by John Holway
Buck Leonard
Buck Leonard
Buck Leonard
Yogi Berra, Lefty Gomez, Sandy Koufax, Buck Leonard, and Early Wynn at the Hall of Fame in 1972
Venezuela, 1945. Front: Jackie Robinson (# 1) Back: Roy Campanella (# 1) , Buck Leonard (# 8 )
Cool Papa Bell and Candy Jim Taylor
Larry Brown
Larry Brown
Chapter 15
HILTON SMITH
Hilton Smith was the invisible man of black baseball. For years he toiled behind the glare of an almost blinding star known to the world as Satchel Paige, but who in reality was a hyphenated pitcher named Paige-Smith. After Satchel had pitched three innings to draw a crowd (and incidentally earn his 15 percent of the gate), Hilton Smith would trudge in from the bull pen and finish the game. And there are many black hitters who declare that of the two, when Smith appeared, the hits became even tougher to collect.
Smith’s lifetime record was 73-32 with 16 saves, putting him second in the last category among Negro Leaguers. In several years going head-to-head against Paige, Smith came out on top:
Paige Smith
1941 7-1 10-0
1942 8-5 8-3
1943 3-9 4-4
1946 5-1 8-2
Ironically, Smith had been the star on the Monarchs before Paige arrived. Indeed, even for a while afterward Smith continued to be the ace of the staff. In 1941 Paige-Smith went barnstorming against Bob Feller and Ken Heintzelman of the white big leagues, and, wrote Bob Burnes, sports editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, “Smith showed the best speed and sharpest curve of the quartet.”
Even the New York Yankees learned to respect Smith. He beat them in Caracas, Venezuela, in the spring of 1947, and while most U.S. papers ignored the game, John Drebinger of the New York Times didn’t. “For the first five innings,” he reported, “the Bombers ran into quite a Tartar in Hilton Smith, a right-hander, who gave up only one hit, a single to Phil Rizzuto, and two passes.”
I met Smith in 1969 in his handsome brick house on a terraced lot in one of Kansas City’s best black neighborhoods. Although somewhat heavier than in his playing days, he did not look a bit like the grandfather he was. He talked in a high-pitched, rapid voice about the particular burden he carried for years as Satchel Paige’s other half.
Hilton Smith Speaks ...
I played twelve years with the Kansas City Monarchs, 1937–48, and I won twenty games or more every year. Not counting exhibitions, I won 161 league games and lost 22, but most people have never heard of me. They’ve only heard of Satchel Paige. That’s because I was Satchel’s relief.
Every Sunday I’d start, then Monday night come on in relief, start on Wednesday and maybe Friday, according to how Satchel was feeling. It was my turn to relieve him on all big games. He’d go two or three innings; if there was a big crowd and we had to win it, I’d go in there and save it. Then the next day I’d look in the paper and the headline would say: “Satchel and Monarchs Win Again.”
I just took my baseball serious, I just went out there to do a job. But Satchel was an attraction, he could produce and he’d clown a lot. I guess it really hurt me. I tried to get away, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Now Satchel never did pitch much here in Kansas City. Oh no, he never did a lot of pitching here. But ooh, when he left here, my goodness, they’d eat him up all those other places, because he was an attraction, but these people here, they never did. He never was able to produce here. Some little old team would be able to hit on him, like Memphis and a lot of the teams like that. I remember ’41 we opened up here against Memphis, and they got to him in about the second inning, and I relieved him. I shut them out the rest of the game, and we went on and beat them. So they never did book him in here hardly, I mean advertise him as a star pitcher. He played with us all those years but he didn’t do too much pitching here. I pitched all Sunday games.
Satchel was a great pitcher, I don’t take anything away from him. I’d like to have seen him in his early age, back in ‘29 and the early Thirties. Good God, he could throw that ball! And perfect control; he never walked anybody. He could throw it. But he hurt his arm in ’37 and it didn’t come back until ‘41. His arm was sore all those years, and he played with the Monarchs’ “small team,” while I was with the “big team.” In ’39 he came and played us over in Kansas City, and I shut him out 9–0. We just wore Satchel out. So I was the star.
But in ‘41 Satchel suddenly got his arm back, and that was the worst break I got. I guess in ’42 Satchel was as great a pitcher as you want to see. He had a good curve ball, and he always had that good fast ball, and in ’42 he just had everything on the ball. That’s when he hit his peak.
I actually hit my peak, too, in ’41. I was to the place then that I could just do anything, I felt that good. I thought I could go out there and get anybody out. I won twenty-five games and lost one that year. A semipro team in Dayton, Ohio, beat me 1–0 after I had relieved Satchel. We struck out eighteen between us; they got one hit off Satchel and none off me, but beat me on an error. It was the only game I lost that year.
In 1941 I pitched one game against Bob Feller’s All-Stars. Walker Cooper was catching. Johnny Hopp was at first base—he had a good year that year, hit about .300; oooh, that guy could hit! The outfield was Ival Goodman, Stan Musial and somebody else. They hit Satchel pretty hard in the first four innings, and I came in and relieved him in the fifth. I held them, struck out six of them in five innings, didn’t give but one hit, but they beat us 4—3. Bobby Feller pitched three innings, and Kenny Heintzelman of Philadelphia pitched the last six. He really broke off some jugs that day, because I doubled with nobody out and didn’t score. It would have been the tying run, but the guy struck out all the rest of them.
One of my greatest thrills was beating Dizzy Dean in Wrigley Field, Chicago, in 1942. We had a turnout of 30,000 people that day. Yeah, boy, you’re talking about some good baseball, there was some that day. You remember big old Zeke Bonura, used to play with the White Sox? He played first base. Buddy Lewis of Washington played third and Cecil Travis short. All of them were major league ballplayers who were in the Service, and they came up for that game. Dizzy Dean pitched the first three innings. We “carried” Dizzy, because he wasn’t too good, we kind of carried him along. I beat him 3–1. Satchel pitched the first five innings for us and came out with the score 1–1. He had struck out three, walked one, gave up two hits and one run. I struck out three, didn’t walk anybody, gave up one hit and no runs. Big Joe Greene, our catcher, got a hit with two men on around the seventh inning, and I held ’em. In the ninth Travis came up with one on. Barney Serrell, our shortstop, said, “Make him hit it on the ground,” and that’s just what it was, a double play, and the ball game was over.
1942 Monarch pitching staff that swept the Homestead Grays in four straight in the World Series. Hilton Smith is on left, Satchel Paige on right. Connie Johnson, later with the White Sox and Orioles, is next to Paige.
Jackie Robinson used to tell me, “Hilton, you’re going under the same thing with Satchel that I went under with Kenny Washington at UCLA.” See, at UCLA Jackie had to play second to Kenny. Kenny was a great football player, we all heard about him, but I never heard about Jackie until I went to the Coast in 1942.
In fact, I’m the one who signed Jackie to a Monarchs’ contract. I had met him in ’42 when Red Ruffing had a team in the Service out there on the Coast. Jackie asked me about getting him a job, so I wrote to Mr. Wilkinson, the owner of the Monarchs, and he wired back to keep in touch with Jackie, so I did. In 1944 he got out of the Service and joined the Monarchs.
Actually, Jackie didn’t look that good. He was a little old to be a major league rookie—twenty—seven—but there weren’t any good young ballplayers then. Jackie’s arm was weak at shortstop; Willie Wells was better than Jackie at that position. But the Dodgers picked him on account of he’d played college baseball, he’d played with white boys before.
I was born in 1912 in Giddens, Texas, a little town between Austin and Houston. Rube Foster came from about twenty-five miles from my house, a little town right above me.
I patterned myself after my uncles. I had two uncles that my mother would let me play with. They were powerful good ballplayers. I guess I inherited my ability from them. They were good, but they played out in the country there, played for fun. I just loved it, and that was what started me off. I just made myself, didn’t have a teacher. I kept picking up and looking and learning as I went up.
I started out playing with my dad, who was a schoolteacher. I played for my dad’s team when I was in the tenth grade. I guess I was about fifteen. During the summertime I played with older boys—they were all grown men. I pitched against the town high school team and shut them out 2–0.
Austin had a team, the Austin Senators, a semipro team that played Houston and all the towns down there. They had a pitcher named Willie Owens who had played with Birmingham in the Negro leagues. In 1931, when I was nineteen, I went down and pitched against him one Saturday and beat ‘em, I just beat ’em good. He went back to Austin and said, “My goodness, there’s a little kid there, he’s something else.” So when the Chicago American Giants came down there to play Austin the next weekend, Austin came down and got me to pitch for them. I beat ’em 5–4 in eleven innings.
So Austin picked me up to play in Mexico. Mexico had an awful good ball club, they were good enough to play the major leaguers when they went down there that fall. Ramon Bragana was there pitching. They had Chili Gomez, who had been up there and played with Washington. I’m telling you, we had a lot of trouble beating those guys. Well, we started another boy, and they ran him out. Then I went in and relieved him and got them out. So they started me Sunday again. The manager told me just to go out there and throw hard. But my arm was so sore—I wasn’t nothing but a kid and I hadn’t been pitching that much baseball—I couldn’t get anybody out. I don’t think I got anybody out the first inning.
Next Thursday they started me again. The manager said, “Listen, I want you to go out there and try to get by the first inning.” I said, “Yes sir.” I asked him, “Can I throw some curve balls today?” He said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
I beat ’em 5–1, and I hit in all five runs. I struck out so many of them, they didn’t think I was the same pitcher.
Monroe, Louisiana, had a real good Negro team then. They were champions of the Southern Conference, had beaten everybody. They had Red Parnell out of Houston; a little old guy name of Ducky Davenport; and Barney Morris and Goose Curry out of Memphis pitching. They had a tremendous ball club. They came to Austin and played us two games. They were talking about they heard of this little schoolboy up there and said, “Well, we came up here to work him over.” But we had a great big ball park and I beat ‘em 2–1. They couldn’t believe it. They said, “Well, this big old park, no wonder you won. When you come to Monroe”—Monroe had a small park—“we’ll hit so many home runs off you....” So I went to Monroe the following Sunday and beat ’em 4–2.
Monroe picked me up to play with them and carried me to Pittsburgh. That was the first time I saw Satchel Paige. I played with Monroe for the next three years. I had a great year in ’32, won thirty-one games, didn’t lose a ball game.
When the Pittsburgh Crawfords came down to Monroe to play us, I opened up against them. With Josh and them it was one of the best teams of all time: Oscar Charleston, Pee Wee Stephens, Ted Page, Double Duty Radcliffe. I led them 2–0 in about the sixth inning, when Boojum Wilson came up and got a hit. Then Josh Gibson hit a home run off me to tie the game 2–2. I came out the next inning. I was only twenty years old then. I was nervous, I’d never faced those kind of ballplayers before.
I pitched against the American Giants in ’33. They beat the Crawfords out that year, beat Satchel and them. Yep, they won the championship and came to New Orleans. Chicago had Mule Suttles, Willie Wells, Jack Marshall, Alex Radcliff; outfield was one of the best outfields I ever saw—major league or anybody else: Steel Arm Davis, Turkey Stearns and Nat Rogers. They were a tremendous ball club.
We beat them three out of five ball games. Sure did, ‘cause I remember now. They beat us the first ball game, Sunday—I think it was about 5–1. They stayed over till Saturday and Bill Foster pitched against me—I’m strictly a rookie now—and I beat him 6–1. We came back and beat ’em again Sunday 3–2 in twelve innings. George Giles tripled with a man on base and beat ’em. Bill Foster came back Monday and beat us—that guy pitched three ball games in a week’s time. Then I beat Cornelius. I think they got four hits, and all the hits were the infield variety, they never hit the ball out of the infield. And it was just natural stuff, I didn’t know how to pitch to those guys. Curve ball and fast ball were all I threw.
I went to Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1935. The league broke up down South and Monroe went on a tour all around the Midwest. We weren’t making any money, just touring around, but we were playing good ball, beating just everybody we met. I didn’t know what it was to lose a ball game, I hadn’t lost a ball game. We got into Bismarck the fifth of July—I never will forget that. A guy named Churchill was mayor of the city and had a ball club. Barney Morris, who played with Monroe, had gone to Bismarck earlier that spring. Satchel was pitching for them too. They were getting ready to go to this Wichita semipro tournament and they needed another pitcher. Churchill asked me about staying and I said I didn’t know. He offered me $125 a month. I wasn’t making a quarter, but I told him no, I didn’t want to, so he said, “How about $150?” I told him okay.
I didn’t lose a ball game with Bismarck the whole year, but I didn’t pitch much. I played right field on that club most of the time and batted third or fourth.
When we went to Wichita, to the semipro tournament, we didn’t lose a ball game. I pitched the first game and shut somebody out 2–0, I don’t remember who it was. I played outfield the rest of the games and hit fourth. Satchel and Chet Brewer did all the pitching.
The next year, when I went back to Bismarck, Satchel had gone East, so I did all the pitching down there in Wichita. I won four games, and all four of them were shutouts. Last time I saw the records on that, about six years ago, my record was still holding. I had more shutouts than any pitcher who had ever been in the tournament. I don’t know if anyone’s broken it or not. Satchel had the strike-out record.
Actually I didn’t really learn how to pitch until I came to the Monarchs that fall. I just had natural stuff before that. I learned by having such guys for teachers as Frank Duncan, Bullet Rogan and Andy Cooper.
Rogan.... He played with us in ’38 and then he was through. He was a guy who, if you didn’t know him, you’d think he was kind of a snob like, but he was a nice guy, and he used to get on you if you didn’t do your job. He was umpiring, and I’d be pitching, and right after the ball game he’d come out and he’d tell me, “You’ve got a lot of stuff, but why’d you do such-and-such a thing?” I’d say, “Well, I don’t know.” He’d say, “Well, from now on, you know.” I’d answer, “Okay, I’ll do it.” Next time he was umpiring and I got in the ball game, he’d say, “Un-huh, I see you’re picking up.”
Andy Cooper was a smart manager, and he was a great teacher—great teacher! A student of baseball. He would take me aside and just sit there and talk to me, and I’d watch how he’d pitch. And my owner, Wilkinson, would talk to me. He was a doll, that guy. He had played a little semipro ball himself and he really knew baseball. He said, “Look, you’ve got everything, but use your wrist a little more, see if you can’t get a little more hop on your ball.” I took him at his word, and sure enough it worked.
So I’d watch and observe and listen.
The first ball game I pitched in this park out here in Kansas City was a no-hitter. I beat the Chicago American Giants 4–0. Nobody got on first base—I mean a perfect game. The Giants had Sug Cornelius pitching, Larry Brown catching, Alex Radcliff. They were hard to beat.
I di
dn’t lose many games that year. I probably lost three the whole season.
The Monarchs used to play Texas League teams all the time. We played Oklahoma City when they were in the Texas League in ‘37. They had a good team, too; they had finished way up in that league, Double-A baseball. We wanted to find out how good we were. Shoot, I pitched two ball games against them and they haven’t scored yet. I beat ’em Friday night, and we played ’em two games Sunday. We beat them the first ball game, and the second game they kind of started hitting our pitching, and Cooper brought me in there. A boy named Clay Touchstone—he was a great pitcher—I had beat him. He said, “What is this, the World Series, you bring that man back in here! Doggone, let us win something!” But I beat them. We beat them three straight. But we wanted to prove a point, see. We didn’t have a chance to play in those leagues. We wanted to prove a point that we were good enough to.
We played the major leaguers about seven games that fall, too, and I pitched three of them. I pitched eighteen innings in all, and they never got a score off me. They had Johnny Mize on first, Lonnie Fry on second. Outfield had Ivy Goodman, Vince DiMaggio and Gus Suhr. Pitchers were Mace Brown, Lou Fette—he won twenty games that year—Mike Ryba and Bob Feller.
I pitched three innings in Rock Island in relief and didn’t give up any hits or runs. Bob Feller started for them, and we beat ’em, but I don’t think we scored on Bob that day, he only pitched three innings. Lou Fette came on next, and we beat him. Next day I pitched six innings and didn’t give up any runs. And then I beat Fette in a nine-inning game. I shut them out 10–0 in Oklahoma City.
Mize didn’t get a hit off me the whole series. He was hitting everybody else, but he didn’t hit me. How could that man hit that ball standing way back from the plate? I kept a-looking at him. I guess I had a curve ball as good as anybody’s in baseball at that time. My fast ball ran, it just jumped. I bet I only struck him out twice that whole series, but he would hit the ball weakly back to me. I just kept it on the outside, the curve ball would break in and the umpire would call it. He’d try to pull it and he never was able to pull it.