Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry
Speaker 1: and there's this Stuff you Should Know Sports the edition Sports.
Speaker 1: I think really we should air on just the side
Speaker 1: of history. Well I even put a note in here
Speaker 1: if you don't like sports, listen to this one anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because this is about much more than baseball. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is about a history and about overcoming adversity. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting story because and we'll get into this,
Speaker 1: but I think people tend to think of the negro leagues,
Speaker 1: and that's what this is about, the baseball negro leagues,
Speaker 1: which is what they were called. We don't use that
Speaker 1: word anymore, but you called this that because that's what
Speaker 1: it was. Um ethan to think of it in a
Speaker 1: certain way, which is only Yeah, well, baseball was segregated
Speaker 1: and they couldn't play in the white leagues, and that's awful,
Speaker 1: which it is and was, but there's another side to it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point where these men and these business
Speaker 1: owners were empowered and uh and the players and yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, that's just a tease. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to whet their appetite, my appetite. I'm sitting here, like,
Speaker 1: keep going. So I think we should start with a
Speaker 1: little bit of history, right, So just a brief primer
Speaker 1: of American history. We'll start with slavery. It's a good
Speaker 1: place to start. The transit Atlantic slave trade built this country.
Speaker 1: And frankly, I'm just gonna come out and say, I
Speaker 1: think some of the major issues that the United States
Speaker 1: faces today comes from a lack of accountability for slavery.
Speaker 1: Um Really, it's contributing to a lot of the inn
Speaker 1: a quality and a lot of the strife that we
Speaker 1: still face today and have faced over the decades. So
Speaker 1: you've got slavery, and then you had the end of slavery.
Speaker 1: You had the Emancipation Proclamation, which a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 1: well that was great. Abraham Lincoln spoke some magic words
Speaker 1: and freed the slaves and everything was great. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just perfectly equal after that, right. No, So it
Speaker 1: took the the Union to win the Civil War UM two,
Speaker 1: begin to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in the South and
Speaker 1: in Texas. Apparently Texas were among the last holdouts, and
Speaker 1: there was slavery going on in Texas like years after
Speaker 1: the Civil War was over. Yeah, they were just like,
Speaker 1: he's not going to pay attention to that. So um.
Speaker 1: The Civil Wars fought. The the part of the the
Speaker 1: Union victory of the Civil War was coming into the
Speaker 1: South and saying like, all you Confederate you guys are
Speaker 1: out of power. And as a matter of fact, this
Speaker 1: power vacuum is perfectly willing to be filled by um,
Speaker 1: freed blacks. Uh, so go ahead, run for office, UM,
Speaker 1: become judges, like, become part of the reconstruction power. UM.
Speaker 1: And that lasted for a very very short time. The
Speaker 1: white Southern former power base who were leading the Confederacy
Speaker 1: and even once who weren't necessarily part of like the
Speaker 1: actual Confederate government or even the Confederate Army, which just
Speaker 1: the people like in your town who used to own
Speaker 1: the sawmill or whatever. That guy came back in power
Speaker 1: within a couple of years. And the white Southerners who
Speaker 1: have been supplanted, when they came back into power, they
Speaker 1: remembered the black people who had tried to take their positions,
Speaker 1: and so it got ugly. And so rather than having
Speaker 1: actual legal slavery. It came in other different horrible, pernicious
Speaker 1: forms which came to be called post reconstruction, the Jim
Speaker 1: Crow South. Yeah, and boy, we need to do one.
Speaker 1: I've had it on my list for a while on
Speaker 1: Jim Crow period. Um about this. First of all, where'd
Speaker 1: you get this other good, really good article? It's on
Speaker 1: the Major League Baseball website. Um, in the prehistory section
Speaker 1: of that one. And this is just to show you
Speaker 1: the tone of things. In eight fifty seven, there was
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court Chief Justice, uh Roger Tanney, who, Um,
Speaker 1: it's funny that the way this writer put it, he
Speaker 1: said he's campaigning hard for a spot in the American
Speaker 1: Scum Hall of Fame. Like that's pretty funny. In his
Speaker 1: official writing, this is the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court said, uh, Negroes were so far inferior to whites
Speaker 1: that they had no rights which a white man was
Speaker 1: bound to respect. This is the chief Justice of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. I think I need to say that like
Speaker 1: four more times before it sinks in. That was two
Speaker 1: or three. This is what was going on despite the
Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation, despite the Fourteenth Amendment. Well that was actually
Speaker 1: before it that was before that was during the slave
Speaker 1: the time of slavery. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, just to
Speaker 1: excuse that guy. But after after that, despite the amendments
Speaker 1: to the Constitution, despite all of that, it's it took
Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixties to even begin the slightest bit
Speaker 1: of real progress. That's true, not quite true, because the
Speaker 1: history is littered with people who made advancements. They I
Speaker 1: don't want to knock that, but in a systemic manner,
Speaker 1: you're you're right, it wasn't until the sixties. But part
Speaker 1: of the problem too was and this is a valid point. Uh.
Speaker 1: Other courts had said, like those is justice. Henry Billings
Speaker 1: Brown said legislation is powerless to eradicate racial uh instincts
Speaker 1: or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences. Basically, what
Speaker 1: he's saying is like, we can create laws, but you're
Speaker 1: not going to change public's mind by creating laws. You
Speaker 1: can't like abolish present prejudice. And so if white people
Speaker 1: think that black people are inferior to him, who are
Speaker 1: we the ever meant to say otherwise to try maybe
Speaker 1: and legislate our way out of it. Even so, and
Speaker 1: I think eighteen ninety six there was a court case
Speaker 1: called plus e versus Ferguson, and in plus e versus Ferguson,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court upheld and legitimized and actually made UM
Speaker 1: real the segregation that had already been going on UM
Speaker 1: ever since reconstruction, or ever since the end of reconstruction,
Speaker 1: the beginning of Jim Crow laws. Right, So, the United
Speaker 1: States was officially segregated in eight but baseball had actually
Speaker 1: segregated years before that, but not as far back as
Speaker 1: people think, And a lot of people think that baseball
Speaker 1: had always been segregated up until nineteen forty six. I
Speaker 1: think Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. I think people
Speaker 1: think that Jackie Robinson was the first black American to
Speaker 1: play baseball, including me until yesterday when we started. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: did you know this already? Yeah? I mean I'm a
Speaker 1: big baseball fan and a bit of a student of
Speaker 1: its history, so I knew. Okay, So tell him, Chuck Well, uh,
Speaker 1: who the guys were specifically? Well? Yeah, so in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, I think, two years after the Civil War,
Speaker 1: there was already baseball. Remember Avner double Day created baseball
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine, and that's but that's a legitimate story, right,
Speaker 1: that's not like he really did. He was the inventor
Speaker 1: of baseball and it did happen in Cooperstown, New York
Speaker 1: and all that, right, Yeah, Okay, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it was he in Cooperstown. Well that makes sense. So
Speaker 1: within uh, just a couple of decades there was the
Speaker 1: National Association of Baseball Players. They were the league, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean not within a couple of decades. A couple
Speaker 1: of years. Yeah, like literally two years after the end
Speaker 1: of the Civil War. That was an African American team
Speaker 1: called I actually don't know what their name was, but
Speaker 1: they were out of Philadelphia and they we want to
Speaker 1: join your league, which was the National Association of Baseball
Speaker 1: Players at the time, and they were rejected as a
Speaker 1: team of course at the time. And uh, but that
Speaker 1: didn't mean that there were not players individually. That's a
Speaker 1: huge caveat. Yeah, it was a little bit later in
Speaker 1: six finally and not for too long. We had two brothers,
Speaker 1: h Moses Fleetwood Walker and well day Walker and uh
Speaker 1: mostly they played for the Toledo Blue Stuff. That's right, baby,
Speaker 1: my hometown integrated baseball team in the eighties. You were
Speaker 1: totally right, Uh, Moses was he was older. He played
Speaker 1: forty two games for the team. Well, they only came
Speaker 1: along and played in six games. Moses hit two sixty
Speaker 1: three that season. Uh. And they were the son of
Speaker 1: a physician, like the first black physician in Toledo, and
Speaker 1: um went to college played baseball at ober Only and
Speaker 1: then Michigan. So I know the Wolverines. I didn't know
Speaker 1: Oberlin even had sports. Well, this is the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: I think they phased the mount fased the Mountain favor
Speaker 1: of debate, acoustic guitars and debate. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people that went to Oberlin weirdly really well, my
Speaker 1: good friend Robert Shahadi from Boston that you met, that
Speaker 1: came to our show, Uh, Lucy waynewright to Oberlin. David
Speaker 1: Reese really went to Oberlin. And I feel like a
Speaker 1: couple of other people. Yeah, it's got a nice reputation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great name too. It sounds ivy league, Yeah, Oberlin the
Speaker 1: sound of quality. Oberlin sounds ivy league ish. That's on
Speaker 1: their t shirts. Although we do need to give a
Speaker 1: shout out. There was one guy in eighteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: William Edward White, who substituted and played one game. Who
Speaker 1: was officially and this is a little murky history wise,
Speaker 1: because we don't know much about him him or how
Speaker 1: it happened. But supposedly he played one game as a
Speaker 1: professional baseball player as a black man. Is that right?
Speaker 1: And this is when? Okay, So the Walker brothers are
Speaker 1: playing for Toledo in eighteen eighty six, right, And actually
Speaker 1: this article on how stuff works gets it wrong. Says that, um,
Speaker 1: they just played for the team for one year before
Speaker 1: the team went under. Um, that's not the case. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, the Moses Walker they may have
Speaker 1: only played together on the team for that one year.
Speaker 1: Moses Walker had played for years before them. And actually
Speaker 1: Moses Walker and um, there were several other players at
Speaker 1: the time in eight and eighties seven, there at least
Speaker 1: four black players in the Miners. But the Walker brothers
Speaker 1: were playing for Toledo, which was a major league team. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: But the presence of Moses Walker actually brought to the
Speaker 1: four this kind of simmering resentment, Um, and kind of
Speaker 1: the big elephant in the room. There's a black guy
Speaker 1: in your team. What are you guys doing? And so
Speaker 1: Toledo actually went to go play the White Sox in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and the White Sox had this like they're great player
Speaker 1: of of that season I think in eight four cap
Speaker 1: Anson great nicknames back then. So cap Anson said he
Speaker 1: said some horrible things and ultimately was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: playing if Batman's on the field, and um, Moses Walker
Speaker 1: was actually injured and still was like, oh, well, I'm
Speaker 1: definitely going on the field today anyway, So he dressed
Speaker 1: out and um, I'm not sure if he actually played
Speaker 1: in the game, but he was like part of the
Speaker 1: team and cap Anson was not indulged. Toledo was like,
Speaker 1: we're not taking our guy out. He's one of our players.
Speaker 1: So cap Anson can go suck an egg. And cap
Speaker 1: Anson went and sucked an egg. He was really mad.
Speaker 1: But um, the the issue that day, that dispute at
Speaker 1: Comiskey Field, UM brought to the four that the the
Speaker 1: concept of integrade and ultimately segregation among Major League Baseball teams,
Speaker 1: and it actually increased the pressure among owners and managers
Speaker 1: to to get rid of the black players, not just
Speaker 1: in the majors, but in the minors. There was another
Speaker 1: player too, I read another story about and we'll we'll
Speaker 1: get to Roy Campanella. He was a he was better
Speaker 1: than Jackie Robinson at the time, a catcher who was
Speaker 1: just amazing Hall of Famer, and he had ah there
Speaker 1: was a white picture. It was like, you know, he
Speaker 1: was a great catcher, but I didn't want to play
Speaker 1: with him, so I would when I pitched to him,
Speaker 1: I would just ignore his signs and through whatever I want, like,
Speaker 1: to his own detriment and to the team's detriment. He uh,
Speaker 1: he just wouldn't take the signs. Career sabotage essentially. I
Speaker 1: don't think he lasted long either. And Campanella's in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, So write the other guy who knows.
Speaker 1: I want to give these names all out though. The
Speaker 1: four black men in the Miners in eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: besides Moses Walker, we had Bud Fowler, Frank Grant, and
Speaker 1: George Stovey. And as far as I'm concerned, all these
Speaker 1: dudes are American heroes. So um, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they succumbed to pressure in eighteen ninety after hate mail
Speaker 1: and death threats to the coaches and managers and umpires
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, basically everybody, the players themselves, and
Speaker 1: they said, you know what, we're going to shut it
Speaker 1: down as officially in eighteen ninety, we can no longer
Speaker 1: have any black men in our league. So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They never officially did that. They had the minor league
Speaker 1: band black players way into the major well, and it
Speaker 1: was never on the rule books either. It was it
Speaker 1: was an unofficial, non gentleman's agreement because which actually when
Speaker 1: it was broken, it wasn't like a rule was broken.
Speaker 1: It was just an unwritten rule, right exactly, which paved
Speaker 1: the way for answer Ricky to break that unbroken rule
Speaker 1: without actually breaking a rule. Yes, yeah, good point, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you want to take a break. Uh yeah, let's do
Speaker 1: it all right, man. So eighteen ninety, it's now there
Speaker 1: are there are no black players resegregated in Major league
Speaker 1: baseball or minor league baseball in America, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: That actually paved the way for one of the great
Speaker 1: unsung chapters in baseball history, which was the creation of
Speaker 1: the Negro leagues. Yeah, in a in a true show
Speaker 1: of American spirit and determination, and I just love the
Speaker 1: the game. Uh. These uh, these men got together, they
Speaker 1: formed their own teams, and they did what's called barnstorming,
Speaker 1: which is pretty awesome. They would load up in cars
Speaker 1: on a bus and they would go from town to
Speaker 1: town and take their show on the road and they
Speaker 1: would get a game up wherever they could and wherever
Speaker 1: people would pay a couple of pennies to come watch
Speaker 1: a baseball game. Um, they were playing white players and
Speaker 1: these barn storming games or black players or Latino players.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, because that's a definite overlook segment of the
Speaker 1: early baseball history, or Latino players. And one of the
Speaker 1: cool things about the Negro leagues is they were integrated.
Speaker 1: They had they had Latino teams like the Cuban Kings
Speaker 1: out of New York, I believe, and one white guy.
Speaker 1: All right, so barn storming is going on. Like I said,
Speaker 1: they would roll into town, they would play whatever teams
Speaker 1: they could play, and uh, it started to gain some momentum,
Speaker 1: Like people started to follow these players. They actually got fans.
Speaker 1: And there was a former player named Andrew Rube Foster
Speaker 1: who owned to those teams, and he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think we need our own league. They won't let
Speaker 1: us in their league. Let's start around because besides the
Speaker 1: fact that people want it, there's money to be made here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, So this barn storming thing,
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little more about that, right, Um,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons barnes storming came about was to
Speaker 1: make ends meet, but it was also because these teams
Speaker 1: had to figure out a way to put on games
Speaker 1: as cheaply as possible. All of the stadiums at the
Speaker 1: time were owned by whites, and the whites apparently were
Speaker 1: not very friendly to the idea of black black teams
Speaker 1: playing in their their fields. So if it were just
Speaker 1: like black teams playing one another, the white owners of
Speaker 1: the fields are just charged and exorbitant amounts. These guys
Speaker 1: were going basically anywhere they could find a place that
Speaker 1: would stand still long enough for them to play a
Speaker 1: baseball game on. That's what they would play. And they
Speaker 1: play like three games a day every day. And they
Speaker 1: all traveled together and like um, hung out with one
Speaker 1: another and spent a lot of time together. So like that,
Speaker 1: the Negro leagues came out of this um kind of
Speaker 1: camaraderie of barn storming together, which is pretty awesome. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy, Rube Foster, he owned the UM Chicago American Giants,
Speaker 1: And confusingly, there was also another Negro team called the
Speaker 1: Chicago Giants into St. Louis Giants. Yeah, yeah, but like
Speaker 1: versus Chicago. But if it was Chicago versus Chicago, well
Speaker 1: which one the Giants? Well, which one the American Giants? Okay,
Speaker 1: now I understand not just the Giants, but Rube Foster
Speaker 1: was like this, this booster of boundless enthusiasm. This guy
Speaker 1: literally put together the first real Negro league, and when
Speaker 1: he was basically removed from it, the whole the whole
Speaker 1: thing fell apart. That's how how much of a driver
Speaker 1: this guy was. Yeah, he's in the Hall of Fame too.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was a catcher, I think. Uh. Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't even think he was in as a player, but
Speaker 1: he was. Yeah, I think just for his achievement. Um,
Speaker 1: although it may have been both, I don't know. But
Speaker 1: in nineteen he said, all right, here's what we'll do.
Speaker 1: Let me get these seven team owners of the Midwestern
Speaker 1: League that are doing these you know, barnstorming traveling shows. Basically,
Speaker 1: let's get together in Kansas City, seven all black teams. Uh.
Speaker 1: In addition to those two Chicago Giants, we have the
Speaker 1: Cuban Stars, the Dayton Marco's, the Indianapolis abc S, and
Speaker 1: the very famous Kansas City Monarchs and St. Louis Giants
Speaker 1: all and this is the really like great thing about
Speaker 1: the story. All of these teams except for the Monarchs
Speaker 1: were black owned teams. Right. So, so not only do
Speaker 1: you have black players careers developing, yeah, you have like
Speaker 1: black enterprise developing in a in a time when there
Speaker 1: were very few avenues of opportunity for black people to
Speaker 1: advance in business. Yeah, and in a sense where they
Speaker 1: own the business. This is a really good way to
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. And not only that, like the Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball site points out, like this was like it
Speaker 1: should be embraced in some ways because this at a
Speaker 1: time was the only one of the only ways that
Speaker 1: minorities could fully like excel to their fullest potential. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was a point of that article that I
Speaker 1: thought was pretty cool, is that one of the one
Speaker 1: of the things they lamented about the segregation of baseball
Speaker 1: during this time, um, is that we'll never know how
Speaker 1: Babe Ruth would have stood up against Sachel Page pitching
Speaker 1: to them because they never got to play each other.
Speaker 1: So the truly great players are truly great during this
Speaker 1: time within their own skin color. You know, you can't
Speaker 1: say they were the greatest in baseball because they were
Speaker 1: too legitimate, um parallel leagues going on at the time.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they played each other sometimes, but if you
Speaker 1: wanted to sit down and put stats against stats, you'd
Speaker 1: be very hard pressed to do that. Uh sure, Thy Cobb,
Speaker 1: Babe Ruth Christie Mathison, Like, we know they were good,
Speaker 1: Like we're not knocking their talent, but who knows what
Speaker 1: it would have been like in a truly integrated league. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And actually it's funny to bring up thy Cobb because
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, Ty Cobb was a huge racist.
Speaker 1: I wonder what he thought about the Negro leagues. And
Speaker 1: I looked it up and I found an article from
Speaker 1: a guy who argues that Ty Cobb was not the um,
Speaker 1: the horrible racist that he's made out to be these days,
Speaker 1: written by Jimmy Cobb. There he found, well, he actually
Speaker 1: did cite his son, and I think his son's name
Speaker 1: might be jim Really. Yeah. Um, But the guy found
Speaker 1: an article from maybe the fifties or something, nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: two where Ty Cobb is quoted at length coming out
Speaker 1: in favor of UM integration in baseball, Yeah, saying, like
Speaker 1: of course these guys should play as long as you
Speaker 1: know they conduct themselves like, uh, professor and old baseball players, like,
Speaker 1: why would they not be able to play? I'm totally
Speaker 1: in favor of it. Interesting, like, did Ty Cobbs say this?
Speaker 1: I think that bears more research. Yeah, you know, because
Speaker 1: he was supposedly very racist. Yeah, that's not what this
Speaker 1: guy says. All right, well I'm gonna look at that.
Speaker 1: That's not what his son says. I'm not doubting you,
Speaker 1: of course, I just wanted to know I'm with you.
Speaker 1: I understand. Uh. So we talked about the integration of
Speaker 1: the Negro leagues, which was awesome. Pretty soon other leagues
Speaker 1: for him, not just teams. There was one right here
Speaker 1: in the South, the Negro Southern League, with teams from
Speaker 1: right here in Atlanta. Dude, do you know the Atlanta
Speaker 1: team played directly across the street constantly on Park. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where there's now a Staples and a home depot in
Speaker 1: a pet Smart and a Whole Foods. How Like funny
Speaker 1: is that? Yeah? Um, if you walk into Whole Foods
Speaker 1: and listen, you can hear the ghost of a backing
Speaker 1: a ball. Yeah. This I don't think this was the
Speaker 1: first team in Atlanta that played in the Negro Southern
Speaker 1: League because they folded that same year. But the Atlantic
Speaker 1: Black Crackers. We also had the Atlantic Crackers, which was
Speaker 1: the white team. Um, we had the Atlantic Black Crackers.
Speaker 1: And it sounds funny that we say Ponce de Leon,
Speaker 1: uh not Ponton, but that's how we say it here.
Speaker 1: It's the street that fronts our office building. Puts Daileon
Speaker 1: himself would have punch you in the stomach if he
Speaker 1: heard you say his name like that. But that's the
Speaker 1: street in Atlanta that fronts our office And if you
Speaker 1: go and look on the internet, you can see these
Speaker 1: awesome pictures of this cool little baseball stadium. Right they're
Speaker 1: hundreds of feet from where we sit. Really neat um.
Speaker 1: But now you have Whole Foods. You just have to listen.
Speaker 1: Seven dollars for artisan mayonnaise if you're lucky, seven dollars.
Speaker 1: Oh that's just for the the just for one s. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just once, is you her? Whole Foods got caught like
Speaker 1: with uncalibrated scales for their hot bar stuff, like it's
Speaker 1: not already expensive and yeah that's not I expect a
Speaker 1: lot more from them. Yeah, you know, never get anything
Speaker 1: with bones at one of those oh never or liquid
Speaker 1: what a waste? You throw half of that chicken leg away? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you paid for it, or just you know, grind that
Speaker 1: chicken bone up and eat it and get your money,
Speaker 1: like peel off with your teeth, spit the meat into
Speaker 1: your into your little basket, and throw the bone back
Speaker 1: into the hot bar. Yeah. Oh I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: That's great idea. And then you can say I'm no chump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just go around screaming and not paying for that bone. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, So where are we where? The Negro Southern
Speaker 1: League folded, the Eastern Colored League open in nine, and
Speaker 1: then finally in nine the American Negue Grow League formed,
Speaker 1: and that was that was when things like they called
Speaker 1: eventually the American Negro League in the American I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: the National Negro League. The mad years of the Negro League,
Speaker 1: like that was where the crime della crime and um,
Speaker 1: the everything's going pretty smoothly except two things happen, right, Um,
Speaker 1: there's even like a Negro League World Series is the
Speaker 1: best of nine the Kansas City Yeah, the Kansas City
Speaker 1: Monarchs narrowly beat uh, the hill Dale team they're from Darby, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: which I guess is near Philadelphia. UM in the first
Speaker 1: one in ninety four, So there's like there's a there's
Speaker 1: these leagues have established themselves by they have their own
Speaker 1: world series going right, UM. But just within a few
Speaker 1: years there are a couple of hits to the league
Speaker 1: that ultimately led to the the Negro Majors disbanding. UM.
Speaker 1: One is that Rube Foster suffered gas poisoning in a
Speaker 1: hotel room. In a hotel room in Indianapolis, he was
Speaker 1: found unconscious. And there's some theory that UM, like everyone
Speaker 1: believed in oasts and spirits and mediums in the nineteenth
Speaker 1: century because they were all being poisoned by the natural
Speaker 1: gas that was like leaking into their kitchens and homes
Speaker 1: all the time. Right, Well, this guy had like an
Speaker 1: acute poisoning and was found unconscious. And after that, when
Speaker 1: he regained consciousness and his nurse back to health, he
Speaker 1: lost his mind and he just kept getting worse and worse,
Speaker 1: and by nine I think it's happened in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: four five he was institutionalized in By nineteen thirty he
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack at age fifty one. UM
Speaker 1: and again his guidance was so integral uh in this
Speaker 1: first incarnation of the Negro leagues that you know, when
Speaker 1: he was institutionalized, obviously they weren't like, what was the
Speaker 1: league do next? He was in an institution, Um, and
Speaker 1: the league started to falter and fall apart. And eventually
Speaker 1: that coupled with the depression, and the onset of the
Speaker 1: depression really kind of led to the unraveling of the
Speaker 1: first Negro League. Yeah, and this the Major leag baseball site. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, these were they profited on certain days of
Speaker 1: the week. Sundays were big days because they were played
Speaker 1: double headers. But the fact is, um, Black Americans didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of expendable money to throw it going
Speaker 1: to baseball games, even though they're you know, pretty cheap.
Speaker 1: That was commiserate with what people made at the time,
Speaker 1: unless you were one of the Walker brothers whose dad
Speaker 1: was a physician. Yeah, they probably a little money. Um,
Speaker 1: they were playing, so I'm sure their parents got in
Speaker 1: for free. So it's all just a moot point. I
Speaker 1: wonder if they did get free family tickets back then,
Speaker 1: I would hope, So, I that's gotta be as old
Speaker 1: as tickets, right, Probably we gotta do an episode on tickets, guest.
Speaker 1: Let's uh. So they were making a little money on Sundays,
Speaker 1: they weren't hugely profitable overall, even though they were known
Speaker 1: as somewhat successful. Like, no, a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: were still barn storming on their off days. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: these are the players, you know, trying to make ends meet,
Speaker 1: like the owners themselves were struggling here and there. Um.
Speaker 1: White people came to see games sometimes, especially when they
Speaker 1: were exhibition games against white teams, because they love to
Speaker 1: go out there and see the see something they had
Speaker 1: never seen before, which many times was the black team
Speaker 1: mopping the floor with the white team. Um, although it
Speaker 1: seemed pretty evenly matched, like from what I gathered, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like lopside in one way or the other. Like
Speaker 1: they were good competitive games. Yeah. There are plenty of um,
Speaker 1: white players who are better than the black players, and
Speaker 1: there are plenty of black players who are better than
Speaker 1: white players. Yeah. Yeah, I would say evenly match is
Speaker 1: a good way to put so if you had an
Speaker 1: integrade league, you would get the best of both, which
Speaker 1: is eventually what we got. Plus also in some of
Speaker 1: these cities, Chuck, these there they were not just baseball
Speaker 1: was segregated, but just within the city you had a
Speaker 1: white team and you had a black team. And that's
Speaker 1: that's evidence to the names of some of the black teams,
Speaker 1: like the Black Crackers, the Black Yankees. Um, there were
Speaker 1: the Yankees and then there were the Crackers. Right, So
Speaker 1: if you were a white player or a white person,
Speaker 1: you're probably a fan of the white team and you
Speaker 1: weren't going and watching the black teams play, right. Um,
Speaker 1: so they list out four things here on the site.
Speaker 1: They said the two leagues, uh, the American and National
Speaker 1: Negro Leagues were northern and basically city dwelling teams. A
Speaker 1: couple that with, um, there weren't a lot of black
Speaker 1: people living in northern cities at the time. Uh. The
Speaker 1: South was, you know, was way more Uh well, I
Speaker 1: want to say integrated, but it wasn't integrated. Uh, way
Speaker 1: more black people living in the South at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I wonder why the Southern Negro League didn't
Speaker 1: take off like a rocket then. Yeah. I mean probably
Speaker 1: for the other reasons, like you couldn't afford to go
Speaker 1: to the games and all that stuffy Uh black people
Speaker 1: that were in the North, Uh, didn't have a whole
Speaker 1: lot of money, and so basically all that adds up
Speaker 1: to not a lot of audience buying tickets. And the
Speaker 1: only way to keep a league afloat is to sell
Speaker 1: tickets and to sell concessions, same as it is today.
Speaker 1: So all those things coupled with Rube Foster the depression.
Speaker 1: There the greatest champion and probably sharpest mind. Uh, sadly
Speaker 1: succumbing to mental illness and then the depression. And that
Speaker 1: was the end of the beginning of the Negro leagues, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the end of the first one. Yes, and
Speaker 1: there were more to come, and we'll talk about it
Speaker 1: right after this. I ski all right, So uh, it
Speaker 1: didn't take long. Uh, the old saying you can't keep
Speaker 1: a good man down. People wanted to play baseball, they
Speaker 1: were good at it. Um. They thought there was more
Speaker 1: money to be made in leagues. And so what happens
Speaker 1: is these numbers guys get involved, and a numbers man
Speaker 1: is the numbers game was basically like an illegal, unsanctioned
Speaker 1: street lottery. Right, So numbers guys have a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and some of them said, you know what, let's put
Speaker 1: money into starting baseball teams. In leagues, and one guy
Speaker 1: in particular in Pittsburgh, Gus Greenley, great name. He was
Speaker 1: a bar owner in Pittsburgh. He bought the Pittsburgh Crawford's
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty one. He said, well, I've got a team,
Speaker 1: but I don't have a league. So two years later
Speaker 1: he formed the second Negro National League, and other numbers
Speaker 1: guys bought in, and all of a sudden they had
Speaker 1: another league going. UM and this basically kicked off what's
Speaker 1: known as the Golden Age of the Negro leagues. UM
Speaker 1: starting about nineteen thirty one thirty three, when when these
Speaker 1: other teams came about, and um, Greenley's team himself, was
Speaker 1: it his? No, I'm sorry, it would have been right
Speaker 1: across the river, the Homestead Grays. Yeah, they eventually migrated
Speaker 1: back to Pittsburgh over to Pittsburgh, so they were the
Speaker 1: same team that went from one town to another. They
Speaker 1: weren't rivals. Now, I think there was still the other
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh team, but from what I understand, the Homestead Grades
Speaker 1: eventually became part of Pittsburgh, or maybe there was another
Speaker 1: team on that shirt, but I do know they eventually
Speaker 1: get went to Pittsburgh because you know, Homestead. We've been there.
Speaker 1: We did a show there. Ye yeah, okay um, and
Speaker 1: I was like, are we going to the right place?
Speaker 1: And the car was taking me. So Homestead used to
Speaker 1: have not just a team, they used to have the
Speaker 1: best Negro League team possibly ever. Oh yeah, wait easy.
Speaker 1: For nine consecutive years they won the Pennant all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: nine years in a row. Josh Gibson, cool, Papa Bell
Speaker 1: and Buck Leonard some of their stars, yeah, just some
Speaker 1: of them. In they had no less than five future
Speaker 1: Hall of famers on on the team. Five. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Point to a team that has five future Hall of
Speaker 1: Famers on it now or ever did well? So some
Speaker 1: of the Yankees teams did over the years. But like,
Speaker 1: I don't think anything right now now, Like even the
Speaker 1: best team right now doesn't have five future Hall of Famers.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not the Braves. We don't have one. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I could see Freddie Freeman hit in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame one day. M hm, oh really, I
Speaker 1: haven't been watching the last couple of seasons. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's our best player. But because the best player on
Speaker 1: the worst team in baseball not very good at the bat, alright,
Speaker 1: So we did mention that, um, there were exhibition games
Speaker 1: going on, and things really picked up with the exhibition
Speaker 1: games now because they were a little well funded. And
Speaker 1: this is when UM, white players would come and see
Speaker 1: the teams playing and mean it was basically more popular
Speaker 1: than ever. Uh in both communities. Yes, and UM we
Speaker 1: said that they had the UM the Negro League World
Speaker 1: Series going on, right, UM, there was actually another game
Speaker 1: that came out of this. I think it was UM,
Speaker 1: it might have been Gus Greenley, I think it was
Speaker 1: who came up with this is the East versus West
Speaker 1: All Stars game, and that became bigger than the World
Speaker 1: Series and whatever was in the Negro Leagues. It was huge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So UM that became kind of like the de facto
Speaker 1: big game of the year rather than the World Series
Speaker 1: for UM, and they played it every year I think
Speaker 1: in Comiskey Field. Yeah, in Chicago, because you know East
Speaker 1: and East West in Chicago. That's what it says on
Speaker 1: the T shirts. At least, so players are starting to
Speaker 1: make some like the top players are starting to make
Speaker 1: some pretty good money at the time. You can't go
Speaker 1: any further without talking about uh Satchel Page Leroy satchel page. Dude.
Speaker 1: He was, um a picture very interesting dude, maybe the
Speaker 1: greatest picture of all time in the sport of baseball.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was eccentric, He was an entertainer. He was
Speaker 1: like the US same Bolt of his day. People loved him, Okay,
Speaker 1: except he didn't like to run. That would make a
Speaker 1: little different. Even said he didn't like to run. What
Speaker 1: was his quote? He said that, um, training for me
Speaker 1: is rising gently from the bench, back onto the bench.
Speaker 1: So he had have you ever seen video or I
Speaker 1: guess you know film of him pitching, Yeah, with those
Speaker 1: old timey baggy baseball pants, and yeah that was the style.
Speaker 1: But his um, he had a weird wind up. He
Speaker 1: had this sort of double windmill that he would do
Speaker 1: with his pitching arm. And then um, when he was younger,
Speaker 1: he had a great fastball, and he had he was
Speaker 1: noted for his control like Greg Maddox, like in his
Speaker 1: pinpoint control like supposed he could just put a baseball
Speaker 1: within a half inch of where he wanted it to be,
Speaker 1: which is a big big deal for a picture. Um,
Speaker 1: As he lost his fastball over the years, he learned
Speaker 1: basically every pitch under the sun. Like he pitched until
Speaker 1: he was fifty nine years old. He first he first
Speaker 1: signed in the Major's White majors at forty two. Forty two,
Speaker 1: forty two year old rookie. He's the he's the oldest
Speaker 1: rookie ever in the Major League Baseball and I think
Speaker 1: the oldest picture ever. Well yeah, um, he was even
Speaker 1: older than Gaylord Perry. How old was he? He was
Speaker 1: in his forties, like Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry. Nolan Ryan
Speaker 1: made it to fifty, not fifty, but he came close.
Speaker 1: Like pictures notably have been a little older, which is
Speaker 1: crazy because like their arms and yeah, but they're not
Speaker 1: you know, they're not like running around and batting like
Speaker 1: other players. Yeah, but you're right, like Freddie Freeman, like
Speaker 1: the stress on the stress on the arm is amazing.
Speaker 1: So one thing that that was problematic or is problematic
Speaker 1: when you're going back in looking at the negro leagues
Speaker 1: is that, um, a lot of teams were allowed to,
Speaker 1: depending on the league, were allowed to set their own schedules. Um,
Speaker 1: stats weren't kept quite as um well as they were
Speaker 1: in the white leagues. Yeah, we don't know Satil pagees
Speaker 1: real lifetime stats. No, but in full there are some
Speaker 1: estimates and they are high. So the one that I
Speaker 1: saw is that Sachiel page Head. I think it was
Speaker 1: in this um this article on MLB dot com, which
Speaker 1: eventually will say the author's name. Right. Um, they said
Speaker 1: that he had three hundred career shutouts. Three career shutouts,
Speaker 1: and this guy says in italics, not wins, shutouts. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't know baseball, shutout means you have pitched
Speaker 1: a game where no one scored a run. And back
Speaker 1: then they were probably complete game shutouts, meaning he never
Speaker 1: came out and was relieved by another picture. Right, he
Speaker 1: would have pitched like all nine innings back in the
Speaker 1: in the day. They should do that way more than
Speaker 1: they do now. Okay, so he had three hundred career shutouts.
Speaker 1: Fift hundred wins is the estimate that that's on MLB
Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah, to put that into perspective for non
Speaker 1: baseball fans again, if you have three hundred wins wins,
Speaker 1: not shutouts, win, then you're a Hall of Famer. And
Speaker 1: in fact, they don't think there will ever be another
Speaker 1: three hundred game winner again because of they are more
Speaker 1: pictures in the rotation now they usually have five guys
Speaker 1: instead of four. They don't pitches deep into games. They
Speaker 1: rest them a lot more. So it's just we may
Speaker 1: not ever see that happen again, just because of the
Speaker 1: way it's built. It To also put in perspective, cy
Speaker 1: Young is um regarded as one of the best pictures
Speaker 1: ever in in Major League Baseball, named the Top Award
Speaker 1: after him exactly. He had seventies six shutouts, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: He had the most wins ever still in Major League
Speaker 1: Baseball at five eleven, so Satchel page Head conceivably three
Speaker 1: times more. Yeah, then the the highest win count ever
Speaker 1: in Major league and that's counting his entire career assume,
Speaker 1: which again was very very long. It was a very
Speaker 1: long career. But that just makes it all the more amazing,
Speaker 1: especially as he gets older. Yeah, Like, let's let's say
Speaker 1: that people don't say, don't count the negro leagues as
Speaker 1: being in the top league at the time. I cut
Speaker 1: it in half, and he's still way ahead of everybody
Speaker 1: else if you subtract fifty of everything he did and
Speaker 1: the fact that he sat in a rocking chair and
Speaker 1: the dugout and had like a huge personality. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he learned all sorts of pitches. By the end of
Speaker 1: his career, he was pitching knuckleballs and he was famous
Speaker 1: for the hesitation pitch, which he invented, which was when
Speaker 1: he got to the White major leagues, they were like,
Speaker 1: that's illegal. He can't do that. It's called the bulk
Speaker 1: and uh. He was like, all right, well know, He's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's called the hesitation pitch. It was very sneaky. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like you you act like you're pitching,
Speaker 1: then you stop. And because his theory, he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I got guys up there that are starting
Speaker 1: to swing because I'm so fast, Like when they see
Speaker 1: me winding up, they're starting to swing. So if I
Speaker 1: just put a little slight pause there, then they're swinging
Speaker 1: and then the ball comes. So it's very very tricky
Speaker 1: little pitch. Um. And he was making between thirty and
Speaker 1: forty grand a year and the Negro and this is
Speaker 1: also with appearances and stuff like that, but in the
Speaker 1: Negro leagues, which is about half a million dollars today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: amazing amount of money at the time, you know, and
Speaker 1: those appearances, um uh uh. If you were a team
Speaker 1: owner that had Satual Page on your team, uh, you
Speaker 1: might let him go make some scratch and probably take
Speaker 1: a cut yourself by lending him to another team whose
Speaker 1: attendance was struggling. And all you had to do was
Speaker 1: advertised for a week that Satual Page is gonna be
Speaker 1: pitching one day, and you would sell out, so he
Speaker 1: would help other Negro League teams that were that that
Speaker 1: we're struggling. Yeah, to be a draw. And here's one
Speaker 1: little cool thing about our in Atlanta Braves and hight Satchel.
Speaker 1: Page was lacking one more season to get his major
Speaker 1: league baseball pension and was out of the league and retired,
Speaker 1: and the Atlanta Braves signed him as a player coach
Speaker 1: like Terry Pendleton. Yeah, he was never a player coach,
Speaker 1: was he? No, But here's a player and then a coach.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Pete Rose was a player coach. Was he really? Like?
Speaker 1: He managed the Reds and played for them. I didn't
Speaker 1: know and bet on them. Yeah, but they signed him
Speaker 1: to a one year deal so he could get his
Speaker 1: major league baseball penchion. That is awesome, which is really cool? Year?
Speaker 1: Was that? That's really cool? Yeah, go brave. So if
Speaker 1: you see a picture when I saw a picture of
Speaker 1: him in the Braves uniform. I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: he never played for the Braves, and he really didn't.
Speaker 1: It was it was sort of, you know, just a
Speaker 1: little sneaky way to get him in there, which is great. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, so Satchel Page is killing it, other players
Speaker 1: are killing it. It would not be long before somebody
Speaker 1: in the White League's somebody said the talent is too good.
Speaker 1: Somebody has to be the first to make this move
Speaker 1: and break the color barrier. Yeah, right, you know that
Speaker 1: was the thing Like this. The Negro leagues were ultimately,
Speaker 1: as we'll find out, victims of their own success. The
Speaker 1: players that they supported and brought into the game, we're
Speaker 1: of obvious major league caliber in any major league. They
Speaker 1: were the best in the world. They were just playing
Speaker 1: on segregated teams. And so finally a group of people,
Speaker 1: but especially it usually comes in the form of one
Speaker 1: guy named branch Rickey. Yeah. Did Tom Hanks play him? No?
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford? No? Maybe? Well I didn't see them recent
Speaker 1: jacket was Harrison Ford? Maybe I've seen him portrayed in
Speaker 1: other movies. I can't tell if it was him or not,
Speaker 1: because the actor didn't have a diamond studded earring in
Speaker 1: but Harrison Ford could have taken it out for the role. Uh.
Speaker 1: This guy named branch Rickey, he was he an executive
Speaker 1: or a manager for the Dodgers. He was he was
Speaker 1: with he was an executive. And he said, and this
Speaker 1: was when they were in Brooklyn, right, He said, this
Speaker 1: is ridiculous there that we need to break this color barrier.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of great players out there that I want
Speaker 1: to sign. I'm going to break this unspoken rule. And
Speaker 1: he looked around to find a player who was not
Speaker 1: only good, but who he felt could withstand this horrendous
Speaker 1: reception that whoever the first black player would be would
Speaker 1: definitely receive. And who did receive and he found it
Speaker 1: in the in the person of Jackie Robinson. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a huge point, um, because like I said,
Speaker 1: jet Roy Empanella was probably better player at the time
Speaker 1: than Jackie Robinson. But if you see the Jackie Robinson story, Uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't see the recent one, like I said, but
Speaker 1: I just know a lot about his story. He was
Speaker 1: the right guy. He had the temperament, he had the leadership. Um,
Speaker 1: Roy Campanella, take your head off, Well, yeah he did.
Speaker 1: He was a tough guy, but Jackie Robinson was was
Speaker 1: the man in every way. And we should also shout
Speaker 1: out to the road being paved by people like Joe
Speaker 1: Lewis and Jesse Owens before Jackie Robinson, as far as
Speaker 1: just white America accepting mainstream black athletes into their lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it was on this or
Speaker 1: on there's a site called negro League Baseball dot com
Speaker 1: UM that has a really good article called Negro League
Speaker 1: Baseball one oh one or something like that. This is
Speaker 1: the basics. There's a definite story to the whole thing, right, UM.
Speaker 1: But they point out that UM, probably more than anything
Speaker 1: that helped break the color barrier was UM blacks serving
Speaker 1: in World War Two, serving alongside UM white soldiers and
Speaker 1: and stories coming back from the fronts of like, hey,
Speaker 1: these guys are killing Germans just as fast as any
Speaker 1: any white guy. UM. And at the time America was like, well,
Speaker 1: we love that about people. So when they returned, UM,
Speaker 1: the black soldiers came home to a different America that
Speaker 1: they helped change by fighting in World War two. And
Speaker 1: I mean that the timing of this apparently is not
Speaker 1: coincidental that Jackie Robinson was signing the six a year
Speaker 1: after World War Two. One. Uh So branch Ricky was. Um,
Speaker 1: he was a very puritanical guy. He would often lecture
Speaker 1: players on sex and drinking and stuff, and he was
Speaker 1: he wasn't just some benevolent, benevolent champion of the black man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a good point, man, because a lot of
Speaker 1: times stories like this end up being about the guy
Speaker 1: who took the change and paved the way for the
Speaker 1: black players. But he did, he did. But emphasis it's
Speaker 1: just too easy sometimes for the emphasis to go onto
Speaker 1: that where it's like, well, the black player like he came.
Speaker 1: He was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Let's let's put it this way. If branch Rickey hadn't
Speaker 1: wanted to sell tickets by fielding a good team, he
Speaker 1: would have never signed Jackie Robinson. He was a businessman.
Speaker 1: The Dodgers sucked at the time, and um, but he
Speaker 1: was an idealist. I mean he was very much like, no,
Speaker 1: like this is wrong and they should be allowed to play,
Speaker 1: so okay. So he was a complex human being like
Speaker 1: all other human beings. He can't just be shoehorned into
Speaker 1: an easy caricature. That's great. So branch Ricky complicated human being.
Speaker 1: He selected Jackie Robinson and it was a great selection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson played one year in the miners, which was ridiculous. Um,
Speaker 1: they should have just like he spent his entire life
Speaker 1: playing in the miners. Uh, they should have just promoted
Speaker 1: him right away. But I think they just wanted to
Speaker 1: ease that transition. He won the batting title in the
Speaker 1: minors his only year there, and then uh, one Rookie
Speaker 1: of the Year in his very first year with the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Dodgers, and uh that was April fifteenth, ninety seven
Speaker 1: was when uh he made his debut, which was very
Speaker 1: very historic day, an amazing day that Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: is really like honored Jackie Robinson to the fullest. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: they should great. Jackie Robinson definitely threw up in the floodgates.
Speaker 1: Within four months of Jackie Robinson being signed or no,
Speaker 1: I guess actually being called up to the majors, two
Speaker 1: other guys um were signed, both in July, and I
Speaker 1: think that year there were a number of other um
Speaker 1: black players suddenly playing for white Major League Baseball, which
Speaker 1: is suddenly not now just Major League Baseball not white
Speaker 1: major League baseball. That's uh. Larry Dobie Clea and Indians
Speaker 1: Willard Brown, the St. Louis Brown's Henry Hank Thompson, the St.
Speaker 1: Louis Brown's Dan Bankhead Leroy Satchel Page made it finally, uh,
Speaker 1: and of course Roy Campanella, among others. These were the
Speaker 1: first African Americans in Major League Baseball and UM by
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, just a few years later, there were
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty black players, and by all but
Speaker 1: four major league teams had black players. There were a
Speaker 1: few holdouts. Yeah. The Boston Red Sox notably were the last.
Speaker 1: They waited until nineteen fifty nine, thirteen years after Jackie
Speaker 1: Robinson's debut season. Yeah, in the in the minors. So
Speaker 1: with the signing of Jackie Robinson and all the players
Speaker 1: to follow, like you hinted at earlier, UM, and like
Speaker 1: this article UH plainly says it was, it was a
Speaker 1: very bitter sweet end um. And one way it was great,
Speaker 1: the color barrier was smashed, the league was being integrated,
Speaker 1: and they were getting their due. Um, although it was
Speaker 1: a struggle. But in another way, it was also sad
Speaker 1: that this league that had so much gumption and such
Speaker 1: a great like we'll do it ourselves then attitude, uh,
Speaker 1: and empower these men to play, and these people to
Speaker 1: own these teams and start their own leagues. So it
Speaker 1: was definitely like a weird time in history. It is,
Speaker 1: like I think nowadays there's much more of a reverence
Speaker 1: and a bit of mourning for the disappearance of that league. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, in another way, like I said, it
Speaker 1: was smashing the color barrier was way more sure, way
Speaker 1: more better. We just went into hulk speak. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been a much more satisfying end of
Speaker 1: the whole thing if the Negro leagues had poached the
Speaker 1: best players in the um white Major League Baseball. Oh. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what the best possible thing could have been
Speaker 1: was if the white major leagues absorbed those teams and
Speaker 1: owners and ownership. It's part of one big league. But
Speaker 1: they were like, no, we're just gonna take your players
Speaker 1: give them to us. So, um, that is Negro League Baseball,
Speaker 1: the history of it. YEP officially disbanded in and this
Speaker 1: article says into the nineteen fifties, there were still a
Speaker 1: few teams playing here and there, and in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties even that was like one final team or
Speaker 1: I guess one final pair of teams. I guess they
Speaker 1: had to play somebody still playing, right, or they could
Speaker 1: scrimmage themselves. Yeah, it says the Negro American League was
Speaker 1: the last to throw in the town early sixties. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, more than one team. And this article makes
Speaker 1: a point today, or at least in two thousand twelve, UM,
Speaker 1: major League baseball was non white, which I was like,
Speaker 1: what I would have guessed it was the opposite of
Speaker 1: that that I would not have gues of Major League
Speaker 1: baseball players are white. Yeah, and you know, there's a
Speaker 1: big push I think, like the one of the least
Speaker 1: represented demographics now in pro baseball or African Americans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: partially because of the rise of Latino players, um, and
Speaker 1: then partially because they there's not a big a push
Speaker 1: to play baseball these days as kids in America, and
Speaker 1: so they're there. There's a lot of concerted efforts to
Speaker 1: try and get baseball going again in black communities, UM,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. You know. Yeah, I know I was pushed.
Speaker 1: My dad was like, get out there and get hit
Speaker 1: in the head with the ball. Let's see. I wouldn't allowed,
Speaker 1: I would I had to play church softball, so lame.
Speaker 1: Uh So, then the color bears broken, and now the
Speaker 1: last vestige of any sort of color issue is the
Speaker 1: Native American slurs that are rampant in in all sports
Speaker 1: as far as teams go. Yeah, if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about the negro Leagues, you can type those
Speaker 1: words in the search bar at how Stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also go check out this amazing article uh
Speaker 1: called negro Leagues a Kaleidoscopic Review. It's on MLB dot
Speaker 1: com by Stephen Goldman. Yeah, he's a great author. And
Speaker 1: check out negro League Baseball dot com. They have like
Speaker 1: all sorts of great profiles on the players and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. We never said the nicknames? Oh yeah, should
Speaker 1: we rattle off a few of those? Alright, boy, these
Speaker 1: are some good nicknames. How about Jelly Gardner or Spooney Palm,
Speaker 1: Turkey Sterns. Turkey Sterns he's the Hall of Famer, Copperney
Speaker 1: Thompson or steel Arm Davis. I think you mentioned um
Speaker 1: cool Papa Bell. Yeah, cool Papa Bell. That is the
Speaker 1: greatest name ever. Uh, Possum Poles, Ace Adams, King Tuck,
Speaker 1: Smokey Joe, Williams bullet Joe Rogan Not yeah, Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1: Did you know that Rats Henderson boy Turkey Sterns. That
Speaker 1: might be the best. That might be my new hotel
Speaker 1: student them cool, Papa Joe. Yeah, but no one would
Speaker 1: buy that at a hotel registry. Oh yeah, if you
Speaker 1: go up and Sterns, they definitely go for Those are
Speaker 1: great nicknames. All right? Oh yeah, okay, So now that
Speaker 1: we said Turkey Sterns, it's time for listener mail. This
Speaker 1: one I'm gonna call short and sweet. Um. What do
Speaker 1: you call it when you remember something with a pneumatic device? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: mnemonic when you remember it while you're pumping air up?
Speaker 1: And was it nomadic? You remember it while you're wandering around? Pneumonic?
Speaker 1: Of course? I feel like a dummy. How did you?
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck? A friend recommended your show to me recently,
Speaker 1: and I love it. You satisfy all my nerdy entertainment requirements.
Speaker 1: While in at orc Um you seem to have a
Speaker 1: bit of trouble recalling the order of taxonomic taxonomic categories. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have trouble in this nextes. During Wooly Mammoth
Speaker 1: Uh not wooly mammoths, as our typo originally said, it
Speaker 1: was my fault. That's all right, you just forgot to
Speaker 1: know Wally. Uh. Here's an easy memory trick we learned
Speaker 1: in high school biology. Kings play chess on fine green silk.
Speaker 1: Kingdom Philum class order, family, genus species. I love that
Speaker 1: stuff because I will never forget it. Now, that's not
Speaker 1: a pnemonic device, is it. It's pneumatic. I have no
Speaker 1: idea why this is still in my head over ten
Speaker 1: years later. Well that's exactly why. Sure, Katie, So I
Speaker 1: hope that helps. And that is Katie from West Texas.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Katie from West Texas. We appreciate that. Um.
Speaker 1: Kings play chess on green silk, fine green silk. I'll
Speaker 1: never remember the fine part. Yeah. Uh. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can tweet to
Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can also
Speaker 1: hang out with me at Josh Underscore UM Underscore Clark
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Speaker 1: Chuck at Charles W. Bryant Charles W. Chuck Bryant appropriate
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Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know dot com. For more on this
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Speaker 1: dot com.