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Foresee My Life
The Ritual Performance of Autobiography in an Amazonian Community
By Suzanne Oakdale University of Nebraska Press
Copyright © 2005 University of Nebraska Press
All right reserved.
Chapter One
1933
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints African-American advisors in forming the first unofficial "Black Cabinet." Prominent individuals include educator Mary McLeod Bethune, political scientist Ralph J. Bunche, economist Robert Weaver, and attorney William H. Hastie, a future candidate for Negro League commissioner.
In his first movie role, former Rutgers football player Paul Robeson plays the role of Brutus Jones in the film Emperor Jones-the first Hollywood production starring an African-American with whites in supporting roles. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, future co-owner of the New York Black Yankees, stars in Harlem Is Heaven, the first all-black talking movie.
The New York Rens beat the Original Celtics seven out of eight games.
The cost of a half-gallon of milk is 21 cents and 10 pounds of potatoes costs 23 cents. A three-bedroom home costs about $6,000. A brand-new Chrysler Roadster sells for $695, a four-piece bedroom suite sells for $99, all-steel refrigerators sell for $19.95, tri-ply single or double-breasted suits sell for $21, and the price of a man's topcoat peaks at $25.75.
The first Major League All-Star Game is played in Chicago. Much like his Negro League counterpart Mule Suttles, Babe Ruth hits atwo-run homer in the third inning off the Cardinals' Wild Bill Hallahan, leading the American League to a 4-2 victory over the Nationals in the first Major League All-Star Game, which was also played in Chicago. Both clean-up hitters Suttles and Ruth hit home runs in the first all-star game in either league.
In the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Chuck Klein of the Phillies and Jimmie Foxx of the A's post triple crown seasons, the only time the trifecta happened in both leagues in the same season.
GAME HISTORY
At times, the Negro Leagues lacked the choreography of Cotton Club line dancers. With sketchy statistics, unbalanced schedules, erroneous newspaper accounts, players breaking contracts, and star players loaned out to help a club meet a payroll, organizing an annual event was seemingly an impossible task.
The East-West All-Star Game was the brainchild of writers Roy Sparrow, of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, and Bill Nunn, of the Pittsburgh Courier. In July 1933, Nunn and Sparrow met with Cum Posey at the Loendi Club to discuss the possibility of having two black all-star teams perform at the annual New York Milk Fund Day at Yankee Stadium. At Sparrow's suggestion, the all-star game was to be called the North-South Game. After a lengthy discussion of various fund-raising ideas, support for the Milk Fund and other events was defeated. However, the three men still wanted to stage an all-star contest in New York City. They agreed to contact Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, co-owner of the New York Black Yankees, about arrangements to secure Yankee Stadium.
Later that evening, Nunn and Sparrow met with Gus Greenlee at his Crawford's Grill for dinner. When briefed on the idea for an all-star game, Greenlee suggested that Nunn and Sparrow, the Craws' traveling secretary, contact Robert Cole, owner of the Chicago American Giants, about leasing Comiskey Park and instead call the game the East-West Classic. Soon after, Sparrow traveled to Chicago to meet with Cole, and the deal was consummated with the first contest hosted on September 10.
Initially, the game receipts were divided between the benefactors of the game: Greenlee, Cole, and Tom Wilson, owner of the Elite Giants the first three years. Greenlee's rival for the Pittsburgh sports dollar, Cumberland Posey, was left out of the agreement. Starting in 1936, all teams from the Negro National and American Leagues equally shared the profits. Gasoline Gus's share was eliminated in 1938 when he failed to field a league team. Sparrow's efforts to organize the game lasted only a couple of years, while Bill Nunn continued his unselfish campaign of promoting the game with numerous editorials in the Courier.
It is indisputable that the East-West classic was the highlight of any season. Many veterans of the Negro Leagues emphasized the all-star game as the pinnacle of their careers. Seldom do you hear a modern major leaguer voice similar praise over selection to an all-star game. As Lester Lockett, who appeared in the four games, said: "If you were picked to play it was a big thrill because you were chosen over a lot of other guys.... It really became a big deal." The game became the showcase for the best black stars during baseball's segregated era. It was the mecca of black baseball. It was the ultimate thrill for the fans, who witnessed the best players from around the league in one ballpark, in contrast to the league's world series, which featured only two teams.
Despite a history of uncoordinated scheduling, Negro League officials got in step and kicked off an event that invigorated fan appeal for years to come. Both the major leagues and the Negro Leagues introduced all-star games in Chicago's Comiskey Park during the 1933 season. The major league game, inspired by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward, was announced on May 18 and was played on July 6. After watching an exhibition game at Chicago's World Fair the previous year, Ward thought a game between the best stars from the two leagues would be an attraction. He won the support of each league president and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis with his suggestion of donating the proceeds to charity.
Similar to the major league contest, players for the East-West All-Star Game were selected by the fans, with prominent black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier, the Baltimore Afro-American, the Kansas City Call, and the Chicago Defender providing their readers with ballots to choose their favorite players.
Unlike today's major league event, in which the game is an exhibition of talent, the Negro Leaguers played to win at all costs. This competitive approach, along with the show-casing of the country's best black baseball talent, made the black all-star game a more popular event than the league's own world series.
During the early years of the East-West games, America was coming to grips with the Great Depression. The early 1930s found African-Americans, particularly southern blacks, suffering more than other groups in terms of real income and economic opportunity. In 1930s, more than 1 million blacks were employed as agricultural laborers, with approximately two-thirds of them located in the South.
Since World War I, southern blacks had been migrating to northern cities in hope of a freer and better life. The Great Migration of 1915 had crested in the early 1930s as northern whites were fighting for the same unskilled and service-oriented jobs normally performed by African-Americans. The city of Chicago, in particular, became a major recipient of the migration movement, as many pawned their hopes for the American dream, or "Dreams Deferred" as poet Langston Hughes would later write.
On a more positive side, the New York Times, on June 7, 1930, began to treat black people with respect by capitalizing the word Negro, proclaiming the action to be "in recognition of racial self-respect for those who have been for generations in the lowercase." The term colored held negative connotations, as it was becoming a code word to include anyone who was not a white Anglo-Saxon American.
With the buying power of African-Americans drastically reduced by a food-line and temporary labor mentality, the future of any economic effort to support the national pastime appeared to shuffle along.
Prior to the first East-West game, most black Americans traditionally voted Republican, the party of Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglas. In 1932, however, Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented the "New Deal," promising to cure the ills of the Great Depression. This new sign of hope caused many African-Americans to shift their political allegiance to the Democratic platform. Other blacks discovered the Communist Party, as it elected African-American James W. Ford as its first vice president. Through several New York newspapers, particularly the New York Daily Worker and the People's Voice, the Communist Party would become a major component in pressuring major league owners to integrate their ball clubs in the 1930s and early 1940s.
With the New Deal came new hope as President Roosevelt created the "Black Cabinet," an advisory group of African-Americans with Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune its most visible member. African-Americans gained an additional ally when first lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly advocated fair employment and a review of segregated public accommodations in this country. Now, with a new friend in the White House, many black Americans would vote the Democratic ticket for many years to come.
The year 1932 was the beginning of a new sports era for African-Americans. The black New York Rens defeated the powerful all-white Original Celtics to claim the first world basketball championship. In the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, black Americans began to show dominance in track-and-field events when Eddie Tolan won a gold medal in the 100- and 200-meter runs and Ed Gordon won the gold medal in the broad jump, now called the long jump.
Despite success in the sports arena, black baseball still had its critics. Harvey J. Boyle, in his column "Mirrors of Sport," wrote of "The Colored Man in Baseball," saying:
Like the philosophical old colored mammy organized baseball says to the colored boy:
Go out and play just as much as they, But stay in your own backyard.
The song, if some of you don't remember, had to do with a forlorn pickaninny, who had come back crying to his mammy over a situation which saw white children giving him the well known air-and not a microphone. She gathered him up in her arms and crooned:
Now Honey you stay in your own backyard, Don't mind what the white folks do. What show do you suppose they're going to give A little black coon like you So stay on this side of the highboard fence And, honey don't you cry so hard Just go out and play as much as they But stay in your own backyard.
Boyle continued:
While there are evidences on every hand that the colored man is generally self-sufficient I pass up the yawning opportunity to play upon a them that has intrigued Shakespeare, among the old timers, and Eugene O'Neill among the moderns, to stick closely to the sport terrain to show that, out of organized baseball, the colored man has formed his own baseball league and year by year is increasing his stature.
The 1933 season presented new challenges. On February 1, the New York Daily News in an editorial on the race relations of our national pastime called "What's Wrong with Baseball?" reported: "Another trouble with Major League ball certainly would seem to be the color line drawn in the big leagues. There have been good baseball players who were Indians or part Indians, Mexicans, Cubans, etc. A Chinese Hawaiian tried out for the Giants a few years ago, and would have made the team if he had been able to play a little better ball. But good Colored ball players aren't eligible and so there must be a lot of possible fans in Harlem who don't stop over to the Stadium of the Polo Grounds to baseball games."
Alvin Moses, a writer for the Pittsburgh Courier, responded on February 11 with his comments: "This symposium comes as water to the parched lips of a traveler who has sought it in vain for many days. Year after year we've virtually screamed for this sort of recognition in the columns of the Associated Negro Press, and whatever publication we've labored for. Yes, that's big part of rottenest with baseball, tennis, golf, cricket, polo, racquets, squash-tennis ... and what-have-you. The uncrowned and unsung Babe Ruths, Cochranes, Foxxes, Gehrigs, Gomezs, Groves, et al, whose skins happen to be of swarthy hue, cry out from the shadows of 'yesteryear' against this unholy and Un-American idea of fair play to all citizens. If President-elect Roosevelt would perform a service that would renown his name to posterity, he has only to 'read-out' the unwritten laws of Negrophobes in sportdom at least, giving our well behaved athletes a rightful place in Major League baseball. The members of the editorial staff of the 'Daily News' are to be congratulated."
Another challenge came from the inability the previous year to establish a sanctioned league. Two new leagues, the Negro Southern League and the East-West League, failed to maintain major league quality status for an entire season. Now a fresh league with an old name, the Negro National League, was being developed. The league originally consisted of the Chicago American Giants, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Nashville Elite Giants, Detroit Stars, Baltimore Black Sox, Akron Black Tyrites, Columbus Blue Birds, and Homestead Grays. The Cleveland Giants replaced the Blue Birds in August.
The Homestead Grays were banned from the league in June, after compiling an 11-9 won-lost record. A special league meeting was held at Pittsburgh's Greenlee Field on June 23 to schedule games for the second half of the 1933 season. Present at the meeting were Robert A. Cole and Dave Malarcher, representing Chicago; Arthur J. Peebles from Columbus; Tom Wilson, Nashville; Bill Mosely, Detroit; Bill Gibson, Baltimore; writer William G. Nunn from the Pittsburgh Courier; and Gus Greenlee serving as chairman. The main topic of discussion was charges of player tampering brought by the Detroit club against the Homestead Grays. The Grays had contacted third baseman Jimmy Binder and outfielder John "Big Boy" Williams without the knowledge of Detroit officials. A notice to return the players or accept suspension was ignored by Grays' owner Cum Posey. When no Grays representatives appeared at the board meeting, their absence was assumed to be an admission of guilt. By unanimous vote, the Homestead Grays were discharged from the league. League clubs were forbidden to play the Grays, while Binder and Williams had until July 10 to report back to the Detroit Stars.
Meanwhile, one of the country's most popular teams, the Kansas City Monarchs, continued barnstorming, focusing their play in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and other midwestern states. With marquee players like Newt Allen, Newt Joseph, George Giles, and Frank Duncan, and with top pitchers like Chet Brewer, Andy Cooper, and Wilber "Bullet" Rogan, they provided a major treat for fans living in minor league cities. Playing to entertainment-starved small towns had proved financially beneficial to the Monarchs. In fact, the Chicago American Giants were playing most of their home games this season in Indianapolis at Perry Stadium because of increased fan interest in the Hoosier city and the conversion of the Giants' original Chicago park, at 39th and Wentworth Avenue, to a dog track.
Other league news involved more on-the-field action. Bill Byrd of the Baltimore Elite Giants and John "Neck" Stanley of the New York Black Yankees were officially identified as spitball pitchers. When the new Negro National League was organized in 1933, officials "grandfathered" Byrd and Stanley, giving them lifetime permission to throw their "spitters." However, the league prohibited any other pitchers from adding the wet one to their repertoires. In the major leagues, the spitball had been ruled illegal following the 1919 season.
While the new league was being established, club owners were suggesting innovative ideas. One such idea was the East-West All-Star Game. Optimistically, the owners hoped for success with this new venture. To everyone's surprise, especially league officials, this event became the biggest annual sporting event in black American history. The East-West Game became the spirit and life of Negro League baseball, serving to entertain, educate, and ultimately provide a forum to integrate our national pastime many years later.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Foresee My Life by Suzanne Oakdale Copyright © 2005 by University of Nebraska Press . Excerpted by permission.
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