by John Holway
And that’s what did it. The East-West games really did it, when the whites saw 50 to 60,000 people out there. You see, all they used to see was 10 to 12,000 at our games at the most. Well, that isn’t much use. But when they saw an East-West game, that was the greatest thing in the history of Negro ball that took place after Rube Foster. Branch Rickey had more to offer those sixteen white owners than just the black boy. He had all those black fans.
Did you read the statement that Ford Frick made when they were fixing to boycott Jackie Robinson in St. Louis? I thought it was beautiful. The players were fixing to strike, you know. Frick said, “If you do, then you’ll be barred from the league.” I said, “What a man!” He stopped it. This was the United States of America, and every citizen had a right to play.
Occasionally when I’m in the streets I meet some of the old fans, you know, and they say, “Hello, Dave,” and I don’t even know them. And they say, “My goodness, you look like you could play third base right today.” And do you know what I say to them? I say, “I quit in 1934 and I haven’t run a step since.” But I weigh 140—that’s less than my playing weight. Do I look like I’m seventy-six? Every morning I touch my toes without bending my knees. I take care of myself. I don’t eat any sugar. I eat three times a day, nonfattening food. I know what to eat.
I love to write, poetry in particular. After my wife died in 1946, it was such a shock that I went right into writing poetry, and from that time until now I have written innumerable poems, and this year I am going to try to publish some of them. I write about everything, everything. I’m versatile. I have many, many small short poems, and some are really long ones. A few years ago I belonged to a poetry club, and they used to come into the meetings and they would have those two-line two-verse poems, and I would come in with ten, twenty and thirty verses—long ones. Well, if you don’t know much, you can’t write much. Here’s my longest one: The Epic of the Second World Conflict: Man, War and the Gods. Poetic thesis on war and violent revolutions. I was sixteen years writing that. This is the one I told you about, where I quote MacArthur shaking like a wind storm.
One I wrote after I went to a ball game in 1948 to see some of the Negro players who made the major leagues. It was written in a melancholy moment when I thought of the host of Negro players now deceased—the great ones whom the great majority of America’s fans did not see. I compared them to the beautiful jungle orchids that bloom and die without ever being seen.
Dave Malarcher
Chapter 4
CRUSH HOLLOWAY
Old-time black players unanimously agree that Crush Holloway was the roughest base runner in the old Negro leagues. As little Jake Stephens—shortstop, base runner, raconteur—puts it: “By God! You’d be committing hara-kiri to get in the way of Crush Holloway or Jimmy Lyons. They’d cut you to death. I mean, they’d sharpen their spikes before they went out on the ball field. Like Cobb.”
Pitcher Bill Foster nods: “Crush Holloway was fast. He was rough too. He’d put his spikes right here, in your mouth, if you opened it. But he was always nice. He’d hurt you, then jump up and say, ‘Man, I’m sorry.’ I’d say, ‘Get out of here, Holloway.’ ”
Holloway was a fine fielder too. Against a big-league all-star team in 1928, his one-hand catch of George Maisel’s fly in the ninth inning saved two runs as the Baltimore Black Sox beat Lefty Grove 9–3. That same year he raced in to make a sensational shoestring catch of a Texas leaguer in short left field with men on first and third and two out. His catch saved at least one run, as the Black Sox won again, 2–1.
The Crush Holloway I met in Baltimore in 1969 was quite different from what I had expected. Instead of an ogre, I found a disarming man in shirt sleeves standing among racks of coats and dresses in his small tailor shop in Baltimore’s ghetto. Still spare and trim at the age of almost eighty, he chuckled frequently as he conjured up the memories of so many years ago, punctuating his narrative with loud hisses from his old-fashioned foot-operated pressing machine, while behind the counter his wife laughed silently with him as the stories unfolded. My last talk with Holloway came in his hospital room two months before his death from cancer in June 1972.
Crush Holloway Speaks . . .
Stealing? Oh, I was pretty good. That’s what they say anyway. Yeah, I made them jump down there on second base. They were scared of me ’cause I’d say, “I’m gonna jump on you.” I wouldn’t really jump on them, just try to scare them; I didn’t want to hurt anybody. But I filed my spikes, that’s true. Most fast men used to do that. We didn’t intend to hurt anybody, though, just scare them, that’s all.
Naw, I wouldn’t hurt anybody for anything in the world. Unless it’s necessary. Now you see, the only place you could score was home plate. All those other bases were just temporary. But if someone gets in your way there—at home plate—when you’re trying to get there [laughs], you’d jump every way—you’re trying to score! Yeah, better get out of the way—you’re coming! Coming in there. That was baseball in those days.
I see these catchers block home plate now, it’s pitiful. Get in front of it and block it. If you slide, you’re never going to get to home plate, you have to slide around him because he’s in front of it. How you going to hook slide into home plate? You’ll never get there. Never. So you go in there with two feet—rough. You run over them—you don’t slide—you run over them, just keep a-running. Run all up on his arms, knock the ball out of his arms.
I remember one time the catcher for the Harrisburg Giants got the ball and came up the line, see. He shouldn’t have done that. He should have stayed back there at home plate. When he came up the line, that’s when I had to do a little dirty work. No, I didn’t hurt him, I didn’t cut him. I just knocked his mitt and mask off, turned his chest protector around, left him sitting there on home plate. In my day those catchers learned not to block home plate on you. Those catchers respected you in those days!
Crush Holloway
Baseball’s so gentlemanfied now. They don’t jump at you, don’t cut you, don’t do anything—just slide in there and let the man put you out. The man’s holding the ball down here at the base and they just slide into it. We’d go into the base with our heels up like that: kick it with our feet, knock it out of his hand. These players today slide with their hands first. We never slid with our hands. That’s dangerous. A man can step on them trying to catch the ball. So there are all kinds of tricks, you know.
They don’t play it now like they used to. We played with the heart. Today they play it for money. They don’t hustle like they used to. We’d do everything to win.
Frank Robinson plays that same way. He’d hurt you too, yeah, he’d hurt you. But in a nice way. You don’t try to cut anybody up or put him out of baseball. Some of those boys were mean. They would cut you, then get up and fight you. I wouldn’t do that. I would jive, I’d say, “Oh man, I’m sorry. Go on, get up.” Brush him off. See, I didn’t want to hurt anybody. They were making a living like I was. But we played rough in those days—rough.
Yeah, I ran against big leaguers—Mickey Cochrane—I ran against anybody, I didn’t care who they were. See, you steal on the pitcher, you don’t steal on the catcher. Study the pitcher’s moves. Any ordinary catcher can throw you out if the ball gets to him on time. Lefty Grove had a fair move, nothing great. Eddie Rommel had a great move though. These pitchers today don’t have no kind of move. That’s why Maury Wills stole so many bases off them.
My hero was Ty Cobb. Ever since I was ten years old. That’s why I ran bases like I did. His picture used to come in Bull Durham tobacco. Showed the way he’d slide. That was my hero. I said, “I want to slide like Ty Cobb. I want to run bases like him.” That’s what made me try to run bases. I always had that image —Ty Cobb. My hitter was Home Run Baker. He didn’t hit but eleven home runs in one season, but he was a good hitter. I said, “I want to hit like Home Run Baker.” That was my hero too, and Ty Cobb was my man on the bases. That’s what I loved. ’Cause I got all those pi
ctures there in that Bull Durham tobacco. You don’t remember that, you’re too young, you don’t know nothing about that.
Crush, that’s my real name, that ain’t no nickname. And I’ll tell you how I got it. The day I was born, September 16, 1896, down in Hillsboro, Texas, my father was fixing to go see a “crash,” a collision. They’d take two old locomotive engines and crash them together for excitement, sort of a fair, and my father was going to see it. Before he got on the train, somebody pulled him off and said, “Your wife is about to have a child.” And when I turned out to be a boy, he named me “Crush.” That’s how I got my name. Oh, I’ve got some middle names—Crush Christopher Columbus Holloway—but I don’t use those other names. I just use Crush, ’cause I like Crush better.
I was born in Hillsboro and raised in Waco. I started playing baseball on the sandlots, playing every Sunday if I could get off from home. Had to slip off early in the morning, you know, ’cause my parents wouldn’t let me play Sundays. We’d play on those little lots, all the boys would get together and play all day long Sunday, two or three different games, until the sun went down. That’s how I started. I just always liked baseball. I wanted to be a ballplayer.
We used to make our own balls in the country: twine and wrapping. We called them “card balls” in those days. We used to play with a nickel ball; after one game it was flat. That’s why we bought a 25¢ ball, a pretty good ball. When you bought a 50¢ ball, that lasted, oh, five or six games. Then we got that $1.25 ball, that was for a whole season.
I loved baseball. Out in them cotton fields I used to take a broomstick and take a whole pile of little rocks and hit. Imagination: That was a big deal. I’d hit a home run or a pop-up. Pop said, “If you don’t come in here, boy ... out there in that dark.” Just hitting those pebbles, you know? Imagination.
Don’t tell me about working those cotton fields! My daddy had me out there early in the morning, getting them cows and things up. At sunrise we’d be in the field plowing. Oh that was big cotton—that was producing things down there then. Cotton and corn, wheat, all that stuff. My father owned the farm. He was a schoolteacher.
I was the oldest boy, see. Had five sisters, but they couldn’t do nothing on the farm. I was the only boy he could depend on, you know what I mean? I had brothers, but they were so young, ten to twelve years younger than me. They couldn’t do anything. That’s why Pop would depend on me. I was his man, had to do everything. That’s what I did until I got grown.
In the First World War I wanted to go in the Army so bad! I wanted to get away from that farm. The county sent thirty-one boys to the draft board, nothing but country boys. But two of us they sent back. Oh, we were physically fit. They examined me, I was 5’11½” in my stocking feet, perfect health—had to be perfect out in the country. But the quota was filled, see. Then they sent us back to the Army again. But by that time the armistice was signed, so they didn’t take me again. I wanted to go in the Army so bad. That farm was something on me!
I didn’t leave until I was twenty-one. My father said, “You’re a grown man, you can do what you want to do, but I want you to stay here with me.” I said, “No! I’m going to play baseball.” I said, “That’s the end of it, Pop. I got to go.” He was a good father, didn’t try to hold me. He knew I did my chores right. So he let me go.
I started out playing professional ball in 1919 in San Antone, Texas. It’s a long story. A man named Franks from Waco—a white man, had a restaurant—he had organized us as the Waco Black Navigators. We played about three months, but every time we tried to play somewhere it rained, rained, rained. He lost all his money. A man named Moore came through looking for ballplayers and Franks said, “I’ll sell you the whole club. I got to get my money back.” He cried when we left. So Moore bought the club out, sent us to San Antone. We were the San Antone Black Aces. The first stop he sent us to was Wichita Falls, and it was a month before we got back to San Antone. That’s how the club started, 1919–20.
We had Biz Mackey catching—he was great. Highpockets Hudspeth on first base, I was second, Namon Washington in short, Henry Blackman on third—Blackman was a great third baseman too.
The Aces played in the white Texas League and Southern League parks—Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Beaumont, Wichita Falls. That’s why those boys from Texas could play so good, they had good grounds. Not like out East, where they had to play on those little old lots. In the Texas League they had a turtle back diamond; the mound was high, and it kind of rolled down from the pitcher’s box to the infield. The ball could hop off there and come down at you.
Mackey and about six other guys went up to Indianapolis in 1920. Old man Bellinger—Charlie Bellinger, he was a rich millionaire—was a politician in San Antone. He was a friend of C. I. Taylor of the Indianapolis ABC’s, and he’d look out for ballplayers for him. Let me see: Mackey, Blackman, Hudspeth, Washington and about two other players—Morris Williams and Bob MeClure—went up to Indianapolis that year. It broke our club all to pieces. I didn’t go that year. I didn’t want to go ’cause I was mad. I was so mad I didn’t know what to do.
Crush Holloway, Indianapolis ABCs, 1923, back row on right
Crush Holloway stands at far right with the Indianapolis ABC’s. Also in the top row are Ben Taylor, Biz Mackey, and Oscar Charleston, #2-3-4. The park is the old Federal League Park.
The next year C. I. Taylor sent for me to join his team, and that was the greatest team I ever played on.
C. I. Taylor taught me how to run. I used to lead off or hit second. In my early years I was lead-off mostly. I used to hit the ball to the infield and get thrown out on first base like this: slap-slap. When I came back to the bench, C.I. said, “Young man, you ain’t running.” I said to myself, “I must be running.” My fault was I’d watch the ball for a second after I hit it. That’s how I lost that step. After that when I hit it I’d just shoot right on out there—run! Then I’d start beating them out like this: slap-slap.
C.I. converted me to an outfielder. See, we had a boy there played second base I couldn’t even touch: Connie Day. One of our great second baseman.
I call the 1922 ABC’s the best team I ever played with. They had somebody who could do everything. Six good pitchers. Mackey and Mac Eggelston were the catchers. Ben Taylor first base, Connie Day second, Morty Clark shortstop, and Blackman third. I call that the million-dollar infield. I wouldn’t call the outfield a million dollars, because I was on it. But it was a great outfield too. Had some good hitters, everybody could hit that ball. I was in right, Namon Washington in left, and Oscar Charleston in center.
Charleston was the best defensive outfielder I’ve seen. Good judge of a ball. He’d turn his back and when he’d turn around, that ball was right there. And he was fast, oh yes, he was a fast man. But if he had time to get under a fly ball, he’d walk—he had it timed, he’d walk fast. And he’d do acrobatics. People used to come out and see him do his stunts in the outfield. And he was a great hitter too—hit lots of home runs.
In ’24 we came out East here to the Baltimore Black Sox. George Rossiter had the team here. Great man, George. I don’t know if he was an Irishman or what. He had a big restaurant —seafood. We were all in California that winter, and he sent all that money to get us, said, “I don’t care what the price is, there’s something I want.” That’s when we left California, the whole ball club almost, about eight of us. They paid us so much money. We were getting $170–175 out there, came out here and got 350–375. Man, you know we were going to come here!
Peter Hill got the ballplayers together. He was managing the Cleveland Tate Stars until Rossiter contacted him and got us all together. We got here the first of April, 1924. For two weeks it was the biggest snow I’ve ever seen in my life. All the racetracks were closed—Bowie, Laurel, all those places closed up. We stayed in Tom Smith’s hotel for two weeks. It was a month before we started to train.
Pete Hill was our manager in ’24 and ’25. And a great manager. Played too, played left fiel
d. He was a left-handed hitter, hit to left field. Yeah, he’s the man taught me how to hit to left field. I was pulling the ball. Ball on the outside, I was pulling to right. He gave me a bigger bat, see: “Now knock that third baseman down. Just step up in front of the plate, hit the ball out in front, see?” Oh, he was a great hitter.
We played the major leaguers down here in Baltimore every fall starting in 1926. We only played on Sundays, a doubleheader every Sunday for about three or four weeks until it got too cold to play. Then the boys would go to California or Cuba for the winter.
They’d bring Lefty Grove, Mickey Cochrane, Jimmy Foxx, Goose Goslin and Hack Wilson. Only man ever beat us was Eddie Rommel. We beat Lefty Grove twice, and he wouldn’t come back any more. He says he doesn’t remember? He’s kidding. He can remember. He was a great pitcher though. I didn’t get any hits off him. He didn’t give up but a few hits. We won one game with about three hits and the next one with four. He struck out eight or nine. But he was wild, and that’s the way we beat him in those days. He was with the Baltimore Orioles then, and he had a catcher named Ducky Smith from the International League. He crossed Ducky up there and threw the ball away. The man scored from third, and we beat him 1–0. Next time we beat him 2–1. Didn’t come back any more. Rossiter couldn’t get him back. Guaranteed him $200 every Sunday, but he wouldn’t come back.