Black baseball players found opportunities to play in a professional
nationwide circuit through the Negro Leagues.

Ponder being banned from playing your favorite sport, the reason having nothing to do with athletic ability. During the first half of the 20th century, African-Americans had to face such indignities. The American and National Leagues would not let non-Caucasians into the sport. If this still applied today, Kirby Puckett and Prince Fielder never would have been regional MLB greats. 

Instead, legends were born in the Negro Leagues, and black baseball players found opportunities to play in a professional nationwide circuit of teams. If not for the racial barrier of the majors, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige would be as historically well regarded as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio – they were that good, but prejudice kept them from playing the rest of the best. It wasn’t until the century’s midpoint that Jackie Robinson was signed by the Dodgers. With the integration of baseball, the need for Negro Leagues thankfully ceased.

He told me how the black players would live off of canned food on the road to avoid dealing with segregated dining situations.

Henry Aaron started his major league pro career in Eau Claire a mere five years beyond the breaking of the color barrier. If Aaron was a few years older, or if baseball had lagged a few more years behind social progress, old-timers around here would never be telling stories of Hank Aaron’s early baseball days in Carson Park.

There are many stories to tell about other Negro Leaguers, which is the basis of “Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience,” an exhibit on display at UW-Eau Claire’s McIntyre Library until July 2. In conjunction with the exhibit’s debut, three Negro League players visited Eau Claire to share their tales of baseball, specifically about the latter days of segregation. On a stormy June afternoon, I was fortunate to join the rest of the Eau Claire Baseball History Committee at Court’n House to chat with the three.

Ray “Boo Boy” Knox played his games in part at the old Comiskey Park on the south side of Chicago. He was a speedster who played catcher for the Chicago American Giants in 1952. A gentle man, he sported the cap of the American League team that shared that stadium, the Chicago White Sox.

Carl Long was favorably compared to Willie Mays. Long told me how he tossed the ball in the outfield with Mays in his early days, and onlookers were in awe about him, a kid from the cotton fields of South Carolina. Mays was soon off to the majors, and Long was his replacement in center field for the Birmingham Black Barons.

That center field was in Rickwood Field, a few blocks from the legendary Legion Field football stadium in Birmingham. Long told me Rickwood was always packed for Black Barons games (the team alternated home stands with the all-white Barons).  He said Rickwood was THE place to go – whenever a person was talking about going to see the circus or another big event, they’d say they were “going to Rickwood,” the center of activity in the area. Long, who got the chance to play against Aaron while Hank was a member of the Indianapolis Clowns, recalled how players would tease a fellow pro named Charlie Pride for always playing music – years before Pride’s country stardom.

The Clowns were later the home team for Heron “Cuba Less” O’Neal. O’Neal told stories of riding the bus in the minors; unlike the coach buses of today, buses from that era were akin to a regular school bus. He told me how the black players would live off of canned food on the road to avoid dealing with segregated dining situations.

Many agree that a modern challenge in baseball is the decline of African-American participation. O’Neal thinks a combination of lackluster home supervision (in his day, if he was caught with drugs on the street, he’d be in immediate trouble) and the societal shift towards a sport with more immediate personal gratification – basketball – are behind this decline.

O’Neal thinks of baseball as sweet as candy, and I agree.  Without this appreciation for the game, a grounding in home life, and, as Long noted, the importance of education, the positive legacy of these players – a legacy that ultimately led a baseball legend to Carson Park in 1952 – may fade away from today’s youth. Everyone could use a few more summers up north.