WEBVTT - How the Negro Leagues Worked 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:12.680 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.160 Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.759 and there's this Stuff you Should Know Sports the edition Sports. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:23.959 I think really we should air on just the side 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.720 of history. Well I even put a note in here 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.760 if you don't like sports, listen to this one anyway. Yeah, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.120 because this is about much more than baseball. Yeah, this 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:41.000 is about a history and about overcoming adversity. Yeah, like, 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.000 it's very interesting story because and we'll get into this, 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.280 but I think people tend to think of the negro leagues, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.120 and that's what this is about, the baseball negro leagues, 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.800 which is what they were called. We don't use that 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.040 word anymore, but you called this that because that's what 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.480 it was. Um ethan to think of it in a 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.040 certain way, which is only Yeah, well, baseball was segregated 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.160 and they couldn't play in the white leagues, and that's awful, 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.000 which it is and was, but there's another side to it. Yeah, Yeah, 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:14.639 that's a good point where these men and these business 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.680 owners were empowered and uh and the players and yeah, 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.679 and it's yeah, that's just a tease. I just wanted 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.480 to whet their appetite, my appetite. I'm sitting here, like, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.400 keep going. So I think we should start with a 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.880 little bit of history, right, So just a brief primer 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.240 of American history. We'll start with slavery. It's a good 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:41.400 place to start. The transit Atlantic slave trade built this country. 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:43.960 And frankly, I'm just gonna come out and say, I 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.480 think some of the major issues that the United States 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:55.040 faces today comes from a lack of accountability for slavery. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.800 Um Really, it's contributing to a lot of the inn 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:01.560 a quality and a lot of the strife that we 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.720 still face today and have faced over the decades. So 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.480 you've got slavery, and then you had the end of slavery. 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.440 You had the Emancipation Proclamation, which a lot of people say, oh, 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.320 well that was great. Abraham Lincoln spoke some magic words 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.720 and freed the slaves and everything was great. Yeah, it 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.200 was just perfectly equal after that, right. No, So it 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:27.120 took the the Union to win the Civil War UM two, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.920 begin to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in the South and 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:35.400 in Texas. Apparently Texas were among the last holdouts, and 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.120 there was slavery going on in Texas like years after 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.960 the Civil War was over. Yeah, they were just like, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.760 he's not going to pay attention to that. So um. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.200 The Civil Wars fought. The the part of the the 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.840 Union victory of the Civil War was coming into the 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.000 South and saying like, all you Confederate you guys are 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.840 out of power. And as a matter of fact, this 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.800 power vacuum is perfectly willing to be filled by um, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.040 freed blacks. Uh, so go ahead, run for office, UM, 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:10.040 become judges, like, become part of the reconstruction power. UM. 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.960 And that lasted for a very very short time. The 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.560 white Southern former power base who were leading the Confederacy 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:19.720 and even once who weren't necessarily part of like the 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.120 actual Confederate government or even the Confederate Army, which just 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.519 the people like in your town who used to own 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.720 the sawmill or whatever. That guy came back in power 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.360 within a couple of years. And the white Southerners who 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.160 have been supplanted, when they came back into power, they 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.000 remembered the black people who had tried to take their positions, 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.480 and so it got ugly. And so rather than having 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:48.880 actual legal slavery. It came in other different horrible, pernicious 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.320 forms which came to be called post reconstruction, the Jim 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.160 Crow South. Yeah, and boy, we need to do one. 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:56.960 I've had it on my list for a while on 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.600 Jim Crow period. Um about this. First of all, where'd 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.400 you get this other good, really good article? It's on 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:10.440 the Major League Baseball website. Um, in the prehistory section 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:12.120 of that one. And this is just to show you 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.280 the tone of things. In eight fifty seven, there was 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:21.640 a Supreme Court Chief Justice, uh Roger Tanney, who, Um, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.400 it's funny that the way this writer put it, he 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.040 said he's campaigning hard for a spot in the American 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.839 Scum Hall of Fame. Like that's pretty funny. In his 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.200 official writing, this is the Chief Justice of the Supreme 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.760 Court said, uh, Negroes were so far inferior to whites 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.000 that they had no rights which a white man was 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.960 bound to respect. This is the chief Justice of the 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.719 Supreme Court. I think I need to say that like 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.120 four more times before it sinks in. That was two 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.080 or three. This is what was going on despite the 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.360 Emancipation Proclamation, despite the Fourteenth Amendment. Well that was actually 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.480 before it that was before that was during the slave 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.279 the time of slavery. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, just to 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.960 excuse that guy. But after after that, despite the amendments 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.760 to the Constitution, despite all of that, it's it took 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.560 to the nineteen sixties to even begin the slightest bit 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.800 of real progress. That's true, not quite true, because the 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.760 history is littered with people who made advancements. They I 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.760 don't want to knock that, but in a systemic manner, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.280 you're you're right, it wasn't until the sixties. But part 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.120 of the problem too was and this is a valid point. Uh. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.320 Other courts had said, like those is justice. Henry Billings 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:40.400 Brown said legislation is powerless to eradicate racial uh instincts 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:45.720 or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences. Basically, what 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.480 he's saying is like, we can create laws, but you're 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.560 not going to change public's mind by creating laws. You 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.560 can't like abolish present prejudice. And so if white people 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.360 think that black people are inferior to him, who are 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.479 we the ever meant to say otherwise to try maybe 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.400 and legislate our way out of it. Even so, and 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.360 I think eighteen ninety six there was a court case 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.239 called plus e versus Ferguson, and in plus e versus Ferguson, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:19.080 the Supreme Court upheld and legitimized and actually made UM 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.640 real the segregation that had already been going on UM 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.040 ever since reconstruction, or ever since the end of reconstruction, 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:32.000 the beginning of Jim Crow laws. Right, So, the United 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:37.120 States was officially segregated in eight but baseball had actually 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:42.320 segregated years before that, but not as far back as 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.359 people think, And a lot of people think that baseball 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.880 had always been segregated up until nineteen forty six. I 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.599 think Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. I think people 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.560 think that Jackie Robinson was the first black American to 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.800 play baseball, including me until yesterday when we started. Yeah, oh, 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.960 did you know this already? Yeah? I mean I'm a 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.240 big baseball fan and a bit of a student of 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:10.840 its history, so I knew. Okay, So tell him, Chuck Well, uh, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.320 who the guys were specifically? Well? Yeah, so in eighteen 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:16.880 sixty seven, I think, two years after the Civil War, 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.400 there was already baseball. Remember Avner double Day created baseball 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:25.520 eighteen thirty nine, and that's but that's a legitimate story, right, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.680 that's not like he really did. He was the inventor 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.160 of baseball and it did happen in Cooperstown, New York 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.440 and all that, right, Yeah, Okay, I don't know, but 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.520 it was he in Cooperstown. Well that makes sense. So 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.240 within uh, just a couple of decades there was the 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:45.320 National Association of Baseball Players. They were the league, right, yeah, 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.120 I mean not within a couple of decades. A couple 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.960 of years. Yeah, like literally two years after the end 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:54.920 of the Civil War. That was an African American team 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.640 called I actually don't know what their name was, but 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.480 they were out of Philadelphia and they we want to 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.720 join your league, which was the National Association of Baseball 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.440 Players at the time, and they were rejected as a 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.720 team of course at the time. And uh, but that 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.880 didn't mean that there were not players individually. That's a 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.240 huge caveat. Yeah, it was a little bit later in 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.960 six finally and not for too long. We had two brothers, 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:27.760 h Moses Fleetwood Walker and well day Walker and uh 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.880 mostly they played for the Toledo Blue Stuff. That's right, baby, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.800 my hometown integrated baseball team in the eighties. You were 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:42.319 totally right, Uh, Moses was he was older. He played 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.160 forty two games for the team. Well, they only came 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.440 along and played in six games. Moses hit two sixty 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.000 three that season. Uh. And they were the son of 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:56.080 a physician, like the first black physician in Toledo, and 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.080 um went to college played baseball at ober Only and 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:05.320 then Michigan. So I know the Wolverines. I didn't know 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.200 Oberlin even had sports. Well, this is the nineteenth century. 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.520 I think they phased the mount fased the Mountain favor 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.679 of debate, acoustic guitars and debate. I know a lot 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.520 of people that went to Oberlin weirdly really well, my 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.360 good friend Robert Shahadi from Boston that you met, that 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:26.600 came to our show, Uh, Lucy waynewright to Oberlin. David 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.320 Reese really went to Oberlin. And I feel like a 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.160 couple of other people. Yeah, it's got a nice reputation. Yeah, 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:39.200 great name too. It sounds ivy league, Yeah, Oberlin the 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:44.679 sound of quality. Oberlin sounds ivy league ish. That's on 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.240 their t shirts. Although we do need to give a 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.720 shout out. There was one guy in eighteen seventy nine, 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:55.560 William Edward White, who substituted and played one game. Who 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.640 was officially and this is a little murky history wise, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.880 because we don't know much about him him or how 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.040 it happened. But supposedly he played one game as a 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.600 professional baseball player as a black man. Is that right? 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:11.080 And this is when? Okay, So the Walker brothers are 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.840 playing for Toledo in eighteen eighty six, right, And actually 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.839 this article on how stuff works gets it wrong. Says that, um, 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.040 they just played for the team for one year before 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.120 the team went under. Um, that's not the case. As 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.200 a matter of fact, the Moses Walker they may have 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.040 only played together on the team for that one year. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.000 Moses Walker had played for years before them. And actually 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.920 Moses Walker and um, there were several other players at 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.360 the time in eight and eighties seven, there at least 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.800 four black players in the Miners. But the Walker brothers 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:48.440 were playing for Toledo, which was a major league team. Right, Um, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.880 But the presence of Moses Walker actually brought to the 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.680 four this kind of simmering resentment, Um, and kind of 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.800 the big elephant in the room. There's a black guy 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.200 in your team. What are you guys doing? And so 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.640 Toledo actually went to go play the White Sox in Chicago, 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.760 and the White Sox had this like they're great player 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.080 of of that season I think in eight four cap 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:19.720 Anson great nicknames back then. So cap Anson said he 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.160 said some horrible things and ultimately was like, I'm not 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:28.040 playing if Batman's on the field, and um, Moses Walker 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.280 was actually injured and still was like, oh, well, I'm 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.360 definitely going on the field today anyway, So he dressed 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.600 out and um, I'm not sure if he actually played 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:37.440 in the game, but he was like part of the 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:42.320 team and cap Anson was not indulged. Toledo was like, 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.480 we're not taking our guy out. He's one of our players. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.960 So cap Anson can go suck an egg. And cap 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.000 Anson went and sucked an egg. He was really mad. 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:54.240 But um, the the issue that day, that dispute at 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.160 Comiskey Field, UM brought to the four that the the 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:04.320 concept of integrade and ultimately segregation among Major League Baseball teams, 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.839 and it actually increased the pressure among owners and managers 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.280 to to get rid of the black players, not just 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.240 in the majors, but in the minors. There was another 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.560 player too, I read another story about and we'll we'll 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.080 get to Roy Campanella. He was a he was better 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.360 than Jackie Robinson at the time, a catcher who was 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.079 just amazing Hall of Famer, and he had ah there 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.920 was a white picture. It was like, you know, he 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:32.680 was a great catcher, but I didn't want to play 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.040 with him, so I would when I pitched to him, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.440 I would just ignore his signs and through whatever I want, like, 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:43.840 to his own detriment and to the team's detriment. He uh, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:49.760 he just wouldn't take the signs. Career sabotage essentially. I 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.439 don't think he lasted long either. And Campanella's in the 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.600 Hall of Fame, So write the other guy who knows. 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.040 I want to give these names all out though. The 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.720 four black men in the Miners in eighteen sixty six, 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.560 besides Moses Walker, we had Bud Fowler, Frank Grant, and 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.640 George Stovey. And as far as I'm concerned, all these 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:14.000 dudes are American heroes. So um, all of a sudden, 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.280 they succumbed to pressure in eighteen ninety after hate mail 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.520 and death threats to the coaches and managers and umpires 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.280 and uh, you know, basically everybody, the players themselves, and 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.280 they said, you know what, we're going to shut it 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:33.319 down as officially in eighteen ninety, we can no longer 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.200 have any black men in our league. So here's the thing. 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.880 They never officially did that. They had the minor league 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.600 band black players way into the major well, and it 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:46.960 was never on the rule books either. It was it 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:51.760 was an unofficial, non gentleman's agreement because which actually when 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.800 it was broken, it wasn't like a rule was broken. 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.199 It was just an unwritten rule, right exactly, which paved 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.520 the way for answer Ricky to break that unbroken rule 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.240 without actually breaking a rule. Yes, yeah, good point, Chuck, 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.200 you want to take a break. Uh yeah, let's do 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:37.000 it all right, man. So eighteen ninety, it's now there 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.120 are there are no black players resegregated in Major league 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.480 baseball or minor league baseball in America, right, that's right. 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.000 That actually paved the way for one of the great 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.000 unsung chapters in baseball history, which was the creation of 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.040 the Negro leagues. Yeah, in a in a true show 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:59.920 of American spirit and determination, and I just love the 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.280 the game. Uh. These uh, these men got together, they 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.800 formed their own teams, and they did what's called barnstorming, 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.680 which is pretty awesome. They would load up in cars 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:12.200 on a bus and they would go from town to 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.240 town and take their show on the road and they 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.240 would get a game up wherever they could and wherever 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.000 people would pay a couple of pennies to come watch 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.160 a baseball game. Um, they were playing white players and 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.920 these barn storming games or black players or Latino players. 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:30.720 Uh yeah, because that's a definite overlook segment of the 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.040 early baseball history, or Latino players. And one of the 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.560 cool things about the Negro leagues is they were integrated. 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.000 They had they had Latino teams like the Cuban Kings 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:42.240 out of New York, I believe, and one white guy. 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.840 All right, so barn storming is going on. Like I said, 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:46.800 they would roll into town, they would play whatever teams 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.600 they could play, and uh, it started to gain some momentum, 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.560 Like people started to follow these players. They actually got fans. 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.520 And there was a former player named Andrew Rube Foster 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.560 who owned to those teams, and he said, you know what, 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.800 I think we need our own league. They won't let 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.760 us in their league. Let's start around because besides the 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:13.200 fact that people want it, there's money to be made here. Yeah. 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.720 And as a matter of fact, So this barn storming thing, 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.360 I want to talk a little more about that, right, Um, 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.120 one of the reasons barnes storming came about was to 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.240 make ends meet, but it was also because these teams 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.200 had to figure out a way to put on games 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.160 as cheaply as possible. All of the stadiums at the 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.120 time were owned by whites, and the whites apparently were 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.440 not very friendly to the idea of black black teams 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.160 playing in their their fields. So if it were just 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:44.760 like black teams playing one another, the white owners of 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.440 the fields are just charged and exorbitant amounts. These guys 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.480 were going basically anywhere they could find a place that 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.400 would stand still long enough for them to play a 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.080 baseball game on. That's what they would play. And they 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.200 play like three games a day every day. And they 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.360 all traveled together and like um, hung out with one 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.440 another and spent a lot of time together. So like that, 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:10.359 the Negro leagues came out of this um kind of 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:15.600 camaraderie of barn storming together, which is pretty awesome. So yeah, 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:20.640 this guy, Rube Foster, he owned the UM Chicago American Giants, 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.200 And confusingly, there was also another Negro team called the 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:28.480 Chicago Giants into St. Louis Giants. Yeah, yeah, but like 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.639 versus Chicago. But if it was Chicago versus Chicago, well 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.040 which one the Giants? Well, which one the American Giants? Okay, 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.720 now I understand not just the Giants, but Rube Foster 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:44.919 was like this, this booster of boundless enthusiasm. This guy 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.960 literally put together the first real Negro league, and when 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:54.120 he was basically removed from it, the whole the whole 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.200 thing fell apart. That's how how much of a driver 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.280 this guy was. Yeah, he's in the Hall of Fame too. 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.760 Yeah he was a catcher, I think. Uh. Oh, I 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:03.320 don't even think he was in as a player, but 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.720 he was. Yeah, I think just for his achievement. Um, 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:09.639 although it may have been both, I don't know. But 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:11.840 in nineteen he said, all right, here's what we'll do. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.879 Let me get these seven team owners of the Midwestern 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.760 League that are doing these you know, barnstorming traveling shows. Basically, 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.800 let's get together in Kansas City, seven all black teams. Uh. 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.800 In addition to those two Chicago Giants, we have the 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.320 Cuban Stars, the Dayton Marco's, the Indianapolis abc S, and 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.800 the very famous Kansas City Monarchs and St. Louis Giants 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.080 all and this is the really like great thing about 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.359 the story. All of these teams except for the Monarchs 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.600 were black owned teams. Right. So, so not only do 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:50.520 you have black players careers developing, yeah, you have like 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.600 black enterprise developing in a in a time when there 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.600 were very few avenues of opportunity for black people to 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.120 advance in business. Yeah, and in a sense where they 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.520 own the business. This is a really good way to 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.920 do it. Yeah. And not only that, like the Major 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:12.480 League Baseball site points out, like this was like it 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.560 should be embraced in some ways because this at a 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.679 time was the only one of the only ways that 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:23.800 minorities could fully like excel to their fullest potential. And yeah, 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.240 and that was a point of that article that I 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.840 thought was pretty cool, is that one of the one 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.600 of the things they lamented about the segregation of baseball 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:36.000 during this time, um, is that we'll never know how 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.879 Babe Ruth would have stood up against Sachel Page pitching 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.280 to them because they never got to play each other. 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.679 So the truly great players are truly great during this 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:51.160 time within their own skin color. You know, you can't 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.880 say they were the greatest in baseball because they were 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.600 too legitimate, um parallel leagues going on at the time. 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.240 And yeah, they played each other sometimes, but if you 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.960 wanted to sit down and put stats against stats, you'd 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:07.200 be very hard pressed to do that. Uh sure, Thy Cobb, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.760 Babe Ruth Christie Mathison, Like, we know they were good, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.119 Like we're not knocking their talent, but who knows what 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:17.600 it would have been like in a truly integrated league. Yeah, 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.680 And actually it's funny to bring up thy Cobb because 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:21.680 I was like, oh, yeah, Ty Cobb was a huge racist. 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:23.960 I wonder what he thought about the Negro leagues. And 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.560 I looked it up and I found an article from 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.000 a guy who argues that Ty Cobb was not the um, 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.760 the horrible racist that he's made out to be these days, 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.000 written by Jimmy Cobb. There he found, well, he actually 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.600 did cite his son, and I think his son's name 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.720 might be jim Really. Yeah. Um, But the guy found 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.520 an article from maybe the fifties or something, nineteen fifty 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.280 two where Ty Cobb is quoted at length coming out 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:55.119 in favor of UM integration in baseball, Yeah, saying, like 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.080 of course these guys should play as long as you 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.239 know they conduct themselves like, uh, professor and old baseball players, like, 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.320 why would they not be able to play? I'm totally 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.560 in favor of it. Interesting, like, did Ty Cobbs say this? 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:11.160 I think that bears more research. Yeah, you know, because 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.600 he was supposedly very racist. Yeah, that's not what this 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.000 guy says. All right, well I'm gonna look at that. 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:21.280 That's not what his son says. I'm not doubting you, 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:22.960 of course, I just wanted to know I'm with you. 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.879 I understand. Uh. So we talked about the integration of 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:29.320 the Negro leagues, which was awesome. Pretty soon other leagues 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.639 for him, not just teams. There was one right here 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.640 in the South, the Negro Southern League, with teams from 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:39.040 right here in Atlanta. Dude, do you know the Atlanta 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.520 team played directly across the street constantly on Park. Yeah, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:44.879 where there's now a Staples and a home depot in 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.000 a pet Smart and a Whole Foods. How Like funny 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.520 is that? Yeah? Um, if you walk into Whole Foods 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.040 and listen, you can hear the ghost of a backing 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.840 a ball. Yeah. This I don't think this was the 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.359 first team in Atlanta that played in the Negro Southern 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.280 League because they folded that same year. But the Atlantic 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.960 Black Crackers. We also had the Atlantic Crackers, which was 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.280 the white team. Um, we had the Atlantic Black Crackers. 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.520 And it sounds funny that we say Ponce de Leon, 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.000 uh not Ponton, but that's how we say it here. 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.720 It's the street that fronts our office building. Puts Daileon 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:18.560 himself would have punch you in the stomach if he 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.119 heard you say his name like that. But that's the 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.439 street in Atlanta that fronts our office And if you 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:27.520 go and look on the internet, you can see these 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:32.600 awesome pictures of this cool little baseball stadium. Right they're 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:38.000 hundreds of feet from where we sit. Really neat um. 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.400 But now you have Whole Foods. You just have to listen. 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:48.800 Seven dollars for artisan mayonnaise if you're lucky, seven dollars. 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:53.080 Oh that's just for the the just for one s. Yeah, 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.160 just once, is you her? Whole Foods got caught like 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:03.200 with uncalibrated scales for their hot bar stuff, like it's 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:07.520 not already expensive and yeah that's not I expect a 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.879 lot more from them. Yeah, you know, never get anything 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.400 with bones at one of those oh never or liquid 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:17.240 what a waste? You throw half of that chicken leg away? Yeah, 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.960 you paid for it, or just you know, grind that 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:22.560 chicken bone up and eat it and get your money, 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.399 like peel off with your teeth, spit the meat into 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:28.200 your into your little basket, and throw the bone back 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.000 into the hot bar. Yeah. Oh I didn't think about that. 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.240 That's great idea. And then you can say I'm no chump. Yeah, 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:40.040 I just go around screaming and not paying for that bone. Um, 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:42.640 all right, So where are we where? The Negro Southern 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.320 League folded, the Eastern Colored League open in nine, and 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.320 then finally in nine the American Negue Grow League formed, 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:55.439 and that was that was when things like they called 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:58.200 eventually the American Negro League in the American I'm sorry, 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:01.160 the National Negro League. The mad years of the Negro League, 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:05.600 like that was where the crime della crime and um, 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:10.639