Baseball History Course

 

I will teach an on-line course for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Kansas' summer session.  The course, "Baseball Goes to War:  World War II and the National Pastime" will be on July 14, 21, & 28; 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM.  For registration information, click on the "Available Sessions" link below or call 913-897-8530.

Larry Doby

Joe DiMaggio

Here is the course description:  After the United States entered World War II in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the continued operation of both Major League and Negro League baseball.  The President believed the "National Pastime" would help boost home front morale during the difficult war years lying ahead for the country.  This course examines the results of President Roosevelt's decision.  We will explore the war's effect on professional baseball, the fans, the teams, and the individual players.  Class participants will also see how the "National Pastime" operated during the war and the post-war changes that happened in baseball.

AVAILABLE SESSIONS:

https://www.enrole.com/kupce/jsp/session.jsp?sessionId=OC21341O&courseId=OSH413&categoryId=10037&utm_campaign=Osher%20summer%202021&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=130010798&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9ssKSI7Scd6nH9SM9V8PwPtpCaIZMz-4Ee9sGkHdkNQWcZlQOpkI9ugzgHpIpq1xwdB8mzWxrexxYk95OtOCZzy2NNvA&utm_content=130010798&utm_source=hs_email

First MLB African American DP Combo

Ernie Banks & Gene Baker

Shortstop Ernie Banks and 2nd Baseman Gene Baker were the first African American infield double play duo in Major League baseball.  From 1954 - 1956, they were the #1 infield double play for the Chicago Cubs.  Click on the following link for a podcast about these baseball history pioneers:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zo8uJNhJpm8zx_u9IKvHnS0K9EUwRLUS/view?usp=drive_web

All pictures via Google Images

For daily baseball historical Twitter notices go to Kevin L. Mitchell @ LastTraintocoop

Baseball History Course

 I will teach an online course for the spring session of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Kansas. The course, "Dawning of a New Day: The 1950's Racial Integration of Major League Baseball", will be on February 11, 18, & 25; 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm. For registration information, click on the “Available Sessions” link below or call 913 - 897 – 8530.

(L to R) Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Hank Thompson

Here is a course description:  On April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers became the first African American to play Major League baseball in the 20th Century. He erased the racial barrier, called the "invisible color line" that had kept African American and dark-skinned Latinos out due to racial discrimination since the late 1880s. However, by 1950 only three of the 16 Major League clubs had African American or dark-skinned Latinos on the roster. This course will tell story of the slow, yet steady pace of racial integration in professional baseball during the 1950s. It will cover from the beginning of the decade to the last team to integrate in 1959, the Boston Red Sox; all with the growing civil rights movement in the United States as the backdrop. 

(L to R) Ernie Banks and Gene Baker

Available sessions

February 11-25, 2021, Zoom Facilitated Sessions (Online, WEB)

MLB TIME CAPSULE 1950s: Tom Alston’s Big Day

The focus for my blog posts during this COVID 19 shortened 2020 Major League baseball season has been baseball time capsules from the 1950s.  During that decade, the pace of integration in the Major Leagues slowly, but steadily went forward.  As a consequence, due to a decrease in its talent pool, Negro League baseball had begun a journey towards extinction by the early 1960s.  All of this with the early Civil Rights movement as a back drop.

Tom Alston

This week’s post is about Tom Alston, the first African American to appear in a Major League game for the St. Louis Cardinals.  On May 2, 1954, in a doubleheader against the New York Giants, the rookie first baseman had the best game of his short Major League career. In the first game Alston had four hits including a home run, his third of the young season, and two RBIs.  The second game he hit a bases loaded double (3 RBIs) in the Cardinals’ first inning.  He ended the day batting .313. 

In 1947, Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers erased Major League baseball’s “invisible color line” that had kept out African American and dark-skinned Latino players since the end of the 19^th century.  Over the next six years, along with the Dodgers, African American and/or dark-skinned Latinos would play with seven other teams; the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns, New York Giants, Milwaukee Braves, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Philadelphia A’s.  In 1954, the color line would be erased on four other teams; the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, Washington Senators, and St. Louis Cardinals. 

The Cardinals, one of the Major League’s most renowned franchises, had been reluctant to accept the changing winds for racial diversity in professional baseball.  The progress of racial integration in St. Louis mirrored that of cities in southern states at that time.  Many stores and restaurants refused to serve African American customers.  Also, the Cardinals were the last Major League team to abolish racially segregated seating at their home stadium.  However after buying the team in 1953, new Cardinals' owner August A. Busch, Jr. wanted the team to be reflective of the African American target market for his Budweiser beer.

Born 1/31/26 in Greensboro, North Carolina; Thomas Edison Alston played baseball at North Carolina A & T following a stint in the military.   After two minor league seasons on teams coached by former Negro League pitcher Chet Brewer, he caught the Cardinals’ attention while playing for San Diego (Pacific Coast League) in 1953.  With Alston having a power hitters’ body (6’, 5” and 210 lbs.) along with good agility for playing first base, the Cardinals paid $100,000 to obtain his contract.

Tom Alston

For the first time in the franchise’s history, the 1954 Cardinal team would have African American players; Alston along with pitcher Brook Lawrence and former Negro League pitcher Bill Greason.  The 28 year old Alston made his Major League debut on April 13 becoming the first African American to play in a game for the St. Louis Cardinals.  Although not as historic, his debut occurred a little more than a month before the 1954 landmark US Supreme Court Brown vs Board of Education ruling (May 17) that struck the first blow in making racial segregation against African Americans unconstitutional. 

Tom Alston

After a slow start, hitting only .211 in April, Alston hit .411 the first 11 days of May which included that May 2 doubleheader against the New York Giants. However, National League pitchers discovered his weakness; the high inside fastball. After Alston hit .181 in June with no homes runs, the Cardinals sent him to the minor leagues and moved Hall of Fame outfielder Stan Musial to first base.  Alston tried regaining his batting stroke in the minor leagues, hitting 21 home runs with 80 RBI playing for AAA Omaha in 1956.  However, it never resurfaced for him at the Major League level.  In 1955 – 1957, he hit .139 in 25 Cardinal games.

Alston began a battle with mental illness his last season with the Cardinals.  Diagnosed as having schizophrenia in 1958, Alston would spend the next 11 years in a North Carolina psychiatric institution.  Although not known his rookie season, could Alston’s mental condition have played a role in his inability to handle the pressure of being the Cardinals’ first African American player? That is unclear.  However, what is forever clear is that on May 2, 1954 Tom Alston had the best day of his short Major League baseball career.

Wally Moon, Stan Musial, & Tom Alston

May 2, 1954

All pictures via Google Images For my daily historical notices go to Kevin L. Mitchell @Lasttraintocoop

MLB TIME CAPSULE 1950s: Bob Thurman’s Big Day

The focus for my blog posts during this COVID 19 shortened 2020 Major League baseball season has been baseball time capsules from the 1950s. During that decade, the pace of integration in the Major Leagues slowly, but steadily went forward. As a consequence, the talent pool for the Negro Leagues decreased setting it on a journey towards extinction by the early 1960s. All of this with the early Civil Rights movement as a back drop. This week's post is about former Negro League outfielder Bob Thurman

On August 18, 1956 while playing for the Cincinnati Redlegs, Thurman hit three home runs. The make-up of his team, still called Redlegs and not Reds in 1956, gave an indication of racial integration in the Major Leagues nine years after the color line had been erased.

Drafted into the military while playing in the semi-professional baseball leagues of Wichita, Kansas at the start of World War II, Bob Thurman saw combat duty in New Guinea and the Philippines. After leaving military service in 1946, he played with the Homestead Grays during the last years of owner Cum Posey’s “long gray line”. Long time Negro League veterans Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, “Cool Papa” Bell and others were still with the Grays; however Posey died before the season started. Signed as a left handed pitcher, Thurman proved to be a better power hitter and became the team’s regular centerfielder. With the veteran players approaching the end of their baseball careers, Josh Gibson died in 1947, the Grays mixed in Thurman along with future Major League players Luke Easter and Luis Marquez to help the team remain competitive. In 1948, the Grays defeated the Birmingham Black Barons in the last Negro League World Series. With the Negro National League disbanding after the 1948 season, Thurman signed with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League.

Monarchs’ Manager Buck O’Neil had a team that included future Major League players Elston Howard, Connie Johnson, Gene Baker, Hank Thompson, and Curt Roberts. The Monarchs were looking to sell their best players to Major League teams in order to remain operating profitably. On July 29, 1949 the New York Yankees purchased Thurman’s contract and he became the first African American signed by the team. However, the Yankees were not serious about integration. Although Thurman batted .317 at Triple AAA minor league Newark Bears for the remainder of that season, the Yankees traded him to the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs were also slow embracing integration and released Thurman in 1952 despite him having respectable years in the team’s minor league system. It would not be until 1954 before Ernie Banks became the first African-American to play for Chicago’s north side team.

Thurman spent the next two years playing summer and winter Caribbean league baseball. After a tremendous winter league season in 1955, Thurman signed with the Cincinnati Redlegs mainly as a 34 years old reserve outfielder/pinch hitter and made his Major League debut on April 14, 1955; a little more than a month before his actual 38th birthday.

On August 18, 1956, the Redlegs hit eight home runs in a 13 – 4 victory over the Milwaukee Braves. After hitting a double in the third inning, Bob Thurman hit home runs in the fifth, seventh, and eighth.

In addition to Thurman, the other former Negro League players on the Redlegs’ roster that season were George Crowe, Chuck Harmon, Joe Black, and Pat Scantlebury. All were thirty-plus years old and nearing the end of their playing careers. However, with Major League scouts draining the Negro League talent pool by 1956, more African-American and dark-skinned Latino players were being signed who never played Negro League baseball. Twenty years old Frank Robinson hit two of the eight home runs for the Redlegs in that August 18 game. The 1956 National League Rookie of the Year and 1986 Hall of Fame inductee did not play in the Negro Leagues. Neither had eighteen years old Redlegs’ outfielder Curt Flood. He appeared in five games that season and later played 12 years with the St. Louis Cardinals. If the New York Yankees in 1949 had known Bob Thurman’s real age of 32, they would not have signed him. Neither would the Redlegs in 1955 had they known him being almost 38! But finally given the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues, Bob Thurman certainly proved in that game on August 18, 1956 that his time for hitting a baseball had not passed him by. He hit 35 home runs in his five seasons (1955 – 1959) with Cincinnati.

All pictures via Google Images For my daily historical notices go to Kevin L. Mitchell @Lasttraintocoop

MLB TIME CAPSULE 1950’s: Roy Campanella Night

It now appears that despite the current COVID-19 pandemic, there will still be a 2020 Major League Baseball season. The number of games that will be played and other details will be announced before July 1, the expected starting date.  My weekly blog posts for the season will be a baseball time capsule from the 1950s.  During that decade, the pace of integration in the Major Leagues slowly, but steadily went forward.  As a consequence, the talent pool for the Negro Leagues decreased setting it on a journey towards extinction by the early 1960s.  All of this with the early Civil Rights movement as a back drop.

This week’s post is about Roy Campanella.

Roy Campanella

91,103 fans were at Los Angeles’ Memorial Coliseum on May 7, 1959 for Roy Campanella Night, a special occasion which included a benefit  exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees.  On that evening, the Dodgers paid tribute to the 8-time All-Star former Dodger catcher who did not have an opportunity to play for the team after it moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn.  Less than two months before the Dodgers would start 1958 spring training for the team’s first season in Los Angeles, he had a car accident that left him permanently paralyzed from the neck down. 

LA Coliseum May 7, 1959

Roy Campanella’s journey through professional baseball began in 1937 when at 15 years old he played for the Washington Elites of the Negro National League. He developed his skills as a backstop under the tutelage of his manager Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, considered one of the best catchers of that era despite not being allowed to play in the Major Leagues because of his skin color.

After nine years in the Negro Leagues, Campanella signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 and became teammates with Jackie Robinson in 1948.   Although Robinson had erased the “invisible color line” in 1947, African Americans and dark-skinned Latino ballplayers would be faced with racial discrimination and prejudice in Major League baseball throughout the 1950s.

Campanella became one of the anchors for Brooklyn Dodgers teams that won five National League pennants (1949, 1952 – 1953, 1955 – 1956) and one World Series championship (1955).  Named National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times (1951, 1953, & 1955), he hit a career 242 home runs with 856 RBIs.

On that special night in 1959, former Dodgers’ teammate Pee Wee Reese pushed a wheelchair bound Campanella out to the infield of the Coliseum in front of a cheering crowd that gave a three minute standing ovation.  Also, Biz Mackey received a roaring ovation when introduced that night as Campy’s catching mentor.  Mackey did not live to see the crowning acknowledgement of his baseball career that came in 2006 with his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The Yankees, who were the 1958 World Series champions, won the game 6 – 2.  But it did not turn out to be an omen about the season for the teams.  For the first time since 1954, the Yankees did not win the American League pennant in 1959.  The Dodgers won the National League pennant that year and defeated the Chicago White Sox 4 games to 2 in the World Series.  It would be the last hurrah for Campy’s former long-time Brooklyn Dodgers teammates (“The Boys of Summer”) Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Carl Erskine, and Carl Furillo.

As his health permitted, Roy Campanella continued to be a part of the Dodgers’ family (coaching catchers during Spring Training, Community Relations Department, etc.) until his June 23, 1993 death.   

 

All pictures via Google Images

For my daily historical notices go to Kevin L. Mitchell@Lasttraintocoop

MLB TIME CAPSULE 1950’s: Henry Aaron & John Irvine Kennedy

One way the cable sports networks are trying to help sports fans cope with the cancellation of professional and other sporting events due to the COVID- 19 pandemic is re-broadcasting key games and matches from previous years. While channel surfing I have seen replays from past “March Madness” NCAA men and women’s basketball championship games, Game Sevens of the NBA Playoffs, Super Bowls, Masters’ (golf) Championships, and World Series’ Game Sevens (my favorite). 

Following their example, my blog posts for the upcoming 2020 MLB season will be a baseball time capsule from the 1950s.  During that decade, the pace of integration in the Major Leagues slowly, but steadily went forward.  As a consequence, the talent pool for the Negro Leagues decreased setting it on a journey towards extinction by the early 1960s.  All of this with the early Civil Rights movement as a back drop.

This week’s post is about Henry Aaron and John Irvin Kennedy.

Aaron’s First Major League HR

Henry Aaron

On April 23, 1954, 24 days before the United States Supreme Court's May 17th decision that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, Milwaukee Braves’ rookie outfielder Henry Aaron hit his first Major League career home run.  Aaron hit a 6^th inning solo 4-bagger off St. Louis Cardinals’ veteran right hand pitcher Vic Rashi at Busch Stadium in the Braves 14 inning 7 – 5 win.  He had also gotten his first Major League hit, a double, off Rashi in a game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium on April 15.  Rashi had come to the Cardinals after three 20 game winning seasons and six World Series championships with the New York Yankees (1946 – 1953).  Braves reserve catcher Charlie White, who played for the Philadelphia Stars in the Negro Leagues, hit his one and only home run of his two year Major League career in the Braves April 23rd victory.        

Henry Aaron signed with the Braves in 1952 after leading the Negro American League in batting during his one month stint with the Indianapolis Clowns.  After one and a half seasons in the minor leagues, he moved into the Braves’ starting line up during spring training in 1954 when outfielder Bobby Thompson broke his ankle.  On April 13 at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field against the Redlegs, Aaron made his Major League debut going without a hit in five At Bats. 

By September of his rookie season, despite suffering the ups and downs of a first year Major League player, he had batted .280 with 13 home runs and 59 RBIs.  However, his season ended on September 5^th.  While sliding into third base after hitting a triple, his fourth hit of the game, Aaron broke his ankle.  He finished fourth in the Rookie of the Year voting behind winner Wally Moon of the Cardinals, Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs, and Braves’ teammate pitcher Gene Conley.

The Phillies First African American Player

John Kennedy

On April 22, 1957, John Kennedy became the first African American player to appear in a Major League baseball game wearing a Philadelphia Phillies uniform. He entered against the Brooklyn Dodgers as a pinch runner at Roosevelt Field in Jersey City, New Jersey where the Dodgers played eight games in 1957     

John Irvin Kennedy wedged his Negro League baseball career between two attempts to play in the Major Leagues.  After college (Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida), the slick fielding shortstop played two seasons in Canada on a team managed by former Negro League star Willie Wells.  Signed by the Major League’s New York Giants in 1953, Kennedy spent one season in the team’s minor league system before being released.  He spent the next three seasons in Negro League baseball; 1954 – 1955 with the Birmingham Black Barons and with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1956.

The talent level in the Negro Leagues had decreased by the mid-1950s the best African American players were being signed by Major League teams.  After appearing in the All-Star Game while with the Monarchs, Kennedy got the attention of the Philadelphia Phillies who in 1957 were the only National League team without an African American player.  In the early stages of the Phillies 1957 spring training Kennedy made a big splash with his fielding skills.  He made the team as a reserve infielder, but hurt his throwing arm as the regular season began.

After his debut, Kennedy appeared in four other games and then the Phillies sent him to the minor leagues with an injured shoulder.  He finished the season hitting 19 home runs while playing at High Point-Thomasville in the Class B-level Carolina League.   

John Kennedy spent the remainder of his career in the Phillies minor league system (1958 – 1961), never to play in another Major League game.

All pictures via Google Images


For my daily historical notices go to Kevin L. Mitchell@Lasttraintocoop