Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues

by John Holway

  Larry Brown, Tampico, 1941

  All right, the ball game gets under way. And it should be so lucky that this was the Fourth of July, 1920. All the news had reached around. You know, Birmingham is a big area, and everybody said they were going out to see Red catch. I went out there and caught a doubleheader. After the first game we went to the dugout and the manager said, “You looked good, you proved to be a man that can take care of a job. Think you can handle that position?” I said, “Well, just like I told you, I can catch.” I wasn’t nothing but a kid, nothing but a baby—you know I wasn’t.

  The manager asked me, “Do you think that you’re in a position to leave with this ball club?” I said, “Yeah, my mother’s passed and my sister’s in Philadelphia, ain’t nobody but me.” He said, “Anything you want to go home and get?” I said, “No, I got my bag with me.” He said, “Well, we’re leaving tonight and going to Montgomery, Alabama.” I said, “Well, what’s the verdict on this—what’s the salary?” He said, “You need any money?” I had some money coming from the Railroad. I said, “Well, I got a little money in my pocket.” He said, “Well, what do you think will do you?” I didn’t need too much. What the hell would I do with money? I didn’t have nothing to do with it. About $20 or $25 is more than could have used. He gave me a salary, $125 a month. I accepted it. Hell, I wasn’t doing anything else anyway.

  It was nothing but a rough league then. We used to go in the clubhouse, a guy would be in there sharpening his spikes with a file. A catcher had to protect himself if he got the ball. If I got the ball before the runner got to me, I could get him and he can’t cut me. I could lean and get him. I didn’t block the plate, not unless it was necessary. Give him the plate. But if the runner and the ball connect at the same time, you have to look out for yourself to the extent of not being cut up.

  Shoot, I’ve played against a whole lot of tough base runners. Crush Holloway wasn’t too bad. He was rough, all right, but he wasn’t heavy. He weighed, oh, 165 to 170 pounds. Those kind of men don’t pack a lot of power. But I had one guy, Edgar Wesley in Detroit, jump up here and cut my chest protector; my mask went one way, my glove went the other way and the ball went up in the stands. I was just a kid, unexperienced, didn’t know how to protect myself.

  Chaney White, he was built like King Kong, but he could run like Jesse Owens. Look—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—I’ve got all his scars on my leg. Hell yeah, cut my shin guards off once. His spikes went through my shin guards. I went down in a crouch to receive the ball, and he hit me above the knee with his spikes, took eight stitches up there.

  You know something I did in one ball game? This was one time the umpire was wrong. The count was three-and-two, a man on first. We had a pitcher was a fireballer, good curve ball artist, good drop ball man. He threw the ball, and the ball bounced on the plate and then by me to the grandstand. I took my glove and just reached it behind me and the umpire put another ball in my glove, and I threw the runner out. They said, “L. A. (that was my nickname), you should have gone and got that ball.” I said, “Hell, I didn’t go get it, and when the umpire gave me a ball, he put the ball in play.” Oh man, they had everything trying to settle it. The umpire was wrong. He didn’t have any business giving me the ball. But if I’d gone and got the ball, naturally I couldn’t have thrown the guy out. I pulled that off on the umpire.

  Yes sir, I used to do a whole lot of trickeration. Chicago had some pretty fast runners. Well, I could throw, I could throw pretty good. The crowd used to roar to see me throw the men out. And I used to boot the ball and let it roll about eight or ten feet and go get it and then throw the guy out. Make him run. You don’t see that kind of stuff anymore. You take the major leagues, they don’t pull off any “trickeration” stuff. They just play. We used to do everything.

  We had a play I used to pull off when I was with the Chicago American Giants in ’35. A man on third and a man on second, I’d call for a pitchout and throw that to the man at third. That was just a decoy. The next pitch the second baseman is way over toward the bag as the runner is playing off. I throw the ball back to third and he takes it and shoots it to second and gets the guy off of second. You get what I mean? I mean all trickeration stuff.

  I remember once we were playing in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Luque was pitching and I was catching and Oscar Charleston was playing center field. I signaled for a pitchout, and just like I tell you, every time the same man was involved—Cool Papa. I called for a pitchout but Cool Papa hit the ball between Charleston and the right fielder for a triple. One run. The inning was over and Luque came in and jumped on me. Luque said, “Brown, how come you didn’t get that pitchout?” I said, “How in the hell am I going to get a pitchout and the man hit the ball against the fence in right field? Do you call that a pitchout in the National League? The ball is supposed to be far enough out for me to receive it, not the hitter to hit it.”

  He was fussin’ and raisin’ hell. “Tell you what you do. You pack up, get your stuff.” I said, “All right, I’ve got my ticket in my pocket, got my train fare back to Havana.” Oscar Charleston said, “Well, we’ll all just go home.” Luque says, “Oh, no, oh no, oh no.”

  Well, it so happened we went on to win the ball game, which knocked off the heat. We get back to the hotel. Luque came over: “Brownie, pay me no mind. In a ball game, I want to win.” I said, “In a ball game, I want to win.” He said, “We’ll get a bottle of Bacardi and we’ll drink it all down.” I said, “That’s as good as I want.” And we forgot all about the incident.

  In 1930 I went to New York and caught for the Lincoln Giants. Pop Lloyd was the manager. He was the cream of Negro ballplayers. We played our games at the Catholic Protectory reform school in the Bronx. It had about five hundred seats in the grandstand and a little small bleachers. They’d squeeze them in and get fifteen hundred to two thousand people sometimes.

  Chino Smith played right field, one of the greatest hitters ever you saw. He’d hit ‘em between ’em, over ’em, to the opposite field, in the trees, anywhere. What about our center fielder, Fats Jenkins? Have you seen him? He’s dead? Fats Jenkins dead! He’s dead too! Oh, Lord have mercy.

  Pitching we had Dick Redding, Red Ryan, Neck Stanley, Connie Rector and Bill Holland.

  Shoot, I can name a whole lot of top pitchers. Satchel Paige. There wasn’t nothing to do to catch Satchel, you could catch him in a rocking chair, ‘cause he wasn’t wild. One time we were playing a game out in Los Angeles in 1931, and we were only leading 2–1 against Joe Perrone’s All-Stars-Babe Herman, Walter Berger, Fred Haney—big men. Anyway, Satchel called the outfield in on the grass and struck out the next two men coming up, Frank Demaree and Walter Berger. And we only leading 2–1. He did it against the major leaguers—I know, ’cause I was catching! And the guys kept hollering, “Come on, get on there, he ain’t got nothing but a fast ball.” But it was so fast they couldn’t hit it. The main thing about it, his ball wasn’t a hard ball, but the speed was so rapid, and it would take off. I said, “Satch, you’re the biggest fool ever I’ve seen in my life.” I said, “Long as I been playing ball I never saw anybody do that but you with a one-run lead.”

  We go down to San Diego. A guy had come up and got me an Satchel for a battery. Now we were going to play on a high school team against one of the top white teams down there. He said, “I want you fellows to give us a good exhibition.” I said, “Well, goddamn, that’s all Satchel’s got is a good exhibition.” The ball game gets under way; Satchel struck out so many men until he started handing them the ball so they could hit it, to give ’em some kind of play, you know. So one guy hits the ball way past the outfielder. Satchel lobbed another one like that, the second guy hit it way out yonder out there. Then he got on the rubber and struck out the rest of them.

  I was catching the ball game Josh Gibson was supposed to have hit the longest ball ever hit in Monessen, Pennsylvania—512 feet, tape measured, so they said. He hit the ball off of Sug Cornelius. Curve ball. I don’t like to
make alibis on pitches. If a guy gets hold of one, he gets hold of it. I went into the dugout and a guy said, “L. A., what’d you call for?” I said, “I called for a curve ball.” He said, “Why didn’t you throw him a fast ball?” I said, “Goddamn, if I knew he was going to hit the curve I would have called a fast ball!”

  I played against Jackie Robinson the year before he went up to Montreal. You know, I’ve thrown him out at every base and had him turn around and score on me? I threw him out at second base, the guy dropped the ball. He went to steal third and he dropped the ball, and the next man hit a fly ball and he scored.

  In all, I played fourteen years with the Memphis Red Sox before I quit in ’47. Did you know my oldest son’s a flyer with the Air Force? A lieutenant colonel. He came here to see me in his jet in 1958.

  After I quit baseball I went to work as a headwaiter in a hotel and stayed there twenty-three years. The hotel closed for repairments in 1970 to put in this “drink-by-the-drink” or “drink-by-the-smell,” or something like that, and they didn’t hire any of the help back.

  I used to know Tim McCarver when he was a boy here in Memphis. He used to come in there to the newsstand to get his papers when he played with the Christian Brothers team. After he went to the Cardinals he came in there one day with Tony Gagliano, and I had a round table discussion, greeting the fellows, saying hello. They always liked to see me, they always liked to say hello to me. That’s why they came in there, mostly to say hello to me.”

  I was working in the dining room about six or seven years ago when Bill Dickey came in. He was scouting for somebody then, I don’t remember who. Anyway, he said to me, “I understand that you were one of the great catchers of your time.”

  I don’t like to put a medal on my chest—let somebody else do that—so I said, “I tried to do my part as a catcher. I wasn’t a good hitter, or a fast man, but I did pretty good at receiving, throwing, handling the pitchers and chasing foul balls.”

  He said, “Well, there isn’t much more that you can do.” He said, “I wasn’t much of a hitter myself.”

  I said, “Don’t tell me you weren’t a hitter, you could hit that ball.”

  In 1968 Dizzy Dean was there when the Memphis Blues opened up, and they had a big party out to the Holiday Inn. All the ex-members of the Memphis Red Sox had the privilege of coming out there as guests. When the meeting was over, I says, “Goddamn, I’m going up there and speak to Dizzy.” The meeting was all over, I picked up two or three souvenir fountain pens on the table and I went up to the speaker’s stand. I said, “Do you remember me?”

  “You doggone right, you and that durn Satchel Paige beat me, you little ...” I’m telling you just like it is. He had made his whole speech on Satchel. He said, “Well, I’m so glad to see you, doggone it, y’all sure beat me”—which we did.

  We had played Dizzy in Pittsburgh in 1935 before thirty-some-thousand people. Dizzy Dean had an all-star American and National League team against an all-star Negro ball club. Satchel Paige was pitching, and I’m catching. Boojum Wilson hit a home run with two men on and beat’em 3–0.

  And now you say Boojum’s dead. And Fats Jenkins and Connie Rector. Lord have mercy. You don’t know how you’re breaking my heart.

  Larry Brown is second from left in front row. Manager Dave Malarcher sits to his left. Bill Foster stands behind Brown. Webster McDonald is on the right in the center row.

  Chapter 12

  WILLIE WELLS

  Many old-timers considered Willie “Devil” Wells the finest black shortstop ever born—Mrs. Effa Manley, his owner on the Newark Eagles, would amend that to read, “the finest shortstop, black or white.”

  Cleveland Indians outfielder Larry Doby, who played for both Wells and Lou Boudreau, said Wells was the better of the two. Pitcher Hilton Smith rated him above Phil Rizzuto. And Double Duty Radcliffe said he was better than Jackie Robinson.

  Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith said Wells and his Newark teammate, third baseman Ray Dandridge, covered the left side of the infield better than any combination in baseball. He begged sports writer Ric Roberts: “Let me know when those two bow-legged men are coming to Washington. Please don’t let me miss them.”

  Or, as Monarchs manager Buck O’Neil put it: “This boy Ozzie Smith could field with Wells, but he couldn’t hit with him.”

  Willie was considered a spray hitter, but in 1929 he slapped 27 out of the park in 88 games to become the black Roger Maris. No blackball player ever hit more in one year. It works out to about 50 in a modern major-league season.10 It is not a fluke. Willie ranks fifth among Negro Leaguers in lifetime home runs, just 18 behind Josh Gibson, albeit with many more at bats.

  His lifetime average was .331 against black big leaguers, and an astounding .638 in 25 games against whites. His highest single season mark was .404 in 1930, when Bill Terry led the white majors with .401. It’s a shame they never played against each other in the same league.

  Wells, incidentally, is credited with inventing the batting helmet. Black pitchers threw at him murderously. “I’d knock him down for the fun of it,” Bill Drake laughed. “I’d waste two balls at him—I knew I could throw strikes when I was ready to. I liked to see him run. I’d run him across the plate and back across the plate.” In defense, Wells got a coal miner’s helmet, knocked the gas jet off the front, and clapped it on his head.

  In the field Wells had a weak arm—“you could run alongside his ball,” one old-timer smiles—“but you couldn’t beat it to first.” He just nipped the runner. “He’d lob you out,” Buck Leonard said. To compensate, Wells played shallow—but the hitters still couldn’ t get the ball past him. “It looked like he had roller skates on,” said third baseman Judy Johnson, shaking his head. Wells studied the batters. “If you saw me dive for a ball, you know I misjudged it,” Willie said.

  In Cuba one winter St. Louis Cardinal coach Mike Gonzalez watched Wells and Dandridge (then playing second base) on one double play. Wells scooped up a grounder, whipped it to Dandridge, who touched second and whipped it back to Wells to relay to first. Gonzalez gulped. “I never saw two guys play like that before,” he gasped. “Well,” beamed catcher Larry Brown, “that’s the way they play in the States all the time.”

  A good example of the Wells style came in 1919 against a big-league club that included Hall of Famers Charlie Gehringer, Harry Heilmann, and Heinie Manush. In the first game, against 17-game winner Willis Hudlin, Wells went two-for-five. His ninth-inning triple knocked in the tying run; he scored the winner himself a moment later on a steal of home, kicking the ball out of catcher Wally Schang’s hand. The next day he hit two triples and stole home again against Jack Miller, who won 14 games that year. Finally, against George Uhle (15-11), Wells collected three more hits, the final one knocking in the winning run in the ninth.

  When I first met Wells, he was sitting alone nursing a beer in the back of a dark Harlem bar. He was too far gone with drink to talk. But I looked him up later in his small room, just around the corner from the sleazy world of Seventh Avenue, and he had a bag of stories to spill out. Still short and lithe, he sat on his unmade bed and rambled about his former days of glory.

  Willie Wells Speaks ...

  What most people don’t know is, baseball is such an intelligent game. You’ve got to be smarter than the other fellow. Everybody says I didn’t have any arm, but still I threw everybody out. How did I do it? Well, you play your hitters—and your pitchers. Now this boy, Ted Trent of the St. Louis Stars, had one of those big curve balls. When he’d pitch, they’d top his ball all the time, hit them high choppers, you know? I’d be in position. If a guy couldn’t pull a fast ball, I’d be in the hole behind second on him. They didn’t see how I was able to get all those balls. I was always in position. I didn’t have to move over two or three steps. Sometimes, when you see me dive for a ball, you know I misjudged my hitter or pitcher. That’s the only way they got a ball through me. The weak arm didn’t mean nothing. It was here, in the head. T
hat’s right.

  The infielders are supposed to sit and watch what a pitcher throws, how a guy pulls his fast balls. See, you don’t play behind every pitcher the same. Say you’re pitching today, I’d play different because you’re a different kind of pitcher from someone else. Maybe you don’t have a fast ball like that boy has, you get him out with a change-up. The shortstop, the infielder, sits and watches the guy. I watch my pitcher warming up just like I’m going to catch, ’cause I’m the shortstop.

  I managed the Newark Eagles from 1936 to 1941 and again in 1946, so Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, all those kids were my protégés. But they were three different characters, and here’s where the manager comes in, here’s where you’ve got to use a little psychology. Irvin was an easy fellow, very nice, easy to get along with. But Doby and Newcombe, there was something different. Here’s a problem for me. Newcombe was kind of temperamental a little. You handled him different. You know, every ballplayer is a different character; what you say to one you can’t say to another. You have to sit and watch his attitude and how he handles himself.