediately ushered through the door.
The dimly lit interior was hazy with smoke and sweet with the mingled scents of perfume and hair tonic. A dapper maître d’ led Aubury and me across the crowded dance floor to a polished round table near the bandstand. I was acutely conscious of eyes upon me; the low lighting couldn’t obscure the fact that I was the only Caucasian in the place.
At the table were three men I’d watched play that afternoon. They’d swapped their baggy uniforms for fashionable suits, and were now celebrating their win over ABCs. Aubury asked if we could join them, and at their assent, the maître d’ brought us two extra chairs. The lawyer then introduced me to the Stars: Big Bill Gatewood, manager and part-time pitcher; veteran pitcher Plunk Drake; and young Jimmy Bell.
Gatewood, a round-faced man who fully merited the “Big” in “Big Bill,” corrected the lawyer, “It’s Cool Papa Bell now. I never seen a pitcher so cool as he was facing Charleston. I thought Oscar was gonna break his back swinging at that knuckleball!”
I had to strain to hear Gatewood’s words. The proximity to the bandstand was a place of honor, no doubt given to the Stars because of their celebrity status, but it was also deafeningly loud. The old-fashioned jazz band had a tuba instead of a string bass, and the big horn was so close to my ear that it felt like one hard blast would send me to the floor.
Plunk Drake, smiling broadly, brushed a hand over his high forehead. “Sure was sweet seeing Oscar go down like that. He was with us last year, and was always complaining we didn’t have no pitchers.”
Gatewood playfully punched Bell in the shoulder. “Well, we got one now.” Turning to Drake, he added, “I mean we got another one, of course.”
It didn’t appear that Drake needed any mollifying. He seemed to have a perpetual grin on his face, and his eyes had a squint that I expected was more from smiling and laughing than from any difficulty seeing.
The two veterans proceeded to heap compliments on the rookie, who
quietly sipped a soda pop and visibly glowed in the praise. He looked so young, I was tempted to ask if his mother knew he was there.
A waiter came with tall beers for Aubury and me, and we added our own congratulations on that day’s game.
Bell spoke up, telling Gatewood, “I’d do even better if you’d let me throw my knuckler more. It’s the best pitch I got.”
“I told you before,” the manager replied firmly, “don’t matter how good a pitch you throw if the catcher can’t catch it.”
Drake said to the youngster, “Bill will teach you some new pitches, same as he taught me.” He jerked his thumb at Gatewood, and explained, “This man only got three pitches: spitball, emory ball, and bean ball. And he taught me that last one real well. He’d pick out a spot on a batter’s body, and tell me I got to hit that spot or pay a dollar fine.”
Gatewood roared above the music, “Hell, I was just teaching you control. A little target practice is the best way to learn it!”
Bell tilted his head toward Drake. “He sure learned it good—they don’t call him Plunk for nothing. If he don’t hit you, he’ll keep you dancing. First game I was with the team, I saw him throw at a batter’s head, knee, and hip, to go 3–0 on the count—and then he struck him out on three straight strikes.”
I could have listened to them talk baseball all night, but I forced myself to get to the point of the visit. “You had another pitcher on the Stars who was real good,” I said. “Slip Crawford.”
They all grew somber, even the jovial Plunk Drake, and I was sorry that I’d put a damper on the party. I felt especially bad for Bell; he’d gotten his spot in the Stars’ rotation because of Crawford’s death, and he squirmed uneasily, as if I’d just reminded him of that fact.
Drake said, “It was a damn shame about Slip.”
“A goddamn crime, is what it was,” said Gatewood.
Aubury and I exchanged glances, but neither of us pointed out that technically lynching wasn’t a crime.
“You know,” Drake said, “he had the best curveball I ever seen.” The pitcher started to smile again as his thoughts turned to Crawford’s talents instead of his death. “He’d just slip that ball right around your bat. Hitting Slip was like trying to catch a greased pig.”
“He sure slipped his curve around my bat,” I said. “I couldn’t get one hit off him.”
The colored players looked at me quizzically.
Aubury spoke up, “Mickey played against Crawford last month in East St. Louis.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And he made me look as bad at the plate as you”—I pointed to Bell—“made me look in the field with your base running.”
“I thought I seen you somewhere before.” The young pitcher grinned, and his eyes shone brightly. “You’re the one who tried that appeal play. You didn’t believe I touched second base.”
“Hell, I didn’t know anybody could run like you do. And even after seeing you run, I still don’t believe it.”
Plunk Drake said, “I room with this boy, and I swear he can turn out the light and be in bed before the room gets dark.” His sly smile suggested he might be exaggerating, though probably not by much.
Gatewood was the only one at the table not smiling. He took a long swallow of beer, then said to me, “So you played in that game at Cubs Park.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“It was after that game that Slip was killed.”
Franklin Aubury said, “That’s why Mickey is here—he’s helping me investigate Crawford’s death.”
“You a cop?” Drake asked me.
“No, I play for the St. Louis Browns.”
Gatewood asked suspiciously, “Then why ain’t you with your team?”
“I got suspended for playing against the Cubs.”
“The Browns, huh?” said Drake. “I pitched a game in Sportsman’s Park last year, you know.”
“You did?” Since colored fans were limited to the bleachers, I was surprised that a Negro player had been allowed on the field.
“Yep. Exhibition game. St. Louis Giants—that’s what we were called before we became the Stars—against the Cardinals. Against most of the Cardinals, anyway—Hornsby said he wouldn’t go on the same field with colored men. Turned out to be one of the best games I ever pitched.” Drake smiled brightly at the memory. “They beat me, but it took ’em twelve innings to do it. Not bad, being able to take a big-league club into extra innings.”
A large, sultry-voiced woman joined the band and began singing a slow, seductive blues tune. The band played at a lower volume, making conversation at our table much easier.
Big Bill Gatewood was still focused on the Crawford lynching. “You’re ‘investigating,’ ” he said derisively. “If you ask me, there ain’t much to investigate. The Klan strung Crawford up for beating a white team.”
“That very well may be,” said Aubury. “But we need to know what happened, not merely assume.”
“I’ve already been talking to players on the Elcars,” I said, “and I’m looking into the Klan. What I’m hoping you can tell me about is Slip Crawford.”
There was no trace of a smile remaining on Drake’s face when he said, “You mean you want to know what there was about Slip that would make somebody want to lynch him? That’s easy: He wasn’t the Klan’s favorite color.”
“What if it wasn’t the Klan?” I said. “What if he was killed by somebody else—maybe for some personal reason?” I could tell that the men around the table didn’t think there was much chance that it was anyone other than the KKK; and perhaps they didn’t like the idea that I might be trying to pin the crime on someone other than the Klan. I pressed on anyway, “Was Crawford tough to get along with? Did he run with a bad crowd?”
Bell answered first. “I only saw him that one game. I didn’t really know the man at all.”
“I did,” said Drake. “If he was alive, he wouldn’t be here with us tonight, I can tell you that. Off the field, Slip led a quiet life. Had a good wife in Hannah. She’s a hardworking woman—runs a hair salon and writes dreambooks on the side. They made a decent living and had a good life together. No kids, but they were hoping.”
“Dreambooks?” I asked.
Franklin Aubury explained, “Little booklets that tell people what numbers to bet on; women who write them claim the numbers come to them in a dream. It’s like fortune-telling.”
I addressed Drake. “You said off the field he was quiet. What about on the field? Did the other players get along with him?”
“All except the ones who had to hit against him—Slip was at war when he was stepped onto the diamond. No trouble with his own teammates, though.” He started to grin again. “Not like George Scales, our third baseman—that man’s not right in the head. I roomed with him for a couple weeks and never got a minute’s sleep. Had to keep one eye open all night, ‘cause now and then he’d get a mind to try to cut me with a knife. I even took to keeping a gun under my pillow, but still couldn’t sleep. Finally had to get me a different roomie.”
“Was there any problem about Crawford jumping from the ABCs to the Stars this year?” I asked.
Gatewood answered, “No, we all do that. You play wherever you can get a decent paycheck.”
Plunk Drake spoke up again. “As long as you stay within the league, it’s okay.”
“What do you mean?”
Drake looked at Gatewood as if seeking permission. The manager shrugged and nodded for him to go ahead. “There’s another league starting,” the pitcher said, “the Eastern Colored League.”
“I read about that.”
“Well, to have a league, you got to have ballplayers. And the ECL is trying to recruit Negro National League players to jump to them.”
“Were they recruiting Crawford?”
“Sure were. Some thug named Rosie Sumner—works for a gangster in Harlem—was pushing him hard.”
“Was he making any progress?”
“Nah, Rube Foster says he’ll blacklist any player wh
o signs with the ECL. Crawford wasn’t gonna take that risk.”
“Did Sumner talk to any of the other Stars about jumping?”
“To me,” Drake said. “But he didn’t push much.”
Bell shook his head no, and Gatewood said Sumner had only phoned him once.
The band launched into an up-tempo number that started my foot tapping and got Bell drumming along on the tabletop.
Drake polished off his beer and thumped the empty glass down on the table. “No offense, but I came out for fun tonight—and this ain’t fun.” He scanned the room, and another smile took over his face. “I see a young lady I’ll bet is dying to dance with me. Excuse me, gentlemen.”
With Drake gone, I asked Gatewood, “Why would Slip Crawford be the only one of the Stars Sumner was applying pressure to? You got a lot of good players from what I saw today.”
“Yeah, but we don’t got great players. Crawford was gonna be a great one. He’d been around long enough to prove himself, and was young enough that we all knew he’d get even better.” The manager nodded to Bell. “Of course, once the ECL hears about Cool Papa here, they’ll come trying to recruit him, too.”
Bell grinned at the compliment, but I worried that it might not be a good thing for the youngster to be “recruited” by Rosie Sumner. I asked Bell, “Have you had any problems after the game with the Elcars?”
“What kind of problems?”
“Crawford got killed,” I said, “and Denver Jones’s house was burned down, so I was wondering if any of the other players had trouble.”
The youngster shook his head. “I ain’t heard nothing from the Cubs—but I been on the road all season. Ain’t had no trouble myself, though. And if anybody came to our house, I got four bigger brothers at home who’d protect the place.”
“Okay.” I was out of questions, so I looked from Bell to Gatewood. “Anything else you can tell me about Slip Crawford?”
Gatewood said, “No, but I got a question for you. What if you find out that it was the Klan who killed him? What will you do then?”