Speaker 1: Welcome back to all the Smoke dugout.
Speaker 2: Coming to you from the twenty twenty six All Star
Speaker 2: MLB All Star Game in Philadelphia. We had a good
Speaker 2: first sit down. I'm excited about this one because I
Speaker 2: just love learning and hearing stories. Obviously, our next guest
Speaker 2: is no shortage of these stories. Current president of the
Speaker 2: Negro League Museum in Kansas City, one of the finest
Speaker 2: museums in the country, and we have one of the
Speaker 2: best storytellers here to tell us about it. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the show, Bob Kendrick, appreciate your time, man Man Madis.
Speaker 3: It is so good to see you both. Fee say
Speaker 3: thank y'all so much for having me.
Speaker 1: On the show. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 2: So you were just kind of breaking down to see
Speaker 2: why and I the plans obviously, the museum is currently
Speaker 2: in Kansas City, and you your hopes are to raise
Speaker 2: a certain amount of money and build build a brand
Speaker 2: new one, build a Brandon talk to us about that.
Speaker 4: You know, it's an incredible story for a little museum
Speaker 4: that no one gave any chance of succeeding.
Speaker 3: Matt.
Speaker 4: We started this project in a little, tiny, one room
Speaker 4: office a fraction of this area that we're sitting in
Speaker 4: and guys like the late great Buck O'Neill, the founder
Speaker 4: of the Negro League Spacebar Museum, and other local Negro
Speaker 4: leaguers there in Kansas City literally took turns paying the
Speaker 4: monthly rent to keep their little office open and with
Speaker 4: it our hopes and dreams of one day building a
Speaker 4: facility that would pay rifle tribute to not only one
Speaker 4: of the greatest chapters in baseball history, but what now,
Speaker 4: thousands of people discovered one of the greatest.
Speaker 3: Chapters in American history.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the rich, compelling, inspirational story of the
Speaker 4: Negro Leagues. And so we moved into our current home
Speaker 4: in November of nineteen ninety seven. So we went from
Speaker 4: a one room office to about ten thousand square feet
Speaker 4: of exhibit space. So it's not an overwhelmingly large footprint. Oh,
Speaker 4: but within that footprint is a lot of information and
Speaker 4: it's beautifully curated. And of course, along that journey we
Speaker 4: became recognized as America's National Negro League Baseball Museum, as
Speaker 4: deemed and designated so about the United States Congress in
Speaker 4: two thousand and six. But we've outgrown that home and
Speaker 4: we need to grow and now it's the perfect time
Speaker 4: for us to do so. So now we're embarking on
Speaker 4: what I call the nation's first Negro league's campus as
Speaker 4: the gateway into historic eighteenth and Vine, which in its heyday,
Speaker 4: oh Man as recognized street cross section as there was
Speaker 4: anywhere in the world.
Speaker 3: It was a.
Speaker 4: Cultural crossroads where jazz and baseball intersected. And so the
Speaker 4: building that the Negro Leagues were established in was an
Speaker 4: old YMCA called the Pasale Ymca. We've been steadily renovating
Speaker 4: that historic landmark that is going to become the Buck
Speaker 4: O'Neill Education and Research Center, and then we're going to
Speaker 4: build a new thirty five plus thousand square foot museum
Speaker 4: attached to that historic landmark. And we've also announced our
Speaker 4: plans to work with a developer to create the Marriotte
Speaker 4: Tribute Hotel that will be called the Pennant that will
Speaker 4: be built into.
Speaker 3: The new museum.
Speaker 4: So it's going to be a dynamic, block long campus
Speaker 4: dedicated to the history of the Negro Leagues and social
Speaker 4: history as well.
Speaker 3: So you can see.
Speaker 4: Why I'm so excited about having to raise about fifty
Speaker 4: million dollars.
Speaker 3: It's coming along.
Speaker 4: You know, We've got our full team now pretty much
Speaker 4: a symbol, and it's just amount of now getting out
Speaker 4: there knocking on doors, raising these funds.
Speaker 3: We'll get there, you know, there's no question. For me.
Speaker 4: There's always a sense of urgency. You want to do
Speaker 4: it sooner then later. So if everything goes well, the
Speaker 4: stars continue to align, we hope to break ground first
Speaker 4: quarter of next year and then it'll take about eighteen
Speaker 4: to twenty months to build this. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 4: to having both of you in Kansas City for the
Speaker 4: opening of this museum.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: For me, you know, when I was playing, we met
Speaker 6: a long time ago, vib and every year that I
Speaker 6: would go play the Royals, it was pretty much mandatory
Speaker 6: for me, Yeah, that I had to go in take
Speaker 6: a toward the museum. If you had any young players
Speaker 6: that hadn't had the opportunity and the big leagues yet,
Speaker 6: you're gonna take them to a soulful spot yep, and
Speaker 6: you're gonna take them over to the Negro League Museum
Speaker 6: and allow them to go in there. And what started
Speaker 6: off as something for myself and even younger players as
Speaker 6: like a mandatory stop in that we had to do.
Speaker 6: Once you get inside the Negro League Museum. You almost
Speaker 6: get lost. You get lost, like seeing the stories, reading,
Speaker 6: like looking at the displays, all the exhibits. It's a
Speaker 6: beautiful place and it really tells us about our history
Speaker 6: in the game. And you know, I'm a part of
Speaker 6: the East West Classics CCNI. We have the East West
Speaker 6: Classic that we play in Rickwood Field. We had the
Speaker 6: Rickwood Game a couple of years ago in Birmingham as well,
Speaker 6: and that was my first time having an opportunity to
Speaker 6: seeing the Negro leaguers that are still around. Yes, you
Speaker 6: know it's not a lot, but the ones who were here,
Speaker 6: they were able to show up and you're able to
Speaker 6: have those conversations with them and talking about their style
Speaker 6: of play. How do you see that style of play
Speaker 6: from the negro leagues translated into the today.
Speaker 4: Well, our game is starting to move toward that, slowly
Speaker 4: but surely. See, but the negro leagues played it a
Speaker 4: little differently. Yeah, Major League baseball in that era was
Speaker 4: a base to base kind of game.
Speaker 3: So you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: You got on base, somebody moved you over to second,
Speaker 4: and then see why the big hitters came up and
Speaker 4: drove you in. That wrong with that, But in the
Speaker 4: Negro leagues, the pace of the game was so much faster.
Speaker 4: So they gonna drop that bunt, they gonna get on,
Speaker 4: take that walk, they gonna steal second, they're gonna steal third,
Speaker 4: and if you weren't too smartness, they were stilling home.
Speaker 4: And so the pace of the game was so fast.
Speaker 4: But that's why it drew both a black and white
Speaker 4: fan base, because they were seeing a style of play
Speaker 4: that was just polar opposite to Major League baseball. Buck
Speaker 4: O'Neill was saying, you couldn't go to the concession stand
Speaker 4: because you might miss something you ain't never seen before.
Speaker 4: And it's really interesting because the Major League is kind
Speaker 4: of frowned on that style. They would say, oh, well,
Speaker 4: they just show voting again, as Buck would say, number.
Speaker 3: One, if you got something to show, show it, show it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But then he would also say, it's only showboating when
Speaker 4: you can't do it.
Speaker 6: I like that, But every time I talk to you, Bob,
Speaker 6: it's so much joy that just exudes from me when
Speaker 6: you're talking about it. And you know, there is a
Speaker 6: tough history behind all of this, and I know we're
Speaker 6: gonna have some real conversations today, but I'm curious being
Speaker 6: at the Negro Museum on a daily basis, talking about
Speaker 6: this on a daily basis, how do you balance out
Speaker 6: the tough history that's associated with black players not being
Speaker 6: allowed in the major leagues, but also just celebrating the
Speaker 6: joy of the game and the great things that the
Speaker 6: Negro leagues brought.
Speaker 4: Chris, I'll never forget walking into what was then that
Speaker 4: one room office in nineteen ninety three. When I got
Speaker 4: involved with the museum as a volunteer and as a
Speaker 4: baseball fan, I was just completely blown away by how
Speaker 4: little I knew about the history of this game and
Speaker 4: it's connected into the history of this country, and I
Speaker 4: became engrossed in it. I wanted to learn as much
Speaker 4: as I could. Didn't want to keep it to myself.
Speaker 4: I wanted everyone else to feel the same way that
Speaker 4: I felt about this. And then I started to meet
Speaker 4: those players, and it was their spirits that grabbed hold
Speaker 4: of you, because I think you both would agree with me.
Speaker 4: Had they've been bitter about the things that transpired in
Speaker 4: their lives as they were trying to play baseball in
Speaker 4: this country, every one of us would have said, you
Speaker 4: had every right to be bitter. But to a player
Speaker 4: that I've ever met, not one of them harbored any
Speaker 4: bitterness or spoke any ill will toward anyone who may
Speaker 4: have attempted to perpetrate something against them. And I found
Speaker 4: that to be an incredibly endearing spirit, particularly in such
Speaker 4: a cynical world in which we live today. And to
Speaker 4: be honest, y'all, it took me a minute to figure out,
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, now, how could you not be bitter? Well,
Speaker 4: they were never going to be bitter about baseball because
Speaker 4: you couldn't convince them that they weren't playing the best
Speaker 4: baseball that was being played. See, everybody thought the best
Speaker 4: baseball played in the major leagues. See, but they knew
Speaker 4: how good their league was. They knew how good they were,
Speaker 4: and quite frankly, the major leaguers knew how good they
Speaker 4: were because they played countless exhibition games against one another,
Speaker 4: and the record books bear out that the Negro League
Speaker 4: teams or the Black All Star teams won the majority
Speaker 4: of those head they had matchups. So they weren't going
Speaker 4: to be bitter about baseball?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: Did they like the things that were happening to them
Speaker 4: as they traveled the highways and byways of this country.
Speaker 4: You guys were both athletes, professional athletes. You know how
Speaker 4: this is. You ride into a towel. They could fill
Speaker 4: up the ballpark, but then yet not be able to
Speaker 4: get a meal from the same fans who had just
Speaker 4: cheered them, or not have a place to stay, so
Speaker 4: they would sleep on the bus, eat their peanut butter
Speaker 4: and crackers until they could get to a place that
Speaker 4: might offer them basic services. But what I share with
Speaker 4: my guests when they come to visit the Negro League
Speaker 4: Baseball Museum, what you have to admire here is they
Speaker 4: never allowed that set of social circumstances to kill their
Speaker 4: love of the game. Their spirits were such that if
Speaker 4: I've got to sleep on the bus, and if I've
Speaker 4: got to eat my peanut butter and crackers, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: keep playing ball. And really that's the spirit that you
Speaker 4: feel when you walk through this museum. It is not
Speaker 4: a woe is Mine kind of story. These athletes never
Speaker 4: cried about the social injustice.
Speaker 3: They went out and did something about it. You won't
Speaker 3: let me.
Speaker 4: Play with you, I'll create my own. And there's something
Speaker 4: very American about that spirit. So America was trying to
Speaker 4: prevent them from sharing in the joys of its national pastime.
Speaker 4: The American spirit is what allowed them to persevere and prevail.
Speaker 4: So we treat the story for exactly what it is,
Speaker 4: a celebration. Granted, it is the celebration of the power
Speaker 4: of the human spirit to persevere and prevail.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it.
Speaker 6: Let's let's dig into you know, the pioneer, your mentor
Speaker 6: O'Neill a little bit, his influence on you that you
Speaker 6: know have given him a lot of credit for their
Speaker 6: careers as well, because he was, you know, a player
Speaker 6: and also ended up became becoming a scout for the Cubs.
Speaker 6: Tell us about your experiences with Buck.
Speaker 4: I cannot believe they paid me to hang out with
Speaker 4: What a blessing it has been for me And people
Speaker 4: think I said and just, but in our iss true.
Speaker 4: I talked to Bunk almost every single day. It would
Speaker 4: almost be possible impossible not to think about Buck and
Speaker 4: I talked to Bunk almost every single day. Now he
Speaker 4: didn't already talk back to me, but outside of my family,
Speaker 4: he has had as much influence on my life as anyone.
Speaker 4: He was one of the finest human beings to ever
Speaker 4: walk the face of this earth, who just happened to
Speaker 4: be a great baseball player, but it was those humanly
Speaker 4: qualities that he possessed that endeared him to so many people.
Speaker 4: And I'm there to witness this Chris everywhere we went.
Speaker 4: If he didn't know you, he wanted to know you.
Speaker 4: The man I never met a stranger in his life. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And we would walk through airports and he'd go over
Speaker 4: introduce himself. My name is Buck O'Neil, what's yours, And
Speaker 4: then they would engage into a conversation. And by the
Speaker 4: time we're leaving to go to our respective gates, they
Speaker 4: were sharing and embrace as if they'd known each other
Speaker 4: all their lives. And I'm witnessing this everywhere we went,
Speaker 4: and I tell people he had a certain intanis that
Speaker 4: would be on par with what we see with the
Speaker 4: Mother Teresa, A Gandhi, a doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 3: The ability to see.
Speaker 4: The good in everybody, sometimes even when they weren't good.
Speaker 4: Buck saw the good in them. And of course he
Speaker 4: is the guy who really told us about the heroes
Speaker 4: of the Negro Leagues. His appearance in the Ken Burns
Speaker 4: epic documentary on the history of baseball captivated America was
Speaker 4: eighty two years old when he premiered on the Ken
Speaker 4: Burns documentary, and he literally stole the show. You had
Speaker 4: this very charming gentle man who was telling these wonderful
Speaker 4: baseball stories to baseball fans and they had not heard
Speaker 4: them before, and he was doing it with a twinkle
Speaker 4: in his eye and a smile that lit up the screen.
Speaker 4: And America fell in love with Buck. As I mentioned,
Speaker 4: he was eighty two years old at that time. The
Speaker 4: Good Lord blessed them to live another twelve years where
Speaker 4: he was literally gallivanting across this country preaching the gospel
Speaker 4: of the Negro Leagues and the virtues of his museum
Speaker 4: to any and everybody who would listen. And I guess
Speaker 4: you could say I was hanging from the hem of
Speaker 4: his garment. And now I get to preach the gospel
Speaker 4: of the Negro Leagues and the virtues of Bucks Museum to.
Speaker 3: Any and everybody who listened. So his influence was tremendous.
Speaker 6: He was just a baseball lifer, yes, and loved the
Speaker 6: game so much that you know, he was a scout.
Speaker 6: So you're talking about you know, Lou Brock, You're talking
Speaker 6: about Lee Smith, Joe Carter.
Speaker 5: Is there something to.
Speaker 6: It or is it needed to have black scouts that
Speaker 6: are going into black communities to scout and draft players.
Speaker 3: I think you have to have it now.
Speaker 4: I couldmend Major League Baseball the Players Association for what
Speaker 4: they've done, the programs that they've implemented over the recent years,
Speaker 4: and they're starting to pay dividends. But if Buck was
Speaker 4: with us, he tell you his role as a scout.
Speaker 4: The other scouts didn't want to come into those areas,
Speaker 4: so he could go get this talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now he could go get this talent and brought a
Speaker 4: lot of great talent into the major leagues. Some of
Speaker 4: it was talent that others probably would have bypassed. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so I think you need more African American scouts.
Speaker 4: What I am excited about is that these programs that
Speaker 4: have been implemented by Baseball and the Players Association are
Speaker 4: starting to give opportunities for kids to play this game,
Speaker 4: but not only play the game, be seen playing these games,
Speaker 4: and this being evidenced by the number of African American
Speaker 4: kids who are being drafted over recent years, which gives
Speaker 4: me great hope that we will see the pendulum shift
Speaker 4: the other way. You know, I say this, and I
Speaker 4: say it with no disrespect to anyone. No one played
Speaker 4: this game better than we did. Now they may have
Speaker 4: played it just as well, but no one played the
Speaker 4: game of baseball better than we did. We could play
Speaker 4: this game. We have a proud legacy in this game,
Speaker 4: and even at the Negro League's Baseball Museum, we have
Speaker 4: a tremendous interest in making sure that urban kids have
Speaker 4: an opportunity to play this game, to dream about the
Speaker 4: possibilities that come along with this great sport. And we
Speaker 4: do think that by embracing the history of the Negro Leagues,
Speaker 4: it gives them a sense of self. They get a
Speaker 4: chance to see people who look like them who played
Speaker 4: this game as well as anyone ever played this game.
Speaker 2: Obviously a heavy conversation that since we touched in this
Speaker 2: space of baseball was obviously the decline of the black
Speaker 2: player and the black star. I grew up seeing people
Speaker 2: who look like me, and that's why I played baseball
Speaker 2: for so long until I got too tall and stead
Speaker 2: of playing other space. But we've talked to a few
Speaker 2: of our guests from the past. We want you to
Speaker 2: take a couple look at a couple of these clips
Speaker 2: and then we'll discuss after you see them.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's just go back to the beginning.
Speaker 7: When you talk about Japan, you talk about Dominic and
Speaker 7: you talk about Puerto Rico, You could talk about any
Speaker 7: country you have to pay a posting fee to even
Speaker 7: entertain talking to you that players. When Jackie Robinson broke
Speaker 7: the color barrier, where was the posting fee? So now
Speaker 7: there's no more Negro league. So now let's start going
Speaker 7: back to tech man. That's making me think was that
Speaker 7: done on purpose?
Speaker 5: See?
Speaker 7: Now what we have to go back to? You See,
Speaker 7: so that's the problem with this whole thing. If we
Speaker 7: had something to go back to, then it wouldn't be
Speaker 7: so stressful trying to get into something.
Speaker 1: So you hear Gary speak on the options your thoughts.
Speaker 4: He's right, no, No, there's absolutely something to what he
Speaker 4: is saying. Because when we had the Negro leagues, what
Speaker 4: do you have And when you see these other countries,
Speaker 4: whether it is Cuba, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico,
Speaker 4: they all have their own professional baseball leagues. So yes,
Speaker 4: there are opportunities for those kids to leave and come
Speaker 4: over here and play, but they have a league that
Speaker 4: they can play in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: See, when we had the negro leagues, you had that
Speaker 4: same kind of system in place, and because of segregation,
Speaker 4: it didn't matter how much money Satchel Page made a
Speaker 4: buck O'Neill or Josh Gibson or cool Papa belt Man.
Speaker 4: They lived in the same neighborhood I lived in. They
Speaker 4: worshiped in the same churches that I worshiped in, They
Speaker 4: ate in the same restaurants, They got the haircut in
Speaker 4: the same barbershop. So not only did I idolize them
Speaker 4: for their great athletic ability, I idolized them because I
Speaker 4: watched their behavior as men, uh huh, and they wanted
Speaker 4: so kids wanted to emulate them. They wanted to be
Speaker 4: the next Satchel Page, the next cool popa Bell. Now
Speaker 4: the proliferation of the other sports have certainly had its
Speaker 4: impact because there are so many opportunities now for a
Speaker 4: kid to make a living in a professional sport, and
Speaker 4: so we started to lose some of those great athletes
Speaker 4: to those other sports. But I do think the fact
Speaker 4: that you had your own league, and even in Japan,
Speaker 4: same thing. Even though we're getting some kids who are
Speaker 4: coming over from Japan. And what's the other common thread
Speaker 4: to those countries that I just mentioned. All of them
Speaker 4: were impacted by Negro League's baseball. Yeah, Necro League players
Speaker 4: were oftentimes the first Americans to play in many Spanish
Speaker 4: speaking countries, and fellas, when we went there, we were
Speaker 4: treated like heroes. So now you're going to stay in
Speaker 4: the finest hotels, eat in the fire and its restaurants
Speaker 4: that those countries had to offer, come back home and
Speaker 4: be treated like a second class citizen. So, as a result,
Speaker 4: a lot of Negro League players would call those Spanish
Speaker 4: speaking countries home for one simple reason. In those countries,
Speaker 4: they weren't black baseball players, they were just baseball players.
Speaker 3: But of course in.
Speaker 4: This country, the Afro Latino athlete couldn't play in the
Speaker 4: major leagues either, so they found sanctuary playing in the
Speaker 4: Negro leagues. The Negro Leagues would take the American brand
Speaker 4: of baseball into Canada, and of course it would be
Speaker 4: the Negro Leagues that would be the first to go
Speaker 4: over to play in Japan. We go to Japan in
Speaker 4: nineteen twenty seven, seven years before Babe Ruth, and as
Speaker 4: all Americans go to Japan, the Negro leagues were there
Speaker 4: a team called the Philadelphia Royal Giants who would go
Speaker 4: to Japan play a twenty four game exhibition series. They
Speaker 4: go twenty three zero to one on the tour. The
Speaker 4: tour was so successful that seven years later Babe Ruth
Speaker 4: and his all the Maria Mercans would get invited over.
Speaker 4: And I always preface that with my visitors because, as
Speaker 4: you both know, when we look at our game today
Speaker 4: from a global perspective, there are so many ethnicities that
Speaker 4: make up a major league roster on any given day.
Speaker 3: Well, at the heart of it were the negro leagues.
Speaker 3: They helped make the game the global game that it
Speaker 3: is today. They were just never given credit for it.
Speaker 3: Quite frankly, the negro leagues didn't care what color you were.
Speaker 3: All they kid was can you play? That's it and
Speaker 3: if you can play, you can play. And so the
Speaker 3: loss of the negro leagues had a detrimental impact on
Speaker 3: what we now see in that decline, But it also
Speaker 3: had a detrimental impact on black economy. Black economy suffered
Speaker 3: when we lost the negro leagues. I tell people this
Speaker 3: story is a fascinatingly complicated story. So Jackie's breaking of
Speaker 3: the color barrier was good for the soul of our country.
Speaker 3: It moved us in ways socially we never dreamt possible.
Speaker 3: Not only did he spawn integration in baseball, but he
Speaker 3: spawned integration in a much broader capacity. All of a sudden,
Speaker 3: those smaller black owned businesses that had been flourishing because
Speaker 3: of the success, primarily of black baseball. Wherever you had
Speaker 3: successful black baseball, you typically had thriving Black economies. All
Speaker 3: of a sudden, those smaller black owned businesses could no
Speaker 3: longer compete with those mainstream businesses after they gave access
Speaker 3: to us. Yeah, and they died right alongside the necro leagues.
Speaker 4: The area that the museum operates historic eighteenth and Fie
Speaker 4: as prominent as any African American community in the country
Speaker 4: during that era of segregation. Same thing just absolutely died.
Speaker 4: The museum comes along years later to be the catalyst
Speaker 4: to help resurrect that once proud, prominent African American community,
Speaker 4: which again fills me with great pride to see that
Speaker 4: the museum has done what Negro League's baseball had done
Speaker 4: for so many urban communities across this country. But yeah,
Speaker 4: when you have your own league, got something that people
Speaker 4: can fall back on, and then you can develop and
Speaker 4: still get guys over to this country or in this case,
Speaker 4: into the major leagues.
Speaker 3: So Chef is absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I think some people unless they've really dug into it,
Speaker 2: and I haven't dug dug into it.
Speaker 1: But I think you made a great point.
Speaker 2: The cultural barrier that Jackie broke helped us in a lot,
Speaker 2: but was kind of the beginning of the end for
Speaker 2: Negro league baseball.
Speaker 1: Can you speak to that a little bit more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, that's exactly it. You summed it up beautifully
Speaker 4: because what happens now is other black and brown players
Speaker 4: started transitioning out of the major leagues. What happens the
Speaker 4: black fan base that had been so loyal to the
Speaker 4: Negro leagues went over to see their backstars because they
Speaker 4: wanted to see how their great black stars were going.
Speaker 4: It's a natural curiosity how they're gonna do. Because everybody
Speaker 4: said this is the best, we want to see how
Speaker 4: our guys are going to do. They transitioned into the
Speaker 4: major leagues, and all of a sudden, there was no
Speaker 4: fan base for the negro leagues.
Speaker 3: There was no replenishing system for the Negro leagues.
Speaker 4: I do think Matt that some Negro League teams thought
Speaker 4: that they might become a farm team for major league team.
Speaker 4: It was never going to happen. They had their farm
Speaker 4: system already in place, and so the Negro leagues just
Speaker 4: died a slow debt. The teams that were anchored near
Speaker 4: major league teams, they died almost instantly. When Jackie breaks
Speaker 4: to color Barrier, my dear friend, the late great Monte Irvin,
Speaker 4: who could have been the first, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 4: he was brands.
Speaker 3: Ricky's choice to be the first.
Speaker 4: He played for the Newark Eagles, and he says, the
Speaker 4: minute that Jackie joins Brooklyn, the fan base that came
Speaker 4: to watch the Eagle went over to Brooklyn to watch Jackie,
Speaker 4: and they died almost instantly. And you saw that happen
Speaker 4: throughout Negro league's baseball. Now, the leagues were able to
Speaker 4: hang on for thirteen years, but really after nineteen fifty
Speaker 4: five it was minor league at best.
Speaker 2: I mean similar you see it on the NBA and
Speaker 2: ABA side, you know, I mean the talent, the flair,
Speaker 2: the athleticism that the ABA possessed. The NBA is like,
Speaker 2: we need to get that, we gotta get some of
Speaker 2: the got to get some of that, and they integrated
Speaker 2: into the NBA in a similar, similar situation.
Speaker 4: It's interesting that you say that because the legendary Andrew
Speaker 4: Rube Foster, who started the Negro Leagues in nineteen twenty
Speaker 4: and absolute baseball savant, I think, the most brilliant baseball
Speaker 4: mind this sport has ever seen, and no one knows
Speaker 4: who the heck he is, even though he is rightfully
Speaker 4: in the shrine in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4: But see, Matt, he was thinking what you just mentioned
Speaker 4: in nineteen twenty. He thought he could create a league
Speaker 4: that was so dynamic that he would force Major League
Speaker 4: Baseball's hand to expand. But see, under his model, you
Speaker 4: would have had black ownership. You'd had black players, black managers,
Speaker 4: black exegrats, not just the talent, not just the talent.
Speaker 3: So let's think about this.
Speaker 4: There were eight teams that started the Negro Leagues in
Speaker 4: nineteen twenty. Let's just say they would have taken four,
Speaker 4: and then you take the talent from the other four
Speaker 4: and dispersed them into those four teams. You know, major
Speaker 4: League Baseball they won't none of that too much, so
Speaker 4: called all the smoke. They didn't want any of that
Speaker 4: smoke man. That would have been dynamic.
Speaker 5: Think about what that would have turned into now, absolutely.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and you think about it because your parallels are
Speaker 4: right on point, because that's exactly what happened with the
Speaker 4: ABA and the NBA.
Speaker 3: The ABA was.
Speaker 4: Still in all this great talent out of college. They
Speaker 4: playing with the Red, White and Blue ball, they got
Speaker 4: the three point line, they got the Slam Dark contests,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden NBA said, whoa wait a minute, down,
Speaker 4: we got to do something about this. The same thing
Speaker 4: happened even prior to that, with the merger of the
Speaker 4: NFL and the AFA. Same thing, and Rube was thinking
Speaker 4: this in nineteen twenty. That's how far ahead of himself
Speaker 4: he was. He was almost right. Instead, baseball got that
Speaker 4: talent off the field, which ultimately put the Negro Leagues
Speaker 4: and a lot of Negro League players out of business
Speaker 4: because that older player had no place to go.
Speaker 2: One more, Howard Bryant I sat down with him and
Speaker 2: this is what he had to say.
Speaker 1: The black player became.
Speaker 8: Ten twenty five percent in the game because starting with
Speaker 8: the Negro League, started with starting with Jackie, black players
Speaker 8: were the cheapest commodity you could get. You know, Jackie
Speaker 8: signed for five thousand dollars, Willie May signed for five
Speaker 8: thousand dollars, Hank Aaron signed for six thousand dollars. And
Speaker 8: so for a time, those players were the cheapest commodity.
Speaker 3: You could get great.
Speaker 1: Players at a low price.
Speaker 8: Baseball as a sport, Baseball is a white suburban game
Speaker 8: reinforced by foreign labor. That's the sport. It's not an
Speaker 8: American game per se. It's a white, suburban American game.
Speaker 8: But thirty five percent of the game is Latino. And
Speaker 8: so when you look for players, where do you find them?
Speaker 8: Where does baseball look for players? They've got facilities in
Speaker 8: the Dominican all the teams have academies down there, right,
Speaker 8: and then the American players, where do they get those players?
Speaker 1: College?
Speaker 8: College is one percent black, so the black players in
Speaker 8: college are scholarship players. Baseball's a non revenue sport, so.
Speaker 2: It's by design, I think to Chris's point earlier, he
Speaker 2: brought up the black scouts going into these inner cities
Speaker 2: and finding these athletes or diamonds in the rough so
Speaker 2: to speak.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I think Howard raises a legitimate point as well.
Speaker 4: But you know, I find it entry that one of
Speaker 4: the little known facts relative to the Negro leagues is
Speaker 4: that some forty percent of his athletes had some level
Speaker 4: of college education.
Speaker 3: Interesting, less than five percent.
Speaker 4: Of those who played in the major leagues at that
Speaker 4: same time had any college education. For the simple reason
Speaker 4: then the majors didn't want you to go to college.
Speaker 4: They got you out of high school, put you into
Speaker 4: their farm system, and then you work your way into
Speaker 4: the major leagues. Well, the Negro leagues didn't have that
Speaker 4: kind of sophisticated farm system.
Speaker 3: So what did we do.
Speaker 4: We trained on the campuses of historically black colleges and universities.
Speaker 4: They would then play those black college baseball teams, and
Speaker 4: then they recruited a great deal of their workforce from
Speaker 4: those HBCUs, which is why they had a disproportionate number
Speaker 4: of college educated athletes in comparison to the major leagues.
Speaker 4: Yet the prevailing belief was we weren't smart enough to
Speaker 4: play this game. Now, I don't know when you had
Speaker 4: to be a Rhodes scholar to play baseball, but that
Speaker 4: seemed to be the prevailing belief when it was so
Speaker 4: far from being the truth. Buck O'Neill went to Edward
Speaker 4: Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida. The great Monte Irvin went
Speaker 4: to Lincoln University right here in Philadelphia. Joe Black went
Speaker 4: to Morgan State University, where he would go on to
Speaker 4: become the first African American executive of a major transportation company, Greyhound.
Speaker 3: The list goes on and on.
Speaker 4: Larry Doby started off at Long Island College, eventually went
Speaker 4: to Virginia Union. The list goes on and on of
Speaker 4: these scholar athletes, Yeah and so, but how it's right.
Speaker 4: It was cheap labor, exceptional talent that they were paying
Speaker 4: pennies on the dollar for it. And Jackie Robinson didn't
Speaker 4: necessarily he wasn't necessarily signed away from the Kansaity monarchs.
Speaker 4: He was taken away from the Kansity monarchs because Kensiton
Speaker 4: Monarx's owner never got paid for Jackie Robert. Now, when
Speaker 4: they came to get Larry Adobe, Bill Veck offered f
Speaker 4: manally five thousand dollars for Larry Adobe. Businus Manly writes
Speaker 4: him back. She said, now, mister Veck, you know, if
Speaker 4: Larry Adobe was white, he'd be worth well over one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars. But if you think this sum is
Speaker 4: fair because she knew she wasn't going to be able
Speaker 4: to keep fighting them all. She fought him off of
Speaker 4: Monte Irvin, but she knew she wasn't gonna keep being
Speaker 4: able to fight him off. There was blood in the
Speaker 4: water and the sharks were coming, so she knew this.
Speaker 4: She said, well, if you think this is fair, I
Speaker 4: have no other recourse but to accept it. Bill Veack,
Speaker 4: who had a heart for this, writes her back and says,
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what. I'll give you another five thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: and I'll give Larry five thousand dollars signing bonus if
Speaker 4: he makes the team. He gets Larry Dodbe for fifteen
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. Howard mentioned some of the other great talent,
Speaker 4: Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Yeah, Monte Irvin, these are hall
Speaker 4: of famous that the guy for pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 4: So they siphon all that great talent out of the
Speaker 4: Negro leagues. And as I mentioned, there was no replenishing system. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so it was easier to go set a site to
Speaker 4: another country where there are no labor laws. You don't
Speaker 4: have to wait until that kid is eighteen years old.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that investment is smaller.
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Speaker 1: mentioned something interesting, were.
Speaker 2: The thought of not being educated enough or have enough
Speaker 2: to play ball, But then you look at twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six where Jalen Brown's intelligence is being used against them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's always going to be some kind of it or
Speaker 2: something to not be done or black athletes.
Speaker 4: Well, Jackie Robinson walks into a clubhouse where he was
Speaker 4: likely the most intellectual being in that clubhouse, having gone
Speaker 4: to Pasadena City College. And of course you see il
Speaker 4: like and yet he was subjected to this incredibly harsh treatment.
Speaker 4: But part of the reason I think that sports has
Speaker 4: been such a tremendous barrier breaker in our society, it
Speaker 4: is that one place where we get to interact, we
Speaker 4: see each other up close and personal, because more times
Speaker 4: than not, what drives our opinion about people is what
Speaker 4: we heard. Somebody heard I was this way, someone heard
Speaker 4: you was this way.
Speaker 3: But once you get in that locker, get to see,
Speaker 3: once you get in that clubhouse, you.
Speaker 4: Get to see, and all of a sudden, all these
Speaker 4: white kids, who primarily were from the South, they're saying,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, he is nothing like.
Speaker 5: Like I was told he's supposed to do.
Speaker 4: And then Jackie started to help Brooklyn win, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, it didn't matter what color he was.
Speaker 4: But that's the beauty of sports. Sports has been our
Speaker 4: society's greatest barrier breaker. Sports and entertainment. Yeah and so,
Speaker 4: and even though it's had his own issues within the realm,
Speaker 4: it has kind of led by example throughout the history
Speaker 4: of this country.
Speaker 5: And its integrated way more than sports.
Speaker 6: Its integrated hospitals and integrated school like, it's all stems
Speaker 6: from sport on how integration ends up traveling throughout the country.
Speaker 4: And baseball was at the forefront of that because it
Speaker 4: was our national pastime. Basketball and football were seen more
Speaker 4: or less as a collegiate sports. So if you were
Speaker 4: black and going to make a living in a professional
Speaker 4: sport in this country at.
Speaker 3: That time, you played baseball.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jackie Robinson's weekend sport was baseball's baseball. Yeah, much
Speaker 4: better basketball, football, track athlete, some say an even better
Speaker 4: tennis player. But that's how you hear me describe the
Speaker 4: players from the Negro Leagues as some of the greatest
Speaker 4: athletes to ever play baseball because they could have played
Speaker 4: anything anything.
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty two Satral page first Josh Gibson in the
Speaker 2: World Series.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that epic.
Speaker 3: That's epic, man.
Speaker 4: You talking about two of the biggest and brightest stars,
Speaker 4: not just in the negro Leagues period.
Speaker 3: We're talking about on the face of the planet at
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 4: And they had been teammates on teams prior to them
Speaker 4: becoming rivals. Because Josh is now playing the Homestead Grades
Speaker 4: Satcheo's with the great Kansas City Monarchs, that nineteen forty
Speaker 4: two Monarch team, it ranks up there as one of
Speaker 4: the greatest baseball teams of all time, not just black
Speaker 4: baseball teams, because they had a dominant pitching staff led
Speaker 4: by Sachel Page Hall of famer the great Hilton Smith,
Speaker 4: perhaps the greatest pitcher you've never heard of. Hilton Smith
Speaker 4: did something that I don't think we will ever see
Speaker 4: done in the game again. He won twenty games or more,
Speaker 4: twelve consecutive gears.
Speaker 3: At that time.
Speaker 4: He might have been the greatest pitcher in baseball. He
Speaker 4: just happened to be on the same team with Satchel.
Speaker 4: And if you only team with Sachel, nobody's paying you're
Speaker 4: any intention. So when Sachel walked in the room, you
Speaker 4: knew he was in the room. And if you didn't
Speaker 4: know he was in the room, he was gonna let
Speaker 4: you know he was in the room.
Speaker 3: Hilton Smith was.
Speaker 4: The polar opposite, quiet, unassuming, workmanlike, just as lethal. Some say,
Speaker 4: the greatest curveball the sport has ever seen. My friend
Speaker 4: Mandy Irvin would say that you could know that his
Speaker 4: curveball was coming and break on it. Was so sharp
Speaker 4: you still couldn't hit it. He threw the big twelve,
Speaker 4: the sixth breaker, and he threw Chris what he called
Speaker 4: a tight curve ball. He dropped down three quarters. Today
Speaker 4: you guys would call it the slider. And he threw
Speaker 4: everything with pinpoint controlled, great fastball. But when he wasn't
Speaker 4: pitching for the Monarchs, he played the outfield. Had a
Speaker 4: lifetime batting average nearly three hundred. Tremendous ball player. Hall
Speaker 4: of Famer, you got Buck O'Neill Hall of Famer, you
Speaker 4: got Willard Brown, Willart Brown in the National Baseball Hall
Speaker 4: of Fame. Willart Brown was as beloved in Puerto Rico
Speaker 4: as their native son Roberto Clemente. That's how great Willart
Speaker 4: Brown was. But on the other side of the legend,
Speaker 4: mega talent man, you got Gibson and Buck Leonard, the
Speaker 4: thunder twis. They battened three and four in the lineup
Speaker 4: the homes. Their grades were prohibited favors to beat my
Speaker 4: Kansas City Monarchs, they were, and the Monarchs would sweep
Speaker 4: them in forty two four oh Satchel won three of
Speaker 4: the games.
Speaker 5: And of course that.
Speaker 4: Was this fascinating that's the epic showdown between Satchel and
Speaker 4: the great Josh Gibson. As I can hear Buck O'Neill
Speaker 4: in my ear telling this story, Monarch's winning the game
Speaker 4: for the two in the bottom of the nine two
Speaker 4: outs when Satchel gives up a two out triple to
Speaker 4: a guy named Jerry Benjamin. Threw him a fastball. Jerry
Speaker 4: Benjamin hit it down the left field, hit the third
Speaker 4: base bag. Ricochet's down in the left field line. Jerry
Speaker 4: Benjamin could run pretty good. He gets a stand up triple.
Speaker 4: Satchel costs time. He motions for Buck to come over.
Speaker 4: Buckets playing first base for the Monarchs, and of course
Speaker 4: Satcho had a nickname for everybody. His nickname, famously for
Speaker 4: Buck O'Neill was Nancy. That's a whole nother story, but anyway,
Speaker 4: first base said, Nancy, you know what I'm fixing the dude.
Speaker 4: Fuck Say yes, satche You're gonna get this guy out
Speaker 4: so we can go back to the hotel. He said, no, Nancy,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna walk Howard East. I'm gonna walk Buck Leonard,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to pitch to Josh Gibson, and Buck says, Satchel,
Speaker 4: don't be facetious. He said, well, you can call it
Speaker 4: what you want it, but that's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 4: So Buck says, he calls time. He motions for the
Speaker 4: Monarchs manager guy named Frank Doncor to come out.
Speaker 3: He says, Skipper, listen to what this food says he's
Speaker 3: fixing to do. Well.
Speaker 4: Sachel tells them they're playing in forest Field and Pittsburgh
Speaker 4: Ballpark full Frank doctor looks around. He said, Buck, you
Speaker 4: know they all came to see Satchel and Josh. So
Speaker 4: this is what Sachel wants to do.
Speaker 3: Let him do it. Buck say, okay, Skip is your game. Now.
Speaker 4: Satchel, who had PenPoint control, he rarely walks anyone. He
Speaker 4: walks Howard Easterly on four straight pitches.
Speaker 3: Now there's a buzz going around in the stadium.
Speaker 5: You're seeing Josh Gibson on deck.
Speaker 4: He walks Buck Leonard on four straight pitches. Now everybody
Speaker 4: knows what's going down. So now Satchel costs time again,
Speaker 4: but this time emotions for the Monarch's trainer to come out.
Speaker 4: Now the trainer is part of the show. The trainer
Speaker 4: comes out wearing a doctor's smock, and Buck say he
Speaker 4: has a glass in his hand, and he drops something
Speaker 4: in the glass and the glass begins to fiz well.
Speaker 4: He surmises that it's an alca selser. He walks the
Speaker 4: glass out, he hands it to Satchel. Sachel drinks it
Speaker 4: down and he lets out a belt. Now he's ready.
Speaker 4: Josh is standing in that batting circle. He swung a
Speaker 4: forty ouce forty one inch bat and Buck said that
Speaker 4: big bat looked like it was six feet long. He said,
Speaker 4: oh Lord is going down right now. And as Josh
Speaker 4: is coming to the plate, Sachel is talking to him.
Speaker 4: He said, Josh, you know, I always thought you were
Speaker 4: the greatest hitter in the world, and I know I'm
Speaker 4: the greatest pitcher in the world, and one day we'd.
Speaker 3: Get a chance to settle it. Today it's the day. Now.
Speaker 4: Josh was a very soft spoken, jolly giant of a man.
Speaker 4: Come on, Sachel, throw the ball. Sachel says, Josh, I
Speaker 4: ain't gonna try to trick you. I'm gonna throw you
Speaker 4: three fastballs. Said first pass ball boom felt high, call
Speaker 4: strike one. Gibson never moves the bat. He said, now, Josh,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna throw you another fastball, but it's gonna be
Speaker 4: faster than that other fastball, not a nine mile mile fastball.
Speaker 4: Call strike two. Josh never moves the bat. He said, Now, Josh,
Speaker 4: I got you oh in two. You see in the
Speaker 4: Negro leagues when they got your two strike no ball,
Speaker 4: Oh baby, theyre gonna knock you down. But Sachel says, Josh,
Speaker 4: I ain't gonna throw in this smoke at your yoke.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna throw a pee at your knee. One hundred
Speaker 4: mile dollars fastball. Call strike three. Josh slams the bat
Speaker 4: down and discussed Satchel, who stood about six four sixty
Speaker 4: five Bucks say he stretched out looked like he was
Speaker 4: seven feet tall. He said, Nancy, nobody, nobody. His Satchel
Speaker 4: page is fastball.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And the very next year, though, Buck said, they were
Speaker 4: playing a Yankee stadium, and he says Satchel tried to
Speaker 4: get a fastball past Josh. He said, Josh hitting the
Speaker 4: ball so hard, you know how the pitcher goes to
Speaker 4: his follow through, said Sachel never got a chance to
Speaker 4: come up. Said the ball went right over the top
Speaker 4: of his cap and landed in monument gardens and Yankee
Speaker 4: Stadium on the rope, and as Josh is circling the basis.
Speaker 4: Satchel still down here. He never comes up, and he
Speaker 4: looks over at first base, said Buck. He says, Nancy
Speaker 4: A Feller could get killed out here. When you talk
Speaker 4: about Satchel Page and Josh Gibbson, you're talking about the
Speaker 4: greatest battery this fort has ever seen.
Speaker 3: And it ain't even close.
Speaker 2: I mean, Gibson, two times triple Crown winner, uh batting
Speaker 2: average leader, played the last four years with the brain tumor,
Speaker 2: brain tumor man and unfortunately dies of a stroke at
Speaker 2: thirty five, but speaks obviously. You spoke to Sachel, speak
Speaker 2: to Josh's greatness.
Speaker 4: Oh, I wish I could have seen him swing that
Speaker 4: bat forty forty one inch y and Matt. When you
Speaker 4: look at the photos of Josh, he ain't choking up.
Speaker 4: He's got it gripped down below the knob, big massive hands,
Speaker 4: big powerful forearms, big powerful thighs.
Speaker 1: Told how big was he?
Speaker 3: Six one six six one? But you know who he
Speaker 3: was built?
Speaker 4: If we wanted to contemporize it, who is built like
Speaker 4: thinke Bo Jackson.
Speaker 3: And you got Josh Gibson. Wow, Yeah, just.
Speaker 4: Strong and but great eyes. Buck O'Neill would describe Josh
Speaker 4: in this fashion that he had the eyes of Ted
Speaker 4: Williams and the power of Babe Ruth rolled into one
Speaker 4: dynamic package. And I'm like it is today. He didn't
Speaker 4: strike out a lot. Josh might strike out twenty five
Speaker 4: thirty times in the season. He put it in play,
Speaker 4: and he put it in play with a lot of power.
Speaker 4: The third basement and the shortstop. We're damn there left field.
Speaker 4: That that was the Negro league version of a shift.
Speaker 4: They was like, okay, Johnson, if you want a bunnet,
Speaker 4: you can have.
Speaker 1: No shortage of you know, other characters.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about Papa Bell, Cool Papa Bell,
Speaker 2: double Double Radcliffe aka the original O Tony oh Man,
Speaker 2: about their talent.
Speaker 4: You know, cool Papa Bell. His name was James James
Speaker 4: Thomas Bell. You say that nobody knows who the heck
Speaker 4: you talking about. You say cool Papa, everybody knows without question,
Speaker 4: in my mind, the greatest nickname in baseball history bar nine.
Speaker 4: Cool Papa is still believed to be the fastest man
Speaker 4: to ever play. This game clocked him circling the bases
Speaker 4: in an astounding twelve second in.
Speaker 5: Coolpop for the one where he turned the light switch
Speaker 5: off and.
Speaker 4: He was in bed under the Satchel said it was
Speaker 4: so fast he could walk in the room, turn off
Speaker 4: the lights, get in bed, pull up the covers before
Speaker 4: the room went done. And that is actually a true story.
Speaker 4: Satchel and Cool were teammates on a number of great teams,
Speaker 4: including nineteen thirty five Pittsburgh Crawfords, a team that many
Speaker 4: believe to be the greatest baseball team ever. Simple, I
Speaker 4: would lean more toward the thirty one Homestaid Grace, but
Speaker 4: they're right there, neck and neck. Five future Hall of
Speaker 4: famers on that thirty five Pittsburgh Crawford team. And so
Speaker 4: when they travel, Satchel and Cool were oftentimes roommates. So
Speaker 4: in this particular instance, Oh Cool gets to the hotel
Speaker 4: room before Satchel does, and he walks in the room.
Speaker 4: Flip the light switch on. There's a delay before light
Speaker 4: comes on. Flip that light switch off. There's a delay
Speaker 4: before the light goes out. Oh Cool, Papa says, h huh.
Speaker 4: When Sachel gets to the room, Cool is waiting on it.
Speaker 4: So Satchel climbs in bed, Cool hops up room it.
Speaker 4: I'm so fast I can flip this light switch off,
Speaker 4: run over, hop in bed cover up before the room
Speaker 4: gets done. And Sachel's like, wait a minute, cool, you fast,
Speaker 4: but you ain't that fast, and so cool, popa bell,
Speaker 4: BET's meal money, and old Satchel took the bait, and
Speaker 4: then one of the greatest sports pranks of all time.
Speaker 4: Because that light had a shortage in it, Kool was
Speaker 4: able to flip that light switch off, run over, hop
Speaker 4: in bed cover up before the room went completely dark.
Speaker 4: Sachel was so outdone that he just always told folks
Speaker 4: that cool was that fast. But he stretched singles into doubles,
Speaker 4: doubles into triples, triples into inside the park home runs. Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: he was absolutely amazing. If he he bunted it back
Speaker 4: to the picture and it bounced twice it so he
Speaker 4: got no chance. You've got no chance. And he was
Speaker 4: a left handed hitter. He switched it, but it came
Speaker 4: primarily left handed, so he's coming out on the left side.
Speaker 4: And again the players in the Negro Leguel say, not
Speaker 4: only was he fast, but he might have been the
Speaker 4: greatest base runner this sport has ever seen. His ability
Speaker 4: Chris to cut that bag on the inside. Yeah, Buck
Speaker 4: would say that he ran so low to the ground
Speaker 4: that he could literally smack the bag with his hands.
Speaker 3: Wow and not fall low.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, good Lord gives some of us something
Speaker 4: they just don't give all of us.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: And he and Cool was indeed special and cool was
Speaker 4: cool the name personifized.
Speaker 2: You can't have that name not be cool, be cool.
Speaker 6: I think of you know, as I was talking about
Speaker 6: the rick Wood game a couple of years ago, you know,
Speaker 6: having the opportunity to talk to players who are at
Speaker 6: the household names and who are the cool Papa Bells
Speaker 6: of the world, the statul pages of the world. I'm
Speaker 6: sure you had the opportunity to talk to some players
Speaker 6: who played in those latter years of the negro Leagues.
Speaker 6: Any stories that stick with you from the guys who
Speaker 6: you know weren't the superstar players, of their experience playing
Speaker 6: in the negro Leagues and how much they feel recognized
Speaker 6: in today's game.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the milestones that we've seen over recent years,
Speaker 4: the game that we were talking about at rick Woodfield
Speaker 4: that honored the Negro Leagues, and sadly, the legendary Willie
Speaker 4: Made passed away a couple of days before that game.
Speaker 4: We were all down there for that, and I was
Speaker 4: with Willie's son, Michael, when he got the news that
Speaker 4: his father had passed, and it was obviously very sad
Speaker 4: for all of us who are baseball fans and understand
Speaker 4: the history and how important Willy Maids was to the game.
Speaker 4: But it's hard to be sad when you talk about
Speaker 4: Willy Mays because he brought so much joy. But he
Speaker 4: essentially accomplished Chris what he had hoped to accomplish, and
Speaker 4: that was put the spotlight on some of those lesser
Speaker 4: known ball players who were just as important, but they
Speaker 4: don't necessarily get the attention that the Satchel page it.
Speaker 4: But you know, in every league, every sports league, there
Speaker 4: are stars and then there are superstars. Yeah, and they
Speaker 4: don't always get the same shine that the other people get.
Speaker 4: And so what we've seen over recent years is that
Speaker 4: they're starting to get their recognition and they've lived long
Speaker 4: enough where they can hopefully enjoy this newfound recognition. And
Speaker 4: we knew from the onset when we started this museum
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety it wasn't a matter of if, it
Speaker 4: was a matter of win.
Speaker 3: They were all going to.
Speaker 4: Be gone and their legacy should not die when that
Speaker 4: last Negro league leaves the face of this earth. But
Speaker 4: it's important that they now get to enjoy the spotlight
Speaker 4: on them. And I think that's what Willie Mays had
Speaker 4: absolutely wanted to have happened now. I would have loved
Speaker 4: to have seen him come back just one more time
Speaker 4: on that field where a seventeen year old kid was
Speaker 4: patrolling center field for the Birmingham Black Barons.
Speaker 3: And if I had.
Speaker 4: Told you in nineteen forty eight that that seventeen year
Speaker 4: old kid would become widely known as the greatest Major
Speaker 4: leaguer of all time, you'd just said, Bob, you're crazy.
Speaker 4: And as great as Willie Mays was, as great as
Speaker 4: Henry Aaron was, as great as Ernie Banks voy Campanella.
Speaker 4: I know it sounds crazy, but there were others in
Speaker 4: the Negro leagues who were even better than they were,
Speaker 4: who we didn't get to see transition into the major leagues.
Speaker 4: I had always said that had the doors opened sooner,
Speaker 4: the record books would be entirely different. Well, what did
Speaker 4: we see? A couple of years ago? Commissioner rob Manfren
Speaker 4: went back and opened the door when they allowed the
Speaker 4: status of the Negro leagues to be integrated into the
Speaker 4: record books of Major League Baseball, and what happened.
Speaker 3: The record books are now entirely different than Josh Gibson's
Speaker 3: the all time.
Speaker 4: All time career batting average leader three seventy two single
Speaker 4: season batting record in nineteen forty three when he only
Speaker 4: hit for sixty six. Yeah, I'm gonna go out on
Speaker 4: the limb and say that ain't gonna be broken.
Speaker 3: Yeah no.
Speaker 4: And you see these other names start to populate the
Speaker 4: list of greatness amongst those who played in the major leagues.
Speaker 4: But there were a second tier of guys. You mentioned
Speaker 4: Ted Double Duty Ratcliff, who I think should be in
Speaker 4: the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He earned his nickname
Speaker 4: Double Duty when the great sports writer Damon Runin saw
Speaker 4: Duty catch a Satchel Page shutout in the first game
Speaker 4: of the doubleheader, pulled off his catcher's gear, took the mound,
Speaker 4: and threw a shoutout in the second game of the doubleheader,
Speaker 4: said he was worth the price of two admissions. He
Speaker 4: was nicknamed Double Duty until that till it well still is.
Speaker 4: He died at one hundred and three in Chicago. Double
Speaker 4: Duty was outstanding he should be in the National Baseball
Speaker 4: Hall of Fame. His brother Alec was outstanding, should be
Speaker 4: in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: Rap Dixon. The list goes on and on of great.
Speaker 4: Players who were in the Negro leagues who have not
Speaker 4: necessarily crossed over into that threshold of baseball immortality in
Speaker 4: the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Speaker 6: What was that process of trying to get the numbers
Speaker 6: recognized and what is the pushback that you received from
Speaker 6: people when you know the record books were changed.
Speaker 4: Well, in twenty twenty, Commissioner Rob Manfred made the historic
Speaker 4: announcement that first and foremost Major League Baseball was that
Speaker 4: long last going to recognize the Negro leagues for what
Speaker 4: we already knew it to be, but it had never
Speaker 4: received that formal recognition from Major League Baseball a major league. See,
Speaker 4: Baseball had recognized these other leagues, the Federal League and
Speaker 4: some of these other lesser known leagues. They had been recognized,
Speaker 4: but the Negro leagues had been blatantly. So he rectified
Speaker 4: that issue. And then he also announced that they would
Speaker 4: pulled together a team, I would say, a dream team
Speaker 4: of Negro league historians and researchers to take on this
Speaker 4: task of unearthing the data so that we could quantify
Speaker 4: these stats so that they could be added to the
Speaker 4: record books of Major League Baseball.
Speaker 3: And it took nearly four years to pull this data together.
Speaker 4: And Chris I knew the minute this information was released
Speaker 4: we were going to get Somebody said that was natural.
Speaker 4: I was already prepared for it. And I remember, shortly
Speaker 4: after it happened, guy writes me on social media and
Speaker 4: he said, well, I just wanted to be apples to apples,
Speaker 4: and I wrote him back. I maintained my decorum, I
Speaker 4: didn't cuss. I wrote him back and I said, sir,
Speaker 4: it can't ever be apples to apples. No major lega
Speaker 4: had to ever sleep on the bus, no major league
Speaker 4: that had to worry about where they might get something
Speaker 4: to eat. No Major leaguer had to get dressed under
Speaker 4: the stands of the stadium that they were about to
Speaker 4: fill up, not be able to shower in that same stadium,
Speaker 4: not be able to wash their uniforms. It cannot be
Speaker 4: apples to apples. If anything, it should help you understand
Speaker 4: just how great they were that they could overcome all
Speaker 4: of that and still put on a show. Because no
Speaker 4: matter what the hardships that they had to endure, when
Speaker 4: they went into that ball park, the fans who came
Speaker 4: to see them said, herd, y'all could play, let me
Speaker 4: see what you got. And I guess you could say
Speaker 4: that the baseball field was their sanctuary for whatever that
Speaker 4: time was. They could put all of that aside and
Speaker 4: do what they loved doing. So, no, it can possibly
Speaker 4: be apples to apples. But what I hope through these
Speaker 4: numbers is that people now will use that as a
Speaker 4: portal for much deeper understanding about who these players were
Speaker 4: and what this league was all about. It does not
Speaker 4: diminish Ty Cobb that Josh Gibson sits at number one.
Speaker 4: It just should tell you how great Josh Gibson was,
Speaker 4: and if you are a baseball fan, you should want
Speaker 4: to know about these players and their greatness. And so
Speaker 4: I do hope that it becomes a portal for deeper understanding.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I was hurt and
Speaker 6: listening to you talk earlier. You talked about, you know,
Speaker 6: the legacy of these players, the legacy of the league.
Speaker 6: Something cool that I saw come out. Because I'm good
Speaker 6: friends with Jackie Bradley, Jr. And he plays for the
Speaker 6: Indianapolis Indianapolis Clowns. You know, the Savannah Bananas are expanding
Speaker 6: the league and they, you know have the Indianapolis Clowns,
Speaker 6: which you know you've created a partnership with. What was
Speaker 6: that process and what was the importance of that specific team,
Speaker 6: you know, being the namesake of the team that's added
Speaker 6: to the league.
Speaker 4: Well, I think for any museum, but particularly a history museum,
Speaker 4: and even more so a cultural institution like the Negro
Speaker 4: League Baseball Museum, the challenge is how do you establish
Speaker 4: relevancy Negro Leagu's history fellas hadn't been made in over
Speaker 4: six decades. Now, the life lessons that stem from this
Speaker 4: story of triumph over adversity are as meaningful, perhaps even
Speaker 4: more meaningful today than ever before. But we need to
Speaker 4: be able to connect the dots with an ever changing
Speaker 4: generation of young people. So when the Bananas, the Savannah
Speaker 4: Bananas were in Kansas City back in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: I believe it was to play our minor league Kansas
Speaker 4: City Monarchs team. Jesse Cole, who owns the Bananas, he
Speaker 4: brought all the guys over to the museum so that
Speaker 4: I can take them on a tour of the museum.
Speaker 4: We have a small section that's dedicated to the Indianapolis
Speaker 4: Clowns in the museum. And when he saw that section
Speaker 4: and the fact that it was the clowns who were
Speaker 4: doing what the bananas were doing now, the clowns were
Speaker 4: doing that in the thirties and forties, that's when the
Speaker 4: epiphany hit him that someday he'd bring the Indianapolis Clowns
Speaker 4: back to life. Well, fast forward to last October. I
Speaker 4: go down to Savannah to make the historic announcement of
Speaker 4: the return of the Indianapolis Clowns as part of the
Speaker 4: Savannah Banana Ball League. And it has been absolutely amazing.
Speaker 4: It has been so overwhelmingly positive, and they are building
Speaker 4: a fan base that is second to no.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: They came to Kansas City, played two games at the
Speaker 4: Ky and fielded up over two dates, and most of
Speaker 4: the folks came to see the bananas, but they left
Speaker 4: fans of the Indianapolis Clowns. And like I said, the
Speaker 4: clowns were doing that in the thirties and forties. Now,
Speaker 4: the difference is the clowns had a group of serious
Speaker 4: baseball players. They weren't doing the entertaining. They had guys
Speaker 4: who were designated to do the entertaining, unlike the teams
Speaker 4: in the Banana Ball League. Pretty much all of them
Speaker 4: do the entertaining, and they're gifted at the entertaining. But
Speaker 4: they're great athletes because I don't want what they do
Speaker 4: from an entertainment standpoint to diminish what these kids. These
Speaker 4: kids can flat out play. I don't know if you
Speaker 4: ever tried to hit a baseball on a unicycle. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: they could play. And of course Henry Aaron's career began
Speaker 4: with the Indian Napolis Clowns. Nineteen fifty two, a skinny,
Speaker 4: cross handed hitting shortstop joins the Indian Napolis Clowns by
Speaker 4: the name of Henry Aaron.
Speaker 1: So cross hand hitting.
Speaker 4: He was a right handed hitter who was hitting with
Speaker 4: his left and of course that is unorthodox because the
Speaker 4: fear is that you break your wrist hitting in that manner.
Speaker 4: Henry Aaron is knocking the cover off the baseball in
Speaker 4: a highly unorthodox fashion. When he gets to the Clowns,
Speaker 4: they put the right hand on top and the rest.
Speaker 3: As they say, is history.
Speaker 4: He was shortly after discovered by the Boston Braves, who
Speaker 4: of course would become the Milwaukee Braves, who will become
Speaker 4: the Atlanta Braids. Henry Aaron will go down and this
Speaker 4: sport is one of the game's all time greatest players.
Speaker 4: But it all began in the Negro Leagues with the
Speaker 4: Indianapolis Clowns. But you also had the great Goose Tatum.
Speaker 4: Goose Tatum. Most people know that name because he's in
Speaker 4: the Basketball Hall of Fame. Goose Tatum starred for the
Speaker 4: Harlem Globetrotters. Goose Tatum Matt invented what we now know
Speaker 4: to be the hook shot. Yeah, Goose Tatum is about
Speaker 4: six four six 'y five, had an eighty four inch
Speaker 4: wings fan incredible, and his arms were so long that
Speaker 4: they came down below his knees. And he was so
Speaker 4: long and gangly. Hints loose as a goose. But he
Speaker 4: was a great two sports. He was a slick fielding
Speaker 4: first baseman for the Indianapolis Clowns. And I had the
Speaker 4: honor of walking the legendary Oscar Robertson through the Negro
Speaker 4: League's baseball music. The Big Ol' and the Big O'd
Speaker 4: had played basketball against Goose, but he never knew that
Speaker 4: Goose had played in the negro leagues. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 4: exceptional and Goose would do the entertaining. They were so
Speaker 4: gifted at playing pepper. Then they go into a routine
Speaker 4: they would call shadow ball, where they were so gifted
Speaker 4: at it that the fans could never tell that they
Speaker 4: didn't have a ball going around the horn. There was
Speaker 4: a panamime routine and the things that you saw the
Speaker 4: Globe trotters do.
Speaker 3: The goops could do that with that baseball.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's been a thrill to bring back the
Speaker 4: history of the Indianapolis clowns. Even though they were controversial.
Speaker 4: They were controversial within the ranks of the negro leagues.
Speaker 4: There were Negro league owners who felt like they were
Speaker 4: perpetuating a stereotype.
Speaker 1: Type uh huh.
Speaker 4: And there were also you had the issues with the
Speaker 4: black press who felt the same way. And then it
Speaker 4: was even more complicated because you had Abe Sapristein and
Speaker 4: Sid Pollock, who both were involved with the Harlem Globe
Speaker 4: trotters to white men promoting this. But the clowns were
Speaker 4: wildly popular. Black folks were filling up ballparks to go
Speaker 4: see them play. And so it's been fascinating to see
Speaker 4: the reaction, the overwhelmingly positive reaction that has been generated
Speaker 4: with the return of the clowns.
Speaker 1: That's good. Special.
Speaker 2: You've touched on this a little bit, but I kind
Speaker 2: of want to dig a little deeper. Obviously, the negro
Speaker 2: leagues playing during in the Jim Crow South, I mean,
Speaker 2: buses were home, sleeping upright, eating out a kitchen, windows,
Speaker 2: restaurants with blake plates. After Black players would eat sundown rules,
Speaker 2: you know, cheer free at three pm, but gone by dark.
Speaker 2: The unwritten rules playing white teams win, but don't humiliate,
Speaker 2: humiliate the white teams. What would happen if they forgot
Speaker 2: those rules and really beat the teams down?
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it it was. It was dangerous for them,
Speaker 4: you know. And sometimes they would though, but you better
Speaker 4: had a bus renting. Yeah, now the bus were they
Speaker 4: had the signal where the bus was already turned on,
Speaker 4: and after that final out you were going out there,
Speaker 4: you know. But those were the circumstances that they had
Speaker 4: to play the game under, particularly along the Bard Storming
Speaker 4: circus where they were playing the local town teams and
Speaker 4: these kinds of teams, and you know, sometimes they wouldn't
Speaker 4: necessarily beat them because that was a payday, you want
Speaker 4: to get invited back, So you would kind of have
Speaker 4: to demean yourself to some degree, you know, just to
Speaker 4: kind of make a living doing this. But the highways
Speaker 4: and byways were clearly very dangerous, you know, not knowing
Speaker 4: where you could stop and get something, not knowing where
Speaker 4: you would have a place to stay. The green book
Speaker 4: became extremely important, you know, in black life. As you're
Speaker 4: moving around this kind of you absolutely but you know,
Speaker 4: it's really interesting because Jim Crow South was exactly what
Speaker 4: it was. But even when they went north, while it
Speaker 4: wasn't the overt situation that you saw in the South,
Speaker 4: it was more covert.
Speaker 3: Buck would say.
Speaker 4: They would oftentimes come to New York and places like that,
Speaker 4: and they would have had a hotel reservation and when
Speaker 4: they pull up the sign owned.
Speaker 3: The marquee says reservations available.
Speaker 4: But when they went in to get a room, all
Speaker 4: of a sudden there were no rooms available to you.
Speaker 4: And so they could move around the South because you
Speaker 4: already knew what you were dealing with. Yeah, you didn't
Speaker 4: have to wonder about it. You knew exactly what you
Speaker 4: were dealing with. When they went north, it was like
Speaker 4: I said, it was more covert. Yeah, it was very subtle,
Speaker 4: but still just as mean spirit yeah yeah, and just
Speaker 4: as demeaning as it was dealing in the South.
Speaker 2: You know what I think makes that time of baseball
Speaker 2: so special as now mental health is a conversation and
Speaker 2: how you need to have your mental health right and
Speaker 2: you need to eat right and sleep right and do
Speaker 2: and they didn't have any were still some of the
Speaker 2: greatest not only baseball players, but athletes in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it makes you wonder had they been privy to
Speaker 4: the kinds of conditions that the athletes have available to
Speaker 4: them now and everything that the athletes have available to them,
Speaker 4: how much better would they have then. But I'll never
Speaker 4: forget Dave Winfield, my dear friend Dave Winfield puts on
Speaker 4: when he was a exactly with the Padres. Every year
Speaker 4: he would put on a big salute to the Negro League,
Speaker 4: probably the biggest in all of baseball. And one year
Speaker 4: with there and former Major League Orlando Hudson, Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: old doll, he's taking me and some other Negro League
Speaker 4: players through the pet Cot facilities and that they're blown
Speaker 4: away by these facilities because you know, you got the
Speaker 4: hot tub here, you got a cold tub, catererst kitchen,
Speaker 4: you got the weight room, all this stuff that they
Speaker 4: had never ever thought about. And so a guy was
Speaker 4: sitting on the trainer's table and the trainer was massaging
Speaker 4: his side, and one of the Negro League players looked up.
Speaker 4: He said, Hey, what's wrong with him? Orlando said, Oh,
Speaker 4: he's got a strain, no bleak. He's on the disabled list.
Speaker 4: The Negro League players said, hell, I didn't even know
Speaker 4: I had it, no bleed. You are not gonna be
Speaker 4: out the lineup for a strain, no bleak, because you
Speaker 4: might never get your job back. Yeah. All the kid
Speaker 4: that was playing ahead of Josh Gibson tripped on the
Speaker 4: guidelines of the night You know, the Monarchs started night
Speaker 4: baseball in the Negro Leagues in nineteen thirty and the
Speaker 4: kid who was catching for the Homestead, well five years
Speaker 4: before the majors. They were playing under the lights of
Speaker 4: the Negro Leagues. He trips over the guideline and breaks
Speaker 4: his leg. They go in the stands and they pull
Speaker 4: a young Josh Gibson out of the stain. He was
Speaker 4: about eighteen years old. That kid who broke his leg,
Speaker 4: he never got his job back. Now of course, there's
Speaker 4: no shame in losing your job, Josh Gibson.
Speaker 3: But a strain old bleak, Oh no, that ain't keeping.
Speaker 6: You out the line up, you better take it just
Speaker 6: speaks to the love of the game that you had
Speaker 6: to have at the time.
Speaker 4: Precious there was a precious few number of these jobs.
Speaker 4: And to be honest, part of the reason that it
Speaker 4: took so long to integrate. Yeah, the social conditions of
Speaker 4: our times played a role. Fear played as big a
Speaker 4: role as the social conditions of our time. It wasn't
Speaker 4: the superstar Major leagua that was concerned about integration. That
Speaker 4: average Major leaguer was concerned about integration because if you
Speaker 4: allow this influx of great black and brown talent in,
Speaker 4: I might.
Speaker 3: Lose my job. And that's human nature. I can understand why.
Speaker 4: You know, you only had a handful of Major league
Speaker 4: teams at that time, so these were great jobs. But
Speaker 4: Ted Williams wasn't concerned about integration. Ted Williams could play. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and what we know and this still holds to be
Speaker 4: true today. Great athletes appreciate other great athletes, and the
Speaker 4: only way you can measure how good you are is
Speaker 4: not competing with.
Speaker 1: And against the best.
Speaker 3: Absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: I know we can talk all day and listen to
Speaker 2: stories all day, but we got quick hitters.
Speaker 1: So first thing to come to mind, let us know
Speaker 1: your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Five Negro League players all time they could play in
Speaker 2: any era?
Speaker 3: Oh man, just five, Give me a five.
Speaker 4: Give me five, satchl Page, Josh Gibson, cool, proper bell
Speaker 4: matind he go, Yeah, Oscar Charleston.
Speaker 3: Man, that that fuck.
Speaker 6: One game all time that you could sit in the
Speaker 6: stands for. What game would that be?
Speaker 4: I would have loved have been there for that nineteen
Speaker 4: forty two World Series. Yeah, I would have loved to
Speaker 4: have been there for.
Speaker 1: That's a crazy story.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna load the basis that the whole story.
Speaker 3: All the theatrics.
Speaker 2: That went into you gotta animate that story created.
Speaker 1: Bench clearing bral.
Speaker 2: Give me three of the most intimidated Negro League players
Speaker 2: you can remember.
Speaker 3: If I had three, that I would want Oscar Charleston.
Speaker 4: Oscar Charleston, bucle'neil said, the strongest man he ever saw
Speaker 4: in his life. Say he could take a baseball, put
Speaker 4: it between both palms, and turn the leather on the baseball.
Speaker 4: Freakously strong, Maddy once snatched the hood off of a
Speaker 4: ku Klux Klansman and lived to tell about it.
Speaker 3: So I give me Oscar Charleston, give me jud Boojun
Speaker 3: Wilson Booju.
Speaker 4: His nickname is Booju because of the sound that is
Speaker 4: lying drives made hitting off field wall Juju. But he
Speaker 4: had a temper too, and was strong as an ox.
Speaker 4: And I think Mule Subtles even though he wasn't a
Speaker 4: guy that would off the factcause nobody was gonna mess
Speaker 4: with him.
Speaker 3: MW Subtles.
Speaker 4: We marvel over Gibson swinging at forty forty one. Mule
Speaker 4: Subtle swung a fifty hours.
Speaker 1: Batd it on the edge of the batters.
Speaker 4: I got the back card at the Louisville slug Of
Speaker 4: Museum fifty ounce. And he was a tremendous hitter, lifetime
Speaker 4: career batting average over three hundred, one of the great
Speaker 4: power hitters in the Negro leagues. When he would come
Speaker 4: to the plate, the fans would say, kick, Mule, kick, kick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were waiting for it.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 3: I love that. I know.
Speaker 6: It's a lot of them, the best Satchel one liner.
Speaker 3: Wow, don't look back. Something might be gaining on.
Speaker 2: You one current Major league player who's playing style would
Speaker 2: have fit in the negro leagues.
Speaker 4: Sure, m he is a bona fide negro Leagues type player.
Speaker 4: Do it all, no question about it.
Speaker 6: And if you watch the show, what's who's one guest
Speaker 6: that you'd like to see sitting here in the same
Speaker 6: chair that you in?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Man, I'll tell you what you guys haven't missed on
Speaker 4: many man, I got to see my band Dusty Baker.
Speaker 4: That was That's a tremendous episode. He's one of my
Speaker 4: favorite people of all time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of guys though that I think
Speaker 4: I would love to see sitting in this seat. I'm
Speaker 4: honored to be sitting in this seat. And I don't
Speaker 4: know who you haven't had, but I would love to
Speaker 4: see have me see a current player.
Speaker 3: Have you had Muki yet?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well yeah, Uokie is great? Have you had show? Hey?
Speaker 1: No? Yeah? Good?
Speaker 4: You know that connection and I don't even know if
Speaker 4: he knows that connection between the negro leagues. In Japan,
Speaker 4: I had the chance to take Ichiro Suzuki. He came
Speaker 4: to the museum and we had a chance to show
Speaker 4: him the member of billion from that two of Japan
Speaker 4: and he just lit up, really he oh man, he
Speaker 4: lit up like a Christmas street, you know. So it
Speaker 4: would be interesting because we're talking about this cultural aspect
Speaker 4: of you know, but Vladimir Guerrero Junior, his father's been
Speaker 4: to the museum.
Speaker 3: The Negro leagues went to those countries and played.
Speaker 4: So there's some guys who I want them to understand
Speaker 4: that cultural bridge.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: That was the thing that when Juan Soto came to
Speaker 4: the museum. Jan and Aaron came over together, Aaron Judge
Speaker 4: when they were both with the Yankees, and that's what
Speaker 4: Juan wanted to talk about was Puerto Rico and you
Speaker 4: know those other countries are Dominican in those other countries.
Speaker 4: He was just blown away by that rich history. And
Speaker 4: you know what I find even more interesting that Spanish
Speaker 4: speaking athlete in the major leagues today still played the
Speaker 4: game the way they played it in Negro leagues. Still
Speaker 4: to this day, they played the game the way the
Speaker 4: Negro leaguers had taught their ancestors years before.
Speaker 3: We have aarn'chie.
Speaker 4: Ware was a great player in the Negro Leagues for
Speaker 4: the Cleveland Buckeyes, and we have his championship ring on display,
Speaker 4: but the championship ring is from when he played in Venezuela,
Speaker 4: who won the WBC this year.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, Bob, thank you.
Speaker 2: I think I speak for Chris and I both like
Speaker 2: we I have never sat down with someone who has
Speaker 2: so much enthusiasm and passion when telling these stories and
Speaker 2: obviously keeping the memory and UH through story and through
Speaker 2: the museum alive.
Speaker 1: Man. So we appreciate everything you do.
Speaker 2: We hope that you continue to raise all the money
Speaker 2: you need to get that big new facility and come
Speaker 2: back and join us when you get or maybe we'll
Speaker 2: come out there and shoot the show once.
Speaker 3: Standing invitation. You guys not vegetarians?
Speaker 1: Are you no good?
Speaker 3: Good good?
Speaker 1: You need some good Casey barbecue. But Bob, thank you.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: That's a wrap.
Speaker 2: You can catch this on all the Smoke YouTube and
Speaker 2: the DraftKings and we'll see you guys next week