Remembering Those Who Played Their Last Inning in 2017 - Part 1

Before getting further into 2018, I need to briefly mention the Negro League players who took the field for the last inning of life’s game in 2017.  The lives on each one I name in this post were a chapter in the Negro League baseball story.  I may not have known about the death this year of others from the era, so the list could be incomplete.

I need to mention three players who died in 2017 not involved in the Negro League baseball era, but were a part of the game’s “Golden Age” (1950s and 1960s).  They will be in my next post.

Art Pennington  -  January 4, 2017

Art Pennington

The legendary story surrounding Art Pennington has him briefly lifting   the front or back end of an automobile when 10 years old while helping fix a flat tire.  From this event, whether true or false, his got childhood nickname “superman” which remained with him during his baseball career. The left-handed 1b/OF played with the Chicago American Giants from 1940 – 1946, and 1950.  A 2-time Negro League All-Star (1942, 1950), Pennington also played in the Mexican League during the late 1940s.  One of a group of African American players that integrated professional baseball’s minor league system in the early 1950s, Pennington finally signed with the New York Yankees in 1958.  At 35 years old, he briefly played in the team’s lower minor league before retiring after the 1959 season.

Paul Casanova  -  January 12, 2017

Paul Casanova

An excellent defensive catcher from Cuba with a strong throwing arm, Casanova first signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1960.  After being released, he finished the 1961 season with the Indianapolis Clowns, the final remnant of Negro League baseball.  While Casanova played with a semi-pro team in 1963, a scout for the Washington Senators noticed him.  He remembered seeing Casanova play with the Clowns and signed him.  Casanova went on to have a 10 year Major League career, 7 with the Senators (1965 – 1971).  In 1967, he played in 141 games and was   named to the American League All-Star team.

Cleophus Brown  -  March 14, 2017

Cleophus Brown

The left-handed pitcher and first baseman played in the Negro Leagues during the decade the era limped to its eventual end.  A Korean War vet, Brown signed on with the Louisville Clippers in 1955 an independent team.  It had been in the Negro American League (NAL), but dropped out after the 1954 season.  After one season with Louisville, Brown worked in the Birmingham, AL. steel mills (17 years) and then the Post Office while playing in the city’s semi-professional baseball Industrial Leagues.

John L. Gray  -  May 4, 2017

John L. Gray

Gray attended Central State College in Wilberforce, Ohio and then signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1956 as a catcher and outfielder.  He played that first year with the Indians’ Class D minor league affiliate the Daytona Beach Islanders (Florida State League).  In 1958 after some dissatisfaction with the Indian’s minor league system, Gray signed with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League (NAL).  While with the Clowns, Gray hit a home run at Yankee Stadium which he frequently mentioned to his children and grandchildren in his golden years.  He finished his baseball career playing in the minor league system of first  the Chicago Cubs in 1959 and then the Chicago White Sox in 1960.

Maurice Peatross  -  June 26, 2017

Maurice Peatross

In 1944, while 17 years old, Peatross played for the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the short lived United States Negro Baseball League.  The 6’1”, 230 pound first baseman went into the military after high school and returned in 1947 to sign with the Homestead Grays as backup support for the aging Buck Leonard.  The legendary first baseman was 40 years old and still the main drawing card for the Grays.  Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949, Peatross spent the next four years in the team’s minor league system and then retired from baseball to spend more time with his growing family.

Bob Motley  -  September 14, 2017 

Bob Motley

The last surviving and one of the most well-known umpires in Negro League baseball, Motley entertained fans during the late 1940s and the 1950s with his animated calls.  The ex-marine World War II Purple Heart recipient handled the umpiring duties for the games of such Negro League players who went on to the Major Leagues such as Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Henry Aaron, and Elston Howard.  Motley tenaciously fought to overcome the racial discrimination he faced as a professional umpire.  He became the second African American umpire in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) in 1959.

Willie James Lee and Archie “Dropo” Young

Willie Lee James

Archie "Dropo" Young

The former teammates on the Birmingham Black Barons died within the same week in 2017.  Willie James Lee died on October 12 and Archie “Dropo” Young died October 19.  They were briefly teammates with the Black Barons in 1956.  After one game Lee went on to the Kansas City Monarchs where he got the reputation of being a power hitting outfielder.  Constant injuries hampered his development in the minor league systems of first the Detroit Tigers and then the Minnesota Twins from 1959 – 1964.  A Korean War veteran, Archie Young played with the Black Barons in 1956 and 1957 while also working in job in the coal mines.  The power hitting first baseman got the nickname “Dropo” after the American League first baseman during that time, Walt Dropo.

Mamie “Peanut” Johnson  -  December 19, 2017

Mamie "Peanut" Johnson

One of three women (also Connie Morgan and Toni Stone) who played Negro League baseball in the 1950s, Mamie Johnson pitched for the Indianapolis Clowns from 1953 – 1955.  Johnson stood 5’3” and weighed 120 pounds. An opposing player said she “looked like a peanut” on the mound and that started the nickname “Peanut”.  With Negro League baseball on a steady decline during the 1950s, the Clowns added comedy routines to their performance on the field in hopes of attracting fans to the games.  But Johnson’s pitching had nothing to do with comedy.  A regular in the Clown’s rotation, she had an arsenal of pitches to throw against opposing batters; slider, curve ball, screwball, change of pace, and a fastball that got to home plate sooner than hitters expected.  Her unofficial 3-year record is given as 33 – 8.  Racial discrimination banned her from playing in the All-American Girls Professional League (AAGPL) as in the movie “A League of Their Own”.  After baseball, Johnson had a long successful nursing career.

Happy New Year - 2018

Although it is 23 days into 2018, this blog post is still necessary.  Thanks to everyone who supported The Baseball Scroll in 2017.  Your visits to my web site and the feedback you give are sources of encouragement for me.  They give me inspiration to continue providing content for my blog each week.

The focus of my posts this year will continue to be on the Negro League baseball era.  Through the stories and information you read about the players and teams it is my hope you will get a picture the era from both inside and beyond the ballparks.  That picture will indicate how Negro League baseball is part of both African American and 20^th Century American history.

I will also focus on the time period of the late 1940s and the 1950s when the “invisible color line” for professional baseball had been erased, but the process of integrating Major League baseball slow due to the prevailing racial prejudice and discrimination.  For African-American and dark-skinned Latino ballplayers it was a period of joy, but also frustration. 

During the latter years of this period my lifelong love affair with the sport began.  Some of my posts this year, as the one on January 5, will be a reflection of that period (early 1960s) as I remember having a youthful innocence about the game.

Stay tuned for exciting news about my book “Last Train to Cooperstown:  the 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees from the Negro League Baseball Era”.  Thanks to everyone who has purchased a copy of it.

Also, I hope to have news later this year about my second book.

Continue to enjoy The Baseball Scroll in 2018 and spread the word about them it! 

And again, even though it is late:  HAPPY NEW YEAR  -  2018!

Revisiting Dr. King, Baseball, & Jackie Robinson

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday celebration today, January 16, 2023,  I have repeated below my 1/15/17 ; "Dr. Martin Luther King, Baseball, & Jackie Robinson".

                                                                       
Today is the national celebration for the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., what would have been his 88^th.  Much will be written giving tributes to his life and the impact his legacy continues to have not only on this country, but also the world.  However, I want to mention what appears to have been Dr. King’s favorite sport, baseball. 

When Jackie Robinson crossed the “invisible color line” in 1947 to be the first African American to play Major League baseball in the 20^th Century, he became the idol of an 18 year old teenager in Atlanta, Georgia; Martin King Jr.  Like many other African Americans at that time, whether baseball fans or not, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the young King’s favorite baseball team because of Jackie Robinson.  Many of those African American Dodger fans, including King, remained loyal to the team after Robinson retired and it relocated to Los Angeles in 1958.  In addressing the 1966 Milwaukee Braves’ move to his hometown of Atlanta, Dr. King indicated it would complicate his personal allegiance that had existed since 1947.  “And so I have been a Dodger fan”, he said, “but I’m gonna get with the Braves now”.

But Dr. King had been more than a fan of the Dodgers; he understood the significance for African Americans of what Jackie Robinson had done in 1947.  After becoming a leader in the Civil Rights movement, Dr. King knew where his idol as a teenager’s accomplishments fit overall in reference to that movement.

When Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on that Montgomery, Alabama city bus in December of 1955 triggering the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, Jackie Robinson was nearing the end of his baseball career.  He announced his retirement on January 5, 1957; fifteen days after the successful end of the Montgomery bus boycott led by the 26 year old pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


In the 1960s, Robinson became actively involved in the Civil Rights movement with Dr. King.  He spoke at Civil Rights rallies in the South for Dr. King, marched in demonstrations with him, and held fund raisers for Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).  Dr. King and Robinson became co-laborers in the African American struggle for equality.  He considered Jackie Robinson a friend.

At a testimonial dinner for Robinson on July 20, 1962 celebrating his upcoming National Baseball Hall of Fame induction in three days, Dr. King paid tribute to him.  He defended Robinson’s right to speak out about segregation and civil rights.  “He has the right”, King insisted stoutly,  “because back in the days when integration was not fashionable, he underwent the trauma and the humiliation and the loneliness which comes from being a pilgrim walking the lonesome byways towards the high road of Freedom.  He was a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.  And that is why we honor him tonight.”**

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may have liked other sports.  However; because of Jackie Robinson, baseball appeared to be his favorite.  Since idolizing Robinson while being a teenager in 1947, Dr. King never forgot the significance of the baseball player’s accomplishments in the struggle of African Americans for equality.  

* "At Canaan's Edge:  The King Years 1965 - 1968", Taylor Branch P. 394

** "Jackie Robinson:  A Biography", Arnold Rampersad p. 7  

Revisiting Earl Battey and the Great Year for African American Catchers - 1963

The following is the repeat of my March 29, 2016 blog post entitled “Earl Battey and the Great Year for African American Catchers – 1963”.  Earl Battey, born January 5, 1935 in Los Angeles, California, signed with the Chicago White Sox in 1953 and made his Major League debut  on September 10, 1956.  An obscure note about Battey’s career is his being one of the first African Americans to play in the American League who was not a product of Negro League baseball.  The post describes 1963 as a banner season for Battey and a few other African American catchers.

Earl Battey

My March 10^th post titled, “My public apology to Elston Howard”, ended with the following question; “Who was the African American catcher that finished eighth in the American League Most Valuable Player Award voting in 1963”.  Congratulations to James O’Berry for giving the correct answer, Earl Battey!  1963 turned out to be a good year for African American catchers. 

Hitting .285 with 26 home runs and 84 Runs Batted In (RBIs), Battey helped the Minnesota Twins to a third place finish in the American League.   But the national sports writers chose Howard, who hit .287 with 28 home runs and 85 RBIs leading the New York Yankees to the American League pennant, as the American League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP).  The first time an African American player won the award in the American League.  In the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the pennant and defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series with an African American behind the plate; John Roseboro.  He hit a home run off Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford to help the Dodgers win Game One of the Series.  In addition   that year, I was the catcher for the championship team in the 9 – 11 little league age group at the Athletic Field in Kansas City, Kansas.  It was a good year for African American catchers!

Elston Howard

John Roseboro

   
In 1963 Battey had the best season of his 13 year Major League career.  He signed with the Chicago White Sox after leaving high school in 1953 and made his Major League debut in 1955.  But he spent the next five years with as a backup to White Sox veteran catcher Sherman Lollar.  Battey got his break after the 1959 season when the team traded him to the Washington Senators, a sub-.500 ball club throughout the 1950s that had begun to rebuild by the end of the decade. He became the Senators # 1 catcher and hit .270 with 15 home runs and 60 RBIs in 1960.  But

it was after the franchise relocated to Minneapolis the next year, becoming the Minnesota Twins, when Battey’s career took flight.

While in a Twins’ uniform, Battey was a four time American League All Star catcher (1962, 1963, 1965, and 1966) and a two time Glove Award winner (1961, 1962).  He became a part of the power laden batting lineup of the early 1960s Minnesota Twins, the favorite team of my friends Mighty Mouse and Gary T.  Along with Battey on the 1963 team, Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew hit 44 home runs, Bob Allison 35, and Jimmie Hall 33.  Battey was the steady hand for the Twins’ pitchers which included All Stars Jim Kaat, Jim “Mudcat” Grant and Camilo Pascual.   With Battey behind the plate, the Twins won their first American League pennant in 1965, but lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Me

As an eleven year old little league catcher in 1963, I identified with Earl Battey.  No, I did not show any signs at that age I would have the skills when older to hit 26 homes runs against Major League pitching as Battey did that year.  Nor was there any indication of me potentially having his ability to throw out base stealers.  I did however have Battey’s lack of foot speed and some people felt I had started the journey of evidently developing his 200 pound plus body frame due to my love at that time for food; especially peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Fortunately, I would not complete that journey.  I did play well enough in 1963 for our team, the only all black team in the league, to go undefeated and win the championship.  It was a good year for African American catchers!

1963 Champion