It was a long trip, but when did that ever matter? It's about 40 years late, and so many fellas are gone now, but what are you going to do? These men understand, far more than most, that some things don't happen until it's time. They were together again, and isn't that what matters most?
For three days in Cooperstown, starting Monday, the Baseball Hall of Fame held its first official reunion for players from the Negro Leagues. Some 75 players were expected.There were former members of the Kansas City Monarchs, Memphis Red Sox, New York Black Yankees and many other teams, including the Homestead Grays, winners of nine straight titles, 1937-45. Each man was banned from the major leagues because his skin wasn't the correct color, a victim of American apartheid. It's a shameful legacy, but these are men with forbearance beyond measure.
Gene Benson was a line-drive-hitting outfielder for the Philadelphia Stars. He's still in Philly, soon to be 78. Benson played in annual barnstorming games in the 1940s, Satchel Paige's All-Stars vs. Bob Feller's All-Stars. He did well against Feller. "He used to call me Cousin," Benson says, chuckling. "He said, `The way you hit me, you must be in my family somewhere.' "
Benson says, "Everywhere you go, people want to know, `Why aren't you bitter?' When you're bitter, you're the only one who gets hurt. I figure I've lived a good life. You can't worry about people. In those days, segregation was prevalent. If we worried about that, we couldn't have accomplished what we did, or enjoyed what we did."
"There was a joy that seemed to exist among players in the black leagues," says Max Manning, a lanky hurler for the Newark Eagles who just retired after 28 years of teaching sixth grade in Pleasantville, N.J. "We suffered under some bad conditions, but we shared it together. You can always find something to make your burden lighter."
In dozens of interviews over recent weeks, former Negro League stars shared their memories with the New York Daily News. When you play up to 200 games a year, there's no shortage of raw material.
For anyone weary of so much of the twaddle of sports these days - agents and clauses and Misdemeanors of the Week - the conversations are salve for the soul.
The Negro Leagues were no fly-by-night operations. There was an enterprising spirit and a thick base of talent. The pioneer of night baseball was J.L. Wilkinson, owner of the Kansas City Monarchs. Baseball's first batting helmet reportedly was worn by Willie Wells of the St. Louis Stars in 1926.
Former Dodger Joe Black pitched seven years for the Baltimore Elite Giants, six more in the majors.
Says Black, "At least half the guys I played against in the Negro Leagues could've played in the major leagues." There were 400 games between white and black teams over the years, according to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). The black teams won 60 percent.
The first fully organized black league was launched in 1920. In the 1930s, there were the six-team National and American Leagues, which met in the Negro World Series. An annual East-West All-Star Game in Chicago's Comiskey Park regularly drew more than 40,000 people.
Some clubs played in their own parks; others rented big-league parks when the primary tenants were on the road. Salaries averaged $200 per month, though the biggest stars - Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, Satchel Paige - earned about $1,000 a month.
The regular season lasted 60 or so games, but that was just the beginning. The barnstorming was incessant, before, after, sometimes during the season.
Teams would play local outfits, white and black. The whirlwind schedule was one reason accurate records haven't always been easy to find.
"If it wasn't raining, we was playing," Leon Day says with a laugh. On July 4, 1935, Day played four games with the Brooklyn Eagles, starting with a morning doubleheader at Ebbets Field.
Day, 74, a stocky fireballer who also played second base and outfield - not uncommon for Negro League pitchers - now lives in Baltimore. He has a gravelly voice and hearty laugh. Dick Clark, head of SABR's Negro Leagues committee, calls him the best living player not in the Hall. "A man after my own heart," Day says.
Negro League games were fiercely competitive. As a rookie, Benson recalls a dozen guys filing their spikes before a game. The headhunting was merciless; it was just the way it was. Luis Tiant Sr. of the New York Cubans used to get hit hard by a guy named Ted Page. One game, Tiant drilled him in the head, Page falling in a heap. Tiant walked to the plate, Benson says, and told Page, "You no hit that one too good."
Yet there also was spirited humor and geniality. Flamboyant nicknames were abundant. There was Robert "High Pockets" Hudspeth, a towering first baseman; Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, a pitcher and catcher; "Bullet" Joe Rogan; George "Mule" Settles; and one "Suitcase" (Simpson) to match the Satchel.
Paige was the single biggest draw, but there were plenty of others. Pitching for the Grays, Edsall Walker had legends all around him. Catcher Josh Gibson, one of 11 Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame, had the proverbial cannon arm and a bat to match.
Buck Leonard, another Hall of Famer, was the Grays' first baseman. "You'd throw him a fastball 600 miles an hour, he'd hit it back 800 miles an hour," Joe Black says.
Edsall Walker remembers a kid infielder with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945, Jackie Robinson, who was known for his fire and exuberance.
Sometimes exuberance got the better of him. Against the Grays in Johnstown, Pa., the Monarchs were down by eight runs, Walker says, when Robinson stole second against the vaunted Gibson. "He jumps up and starts saying, `Oooh, the great Josh. Can't nobody steal on Josh,"' Walker says.
Gibson took off his mask and strolled out in front of the plate. He glared at Robinson. "Let me tell you one thing, sucker. If this game was close, I'd dare you to take your foot off first base."
"Jackie was a competitor, I'm telling you," Walker says.
Robinson's signing in 1946 would ultimately bring on the demise of the Negro Leagues. Larry Doby signed. So did Monte Irvin, Hank Aaron, Don Newcombe and Ernie Banks, and soon the trickle was a torrent. The pride among Negro Leaguers was palpable - not just because of where these players were going, but where they came from.
"If it hadn't been for our league, there wouldn't have been a chance for Jackie and the rest of the boys to get in there," says Bob Harvey, a slugging outfielder for Newark who lives in Montclair, N.J. "I thought we were the ones who made it happen, by having quality players, by being so organized."
Early in Robinson's career, Benson roomed with him on an All-Star tour in Venezuela. It was the idea of Felton Snow, tour manager. Snow wanted Benson to boost Jackie's confidence, tell him about the Negro Leagues.
Says Benson, "It would be two in the morning and we'd by lying in bed, still talking baseball. After he made it, he used to call me and visit. We became very good friends."
Benson told Robinson that the constant beanballs in the Negro Leagues made it the toughest league around. "I used to say, `Remember one thing: wherever you're going, it's easier than where you've been.' "