Fourth inning: They got nothing off Bill Powell, and Joe Black put us down one two three.
Fifth inning: They got three straight singles off Powell, and Piper signaled me to bring out some water. When I got out to the mound with the water, Piper was asking Powell what was wrong with him and Powell said he thought he was having a heatstroke. Piper told him he could have as many heatstrokes he wanted to have after the game. They ended up with two more runs that inning. The final score of the game was 11 to 1. Okay, then the guys from Baltimore started laughing at us and saying things like we needed to go back to Birmingham and play against some of the high school players because we weren’t ready for no big leagues. That made everybody mad. Charlie Rudd just shook his head and walked off.
Piper was mad and yelling at me, and anybody else that got near him.
I got the stuff on the bus, and all the players piled on. They had bought some beer and sandwiches from a Colored store and started eating as soon as they got on the bus. Piper told Charlie to get going because we had to go all the way to Savannah. Charlie kept fooling around, and Piper was getting on his case and Charlie pointed across the parking lot and said he just wanted to see something.
We looked over at the Baltimore bus, and they were getting out of it. The driver lifted the hood and was scratching his head. Pepper said he wasn’t going to give them a hand. Charlie said they didn’t need a hand, what they needed was a distributor cap, and he tossed the one he had taken from their engine out the window.
August 16
Two industrial league teams came in from Mobile, Alabama, and we played five innings against each of them. They had this kid who was batboy for both teams. He was only fourteen and he took a few swings at batting practice. The kid — he’s got two first names, Hank and Aaron — didn’t know how to hold the bat. He’s right-handed but he held the bat with his left hand on top of his right hand. I told him he’d probably break his wrists that way, but he kept on doing it. Not too bright.
In the middle of the second five-inning game they announced over the loudspeaker that Babe Ruth had died, and asked everybody to stand for a moment of silence. It was a sad thing and affected all the players. When a baseball player died, especially a great player like Babe Ruth, it was like somebody in your family died.
August 17
We played a doubleheader against the New York Cubans at Rickwood. Charlie Richards was at the game and sat in our dugout. The Cubans had a lot of Spanish ballplayers and they used to shout around the infield in Spanish. They could play, too. Their infield was as slick as anything with Lorenzo Cabrera on first base, Pedro Miro on second, Miguel “Pedro” Ballestro at shortstop, and Minnie Minoso on third. If you hit a ball in the infield you could forget it because they were going to gobble it up and throw you out.
We split the doubleheader with the Cubans. Piper had taken out the regulars for the second game. He said it was clear we weren’t going to win both halves of the season, so we were going to be in a play-off and he wanted everybody healthy.
August 18
Greensboro, North Carolina. A nice town. Bill Greason said he loved to play baseball on a warm Sunday afternoon. Perry reminded him that it was Wednesday, not Sunday.
Bill said he was twenty-three, had ten dollars in his pocket, and the Lord loved him, so it had to be Sunday.
We won an exhibition against a Greensboro team. The field we were playing on was so hard that there were a lot of errors made.
Artie Wilson said there was a big difference in the way you play when you were playing in a place like Comiskey Park or Yankee Stadium every day. The grounds in those places were always level, and you did not have to worry about the ball hitting a pebble or a hard patch of ground and bouncing over your glove. He said some of the white guys from the major leagues would not even think of playing on some of the fields we made a living on.
August 22
Against the New York Cubans at New Orleans. We split with them again. Then some of the Cubans took us out to eat in a little restaurant that made what they called Creole food. I had white bean soup, kale, and chicken gumbo over red rice. It was about three kinds of good, but I almost messed it up. All the Spanish guys put hot sauce on their food, and so I put some on mine. That food must have already been hot because with that sauce on it I liked to have keeled over and died! The second plate was better.
After we ate we went to a party, and I thought some of the girls there were white but they weren’t, just the most light-skinned Negro girls I have ever seen. I got to thinking about what Mama had said about “road girls” and I would not have minded if one of them got their hands on Yours Truly.
August 25
New York City! The All-Star game. I am writing this in a hotel in which both black and white people stay. After a day back home the guys who made the All-Star team got a lift up to New York from Neil Robinson of the Memphis Red Sox. I asked Piper if I could come along, and he said yes since he didn’t have to pay my way.
Bill Powell started the game for our team (the West), which made me feel very proud. Then Jim LaMarque from the Monarchs came on for us, and Gentry Jessup finished the game. The East team got three measly hits! Minnie Minoso got one, Buck Leonard got one, and Jimmy Gilliam from Baltimore got one. We got seven hits, including a double by Piper. The official attendance for the game was 42,000, but everyone said there were probably closer to 50,000 people in the stands. Some people said that the game was the best they had ever seen! It was one of the best games I had ever seen, and the players knew it. Every swing was a little more determined, and every throw was a little harder. The final score was the West (with three Black Barons) 3, and the East a big fat 0!
After the game there was a party at a restaurant near Yankee Stadium. Most of the ballplayers were there, and some of their wives. Some white ballplayers were there, and there were a lot of white scouts, too. The scouts were talking to all the ballplayers and asking them what team they played for.
When the party with all the white people was over, some of the black players went outside and took taxis to Harlem. We were all dressed in street clothes but when we went into a place called the Showcase, some people still recognized Piper and Quincy Trouppe and knew we were in town for the All-Star game. They came over and shook our hands and stuff. Real good.
The Showcase is a little like Bob’s Savoy. They have a dance floor and a band and everything. The people there were dressed better than anything I had ever seen in Birmingham. Everybody was feeling good until Tommy Louden (of the New York Cubans) said something about maybe by the next year all the All-Stars would be in the major leagues and playing white folks ball. Some of the players said they would sure like to get some of that white folks money and they were talking about how it would be easier to play in the major leagues than it was in the Negro Leagues.
Luke Easter said, white folks will never really understand what the Negro Leagues were like unless they played against the whole league instead of just taking some players. He said people see a handful of players who are around now but they had never seen people like Oscar Charleston, or Luis Tiant, or Cool Papa Bell when they were in their prime. All they knew about Satchel Paige was that he can compete against big-league players, Easter said. They had not seen him when he was young and could throw a BB through a straw.
I would have liked to have seen Satch in his twenties and throwing as hard as everybody was talking about. I would also have liked to have stayed up all night and just walked around Harlem, looking at everything, but Piper went back to the hotel and I went with him, only now I’m too excited to sleep.
August 31
The season is just about over. We’re not going to catch the Monarchs and so we’re going to have to face them in a play-off. Word is going around that the Newark Eagles have been sold to somebody in Texas.
September 5
This is the next-to-last day of the season, and w
e have just finished playing two games against the Red Sox here in Memphis. We won the first, and they won the second. The whole team is healthy, and Piper took out the regulars in the second game. I thought he might put me in, but he didn’t. I was going to ask him if he thought I wasn’t good enough to play baseball in this league, but I didn’t. I think I know the answer. It doesn’t matter; I still love the game and I’ll play whenever I can.
Sam Lacy, a reporter, was around interviewing people. He is smooth and speaks well. That’s something I would like to do: write about sports.
September 8
We’re going to play the Monarchs in the play-offs starting this Saturday. The first game will be at Rickwood. We had a team meeting at Bob’s Savoy, and Mr. Hayes, the team’s owner, asked us how we were going to do. Jimmy Zapp stood up and said we were going to win the play-offs and then destroy whoever won the East. The East will be between the Homestead Grays and the Baltimore Elite Giants. If I bet, I would sure put my money on the Grays.
I told Mama that maybe I wouldn’t stay with the team next year. I told her it was a real job and everything but maybe I would apply for a job at the steel mill. She asked me if that was the only job I was interested in. Charlie Richards was going into the navy, and I thought maybe I would go in with him. Mama said she’d hate to see me go a long way from home. She teared up a little, and I knew she did not want me to go into the navy.
Later, after supper, all of us were sitting out on the front porch listening to the radio. Daddy was sitting in his undershirt and leaning against the rail with his eyes kind of closed. Aunt Jack asked if anybody wanted some peach cobbler, and we all said yes. When she went in to get it, Mama went with her and that left just me and Daddy and Rachel on the porch.
Daddy asked me how I liked my first season with the Black Barons, and I told him I liked it just fine but I was not sure what was going to happen next year. He asked me if I had given any more thought to going to college, and I said I had. Nobody in our family has been to college, Daddy said. He asked me if I thought it was time for somebody to go, and when I said yes, he got up, stretched his back, and then said that if I wanted to go to college he would find a way of paying for it.
Later I was lying in bed thinking about what Daddy had said when Rachel knocked on my door and came in. She said if I did not go to college I should go to undertaking school because people were dying all the time and my customers would not mind my bad breath. She actually thought that was funny enough to come all the way to my room to tell it to me.
September 11
Things have changed a lot since I wrote last. All the talk at home is about me going to college. Mr. Parrish, Rachel’s piano teacher, knows the registrar at Talladega College and he called him to talk about me. The registrar wanted to know if I was interested in coaching their baseball team. Yes, I am! They would give me a scholarship to the school in return for me working with their baseball team.
The first thing in the morning, before sunrise, Skeeter, the dog I got from Pijo King, started barking. Mama came and told me to go downstairs to see what the problem was. I didn’t see any problem and tried to put Skeeter outside, but he wouldn’t go. He kept barking at the couch. Then Daddy came down and told me to get him and put him out, and I went to get him and just as I did a squirrel ran from behind the couch and up the stairs. Skeeter ran after him, and a hot second later the squirrel came down the stairs and me and Daddy chased it until it jumped out of an open window. Well, Daddy thought that was the funniest thing and laughed like crazy. When Mama came down and saw him laughing like that, she went over and kind of leaned against him and he put his arm around her. Nice.
September 11, night
I am so tired, I cannot see straight. Rickwood was jammed today with both white and black fans. The Birmingham News carried a big story about the team and wished us luck. The team met at the Savoy, and Mr. Hayes went around shaking everybody’s hand.
He said that all the owners in the league respect our team because of the way we play, the way we conduct ourselves off the field, and the way we respect the fans.
That made me feel good, but I knew the Monarchs, who had won the second half of the season, weren’t going to be a pushover. We had to meet them in the league play-off, and then whoever won was in the Negro League World Series. Kansas City was a good baseball town, the same as Birmingham, and they were proud of their team, too.
By the time we got to the stadium for the first play-off game, my stomach was in knots. Piper saw that I was nervous and he said not to worry about it, that we had to turn our nervousness into action.
The first game was hard and everyone was nervous, but we were playing well. The Monarchs’ infield was knocking down every ball hit their way and throwing our runners out. LaMarque pitched for them and was stingy with his hits at first, but then we got to him. They came right back, and by the ninth inning the score was tied. The Barons came up in the last of the ninth with a chance to win it, but the Monarchs held on. Missing that chance got to me, and I had to go in the clubhouse and use the bathroom.
In the top of the tenth we got them out, and I breathed a sigh of relief, as did the rest of the team.
The bottom of the tenth and Piper smashed a hit to left center. Johnny Britton grounded out to first, but Piper moved onto second. Ed Steele got up and hit two bodacious fouls down the right-field line. The next ball was way outside and Piper started to go, changed his mind, and then had to scramble back to second. The next ball to Ed Steele looked high, and I think Ed wanted to just foul it off to be sure but he popped it up behind the plate. Two outs.
Pepper was up next and he swung and missed two straight curveballs. The next pitch was a fastball off the plate, and Pepper just did hold up his swing. The next ball was fast and inside and a little low. Then their pitcher threw a curve, and Pepper hit a line drive toward the right-field corner. Their right fielder cut it off on one bounce, but Piper was already rounding third and heading for the plate. By the time the ball got into the first baseman for the relay, Piper was on home plate. We won the game 5 to 4.
September 12
Sunday. Aunt Jack made sausages, eggs, and grits for breakfast. Rachel got into trouble, and I was on her side for a change. On Saturday afternoon she had put a lot of Dixie Peach hair pomade on her hair and left it on for a long time because her friend Irene told her that it would make her hair really silky. Then she went to comb it out with a hot comb and burned the back of her neck really bad. Mama made her put a bandage on the burn, and Rachel wanted to wear a bandanna around her neck to church.
Mama said she was not going to let Rachel go to church looking like a fast girl, so she could not wear the bandanna.
Rachel’s neck was hurting, and she was feeling bad and I felt bad for her.
At church we sang “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” even though nobody had died.
September 12, second time
This was the best game I have ever seen in my whole life. The first few innings were scoreless, and things were tense. When Piper got up for his second at bat he hit a drive that shook up the entire stadium. Piper could hit, but he never hit that far before. The ball went over the scoreboard, which is 380 feet away. That scoreboard is thirty-three feet high!
I thought that was going to be the game, right then and there, but the Monarchs settled down, and by the ninth the score was 5 to 4, their favor. Willie Mays singled in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth and we won it in the bottom of the tenth! Whew!
September 15
The Monarchs’ regular stadium was being used by an- other team, and so we played the next game at Martin Park in Memphis. Another tight game, but the score was tied when Jimmy Zapp came up to the plate in the ninth. We were all yelling for him to get something started. What he did was hit a pitch deep into the left-field stands. The Monarchs got one hit in the bottom of the ninth when Souell beat out a ball to deep short,
but with two outs Willie Mays ran down a drive by Elston Howard to end the game. We were up three games to nothing. This series is going to be a lot easier than I thought!
September 19
We lost three games in a row. I can’t believe it. The whole team was down when we got back to Birmingham. We got a lot of people talking to us and telling us we could still win, but I wasn’t sure anymore. When the team got to Rickwood for the final game the stands were already starting to fill up, and by game time there was wall-to-wall people. We heard that there were people outside who couldn’t get in.
The Dunbar High School band played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and the game started. When Charlie Richards came into our dugout and sat next to me I didn’t want him to know how scared I was. The truth was I started off scared and got scareder when the Monarchs jumped out in front early. Bill Greason was pitching, and he’s my man and I was nervous, especially since Jim LaMarque was pitching for the Monarchs. But that one run was all they got, and we took the game 5 to 1.
All the guys were screaming and shouting in the locker room. We were hugging each other and grinning all over the place. This is what I wanted, to be on a winning team and yell and slap everybody on the back.
A photographer took a bunch of pictures of us hugging each other and then a team picture of all the regulars. Talk about one great day! Talk about one great team!
The Journal of Biddy Owens, the Negro Leagues, Birmingham, Alabama, 1948 Page 7
