Speaker 1: Hi, it's mo. When I first came up with the
Speaker 1: idea from obituaries in twenty eighteen, it was clear that
Speaker 1: sticking only with dearly departed people would be too easy.
Speaker 1: The fun part was coming up with concepts, countries, things
Speaker 1: that had never gotten a sendoff. I mean, things rarely
Speaker 1: get obituaries right. The idea of a defunct sports team
Speaker 1: was one of the first non human entities that sparked
Speaker 1: my imagination back when I was eight. During that brief
Speaker 1: stretch when I decided I wanted to play soccer, my
Speaker 1: ever indulgent parents took me to see the Washington Diplomat's
Speaker 1: soccer team play the New York Cosmos, both teams no
Speaker 1: longer with us. The only thing I remember from the
Speaker 1: game is that the great Pele played for the Cosmos,
Speaker 1: and Peley wasn't just a great player, he went by
Speaker 1: one name like Cher. I never actually ended up playing soccer.
Speaker 1: For the podcast, we considered doing an episode on ice
Speaker 1: hockey's Hartford Whalers, and we still may. They have some
Speaker 1: super fans step forward to convince us why we should.
Speaker 1: And yes, I know, the team didn't technically die, It
Speaker 1: just moved south to become the Carolina Hurricanes, but the
Speaker 1: logo they had in Hartford was fabulous. Ultimately, my co
Speaker 1: author on the Mobituary's book, Jonathan Greenberg, suggested we devote
Speaker 1: a chapter to a team that lasted less than a
Speaker 1: year but packed in more drama than the New York
Speaker 1: Jets have in their franchise history. Did I get that right?
Speaker 1: This story includes one of the most celebrated names in
Speaker 1: baseball history. It also includes one of the biggest names
Speaker 1: in twentieth century dictatorship. It's a whale of a tale.
Speaker 1: That one's for you, Hartford. I'm Morocca and this is Mobituaries,
Speaker 1: This moment death of a sports team, Los Dragones de
Speaker 1: Siuda Trujillo, nineteen thirty seven to nineteen thirty seven. If
Speaker 1: you don't think of me as a sports guy, I
Speaker 1: get it. You'll hear the mobit for my short lived
Speaker 1: baseball career at the end of this chapter. I'm not
Speaker 1: obviously athletic, although I can do a one handed cartwheel
Speaker 1: with a glass of water in my free hand without
Speaker 1: spilling a drop. But I love drama, and sports is
Speaker 1: guaranteed drama. The sides are always clear. You've got winners,
Speaker 1: You've got losers, heroes and villains. I was eleven years
Speaker 1: old when the Americans yay, defeated the Soviets oooh in
Speaker 1: ice hockey at the Lake Platte Olympics. I've heard that
Speaker 1: the movie Miracle, which depicts that event, is terrific. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it is, but I don't need to see it.
Speaker 1: I can remember the thrill of the Miracle on ice
Speaker 1: as it happened. Actually it was on tape delay. And
Speaker 1: if you happen to grow up in the Washington, DC area,
Speaker 1: as I did, you may remember that our local news
Speaker 1: anchor actually announced the final score during a commercial break
Speaker 1: in the middle of the game. I'm pretty sure she
Speaker 1: had to go into the witness protection program after that.
Speaker 1: Even better, I like drama with big personalities. So a
Speaker 1: story about one of baseball's all time great pictures and
Speaker 1: a bloodthirsty Latin American dictator set in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: on an island nation. I'm in Leroy Satchel Page was
Speaker 1: born on July seventh, nineteen oh six, one of eleven
Speaker 1: children born to a poor African American family in Alabama.
Speaker 1: He started work at a young age carrying bags at
Speaker 1: the mobile train station for a dime apiece. He realized
Speaker 1: he could make a lot more money if he strung
Speaker 1: all the satchels on a pole and carried them in
Speaker 1: a single trip. That's how he earned his famous nickname.
Speaker 1: Black players were barred from Major League Baseball starting in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four, shortly after Toledo's Moses fleetwood Walker became
Speaker 1: the first African American to play pro ball. You'll hear
Speaker 1: about him later. The ban wouldn't be lifted until nineteen
Speaker 1: forty seven, the year Jackie Robinson became a Brooklyn Dodger.
Speaker 1: So In nineteen twenty six, at the age of nineteen,
Speaker 1: the tall and sinewy Page tried out for the all
Speaker 1: black Chattanooga White Sox, reportedly throwing with such accuracy that
Speaker 1: he could from the mound knock over soda bottles lined
Speaker 1: up on home plate. Page became known not just as
Speaker 1: the hardest thrower around, but also the most creative. He
Speaker 1: was a showman on the mound with his high leg kicks,
Speaker 1: and off the mound, he became known for his homespun wit.
Speaker 1: His later six rules for staying young included avoid fried
Speaker 1: meats which angry up the blood. Makes sense to me
Speaker 1: over a forty year career, Satchel Page would become one
Speaker 1: of history's most beloved players. One of the few Negro
Speaker 1: League players known to white fans during baseball's long segregated era,
Speaker 1: Page knew how good he was. He would tell his
Speaker 1: fielders to sit down on the grass behind him while
Speaker 1: he struck out the opposing team. Joe DiMaggio, who batted
Speaker 1: against Page in an exhibition game in nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: called him the best he'd ever faced. In nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: he signed with the Pittsburgh Crawfords, one of the greatest
Speaker 1: Negro League teams ever assembled, arguably one of the greatest
Speaker 1: baseball teams ever. Page's teammates eventually included cool Papa Bell,
Speaker 1: the fastest man in baseball. Page one said that Bell
Speaker 1: could turn off the lights and jump into bed before
Speaker 1: the room got dark, and the great catcher Josh Gibson,
Speaker 1: the Black Babe Ruth, who was estimated to have hit
Speaker 1: more than eight hundred home runs in his career. The
Speaker 1: team's owner, Gus Greenley, was a larger than life figure.
Speaker 1: A machine gunner in the trenches of France during World
Speaker 1: War One. The six foot two mixed race Greenley came
Speaker 1: back with shrapnel in his left leg, but that didn't
Speaker 1: stop him from running bootleg whiskey to speakeasies. His sprawling
Speaker 1: numbers racket basically in illegal lottery, earned at its height
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars a day. Naturally, he opened his
Speaker 1: own nightclub and used the profits to buy off police
Speaker 1: and politicians and provide loans to black people who had
Speaker 1: been rejected by white owned banks. With his outsized personality,
Speaker 1: wealth and charm, he dominated Pittsburgh politics, music, business, and sports.
Speaker 1: Greenlee financed the first stadium built exclusively for a black
Speaker 1: ball club, Greenlee Field and what else would he call it?
Speaker 1: Even installing lights. For six years, the Pittsburgh Crawfords dominated
Speaker 1: the Negro National League, but the end was in sight.
Speaker 1: The depression was eroding the Negro League's financial foundation, and
Speaker 1: state attorneys general were cracking down on numbers running. Greenlee
Speaker 1: faced a handful of indictments, and he could not be
Speaker 1: as free with the salaries as he had been. In
Speaker 1: such a climate, The cross with a roster for the
Speaker 1: ages assembled by rating. Other Negro League teams were themselves
Speaker 1: raided the man who stole their talent. General Lissimo Raphael Trujillo,
Speaker 1: the brutal strong man who had taken control of the
Speaker 1: Dominican Republic in nineteen thirty. If there were a Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame for bloodthirsty dictators, Trujillo would be voted in
Speaker 1: unanimously on the first ballot. As a boy, he had
Speaker 1: collected shiny metal bottle caps to pin on his shirt
Speaker 1: in imitation of a military leader. He began his rise
Speaker 1: to power by serving in a street gang, and then
Speaker 1: worked as the paid muscle for the wealthy owners of
Speaker 1: sugar plantations. After he forced Orasiovaskez from power. Trujillo, then
Speaker 1: a general, won the election of nineteen thirty with an
Speaker 1: impressively high ninety nine point two percent of the vote,
Speaker 1: although the numbers are somewhat less impressive once you learn
Speaker 1: that all the other candidates withdrew because of death threats
Speaker 1: from Trujillo's goons. Once in power, he renamed the country's
Speaker 1: capital city of Santo Domingo Siudad Trujillo. He renamed the
Speaker 1: country's tallest mountain, Pico Trujillo. He renamed the province of
Speaker 1: San Cristobal Trujillo Province. He made his three year old son,
Speaker 1: Ramphis a colonel. To be clear, a three year old
Speaker 1: in military uniform is kind of cute on Halloween. Trujillo
Speaker 1: later did allow an opposition party to organize such a
Speaker 1: policy he believed made it much easier to identify and
Speaker 1: murder his political enemies. The story of how Page came
Speaker 1: to play for Trujillo is told in Avril Ace Smith's
Speaker 1: terrific book The Pitcher and the Dictator. Trujillo himself was
Speaker 1: not much of a baseball fan, but he knew that
Speaker 1: the Dominican people loved the game, and he thought a
Speaker 1: successful team would be good for public relations. During the
Speaker 1: upcoming pseudo election of nineteen thirty seven, he directed a
Speaker 1: diminutive dentist named Enrique Ibar to form Lostragonos des Sioudad
Speaker 1: Trujillo the Trujillo City Dragons. The goal was to defeat
Speaker 1: the reigning Island Champs Lasestreas Orientales of San Pedro the
Speaker 1: San Pedro Eastern Stars, with Trujillo bankrolling him. Eyebar traveled
Speaker 1: to New Orleans in the winter of nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: where Page was training. Iebar offered Page a contract of
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars, a ridiculous sum to a player who
Speaker 1: was receiving a few hundred a month from Greenley. Page
Speaker 1: knew he was underpaid in the Negro leagues. That bunch
Speaker 1: would hold on to a dollar bill until Old George
Speaker 1: screened in pain, he said of the Negro League owners.
Speaker 1: What's more, he was tired of the segregation he faced
Speaker 1: when playing in the South, where it could be hard
Speaker 1: to find a restaurant or hotel, or even a gas
Speaker 1: station that would serve black people. Page took the money
Speaker 1: with one condition. He insisted on bringing his catcher, Cy Perkins.
Speaker 1: The two became the toast of Siudad Trujillo and were
Speaker 1: soon joined by other Negro League stars. The American players
Speaker 1: were thrilled with the music, the food, the beer, and
Speaker 1: what Ace Smith discreetly calls las casas deccika us. Page
Speaker 1: was not one for monogamy. The story goes that he
Speaker 1: was once served with divorce papers on the bound at
Speaker 1: Wrigley Field. Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with
Speaker 1: your wife, he equipped. Satchel and Cy had the money
Speaker 1: to enjoy it all, and not a single establishment was
Speaker 1: closed to them because of the color of their skin.
Speaker 1: In Trujillo's dictatorship, they had more freedom than they'd had
Speaker 1: at home in the States. But Page's first outing was
Speaker 1: rougher than expected. He gave up six runs in five innings.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, a pseudonymous newspaper column suggested that stricter off
Speaker 1: the field control of the high paved players was needed.
Speaker 1: The late nights and sleepy mornings were catching up with
Speaker 1: the American stars. At the same time, the two other
Speaker 1: Dominican clubs there were just three teams on the island
Speaker 1: were bringing in their own ringers from stateside. The president
Speaker 1: of one of those clubs flew to Pittsburgh to court
Speaker 1: Greenley's remaining stars. Greenley, already in a rage over the
Speaker 1: defection of Page, had the visitors arrested by his friends
Speaker 1: in the Pittsburgh Police Force. Alas, unlike Trujillo, he lacked
Speaker 1: the power to imprison people who hadn't committed any crime,
Speaker 1: and the Dominicans were released. Back in the dr Satchel's
Speaker 1: performance improved, but his team was still struggling. Another article
Speaker 1: in Trujillo's state sanctioned newspaper called for a curb on
Speaker 1: the licentiousness of the American players, whose reckless lifestyle was
Speaker 1: undermining the team's success. The head of Trujillo's death squads
Speaker 1: was put in charge of discipline, and armed thugs became
Speaker 1: constant companions of Satchel and the Americans, shadowing them wherever
Speaker 1: they went. Bars in nightclubs were off limits. No store
Speaker 1: owner would sell them whiskey. As for the casastchkas no chance.
Speaker 1: Evenings instead were spent playing long games of cards at
Speaker 1: the hotel. Even team practices lost to their casual, playful air.
Speaker 1: I started wishing of his home when all those soldiers
Speaker 1: started following us around everywhere we went, and even stood
Speaker 1: out in front of our rooms at night, wrote Page
Speaker 1: in his autobiography. The new regiment of chastity and sobriety
Speaker 1: may have been less fun, but it worked wonders on
Speaker 1: the field. By the time the playoffs came around, Page
Speaker 1: was sporting a six one record. Los Dragonez defeated Lasstreas
Speaker 1: for the championship eight to six. Page really couldn't afford
Speaker 1: to let the team down. As he later recalled, he
Speaker 1: was terrified of failure, thinking the whole time about the
Speaker 1: line of Trujillo's soldiers arrayed on the edges of the field,
Speaker 1: knives and guns tucked into their belts clearly visible. The
Speaker 1: championship trophy was presented to Trujillo's son, Colonel Raphael L.
Speaker 1: Trujillo Martinez, now all of eight years old. This remarkable season, however,
Speaker 1: rang the death knell for the Dragones. The Dominican clubs,
Speaker 1: for all the excitement of the season, had essentially bankrupted
Speaker 1: themselves with their spending sprees, and the entire league was disbanded.
Speaker 1: Satchel and the other American players collected their winnings and
Speaker 1: moved on. Banned from the Negro leagues for defecting and
Speaker 1: unable to play for Major League Baseball, page and the
Speaker 1: others had no option but to barnstorm the nation, sporting
Speaker 1: the pinstripes of Los Dragones, billing themselves as Trujillo's All Stars,
Speaker 1: even defeating the National Negro League All Stars at Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium in September nineteen thirty seven. Eventually, the National Negro
Speaker 1: League rescinded its lifetime bans of Satchel and the other defectors.
Speaker 1: He continued to pitch, despite age and some injuries. With
Speaker 1: the death of Major League Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Landis in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, the time was right for integration of
Speaker 1: the major leagues, and Jackie Robinson broke the color line
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty seven. The next year, Page signed with
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Indians, helping them to win the World Series
Speaker 1: they haven't won since. The forty two year old Page
Speaker 1: was the oldest rookie in Major league history. He played
Speaker 1: for five years in the majors, was twice named an
Speaker 1: All Star, and even made a return appearance pitching three
Speaker 1: scoreless innings for the nineteen sixty five Kansas City As
Speaker 1: at age fifty nine. Yes, that's right, at age fifty nine.
Speaker 1: It's great to watch Satchel Page and TV appearances from
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties and seventies, adored by the panelists on
Speaker 1: What's My Line and tossing a ball with host Steve
Speaker 1: Allen on I've Got a Secret. Dick Cavitt invited him
Speaker 1: on in nineteen seventy one, shortly after Page became the
Speaker 1: first negro leaguer to be voted into Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Page is five and gracious, even pretending to be charmed
Speaker 1: by fellow guest Salvador Dali, who brought along his pet
Speaker 1: ant eater. When Cavit asks Page, how good the players
Speaker 1: in the Negro leagues were, he answers, Back in those days,
Speaker 1: they had a lot of Satchel Pages. There wasn't just one.
Speaker 1: I just pitched more than everybody else back then. I'm
Speaker 1: as old as Methuselah, he says, as if to suggest
Speaker 1: that his longevity, rather than his great talent, is the
Speaker 1: main reason he's remembered. In the last of his six
Speaker 1: Rules for Staying young, he wrote, don't look back, something
Speaker 1: might be gaining on you. Page had outlasted Greenley, who
Speaker 1: died in nineteen fifty two, and the tyrant Trujillo, who
Speaker 1: was assassinated in nineteen sixty one, and the fabulous, if
Speaker 1: short lived teams on which he had starred. The owners,
Speaker 1: the teams, and the leagues themselves passed on, but Satchel
Speaker 1: Page himself seemed to just keep going. And other teams
Speaker 1: you can't root for anymore. The Philadelphia SPAZ nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: to nineteen fifty nine. The letters stand for South Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Hebrew Association, founded by Eddie the Mogul Gottlieb in nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: The Spas dominated basketball back when it was referred to
Speaker 1: as the Jewish game because it required, in the words
Speaker 1: of one New York postwriter, an alert, scheming mind and
Speaker 1: flashy trickiness. The Svas dominated the American Basketball League in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties and forties, winning seven titles in thirteen years.
Speaker 1: Stars included household names such as Harry Litwack, Csy Caselman,
Speaker 1: Moe Goldman, Irv Torgoff, Red Wolf, Max Poznak, and perennial
Speaker 1: MVP candidate Shikey Gottoffer. But the demographics of basketball, always
Speaker 1: an urban game at heart, were all ready changing. The
Speaker 1: Great Migration was bringing millions of African Americans to the
Speaker 1: cities of the North, while Jews were moving their families
Speaker 1: to the suburbs. Gottlieb sold the Spas to Red Klotz,
Speaker 1: a former player, who refashioned them the Washington Generals, a
Speaker 1: traveling opponent for Abe Saberstein's Harlem Globetrotters. For the next
Speaker 1: forty four years, they served as stooges for the world's
Speaker 1: most famous exhibition club. Gottlieb meanwhile founded the Philadelphia Warriors
Speaker 1: of the NBA, signed a kid named Wilt Chamberlain and
Speaker 1: never looked back. The New Jersey Generals nineteen eighty three
Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty five. In nineteen eighty three, the upstart
Speaker 1: United States Football League put the formidable National Football League
Speaker 1: on notice, paying big salaries for high profile stars, including
Speaker 1: Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker and future Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: Jim Kelly. The next year, a New York real estate
Speaker 1: baron named Donald J. Trump joined the league, buying the
Speaker 1: New Jersey Generals for about nine million dollars. I could
Speaker 1: have bought an NFL team, he said to The New
Speaker 1: York Times. Is iraburke ou At the time. I feel
Speaker 1: sorry for the poor guy who's going to buy the
Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboys. He continued. It's a no win situation for
Speaker 1: him because if he wins, well, so what they've won
Speaker 1: through the years. And if he loses, which seems likely
Speaker 1: because they're having troubles, he'll be known to the world
Speaker 1: as a loser. Within two years, the USFL collapsed and
Speaker 1: Trump ended up twenty two million dollars in the red.
Speaker 1: The Cowboys are currently worth five billion dollars. The Washington
Speaker 1: Senators eighteen ninety one to nineteen seventy one, the Washington
Speaker 1: Senators baseball team died three times. The first Washington Senators
Speaker 1: played from eighteen ninety one to eighteen ninety nine. We
Speaker 1: know little about them except that they were awful. In
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, the team folded, but when the American League
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen oh one, the Senators were reborn.
Speaker 1: They were awful, too, losing so much that in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh four sportswriter Charles Dryden equipped Washington first in war,
Speaker 1: first in peace, and last in the American League. On
Speaker 1: the bright side, their historic ineptitude inspired the musical Damn Yankees,
Speaker 1: in which a Senator's fan sells his soul to the
Speaker 1: devil in exchange for a World Series victory. That's the
Speaker 1: show where Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon met. Now that's
Speaker 1: a team. In the nineteen fifties, as franchises began moving westward,
Speaker 1: owner Calvin Griffith vowed the team would remain in Washington forever.
Speaker 1: He decamped with the team from Minnesota two years later.
Speaker 1: Senators three point zero, hastily assembled at the behest of
Speaker 1: President Eisenhower, lasted only a decade. Their last game was
Speaker 1: a riot on September thirtieth, nineteen seventy one, The Senators
Speaker 1: were leading in the top of the ninth when irate
Speaker 1: fans stormed the field and stole home. They also stole first, second,
Speaker 1: and third, grabbed handfuls of the infield grass, and ran
Speaker 1: off with the bat boys' chairs. When the umpires couldn't
Speaker 1: clear the field, the game was ruled a forfeit. Maurice
Speaker 1: Raca's Little league career nineteen seventy nine to nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: as reported by my older brother, Lawrence Raca, I don't
Speaker 1: remember if the opponent was Blessed Sacrament or Saint Camillas
Speaker 1: or our Lady of Lords. What matters is that the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Little Flower Midget be baseball team was
Speaker 1: being humiliated once again, this time in its final game,
Speaker 1: another blowout in a last place and soon to be
Speaker 1: mercifully completed Catholic Youth Organization season. The culprit this time
Speaker 1: was the hulking fourth grader batting clean up up for
Speaker 1: the other team. He'd already crushed two Titanic homers before
Speaker 1: coming to bat with the bases loaded in the top
Speaker 1: of the seventh. Sitting on the hill with the rest
Speaker 1: of the tiny crowd at Bethesda, Maryland's Westmorland Park. My
Speaker 1: parents and I leaned forward in nervous anticipation. The infielders
Speaker 1: retreated to the edge of the outfield grass and panicked
Speaker 1: self defense. Maurice, who was usually on the bench, betrayed
Speaker 1: no feelings in center field, where he was safe at
Speaker 1: least from decapitation. A head taller than the rest of
Speaker 1: the players, slugger swung violently, sending a towering fly to left,
Speaker 1: eliciting ooze, and as before, it hooked and landed harmlessly foul,
Speaker 1: just beyond the left fielder's stumbling, tumbling reach. Again and again,
Speaker 1: this happened, the ooze and oz turning to laughs a
Speaker 1: fourth time, then a fifth. Another soaring fly ball, another
Speaker 1: round of expectant laughter, building toward crescendo, suddenly stifled by
Speaker 1: a blur, a near collision, and the longest split second
Speaker 1: of silence in Cyo history. It was Maurice, running full
Speaker 1: speed from center past left. At the last possible instant,
Speaker 1: he thrust his gloved left hand to the absolute limit
Speaker 1: of his reach, his body at a perfect forty five
Speaker 1: degree angle to the ground, just the tippy toes of
Speaker 1: his right foot, touching like mercury with a Paul Blair
Speaker 1: autographed Wilson. The ball stuck to his palm like belcrow
Speaker 1: as his momentum nearly sent him into a cartwheel, and
Speaker 1: it stayed in his glove as the crowd erupted in
Speaker 1: wild cheers, and the entire last place nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: Little Flower Midget Bee baseball team ran out and mobbed
Speaker 1: him on the spot. It took three minutes for the
Speaker 1: umpire to restore order and send everyone back to their positions.
Speaker 1: My brother was not a great baseball player, nor a
Speaker 1: particularly enthusiastic one. He knew early on that his first
Speaker 1: season of cyo baseball would be his last. But what
Speaker 1: he lacked in love and skill for the game he
Speaker 1: made up in fidelity to two foundational rules. Always hustle
Speaker 1: and always back up your teammates. As far as improbable
Speaker 1: defensive heroics go, you can have the big money stakes
Speaker 1: of Derek Jeter's playoff flip or the perfect cinematography of
Speaker 1: Lupas's Bad News Bears miracle. I'll take the one that
Speaker 1: jumped right off the pages of Joseph Campbell that day
Speaker 1: at Westmoreland Park, I hope you enjoyed this Mobituary. Be
Speaker 1: sure to check out Mobituary's Great Lives Worth Reliving, the
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling book, now available in paperback
Speaker 1: and audiobook. It includes plenty of stories not in the
Speaker 1: podcast special thanks to Jonathan Greenberg and Jonathan carp, Richard Rarer,
Speaker 1: and Chris Lynch at Simon and Schuster. You can listen
Speaker 1: to our final episode of the season in the new year.