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How the Negro Leagues Worked · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and there's this Stuff you Should Know Sports the edition Sports.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I think really we should air on just the side
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of history. Well I even put a note in here
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: if you don't like sports, listen to this one anyway. Yeah,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: because this is about much more than baseball. Yeah, this
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: is about a history and about overcoming adversity. Yeah, like,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it's very interesting story because and we'll get into this,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: but I think people tend to think of the negro leagues,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and that's what this is about, the baseball negro leagues,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: which is what they were called. We don't use that
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: word anymore, but you called this that because that's what
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it was. Um ethan to think of it in a
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: certain way, which is only Yeah, well, baseball was segregated
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and they couldn't play in the white leagues, and that's awful,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: which it is and was, but there's another side to it. Yeah, Yeah,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: that's a good point where these men and these business
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: owners were empowered and uh and the players and yeah,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and it's yeah, that's just a tease. I just wanted
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: to whet their appetite, my appetite. I'm sitting here, like,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: keep going. So I think we should start with a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: little bit of history, right, So just a brief primer
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of American history. We'll start with slavery. It's a good
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: place to start. The transit Atlantic slave trade built this country.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And frankly, I'm just gonna come out and say, I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: think some of the major issues that the United States
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: faces today comes from a lack of accountability for slavery.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Um Really, it's contributing to a lot of the inn
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a quality and a lot of the strife that we
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: still face today and have faced over the decades. So
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you've got slavery, and then you had the end of slavery.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You had the Emancipation Proclamation, which a lot of people say, oh,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: well that was great. Abraham Lincoln spoke some magic words
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and freed the slaves and everything was great. Yeah, it
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: was just perfectly equal after that, right. No, So it
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: took the the Union to win the Civil War UM two,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: begin to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in the South and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: in Texas. Apparently Texas were among the last holdouts, and
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: there was slavery going on in Texas like years after
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the Civil War was over. Yeah, they were just like,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: he's not going to pay attention to that. So um.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: The Civil Wars fought. The the part of the the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Union victory of the Civil War was coming into the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: South and saying like, all you Confederate you guys are
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: out of power. And as a matter of fact, this
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: power vacuum is perfectly willing to be filled by um,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: freed blacks. Uh, so go ahead, run for office, UM,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: become judges, like, become part of the reconstruction power. UM.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And that lasted for a very very short time. The
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: white Southern former power base who were leading the Confederacy
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and even once who weren't necessarily part of like the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: actual Confederate government or even the Confederate Army, which just
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the people like in your town who used to own
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the sawmill or whatever. That guy came back in power
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: within a couple of years. And the white Southerners who
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: have been supplanted, when they came back into power, they
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: remembered the black people who had tried to take their positions,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and so it got ugly. And so rather than having
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: actual legal slavery. It came in other different horrible, pernicious
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: forms which came to be called post reconstruction, the Jim
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Crow South. Yeah, and boy, we need to do one.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I've had it on my list for a while on
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Jim Crow period. Um about this. First of all, where'd
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you get this other good, really good article? It's on
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the Major League Baseball website. Um, in the prehistory section
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: of that one. And this is just to show you
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the tone of things. In eight fifty seven, there was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a Supreme Court Chief Justice, uh Roger Tanney, who, Um,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: it's funny that the way this writer put it, he
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: said he's campaigning hard for a spot in the American
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Scum Hall of Fame. Like that's pretty funny. In his
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: official writing, this is the Chief Justice of the Supreme
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Court said, uh, Negroes were so far inferior to whites
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  Speaker 1: that they had no rights which a white man was
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  Speaker 1: bound to respect. This is the chief Justice of the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court. I think I need to say that like
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: four more times before it sinks in. That was two
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: or three. This is what was going on despite the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation, despite the Fourteenth Amendment. Well that was actually
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: before it that was before that was during the slave
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the time of slavery. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, just to
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: excuse that guy. But after after that, despite the amendments
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to the Constitution, despite all of that, it's it took
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixties to even begin the slightest bit
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: of real progress. That's true, not quite true, because the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: history is littered with people who made advancements. They I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: don't want to knock that, but in a systemic manner,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you're you're right, it wasn't until the sixties. But part
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of the problem too was and this is a valid point. Uh.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Other courts had said, like those is justice. Henry Billings
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Brown said legislation is powerless to eradicate racial uh instincts
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences. Basically, what
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he's saying is like, we can create laws, but you're
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: not going to change public's mind by creating laws. You
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: can't like abolish present prejudice. And so if white people
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: think that black people are inferior to him, who are
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: we the ever meant to say otherwise to try maybe
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and legislate our way out of it. Even so, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I think eighteen ninety six there was a court case
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: called plus e versus Ferguson, and in plus e versus Ferguson,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court upheld and legitimized and actually made UM
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: real the segregation that had already been going on UM
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: ever since reconstruction, or ever since the end of reconstruction,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the beginning of Jim Crow laws. Right, So, the United
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: States was officially segregated in eight but baseball had actually
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: segregated years before that, but not as far back as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: people think, And a lot of people think that baseball
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: had always been segregated up until nineteen forty six. I
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: think Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. I think people
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: think that Jackie Robinson was the first black American to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: play baseball, including me until yesterday when we started. Yeah, oh,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: did you know this already? Yeah? I mean I'm a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: big baseball fan and a bit of a student of
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: its history, so I knew. Okay, So tell him, Chuck Well, uh,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: who the guys were specifically? Well? Yeah, so in eighteen
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: sixty seven, I think, two years after the Civil War,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: there was already baseball. Remember Avner double Day created baseball
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine, and that's but that's a legitimate story, right,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that's not like he really did. He was the inventor
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of baseball and it did happen in Cooperstown, New York
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and all that, right, Yeah, Okay, I don't know, but
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: it was he in Cooperstown. Well that makes sense. So
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: within uh, just a couple of decades there was the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: National Association of Baseball Players. They were the league, right, yeah,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I mean not within a couple of decades. A couple
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of years. Yeah, like literally two years after the end
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of the Civil War. That was an African American team
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: called I actually don't know what their name was, but
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: they were out of Philadelphia and they we want to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: join your league, which was the National Association of Baseball
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Players at the time, and they were rejected as a
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: team of course at the time. And uh, but that
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: didn't mean that there were not players individually. That's a
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: huge caveat. Yeah, it was a little bit later in
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: six finally and not for too long. We had two brothers,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: h Moses Fleetwood Walker and well day Walker and uh
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: mostly they played for the Toledo Blue Stuff. That's right, baby,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: my hometown integrated baseball team in the eighties. You were
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: totally right, Uh, Moses was he was older. He played
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: forty two games for the team. Well, they only came
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: along and played in six games. Moses hit two sixty
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: three that season. Uh. And they were the son of
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a physician, like the first black physician in Toledo, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: um went to college played baseball at ober Only and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: then Michigan. So I know the Wolverines. I didn't know
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Oberlin even had sports. Well, this is the nineteenth century.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I think they phased the mount fased the Mountain favor
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of debate, acoustic guitars and debate. I know a lot
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of people that went to Oberlin weirdly really well, my
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: good friend Robert Shahadi from Boston that you met, that
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: came to our show, Uh, Lucy waynewright to Oberlin. David
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Reese really went to Oberlin. And I feel like a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: couple of other people. Yeah, it's got a nice reputation. Yeah,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: great name too. It sounds ivy league, Yeah, Oberlin the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: sound of quality. Oberlin sounds ivy league ish. That's on
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: their t shirts. Although we do need to give a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: shout out. There was one guy in eighteen seventy nine,
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  Speaker 1: William Edward White, who substituted and played one game. Who
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: was officially and this is a little murky history wise,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: because we don't know much about him him or how
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: it happened. But supposedly he played one game as a
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  Speaker 1: professional baseball player as a black man. Is that right?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And this is when? Okay, So the Walker brothers are
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: playing for Toledo in eighteen eighty six, right, And actually
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: this article on how stuff works gets it wrong. Says that, um,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: they just played for the team for one year before
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the team went under. Um, that's not the case. As
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a matter of fact, the Moses Walker they may have
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: only played together on the team for that one year.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Moses Walker had played for years before them. And actually
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Moses Walker and um, there were several other players at
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the time in eight and eighties seven, there at least
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: four black players in the Miners. But the Walker brothers
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: were playing for Toledo, which was a major league team. Right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: But the presence of Moses Walker actually brought to the
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  Speaker 1: four this kind of simmering resentment, Um, and kind of
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the big elephant in the room. There's a black guy
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: in your team. What are you guys doing? And so
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Toledo actually went to go play the White Sox in Chicago,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and the White Sox had this like they're great player
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of of that season I think in eight four cap
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Anson great nicknames back then. So cap Anson said he
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: said some horrible things and ultimately was like, I'm not
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: playing if Batman's on the field, and um, Moses Walker
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: was actually injured and still was like, oh, well, I'm
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: definitely going on the field today anyway, So he dressed
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: out and um, I'm not sure if he actually played
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in the game, but he was like part of the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: team and cap Anson was not indulged. Toledo was like,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: we're not taking our guy out. He's one of our players.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So cap Anson can go suck an egg. And cap
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Anson went and sucked an egg. He was really mad.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: But um, the the issue that day, that dispute at
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Comiskey Field, UM brought to the four that the the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: concept of integrade and ultimately segregation among Major League Baseball teams,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: and it actually increased the pressure among owners and managers
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: to to get rid of the black players, not just
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: in the majors, but in the minors. There was another
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: player too, I read another story about and we'll we'll
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: get to Roy Campanella. He was a he was better
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: than Jackie Robinson at the time, a catcher who was
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: just amazing Hall of Famer, and he had ah there
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: was a white picture. It was like, you know, he
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: was a great catcher, but I didn't want to play
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: with him, so I would when I pitched to him,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I would just ignore his signs and through whatever I want, like,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to his own detriment and to the team's detriment. He uh,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: he just wouldn't take the signs. Career sabotage essentially. I
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: don't think he lasted long either. And Campanella's in the
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, So write the other guy who knows.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I want to give these names all out though. The
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: four black men in the Miners in eighteen sixty six,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: besides Moses Walker, we had Bud Fowler, Frank Grant, and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: George Stovey. And as far as I'm concerned, all these
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: dudes are American heroes. So um, all of a sudden,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: they succumbed to pressure in eighteen ninety after hate mail
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and death threats to the coaches and managers and umpires
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, basically everybody, the players themselves, and
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: they said, you know what, we're going to shut it
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: down as officially in eighteen ninety, we can no longer
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: have any black men in our league. So here's the thing.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: They never officially did that. They had the minor league
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: band black players way into the major well, and it
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was never on the rule books either. It was it
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: was an unofficial, non gentleman's agreement because which actually when
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it was broken, it wasn't like a rule was broken.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: It was just an unwritten rule, right exactly, which paved
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the way for answer Ricky to break that unbroken rule
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: without actually breaking a rule. Yes, yeah, good point, Chuck,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you want to take a break. Uh yeah, let's do
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it all right, man. So eighteen ninety, it's now there
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: are there are no black players resegregated in Major league
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: baseball or minor league baseball in America, right, that's right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: That actually paved the way for one of the great
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: unsung chapters in baseball history, which was the creation of
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the Negro leagues. Yeah, in a in a true show
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of American spirit and determination, and I just love the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the game. Uh. These uh, these men got together, they
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: formed their own teams, and they did what's called barnstorming,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: which is pretty awesome. They would load up in cars
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: on a bus and they would go from town to
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: town and take their show on the road and they
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: would get a game up wherever they could and wherever
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: people would pay a couple of pennies to come watch
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a baseball game. Um, they were playing white players and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: these barn storming games or black players or Latino players.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, because that's a definite overlook segment of the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: early baseball history, or Latino players. And one of the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: cool things about the Negro leagues is they were integrated.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: They had they had Latino teams like the Cuban Kings
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: out of New York, I believe, and one white guy.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: All right, so barn storming is going on. Like I said,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: they would roll into town, they would play whatever teams
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: they could play, and uh, it started to gain some momentum,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Like people started to follow these players. They actually got fans.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And there was a former player named Andrew Rube Foster
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: who owned to those teams, and he said, you know what,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I think we need our own league. They won't let
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: us in their league. Let's start around because besides the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: fact that people want it, there's money to be made here. Yeah.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, So this barn storming thing,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little more about that, right, Um,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons barnes storming came about was to
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: make ends meet, but it was also because these teams
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: had to figure out a way to put on games
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: as cheaply as possible. All of the stadiums at the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: time were owned by whites, and the whites apparently were
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: not very friendly to the idea of black black teams
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: playing in their their fields. So if it were just
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: like black teams playing one another, the white owners of
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the fields are just charged and exorbitant amounts. These guys
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: were going basically anywhere they could find a place that
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: would stand still long enough for them to play a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: baseball game on. That's what they would play. And they
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: play like three games a day every day. And they
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: all traveled together and like um, hung out with one
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: another and spent a lot of time together. So like that,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the Negro leagues came out of this um kind of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: camaraderie of barn storming together, which is pretty awesome. So yeah,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: this guy, Rube Foster, he owned the UM Chicago American Giants,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And confusingly, there was also another Negro team called the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Chicago Giants into St. Louis Giants. Yeah, yeah, but like
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: versus Chicago. But if it was Chicago versus Chicago, well
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: which one the Giants? Well, which one the American Giants? Okay,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: now I understand not just the Giants, but Rube Foster
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: was like this, this booster of boundless enthusiasm. This guy
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: literally put together the first real Negro league, and when
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: he was basically removed from it, the whole the whole
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: thing fell apart. That's how how much of a driver
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: this guy was. Yeah, he's in the Hall of Fame too.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah he was a catcher, I think. Uh. Oh, I
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: don't even think he was in as a player, but
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: he was. Yeah, I think just for his achievement. Um,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: although it may have been both, I don't know. But
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in nineteen he said, all right, here's what we'll do.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Let me get these seven team owners of the Midwestern
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: League that are doing these you know, barnstorming traveling shows. Basically,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: let's get together in Kansas City, seven all black teams. Uh.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: In addition to those two Chicago Giants, we have the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Cuban Stars, the Dayton Marco's, the Indianapolis abc S, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the very famous Kansas City Monarchs and St. Louis Giants
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: all and this is the really like great thing about
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the story. All of these teams except for the Monarchs
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: were black owned teams. Right. So, so not only do
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you have black players careers developing, yeah, you have like
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: black enterprise developing in a in a time when there
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: were very few avenues of opportunity for black people to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: advance in business. Yeah, and in a sense where they
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: own the business. This is a really good way to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. And not only that, like the Major
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: League Baseball site points out, like this was like it
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: should be embraced in some ways because this at a
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: time was the only one of the only ways that
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: minorities could fully like excel to their fullest potential. And yeah,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and that was a point of that article that I
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: thought was pretty cool, is that one of the one
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of the things they lamented about the segregation of baseball
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: during this time, um, is that we'll never know how
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Babe Ruth would have stood up against Sachel Page pitching
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to them because they never got to play each other.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So the truly great players are truly great during this
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: time within their own skin color. You know, you can't
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: say they were the greatest in baseball because they were
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: too legitimate, um parallel leagues going on at the time.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And yeah, they played each other sometimes, but if you
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: wanted to sit down and put stats against stats, you'd
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: be very hard pressed to do that. Uh sure, Thy Cobb,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Babe Ruth Christie Mathison, Like, we know they were good,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Like we're not knocking their talent, but who knows what
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: it would have been like in a truly integrated league. Yeah,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And actually it's funny to bring up thy Cobb because
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, Ty Cobb was a huge racist.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I wonder what he thought about the Negro leagues. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I looked it up and I found an article from
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a guy who argues that Ty Cobb was not the um,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the horrible racist that he's made out to be these days,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: written by Jimmy Cobb. There he found, well, he actually
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: did cite his son, and I think his son's name
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: might be jim Really. Yeah. Um, But the guy found
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: an article from maybe the fifties or something, nineteen fifty
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: two where Ty Cobb is quoted at length coming out
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in favor of UM integration in baseball, Yeah, saying, like
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of course these guys should play as long as you
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: know they conduct themselves like, uh, professor and old baseball players, like,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: why would they not be able to play? I'm totally
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: in favor of it. Interesting, like, did Ty Cobbs say this?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I think that bears more research. Yeah, you know, because
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: he was supposedly very racist. Yeah, that's not what this
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: guy says. All right, well I'm gonna look at that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: That's not what his son says. I'm not doubting you,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: of course, I just wanted to know I'm with you.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I understand. Uh. So we talked about the integration of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the Negro leagues, which was awesome. Pretty soon other leagues
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: for him, not just teams. There was one right here
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: in the South, the Negro Southern League, with teams from
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: right here in Atlanta. Dude, do you know the Atlanta
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: team played directly across the street constantly on Park. Yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: where there's now a Staples and a home depot in
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a pet Smart and a Whole Foods. How Like funny
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: is that? Yeah? Um, if you walk into Whole Foods
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and listen, you can hear the ghost of a backing
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a ball. Yeah. This I don't think this was the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: first team in Atlanta that played in the Negro Southern
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: League because they folded that same year. But the Atlantic
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Black Crackers. We also had the Atlantic Crackers, which was
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the white team. Um, we had the Atlantic Black Crackers.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: And it sounds funny that we say Ponce de Leon,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: uh not Ponton, but that's how we say it here.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It's the street that fronts our office building. Puts Daileon
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: himself would have punch you in the stomach if he
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: heard you say his name like that. But that's the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: street in Atlanta that fronts our office And if you
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: go and look on the internet, you can see these
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: awesome pictures of this cool little baseball stadium. Right they're
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: hundreds of feet from where we sit. Really neat um.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: But now you have Whole Foods. You just have to listen.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Seven dollars for artisan mayonnaise if you're lucky, seven dollars.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Oh that's just for the the just for one s. Yeah,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: just once, is you her? Whole Foods got caught like
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: with uncalibrated scales for their hot bar stuff, like it's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: not already expensive and yeah that's not I expect a
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: lot more from them. Yeah, you know, never get anything
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: with bones at one of those oh never or liquid
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: what a waste? You throw half of that chicken leg away? Yeah,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you paid for it, or just you know, grind that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: chicken bone up and eat it and get your money,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: like peel off with your teeth, spit the meat into
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: your into your little basket, and throw the bone back
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: into the hot bar. Yeah. Oh I didn't think about that.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: That's great idea. And then you can say I'm no chump. Yeah,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I just go around screaming and not paying for that bone. Um,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: all right, So where are we where? The Negro Southern
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: League folded, the Eastern Colored League open in nine, and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: then finally in nine the American Negue Grow League formed,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and that was that was when things like they called
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: eventually the American Negro League in the American I'm sorry,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the National Negro League. The mad years of the Negro League,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like that was where the crime della crime and um,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the everything's going pretty smoothly except two things happen, right, Um,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: there's even like a Negro League World Series is the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: best of nine the Kansas City Yeah, the Kansas City
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Monarchs narrowly beat uh, the hill Dale team they're from Darby, Pennsylvania,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: which I guess is near Philadelphia. UM in the first
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: one in ninety four, So there's like there's a there's
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: these leagues have established themselves by they have their own
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: world series going right, UM. But just within a few
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: years there are a couple of hits to the league
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that ultimately led to the the Negro Majors disbanding. UM.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: One is that Rube Foster suffered gas poisoning in a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: hotel room. In a hotel room in Indianapolis, he was
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: found unconscious. And there's some theory that UM, like everyone
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: believed in oasts and spirits and mediums in the nineteenth
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: century because they were all being poisoned by the natural
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: gas that was like leaking into their kitchens and homes
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: all the time. Right, Well, this guy had like an
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: acute poisoning and was found unconscious. And after that, when
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: he regained consciousness and his nurse back to health, he
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: lost his mind and he just kept getting worse and worse,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and by nine I think it's happened in nineteen twenty
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: four five he was institutionalized in By nineteen thirty he
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: died of a heart attack at age fifty one. UM
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and again his guidance was so integral uh in this
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: first incarnation of the Negro leagues that you know, when
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: he was institutionalized, obviously they weren't like, what was the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: league do next? He was in an institution, Um, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the league started to falter and fall apart. And eventually
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: that coupled with the depression, and the onset of the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: depression really kind of led to the unraveling of the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: first Negro League. Yeah, and this the Major leag baseball site. Um,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you know, these were they profited on certain days of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the week. Sundays were big days because they were played
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: double headers. But the fact is, um, Black Americans didn't
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: have a lot of expendable money to throw it going
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to baseball games, even though they're you know, pretty cheap.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: That was commiserate with what people made at the time,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: unless you were one of the Walker brothers whose dad
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: was a physician. Yeah, they probably a little money. Um,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: they were playing, so I'm sure their parents got in
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: for free. So it's all just a moot point. I
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: wonder if they did get free family tickets back then,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I would hope, So, I that's gotta be as old
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: as tickets, right, Probably we gotta do an episode on tickets, guest.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Let's uh. So they were making a little money on Sundays,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: they weren't hugely profitable overall, even though they were known
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: as somewhat successful. Like, no, a lot of these guys
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: were still barn storming on their off days. Yeah. And
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: these are the players, you know, trying to make ends meet,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: like the owners themselves were struggling here and there. Um.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: White people came to see games sometimes, especially when they
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: were exhibition games against white teams, because they love to
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: go out there and see the see something they had
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: never seen before, which many times was the black team
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: mopping the floor with the white team. Um, although it
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: seemed pretty evenly matched, like from what I gathered, it
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't like lopside in one way or the other. Like
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: they were good competitive games. Yeah. There are plenty of um,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: white players who are better than the black players, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: there are plenty of black players who are better than
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: white players. Yeah. Yeah, I would say evenly match is
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a good way to put so if you had an
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: integrade league, you would get the best of both, which
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: is eventually what we got. Plus also in some of
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: these cities, Chuck, these there they were not just baseball
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: was segregated, but just within the city you had a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: white team and you had a black team. And that's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that's evidence to the names of some of the black teams,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: like the Black Crackers, the Black Yankees. Um, there were
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the Yankees and then there were the Crackers. Right, So
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: if you were a white player or a white person,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you're probably a fan of the white team and you
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: weren't going and watching the black teams play, right. Um,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: so they list out four things here on the site.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: They said the two leagues, uh, the American and National
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Negro Leagues were northern and basically city dwelling teams. A
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: couple that with, um, there weren't a lot of black
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: people living in northern cities at the time. Uh. The
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: South was, you know, was way more Uh well, I
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: want to say integrated, but it wasn't integrated. Uh, way
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: more black people living in the South at the time. Yeah,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: which is I wonder why the Southern Negro League didn't
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: take off like a rocket then. Yeah. I mean probably
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: for the other reasons, like you couldn't afford to go
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: to the games and all that stuffy Uh black people
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that were in the North, Uh, didn't have a whole
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: lot of money, and so basically all that adds up
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to not a lot of audience buying tickets. And the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: only way to keep a league afloat is to sell
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: tickets and to sell concessions, same as it is today.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: So all those things coupled with Rube Foster the depression.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: There the greatest champion and probably sharpest mind. Uh, sadly
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: succumbing to mental illness and then the depression. And that
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: was the end of the beginning of the Negro leagues, right, yeah,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that was the end of the first one. Yes, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: there were more to come, and we'll talk about it
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: right after this. I ski all right, So uh, it
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: didn't take long. Uh, the old saying you can't keep
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: a good man down. People wanted to play baseball, they
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: were good at it. Um. They thought there was more
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: money to be made in leagues. And so what happens
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: is these numbers guys get involved, and a numbers man
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: is the numbers game was basically like an illegal, unsanctioned
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: street lottery. Right, So numbers guys have a lot of money,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and some of them said, you know what, let's put
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: money into starting baseball teams. In leagues, and one guy
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: in particular in Pittsburgh, Gus Greenley, great name. He was
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a bar owner in Pittsburgh. He bought the Pittsburgh Crawford's
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty one. He said, well, I've got a team,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: but I don't have a league. So two years later
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: he formed the second Negro National League, and other numbers
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: guys bought in, and all of a sudden they had
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: another league going. UM and this basically kicked off what's
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: known as the Golden Age of the Negro leagues. UM
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: starting about nineteen thirty one thirty three, when when these
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: other teams came about, and um, Greenley's team himself, was
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: it his? No, I'm sorry, it would have been right
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: across the river, the Homestead Grays. Yeah, they eventually migrated
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: back to Pittsburgh over to Pittsburgh, so they were the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: same team that went from one town to another. They
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: weren't rivals. Now, I think there was still the other
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh team, but from what I understand, the Homestead Grades
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: eventually became part of Pittsburgh, or maybe there was another
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: team on that shirt, but I do know they eventually
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: get went to Pittsburgh because you know, Homestead. We've been there.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: We did a show there. Ye yeah, okay um, and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I was like, are we going to the right place?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And the car was taking me. So Homestead used to
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: have not just a team, they used to have the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: best Negro League team possibly ever. Oh yeah, wait easy.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: For nine consecutive years they won the Pennant all right, yeah,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: nine years in a row. Josh Gibson, cool, Papa Bell
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and Buck Leonard some of their stars, yeah, just some
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: of them. In they had no less than five future
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Hall of famers on on the team. Five. That's amazing.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Point to a team that has five future Hall of
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Famers on it now or ever did well? So some
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: of the Yankees teams did over the years. But like,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think anything right now now, Like even the
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: best team right now doesn't have five future Hall of Famers.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: It's certainly not the Braves. We don't have one. I
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: don't know. I could see Freddie Freeman hit in the
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame one day. M hm, oh really, I
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: haven't been watching the last couple of seasons. I mean,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: he's our best player. But because the best player on
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the worst team in baseball not very good at the bat, alright,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: So we did mention that, um, there were exhibition games
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: going on, and things really picked up with the exhibition
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: games now because they were a little well funded. And
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: this is when UM, white players would come and see
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the teams playing and mean it was basically more popular
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: than ever. Uh in both communities. Yes, and UM we
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: said that they had the UM the Negro League World
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Series going on, right, UM, there was actually another game
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: that came out of this. I think it was UM,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: it might have been Gus Greenley, I think it was
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: who came up with this is the East versus West
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: All Stars game, and that became bigger than the World
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Series and whatever was in the Negro Leagues. It was huge. Yeah,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: So UM that became kind of like the de facto
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: big game of the year rather than the World Series
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: for UM, and they played it every year I think
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: in Comiskey Field. Yeah, in Chicago, because you know East
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and East West in Chicago. That's what it says on
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the T shirts. At least, so players are starting to
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: make some like the top players are starting to make
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: some pretty good money at the time. You can't go
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: any further without talking about uh Satchel Page Leroy satchel page. Dude.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: He was, um a picture very interesting dude, maybe the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: greatest picture of all time in the sport of baseball.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Maybe he was eccentric, He was an entertainer. He was
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: like the US same Bolt of his day. People loved him, Okay,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: except he didn't like to run. That would make a
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: little different. Even said he didn't like to run. What
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: was his quote? He said that, um, training for me
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: is rising gently from the bench, back onto the bench.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: So he had have you ever seen video or I
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: guess you know film of him pitching, Yeah, with those
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: old timey baggy baseball pants, and yeah that was the style.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: But his um, he had a weird wind up. He
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: had this sort of double windmill that he would do
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: with his pitching arm. And then um, when he was younger,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: he had a great fastball, and he had he was
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: noted for his control like Greg Maddox, like in his
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: pinpoint control like supposed he could just put a baseball
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: within a half inch of where he wanted it to be,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: which is a big big deal for a picture. Um,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: As he lost his fastball over the years, he learned
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: basically every pitch under the sun. Like he pitched until
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: he was fifty nine years old. He first he first
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: signed in the Major's White majors at forty two. Forty two,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: forty two year old rookie. He's the he's the oldest
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: rookie ever in the Major League Baseball and I think
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the oldest picture ever. Well yeah, um, he was even
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: older than Gaylord Perry. How old was he? He was
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: in his forties, like Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry. Nolan Ryan
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: made it to fifty, not fifty, but he came close.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Like pictures notably have been a little older, which is
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: crazy because like their arms and yeah, but they're not
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: you know, they're not like running around and batting like
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: other players. Yeah, but you're right, like Freddie Freeman, like
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the stress on the stress on the arm is amazing.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So one thing that that was problematic or is problematic
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: when you're going back in looking at the negro leagues
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: is that, um, a lot of teams were allowed to,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: depending on the league, were allowed to set their own schedules. Um,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: stats weren't kept quite as um well as they were
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: in the white leagues. Yeah, we don't know Satil pagees
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: real lifetime stats. No, but in full there are some
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: estimates and they are high. So the one that I
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: saw is that Sachiel page Head. I think it was
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: in this um this article on MLB dot com, which
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: eventually will say the author's name. Right. Um, they said
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: that he had three hundred career shutouts. Three career shutouts,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and this guy says in italics, not wins, shutouts. Right, Yeah,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: if you don't know baseball, shutout means you have pitched
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a game where no one scored a run. And back
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: then they were probably complete game shutouts, meaning he never
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: came out and was relieved by another picture. Right, he
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: would have pitched like all nine innings back in the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: in the day. They should do that way more than
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: they do now. Okay, so he had three hundred career shutouts.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Fift hundred wins is the estimate that that's on MLB
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah, to put that into perspective for non
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: baseball fans again, if you have three hundred wins wins,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: not shutouts, win, then you're a Hall of Famer. And
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: in fact, they don't think there will ever be another
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: three hundred game winner again because of they are more
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: pictures in the rotation now they usually have five guys
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: instead of four. They don't pitches deep into games. They
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: rest them a lot more. So it's just we may
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: not ever see that happen again, just because of the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: way it's built. It To also put in perspective, cy
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Young is um regarded as one of the best pictures
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: ever in in Major League Baseball, named the Top Award
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: after him exactly. He had seventies six shutouts, which is amazing.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: He had the most wins ever still in Major League
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Baseball at five eleven, so Satchel page Head conceivably three
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: times more. Yeah, then the the highest win count ever
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: in Major league and that's counting his entire career assume,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: which again was very very long. It was a very
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: long career. But that just makes it all the more amazing,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: especially as he gets older. Yeah, Like, let's let's say
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: that people don't say, don't count the negro leagues as
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: being in the top league at the time. I cut
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: it in half, and he's still way ahead of everybody
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: else if you subtract fifty of everything he did and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that he sat in a rocking chair and
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the dugout and had like a huge personality. Yeah, so
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: he learned all sorts of pitches. By the end of
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: his career, he was pitching knuckleballs and he was famous
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: for the hesitation pitch, which he invented, which was when
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: he got to the White major leagues, they were like,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: that's illegal. He can't do that. It's called the bulk
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and uh. He was like, all right, well know, He's like, no,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it's called the hesitation pitch. It was very sneaky. Um.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like you you act like you're pitching,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: then you stop. And because his theory, he was like,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I got guys up there that are starting
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: to swing because I'm so fast, Like when they see
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: me winding up, they're starting to swing. So if I
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: just put a little slight pause there, then they're swinging
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and then the ball comes. So it's very very tricky
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: little pitch. Um. And he was making between thirty and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: forty grand a year and the Negro and this is
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: also with appearances and stuff like that, but in the
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Negro leagues, which is about half a million dollars today. Yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: amazing amount of money at the time, you know, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: those appearances, um uh uh. If you were a team
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: owner that had Satual Page on your team, uh, you
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: might let him go make some scratch and probably take
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a cut yourself by lending him to another team whose
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: attendance was struggling. And all you had to do was
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: advertised for a week that Satual Page is gonna be
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: pitching one day, and you would sell out, so he
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: would help other Negro League teams that were that that
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: we're struggling. Yeah, to be a draw. And here's one
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: little cool thing about our in Atlanta Braves and hight Satchel.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Page was lacking one more season to get his major
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: league baseball pension and was out of the league and retired,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and the Atlanta Braves signed him as a player coach
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: like Terry Pendleton. Yeah, he was never a player coach,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: was he? No, But here's a player and then a coach.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Pete Rose was a player coach. Was he really? Like?
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: He managed the Reds and played for them. I didn't
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: know and bet on them. Yeah, but they signed him
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: to a one year deal so he could get his
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: major league baseball penchion. That is awesome, which is really cool? Year?
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Was that? That's really cool? Yeah, go brave. So if
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you see a picture when I saw a picture of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: him in the Braves uniform. I was like, wait a minute,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: he never played for the Braves, and he really didn't.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: It was it was sort of, you know, just a
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: little sneaky way to get him in there, which is great. Um,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: all right, so Satchel Page is killing it, other players
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: are killing it. It would not be long before somebody
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in the White League's somebody said the talent is too good.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Somebody has to be the first to make this move
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and break the color barrier. Yeah, right, you know that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: was the thing Like this. The Negro leagues were ultimately,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: as we'll find out, victims of their own success. The
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: players that they supported and brought into the game, we're
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: of obvious major league caliber in any major league. They
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: were the best in the world. They were just playing
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: on segregated teams. And so finally a group of people,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: but especially it usually comes in the form of one
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: guy named branch Rickey. Yeah. Did Tom Hanks play him? No?
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Harrison Ford? No? Maybe? Well I didn't see them recent
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: jacket was Harrison Ford? Maybe I've seen him portrayed in
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: other movies. I can't tell if it was him or not,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: because the actor didn't have a diamond studded earring in
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: but Harrison Ford could have taken it out for the role. Uh.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: This guy named branch Rickey, he was he an executive
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: or a manager for the Dodgers. He was he was
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: with he was an executive. And he said, and this
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: was when they were in Brooklyn, right, He said, this
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: is ridiculous there that we need to break this color barrier.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of great players out there that I want
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to sign. I'm going to break this unspoken rule. And
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: he looked around to find a player who was not
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: only good, but who he felt could withstand this horrendous
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: reception that whoever the first black player would be would
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: definitely receive. And who did receive and he found it
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: in the in the person of Jackie Robinson. Yeah, that's
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: a that's a huge point, um, because like I said,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: jet Roy Empanella was probably better player at the time
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: than Jackie Robinson. But if you see the Jackie Robinson story, Uh,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't see the recent one, like I said, but
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I just know a lot about his story. He was
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the right guy. He had the temperament, he had the leadership. Um,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Roy Campanella, take your head off, Well, yeah he did.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: He was a tough guy, but Jackie Robinson was was
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: the man in every way. And we should also shout
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: out to the road being paved by people like Joe
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Lewis and Jesse Owens before Jackie Robinson, as far as
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: just white America accepting mainstream black athletes into their lives. Yeah.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if it was on this or
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: on there's a site called negro League Baseball dot com
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: UM that has a really good article called Negro League
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Baseball one oh one or something like that. This is
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the basics. There's a definite story to the whole thing, right, UM.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: But they point out that UM, probably more than anything
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that helped break the color barrier was UM blacks serving
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: in World War Two, serving alongside UM white soldiers and
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and stories coming back from the fronts of like, hey,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: these guys are killing Germans just as fast as any
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: any white guy. UM. And at the time America was like, well,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: we love that about people. So when they returned, UM,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the black soldiers came home to a different America that
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: they helped change by fighting in World War two. And
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I mean that the timing of this apparently is not
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: coincidental that Jackie Robinson was signing the six a year
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: after World War Two. One. Uh So branch Ricky was. Um,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: he was a very puritanical guy. He would often lecture
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: players on sex and drinking and stuff, and he was
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: he wasn't just some benevolent, benevolent champion of the black man. Yeah,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: that's that's a good point, man, because a lot of
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: times stories like this end up being about the guy
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: who took the change and paved the way for the
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: black players. But he did, he did. But emphasis it's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: just too easy sometimes for the emphasis to go onto
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: that where it's like, well, the black player like he came.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: He was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Exactly.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Let's let's put it this way. If branch Rickey hadn't
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: wanted to sell tickets by fielding a good team, he
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: would have never signed Jackie Robinson. He was a businessman.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: The Dodgers sucked at the time, and um, but he
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: was an idealist. I mean he was very much like, no,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: like this is wrong and they should be allowed to play,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: so okay. So he was a complex human being like
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: all other human beings. He can't just be shoehorned into
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: an easy caricature. That's great. So branch Ricky complicated human being.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: He selected Jackie Robinson and it was a great selection. Yeah,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson played one year in the miners, which was ridiculous. Um,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: they should have just like he spent his entire life
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: playing in the miners. Uh, they should have just promoted
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: him right away. But I think they just wanted to
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: ease that transition. He won the batting title in the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: minors his only year there, and then uh, one Rookie
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of the Year in his very first year with the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn Dodgers, and uh that was April fifteenth, ninety seven
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: was when uh he made his debut, which was very
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: very historic day, an amazing day that Major League Baseball
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: is really like honored Jackie Robinson to the fullest. Now, yeah,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: they should great. Jackie Robinson definitely threw up in the floodgates.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Within four months of Jackie Robinson being signed or no,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: I guess actually being called up to the majors, two
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: other guys um were signed, both in July, and I
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: think that year there were a number of other um
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: black players suddenly playing for white Major League Baseball, which
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: is suddenly not now just Major League Baseball not white
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: major League baseball. That's uh. Larry Dobie Clea and Indians
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Willard Brown, the St. Louis Brown's Henry Hank Thompson, the St.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Louis Brown's Dan Bankhead Leroy Satchel Page made it finally, uh,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and of course Roy Campanella, among others. These were the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: first African Americans in Major League Baseball and UM by
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, just a few years later, there were
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty black players, and by all but
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: four major league teams had black players. There were a
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: few holdouts. Yeah. The Boston Red Sox notably were the last.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: They waited until nineteen fifty nine, thirteen years after Jackie
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Robinson's debut season. Yeah, in the in the minors. So
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: with the signing of Jackie Robinson and all the players
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to follow, like you hinted at earlier, UM, and like
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: this article UH plainly says it was, it was a
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: very bitter sweet end um. And one way it was great,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the color barrier was smashed, the league was being integrated,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and they were getting their due. Um, although it was
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: a struggle. But in another way, it was also sad
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: that this league that had so much gumption and such
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: a great like we'll do it ourselves then attitude, uh,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and empower these men to play, and these people to
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: own these teams and start their own leagues. So it
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: was definitely like a weird time in history. It is,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: like I think nowadays there's much more of a reverence
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and a bit of mourning for the disappearance of that league. Um.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: But you know, in another way, like I said, it
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: was smashing the color barrier was way more sure, way
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: more better. We just went into hulk speak. So yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: it would have been a much more satisfying end of
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: the whole thing if the Negro leagues had poached the
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: best players in the um white Major League Baseball. Oh. Actually,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you know what the best possible thing could have been
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: was if the white major leagues absorbed those teams and
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: owners and ownership. It's part of one big league. But
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: they were like, no, we're just gonna take your players
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: give them to us. So, um, that is Negro League Baseball,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: the history of it. YEP officially disbanded in and this
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: article says into the nineteen fifties, there were still a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: few teams playing here and there, and in the early
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties even that was like one final team or
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I guess one final pair of teams. I guess they
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: had to play somebody still playing, right, or they could
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: scrimmage themselves. Yeah, it says the Negro American League was
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the last to throw in the town early sixties. Yeah.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: So yeah, more than one team. And this article makes
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: a point today, or at least in two thousand twelve, UM,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: major League baseball was non white, which I was like,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: what I would have guessed it was the opposite of
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: that that I would not have gues of Major League
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: baseball players are white. Yeah, and you know, there's a
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: big push I think, like the one of the least
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: represented demographics now in pro baseball or African Americans. Yeah,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: partially because of the rise of Latino players, um, and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: then partially because they there's not a big a push
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to play baseball these days as kids in America, and
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: so they're there. There's a lot of concerted efforts to
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: try and get baseball going again in black communities, UM,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: which is awesome. You know. Yeah, I know I was pushed.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: My dad was like, get out there and get hit
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: in the head with the ball. Let's see. I wouldn't allowed,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I would I had to play church softball, so lame.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Uh So, then the color bears broken, and now the
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: last vestige of any sort of color issue is the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Native American slurs that are rampant in in all sports
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: as far as teams go. Yeah, if you want to
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: know more about the negro Leagues, you can type those
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: words in the search bar at how Stuff works dot com.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: You can also go check out this amazing article uh
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: called negro Leagues a Kaleidoscopic Review. It's on MLB dot
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: com by Stephen Goldman. Yeah, he's a great author. And
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: check out negro League Baseball dot com. They have like
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: all sorts of great profiles on the players and all
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: that stuff. We never said the nicknames? Oh yeah, should
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: we rattle off a few of those? Alright, boy, these
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: are some good nicknames. How about Jelly Gardner or Spooney Palm,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Turkey Sterns. Turkey Sterns he's the Hall of Famer, Copperney
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Thompson or steel Arm Davis. I think you mentioned um
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: cool Papa Bell. Yeah, cool Papa Bell. That is the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: greatest name ever. Uh, Possum Poles, Ace Adams, King Tuck,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Smokey Joe, Williams bullet Joe Rogan Not yeah, Joe Rogan.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Did you know that Rats Henderson boy Turkey Sterns. That
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: might be the best. That might be my new hotel
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: student them cool, Papa Joe. Yeah, but no one would
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: buy that at a hotel registry. Oh yeah, if you
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: go up and Sterns, they definitely go for Those are
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: great nicknames. All right? Oh yeah, okay, So now that
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: we said Turkey Sterns, it's time for listener mail. This
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: one I'm gonna call short and sweet. Um. What do
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: you call it when you remember something with a pneumatic device? Uh? No,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: mnemonic when you remember it while you're pumping air up?
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: And was it nomadic? You remember it while you're wandering around? Pneumonic?
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Of course? I feel like a dummy. How did you?
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck? A friend recommended your show to me recently,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and I love it. You satisfy all my nerdy entertainment requirements.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: While in at orc Um you seem to have a
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: bit of trouble recalling the order of taxonomic taxonomic categories. Well,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have trouble in this nextes. During Wooly Mammoth
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Uh not wooly mammoths, as our typo originally said, it
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: was my fault. That's all right, you just forgot to
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: know Wally. Uh. Here's an easy memory trick we learned
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: in high school biology. Kings play chess on fine green silk.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Kingdom Philum class order, family, genus species. I love that
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: stuff because I will never forget it. Now, that's not
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: a pnemonic device, is it. It's pneumatic. I have no
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: idea why this is still in my head over ten
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: years later. Well that's exactly why. Sure, Katie, So I
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: hope that helps. And that is Katie from West Texas.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Katie from West Texas. We appreciate that. Um.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Kings play chess on green silk, fine green silk. I'll
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: never remember the fine part. Yeah. Uh. If you want
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can tweet to
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can also
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: hang out with me at Josh Underscore UM Underscore Clark
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. Uh. You can hang out with us on
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you know, and check out
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Chuck at Charles W. Bryant Charles W. Chuck Bryant appropriate
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: on Facebook as well. You can send us an email
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: has always joined us at our home on the web,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know dot com. For more on this
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: dot com.