Spirited discussions about the New York Mets and just about everything else
https://phpbb3.ultimatemets.com/
It'd be even weirder if he was a Democrat.
Jack Leiter was little more than a toddler when he approached a preschool classmate and asked, “What team does your dad play for?”
That is how ingrained baseball was in the Leiter family. That is how normalized the expectation of becoming a major-league pitcher always felt.
“I just thought everybody played baseball,” Leiter said Wednesday at Comerica Park. “For the 5-year-old me it was an expected thing. As I got older it was a dream, a goal, and then you start to visualize it, and then it becomes a reality.”
ROAD TO RICKWOOD: WILLIE MAYS REFLECTS ON HIS FIRST BIG-LEAGUE TEAM, THE 1948 BLACK BARONS
BY JOHN SHEA
MAY 5, 2024
Young Willie Mays wasn’t known as a great hitter. Not yet, anyway. He was a kid, after all, a sophomore in high school. How could he possibly step in the batter’s box at Rickwood Field and swing with any kind of authority against established Negro League pitchers in their 20s and 30s?
He did everything else. He could run like the wind to chase down balls in the gap. Field like the future Gold Glover that he became. Throw a country mile. Eventually, of course, he did hit, becoming the five-tool marvel who captured the baseball world.
Back in 1948, the 17-year-old was not only brought onto the Birmingham Black Barons — a team of top-end ballplayers, many of whom were denied the opportunity to play Major League Baseball because of their skin color — but eventually became the starting center fielder and appeared in the final World Series of the Negro Leagues.
“Sometimes I think about the guys,” Mays said recently in a Chronicle interview, finding himself in a reflective mood when the conversation turned to a subject that’s dear to him, his Black Barons teammates who embraced him, groomed him and protected him during his teen years.
“Those guys were really good guys. All of them. They’re the ones who taught me about the game and life. Taught me everything. So when I came to the Giants, I already knew how to do all kinds of stuff.”
Mays, who turns 93 on Monday, is a major reason “MLB at Rickwood: a Tribute to the Negro Leagues” is happening June 20 in Birmingham, Ala. When the San Francisco Giants play the St. Louis Cardinals, homage will be paid to Mays and all the other Negro Leaguers who suited up at Rickwood Field, the nation’s oldest professional ballpark.
Major League Baseball easily could have called it the Willie Mays Classic, but the event isn’t just about honoring one man. Yes, he suited up at Rickwood in 1948, 1949 and 1950. Yes, he became the greatest all-around player in baseball history. Yes, we are all fortunate he remains in our presence.
But Mays would be the first to say the showcase should honor those who came before him and didn’t get an opportunity to reach the MLB ranks because of segregation. Including his teammates — the 1948 Black Barons won the Negro American League pennant by beating the Kansas City Monarchs before falling to the Homestead Grays in the Negro World Series.
Mays turned into a legitimate hitter by the end of 1948 — he had key late-game hits in the first two playoff wins over Kansas City and singled in the winning run in Birmingham’s only World Series victory.
“I don’t like to talk about myself. I’d rather talk about all the guys. I’ve always been like that,” Mays said. “Piper Davis was the guy over everything. Our manager and second baseman. Like a second father to me, a big brother. You always listened to Piper. He made it comfortable for me so I didn’t have to worry about anything.
“We were very good up the middle with Piper and Artie Wilson, our shortstop. Artie could really hit, and he always made sure nothing happened to me. He lived a few miles from me when I lived in Fairfield.
“Norm Robinson got hurt. He was our center fielder. Piper wanted me to stay in center after that. We had a good outfield. (Jimmy) Zapp was in left, a real strong guy. Ed Steele in right. Piper told me to catch everything in the gaps, but then he hollered at the other guys because they kept getting the hell out of the way. He told them they’ve got to make plays, too.
“We had a lot of fun. They took care of me, man. They all took care of me.” Furthermore, “They wanted me to take care of the money. I was the money guy.”The money guy? Yes, because there was some legendary card playing on those long bus rides through the South and East.
“They said, ‘C’mon, Junior, take care of the money,’ ” Mays said. “They always gave me the money. Sometimes I had a lot of it in my pocket. They trusted me. But they wouldn’t let me play.”
Were any of Mays’ teammates good enough to reach MLB? Absolutely. But in the early days of integration, after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, MLB teams that did consider accepting African Americans were seeking the very best young talent. Not utility guys or relievers. Teams used white players for those roles.
Plus, there was a quota system. Teams tended to have an even number of Blacks on the roster, two or four — so they could room together on the road.
Take Wilson, for example. He was one of the best hitters in baseball, period. After playing five seasons with the Black Barons, he joined the Pacific Coast League, becoming the first African American to play for both the Oakland Oaks and Seattle Rainiers. He made it onto the New York Giants in 1951.
The Giants had four Blacks: Monte Irvin and Hank Thompson, who integrated the team in 1949, a catcher from Cuba named Ray Noble and Wilson. When the Giants called up Mays on May 25, 1951, who was taken off the roster? Wilson. The quota remained intact. Mays roomed with Irvin.
The point is, even with integration, it was incredibly tough for African Americans to make an MLB roster and even tougher to stick around. Wilson knew he wasn’t about to replace either of the Giants’ established middle infielders, shortstop Alvin Dark and second baseman Eddie Stanky, so instead of reporting to the Giants’ farm system, he returned to the PCL and continued playing professionally through 1962.
Other Black Barons had similar issues breaking through. Davis should have been the Red Sox’s first Black player after they signed him and assigned him to Double-A Scranton in 1950, but to their shame, they released him while citing economics despite the fact he was hitting .333 and leading Scranton in homers, doubles and RBIs. The Red Sox, with their racist ownership, wanted no Black players at the time and were the last MLB team to integrate, in 1959 with Pumpsie Green.
Then there’s pitcher Bill Greason, who became the first African American pitcher on the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954 but hardly got an opportunity to show what he could do. He found it difficult to find a throwing partner and was removed from the team after three outings (two starts) that amounted to just four innings.
Aside from Mays, Wilson and Greason, only one other member of the 1948 Black Barons reached the majors, lefty Jehosie “Jay” Heard, who had even less time than Greason and Wilson: two appearances, 3⅓ innings with the 1954 Orioles, the team’s first year in Baltimore after moving from St. Louis, where they were the Browns.
Several other Black Barons were good enough to advance to the majors, including pitcher/first baseman Alonzo Perry. As the story goes, Giants scout Eddie Montague — father of the longtime umpire by the same name — was sent to Birmingham to scout Perry but instead was impressed by a young Mays. That story has been disputed, but the bottom line is that Perry and many other Black Barons were prominent players didn’t get a chance in the white league.
Pitcher Bill Powell reached Triple-A for a couple of MLB teams but never got a call to the majors. The power-hitting Steele was a minor-leaguer in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ system but for only one year, 1952. Pitcher Jimmie Newberry, who started the 1948 Negro World Series opener, and third baseman John Britton were teammates in the early 1950s on a Japanese team that had a working agreement with the St. Louis Browns, but they never made it to MLB-affiliated ball.
First baseman Joe Scott, pitcher Sammy C. Williams and Zapp, who won a playoff game over the Monarchs with a walk-off homer — moments later, a classic picture was taken of the team celebrating, and Mays can be seen among his celebrating teammates — bounced around to different teams after leaving the Black Barons. Catchers Herman Bell and Pepper Bassett were too old to be wooed by the time MLB was integrating. Same with Robinson, whose injury opened the door for Mays to play center.
Next month in Birmingham, they will all be the focus of the Negro Leagues tribute, along with all the other players who came through Rickwood.
“Don’t forget those guys,” Mays said. “They made it possible for us.”Greason, 99, still a minister in Birmingham, said in a Chronicle interview that the Black Barons “were a team, I mean a real team. We helped each other. … It was just a blessing to play with them.”
Recalling Mays back then, Greason said, “Willie had everything. He was all around. He could run the ball down, catch the ball, hit, steal bases, just a good overall ballplayer.”
He laughed when reminded of the story of Chet Brewer, the big Cleveland Buckeyes pitcher who drilled him in what turned into a valuable life lesson.
“The guy knocked me down. I was down on the ground crying,” Mays said. “Piper comes over and says, ‘Get up. Get your ass up, take your base and steal second. Stop your crying.’ I stole second. I stole third. I scored. Piper was right.”
Other Mays memories from his Black Barons days include facing Satchel Paige, addressing fellow students at Fairfield Industrial High School about his adventures on the road (including the time the team bus caught fire in the Holland Tunnel) and helping the Black Barons win games.
In 2006, the surviving members of the 1948 Black Barons were honored at the annual Professional Scouts Foundation dinner in Beverly Hills. An award was presented in honor of Mays, 75 at the time, who arranged for Greason, Wilson, Zapp and Williams, all in their 80s, to be the recipients. It was a wonderfully emotional moment as the five pioneers gathered on stage.
“I don’t know if I would be here,” Mays told the crowd, “if it wasn’t for these guys.”
From an interview with GQ in 2010:
https://www.gq.com/story/willie-mays-extended-q-and-aThere’s a wonderful story about the first time you faced Satchel Paige.
Oh, yeah. We were in Memphis, Tennessee. It was like a playoff game. It might have been ’48. Satchel had a very, very good fastball. But he threw me a little breaking ball, just to see what I could do, and I hit it off the top of the fence. And I got a double. When I got to second, Satchel told the third baseman, "Let me know when that little boy comes back up." Three innings later, I go to kneel down in the on-deck circle, and I hear the third baseman say, "There he is." Satch looked at the third baseman, and then he looked at me. I walk halfway to home plate and he says, "Little boy." I say, "Yes, sir?" because Satch was much older than I am, so I was trying to show respect. He walked halfway to home plate and said, "Little boy, I’m not going to trick you. I’m going to throw you three fastballs and you’re going to go sit down." And I’m saying in my mind, "I don’t think so." If he threw me three of the same pitch, I’m going to hit it somewhere. He threw me two fastballs and I just swung...I swung right through it. And the third ball he threw, and I tell people this all the time, he threw the ball and then he started walking. And he says, "Go sit down." This is while the ball was in the air. He was just a magnificent pitcher.