by John Holway
I left the Eagles soon after that in a row with the owner, Mr. Manley, and turned the team over to Biz Mackey. Funny thing, back in Texas, where I come from, I used to carry Mackey’s glove. He came from San Marcos, a little old place down not far from my home town, Austin. I guess it’s about eighteen miles from my home. Anyway, down in Austin, they had a league, and Mackey played for San Antonio—they called them the San Antonio Aces. I guess I was eleven years old, and I’d grab anybody’s bat or ball to get into the park. I carried Mackey’s glove, and then I came up here and played eighteen or twenty years with him. Isn’t that something?
I went to college in Austin, but I was so wrapped up in baseball. I played all sports—I was wrapped up in sports, period. I guess that was my career right there. Wasn’t nothing else interesting to me. Every day I had a ball in my hand, I just loved it that much.
Well, the big teams were playing down South—Kansas City, the Chicago American Giants, St. Louis—and the college picked all the best ballplayers from each school to play against those boys. They were professionals, you know; we weren’t.
When Chicago saw me play they said, “We want you.” Chicago wanted me and St. Louis wanted me. That was 1927 and I was only seventeen years old. So I picked the closest town. I said, “I think I want to go to St. Louis.” Well, when I left Texas to go to St. Louis, my first trip, oh I cried. They said, “You’re going up there but you’re not going to make it.” Well, I was determined to make it. If you have the desire, you’ll make it. But if you give up...
I was the littlest thing that ever came up. They said, “I’m going to send you back.” I said, “You’re not going to send me nowhere.” All those guys were six-footers-rough. They were rough when I came along. Rough, not educated boys like they are today. Yeah, it was rough. They’d throw at you. They’d sit on the bench and file their spikes and say, “This is for you, you son of a bitch, you.” That’s what they would say: “This is for you. I’m gonna send you back to Texas.” I said, “You’re not going to send me no place.”
Well, I had a good year that year, but I couldn’t hit the curve ball. Everybody in the league said, “Wells is a beautiful fielder but he cannot handle the curve ball.” I could hit that fast one, number one, but I couldn’t handle that curve. I think I got about three hits all season. Well, I went back to Austin to school that winter, and it was just fortunate for me that this boy, Bill Riggins, playing shortstop for Detroit, got his leg broken in California. So they said, “We want that guy, Wells. He’s down there in Texas, Sam Houston College.” They sent me a telegram from California, and I looked at it, and it said, “We want you to come to California to play in the winter league.” My mother said, “No, you’ve got to finish your education first.” But they were talking about four hundred dollars. Four hundred dollars! I’d never seen four hundred dollars. I said, “Mmmm-mmmm! Four hundred dollars!” I said, “Transportation and everything!” I said, “I want to see California!” I was coming into eighteen and I said, “I think I better take this chance.” So I went out to California without my mother knowing it. I lived with the owner, the manager. He wouldn’t give me any money. He sent all the money home, just handled me like his son.
They had three white ball clubs in California and one colored team. We were the Philadelphia Royals. They picked all the best ballplayers to compete against the major leaguers.
A boy named Hurley McNair from Kansas City, I give him a lot of credit for teaching me how to become a hitter. I still couldn’t hit the curve. When they’d break that ball and I’d see it breaking, I’d just pull too much. Well, they took my left leg and tied it at home plate and threw me curve balls, curve balls, curve balls. When I came back to St. Louis the following year, they were throwing me those curve balls and I was burning them up, I was burning them up! Every time they’d break a curve ball, I’d hit it on a line somewhere, up against the fence, or between the fielders. The manager was watching me: “What happened to this guy? He couldn’t hit the curve ball, but he’s handling it now.” So when the season opened up, I looked over the lineup there, and the guy was going to hit me third instead of eighth. Hitting third! And you know, nobody moved me from third from that day until I retired. And I stayed for some twenty-odd years. Thirteen all-star classics in Chicago, and I was hitting third in all of them. Josh Gibson or Mule Suttles were hitting fourth—both sluggers—and I was hitting in front of them. I had to run.
Willie Wells as manager of the Newark Eagles.
I hit everybody. I didn’t care what they threw. It’s a fact. Didn’t care who pitched. They’d pitch around Wells. “If there’s anybody on base and the game is close, pitch around that guy. Forget him, just pitch to the next guy. Forget Wells. Wells is tough.” See, you had to be tough. You had to have heart, desire. If you were a coward, they’d throw right here at your ear. Oh yes, there was no doubt about it. We were playing in Yankee Stadium one day against Satchel Paige. I came to bat, Satchel walked off the mound and reached in his pocket like he had sandpaper. I said, “What are you doing that for, you got such a good fast ball?” He said, “I’m gonna stick it right in your hair.”
Oh, I hit everybody. Every pitcher will tell you that. That’s why they threw at me so much, just like I was a rat or something. I was the first guy that bought a helmet. You see those big helmets they wear now? They’d tell me all the time they’re gonna kill me: “We’re gonna knock you down tomorrow.” I mean they’d talk dirty to you: “Say, you little son of a bitch you, how am I gonna hit you, goddamn it, if you won’t stand still?” Oh, it was rough when I came along. It wasn’t easy—it was not easy. You’d better believe it.
See, that’s the way they played. Those guys would spike. Decent slides? There were no decent slides. A guy slid at me, I’d slide right back at him. All those guys were big six-footers, bigger than me—I weighed 165 pounds. They’d say, “We gonna get you out of there.” But I’d take that ball and hit them right across their noses with it.
Vic Harris of the Homestead Grays was a nasty slider. One day in Newark I took the throw and he cut my arm—just cut my uniform sleeve right off. I had to go into the clubhouse and change. So when I came up next inning, I pushed the ball between first and second ’cause I wanted him to cover first. But he didn’t get it. Buck Leonard the first baseman got it, and when Harris didn’t cover, I jumped at Buck. I jumped at him to cut him up. He said, “Wells, you and I are friends.” I said, “Yes, but you’re playing against me.” That’s the way they played. You didn’t play easy like these guys now.
Then I lived clean, that’s another thing. That’s the important thing of becoming a great ballplayer. If you have that ability and treat your body right, you can make it if you have that desire. What I mean by treating yourself right is, you don’t go ripping and running, you know what I mean—the girls taking it away from you, the drinks taking it away from you, late hours taking it away from you. All those things are against you. There’s no doubt about it.
A lot of athletes believe that because they’re popular they’re supposed to be seen in all the spots. A guy would say, “That guy don’t want to go out—come on, big man, give us some money.” I said, “You all go ahead.” I’d just go to the movies. “Oh, you’re too cheap to spend any money.” But it wasn’t that. I was thinking about what I had to do tomorrow. I’ve seen many great ballplayers last four, three, two years—great ballplayers who could have been in the major leagues. But when I walked on the field, I was just as light—I was in shape. I was in shape every day. I stayed in shape.
Cool Papa Bell was my best friend on St. Louis. He was the most beautiful ballplayer and a great base runner. There’s just no comparison between Bell and Maury Wills, for example. Wills did something great, stealing 100 bases, but to me the important thing is technique. You watch the pitcher’s move. If an individual is smart he can pick up things. And Bell was a clean liver, he wouldn’t dissipate at all. He was like me. We’d sit in the room and play cards, he and I. We were roommates. He m
arried a girl who was my sweetheart. But he and I were just like this—friends—you know? It’s been twenty-five or twenty-six years now, and it never came between us. A good relationship. A wonderful fellow. Bell, he was a beaut.
We played the major league all-stars in St. Louis in 1931. They had Bill Terry at first, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner, Babe Herman. We had a two-game series, and we didn’t win but two straight.
The first time I saw Joe DiMaggio was in Pasadena. That was 1935. They had a revolution in Cuba and we didn’t go to Cuba that year, we went to California. DiMaggio came up with that wide stance. They didn’t have a fence, they just had hedges out in Pasadena. A guy broke him a curve ball and Joe DiMaggio hit the ball all into the trees.
They had a heck of a ball club. They had Lefty Grove, Dizzy Dean, his brother Paul Dean. That Bob “Lefty” Grove! They told me he didn’t have a curve ball. Heck, he broke a curve ball on me! If they say Bob “Lefty” Grove didn’t have no curve ball, they’re wrong! But we won all our games against them. We won twenty-one straight. Judge Landis stopped it after that, wouldn’t let us play any more that winter. Said it was a disgrace.
But it’s hard to remember all those guys. I admired all of them, ’cause they were great.
This boy Bobo Newsom was kind of prejudiced, though. He didn’t mind you knowing. He’d come right out and tell you: “I’m not going to the major leagues until I can beat you niggers.” He talked like that.
And I’ll tell you another fellow who was like that—Early Wynn, he was like that. This boy Johnny Dunlap and I were in Cuba one year. Dunlap’s a Boston boy. In Cuba, you know, after a ball game they had beer in the clubhouse because it’s so hot down there, so humid, and they had the beer sitting in your locker when you came off the field. I drank the beer because I needed it. It was good. But after you left the locker room you were on your own. Well, this day Johnny Dunlap and me had just left the racetrack and we said, “Let’s just stop in here and have a beer,” and Early Wynn made a crack at us. He’s from down there in the South somewhere. He just spoke out like that. He said, “No, we don’t do that. We have plantations down there.” And he used that word, and he was in trouble. “Why hell,” Dunlap says, “I don’t sit here and hear things like that.” And he popped him. A big lad, too, Early Wynn—he wasn’t no midget, you know. But Dunlap messed him up so, oh he messed him up. He whipped this boy Early Wynn, and he couldn’t play any more that winter.
I played in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico—thirteen years in Cuba, five years in Mexico. I replaced Rogers Hornsby as manager of Vera Cruz in 1947. They called me Diablico Wells. I was a manager for so many years, and I never had a loser. And I made so much money, I can’t tell you how much, but I bet it on the damn horses. I was a horse bettor.
You had to handle different ballplayers differently. Just like when I came back from Mexico to manage the Eagles in ’46, they said, “We have a boy here, a big boy and he is around nineteen or twenty years old, and he is from Elizabeth, New Jersey.” They said, “He can really throw the ball, and his name is Don Newcombe.” So I had a talk with him. I said, “They tell me you are a pretty good pitcher.” He said, “They tell me you are a pretty good shortstop.” I said, “Well, it looks like I’m going to be your manager this year.”
In spring training the manager is responsible for all of the sore arms and all those kinds of stuff. I handled all of the pitchers; see, this is 80 per cent of your ball club, your pitching. Well, when those kids are young and you are new to them, they’re going to show you everything in spring training. They’ll get out there and the first day they’ll just try to fog that ball over every doggone day. So I said, “Come here, Newcombe.” I took the catcher’s mitt and I said, “I don’t want you to throw, just lob the ball to me. Loosen up, start running, running, running.” He said, “You are kind of rough, aren’t you?” I said, “No, .I want you to be in good shape.” I built him, I brought him along in spring training, and the week before I got ready to open the season up, I said, “You are going to pitch four innings today. No more.” I looked at him and said, “Are you ready?” He said, “Yes.”
After four innings I asked him, “How do you feel?” He said, “I can go some more.” I said, “No, you had enough.” Newcombe said, “Let me pitch two more innings.” I said, “No, no, no, you have showed me enough, you have showed me enough.”
Well, we opened the season against the Homestead Grays. They had a good team—they had Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell—they had a terrific ball club. And do you know who my opening pitcher was going to be? Newcombe. I had built him, I had brought him along in spring training. And when I opened him against the Grays, do you know what he gave them? Six to nothing. I opened him up and he blanked those guys 6–0.
One time I heard Newcombe and my team captain kidding under the showers. We were guests at Virginia State University, and they were kidding each other about girl friends. I didn’t like that, I didn’t like for players to get personal with one another about their associates on the outside of the ball park. So I explained it to them. “No, sir, we don’t mean a thing, we don’t mean a thing, we were just kidding, just playing.”
“A man isn’t kidding when you are talking about his girl friend. She can be beautiful, she can be ugly, but when you start to call her names, talk about her color or how she looks, that fellow can think just as much of his little Gloria Swanson as you do about your Maureen O’Hara. I want you fellows to understand.”
“Oh, no, we were just playing.”
So one morning they knocked on my door at four A.M., one of them with a knife and the other with a pick. I said, “Uh huh,” I said, “do you remember what I told you all at Virginia State University and you told me you were just kidding?” I said, “If you’re just kidding now, you can go on and kill one another, because I am going to go back to bed.”
I quit the Eagles in 1946 and turned the team over to Mackey, and he won the championship. Here’s what happened:
This boy Terris McDuffie, was one of my best pitchers, but he had a bad spring training. You know you can’t bring a veteran along as you would a rookie. He can handle himself. I just want them to carry out my rules: “When you go into that dining room, I want you to look like a professional. I don’t want you to go in there talking loud and all of that. This is your profession and I want you to treat it like that.”
Well, McDuffie wasn’t ready to pitch, but Manley said, “I want you to pitch him against Baltimore.” So I opened him against the Baltimore Elite Giants and they hit him, so I took him out. Manley said, “Why did you take him out?” He wanted to humiliate him, see. He wanted me to pitch him again the next day.
Well, I told the captain, Pearson—all of them will tell you that these are my words—I said, “You call them all off the field,” and I said, “bring Manley with you.” We got in the clubhouse and I said, “Fellows, Mr. Manley says that McDuffie is going to start the ball game tomorrow. He is paying me to manage this club,” I said, “but he don’t have to pay me any more, because I am finished as the manager of this team. I am finished.” And all of the players agreed with me.
Do you know what they did? After they won the pennant they came and got me. They said, “We want you on the bench.” All of them, all of the players, said, “We want you on the bench in the World Series against Kansas City.” That’s right, and I stayed right on the bench with them, and all of the players will tell you, “If you see Wells, he is for the ballplayers.”
You know, every ballplayer is a different character. Now there are some guys I wouldn’t bother with a signal. I wouldn’t give them anything to do but play. I’m not going to disturb them or come to them and say, “Look, I want you to do this or that and I want you to take this as a signal.” Just let them play. Some guys don’t get disturbed, but some other mechanical person, he gets upset: “What did he tell me to do?” See, he can’t hit now. He can’t run now because he’s thinking about what I said. So I’d say, “Now, look, don’t you look for
a signal. You just play.” But the ones that are smart, I said, “This is your signal, this is for you.”
I used to give the catcher his signals from shortstop. If a batter can’t handle a pitch inside, then in spring training I would never let them throw that pitch to him. Let him hit his pitch in spring training, it don’t mean anything. Don’t teach him how to hit in spring training. If the other manager doesn’t have the experience to handle his personnel, don’t you smart him up.
Now when we’re at bat, I sit and look at the other pitcher—and the catcher too. Like Josh Gibson would hold his right arm like this, with the elbow sticking out. If I was coaching at third base, I’d watch, and if I saw his elbow move like that—just a little flicker—knew it was a curve ball. If his arm didn’t move, it was a fast ball. Pretty soon, they’d say, “Heh, why are they hitting everything? What’s happening here?”
Some catchers are good curve ball catchers, some just love to catch that fast ball. This is where the manager comes in. When they call a lot of curves, I say “Go ahead, go ahead and run—move off that base—steal.” See, this is the difference, this is the finesse in baseball. This is beautiful.
Willie Wells with St Louis Stars, 1930
Willie Wells
Willie Wells
Willie Wells
Chapter 13
WILLIAM “SUG” CORNELIUS
“Sug Cornelius could throw a curve around a barrel,” says Birmingham’s Jim Canada—“and I believe he could throw it around and make it come in the barrel.” That’s what the hitters thought of Cornelius’ curve. “He could pitch as good as any pitcher we had,” adds Cool Papa Bell. “A great curve ball, fast ball; could hit, do everything.” But, Bell shrugs, you never hear much about him.