Selects: How the Negro Leagues Worked

A decade before the U. S. officially segregated in 1896, baseball banned black players. A decade before the US integrated, baseball broke the color barrier. Between, the Negro Leagues produced some of the finest players to ever take the field. Explore this important piece of American history with Josh and Chuck in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Curious people ask great questions, and here's one: what's something you wish there was an app for? Well, with Base44, you can build it yourself. Maybe it's a tool to organize a project, or track a hobby, or share knowledge, or solve a problem that's always bugged you.

• 0:49Josh Clark?

  Just describe what you want in your own words, no coding required. Base44 handles the database, login, backend, and hosting. Try it for free. Go to base44.com to get started. Hey, everybody. It's me, Josh. And for this week's select, and in honor of Black History Month, I've chosen our 2016 episode on the Negro Leagues. It's a story that follows an arc a lot like another episode we did on the Harlem Globetrotters, where we have a group of people who were discriminated against, so they went off and formed their own league, their own thing, showed their greatness, and then were eventually co-opted, which left some of the people who'd helped build what they had out in the cold. And it's

• 1:29Josh Clark?

  also a story, though, of great feats of athleticism and social heroics as well. And even if you're not into baseball, I guarantee you'll like this episode. So enjoy.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry. And here's the stuff you should know.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Sportsy edition.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Sportsy. I think really, we should err on just the side of history.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Well, I even put a note in here. If you don't like sports, listen to this one anyway.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Because this is about much more than baseball.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  This is about, uh, history and about.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Overcoming adversity?

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, it's a very interesting story because, and we'll get into this, but I think people.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, we better.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  Tend to think of the Negro leagues, and that's what this is about, the, the baseball Negro leagues. Which is what they were called.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  We don't use that word anymore.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  But you called this that because that's what it was.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  You tend to think of it in a certain way, which is only, yeah, well, baseball was segregated and they couldn't play in the white leagues, and that's awful, which it is and was. But there's another side to it, too.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, this is a good point, Chuck.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Where these men and these business owners were empowered and, uh.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  And the players.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  And, yeah, and it's, yeah, that's just a tease. I just wanted to whet their appetite.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Oh, you did.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  For people who hate sports.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  You whet my appetite. I'm sitting here like, keep going.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  So I think we should start with a little bit of history, right? So just a brief primer of American history.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  We'll start with slavery.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  It's a good place to start.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  The transatlantic slave trade.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Built this country.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  And frankly, I'm just gonna come out and say it. I think some of the major issues that the United States faces today comes from a lack of accountability for slavery. Really, it's contributing to a lot of the inequality and a lot of the strife that we still face today and have faced over the decades.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  So you've got slavery, and then you had the end of slavery. You had the Emancipation Proclamation, which a lot of people say, oh, well, that was great. Abraham Lincoln spoke some magic words and freed the slaves and everything was great.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was just perfectly equal after that, right?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  So it took the, the Union to win the Civil War. To begin to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in the South and in Texas. Apparently, Texas were among the last holdouts. And there was slavery going on in Texas like years after the Civil War was over.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah?

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were just like, we're just not going to pay attention to that.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  So, the Civil War was fought, the part of the Union victory of the Civil War was coming into the South and saying like, "All you Confederates, you guys are out of power." And as a matter of fact, this power vacuum is perfectly willing to be filled by freed blacks.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  So, go ahead, run for office, become judges, like become part of the Reconstruction power. And that lasted for a very, very short time. The white Southern former power base who were leading the Confederacy, and even ones who weren't necessarily part of like the actual Confederate government, or even the Confederate Army.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  But just the people like in your town who used to own the sawmill or whatever.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  That guy came back in power within a couple of years. And the white Southerners who'd been supplanted, when they came back into power, they remembered the black people who had tried to take their positions.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  And so, it got ugly.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  And so, rather than having actual legal slavery, it came in other different horrible, pernicious forms, which came to be called, post-Reconstruction, the Jim Crow South.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, and boy, we need to do one. I've had it on my list for a while, on Jim Crow, period.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  How about this? First of all, where'd you get this other good, really good article?

• 5:46Speaker 02

  It was on the Major League Baseball website.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Was it?

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  In the prehistory section of that one, and this is just to show you the tone of things, in 1857, there was a Supreme Court Chief Justice.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Roger Tanney, who, it's funny that the way this writer put it, he said he's campaigning hard for a spot in the American Scum Hall of Fame.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  I like that.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  It's pretty funny.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  In his official writing, this is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said, "Negroes were so far inferior to whites."

• 6:20Speaker 03

  That they had no rights which a white man was bound to respect. This is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  I think I need to say that like four more times.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Before it sinks in.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  That was two or three.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  This is what was going on despite the Emancipation Proclamation, despite the Fourteenth Amendment.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Well, that was actually before it. That was during the time of slavery.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, just to excuse that guy.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  But after, after that, despite the amendments to the Constitution, despite all of that, it took the, till the 1960s to even begin the slightest bit of real progress.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Not quite true, because history is littered with people who've made advancements.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  They did.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  And I don't want to knock that.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  But in a systemic manner.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  You're right. It wasn't until the 60s.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  But part of the problem too was, and this is a valid point, other courts had said, like there was this Justice Henry Billings Brown, said, "Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences." Basically, what he's saying is like, "We can create laws, but you're not going to change the public's mind by creating laws. You can't abolish prejudice."

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Right. And so if white people think that black people are inferior to them, who are we, the government, to say otherwise?

• 7:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, or to try maybe and legislate our way out of it even.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Right. So in, I think, 1896, there was a court case called Plessy versus Ferguson.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  And in Plessy versus Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld and legitimized and actually made real the segregation that had already been going on.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Ever since Reconstruction, or ever since the end of Reconstruction, the beginning of Jim Crow laws, right? So the United States was officially segregated in 1896, but baseball had actually segregated years before that, but not. As far back as people think. And a lot of people think that baseball had always been segregated up until 1946.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  I think 99% of people think that Jackie Robinson was the first black American to play pro baseball.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Including me until yesterday when we started researching this. Yeah. Oh, did you know this already?

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I'm a big baseball fan and a bit of a student of its history, so I knew.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Okay. So tell them, Chuck.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Well, uh, who the guys were specifically?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Well, yeah. So in 1867, I think, two years after the Civil War, there was already baseball. Remember, Abner Doubleday created baseball in what, 1839?

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Oh, in like 1300.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  And that's, but that's a legitimate story, right? That's not, uh, like, he really did. He was the inventor of baseball.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  And it did happen in Cooperstown, New York and all that, right?

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  I don't know, but was he in Cooperstown?

• 9:17Speaker 02

  I believe so.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, that makes sense.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  So, uh, within, uh, just a couple of decades, there was the National Association of Baseball Players. They were the league, right?

• 9:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, not within a couple of decades, a couple of years.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, literally, two years after the end of the Civil War, there was a African-American team called, uh, I actually don't know what their name was, but they were out of Philadelphia. And they said, "We want to join your league," which was the National Association of Baseball Players at the time. And they were rejected as a team, of course, at the time. And, uh, but that didn't mean that there were not players individually.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Right. That's a huge caveat.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a little bit later, in 1886, finally, and not for too long, we had two brothers, uh, Moses Fleetwood Walker and Welday Walker.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  And, uh,

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Who did they play for?

• 10:13Speaker 03

  The Toledo Blue Stalkings.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  That's right, baby. My hometown integrated baseball team in the 1880s.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  You were totally right. Uh, Moses was, uh, he was older. He played 42 games for the team.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Uh, Welday only came along and played in six games. Moses hit 263 that season. Uh, and they were the son of a physician.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Like, the first, uh, black physician in Toledo.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  And, um, went to college, uh, played baseball at Oberlin and Michigan.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  So.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  I know the Wolverines. I didn't know Oberlin even had sports.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Well, this is the 19th century. I think they phased them out.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Phased them out in favor of

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Debate.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Acoustic guitars and debate. I know a lot of people that went to Oberlin, weirdly.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Really?

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Well, my good friend, Robert Shahadi, from Boston that you met that came to our show.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  Lucy Wainwright went to Oberlin.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Didn't know that.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  David Reese.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Really?

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Went to Oberlin.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  And I feel like a couple of other people.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  It's got a nice reputation.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Great name, too.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Oberlin?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Oberlin.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  It sounds Ivy League.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, Oberlin, the sound of quality.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Oberlin, sounds Ivy League-ish.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  That's on their T-shirts. Although, we do need to give a shout out. There was one guy in 1879, William Edward White, who substituted and played one game.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Who was officially, and this is a little murky history-wise, because we don't know much about him or how it happened.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  But supposedly, he played one game as a professional baseball player as a black man.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Is that right?

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  And this was when?

• 11:51Speaker 03

  1879.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Okay, so the Walker brothers are playing for Toledo in 1886, right?

• 11:57Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  And actually, this article on How Stuff Works Gets It Wrong says that they just played for the team for one year before the team went under. That's not the case, as a matter of fact. Moses Walker, they may have only played together on the team for that one year. But Moses Walker had played for years before them.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  And actually, Moses Walker, and there were several other players at the time in 1886 and 87. There were at least four black players in the minors. But the Walker brothers were playing for Toledo, which was a major league team, right?

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  But the presence of Moses Walker actually brought to the fore this kind of simmering resentment. And kind of the big elephant in the room, there's a black guy on your team.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  What are you guys doing? And so Toledo actually went to go play the White Sox in Chicago. And the White Sox had this, like, their great Player of that season, I think in 1884.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Who was it?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Cap Anson.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Great nicknames back then.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  So Cap Anson said, he said some horrible things and ultimately was like, I'm not playing if that man's on the field.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  And Moses Walker was actually injured and still was like, oh, well, I'm definitely going on the field today anyway.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  So he dressed out and I'm not sure if he actually played in the game, but he was like part of the team. And Cap Anson was not indulged. Toledo was like, we're not taking our guy out. He's one of our players.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  So Cap Anson can go suck an egg. And Cap Anson went and sucked an egg. He was really mad. But the issue that day, that dispute at Comiskey Field, brought to the fore the concept of integration and ultimately segregation.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Among major league baseball teams. And it actually increased the pressure among owners and managers to get rid of the black players, not just in the majors, but in the minors.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. There was another player too. I read another story about, and we'll get to Roy Campanella. He was a, he was better than Jackie Robinson at the time, a catcher who was just amazing, Hall of Famer. And he had, there was a white pitcher. It was like, you know, he was a great catcher, but I didn't want to play with him. So I would, when I pitched to him, I would just ignore his signs and threw whatever I want. Like to his own detriment and to the team's detriment, he, he just wouldn't take the signs.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  What a putz.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  I know. Career sabotage, essentially.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  I don't think he lasted long either. And Campanella's in the Hall of Fame, so.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Right. The other guy, who knows?

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Uh, I want to give these names all out though. The four black men in the minors in 1866, besides Moses Walker. We had Bud Fowler, Frank Grant, and George Stovey. And as far as I'm concerned, all these dudes are American heroes. So, all of a sudden, they succumbed to pressure in 1890 after hate mail and death threats to the coaches and managers and umpires and, you know, basically everybody, the players themselves. And they said, you know what? We're gonna shut it down. Officially in 1890, we can no longer have any black men in our league.

• 15:18Josh Clark?

  So here's the thing. They never officially did that. They had the minor league ban black players. And the way into the majors was through the minors.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Well, and it was never on the rulebooks either. It was an unofficial, non-gentleman's agreement.

• 15:32Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Because eventually, when it was broken, it wasn't like a rule was broken.

• 15:37Josh Clark?

  Right, right.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  It was just an unwritten rule.

• 15:39Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. Which paved the way for Branch Rickey to break that unbroken rule without actually breaking a rule.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Good point, Chuck. You wanna take a break?

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, let's do it.

• 16:07Speaker 03

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• 16:21Josh Clark?

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• 17:58Speaker 02

  All right, man. So 1890, it's now, there are no black players.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Resegregated.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  In Major League Baseball or Minor League Baseball in America, right?

• 18:10Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  And that actually paved the way for one of the great unsung chapters in baseball history, which was the creation of the Negro Leagues.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and in a true show of American spirit and determination and just love of the game, these men got together, they formed their own teams, and they did what's called barnstorming.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is pretty awesome.

• 18:34Speaker 03

  And they would load up in cars on a bus, and they would go from town to town and take their show on the road, and they would get a game up wherever they could and wherever people would pay a couple of pennies to come watch a baseball game. They were playing white players in these barnstorming games.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Or black players or Latino players.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, because that's a definite overlooked segment of the early baseball history, or Latino players.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Oh, totally.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  And one of the cool things about the Negro Leagues is they were integrated. They had Latino teams, like the Cuban Kings out of New York, I believe.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Yep, and one white guy. All right, so barnstorming's going on. Like I said, they would roll into town, they would play whatever teams they could play. And it started to gain some momentum, like people started to follow these players.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  And they actually got fans. And there was a former player named Andrew Rube Foster, who owned one of those teams. And he said, you know what? Uh, I think we need our own league.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  They won't let us in their league, let's start our own. Cause besides the fact that people want it, there's money to be made here.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. And as a matter of fact, so this barnstorming thing, I want to talk a little more about that, right?

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Um, one of the reasons barnstorming came about was to make ends meet, but it was also because these teams had to figure out a way to put on games as cheaply as possible.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  All of the stadiums at the time were owned by whites. And the whites apparently were not very friendly to the idea of black, black teams playing in their, their fields. So if it were just like, uh, black teams playing one another, the white owners of the fields would just charge an exorbitant amount.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  So these guys were going basically anywhere they could find a place that would stand still long enough for them to play a baseball game on.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  That's what they would play. And they'd play like three games a day.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Every day.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  And they all traveled together and like, um, hung out with one another and spent a, a lot of time together. So like that, the, the Negro leagues came out of this, um, kind of camaraderie of barnstorming together.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Which is pretty awesome.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very cool.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  So yeah, this guy, Rube Foster, he owned the, um, Chicago American Giants. And confusingly, there was also another Negro team called the Chicago Giants.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  And the St. Louis Giants.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. But it could be like St. Louis versus Chicago.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Uh, but if it was Chicago versus Chicago, well, which one? The Giants? Well, which one?

• 21:00Speaker 03

  The American Giants.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Okay. Now I understand.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Not just the Giants.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  But Rube Foster was like this, uh, this booster of boundless enthusiasm. This guy literally put together the first real Negro league.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  And when he was basically removed from it, the whole, the whole thing fell apart. That's how, how much of a driver this guy was.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's in the Hall of Fame too.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. He was a catcher, I think.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't even think he was in as a player, but.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  He, oh, really?

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think just for his achievement.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  I got you.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  Um, although it may have been both, I don't know. But, uh, in 1920, he said, all right, here's what we'll do. Let me get these, uh, seven team owners, uh, of the Midwestern league that are doing these, you know, barnstorming, uh, traveling shows, basically.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Let's get together in Kansas City, seven all-black teams, uh, in addition to those two Chicago Giants. We have the Cuban Stars, the Dayton Marcos, the Indianapolis ABCs, and the very famous Kansas City Monarchs.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  And St. Louis Giants. Uh, all, and this is the really like great thing about the story. All of these teams, except for the Monarchs, were black-owned teams.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Right, so, so not only do you have black, uh, players' careers developing.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  You have like black enterprise developing in a, in a time when there were very few avenues of opportunity for black people to advance in business.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  And, and in a sense where they own the business. This is a really good way to do it.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and not only that, like, the, the Major League Baseball site points out, like, this was, like, it should be embraced in some ways, cause this, at a time, was the only, one of the only ways that minorities could fully, like, excel to their fullest potential.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Right. And, yeah, and that was a, a point of that article that I thought was pretty cool, is that one of the, one of the things they lamented about the segregation of baseball during this time, um, is that we'll never know how Babe Ruth would have stood up against Satchel Paige pitching to him, because they never got to play each other. So the truly great players are truly great at, during this time.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Within their own skin color.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  You know, you can't say they were the greatest in baseball because there were two legitimate, um, parallel leagues going on at the time. And, yeah, they played each other sometimes, but if you wanted to sit down and put stats against stats.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  You'd be very hard-pressed to do that.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Right, uh, sure, all, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, uh, Kristi Matheson, like.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  We know they were good. Like, we're not knocking their talent, but who knows what it would have been like in a truly integrated league?

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, and actually, it's funny you bring up Ty Cobb, because I was like, oh yeah, Ty Cobb was a huge racist. I wonder what he thought about the Negro leagues? And I looked it up, and I found an article from a guy who argues that Ty Cobb was not the horrible racist that he's made out to be these days.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Written by Jimmy Cobb.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  He found, well, he actually did cite his son, and I think his son's name might be Jim.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Really?

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  But the guy found an article from maybe the 50s or something, 1952, where Ty Cobb is quoted at length, coming out in favor of integration.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Integrated baseball, yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Huh.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Saying like, of course, these guys should play, as long as, you know, they conduct themselves like professional baseball players. Like, why would they not be able to play? I'm totally in favor of it.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  It was like, did Ty Cobb say this?

• 24:32Speaker 03

  I think that bears more research.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  You know? Because he was supposedly very racist.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's not what this guy says.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  All right, well, I'm gonna look into that.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  That's not what his son says.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm not doubting you, of course. I just wanted...

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Sure, no, I'm with you. I understand.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Uh, so we talked about the integration of the Negro leagues, which was awesome. Pretty soon, other leagues formed, not just teams.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  There was one right here in the South, the Negro Southern League, with teams from right here in Atlanta.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Dude, do you know the Atlanta team played directly across the street?

• 25:06Speaker 03

  Ponce de Leon Park.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, where there's now a Staples and a Home Depot and a PetSmart.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  And a Whole Foods?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  How, like, funny is that?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. If you walk into Whole Foods, and listen, you can hear the ghost of a bat cracking on a ball.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, this, I don't think this was the first team in Atlanta that played in the Negro Southern League, because they folded that same year. But the Atlanta Black Crackers, we also had the Atlanta Crackers, which was the white team. We had the Atlanta Black Crackers, and it sounds funny that we say Ponce de Leon. Not Ponce de Leon, but that's how we say it here. It's the street that fronts our office building.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Ponce de Leon himself would have punched you in the stomach if he heard you say his name like that, though.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  But that's the street in Atlanta that fronts our office, and if you go and look on the internet, you can see these awesome pictures of this cool little baseball stadium right there, hundreds of feet from where we sit.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  Really neat.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  And now you have Whole Foods.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Where you just have to listen closely.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Go pay seven dollars for artisan mayonnaise.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  If you're lucky, seven dollars.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Oh, that's just for the, uh, the.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Just for one smear?

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, just one smear.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Did you hear Whole Foods got caught like with uncalibrated, um, scales for their hot bar stuff?

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Like, it's not already expensive enough?

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  I expect a lot more from them.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, never get anything with bones at one of those.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Oh, never, or liquid?

• 26:39Speaker 03

  What a waste.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  You throw half of that chicken leg away.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  You paid for it.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Or just, you know, grind that chicken bone up and eat it and get your money's worth.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, like peel it off with your teeth, spit the meat into your, into your little basket and throw the bone back into the hot bar.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, I didn't think about that.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  That's a great idea. And.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  And you can say, I'm no chump.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, just go around screaming, I'm not paying for that bone.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Um, all right, so where are we? We're, the, the Negro Southern League folded, the Eastern Colored League opened in 1923. And then finally, in 1928, the American Negro League formed and that was, uh, that was when things like, they, they called eventually the American Negro League and the American, I'm sorry, the National Negro League, the majors of the Negro leagues.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Like, that was where the, the creme de la creme played.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  And, um, the, the, everything's going pretty smoothly, except two things happened, right? Um, there was even like a Negro League World Series.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  It was a best of nine. The Kansas City.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  Oh, was it really?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Kansas City Monarchs narrowly beat, uh, the Hildale team. They're from Darby, Pennsylvania, which I guess is near Philadelphia, um, in the first one in 1924. So there's like, there's a, there's, these leagues have established themselves. By 1924, they have their own World Series going, right?

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Um, but just within a few years, there were a couple of hits to the league that ultimately led to the, the Negro majors disbanding. Um, one is that, uh, Rube Foster suffered, uh, gas poisoning.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  In a hotel room. Yeah, in a hotel room in Indianapolis. He was found unconscious.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  And there's some theory that, um, like, everyone believed in ghosts and spirits and mediums in the 19th century because they were all being poisoned by the natural gas that was like leaking into their kitchens and homes all the time.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Right. Well, this guy had like an acute poisoning.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  And was found unconscious. And after that, uh, when he regained consciousness and was nursed back to health, he lost his mind. And, uh, he just kept getting worse and worse. And by 1925, I think this happened in 1924. 1925, he was institutionalized.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  And by 1930, he died of a heart attack at age 51.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  And, and again, his guidance was so integral, uh, in this first incarnation of the Negro leagues that, you know, when he wa- was institutionalized, obviously they weren't like, well, what does the league do next?

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  He was in an institution, um, and the league started to falter and fall apart. And eventually that coupled with the depression, the onset of the depression.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Really kind of led to the unraveling of the first Negro league.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. And this, uh, the Major League Baseball site, um, you know, these were, they profited on certain days of the week. Uh, Sundays were big days because they were played double headers. But the fact is, um, black Americans didn't have a lot of expendable money to throw at going to baseball games.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Even though they're, you know, pretty cheap, that was commensurate with what people made at the time.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Unless you were one of the Walker brothers whose dad was a physician.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, they probably had a little money.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Um.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  But they were playing, so I'm sure their parents got in for free.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  Probably so.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  So it's all just a moot point.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  I wonder if they did get free family tickets back then.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  I would hope so. I, that's gotta be as old as tickets, right?

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  We, we gotta do an episode on tickets.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Guest list? Uh, so they were making a little money on Sundays. They weren't hugely profitable overall, even though they were known as somewhat successful, like, uh.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  No, a lot of these guys were still barnstorming on their off days.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. And these are the players, you know, trying to make ends meet. Like the owners themselves were struggling, uh, here and there. Um, white people came to see games sometimes, um, especially when they were exhibition games against white teams.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Cause they love to go out there and see the, see something they'd never seen before.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Which, uh, many times was the black team mopping the floor with the white team.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Um, although, uh, it, it seemed pretty evenly matched, like from what I gathered. It wasn't like lopsided one way or the other.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Like they were good competitive games.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are plenty of, um, white players who are better than the black players and there are plenty of black players who are better than, uh, white players.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say evenly matched is a good way to put it.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  So if you had an integrated league, you would get the best of both.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Which is eventually what we got.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Plus also in some of these cities Chuck, these, there, there were, not just baseball was segregated, but just within the city, you had a white team and you had a black team.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  And that's, that's, uh, evidenced in the names of some of the black teams, like the Black Crackers.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  The Black Yankees.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Um, there were the Yankees and then there were the Crackers, right? So if you were a white player or a white person, you're probably a fan of the white team and you weren't going and watching the black teams play.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Right. Um, so they list out four things here on the site. They say the two leagues, uh, the, the American and National Negro Leagues were northern and basically city dwelling teams.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Couple that with, um, there weren't a lot of black people living in northern cities at the time.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Uh, the South was, you know, was way more, uh, well, I won't say integrated, but it wasn't integrated, uh, way more black people living in the South at the time.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is, I wonder why the Southern Negro League didn't take off like a rocket then?

• 32:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, probably for the other reasons, like you couldn't afford to go to the games and all that stuff.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  Uh, black people that were in the North, uh, didn't have a whole lot of money. And so basically all that adds up to not a lot of audience buying tickets. And the only way to keep a league afloat is to sell tickets and to sell concessions.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Same as it is today.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  So all those things coupled with, uh, Rube Foster.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  And the depression.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Their, their greatest champion and probably sharpest mind, uh, sadly succumbing to mental illness.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  And then the depression and that was the end of, the beginning of the Negro Leagues, right?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was the end of the first one.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  And there were more to come.

• 32:45Josh Clark?

  And we'll talk about it right after this.

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• 34:55Speaker 03

  All right. So it didn't take long. The old saying, you can't keep a good man down. People wanted to play baseball. They were good at it. They thought there was more money to be made in leagues. And so... Uh, what happens is these numbers guys.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Get involved.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  And a numbers man is, the numbers game was basically like a, an illegal, unsanctioned, street lottery.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  So, numbers guys had a lot of money. And some of them said, you know what, let's put money into starting baseball teams and leagues.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  And one guy in particular in Pittsburgh, Gus Greenly.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Great name.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Uh, he was a bar owner in Pittsburgh. He bought the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1931. He said, well, I've got a team, but I don't have a league. So, two years later, he formed the second Negro National League. And, uh, other numbers guys bought in and all of a sudden they had another league going.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And this basically kicked off what's known as the golden age of the Negro leagues.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Um, starting about 1931, 32, 33, when, when these other teams came about. And, um, Greenly's team, uh, himself, was it his? No, I'm sorry. It would have been right across the, uh, river, the Homestead Grays.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, they eventually migrated back to Pittsburgh.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Did they?

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Over to Pittsburgh, yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  So, they were the same team that went from one town to another? They weren't rivals?

• 36:22Speaker 03

  No, I think there was still the other Pittsburgh team, but from what I understand, the Homestead Grays eventually became part of Pittsburgh.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Or maybe there was another team, I'm not sure. But I do know they eventually went to Pittsburgh.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Cause you know Homestead, we've been there, we did a show there.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  And I was like, are we going to the right place? When the car was taking me?

• 36:42Speaker 02

  So, Homestead used to have not just a team, they used to have the best Negro league team possibly ever.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, wait, easy.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  For, uh, nine consecutive years, they won the pennant. Right?

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, nine years in a row. Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Buck Leonard, some of their stars.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, just some of them. In 1935, they had no less than five future Hall of Famers on, on the team. Five.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Point to a team that has five future Hall of Famers on it now, or ever did.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Uh, well, some of the Yankees teams did over the years, but like, I don't think anything right now.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Now, like even the best team right now doesn't have five future Hall of Famers.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Sure, certainly not the Braves.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Uh, no, we don't have one.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't know, I could see Freddie Freeman hitting the, the Hall of Fame one day. Oh, really? I haven't been watching the last couple of seasons.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  No, I mean, he's our best player, but...

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Come on, Freddie.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  The best player on the worst team in baseball? Not very good.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Casey at the bat.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  All right, so we did mention that there were exhibition games going on, and things really picked up with the exhibition games now, because they were a little well-funded, and this is when

• 37:56Speaker 03

  white players would come and see the teams playing. I mean, it was basically more popular than ever in both communities.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Yes, and we said that they had the Negro League World Series going on, right?

• 38:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  There was actually another game that came out of this. I think it was, it might have been Gus Greenly.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  I think it was.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Who came up with this. It was the East versus West All-Stars game.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  And that became bigger than the World Series, whatever was in the Negro League.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was huge.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that became kind of like the de facto big game of the year, other than the World Series for them. And they played it every year, I think, in Comiskey Field.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, in Chicago, because, you know, East meets West in Chicago.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  That's what it says on the T-shirts, at least.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  So, players are starting to make some, like, the top players are starting to make some pretty good money at the time. You can't go any further without talking about Satchel Paige, Leroy Satchel Paige.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  He was a pitcher. Very interesting dude.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Maybe the greatest pitcher of all time in the sport of baseball.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Maybe. He was eccentric, he was an entertainer.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. He was like the Usain Bolt of his day.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  People loved him.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Except he didn't like to run. That would make it a little different.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  He even said he didn't like to run.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  What was his quote?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  He said that, "Training for me is rising gently from the bench."

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Back onto the bench?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  So he had, have you ever seen video, or I guess, you know, film of him pitching?

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, with those old timey baggy baseball pants and all.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was the, the style, but his, um, he had a weird wind up. He had this sort of double windmill that he would do with his pitching arm. And then, um, when he was younger, he had a great fastball and he had, he was noted for his control, like Greg Maddox like in his pinpoint control.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  Like supposedly he could just put a baseball then a half inch of where he wanted it to be, which is a big, big deal for a pitcher.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  As he lost his fastball over the years, he learned basically every pitch under the sun. Like, he pitched until he was 59 years old.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. He first, he first signed in the, uh, majors, white majors, uh, at 42.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, 42, 42 year old rookie.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. He was the, he's the oldest rookie ever in the, in major league baseball. And I think the oldest pitcher ever.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, he was even older than Gaylord Perry.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  How old was he?

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Nah, he was in his 40s.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Oh, was he?

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Like Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Gaylord, or Nolan Ryan made it to 50?

• 40:42Speaker 03

  No, not 50, but.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  He came close.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  Like pitchers notably have been a little older.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Which is crazy because like.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Their arms, yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  But they're not, you know, they're not like, uh, running around and batting like other players.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  But you're right.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Like Freddie Freeman.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Like the stress on, the stress on the arm is amazing.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  So, uh, one thing, uh, that, that, uh, was problematic or is problematic when you're going back and looking at the Negro leagues is that, um, a lot of teams were allowed to, depending on the league, were allowed to set their own schedules.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Um, stats weren't kept quite as, um, uh, well as they were in, uh, the white leagues.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, we don't know Satchel Paige's real lifetime stats.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  No, but.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  In full.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  There are some estimates.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  And they are high.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  So, one that I saw is that Satchel Paige had, I think it was in this, um, this article on MLB.com, which eventually we'll say the author's name, right?

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  They said that he had 300 career shutouts. 300 career shutouts. And this guy says in italics, not wins.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Shutouts, right?

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you don't know baseball, shutout means you have pitched a game where no one scored a run.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  And back then, they were probably complete game shutouts, meaning he never came out and was relieved by another pitcher.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Right, he would have pitched like all nine innings.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Back in the day, they used to do that way more than they do now.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Okay, so he had 300 career shutouts, 1,500 wins is the estimate that's on MLB.com.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, to put that into perspective, for non-baseball fans again, if you have 300 wins.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Wins, not shutouts, wins.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Then you're a Hall of Famer.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  And in fact, they don't think there will ever be another 300 game winner again because of there are more pitchers in the rotation, now they usually have five guys instead of four. They don't pitch as deep into games, they rest them a lot more, so it's just, we may not ever see that happen again.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Just because of the way it's built.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  To also put in perspective, Cy Young is regarded as one of the best pitchers ever in Major League Baseball.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  Sure, they named the top award after him.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. He had 76 shutouts.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Which is amazing.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  He had the most wins ever still in Major League Baseball at 5'11". So, Satchel Paige had conceivably three times more wins.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Than the highest win count ever in Major League.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  And that's counting his entire career, I assume?

• 43:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, which again, was very, very long.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  It was a very long career, but that just makes it all the more amazing, especially as he gets older.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, let's say that people don't say, don't count the Negro leagues as being in the top league at the time. Like, cut it in half, and he's still way ahead of everybody else.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  If you subtract 50% of everything he did.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  And the fact that he sat in a rocking chair in the dugout and had like a huge personality, it's just awesome.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he learned all sorts of pitches. By the end of his career, he was pitching knuckleballs and he was famous for the hesitation pitch, which he invented, which was, when he got to the white major leagues, they were like, that's illegal. You can't do that, it's called a balk.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  And he was like, alright, well.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  No, he's like, no, it's called a hesitation pitch, don't you know?

• 44:05Speaker 03

  It was very sneaky.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  You know, it's like you act like you're pitching, then you stop. And because his, he was like, you know, I got guys up there that are starting to swing. Because I'm so fast, like when they see me winding up, they're starting to swing.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  So if I just put a little slight pause there, then they're swinging and then the ball comes. So it was a very, very tricky little pitch. And he was making between 30 and 40 grand a year. And the Negro, and this is also with appearances and stuff like that.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  But in the Negro leagues, which is about half a million dollars today.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  Amazing amount of money. At the time. You know?

• 44:45Speaker 02

  And those appearances, if you were a team owner that had Satchel Paige on your team, you might let him go make some scratch and probably take a cut yourself by lending him to another team whose attendance was struggling.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  And all you had to do was advertise for a week that Satchel Paige was going to be pitching one day and you would sell out. So he would help other Negro league teams that were

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  That, that were struggling.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, to be a draw.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  And here's one little cool thing about our own Atlanta Braves. In 1968, Satchel Paige was lacking one more season to get his Major League Baseball pension. And was out of the league and retired and the Atlanta Braves signed him as a player-coach.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Like Terry Pendleton.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. He was never a player-coach, was he?

• 45:36Speaker 02

  No, but he was a player and then a coach.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, yeah. Pete Rose was a player-coach.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Was he really?

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Like he managed the Reds and played for them.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  And bet on them.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  But they signed him to a one-year deal so he could get his Major League Baseball pension.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  That is awesome.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Which is really cool.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  What year was that?

• 45:53Speaker 03

  1968.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  That's really cool.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Go Braves.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  So if you see a picture, when I saw a picture of him in the Braves' uniform, I was like, wait a minute. He never played for the Braves. And he really didn't. It was, it was sort of, you know, just a little sneaky way to get him in there.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Which is great.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  All right, so Satchel Paige is killing it. Other players are killing it. It would not be long before somebody in the white leagues, somebody said, "The talent is too good. Somebody has to be the first to make this move and break the color barrier."

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  You know?

• 46:31Speaker 02

  That was the thing, like this, the Negro leagues were ultimately, as we'll find out, victims of their own success. The players that they supported and brought into the game were of obvious major league caliber.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  In any major league. They were the best in the world. They were just playing on segregated teams. And so finally, a group of people, but especially, it usually comes in the form of one guy named Branch Rickey.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Did Tom Hanks play him?

• 47:03Speaker 03

  No.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Harrison Ford?

• 47:06Speaker 03

  No. Maybe. Well, I didn't see the most recent Jackie Robinson movie.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  That's what I'm thinking of.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  Was it Harrison Ford?

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  I've seen him portrayed in other movies.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  I can't tell if it was him or not because the actor didn't have a diamond studded earring in, but Harrison Ford could have taken it out for the role. This guy named Branch Rickey, was he an executive or a manager for the Dodgers?

• 47:30Speaker 03

  He was, he was with, he was an executive with the Dodgers.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  And he said, and this was when they were in Brooklyn, right?

• 47:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  He said, this is ridiculous. There, that we need to break this color barrier. There's plenty of great players out there that I want to sign. I'm going to break this unspoken rule. And he looked around to find a player who was not only good, but who he felt could withstand this horrendous

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  reception that whoever the first black player would be, would definitely receive.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  And who did receive. And he found it in the, in the person of Jackie Robinson.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's a huge point. Because like I said, Roy Campanella was probably a better player at the time than Jackie Robinson. But if you see the Jackie Robinson story, I didn't see the recent one, like I said, but I just know a lot about his story. He Was the right guy. He had the temperament, he had the leadership.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Roy Campanella would take your head off.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, he did. He was a tough guy. Uh, but Jackie Robinson was, was the man in every way. And we should also shout out to the, the road being paved uh, by people like Joe Louis and Jesse Owens before Jackie Robinson.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  As far as just white America, accepting mainstream black athletes into their lives.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I don't know if it was on this or on, there's a site called Negro League Baseball dot com. Um, that has a really good article called Negro League Baseball 101 or something like that.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  It's just the basics. There's a definite story to the whole thing, right?

• 49:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Um, but they point out that, um, probably more than anything that helped break the color barrier was, um, blacks, uh, serving in World War II.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Serving alongside, um, white soldiers and, and stories coming back from the fronts of like, hey, these guys are killing Germans just as fast as any, any white guy.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Um, and at the time, America was like, well, we love that about people.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  So, uh, when they returned, um, the black soldiers came home to a, a different America that they helped change by fighting in World War II.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  That's pretty cool.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  And I mean, the, the timing of this apparently is not coincidental that Jackie Robinson was signed in 1946, a year after World War II ended.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  Uh, so Branch Rickey was, um, he was a very puritanical guy. He would often lecture players on sex and drinking and stuff. And, uh, he was, he wasn't just some benevolent, benevolent champion of the black man.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's a good point, man, because a lot of times, stories like this end up being about the guy who took the chance and paved the way for the black player to-

• 50:12Speaker 03

  But he did.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  He did, but-

• 50:14Speaker 03

  Like, he was an idealist.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Emphasis, it's, it's, it's just too easy sometimes for the emphasis to go on to that. Where it's like, well, the black player, like, became, was one of the greatest baseball players of all time.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Exactly. Let's, let's put it this way. If Branch Rickey- Hadn't wanted to sell tickets by fielding a good team.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  He would have never signed Jackie Robinson. He was a businessman.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  It's a good, good point.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  The Dodgers sucked at the time.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Did they?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  And, um, but he was an idealist. I mean, he was very much like, no, like this is wrong and they should be allowed to play.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, okay. So he was a complex human being, like all other human beings.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  He can't just be shoehorned into an easy caricature.

• 50:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  That's great. So Branch Rickey, complicated human being. He selected Jackie Robinson and it was a great selection.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jackie Robinson played one year in the minors, which was ridiculous. Um, they should have just, like, he spent his entire life playing in the minors. Uh, they should have just promoted him right away.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  But I think they just wanted to ease that transition. He won the batting title in the minors, his only year there. And then, uh, won Rookie of the Year in his very first year with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:21Speaker 03

  And, uh, that was April 15th, 1947 was when, uh, he made his debut, which was very, very historic day.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  An amazing day. The Major League Baseball has really, like, honored Jackie Robinson to the fullest now.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they should.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  But Jackie Robinson definitely threw open the floodgates. Within four months of, uh, Jackie Robinson being signed, or no, I guess actually being called up to the majors.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Two other guys, um, were signed, both in July. And I think that year there were a number of other, um, black players suddenly playing for, uh, white Major League Baseball, which is suddenly not, you, now it's just Major League Baseball, not white Major League Baseball.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Uh, Larry Doby, Cleveland Indians, uh, Willard Brown, the St. Louis Browns, Henry Hank Thompson, the St. Louis Browns, Dan Bankhead, Leroy Satchel Paige made it finally, uh, and of course Roy Campanella, uh, among others. These were the first, uh, African-Americans in Major League Baseball. And, um, by 1952, just a few years later, there were 150 black players.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  And by 1954, all but four major league teams had black players. There were a few holdouts.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Boston Red Sox notably were the last. They waited until 1959, 13 years after Jackie Robinson's debut season.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  In the minors.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  So with the signing of Jackie Robinson and all the players to follow, like you hinted at earlier. And like this article plainly says, it was a very bittersweet end. In one way, it was great. The color barrier was smashed. League was being integrated and they were getting their due.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  Although it was a struggle, but in another way, it was also sad that this league that had so much gumption and such a great, like, we'll do it ourselves then, attitude.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  And empower these men to play and these people to own these teams and start their own leagues. So it was definitely like a weird time in history.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Like, I think nowadays, there's much more of a reverence and a bit of mourning for the disappearance of that league.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  But, you know, in another way, like I said, it was smashing the color barrier was way more.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Way more better? I just went into Hulk speak.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  So, yeah, it would have been a much more satisfying end to the whole thing if the Negro leagues had poached the best players in the white major league baseball.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  Oh, actually, you know what the best possible thing could have been? Was if the white major leagues absorbed those teams and owners and ownership.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 03

  As part of one big league.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  But they were like, no, we're just gonna take your players.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, give them to us.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  So, that is Negro League baseball, the history of it.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  Yep, officially disbanded in 1948. And this article says into the 1950s, there were still a few teams playing here and there. And in the early 1960s even, there was like one final team. Or I guess one final pair of teams. I guess they had to play somebody.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Still playing.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  Right, or they could scrimmage themselves.

• 54:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, it says the Negro American League was the last to throw in the town in the early 60s.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  So, yeah, more than one team.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  And this article makes a point today, or at least in 2012, Major League Baseball was 40% non-white, which I was like, what? I would have guessed it was the opposite of that.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  That it was 60% non-white?

• 55:07Speaker 02

  I would not have guessed 60% of Major League Baseball players are white.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know what, there's a big push, I think like the, one of the least represented demographics now in pro baseball are African-Americans.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Really?

• 55:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, partially because of the rise of Latino players, and then partially because there's not a big a push to play baseball these days as kids in America. And so, there's a lot of concerted efforts to try and get baseball going again in black communities, which is awesome.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  You know?

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. I know, I was pushed, my dad was like, get out there and get hit in the head with the ball.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  See, I wasn't allowed, I had to play church softball. So lame.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  So then, the color barrier is broken, and now the last vestige of any sort of color issue is the Native American slurs that are rampant in, in all sports as far as teams go.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, Atlanta Braves.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Once we get past that, maybe it'll be finally totally legitimate. If you want to know more about the Negro Leagues, you can type those words in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. You can also go check out this amazing article called Negro Leagues: A Kaleidoscopic Review. It's on MLB.com. And check out NegroLeagueBaseball.com. They have like all sorts of great profiles on the players and all that stuff.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  Oh, we never said the nicknames. Oh, yeah. Should we rattle off a few of those? Sure. All right. Boy, these are some good nicknames. How about Jelly Gardner or Spoonie Palm? Turkey Sterns? Turkey Sterns. He's a Hall of Famer. Coppernee Thompson or Steel Arm Davis? I think you mentioned, um, Cool Papa Bell. Yeah, Cool Papa Bell. That is the greatest name ever. Uh, Possum Poles, Ace Adams, King Tut? Smokey Joe Williams? Bullet Joe Rogan? Not. Yeah, Joe Rogan. Did you know that? Rats Henderson? Boy, Turkey Sterns, that might be the best. That might be my new hotel pseudonym. Cool Papa Joe? Yeah, but no one would buy that at Hotel Registry. Oh, yeah. If you go up and say-

• 57:20Speaker 03

  Turkey Sterns, they'd definitely go for it. Those are great nicknames. All right. Oh, yeah. Okay, so, uh, now- I think you said sort of- Now that we said Turkey Sterns, it's time for listener mail.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Uh, this one I'm gonna call Short and Sweet. Um, what do you call it when you, uh, remember something with a pneumatic device? Uh- No. Pneumonic. Pneum- Pneumatic is when you remember it while you're pumping air up and down. Was it nomadic? You remember it while you're wandering around? Pneumonic, of course. Nice. I feel like a dummy. Uh, howdy, Josh and Chuck. A friend recommended, uh, your show to me recently, and I love it. Love it. You satisfy all my nerdy entertainment requirements while I'm at work. Um, you seem to have a bit of trouble recalling the order of, uh, taxonomic, taxonomic- There you go. Categories. Boy, I'm gonna have trouble in this next show. Categories.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  Uh, during woolly mammoths, uh, not woolly mammoths, as our typo originally said. Yeah, it was my fault. That's all right. You just forgot to know. Wally. Uh, here's an easy memory trick we learned in high school biology. Kings play chess on fine green silk. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. I love that stuff, 'cause I will never forget it now. That's not a mnemonic device, is it? It's pneumatic. I have no idea why this is still in my head over 10 years later. Well, that's exactly why.

• 58:51Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 58:51Speaker 03

  Uh, Katie. So I hope that helps. And that is Katie from West Texas.

• 58:56Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, Katie from West Texas. We appreciate that.

• 59:01Josh Clark?

  Kings play chess on green silk.

• 59:03Speaker 03

  Fine green silk.

• 59:05Josh Clark?

  I'll never remember the fine part.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:07Josh Clark?

  Uh, if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to [email protected]. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 59:35Josh Clark?

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• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.