by John Holway
Leonard with commissioner Bowie Kuhn at Buck’s induction in Coopers-town in 1972. (Photo: National Baseball Library.)
I come from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Jim Thorpe played his first professional game there in 1909 at a park over near the Parkview Hospital, where the China Tobacco Company is. I was two years old then. I lived in a place called Little Raleigh, and I started following baseball in 1921 when they moved the city park, Municipal Stadium, over near my house.
After they moved the stadium, I started going over there looking through the fence to see the fellows play. Well, then the police said you couldn’t look through the fence; they made you back up five feet from the little crack you were looking through. Well, you can’t look through a crack from five feet. They came out one evening and arrested everyone, and we had to go to court. The judge told us it was private property and we had to get five feet away. So we started getting boxes and looking over the fence until the police came back and told us that was against the law, too. Well, that pretty much handicapped us from seeing the games then. But that’s how I first got interested in baseball.
Then too, minstrel shows used to go around the country—A. G. Allen, the Florida Minstrels, the Georgia Minstrels, Silas Green—and they had baseball teams too. They’d parade in Rocky Mount in the morning and then have a baseball game that afternoon. That is, the show people would play the local team. Then that night they had the minstrel show and took all our money away! Well, that’s what we used to say. They used to get all the money from the sporting people in the afternoon, and get all the money from the show people at night—and then they had doctors with them selling medicine to take that part of our money too!
Rocky Mount had a colored team—a semipro team—and they used to play in Tarboro, Wilson and towns like that. I used to go out there and pick up bats and things and mess around with the baseball, just like you see a mascot do now.
My favorite player when I first started going to games was Frank Walker. He managed around Rocky Mount and started baseball here. He had been to the major leagues, to the Giants and Athletics and Tigers, and he told me he roomed with Ty Cobb in 1915 and 1916. He’s retired over in Bristol, Tennessee, now. He’s about 70-some years old, and later he helped us form the Rocky Mount Leafs in the Carolina League in 1962.
I got out of school when I was fourteen, about 1921, and went to work at a mill that made stockings. Then I started shining shoes at the railroad station. In 1922 I went to work at the Atlantic Coast Line railroad shop for nine years and played semipro ball around Rocky Mount. We had a team called the Black Swans and another one called the Elks team. We played in Norfolk, Newport News, Wilson, all around Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem. Then in 1933 I went to Portsmouth, Virginia, to play with a team called the Firefighters.
I learned to play first base from a fellow named Ben Taylor, one of the greatest first basemen in colored history. His brother, C. I. Taylor, was the big baseball man who managed the Indianapolis ABC’s. Ben had a team in Baltimore called the Baltimore Stars, who came down through here about 1933. We played them a game, and afterwards Ben Taylor asked me would I go with his team. I said, “What will you pay me?” He said, “I’ll pay you what you’re getting here and more too”—I was making $15 a week plus my board and lodging down in Portsmouth. On the way to Portsmouth, Ben had already picked up my brother Charlie to pitch for the team, and that was one thing that made me decide to go.
The fellows there at Portsmouth said, “Man, don’t go there with that team. You know how much trouble a traveling team is. You get off on the road and can’t get back home, and get hungry and can’t eat.” Well, that was true; a lot of teams were that way. I knew some fellows had gone the year before. A fellow called Pop Watkins, from out of Atlantic City somewhere, used to come down here every year with a team and get fellows to go back and play semipro ball. Anyway, I left with the Baltimore Stars, and first of all we went to Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Stateville; then we went to Richmond and Baltimore. And it was just like the people said —I just about perished to death! I’m telling you—you talk about tough, it was rough.
We were playing in Druid Hill Park in Baltimore on one of the open lots—way out, a big open field, a city park that wasn’t enclosed. We would play out there at five o’clock, what they called a twilight game, and you had 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 people sitting on the grass. You would pass around the hat, and sometimes you’d get $20–$30 for the team’s share. The most that we were getting was just board and lodging. We were staying in the manager’s house. He wasn’t promising us anything—he promised us, but we just weren’t making it. On weekends we would go to Towson, Maryland, Pennsylvania and little towns over in West Virginia. We’d make around $50–$75. Well, he was claiming we owed him that much for board and lodging. He’d pay us $5 and $6, $3, like that.
Ben Taylor was the owner, manager and everything. He played first base, and I was playing right field. He was too old to play, but he still could hit, so he started teaching me to play first base. Eventually he quit. I don’t think I was a fancy fielding first baseman—not like Showboat Thomas or Highpockets Hudspeth, for instance; I wasn’t a fancy dan.
Anyway, when we decided we couldn’t make any money playing in Baltimore, we decided to go to New York. Nat Strong was the big booking agent around New York, and we were going to let Nat Strong book us around.
We had two cars, a Buick seven-passenger and a 1929 Ford with a rumble seat. We would put nine players in the Buick and put three in the front of the Ford and two in the rumble seat. Let’s see, that was about fourteen fellows. We were staying at a hotel in New York called the Dumas Hotel, and our room rent was behind. Strong had quit booking us because our team was weak, and we couldn’t pay our room rent. So when they found out we couldn’t pay our rent, they sold both the cars out there one morning—just had an auction sale right in front of the hotel. These fellows got some papers out and the man came over there and read the papers and they sold the two cars. That was the end of the team right there. We didn’t have any way to travel, see?
Now what were we going to do? We had fourteen men sitting there with no transportation. Ben Taylor said, “Well, this is it, boys, you better go back home. I don’t have any money to send you home. The manager has agreed to let you stay in the hotel until you can get some money from home.” Well, we didn’t have any money, period. My brother and I hated to write back home to Momma to send us some money, so we decided we would try to play with the Brooklyn Royal Giants, one of the big-league Negro teams. In the meantime Charlie wanted to come on back home because he was going to junior college. So I got a way for him to come home and I stayed out there and played with the Brooklyn Royal Giants the rest of the 1933 season.
Cannonball Dick Redding was managing the team. He was one of the greats, a burner, but he was in the evening then. Had a fellow named Huck Riles played first base. I was in right field at the time.
Country Brown played third. He was a comedian; I guess you’ve heard about him. We were playing semipro teams around New York, and he would go up to bat on his knees and holler, “Throw the ball up here, throw the ball up here.” We had it arranged with the other team, and they knew that we were going to put on a couple of acts. The pitcher would throw the ball, the umpire would call a strike and he’d turn around and argue. Of course the fans liked that. And if he hit the ball and ran to first base, he’s just call out: “I told you you couldn’t pitch, I told you you couldn’t pitch, I hit the ball on my knees!”
Then a little later in the game he would coach first base and take two great big dice and holler real loud. Everybody would pay attention to him, and he’d roll the dice out there and kiss the dice and roll them again and look, take them back and roll them again, then he’d rake in all the money. Then he’d point over there to the other fellow to put something down, he’d roll the dice again and win that. He’d win about two or three times. Then he’d take everything he could get—take off his cap and put it down, take off his
shirt and put that down, take off his belt and put that over there. Now he’s got the dice. He’d look over there see what the other fellow’s got out. Now he’s rolling the dice. And he’d lose. Man, he would fall down and kick, and the fans would holler.
Then about an inning later he would go to third base: “Heh, baby”—like he’s telephoning—“How are you feeling? ... What you doing? ... You’re laying down? ... With who? ... Oh, your sister. I thought the ice man had stopped by.”
And he was a pretty good ballplayer too. I mean, he could hit and played pretty good third base.
We had a Pierce-Arrow car that we went riding around in, and we had a Cadillac. The Pierce-Arrow was a seven-passenger, had a copper body at the time.
Well I finished out the ’33 season with the Brooklyn Royals and I went back to play with them in 1934. We were practicing at a place called 59th Street Park. There was a white semipro team playing there too. We were practicing there in April, and it was chilly—I mean, it was chilly. One night when I was in a bar, Smoky Joe Williams was working in the bar, and he said, “Look, Buck, don’t you want to get with a good team?” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “The Homestead Grays.” I said, “You think I could make that team?” He said, “Well, you can try.” So he said, “I’m gonna call Cum Posey, the owner, tonight and see what he says. I’ve seen you play two or three times and I think you can make the team.” The next day he told me, “I called Cum, he’s going to send some money for you to come to Wheeling, West Virginia, for spring training. I’m supposed to buy your ticket and give you some spending money.”
Sure enough, Cum sent the money and I went out with a boy named Tex Burnett, an old-time catcher. We left New York about twelve o’clock one night on the bus, and when we got to Pittsburgh snow was on the ground half a leg deep—this was in 1934, April. We went around to the hotel, saw the team, met everybody. We practiced about a week or so and got ready to play teams around Ohio and West Virginia.
I was getting $125 a month and 60 cents a day on which to eat—60 cents! But I could get bacon, eggs and iced tea for a quarter. As the season went on, I said, “Well, I don’t like it out here in this steel-mining town. I’m going to finish the season here and then I’m not coming back.” But I stayed out there seventeen years.
I went to Puerto Rico in 1935 with Abe Manley’s Brooklyn Eagles. We carried a good team down there. We won the first eight or nine games we played. In the spring of 1936 the Cincinnati Reds came down there to spring train. We beat them two out of three. They had Paul Derringer pitching, Ernie Lombardi catching, Sam Chapman and Kiki Cuyler in the outfield, George McQuinn in the infield. The Reds’ Yannigans beat us 3–2, and we beat the Reds 5–4 and 10–3.
Josh Gibson came to the Grays in 1937. He just put new life into everybody. Our team picked up considerably when he came. We won the pennant in 1937–38–39–40–41–42–43–44–45. We won nine straight pennants.
I played with the Homestead Grays seventeen years and never missed a payday. You were always booked to play somewhere every day. There never came a day when you weren’t booked to play a game somewhere. Never. Out of all that seventeen years we didn’t miss but two ball games. One was during the war when they put us on a train going to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and it didn’t make connections.
Baseball was a rough life back then. We’d play 200 to 210 games a year, then go to Cuba or Puerto Rico all winter and play winter ball.
When I joined the Grays, they were a Pittsburgh team. We started playing in Washington in 1939. We would play in Washington when the Senators were on the road and in Pittsburgh when the Pirates were away.
We would leave Pittsburgh after midnight some Sunday morning to play a doubleheader in Washington. That was 263 miles over the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We would get in Washington I would say around a quarter to eleven or eleven o‘clock, go out and get a sandwich, and at that time we had to be at the ball park by 11:30. They would say, “If you’re not here at 11:30, we’re not going to open the gates, unless we’re sure you’re here.” With the traveling we were doing, we weren’t sure whether we were going to get there or not. One time I remember our bus broke down out near Hagerstown, Maryland, and we had to call Washington and tell them to send three taxicabs out there to pick us up to get to Washington to start the game at two o’clock.
During the war we couldn’t go but 700 miles a month on the bus, because of gasoline rationing. Now from Pittsburgh to Washington was 263 miles, back to Pittsburgh was 263. Well that was over 500 miles for just one trip. You could ride maybe 100 miles more, then you’re through. Had to put your bus up the rest of the month and take the train. One time the conductor told us, “We don’t have room on the train for you, and we’re not going to let you stand up.” So we stayed in the baggage car. That’s right. And played that night.
We’d play a semipro team, say in Rockville, Maryland, in the afternoon and a league game in Griffith Stadium that night. Or we’d play semipro teams around Pittsburgh. We’d play the Edgar Thomas Steel Mill team, and over in Braddock they had a team. We’d start at 6:30 and play as many innings as we could get in before dark. The Grays would get $75 to $100 to play the game. For the whole team! But Sundays and weekends were the days you really expected to make enough money to pay off your players. Those were the games you played in Forbes Field, Griffith Stadium, Yankee Stadium and those parks. They were called “getting-out-of-the-hole” days.
Sometimes we’d stay in hotels that had so many bedbugs you had to put a newspaper down between the mattress and the sheets. Other times we’d rent rooms in a YMCA, or we’d go to a hotel and rent three rooms. That way you got the use of the bath, by renting three rooms. All the ballplayers would change clothes in those three rooms, go to the ball park and play a doubleheader —nine innings the first game, seven innings the second game.
The second game would be over about 6:15. We’d come back to the hotel and take a bath, then go down the street and eat and get back in the bus to go to Pittsburgh. The bus seats would recline—you’d be sitting there, and the drone of the motor would put you to sleep. We’d get back in Pittsburgh 7:30 in the morning, go to bed, get up around three o’clock, go up the river somewhere about twenty-five or thirty miles, play a night game, come back. Next evening the same thing. We logged 30,000 miles one summer. Of course you get tired around July or August. The people didn’t know what we went through. They’d see us dragging around, they didn’t know we’d ridden all night getting there.
You were tired, you’d ridden 200 miles to get there, rode all night last night maybe, you’re going to play here today, and you got a game to play tonight somewhere. You’ve got to change your sweatshirt after this game, go somewhere maybe fifty miles to play tonight; you’re trying to save a little from this evening’s game for tonight’s game. We used to play at Bushwick in New York on a Sunday evening, and go out to Freeport or out to somewhere on Long Island, and play Sunday night. Man, you’re spent when you played a doubleheader at Bushwick or Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds. Then you go out there at night to play, you’re stiff, tired and you’re just forcing yourself.
We didn’t have a paid trainer. We rubbed each other. If my back was hurting or my arm was sore, I’d get another player to rub it. And you’d tape yourself up the best you could. I know one time I got scratched on my leg in Washington, and we were going to Boston to play and up in New Hampshire. I needed three stitches in my leg, and they wouldn’t put the three stitches in there because I was going to lose some games. I just played until it got well. Now it’s got thin skin over it, and it gets inflamed every now and then. That comes from not taking care of it like it should be. Had I been in the major leagues, I would have had proper attention.
Clark Griffith said our league wasn’t organized. We were organized, but we weren’t recognized. If we were going to play a game in Griffith Stadium and got rained out, we’re supposed to let the people know when they could come back to another game. We had a problem lik
e this: We used to give the visiting team 30 percent of the gate receipts after expenses. Now if we got rained out with Newark on a Sunday and we were going to play the New York Cubans on a Thursday night, the Cubans didn’t feel like we should use the Sunday rain checks on their game. So that’s not a good organization. A good organization is where you can establish your home town and be willing and able to redeem your rain checks.
John Morrissey, the Senators’ ticket manager, was the biggest help to our team, and to all Negro baseball. He’s still with the Senators, and I stop by and say hello every time I’m in Washington. When we were playing at Griffith Stadium, he would ask us how many we expected for the game. We’d say, “Well, 18,000.” Or if Satchel Paige was coming in to play with Kansas City, we’d say, “30,000.” He’d say, “Let us use our ticket sellers and let us have your tickets printed and let us handle everything for you.” He even handled the publicity for us. When they announced the Washington Senators’ games for the weekend, they would announce our games for the next weekend or for that Thursday night. At that time we were playing in Washington every Sunday that the Senators were away, and Tuesday and Thursday nights.
We would charge $1 for the bleachers, $2 for the grandstand, $2.50 for box seats. During the war when the people couldn’t get much gas, that’s when our best crowds were. People couldn’t travel, so they would have to stay in Washington on weekends. After the war our crowds started dwindling again.
Mr. Morrissey took care of police protection too. If you’re expecting 18,000, 25,000 or 30,000 people, you’re going to need twelve, sixteen or twenty policemen. Our crowds were unruly quite a few times. Mr. Morrissey would go along with us. He’d say, “I know how things are now, people can’t travel and they’re mad, drinking, but we just have to bear with it.”