by John Holway
I wasn’t as good a hitter after I turned on my left side from my right. At first when I’d get two strikes on me, I’d turn back on my right, so I wouldn’t strike out. And after I turned over on my left side, they wouldn’t let me swing hard anymore. That’s why I didn’t hit the long ball all the time. I’d stand back from the plate and chop down on the ball. That’s something I learned from the old players. By the time the ball comes down, they can’t throw me out. They’d bring in their infield as if there was a man on third and no out; they couldn’t get me if they played back in their normal position. I’d just hit the ball to short, and if he has to move over for it, he can’t throw me out. I’d hit the ball so he’d have to move over. I could hit it between first and second nine times out of ten. Now take Bob Gibson or Jim Bunning: they follow through so hard, I’d hit it behind them. Those kinds of pitchers couldn’t beat our team much.
Oh, it was a tough league. We had a lot of other good ballplayers that came along that were good enough to play, but we had so many ballplayers then—so many good ballplayers. Now, the Sculling Steel Mill in St. Louis had some of the best players you ever saw, but they wouldn’t play pro ball. They couldn’t make enough money at it. The same with the Post Office in Chicago. They had some of the best players in the country. We had a lot of ballplayers better than some of those in the majors today. But some of our owners didn’t think we were good enough to play in the majors. They said, “You’d have to learn a whole new system in the majors.” That shows how much they knew about baseball!
When I came up, we didn’t play baseball like they play in the major leagues. We played tricky baseball. When we played the big leaguers after the regular reason, our pitchers would curve the ball on the 3–2. They’d say, “What, are you trying to make us look bad?” We’d bunt and run and they’d say, “Why are you trying to do that in the first inning?” When we were supposed to bunt, they’d come in and we’d hit away. Oh, we played tricky baseball.
That’s why we beat the major-league teams. It’s not that we had the best men, but in a short series we could outguess them. Baseball is a guessing game. The major leaguers would play for one big inning. They go by “written baseball.” But there’s so much “unwritten baseball.” When you use it, they say it’s unorthodox. In our league, if a guy was on first and had a chance to go to third, he’d go just fast enough to make the outfielder throw. That way the batter could take second, see. We’d go into third standing up so the third baseman couldn’t see the throw coming and it might go through him. Jackie Robinson learned that from some old players he saw in the Negro leagues. Sometimes you can teach a guy something and he can do it better than you. If the throw got by our third baseman, I’d charge in from center field, he’d flip it to me and I’d put the runner out. Or when they’d get a guy in the hot box [running him down]. Most of the time the infielders throw it back and forth and the runner just stands there in the middle. I’d run in from center and put him out. I did that numbers of times.
The Chicago American Giants had the smartest players you ever saw. They used to bat in a run on a base on balls. If they had a man on third and the batter walked, he’d just trot easy-like down to first, and the man on third would just sort of stand there looking at the stands. At the last minute, the batter would cut out for second as fast as he could go, the coach would yell, “Heh, look at that!” the pitcher would whirl around, the guy on third would light out for home, and like as not they wouldn’t get anybody out.
I think we had a better system than the majors. Whatever it takes to win, we did. We were playing our style and they were playing their style. And every team had two or three good, outstanding pitchers on it. Some of them had four who could pitch in any league, anywhere. That’s another reason we could beat the major leaguers in a short series, but playing a full season, with only sixteen to seventeen men, why, we couldn’t last.
In ’23 they told Oscar Charleston I was faster than he. They put me in the outfield to shag balls with him. We would run from right field to left field, and the one who got there first wouldn’t catch the ball, he would wait for the other one, wait and see if he could catch it. They knew I was faster than Charleston, because Jimmy Lyons was faster than Charleston, and I could beat Lyons.
Oscar Charleston was a sensation ballplayer. He played right behind second base, but he could go back and get that ball. Willie Mays plays close in too, but he can’t go back like Charleston could. When I first started, I played close in too; I’d run back and catch those balls over my head. But I found out that some of those balls just missed my hand. If I had been back a step, I would have caught them, so I began to play back.
Curt Flood plays back too. He catches as many balls as Mays, always did. If Mays would move back a step or two, he’d catch some of those balls that are over his head. I saw a ball hit in San Francisco, one of those high liners, hit the fence, and the guy got a triple. They said, “Mays was the only ballplayer that would have held the guy to a triple.” But I say, “Uh uh. If it had been Flood, he would have caught the ball.” Those things you have to learn. Mays can’t go back the way Charleston did.
Oscar Charleston—if I was picking an all-star team, I don’t care about those other guys, that’s who I’d put in center field.
The Stars played at the park at Compton Avenue and Market Street by the old car barns. It was a wood park. At first it didn’t have a top on it. I guess it could seat around 5,000 people. It had a wood fence around it, and people almost cut that fence down by cutting peepholes in it. In right field they had a house sat on a corner there, must have been about 400 feet down the line. In left was a car shed. Down the line was 269 feet, then it would slant off to center around 500 feet. By the car barn was a track running beside there. If a right-hand hitter could pull the ball he could hit it up on that shed, but they had to hit it high—about 30 feet high. The car shed was the wall. Where the car shed ended, there you had a fence. There was plenty of room out there in center field; there wasn’t anybody going to hit it out of there.
Willie Wells joined the Stars in 1924. He could field—one of the greatest fielders I ever saw. And Wells was a great hitter, he made a great hitter out of himself. Of course he wouldn’t hit fifty home runs. But in ’28 we had a play-off with the American Giants—we won the first half of the season, they won the other. Wells hit two home runs off Willie Foster, their best left-hander.
By 1929 what a team we had: Quincy Trouppe catching, Highpockets Trent and Leroy Matlock pitching, George Giles first base, Newt Allen second, Willie Wells shortstop, plus Mule Suttles, Frog Redus and me in the outfield.
In 1930 we beat the major-league all-stars six out of eight games in Chicago. Pitching they had Willis Hudlin, George Uhle and Earl Whitehill. Whitehill beat us both times—he was the toughest big-league pitcher I ever faced. Down in Mexico in 1936, he beat us down there too. I ran the bases against them the same as I did any other team. If it was time to steal, I’d steal.
Now Pepper Martin of the Cardinals was a pretty good base runner. He ran kind of wild in the World Series in 1931 when he stole five bases. I played against him in 1930 on the Pacific Coast. We played in a park called White Sox Park. It had a long left field foul line, and most of our guys could get a homer on a hard grounder down the line. Pepper Martin hit one past the third baseman into the corner, and he just did make it to third base. All the people started saying, “I thought Pepper Martin could run!” When we played those fellows, they’d come and ask us how we did this or that, and I told Pepper how to get a lead off the pitcher. If you have a catcher with a great arm, you have to get a bigger lead. You can’t steal on the catcher much. It’s with the pitcher you’ve got to get the jump. A lot of people don’t know this —you can’t outrun that ball.
When you get a hit, some people are satisfied if they get a single, but if you run hard, just like you’re trying to beat out a bunt, and make your turn at first, if the outfielder has to go over to get the ball, you can go to second. That’s
how you take your extra base, by hustling all the time. And if you’re stealing second, don’t be satisfied. Look up. The infielder might miss the ball, and you can get up and go to third. A lot of players expect the coaches to tell them, but the coach can’t think as fast as the player can.
Well, after Martin had that good year in the Series the next year, he gave all the credit to me for stealing all those bases. They asked him if colored players could play in the majors, and he told them about playing against me and how I had helped him.
That winter in Cuba I hit three home runs in one game against Johnny Allen. I was the first man to hit three homers in one game in Cuba. Later on the major-league all-stars went down there, and Dick Sisler hit three home runs in one game, and they had a big celebration about it. José Fernandez was the manager of the Cuban Stars. He told them Dick Sisler wasn’t the first fellow to hit three home runs in one game, Bell was. He said, “Wait, I’ll go home to get the papers to prove it.”
A lot of those white boys in Cuba had never played against colored before. Some of them didn’t want to play against us down there. But the Cubans said, “We all play together here, it doesn’t make any difference.” We used to get a lot of them from Kentucky and around there, their first year in the majors or just out of the minors. They didn’t know those Cuban boys were black. They said, “We didn’t come down here to play colored.” But after they got down there and started to play, it was just a changeover for them.
A lot of times you hear people talk about colored: “He’s lazy, he won’t work, he’ll cut you, he’ll steal.” The colored man’s no more lazy than the white. They brought them over here to help build the United States. But when they didn’t pay them, of course they didn’t want to work. Now they’re fighting to go to school, to get a better job, get a home. How can you say they’re lazy and you won’t allow them to work?
The Stars broke up in 1931. The whole league broke up. In ’32 we went to Detroit—Wells, Trouppe, myself and Dizzy Dismukes, the manager. At that time the Homestead Grays had two teams, the Grays and the Detroit Senators. Detroit was stronger than the Grays. We were making money, but the Homestead Grays went broke. The Posey brothers and Charlie Walker had the Grays, but they couldn’t make ends meet with two teams, so they carried us over there to Pittsburgh with the Grays. Five of us went to the Grays, but they took us off salary and we played on a percentage of the gate. When they took us off salary, some of us went back with the Kansas City Monarchs. The Pittsburgh Crawfords wanted me to play with them, but I said, “No, I promised the Monarchs.” That winter the Monarchs went to Mexico, but we didn’t make any money, so the next year I went on with the Crawfords.
That was 1933. When I went out East I was hitting .500. Josh Gibson was hitting more than me, but when I started gaining on him, they said, “Don’t you send any clippings about what you’re doing.” The secretary of the Crawfords wanted to tell the truth, but they fined him. They didn’t want to rate me over Josh or Satchel Paige, because I’d ask for more salary.
Sam Streeter used to keep score, but sometimes he didn’t even bring the scorebook out there. I stole 175 bases that year, but they only gave me credit for 91. The last game they played I got five hits out of six, stole five bases. But they didn’t take the scorebook out there that day, and I didn’t get credit.
I used to let Roy Campanella and his team in the ball park when he was a little kid in Philadelphia around 1933. He probably doesn’t remember that. Campanella played on a team called the Metros, and I took them to the ball park. Not the whole team; about four or five little boys. I told the man, “These are ballplayers, let ’em in.” I said, “They haven’t got any money, but they’ll grow up to be men and they’ll be baseball fans.”
In 1935 we played Dizzy Dean’s all-stars a series. We opened in York, Pennsylvania, and in the first inning we got four runs off Diz. I hit, Jerry Benjamin hit, Buck Leonard walked and Josh Gibson hit the ball over the fence. The people started booing, and Diz went into the outfield for a while. He hated to just take himself out of a game. Satchel Paige was pitching for us, and we beat them 11–1.
At Dayton, Ohio, Dizzy’s brother Paul was supposed to pitch, but he just went home. We beat them two games, and the third was tied in the ninth when the umpire called it. Otherwise we wouldn’t draw when we got to New York.
In New York, I got two doubles off Diz in the first game. When Gibson came up with me on second, Diz kept telling the outfield, “Get back, get back.” Jimmy Ripple was playing center field. He said, “How far do you want me to get back?” But Diz just said, “Get back, get back.” It was a scoreless tie. Gibson hit a fly deep to Ripple. I rounded third and Dick Lundy, who was coaching at third, yelled stop. I stopped, but the shortstop was just getting the throw from Ripple, so I started for home again. The catcher caught the ball high, and I slid in and the umpire called me out. Well, the people came out of the stands and went after the umpire, and I like to have got cut with a knife. The umpire said, “Look, you don’t do that against a big-league team—score from second on an outfield fly.” So he called me out. Then Ripple tripled, and they beat us 3–0 when Ray Dandridge, our third baseman, threw the ball away. Swift won the second game 3–0. We lost the same as the first game, by a wild throw. Dean was a great pitcher.
In 1936 I played against Rogers Hornsby’s all-stars in Mexico. We had taken a colored all-star team to Mexico in 1932, but we were too strong for them, so they said, “Next time just bring an ordinary team and it will be more interesting.” So we went down there again in 1936, and the first thing the Mexicans said was, “Come on out tomorrow and play the big leaguers.” We said, “Big leaguers! We didn’t know they were here!” They had Jimmy Foxx and Rogers Hornsby in the infield, Heinie Manush and Doc Cramer in the outfield, Steve O’Neill catching and Whitehill pitching. It takes about a week to get used to the altitude, and they’d been down there about two weeks while we’d just arrived. But we had them beat 6–4, with two out in the ninth, when Manush was safe on first. Foxx took a 3–2 count. Then he got a ball up around his letters and hit it into the bleachers for a home run. The umpire called the game. The sun was up in the sky, but they called the game. That night we all had dinner at an American restaurant, and Foxx told us that that was a strike, the third ball the umpire called, but he said he wasn’t going to argue.
Next day Hornsby hit a ball way over my head. I ran back and caught it over my head. He said, “Come here, Lefty. That was the hardest ball I ever hit. How did you catch it?”
Earl Mack, Connie Mack’s son, said, “If the door was open, you’d be the first guy I’d hire. I’d pay you $75,000 a year to play ball. You’d be worth it in drawing power alone.”
They beat us the last two games, so the next year we said we’re going to get a good team and beat Hornsby.
In 1937 we had ten games scheduled against Hornsby in the States. He was slowing up then, but they had him advertised. Satchel Paige never could remember names. In the first game, in Davenport, Iowa, he said, “I want you to tell me when Hornsby comes to bat,” so I yelled, “Here’s Hornsby.” Well, there was a lot of applause, but when the ball hit the catcher’s glove, Hornsby would swing. Satch struck him out two times. Andrew Porter—we used to call him “Pullman Porter”—struck Hornsby out twice, but it was a night game, dark, rainy and foggy. We got five hits and they got two, but they beat us 2–1. Johnny Mize got both hits. It was tied 1–1, and Mize hit a little pop fly behind second. The outfielder ran in to get it and kind of lost the ball in the fog. It was wet and he threw it into left field, and Mize went home. That’s what beat us.
Bobby Feller was just coming up then, and he pitched three innings against us in Des Moines. We got only one hit off him and no runs, but we beat them after he left, 5–2 or 5–3. We beat them a doubleheader in Denver, came back to Des Moines and beat them again, and they just canceled the last five games.
The only fight I ever got in was one year in the Denver semipro tournament. I slid into third bas
e and this guy dropped the ball. When I was getting off the ground he was swinging at me. I hit him and he turned a flip. Three guys jumped from the dugout with bats. Rap Dixon on our team jumped between me and them. The umpire went behind to hold me. What was he holding me for? I wasn’t trying to fight him—he was trying to fight me!
In 1937 this guy Trujillo was running the Dominican Republic, only he was having some troubles. He figured since his people liked baseball so much, if he came up with a top-notch team they wouldn’t want to see him lose his job. So he imported a bunch of us from the States. There was Paige and Gibson, Samuel Bankhead, Orlando Cepeda’s daddy, me and others. We didn’t know we were being used for a political reason until we got there. The people told us if we didn’t win the title we would be executed. Some of our boys got so nervous they couldn’t play. But we won. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t be here to tell about it.
After that I went down to Mexico for four years. I led the Mexican League in 1940. Led or tied for the lead in every department: hit .437, most home runs—thirteen. I hit twenty inside-the-park homers, but I didn’t get credit for them. When I hit a ball between the outfielders, they wouldn’t give me a home run. They said, “You’re too fast.” They had a short fence in Mexico. If I hit a ball on the side of that fence and made a home run off of it, they would give me a double.
I was in Cuba in the winter of 1940 and I was hitting .360. The closest man to me was forty points behind, and we had two weeks to go, about six games to play. My team couldn’t win the championship even if we won those six games, so they sent all five of us American boys home, took two weeks’ salary from us. I was supposed to get $500 cash for winning the batting championship, but by sending me home, I didn’t get the championship. Baseball never was much for me making money.
The next year Memphis wanted me, so I went down there. They wanted me to manage if the manager got drunk. I said no. The owner was supposed to pay my transportation. He said, “Now you pay your transportation, when you get down here I’ll give it back to you.” After I got down there he wouldn’t give it to me. And then this guy told me, “And the owner of the club is a dentist and all our players have their teeth fixed here.” I didn’t have a toothache and I wasn’t about to pay a man to fix what didn’t need fixing, so I just turned around and went home. I left and went back to the Homestead Grays.