We continue to focus on the Negro Leagues on the Cover the Bases podcast, in recognition of February’s designation as Black History Month. During the first half of last century, the Negro Leagues provided an opportunityfor players who were unable to participate in the major leagues simply because of racial inequality.  It is a critically important baseball story to tell, and we are pleased to have as our guest, Neil Lanctot professor of History at The University of Delaware.

Neil’s book is Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution, published by University of Pennsylvania Press . The book was awarded the prestigious Seymore Medal from SABR honoring the best book on baseball history or biography.   

This book provides a different perspective of the Leagues than the typical analysis of the players, teams and events on the field.  Neil determined that a complete analysis of the business aspects had not been told before, and launched on an effort to uncover any information about the finances and business activities that produced Negro League baseball games.

We take a look at the use of the name “Negro Leagues” as a catchall term for the various loosely affiliated organizations, including the Negro American League (NAL), the Negro National League (NNL), and earlier entities such as the Eastern Colored League.  This does not even take into account the numerous barnstorming Negro teams who traveled the country playing exhibitions against mostly semi-pro industrial teams.

One of the great contributors to the development of the League was a player and owner by the name of Rube Foster.  Not only was he a great pitcher, he also had the vision and the ambition in around 1910 – 1911 to team up with a white tavern owner named John M. Schorling, who was the son in law of Charles Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox.  There was a need to fill the ballpark that was under Schorling’s control, so he teamed with Foster to put players onto teams to use the park.

The business structure lead to many white businessmen getting involved with the League as owners , booking agents and organizers.

Following the depression Gus Greenlee, a black entrepreneur from Pittsburgh who was involved in the numbers business, was determined to rebuild the League following the financial devastation brought on every team of that era.  He owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords as well as the stadium in which they played.  Ballpark ownership would turn out to be one of the key downfalls of the Negro Leagues in the long run.

I share with Neil how we have been using the Strat-o-Matic Negro League All-Stars game as a way to learn more about the players whose histories we have been deprived of, because of the era in which they played.  Looking for some insights into a player who we should be aware of, who might not be recognizable, Neil points out the achievements of “Wild” Bill Wright , who among other accomplishments edged out Roy Campanella by one homerun to lead the league and complete the Triple Crown in 1943.

Wright was a five tool player who has not elected to the Hall of Fame, but who has the backing and support of Monte Irvin and Neil Lanctot at least for earning that honor.

The business of the Negro Leagues hit its peak during World War II as gas rationing combined with higher earnings for African Americans working manufacturing jobs, contributes to the highest attendance at rented facilities such as Yankee Stadium, Comiskey Park, and Griffith Stadium among others.

Numerous business factors contributed to the demise of the League including the necessity of renting the ballparks, which removes any other revenue streams such as concessions. Lanctot also points out that as radio and television become more prominent during the 1950′s, the only form of revenue – gate receipts – begins to drop off.  This of course is compounded by Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and others ultimately breaking the color barrier and drawing fan attention directly to those major league teams.

These teams and these players are a significant component of the heritage of the game of baseball, and as factors have contributed to less interest in the game by young African Americans, we are bound to present and protect the stories that were born in the Negro Leagues.

We extend our sincere thanks for Neil Lanctot for spending time with us, and we look forward to the Simon & Schuster release in the spring of 2011 of Neil’s biography about Roy Campanella!  We will have to bring Neil back on the Cover the Bases podcast.

If you like hearing about the baseball books we profile on Cover the Bases, it might be time for you to pick up a Kindle from Amazon, so that you can take all the best Baseball Books with you no matter which stadiums you visit.

Let us know in the comments what you think about the Cover the Bases podcast. We would love to hear from you. Send a Tweet to @baseballisms with a quick message, send us an email or visit our Upload page with a video message.  We look forward to growing a community of fans interested in the poetry of the game of baseball!

This past week we staged our second Strat-O-Matic Negro League All-Stars Series.  In the end, Cameron ( @CoolPapaC) took the series from me 3 games to 2. Once again it took us a full five games to settle the Series.  In case you missed it, you can catch up on how the Inaugural Negro League All Stars Series went.  We had a fantastic evening of great baseball excitement, great music, and enjoyed keeping everyone informed via Twitter as the Series progressed.

Our intention competing via this board game, is to get to know these great players who were playing in the Negro Leagues.  The folks at Strat-O-Matic have done an amazing job of making these games play out as realistically as anything played on a ball field, and we feel that the outcomes are consistent with what might have happened had these players played with these lineups back in the day.

We made the decision right from the start to draft entirely new teams each Series so that we get the broadest exposure to players.  Maybe when we have used the complete set of 103 cards in the set, we will choose up more permanent teams.  We end up drafting a full roster of nine position players and three pitchers.  If we decide to use a pinch hitter at any point in the series we go back into the player pile to pick up another hitter.

We played at the Basic level, but we intend to get to the Advanced and Super Advanced versions as we get comfortable with the formats. Moving up to those levels provides a more realistic ballgame, as it takes into account park conditions, defensive options, pitcher workloads and righty/lefty matchups.  As this stage however we are getting familiar with the basic elements of the games. It also helps us from a time standpoint, competing in a Best of Five Series might take us more than one sitting!

Series Breakdown

In Game 1, I throw Leon Day at Cameron’s Eggie Hensley.  After scratching out a run in the second inning, I get the first of what turns out to be a few more homeruns in this Series than in the last one.  Frog Redus delivers a solo shot to extend the lead to 2 – 0.

Eggie continues to allow runners but only cracks for one more run in the sixth when Josh Gibson doubles home leadoff man Willie Wells.

Cameron has to go to the pen in the bottom of the seventh after Eggie gets in trouble again, and calls on Smokey Joe Williams to get out of a two out jam with runners on the corners, forcing Dick Seay to ground out.  In the top of the eighth, Williams triples to clear the bases to tie the score in the top of the eighth at three, and propels him on his way to eventual Series MVP honors.

Leon Day cannot hold them in the ninth and gives up the winning RBI to cleanup hitter Alejandro Ohms.

Game 2 is all mine 10 – 2, as Nip Winters gets more run support than required facing off against Dizzy Dismukes.  My team is powered by three run innings in the second, fourth and fifth innings.  Big RBI production comes from Willie Wells who connects for a three run shot, a Josh Gibson solo homer and a Chaney White two run double.

We go with Hilton Smith in Game 3, while Eggie Hensley comes back on short rest for Cameron.  Once again Hensley gets hit hard and hit early as he is touched for four runs in the first on another Josh Gibson homerun, this time a three run mammoth blast, and by Buck O’Neill getting his first hit of the series, driving in a run and eventually collecting three hits on the game.

The story of the game is the easy work of Hilton Smith, who allows a run in the first on a hit by catcher Double Duty Radcliffe but cruises the rest of the way to collect a 6 – 1 victory.  It’s the first time we have had back to back games that weren’t close knit affairs.

Game 4 makes up for the lack of drama in Games 2 and 3, as it takes extra innings to decide this one.  Smokey Joe Williams gets the start against my Game 1 starter Leon Day.  Day is provided a two run lead by his teammates in the first, as we start to contemplate the potential that this Series could be a short one.

Willie Wells and Frog Redus continue to get on in front of the middle of the order, but the offense stalls as Smokey Joe settles down and forces ground outs and strikeouts.  Cameron’s newly constituted batting order gets him solo runs in the third and sixth innings with a big hit coming from Home Run Johnson down in the bottom of the order.  Johnson ironically doesn’t provide much pop in the lineup.

Neither team can push across any runs in the final frames, which includes a great catch in the 9th by left fielder Fats Jenkins who takes one at the wall off the bat of Frog Redus.  We go to our first extra inning game of our Stratomatic Negro League All Stars Series.  In the bottom of the eleventh clean up hitter Alejandro Ohms, who had been silent all series except for an HR in Game 1, singles home Cristobal Torriente with the series tying run!

For the decisive Game 5, Cameron rolls the dice on Eggie Hensley who has one loss and one no-decision in the Series, while I maintain my standard rotation and pitch Nip Winters in the deciding ballgame.

Eggie bends but doesn’t break in the fourth inning as he gets Ray Dandridge to fly out with the bases loaded to get out of the threat.  Through five shutout innings, many base runners are left stranded and the pressure continues to mount.

In the top of the sixth inning, Ben Taylor gets to Nip Winters and comes around to score the Series winning run on a hit from centerfielder Torriente.  Still in the sixth, with runners on and Jelly Gardner batting, my first baseman Buck O’Neill makes an unfortunate error allowing a run to score and keeping the inning alive for an eventual third run in the inning.  It is the first real fielding error in this well played Series.

After Bingo Demoss scores an insurance run in the ninth, Eggie Hensley gets my guys in order to preserve a 4 – 0 shutout and to even our great Stratomatic Negro League All Stars Series at 1 – 1.

Here is what the Negro League Baseball Museum says about Series MVP Smokey Joe Williams:

During the first half of its existence, Smokey Joe Williams was to black baseball what Satchel Paige was to the latter half. Indeed, Williams made the footprints in which Satchel later walked. Old-timers who saw him play remember him as Satchel’s equal, if not his superior.

Huge praise if ever there was any, and he proved it for Cameron on this night!

Sharing Our Series

We want our experience of discovery to be a part of the community at Baseballisms.com. What good is it if you can’t spread around some of the fun!?!  Truthfully, we believe that baseball is such an important part of the fabric of our lives that the best way to celebrate it, is to share it.  We hope that you will share too.

In case you missed it, here is the tweet stream from Tuesday night.  Live, as it happened commentary as the Series progressed.   Unfortunately, capturing tweets to present here graphically produces a reverse chronological order of how they were posted, so to get a good feel read from the bottom up …

Postgame Summary

We would still love to speak with someone at Strat-O-Matic to let them know our thoughts on the packaging and materials, but we’d also like to thank them for giving us such an enjoyable game.

We did notice that they have posted a number of recent pictures on their Facebook Fan Page.

How about your Strat-O-Matic experience? Did you play as a kid? Do you play the computer version of it today?  Look for future posts as the Series continues and we discover many more players of the Negro Leagues.

In recognition of February’s designation as Black History Month, we are focusing our Cover the Bases podcast on books that have been written about the Negro Leagues, and some of the legendary players who had an impact on the game of baseball on and off the diamond.   There can be no better place to start than talking about Satchel Paige.

Our guest this episode is Larry Tye, author of the book Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend.  The book is published by Random House and is currently available in hardcover or Kindle versions.

One of the immediate challenges Larry faced when writing this book was quantifying the accomplishments of Satchel Paige, especially since record keeping and historical information was not as diligently kept in that era.

He did some painstaking analysis attempting to determine the total number of games that Satchel pitched, so he chose the major league record holder Jesse Orosco as a comparison.  Orosco appeared in 1252 games, and as Larry explains, that accomplishment generally occurred between April and October.  Satchel pitched “from April to April” and based upon his legendary status was expected to appear in any game that his team was scheduled to play.  Based upon his research, Larry has determined Satchel appeared in approximately 2500 games.

Larry also came to the conclusion that the claims that Satchel made regarding wins, shoutouts, no-hitters .. all of the big pitching categories .. would have set or broken major league records, had he not been excluding from playing there until the end of his career.

Satchel understood that the great white players such as Joe DiMaggio for example, received treatment from others that would help propel their star status and legendary accomplishments.  He knew if he was going to ensure his own legacy, he would need to do that self promotion himself.  In a way, it’s as if Satchel Paige understood in this early era the importance of having a personal brand.  He even contributed to discrepancies about his age in order to make his accomplishments more extraordinary.  We hear that one of the greatest mysteries of the 30′s and 40′s was the true age of Satchel Paige!

One of the most interesting parts of our conversation revolves around a comparison of Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige, regarding interactions with baseball fans.  Larry comes to the brilliant conclusion that although Babe Ruth was a great ambassador for the game and was adored by every fan of the day, Satchel had the daunting task of achieving that same status, while overcoming the incredible prejudices that white America had for black players, and black human beings in general.  So without diminishing the following of Ruth, Satchel did something even more extraordinary.

During the time leading up to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier for Branch Rickey, it was Satchel Paige who attracted the attention of the media and fans to the Negro Leagues. He was the one who made the effort to demonstrate the skill of the ballplayers in the league, and he would take credit for getting a backup second baseman for the Kansas City Monarchs in front of Branch Rickey in the first place.  Rickey made the choice of Robinson for a number of reasons including personality, age, willingness to play in the minor leagues, and an understanding that he would have to turn the other cheek to the challenges that would be heaped  upon him.

We finish the podcast with Larry telling us the great tale about Satchel’s last appearance pitching for the Kansas City A’s, owned by the great Charlie O. Finley.  Satchel was 59 years, 2 months and 8 days old at the time.  Finley set up a rocking chair near the bullpen and hired a nurse to rub up Satchel’s arm.  He came into the game to pitch three innings, and included in this moment is the fact that Carl Yastrzemski was the last to get a hit off of him.  It completed the great family accomplishment in which Yaz and his Dad both got a hit off of Paige, as Carl Sr. had played against him in a semi-pro league on Long Island.

Although there might have been some sense of exploitation with this event, Satchel did what he wanted to do, which was get a paycheck from Charlie Finley and play the game that he loved!

We express our sincere gratitude to Larry Tye for sharing his story with us and for taking the time to appear on the Cover the Bases podcast.  You can find out more about Larry’s writings and his other endeavors by visiting his web site at LarryTye.com

If you like hearing about the baseball books we profile on Cover the Bases, it might be time for you to pick up a Kindle from Amazon, so that you can take all the best Baseball Books with you no matter which stadiums you visit.

Let us know in the comments what you think about the Cover the Bases podcast. We would love to hear from you. Send a Tweet to @baseballisms with a quick message, send us an email or visit our Upload page with a video message.  We look forward to growing a community of fans interested in the poetry of the game of baseball!

This past Tuesday night we staged our first Strat-O-Matic Negro League All-Stars Series.  In the end, I took the series from Cameron 3 games to 2, but it was the entire experience that we are so excited about.  Our intention is to stage these Best of Five series numerous times throughout the year, with a big showdown in the post season.

For whatever reason neither Cameron (@CoolPapaC) nor I had ever played Strat-O-Matic before Tuesday night.  We couldn’t decide if in our youths it was other sports, lack of patience, or our peers that kept us away from the game. It took an article from the great Joe Posnanski to get us thinking about what we had missed, and to spark an idea about playing and documenting these series.

The article talks about the painstaking work that the researchers at Strat-O-Matic went through in order to create the pitcher and hitter cards required to stage a ballgame.   There are 103 Negro League player cards developed for this game, and we decided immediately that this was the version that we wanted to play.

Our decision was based upon the fact that we had very little personal reference for many of the stars of the Negro Leagues.  We felt that this would be a great way to get to know them as players, and to expand our appreciation of our National Pastime as fans.  Of course, we are well aware of Josh Gibson, Buck O’Neill, Satchel Paige, etc. and of course Cameron is a big fan of Cool Papa Bell, but we felt that there was an important part of baseball history that we could explore by generating a rooting interest in these players.  Through the playing of Strat-O-Matic, we believe that we could get a good first hand understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these players, as if we were seeing them play at our local ballpark. Through diligence in compiling the information about these players, and as I think Strat-O-Matic fans will attest, the simple yet complex dice and card interactions provides a high caliber recreation of a player’s capabilities.

We were often stunned as the act of playing would closely resemble the type of performance that was written about in the League player biographies.

Playing the Games

We can honestly say, without a doubt, that as the games played out we felt an atmosphere of real baseball.  We experienced tense moments, key defensive plays that were turning points in the game, jubilation on the rare home run, and tough decisions that needed to be made during game action.

Since we have no prior experience with Strat-O-Matic we played the Basic level, but we intend to get to the Advanced and Super Advanced versions as we get comfortable with the formats. Moving up to those levels provides a more realistic ballgame, as it takes into account park conditions, defensive options, pitcher workloads and righty/lefty matchups.

If you could have overheard our games you would have heard us bringing out our best baseball chatter.  We couldn’t help ourselves (but I will say that personally I am out of practice, Cameron was much more on his game).  There is a fine art to chatter that comes with years of constant practice.  Good chatter must be witty and fast, cutting at times, and full of appropriate baseball lingo.  I am convinced that a Negro League game rated A+ on the chatter scale.

Series Breakdown

In Game 1, I had Satchel Paige going up against Cameron’s young gun, Slim Jones.  According to the player bios, Slim wouldn’t make it past his 25th birthday, but the lefty overpowered my team and cruised to a 5 – 1 win.

Game 2 was a tense affair that would introduce us to the eventual series MVP, pitcher Bullet Joe Rogan.  Cameron countered with one of the most important figures in Negro League baseball as a player, owner and business man, Rube Foster.  Rogan was dominant, and made us realize that no-hitters and perfect games are possible in Strat-O-Matic and it must be just as much of an emotional experience as watching one.  The pressure of each roll of the dice would be awesome!

It wasn’t a perfect game, but a key moment was a perfect throw from catcher Spoony Palm to nail Cool Papa Bell stealing in the 7th inning of a 2 -1 game.

I scored an insurance run in the 9th to stretch the lead to 3-1, but Bullet Joe didn’t need the help as he took down a serious bat off the bench for Cameron in Alec Radcliffe, then Cool Papa and Mule Suttles to end the game.

Game 3 established the back and forth nature of the series as I used Roosevelt Davis to match up against Leroy Matlock. Davis was consistently letting runners on base, but after Dobie Moore tied it for me in the 6th with a two run jack, I was feeling good that we hadn’t let the game get away. Unfortunately, Davis could not get anyone out in the 7th and that guy Mule Suttles did damage again with a two run double.  Four runs eventually scored and the game ended at 6-2.

Game 4 turned out to be the epic that great Series are made of.  It had great defense, clutch pitching, costly errors and a run in the ninth to win the game and tie the series.

Second baseman Frank Warfield kept a ball on the infield in the second to prevent a run from scoring and to keep the score at 0-0.  In the 5th, Satchel Paige got out of a bases loaded jam with a strikeout of his counterpart Slim Jones, but it was errors that would rear their head for Cameron’s team.  We had been praising the smart play of his eighth place hitter, third baseman Dave Malarcher all series.  He constantly seemed to be clearing the pitcher by getting on base with two outs. However, in the 7th and again in the 9th it was Malarcher’s throwing errors that would lead to three unearned runs and a 5-4 win to send the Series to a final showdown.

Game 5 turned out to be somewhat anti-climactic as an Oscar Charleston two run homer in the first inning was all that Bullet Joe Rogan was going to need to finish off this series.  It got a little interesting in the 8th after Mule Suttles knocked a three run shot to make it 5 – 3, on what must have been a windy day, with two homeruns in the same game.

As we played, we determined that Mule was the type of player who either struck out or cleared the bases with a big blast. To give you a sense of how realistic Strat-O-Matic can be, here is a quote that I just found at the Negro League Baseball Museum web site;

“A free-swinger who struck out frequently, Suttles was a low-ball hitter with a big, powerful swing who hit towering tape-measure home runs that are still remembered by his teammates.”

Proof positive that our objective of learning the players while having an enormous amount of fun could be accomplished.

Sharing Our Series

We want our experience of discovery to be a part of the community at Baseballisms.com. What good is it if you can’t spread around some of the fun!?!  Truthfully, we believe that baseball is such an important part of the fabric of our lives that the best way to celebrate it, is to share it.  We hope that you will share too.

In case you missed it, here is the tweet stream from Tuesday night.  Live, as it happened commentary as the Series progressed.   Unfortunately, capturing tweets to present here graphically produces a reverse chronological order of how they were posted, so to get a good feel read from the bottom up …

Postgame Summary

We want to mention how impressed we are with the people at Strat-O-Matic who put this Negro League All-Stars collection together.  They had to comb through ragged box scores, dig into Mexican League records to help get a more complete picture, and adjust for poor conditions of the Negro League fields, travel and equipment.

We do however want to recommend that the board that is included with this set, and the box that the materials come in, have a graphic treatment that is representative of the Negro League experience.  We understand that production costs can be amortized across all versions of the game using the same images, but absorbing these historic players with the creative names while looking at a field with a modern scoreboard and advertising detracts from the authenticity.

It would also be great to incorporate more in depth player bios and photos in the materials as well.

We have to admit that we are rather “old school” around here (and realizing it more and more each day), but we felt that the best way to experience this game was using the traditional board and dice.  Although there is a computer version, it seemed much more fun to be sitting across the table from each other, taking in the action.

It seemed like we were having the best day ever at the ballpark!

We would love to hear from you.  Did you play Strat-O-Matic as a kid? Do you play the computer version of it today?  Look for future posts as the Series continues and we discover many more players of the Negro Leagues.

Until then …..  Hit it Hard Somewhere!

The opening paragraph of Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend is of Carl Hubbell acting as a scout for the New York Giants, watching a young Willie Mays.  Hubbell watches as a ball in the gap is quickly cut off by Mays, who then turns and fires to second to keep the runner from stretching a single.  On this episode of Cover the Bases, author John Klima tells of his own experiences in scouting big league prospects, and of the player acquisition process in the waning days of the Negro Leagues.

John is the owner of Baseball Beginnings.com which provides advanced coverage of major league caliber players, utilizing technologies such as video, advanced scouting techniques and analysis.  John was able to draw upon some critical assistance from some legendary names in the scouting profession such as George Gennovese, Bob Zuck, and Spider Jorgensen to get his career in scouting under way.

Baseball Beginnings.com focuses on what he calls projection scouting, looking at players for what they may be able to produce at higher levels of ball, and not just reporting what they have accomplished in their short careers to this point.

At Baseballisms, we hope that the book about the world of scouting that Lee Lowenfish hinted at in a recent Cover the Bases episode, comes to fruition.  This cross between art and science is a fascinating aspect of the game that can often be overlooked.

John states that the signing of Willie Mays was the “greatest scouting story ever told”.  It was a challenge in those days for teams to find and sign players, made even more challenging with the discriminatory practices of the times.  Many teams had seen and heard of Mays, but it was the New York Giants who were able to pull the correct strings and talk to the correct people around Willie to make the signing happen.

The Birmingham Black Barons were rumored to have had up to twelve players on that team who could have been playing in the major leagues.  Four of the sixteen teammates actually did make it to the bigs, as well as the ballboy for that team.  It took more than just talent for the Negro League players to actually get through the rigors of getting signed and playing in the Majors.

Piper Davis is a large figure in this story as a mentor to an 18 year old Willie Mays coming out of Birmingham.  Piper was a predecessor of the famous line of athletes from that city, having played baseball with Willie Mays’ dad in the industrial league, and even played basketball for the Globetrotters.  Davis put the teenager into the lineup and let him grow into the role on the field, plus he helped school Willie in what it was like to be on the road playing baseball for a living. Davis knew his talent would be enough to get him a shot at playing, but it was teaching him about what would be expected that is at the heart of this story.

Willie’s Boys had to get through the Kansas City Monarchs in a knock down drag out brawl of a series before playing the Homestead Grays in the final Negro League World Series. Willie had a great series in a losing effort, as the Negro American League and Negro National Leagues could no longer stay in business.

John brings up some interesting points regarding the signing and compensation of players that lead to the downfall of the Leagues.  Teams as well as players were compensated, and many times the major league teams could “flip” a player without adequate compensation to the originating Negro League team.

Follow this link to pick up a copy of Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend today. Hopefully you will connect with your own baseball passions through the words of John Klima.

To follow John you can find him on Twitter or at his web site BaseballBeginnings.com ..  We express our sincere gratitude to John for sharing his story with us and for taking the time to appear on the Cover the Bases podcast.

If you like hearing about the baseball books we profile on Cover the Bases, it might be time for you to pick up a Kindle from Amazon, so that you can take all the best Baseball Books with you no matter which stadiums you visit.

Let us know in the comments what you think about the Cover the Bases podcast. We would love to hear from you. Send a Tweet to @baseballisms with a quick message, send us an email or visit our Upload page with a video message.  We look forward to growing a community of fans interested in the poetry of the game of baseball!