Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues

by John Holway

  So I give Chappie credit for me making it to the top teams in Negro baseball: the Grays, the Crawfords, the New York Black Yankees and the Brooklyn Royals.

  Dick Seay and I came from Montreal to the Royals in 1929. That’s when I got my first glimpse of big-time black baseball. Dick Redding was manager of the Royals. He was one of the great ballplayers, and you don’t hear much about him now. Old-timers will tell you stories about men like Redding and Joe Williams and John Henry Lloyd. I don’t think you can appreciate what these men meant to baseball, what kind of ballplayers they were.

  I remember one night we were coming through the Catskill Mountains, coming from upstate New York, and we had two Pierce Arrow cars that we rode in. We had a flat tire in one. I don’t know why we didn’t have a spare; maybe cars didn’t have spares in those days, I’m not sure. Anyhow, we had to take the other car and go find a tire. Something like one o‘clock in the morning coming down the Rip Van Winkle Trail. We did finally go maybe fifteen or twenty miles, found a place open and bought a tire. Dick was the manager, road secretary and everything. So he set the tire on the running board outside, with his hand on it to hold it. I guess everybody fell asleep; I did. And when we got back and stopped, the driver got out and said, “Okay, Dick, come on, give me the tire.” Dick says, “Huh? What?” He jumped up, got outside the car, there was no tire there! He had gone to sleep, and the tire had rolled away someplace. Had to go back again and buy another tire, because Dick went to sleep! Now I get a big laugh out of it, but it was no joke then. I think the tire cost us something like 25 or 30 dollars, ’cause those old Pierce Arrow cars had big tires.

  Dick could do the funniest things. One time down in Cuba, he could hear a married couple in the hotel room next door. Dick tiptoed up to the wall and put a chair up next to it so he could stand on his tiptoes and look over the transom. Pretty soon he lost his balance and he came crashing right through the wall and onto the bed and everything.

  Oh, yes, it was a more colorful brand of baseball in our league. First of all, today I often watch for a certain play—I think maybe I’ve seen it once in a while—with a man on first base who can run, and a man at bat who has good bat control. I have been involved in just such a play. Dick Seay, with the Royal Giants, hit behind me in most cases, ’cause he was a good bunter, a terrific bunter, and a good hit-and-run man. I have gone from first to third on a bunt, I have scored from second on a bunt by Dick Seay.

  I could run, and I could run bases good. When I was on second and the pitcher’d go up to make his delivery to home plate, I would tear. I’m halfway to home by the time they let the ball go, because I had rounded third base, and my destination was home plate, on the bunt. The bunt would be down third base. Now the catcher’s got to get it, or in most cases the pitcher. But if the catcher did come out to get it, he was a dead duck, because I would keep going.

  This is one of the things that Redding did for me. He allowed us to put the play on, because Dick and I worked awful good together. Dick would give the signal, or I would give the signal: This was going to be the pitch. You’ve got to get your bat on that ball, and Dick was good at that. He could put his bat on the ball on waste pitches. He would save a man by getting a piece of the ball. In other words, this is the same as the hit-and-run. It is a hit-and-run, really. I’ll tell you who I did this to: In Bushwick, I did this on Stanley Baumgartner. We used to pull it on him—and we pulled it on George Earnshaw from the Athletics. These were times you needed one run, you had to have one run. If you can get these men in the position where they can operate, this is just as important as a slugger who hits the ball out of the ball park.

  Today who would be in a position to pull plays like that? Maury Wills or Willie Davis. In the major leagues they don’t do it, but we did it so many times.

  They don’t bunt now, and I have a fit. My wife would say, “They’ve got coaches getting $50,000 a year, maybe they don’t want them to do this.” But I can’t see why. You’re trying to win a ball game. Why not? But everybody tries to hit the ball out of the ball park. Again, maybe I’m old fashioned. I’m trying to carry the rules of the past up to the present. I would rather see a man—two men—execute a play like Dick Seay and I did. This gives me more excitement than it would to see him hit the ball out of the ball park, because everybody’s hitting the ball out of the ball park today. Maybe these plays are obsolete, I don’t know.

  You say, “Well, the fans like slugging.” I don’t know, we had some awful big crowds during those days to watch this—we called it inside baseball.

  You know, the Cubans and our teams, the American teams, were always rivals. I remember one day when I was with the Brooklyn Royals, Martin Dihigo was playing shortstop. I slid into him, and you know how I slid, I undressed him. The ball went into center field; Dihigo, I don’t know what way he went. Next day Dihigo pitched. He threw at me—I don’t mean he threw high, I mean he threw at me. I said, “Okay.” So I drug the ball down first base so Dihigo would have to cover first. That was the only way I could get back at him, and all of a sudden it struck him that I was after him. There was nobody but him and I there, and he had to cover with me climbing his back. You know where he went? He went into right field. He didn’t go near the bag! Straight to right field.

  When we’d play the Cubans they would always throw at me. See that spot on my temple? No hair. The guy hit me there was Cuban, in Palm Beach. Luis Tiant, Sr. Skinny, a smart pitcher. Left-hander, threw a screwball. But when he threw me curve balls, I would just lean on ‘em. Down in West Palm Beach I hit one off Tiant good. I was a youngster then. The next time I come up, first pitch, he got a curve ball away from me. The next one was right here—at my head. He laid me out. They poured water on me, they poured ice on me, everything. Tiant couldn’t speak much English. But the guy playing third base, Arango, in his very poor English said, “You no hit dat one!” I’m layin’ on the ground: “You no hit dat one.” I could just hear him. My head was getting bigger and bigger. I didn’t know how big it was going to get.

  Stanley Baumgartner was another good left-hander. He didn’t throw like most lefties, overhand. He threw sidearm. A left-handed hitter had to back up. He used to pitch every weekend on the Brooklyn Bushwicks after he came from the Phillies. One night in Bushwick Park he walked Irving Brooks, a right-handed hitter—a terrific hitter—to get to me, because I was lefty.

  I hit the ball in those lights—they had lights then in Bushwick Park that went way up high, on poles—and I hit the ball into those lights in right field off of him. We talked about it years after that when Baumgartner was a sportswriter covering the Phillies. I met him at Forbes Field one time, he and a Catholic priest, Father Anthony, who played shortstop for Bushwick in his younger days. We three met at Forbes Field—Father Anthony, Baumgartner and I—just shortly before Baumgartner died.

  I think I’m one of the few black players still alive who can boast playing against Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. I believe the year was 1928. Ruth’s All-Stars, they were called. Dick Redding pitched the game. We got beat, I think, something like 4–3. Ruth got one puny double. He didn’t hit the expected home run that everyone was looking for. My contribution for the day: two doubles. And the pitcher was Roy Sherrid of the Yankees. Wouldn’t I like to have a picture of Ruth and I that afternoon! I got two doubles and Ruth got one.

  I’m delighted to say that I played against some of our greatest major league ballplayers—pitchers included. I hit against George Earnshaw, Ed Rommel, both Deans, Larry French, Mike Ryba. I got base hits against these guys, and they were not over the hill. Ric Roberts has my clippings of the base hits I got off them. These were just a few that I kept. I should have kept so many, but I didn’t.

  I was in Baltimore in 1929 and 1930 with the Baltimore Black Sox. Let’s see, George Rossiter—I guess you might have come across that name—ran the Black Sox, and every fall we used to play against the major league all-stars. They would bring them into the Black Sox park there—they used to have the peopl
e hanging off the roof. Mickey Cochrane was catching, Joe Boley of the Athletics was at shortstop, Hack Wilson was an outfielder.

  Center field, I think, was Jake Powell, remember the name? Jake Powell . . . created some kind of a question by some remark he made. Yeah, he made a remark over the radio regarding Negroes. It was a slip, because I used to think that Jake Powell was quite a democratic individual. I only knew him from playing against him those two years, but there was no such prejudice, to my thinking, which shows how wrong we can often be, but I had no idea Jake Powell was feeling that way. He had quite a time trying to straighten this out, but he never made it. He faded out shortly after that.

  I had been up only about three years and was still getting my bearings. Rossiter had sent to New York to get Martin Dihigo from the Cubans, Biz Mackey from Philadelphia and me from the Brooklyn Royals.

  I remember the 1929 World Series so well, because if memory serves me right, the Philadelphia A’s scored eight runs in one inning and beat the Cubs. Then we played against most of the A’s in Baltimore that October.

  The last year I went to Florida was 1929, I think. I was supposed to go to Cienfuegos, Cuba, but the ball park blew down. Bruling White was in Florida. He had a smile, would have made a great public relations man today. Had been adopted by a rich white family. We bought a car, a Ford, the kind where the pedals sit here and you push this down and let it up and it’s in high gear. We bought one of those things for $35 and were going to drive it back up north.

  I tell people, “You didn’t hear about me playing, because I got on those different ball clubs because I could drive.” I would drive one car and Jess Hubbard would drive the other. They’d give you an extra $10 a month to do that. They had to have somebody, see, and I wouldn’t take up the extra space.

  Well, we bought this car for $35. I paid my half of it, $17.50. We drove this car all up through the South. I remember stopping in Charleston, South Carolina. We didn’t stop there to put up at a hotel—at that time, forget it. We got in about eight o’clock one morning. Stopped in a restaurant to eat, and I’ll always remember this: I had rice, scrambled eggs, bacon, catheads, hot biscuits. Twenty-five cents. It was too much, I couldn’t eat it all. When I got through eating, I remember a kid sitting a few stools away from me, swinging around on the stool. I paid, got up, said I’m ready to go. When I got to the door, I looked back and this kid was sitting in my seat eating like hell. He was going to town eating.

  I left Brooklyn and went with the Homestead Grays a short time in the beginning of the 1930 season, but I couldn’t see how anybody could leave New York and come to Pittsburgh and stay. I stayed for a while—I think I stayed for about two weeks, maybe three weeks. When they got ready to leave, I sneaked off. I think they were going to Altoona, and you know, they’d wait out front for you, but I went out the back door. Dick Redding had been waiting around town, and I sneaked out the back door and got in the car with the Brooklyn Royals, and we headed into the mountains.

  In 1930 the Cardinals got in the World Series and Frankie Frisch played us in Baltimore that fall. I can’t remember all the guys’ names, but they had a pitcher named Weaver—Jim Weaver, Big Jim Weaver. I dragged the ball down first base, and Frisch there at second had to cover. We got there the same time and I ran right up him. He had to have operations and everything. One night a few years ago I was sitting at dinner at Cooperstown and I was introduced to Frank Frisch. I said, “Well, I played against Frank Frisch in Baltimore.”

  He said, “You son of a gun, you’re the guy broke my leg!”

  I remember another game against Weaver. There used to be a fellow who came out to the ball park and would say, “Every time you drag a base hit, you get a ten-dollar bill.” I drug two base hits. I could run pretty fast. I figured: “This is an easy way to make $20.”

  I’d like to brag that that same year we beat Ed Rommel of the Athletics 5–3. Webster McDonald beat him. One of the reasons I kept the clipping is that I hit the top of the center field fence off Ed Rommel the first time up. Mickey Cochrane was catching and he had an idea—I don’t know where he got it—that I couldn’t hit a curve ball, so he had Rommel throw a curve ball. And I hit the fence with this one.

  When I played the big-league all-stars, I didn’t care what my batting average was. I was concerned: Am I going to hit good enough to be invited back? I idolized those ballplayers we had on our team. They were big men, they were legends. No use getting out there thinking that just because I was on the team this particular weekend that I got it made. They could do without me. If I do my job good enough, maybe I’ll get a chance to go next weekend or next year.

  Now the next year I came back to the Grays. George Scales had a lot to do with my coming back. They were going to Hot Springs, Arkansas. And you know, as a youngster you listened to old-timers talk about the places they’d gone and where they’d trained, and I always wanted to go to Hot Springs. They talked about hot water running out of the ground and all that business, and I thought, “This should be interesting.” And this is how I got to the Grays.

  Bill Perkins and Josh Gibson were our catchers. We stole Perkins out from under the sheriff’s watchdogs in Dawson, Georgia. Perkins was the idol of the town; they had built a ball park for him out of old logs and broken-down doors. Everybody came to watch the ball games, and the sheriff was the ticket taker. Well, we went down in spring training and saw him and wanted to take him back north, but the sheriff said, “No, he has to stay here, we built a ball park for him.” He said if we left town in the morning and his man—he didn’t say “man,” I’ll let you guess what he said—if his man wasn’t there, we better not be in Georgia. And we weren’t. We hid Perkins under the bus and drove right past the sheriff sitting in front of the store.

  I remember one game we played in Forbes Field, Pittsburgh. Josh played left field and he dropped a fly ball. He played it badly, really. When we were taking a shower in the shower room, George Scales was on Josh. He was ridiculing him. Josh was young and so was I. I resented the way he was talking to Josh. Now George and I had been very good friends—you might call us buddies. George and I tangled up. Buff naked, both of us were. I knocked George’s tooth out. George Britt—I guess we all either feared Britt or respected him because we were afraid of him—he said, “Sit down or I’m gonna slap you down.” I sat down. George sat down, his mouth all bleeding. Britt broke George and I up all by himself.

  George went back under the shower, soaped up. I went on in again. You know, while we were in the shower, George charged me again under the shower. He had a knife in the shower, see, cut me in the belly. Jud Wilson and Britt both came in. Britt slammed George one way, slammed me on the floor. I think Boojum [Wilson] took me by the arm and slammed me out of the shower, out into the locker room, down on the floor. Britt finally commanded, “Sit down! You behave.” And we did just that.

  That night we were going to Cleveland. George and I were roommates. We slept in Cleveland in a single bed. George had his knife under the pillow, and I carried a pistol all through my baseball days. I played with this automatic in my jock strap. George slept facing this way, and I slept facing that way. He was waiting for me to jump him, and I was waiting for him to jump me. We didn’t get a wink of sleep that night.

  The next night George rounded up two girls, one for him, one for me, and we took them to our room. One was a waitress, the other one, I guess she was a nurse. We had a party. Forgot all about the fight. I say this to show how we lived and how we settled things.

  That fall we played the major league all-stars again. I hit against Stan Covaleskie. I remember Steve O’Neill was catching, and I hit two triples off Covaleskie. They said, “You hit him? That’s Stan Covaleskie!” You know, I didn’t get a hit off him after that!

  In 1932 Scales and I went back to New York with the Black Yankees. I thought I was back to stay; I wasn’t going to leave. But by the end of May I was back in Pittsburgh with the Crawfords. That was right after we beat Satchel 1–0. Gus Greenlee,
the owner of the Crawfords, wrote me a letter: “I want you on the Crawfords.” Then he started naming the guys he had: Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Jud Wilson, Double Duty Radcliffe. The year before I had played with them on the Grays. Greenlee had raided the Grays. He paid them a better salary than Cum Posey could afford to pay.

  Greenlee was a big man, a great big man. I remember at the end of the season I wasn’t going any place to play ball that winter. This was a real sad time in our baseball, because I was just hanging around the Crawford Grill. Gus said, “What you going to do all winter?”

  I said, “I don’t know, man.”

  He said, “Okay, I got something for you to do.” You know, he had the numbers business. They had an old vacant house or the second floor of it, in Hazelwood. They had a long space up there where they had tables where they turned in all the numbers each day. This was the headquarters for it. Gus gave me a chair. My job was to sit right downstairs on the sidewalk and ring a bell. Anybody who was coming in who wasn’t supposed to be there, I would just push a button to alert them upstairs to get rid of all that money. That’s all I did. I remember so well my pay: $15 a week. I sat down in this chair from about one o’clock till about 3:30 when they had finished counting up all the money, sacked it and put it in the bank. That’s all I did. I never pushed the botton. I did practically nothing all winter for $15 a week.

  You say, “How did you manage?” I paid ten bucks for my room and board—room and board. And I was still five bucks to the good. I had all the rest of the day to hustle whatever I could. I had a very fine winter.

  Later I gathered why Gus did this. Right along about this time I had developed a reputation for jumping around. Whoever treated me the best in my opinion, that’s who I was going to play with next year. During the season I was getting $50 a week from Gus, which was $200 a month, to play ball. And this was big money in those days. And I got paid by Gus all winter. Gus treated me like that so in 1933 I wouldn’t skip away and be playing for somebody else.