Another Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference is in the books, and Memphis will never be the same! And we won’t, either – our time in Bluff City has been educational, exhilarating, exhausting, powerful and absolutely unforgettable. Keith Wood and the rest of the conference committee put together what was, IMHO, one of the best and most unique Malloy Conferences I’ve been to.

I have so much from the conference swimming in my head, and I’d like to do a whole bunch of blog stuff about my/our time here, but the week was packed with so many incredible activities, presentations and interactions that there’s no way I’ll be able to write about it all. 

But I’ll start with one of the primary, overaching themes of the week – the great Memphis Red Sox franchise that was a steady, continuous fixture in the local African-American community in Memphis, the city as a whole and the history of the American pastime in general.

Active for almost three entire decades in the first half of the 20th century, the Red Sox were at several times members of the first Negro National League and the Negro American League, making them official Major League teams now. They were also key members of the Negro Southern League for several years, including in 1932, when the NSL was considered a Negro Major League.

The entire span of the Red Sox’ existence is jam-packed with rich history, colorful characters, top-notch players (including four National Baseball Hall of Famers), an enigmatic owner, economic power and even political intrigue.

There’s so much history running through the Memphis Red Sox story that I could never do all of it justice in a series of blog posts. If you want to learn everything about the Red Sox – and trust, it’d be worth it – check out Keith Wood’s book on the team published by McFarland.

I’m hoping to do more than one post on this year’s Malloy Conference, so for now, this post will focus largely on the second day of the gathering, during which the Red Sox were featured heavily, with multiple presenters discussing the team, its people and its city.

We’ll start right off with the conference’s biggest guest of honor – Dr. J. B. Martin IV, the great grandson of Dr. J.B. Martin Sr., the longtime owner of the Memphis Red Sox, who purchased the franchise with his brothers in 1929 and built it into a pennant winner on the field – they won the NAL championship in 1938 – and an economic success off the field.

The senior Martin had to sell the franchise in the early 1940s when the city’s political primary kingpin – the racist, spiteful E.H. Crump, otherwise known as Boss Crump – drove J.B. Sr. out of town because of the latter’s leadership of and activity in the local Republican Party, as well as his fierce advocacy for Civil Rights. (More on that in a bit.)

At the conference, J.B. Martin IV gave a presentation titled, “Making the Case for the Hall of Fame,” in which he ran down the reasons his great grandfather should be inducted into Cooperstown.

I’ll hopefully bring more from J.B. IV in the next week or two, but for now, all just reveal a few of his thoughts from his Malloy talk last Friday.

“J.B. Martin was a great pharmacist, he was a great businessman, and he was a great political leader,” J.B. IV told conference attendees.

He added that his great grandfather brought that same outstanding professionalism to his baseball team and his players.

“He allowed them to play in comfort,” he said. “They knew they were surrounded by a supportive community. If you had problems, someone would take care of it.”

J.B. IV added that the Red Sox “were an integral part of our community from the 1920s to the 1950s.”

A big part of that was the central place that Martin Stadium, the team’s home, held in Black Memphis. Owned and operated by J.B. Sr. and his brothers, Martin Stadium “became a civil institution,” J.B. IV said. “It was a source of pride for the Black community.”

Multiple Malloy presenters focused on different Red Sox players, including some of the athletes’ careers outside of Memphis. Paul Spyhalski, for example, gave his presentation on pitcher Verdell Mathis, perhaps the preeminent southpaw in the NAL during the 1940s.

Specifically, Spyhalski examined how Mathis hones his skills and developed as a pitcher while playing for semipro and barnstorming teams on the prairies of Iowa, particularly in the unusual hotbed of African-American baseball, Algona.

Iowa is where Mathis crossed paths with manager Ruben Jones, who recommended the young hurler to J.B. Martin and the Red Sox, who promptly signed him. Mathis would go on to become a six-time all star and the anchor of the Memphis rotation for much of the ’40s. 

Another Red Sox player placed under the proverbial microscope, this one by author and presenter Stephen Rice, at the conference last week was Carl “Lefty” Glass, a mainstay of the Red Sox pitching corps during the team’s earlier years, much of them before the Martin brothers bought the club.

A native of Lexington, Ky., Glass’ pitching career during his stint in the Army in World War I, during which he was also part of calvary units, and in addition to his long tenure with the Memphis Red Sox as a pitcher, he managed the club in 1928 and pitched in the vaunted, integrated California Winter League. 

Glass was also one of the driving forces in the late-1940s and early-’50s semipro Lexington Hustlers, known as the first integrated team in the South. Rice said Glass “doesn’t get noticed [in history]. He’s very overlooked, and he was on some very good teams.”

Then on the conference slate came a panel on first baseman Bob Boyd, who began his career in the big leagues in the mid- to late-1940s with Memphis before enjoying a lengthy if modest stay in the integrated Major Leagues.

The Boyd panel was led by my buddy Alex Painter, who noted that Boyd “went through every part of Black baseball.” Despite his very admirable experience and resume, Boyd “always had to prove himself,” Painter said. “He was a star because of his personality. He always came [to work], he always showed up, and he played hard.”

Alex said such a workmanlike, steady, consistent effort helped Boyd embody the Black baseball spirit. “His was about as much of a Negro Leagues story as it could be,” he said.

Painter added that “that consistency, year after year, attracted people’s attention. He was always finding ways to contribute.

“By the end of the 1940s, he had established himself as one of the best first basemen in Black baseball.”

Such dedication to his craft helped Boyd then enter into a sustained tenure in integrated baseball. That’s where co-panelist Thomas Van Hyning picked up Boyd’s story by noting that throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, Boyd became “Mr. Consistency.” Whether it was in the Puerto Rican League, the Cuban League, in the minors with the Houston Buffaloes, or in the Majors with the Orioles, the A’s or the Braves, Boyd came to play, and he played admirably.

Finally, we’ll bring things back to J.B. Martin, the driving force behind much of the Red Sox’ success, and how it took virulent institutional racism and insidious, embedded political corruption to force Martin to leave Memphis.

That tale was told by conference presenter Neil Sharma, who unspooled the narrative. Boss Crump, the corrupt kingmaker of the city of Memphis and Democratic ally of President Franklin Roosevelt who balked at the almost equally influential Martin’s support of Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie and his comprehensive Civil Rights platform.

Crump demanded Martin back off of his support for Willkie, and Martin refused, prompting Crump to launch what Sharma called the “reign of terror” – an oppressive, bigoted campaign of harassment and threats.

At first, Crump’s main tactic was having cops search everyone coming and going from Martin’s prominent pharmacist under the pretense of cleaning up supposed illegal drug-dealing in the city. Those sinister undertakings were eventually accompanied by death threats against Martin from Crump’s goons.

Sharma said that despite the attempts at intimidation and violence, bore as much as he could so he could stay in Memphis.

“He was increasingly becoming an ambassador for Black Memphis,” Sharma said, “and he felt a responsibility to oppose Crump”s racist regime.”

Sharma added that Martin “might have been part of the Black bourgeoise, but he never distanced himself from the Black working class “

Quite naturally the massive blow to Martin’s pharmacy business that resulted prevented Martin from putting a quality product on the diamond, something that greatly pained him.

“He felt a great responsibility to Black Memphis to give a strong team to the fans,” Sharma said.

In all, the reign of terror led to massive disruptions of and fear in the local Black community, and it gutted Martin’s business and tested his resolve, to the point that the J.B. Sr. eventually fled to Chicago out of fear for his and his family’s safety. They settled in Chicago, where J.B. continued his involvement in the Negro Leagues by buying the storied Chicago American Giants and eventually serving as president of the NAL.

That’s the scoop on the Memphis Red Sox as revealed by presenters at the Malloy conference last week. I’m hoping to post another thing or two from Memphis over the next week or so.

If you have any pictures from the conferences you’d be willing to send along to include in upcoming posts, definitely email them to me if you want at rwhirty218@gmail.com. I’ll of course credit you! Thank you in advance!