Editor’s note: I recently wrote an article for The Louisiana Weekly newspaper here in New Orleans about the very last Negro League World Series, which was held in 1948. One game of the series was played in the Crescent City, with legendary businessman and sports promoter Allen Page organizing and hosting the event.

For my article, I got a few thoughts from Rodney Page, Allen’s son, and he generously agreed to do so. I used some of his comments for my article, but I wanted to show people the entirety of the amazing few paragraphs he put together about the 1948 NLWS, and his father’s role in baseball history. Here are those full comments. Many thanks to Rodney for his work.

Seventy-five years is a long time to honor and celebrate a significant event. Seventy-five years also coincides with a “diamond jubilee,” which resonates with the Negro League World Series of 1948. One of those World Series games was played on the Pelican Stadium baseball “diamond” in my hometown of NOLA.  

Another connection is that I was born 75 years ago (Sept. 4, 1948) in NOLA at Flint-Goodridge Hospital, located at the corner of Louisiana Avenue and Lasalle Street.

The host and promoter of this World Series game in 1948 was my father, Allen Page. This is a testament to his significant contributions to the entire Negro Leagues baseball experience. His contributions were not just local in NOLA, but included regional and national affiliations, promotions, and endeavors. The 1948 Negro World Series is an example of that. Consider the risks and the connections necessary in bringing this showcase to NOLA.

The hero’s journey does not always end in resounding victory. Sometimes the reward, the victory, is in the process. The process of overcoming and transcending enormous challenges and obstacles. The societal changes from segregation to integration and all of the gains, and losses, of this shift in the social landscape of America. From my perspective, this is part of the deeper story of the Negro Leagues, and Allen Page.

The true story of Allen Page is his indomitable spirit, which speaks to the heart of self-reliance, self-definition and self-determination.

Rodney Page

Some say this was the last Negro Leagues World Series, as Black baseball’s decline was rapidly approaching due to the integration of MLB. An interesting pattern is apparent in the journey of Allen Page. The final resting place for the once outstanding St. Louis Stars and the Newark Eagles was in NOLA.

In addition, one of the final NLWS games was played in NOLA. Allen Page was in the midst of all three significant events in the rich history of Negro Leagues baseball.

In my eyes, my father is a hero. Knowing where he came from and what he accomplished has given my life enormous inspiration and pride. He dared greatly and risked often and much. The true story of Allen Page is his indomitable spirit, which speaks to the heart of self-reliance, self-definition and self-determination. He transcended and excelled despite the shackles of the Jim Crow South and overt racism in America. A legacy of firsts was in his DNA.

Rodney Page, Sept. 14, 2023

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write this, but I need to go ahead with it, quite unfortunately …

Many of us in the Negro Leagues research and fandom community have consistently expressed dissatisfaction with the haphazard, slapdash and dismissive way the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., has handled the induction of segregation-era Black players, managers, executives, umpires and other representatives of a time when American society denied them the right to compete against and alongside white individuals and teams.

The rules of eligibility for such Negro Leagues greats and the methods of election and induction for them has been inconsistent, ever-changing and wholly inadequate, resulting in only a fraction of the qualified pre-integration figures of color actually being inducted so far, and to a stunningly disproportionate level of representation when compared to the number of white players from the same era who have achieved induction.

The Hall always seems to be well behind the curve on this issue, always reacting to scorn and criticism of the induction process in hastily, jumbled and inconsistent fashion. I’ve written about the Hall of Fame’s dereliction of duty and complete ignorance of and lack of respect for Negro Leaguers over the years. You can read my posts on this topic here, here, here and here. For articles in other media about the induction controversy, check out this, this and this.

A group of us Negro Leagues enthusiasts has been so dismayed and even angered at the Hall’s failures that we started the 42 for 21 Committee, dedicated to advocating for segregation-era baseball figures of color and their much needed, rightful election to the Hall. For info on 42 for 21, you can look here.

The current rules and guidelines for Hall of Fame induction can be found here; details of the “Era” committees process are here; and this link reviews the history of voting rules changes over the years. All three are links to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Web site. For other media articles about this topic, you can check out this, this and this. It’s all very confusing, honestly.

Members of the 42 for 21 Committee met this past July in Detroit at the annual SABR Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference to start working out an advocacy strategy.

After that meeting, I figured that, as the respectable, quality journalist I am (more or less), I’d go right to the source of the controversy and interview a representative at the Hall of Fame to get the institution’s comments on the controversy and criticism.

As a result, I reached out to the Hall’s media relations office and asked about setting up such an interview; I suggested an email exchange for said interview, and the staff there said to go ahead and send questions and they’d try to line up answers from a HOF executive. I often prefer email interviews because it’s much more flexible time- and scheduling-wise, and since the questions and answers are written out, there can be fewer concerns about misquoting and lack of accuracy.

To put it bluntly, I’ve been extremely disappointed – even after a couple follow-up nudges, I’ve received no answers at this time.

After vetting the questions with a couple SABR peers, I emailed them to the Hall on Oct. 5, and the media rep said the next he’d get them to someone who could answer them. After two weeks I hadn’t heard anything back, so I followed up with media relations on Oct. 19, and the rep said he’d remind the leadership team about the interview questions.

A week later I hadn’t heard back and sent another email, this one saying that I would have to report that the Hall had been unresponsive and failed to answers my interview questions. That email got no response. That was on Oct.26.

And here we are.

A couple notes at this point … One, I wanted to detail my interactions with the Hall in this enterprise to offer full transparency with how the communications unfolded to give full context for the primary thrust of this post.

Second, I fully well understand that I’m not the New York Times or ESPN or The Athletic, and that my questions were very pointed and almost a little confrontational. However, I believe my queries are important and that the Hall needs to address them in some way, form or forum, even if they opt to not respond directly to me.

So, what did I ask them? Here are the questions I sent:

1) What are your thoughts on the criticism the Hall has received regarding the lack of segregation-era Black inductees? Do you think such criticism is fair?

2) Have you seen the work of the 42 for 21 Committee? How would you respond to its efforts and statements about nominating a more well rounded and informed panel of experts who are better equipped and more knowledgeable when it comes to selecting HOF inductees from the Negro Leagues?

3) The proportion of white major leaguers in the Hall compared to the Black players from the pre-integration era is still heavily skewed and in no way comparable. What are your thoughts about the possibility that such a lack of Black inductees can be rectified?

4) Is there the possibility of more changes in the induction process to make the results more equitable?

5) Even with what some observers view as constant tinkering with the induction process, some critics assert that process still does a woeful job of achieving equality, fairness and justice for the many segregation-era candidates of color who still deserve induction. What are your thoughts on that situation?

6) Is there anything else you’d want to say on the matter of segregation-era candidates of color and the processes that have been used to induct such candidates?

Like I said, I acknowledge that the questions are very blunt and somewhat combative. However, I think that’s a reflection of just how frustrated and disappointed many of us are in the Hall of Fame’s continued obstinacy and unwillingness to right ongoing wrongs and bring full equity and justice to a process and a mindset that has led to the institutionalization of racism and ignorance that’s plagued a our national pastime for well more than a century.

This is a fairly short follow-up post to my previous ones (here and here) about John Bissant, his family and his grave in New Orleans’ Carrollton Cemetery. …

There’s been some confusion and lingering question marks about a few details in John’s life, and I wanted to maybe clear some of them up by connecting once again with Charisse Wheeler, Bissant’s granddaughter.

I chatted once more with Charisse, this time via text, a week or two ago and posed her a few questions, the first being about the specifics of John’s burial situation. Given that he, like just about all other people of color in New Orleans for centuries, was relegated to a segregated, “colored” section of burying ground in death, the current circumstances of his final resting place are somewhat frustrating and, honestly, depressing.

The little corner of Carrollton Cemetery carved out for African Americans is filled with ramshackle graves, fading and falling tombstones, and weeds and overgrown grass. When it rains, the plots are frequently muddy and difficult to access. Such is the result of the social and economic conditions rendered by the repressive, unjust system of Jim Crow.

To that end, Charisse told me that there are Bissants scattered all through the sectioned-off area of Carrollton Cemetery, and some of the family graves include more than one person. That includes athletic legend John Bissant, who died in Houston in 2006 and who’s interred with his wife (Charisse’s grandmother), Delores (died 1994), and his daughter (Charisse’s aunt), Barbara (died 2018).

The grave lacks a sufficient stone or marker, a situation Charisse and her relatives are working hard to remedy. (I’m hoping to see if the grave can be a future project of the famed Negro League Baseball Grave Marker Project as well.)

The second question I brought up with Charisse was the confusion I had when looking through old newspaper archives Ancestry because I discovered a bunch of John Bissants scattered through the various records, including multiple “Junior” and “Senior” monikers.

That perplexity led me to ask Charisse about the succession of John Bissants in New Orleans and which one was which. It turns out the John Lawrence Bissant of Negro Leagues lore is John L. Bissant Jr., son of John L. Bissant Sr. and father of (technically) John Bissant III. 

However, in the 2006 Times-Picayune obituary of baseball great John Bissant, he’s referred to as John Sr., and his son is listed as John Jr., even though technically John the Chicago American Giant is himself John Jr., and the man listed in the obit as John Jr. is actually John III.

Charisse said that for some reason, when the actual John Sr. passed in 1957, the family began calling Charisse’s grandfather/baseball great John Sr. and began addressing John III as John Jr.

Confused? I sure was. And while such details might seem like relative minutiae, they’re actually quite important when doing historical research, which often on paper doesn’t reflect individual family traditions and quirks that can cloud the record.

The third topic on my mind is one that’s puzzled me, as well as other Negro Leagues aficionados (including my pal James Tate, who’s queried several times about it), is the relationship between John Bissant (the star athlete one) and Bob Bissant, who also played some pro and semipro baseball and was quite the athlete himself.

Bob, an infielder, played locally in New Orleans for a slew of teams, beginning in the 1930s with the Algiers Giants, a longtime team based across the river on the eastbank of the city;  the Jax Red Sox, operated by businessman and baseball magnate Fred Caulfield; the New Orleans Athletics; and that famed peculiarity of a club, the Zulu Cannibal Giants, they of facepaint and grass skirts. In the 1940s he also captained the Black Pelicans, and coached the Houma Red Sox (the town of Houma is located about an hour southwest of the Big Easy).

Bob graduated from the local sandlots and ballfields to, like John Bissant, spend some time on teams near the upper echelon of professional Blackball, including the Nashville Cubs; the Miami Ethiopian Clowns; and, in the ’40s, the Baltimore Elite Giants of the second Negro National League. At the time, the Elites were managed by New Orleans baseball guru Wesley Barrow. (To clarify, however, media reports from early 1947 stated that Barrow had signed Bob up to play for Elites that season, but Bissant isn’t included on the Seamheads database’s roster for the Elites from that year.)

Bob Bissant also played a year or two in 1930s on a team that barnstormed in Canada, and in 1946, ventured to the Pacific Northwest to join the Portland Rosebuds of the ambitious but short-lived West Coast Negro Baseball League. The Rosebuds were owned by Olympic legend Jesse Owens and managed by none other than Wesley Barrow, whose presence undoubtedly helped convince Bob to go to Oregon.

Like many of his Negro Leagues peers in his hometown, Bob Bissant was quite active with the Old Timers Baseball Club of New Orleans, as much or perhaps more than John was, attending the banquets and honor ceremonies. He played in several of the group’s annual reunion all star games at Wesley Barrow Stadium, and in 1980, the club honored him as veteran player of the year.

Bob Bissant died in 1999 at the age of 85 and was interred at Providence Memorial Park and Mausoleum in the neighboring suburb of Metairie.

Because of Bob’s heavy involvement in the Black baseball, both as an active player and a retiree, I frequently came across references to Bob Bissant when going through the microfilmed archives of the Louisiana Weekly’s sports section. Since Bob and John were close in age and mentioned in newspaper coverage in the same time period, I’d assumed that Bob and John were brothers.

However, as I just learned from Charisse, that assumption was incorrect. Turns out they’re actually first cousins – their fathers (John Sr. for John and Champ Bissant Sr. for Bob) were brothers.

And there’s another facet to this familial tale – one of Bob’s brothers (and another first cousin for John Jr.), Champion Bissant Jr., also played a little ball here and there, mostly as a pitcher,meaning there were at least three Bissants who laced up cleats and took to the athletic fields. On top of that, too, Champ Jr.’s and Bob’s father, Champion Sr., was also a key player in the New Orleans Negro Leagues scene, owning and managing the  Bissant Giants, whose homefield was Bissant Baseball Park, which Champ Sr. built on the Orleans/Jefferson parish line.

Finally, Charisse shed some light on the relationship of John Bissant and Lloyd “Ducky” Davenport, another native New Orleanian who made good in the Negro major leagues, especially, like John, with the Chicago American Giants.

Ducky (whose own anonymous grave is another sad tale on its own) was born in the Big Easy in 1911 and died in 1985. Like John Bissant, he played on local teams before landing gigs in the majors, beginning with Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars of the second Negro National League.

He eventually enjoyed significant stints with the Cincinnati Tigers, Memphis Red Sox, Birmingham Black Barons, Cleveland Buckeyes (including the 1945 season, when the Bucks won the NAL pennant and the Negro World Series) and Chicago American Giants (including the 1943 campaign, when he led the club in batting at .313), all of the Negro American League.

(Davenport’s time with the Black Barons is perhaps the most interesting, at least to me. Ducky played for Birmingham during the 1941 and ’42 seasons; during the former year he came off the bench, but in 1942 he started in the outfield. The Black Barons at the time were managed by Louisiana legend Winfield Welch, a Napoleonville, La., native who managed several New Orleans and Louisiana clubs before hitching up with the Barons. While in Birmingham, Welch set up an informal but productive pipeline of talent from the New Orleans area up to the Black Barons; among those players, besides Ducky, was J.B. Spencer, from the NOLA suburb of Gretna, who later played for some of the dynastic Homestead Grays teams. Spencer was on the Black Barons roster at the same time Davenport played with Birmingham.)

Davenport was also selected to play in six East-West All-Star Games, and multiple North-South All-Star Games (which were held in NOLA and organized by legendary local entrepreneur and baseball magnate Allen Page). Ducky also spent a little time in the Mexican League.

Over parts or all of 10 seasons, largely as an outfielder, in the Negro majors, Ducky – who also earned the moniker of “Bearman” Davenport in Crescent City baseball circles – appeared in 242 games and batted a quite respectable .291, along with a .350 on-base percentage, .377 slugging and .726 OPS, all according to Seamheads. He has slashed 46 doubles, clubbed 11 triples, tallied 91 RBIs, swiped 30 bases and posted a WAR of 65.0. He batted and threw left.

Davenport was a relatively small guy, too; he was 5-foot-6 and 155 pounds, and he reportedly waddled when he walked, hence his nickname.

Most pertinent to this post, though, is the large amount of time Davenport and John Bissant spent with the same teams and on the same rosters; the pair was practically joined at the hip during their careers.

In 1937, John and Ducky both played for the Double Duty Radcliffe-managed Cincinnati Tigers (along with pitcher Eugene Bremer and, briefly, Lionel Decuir, both also from New Orleans), and, most prominently, they reunited on the 1943-44 Chicago American Giants, with both New Orleans lads starting in the outfield.

Bissant and Davenport were extremely close their entire lives, Charisse told me. She noted that the two baseball stars became friends in New Orleans when they were 8 or 9.

“Ducky was [John’s] best friend,” Charisse said.

She said Ducky was a familiar face for the Bissant family, including Charisse.

“He’d always be at our house when I was growing up,” she said. “They were very close and stayed in touch until Ducky died [in 1985].”

The entire time, she added, baseball was never far from the friends’ minds.

“I loved to hear them argue and tell their stories about baseball,” Charisse said.

She added, “[Davenport] actually lived in my grandparents house, in a separate house, for a while.”

But what about Davenport’s famous nickname? Where did it come from, I asked Charisse.

She said she’s not sure how the moniker started, but she and her whole family just always knew him as Ducky.

“It just stuck with him over the years, even in baseball,” Charisse said.

She added: “My mom said that when she was a little girl, that’s all everyone ever called him.”

(It’s worth noting, though, that in his 1994 article about Davenport, Lewis asserted that Ducky walked with a sort of waddle, and, at a scrappy 5-foot-four and 150 pounds, Davenport indeed looked like a waterfowl when he patrolled the outfield during his career.)

I’ve blogged a little bit about Ducky Davenport, in particular about the sad situation with his grave – he was buried at Holt Cemetery, New Orleans’ primary potter’s field. And not only does Ducky not have a grave marker or headstone of any sort, no one is sure where his grave even is in Holt.

That’s about all for this time, but I’m going to try to have one more John Bissant post coming soon!

Editor’s note: The following essay was written and graciously submitted by my Facebook buddy and fellow baseball historian Johnny Haynes. It’s a pretty fascinating and saddening look at how baseball, race relations and tragedy collided in May 1921 in Tulsa. I’ve only lightly edited it.

Just like the Superdome in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, sports venues have long borne witness to non-related pain and trauma throughout history. As baseball is the original American pastime, so too have baseball diamonds. 

In 1919, McNulty Park opened for the new Tulsa Oilers of the Class A Western League and was soon a frequent destination for white major league teams and players, including Babe Ruth.

Negro League baseball had been played in Tulsa for well over a decade, and in 1920, an unnamed Tulsa team was listed as a member of the Texas Colored League. The north end of Tulsa was home to the Greenwood community, a prosperous area that housed most of the city’s Black residents.

On May 31, 1921, the white Oilers and the Oklahoma City Indians finished a doubleheader, unaware of what was happening beyond the ballpark’s walls.

One day earlier, a young man named Dick Rowland tripped walking into an elevator, accidentally landing on a white woman named Sarah Page. A bystander who heard her scream called police and he was arrested, with a sensationalized story printed in the newspaper the next day.

As the Oilers were boarding the train and the Indians were waiting for the next one, a group of armed Black residents from Tulsa who were concerned that Rowland would be lynched collided with a group of white residents at the courthouse. As the white group attempted to disarm the Black group, a shot rang out and a gun battle ensued that would envelop the entire city.

Almost simultaneously, houses caught fire, stoked by arsonists on the ground and airplanes dropping crudely made incendiary bombs. Residents who came out with their hands up were either forced back inside, shot or whisked away by civilians. Bodies were also thrown back into the burning houses, a scene witnessed by Oklahoma City players who had their train out of town delayed. Trains themselves, for that matter, were attacked, and hospitals caring for the injured stormed. The National Guard arrived and was subsequently deputized alongside “all whites” and became officially sanctioned to join the mob.

The Black residents who weren’t killed were rounded up, detained and marched by gunpoint into the city convention hall, then the baseball stadium as their homes burned. Women and children were allowed to take seats in the grandstands, while the men were held on the ballfield. None could leave until white employers came to vouch for them.

McNulty Park was photographed on that day, depicting what would look like a capacity crowd at a game were it not for the strange formation of men sitting on luggage and standing around hopelessly under armed guard. Other photographs show men being unloaded from trucks outside the stadium like cattle. The Coffeyville, Kan., Morning News described conditions in the park:

“Inside the park was color and heat – stifling, odorous heat – the crying of babies, the sound of many voices and the moaning of women; and negroes [sic] – thousands of negroes [sic] huddled together as far as the eyes could see from one end of the grandstand to the other. The majority of them accepted the inevitable in good part; crowded and hot and sticky as it was.”

Martial law was declared the following day, and perhaps because there was nothing left to burn, the riots ended. 

The toll will probably never be fully accounted for. Thirty-five city blocks of homes, businesses, churches and schools were razed, resulting in a reported $4 million in property loss. An estimated 10,000 residents were homeless overnight. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially reported 36 deaths, though modern estimates range from 75-300. At least 800 people were hospitalized. Predictably, only the names of the white residents who died were printed in the newspapers.

Just 10 days later, McNulty Park was back to hosting ball games, like the massacre never happened. The Tulsa Tribune advertised a doubleheader between the Elks club teams of Tulsa and Oklahoma City on June 12. Returning too would be Blackball.

On June 4, with smoke still literally hanging in the air, the Black Texas newspaper The Dallas Express announced that “the Tulsa White Sox has organized a very fast team and will be heard from soon.” The very act of forming a baseball team seems out of place given the tragedy, but it was one of the only acts of defiance left for people who lost everything.

In 1922, the Black Oilers were incorporated and were members of the Texas Colored League in 1923 and 1929, spending most of their time in independent ball. One of the teams the Black Oilers would host in late September 1922 would be the Wichita Monrovians, who would take on and outplay the Ku Klux Klan’s team in Wichita.

In 1925, the Chicago American Giants and Kansas City Monarchs were juggernauts of the still young Negro National League when they linked up for a three-game set in Tulsa from Aug. 19-21. Despite receiving no compensation from insurance or otherwise, the Black residents who stayed did their best to rebuild, and seeing two big league teams was a welcome distraction.

The games coincided with the 26^th annual convention of the National Negro Business League, a meeting of Black entrepreneurs and businessmen from across the country. “The games played at Tulsa, Okla … between the American Giants and Kansas City, will not count in the official standing,” reported the Chicago Defender. The Tulsa Tribune stated the opposite in their advertisement of the game. 

Negro National League founder and American Giants owner and manager Rube Foster was not unaware of what happened in late spring 1921 at the ballpark. The “Red Summer” that saw violence occur in 26 cities across the country, including Chicago, precipitated the formation of the NNL in 1920. For Foster, a calculating man who had a reason for every single thing he did, the decision to visit Tulsa was likely formed by several things. For one, it was an opportunity to flex for Negro League baseball, which was quickly becoming the largest Black business in the United States, to other business owners.

The NNL teams’ appearance at McNulty also seemed cathartic and offered both healing and an act of defiance in a city where so much sadness and buried anger still lingered. For the Monarchs’ future Hall of Famer Bullet Rogan, the game was a homecoming of sorts – Rogan spent his childhood in Oklahoma City.

In the opening game of the series, the Monarchs routed the American Giants, 10-4, on long home runs by George Sweatt and Newt Allen. Game two went to the Monarchs again in a 13-9 slugfest, reported in the Enid Daily Eagle. No score has been found yet for the third game.

The American Giants would finish just behind the Monarchs in the NNL standings in 1925, who would go on to win the league pennant over the St. Louis Stars but lose the Negro World Series to Hilldale, five games to one. Several Black teams would subsequently call Tulsa home, including the Black Oilers, T-Town Clowns and Tulsa White Sox.

Just a few years after the massacre, in 1929, McNulty Park was torn down and replaced by a grocery store. Today, a Home Depot parking lot sits on the site.

This story, however, underscores a few things. This history still must be taught, beginning to end. I’ve considered myself a longtime baseball fan and history nerd but never knew any of this story. The Greenwood Massacre is required teaching in Oklahoma schools as of 2020, but not anywhere else.

If the white players who were playing at the time were shaken by the terror they witnessed, then one can imagine that the Black players who just lost their homes, businesses and livelihoods faced even more unfathomable heartbreak. And yet, as generations of Black players would do in the face of oppression, they played ball anyway.

Editor’s note: If anyone else would like to submit something for publication on this blog, definitely feel free to emails me at rwhirty218@yahoo.com. Thanks, and special thanks to Johnny Haynes for today’s post!

Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been in contact with Charisse Wheeler, a New Orleanian and the granddaughter of local Negro Leagues great John Bissant. I originally broached the subject of Bissant on this blog a few years ago with this post, about the ramshackle, anonymous nature of his grave in Carrollton Cemetery.

The cemetery, located in the Carrollton/Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans near the main campus of Tulane University, was historically divided into white and Black sections; the white area took up the vast majority of the graveyard, with people of color related to a small corner of the area.

Not surprisingly, the white section is today a much cleaner, nicer, and well maintained one than the Black section, much of which is untended, shambling, muddy and filled with many graves that include more than one family member.

While the white section includes numerous spacious, gleaning, well-kept crypts and mausoleums, the area for people of color contains many simple headstones, many of which are titled, toppled or askew. A lot of the stones are so eroded and obscured by nature that the names are practically illegible, rendering the graves’ occupants as essentially and sadly anonymous in death.

Such is the case with John Bissant’s grave, located on a family plot in the Black section. Resultantly, I’ve hoped that John’s grave could be the subject of another effort by the Negro League Baseball Grave Marker Project, but because his grave contains multiple people and cannot be specifically and conclusively located, it makes for a tough case for the NLBGMP.

I’ve also hoped that I could attract the attention of various local media in publicizing the location and ramshackle status of Bissant’s final resting and, by extension, the entire “colored” section of the cemetery. 

However, it’s proven a difficult road to getting any articles or pieces undertaken on the local Negro Leagues, aside from The Louisiana Weekly newspaper, which has been gracious enough to publish several Negro Leagues stories of mine, such as this one about Creole Pete Robertson, this one about John Wright and this one concerning Gerald Sazon.

(Most media types to whom I’ve reached out here have either ignored me or come up with excuses why they can’t be bothered, namely the supreme, unquestioned importance of the Saints and LSU football. Some have also been quite hesitant to do on-air pieces because I’d have to be interviewed on camera, and my stuttering has also served as a convenient excuse for not doing so.)

Soon after my original post, though, Charisse posted a comment on the post introducing herself and saying she’s liked my work. We’ve since traded emails and messages and hope to talk in person or over Zoom soon.

But in the meantime, Charisse has filled me in on some stuff she and her family have been doing to honor John Bissant and his contributions to baseball history and to the city of New Orleans.

In particular, the family gathered to celebrate John’s life on Resurrection Sunday (Easter) this past April. In addition to Charisse, one of John’s sons, Lawrence Bissant, also attended, as well as several other grandchildren, a great grandson and a great great granddaughter. They also had jerseys and shirts made up.

“We still very much keep him and his memory alive,” Charisse told me via email. 

She added: “We still very much talk about our grandfather and the many memories we had with him. I actually have a box of letters, where people would write [to] him from all over the world to get his signature.”

Bissant’s most prominent stint in Negro Leagues baseball came with the legendary Chicago American Giants, from 1939-1947. At that point, the G-men were members of the Negro American League and a decade or so removed from their greatest era in the 1920s under Rube Foster and then Dave Malarcher.

Beginning in 1937, the American Giants were owned by Dr. J.B. Martin, a dentist from Memphis who owned the Memphis Red Sox before shifting to the Windy City. He also served as president of the NAL. Unfortunately, the American Giants were largely mediocre at best during Bissant’s tenure with the club, never winning the NAL pennant and finishing last a whopping five times. 

However, that American Giants club of the mid-1940s was, at times, fairly stacked. At various times Bissant’s teammates included standouts like Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe and Duty’s brother, Alec/Alex Radcliffe; Art “Superman” Pennington; Gentry Jessup; Walter “Rev” Cannady; Lester Lockett; Willie Cornelius; Ted Trent; John “Mule” Miles; John Ritchey; Lyman Bostock Sr.; and fellow New Orleanians Billy Horne and Lloyd “Ducky” Davenport.

As it turned out, as an outfielder, Bissant had the good fortune to team with other standouts – including NOLA lad Davenport – to form fearsome lineups in the outer garden for the American Giants. In June 1943, an Illinois paper noted that Bissant and Davenport were joined by Art Pennington in an “outfield [that] is considered the best in the [NAL].”

Actually, during and after Bissant’s playing career, newspapers often referred to Bissant together with Ducky Davenport as a duo of greatness; because both of them were outfielders from New Orleans – they competed against each other in high school here – and were both speedsters who prowled the outfield for the American Giants, it was natural to mention both in the same breath.

However, even then, Bissant garnered the highest praise, partially because he was so well rounded as an athlete.

“Bissant was a natural, as was Davenport,” stated the Louisiana Weekly in April 1970, “but [Bissant’s] wonderful physique, speed and power gave him the advantage, and his best sport was probably football, although he lettered in track [and] basketball, as well as baseball and football.”

Anyway, those CAGs aggregations also included, at different times, numerous Black baseball legends who were in the latter stages of their careers, including Willie Wells, Pepper Bassett (a Baton Rouge native), Jimmie Crutchfield, Chet Brewer and Cool Papa Bell. In addition, several esteemed veterans served as American Giants managers during Bissant’s stints with the club, including Ted Radcliffe, Bingo DeMoss and Candy Jim Taylor.

In 1996, writer Ross Forman interviewed Bissant for an article in “Sports Collectors Digest” magazine, and the piece chronicled a great deal of Bissant’s memories and recollections about his career and some of the Black baseball stars with whom he played, with a focus on his time with the CAGs.

“We had a lot of traveling experiences, meeting other clubs,” Bissant told Forman. “They were very fond memories of the Negro Leagues. I guess the highlight of my career was the year [the Chicago American Giants] made me captain of the team. We had quite a few young ballplayers coming in then and, to be a leader on that ball club was quite an honor.”

Bissant said that in the Windy City, “In Chicago, I think I was quite a hit with the fans because I hit really well. At the time when they took me, I had been playing infield, they turned me into an outfielder.”

Bissant added that traveling the country remained a career highlight.

“I still remember playing in the major league ballparks, such as Yankee Stadium and Polo Grounds,” he said. “That was nice. We also played in some small parks, some very small parks, places that never would compare to a major league stadium. My favorite was Comiskey.”

John’s career, while not as stellar as other Black ball legends who are waiting for induction in Cooperstown like Dick Redding and Rap Dixon, was certainly successful enough to make him one of the best baseball products of New Orleans, white or Black — a fact that requires his induction to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame at the very least. While spending most of his career as an outfielder (playing in all three outer garden positions at different times), he could also man second base and even take the mound if needed.

According to James A. Riley’s exhaustive book, “The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues,” Bissant batted and threw right-handed, stood at 5-foot-8 and weighed 180 pounds. Riley wrote that John was “[A] good outfielder [who] could run and throw, but is probably better known for his hitting.”

Newspaper writers also described Bissant as a standout with all-around talent and adaptability. A July 1944 article in the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, for example, called Bissant “the team’s ace outfielder, and is a hard hitter as well as a great ground-coverer.”

The South Bend, Ind., Tribune, in previewing a game between Bissant’s Chicago Brown Bombers and a northern Indiana semipro team, offered a concise but glowing estimation of the New Orleans legend. At the time Bissant was usually stationed in left field.

“Bissant is tagged as the fleetest of the Bombers’ outfield,” the newspaper stated. “Because of his fleetness he sometimes patrols center giving the Bombers added protection on the strength of Bissant’s ability to roam into right or left to haul down apparent hits. He is death on [the] bases and specializes in base thievery to the chagrin of rival catchers.”

According to Seamheads.com, across all or parts of eight seasons in the major Negro Leagues with the Cincinnati Tigers and Chicago American Giants between 1937-47, Bissant played in a total of 139 games, amassing 477 at bats, with 74 runs, 131 hits, 16 doubles, nine triples, two homers, 44 RBI and nine stolen bases, showing that he wasn’t really a power hitter and wasn’t quite speedy enough to swipe bases by a pile like Cool Papa Bell and Sam Jethroe, but he slapped out hits at a very solid  clip. His BA/OBP/SLG/OPS line was .275/.323/.358/.681. 

“I don’t brag on myself,” Bissant told Forman. “I leave that to other people to do that, and staying up there in the lineup for most [of] my career was an honor. …

“I was a decent hitter, very fast; I stole quite a few bases. I can’t remember yoo many catchers stopping me. Sure, I was thrown out (trying to steal), but not any rash of stolen base tries. Most of the catchers when I played, had very good arms, not like the catchers now.”

He said he had a good relationship with fans, including those in Chicago.

“I think they appreciated my effort, and I enjoyed baseball,” Bissant said.

Unfortunately, Bissant was one of hundreds of Black players who never got a chance to compete in so-called Organized Baseball; he noted that “[W]hen they started taking Negro Leaguers into the major leagues, I was too old.”

But, even in his later years, the memories of his time in Negro League baseball remained sharp and sweet.

“Yep, it’s been over 50 years, yes indeed,” he told Forman, “even though I sometimes remember things like they happened yesterday.”

After retiring from baseball, John Bissant worked at several jobs in the New Orleans area, including at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility; Lykes Brothers Steamship Company, a shipping business; Glazer Steel and Aluminum; and a security guard firm.

John Bissant died on April 1, 2006, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 92; he had evacuated to Houston from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. In its obituary of Bissant, the Times-Picayune called him “a Negro League Baseball Legend.” 

I’m working on additional John Bissant posts that gets more detailed about his career and accomplishments, so hopefully that’ll be done soon. Fingers crossed!

Here’s a bunch of pics from the 2023 SABR Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference a couple weeks ago in Detroit. The first set are from the opening reception at historic Hamtramck Stadium. (For info and background about Hamtramck and its incredible preservation and revival, check out this, this and this.)

This second group is from the July 21 Detroit Tigers game, at which the team celebrated its annual Negro Leagues day.

I’m also including a couple pics of the team’s statue and memorial to Hank Greenberg, who also faced hate and bigotry in a city rife with anti-Semitism at the time he played. (Detroit was home to automobile and manufacturing magnate Henry Ford, as well as Father Charles Coughlin, who spouted bigotry on his radio show. They were both notorious anti-Semites.) Hank is one of my favorite all-time players.

Editor’s note: I recently asked a couple SABR buds if they might be able to write a short essay detailing the dedication of a new grave marker on second baseman Newt Allen’s burial site earlier this year in Cincinnati. Below is such an article by Paul Debono, author of multiple fantastic books on the Negro Leagues, who was gracious and kind enough to unspool the story of providing a gravestone for the formerly unmarked grave of an overlooked Negro Leagues legend.

Jackie Robinson Day, April 15, 2023, a grave marker for Newt Allen was dedicated at Union Baptist Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Initially I felt a little awkward guiding the effort to place a marker on Newt Allen’s grave. I have always believed it is the historian’s duty to report history and not to change it.

I came across the fact that Newt Allen was buried in Cincinnati’s Union Baptist Cemetery years ago, which seemed odd as Newt was known almost exclusively for his storied career with the Kansas City Monarchs.

It was during the Covid-19 lockdown that I found some time to research the story behind how Newt Allen was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in Cincinnati.

He was born May 19, 1901, in Austin, Texas, the son of Newton and Rose (Baker) Allen. After the death of his father in 1910, Newt’s mother Rose picked up and moved to Cincinnati with four children.

While he was still just a young boy, Newt visited his aunt in Kansas City. His aunt had recently lost a young son, and the way things worked out Newt would stay in Kansas City. His auntie brought Newt into her home and adopted him.

He grew up in the historic Black neighborhood of 18th and Vine in Kansas City – very close to the current site of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Newt discovered his true calling on the sandlots of Kansas City, working his way all the way up to the Monarchs in 1922. By 1924 he was the regular second baseman for the storied franchise.

Not described as a “natural,” he was known for hard work and dedication. He mastered bunting and terrorized opposing infielders with aggressive tactics on the basepaths. Allen put in the work to become an excellent fielder on an excellent Monarchs team and helped the team to win the first-ever Negro League World Series against the Hilldale Club of the Eastern Colored League in 1924 – the first of many pennants for Allen and the Monarchs.

Newt ascended to captaincy and played alongside Hall of Famers Joseph “Bullet” Rogan, Andy Cooper and Buck O’Neil. Later in his career he also played with and managed Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Willard Brown and Hilton Smith. Newt retired from baseball in 1944, but in 1945 briefly rejoined KC to evaluate a prospective shortstop named Jackie Robinson.

Newt Allen was one of the greatest second basemen in baseball. Buck O’Neil said he “never saw a second baseman with as good an arm as Newt Allen.” Legendary New York Giant manager John McGraw said, “Allen is one of the finest infielders, white or colored, in organized baseball.”

Along the way, Allen played baseball in Cuba and Mexico during the winter. He even toured China, Japan and the Philippines as a member of an “all-star team.” Newt Allen had a swan song as manager of the barnstorming Indianapolis Clowns in 1947 and then finally left the game he loved.

When he left baseball, he had a career as a repair foreman at the Kansas City courthouse. As an elderly gentleman in declining health, he moved in with his younger brother in Cincinnati and later into a nursing home. Newt was loved and respected. When Newt Allen died in 1988, the Kansas City Times printed a short article on the passing of the legend, but no obituary was published in the Cincinnati newspapers. And, probably due to a lack of money, no grave marker was placed.

I found a story online about a researcher who had previously been frustrated looking for Newt Allen’s burial place. Newt’s death certificate listed the place of burial as Union Baptist Cemetery, but the record of his precise burial place could not be found.

It seemed like that might be the end of the story. I was lucky though, and discovered a local historian, Chris Hanlin, who had taken on a project documenting Cincinnati’s historic black cemeteries.

The subject of most of Chris’ work was Cincinnati’s African-American pioneers in art, business, civil rights, education, law, medicine, religion and other fields going back to the early 19^th century. Chris had never heard of Newt Allen, and he too initially thought that Newt Allen’s resting place might be unlocatable.

As a long-time student of Negro League baseball history, I appreciated just how important Newt Allen was to the game. Years ago, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Jeremy Krock, who founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project in 2004. I knew that, given Newt Allen’s prominence, his resting place would be on the list of graves worthy of placing a marker for the NLBGMP.

I also found that SABR member Frederick Bush was in the process of writing a biographical sketch of Newt Allen, so we joined forces to research Newt. I enlisted the assistance of fellow Negro Leagues history buff/author Alex Painter; an old friend, Dr. Eric Jackson of Northern Kentucky University; podcaster Deqah Hussein-Wetzel; Union Baptist Church trustee Louise Stevenson; as well as many other supporters.

A breakthrough happened when Hanlin, who had over time built a relationship with the trustees of Cincinnati’s Union Baptist Church, was able to sift through the church records and find a record for the Allen family showing exactly where Newt Allen was buried.

While tracking down where Newt Allen was buried, we managed to learn a little bit more about his life story. We were also able to locate living relatives in Kansas City. While these pieces fell into place, it took time and work to create the grave marker.

Lest we forget, Covid-19 restrictions meant that in-person meetings were canceled, supply chains were slowed down, cemetery workers were laid off. We had Zoom meetings. We corralled support online. I did not meet my virtual colleague Chris Hanlin until we had both received our Covid vaccine six months after our online introduction.

I told the story of how the Kansas City Monarch legend Newt Allen was buried on the west side of Cincinnati to anyone who would lend me an ear. I was asked several times, “Why are you doing this?”

That story always started with a short explanation of Negro League baseball, the significance of the Kansas City Monarchs, and then just who Newt Allen was and what he accomplished. I had some help telling that story – there were past voices inside my head guiding me.

Knowledge was passed on to me by big personalities like Buck O’ Neil and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, whom I was privileged to meet many years ago. I came across Buck O’Neil’s “All- Time Negro League Team” posted online, in which he names Newt as his second baseman; everyone else on Buck’s team and now Buck himself is enshrined in Cooperstown.

Once it was determined where Newt Allen was buried, there was really no question that his grave would eventually be marked.

A grave marker is a simple slab of rock with an inscription that can last for hundreds of years – a small but important monument. The Negro League Baseball Grave Marker Project stepped up and coordinated the creation of the grave marker. It was delivered to Cincinnati’s historic Union Baptist Cemetery in the late summer of 2022. On December 1, 2022, the former sexton of the cemetery was lured out of retirement for a day to install the grave marker.

Jackie Robinson Day was chosen for the dedication because of Newt Allen’s special connection to Jackie. In his 1983 book, “Invisible Men,” writer/historian Donn Rogosin recounts a story passed on to him about how Newt Allen evaluated Jackie for the Kansas City Monarchs:

“Allen piled Jackie and the rest of the Monarchs onto a bus and headed to San Antonio to play [a team at the military base] Kelly Airfield. In the game, Robinson hit well and he proved that he was smart by handling some complicated baserunning chores and picking up the deliberately changing signs. But Allen recalled, ‘he couldn’t play shortstop.’ … Allen met with team owner J.L. Wilkinson … Wilkinson agreed, and Robinson was made a utility infielder, with the idea of grooming him as Newt Allen’s successor at second base.”

Since 2004 MLB has celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, in which all players wear No. 42 jerseys (a tradition started by Ken Griffey Jr.). Cincinnati is rich in baseball history and baseball history appreciators.

A group of about 50 people gathered at Union Baptist Cemetery at noon on April 15, 2023. Among the aficionados were a few baseball history buffs, including the director of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Hall of Fame; church members; the son of a Negro Leagues player,; and friends and neighbors.

The day started off overcast with a few sprinkles, but by noon the splendor of a sunny Appalachian springtime came over the hallowed grounds. The dedication began with the Pledge of Allegiance – a tradition at the Union Baptist Cemetery, where the souls of over 100 Black Civil War veterans lie.

We sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and the Union Baptist Church Pastor Dr. Orlando Yates gave a moving eulogy to Newt Allen – peppered with reminders of why history is important now! Newt’s accomplishments were recited and flowers placed on his tombstone.

While trying to gain support for the Newt Allen grave marker, I spoke with a few baseball historians. When you mention the name “Newt Allen” in certain circles, the conversation quickly turns to Cooperstown. The sheer number of games that Newt Allen played puts him in the National Baseball Hall of Fame discussion. The number of championship pennants he accumulated as a Monarch is more than any other player. The fact that there is not a true Negro League second baseman in Cooperstown also strengthens the case for his induction.

Regardless of whether Newt Allen winds up in Hall of Fame, he deserves to be remembered. We did our small part. We placed a simple marker on Newt Allen’s burial spot in hopes that he will never be forgotten. And the work of the Negro League Grave Marker Project goes on – since 2003, more than 50 markers have been placed, and there are more in progress.

Paul Debono (Cincinnati resident since 2000) is the author of two histories of Negro League baseball teams: The Chicago American Giants (2007) and The Indianapolis ABCs (1997) and currently working on a history of Negro Leagues baseball in Cincinnati.

As a final side note, Paul pointed at a little bit about Newt Allen’s connections to Cincinnati, where Paul has lived for many years. Here’s what Paul wrote on that:

Newt Allen was a Kansas City Monarch who was laid to rest in a different Queen City, however he did play a handful of games in Cincinnati. Newt played shortstop and was the leadoff hitter for the Monarchs May 25, 1934, at Crosley Field for a game against the Cincinnati Tigers. He went 2-for-5 and hit a double. It would be interesting to know if his Cincy family was able to attend the game.

Once again it’s been much too long since my last post. I’ve been working on posts but none of them seem to get done, unfortunately, but I really wanted to get something published about this particular subject.

That being the flood of state laws across the country that are banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory and outlawing in schools even the suggestion that systemic racism has always and continues to cripple our society by holding back a significant portion of the population – namely, non-white people.

(Here in Louisiana, Republicans in the State Legislature have tried to enact various anti-CRT measures but have fortunately been unsuccessful. Check out this and this.)

The basic truth of systemic racism remains that it has had and will continue to have a devastating impact it has on this country, and no amount of denying or ignorance can make it all disappear.

The notion that several well overdue laws like the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s, court rulings like Brown v. Board of Education, and even three Constitutional amendments simply and magically erased all the horror, evil and consequences of hundreds of years of codified racial oppression of slavery and segregation in matters of instance is laughably, erroneous and deeply, deeply flawed, offensive and injurious.

Hiding our heads from reality in the sand doesn’t make systemic racism go away, and such pathological avoidance of the truth only reflects the fear and cowardice of those who ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Just like with segregation, such laws reveal the moral weakness and terrified existences of those leaders and their supporters. People like Ron DeSantis are, quite simply, cowardly little children and bullies.

But with that screed of mine out of the way, we need to get at one of the fundamental questions springing from such draconian, ignorant laws – what practical effects will such bans have on education in America? What can now be taught and acknowledged, and not taught and unacknowledged, in schools in Florida, Texas and other reactionary states?

Specifically in relation to this blog, we must conjecture whether the history and impact of the Negro Leagues can be taught to our children? Many people in the modern Negro Leagues community and fandom have worked hard, with a mix of determination and opportunity, to go into schools and clubs across the nation to teach folks about the bittersweet glory of the Negro Leagues.

For decades these baseball missionaries have exposed Americans, young and old, to the wonder and greatness that was segregation-era Black baseball. But would such efforts be allowed today? Could a teacher or guest in a school introduce “Only the Ball Was White” to students? Could the brilliant work of many subsequent Negro Leagues researchers and writers even be mentioned in classes?

Or would such instruction be barred or punished in states like Florida?

Because it’s absolutely impossible to teach about Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson and Pete Hill and Rube Foster and Pop Lloyd and Effa Manley without relating the very reason the Negro Leagues existed at all. The history of the Negro Leagues themselves is indisputably intertwined with why they were there – oppressive bigotry, segregation and, yes, institutional racism.

As a result, I suggest that any class lessons involving these legends – and legendary teams like the Cuban Giants, Kansas City Monarchs, Homestead Grays and Birmingham Black Barons, as well as numerous barnstorming all-star aggregations – that would be taught in school in Florida and elsewhere would be viewed by DeSantis and similar Palpatines as illegal and would be punished by the very legal system that should protect them. 

In essence, the Negro Leagues now could not be taught in Florida. They simply couldn’t without vigorous, bigoted backlash.

But all this reveals another basic, unfortunate, tragic truth – that so much of what’s known as Black History in America is indeed the fight against institutional racism and oppression. The beliefs, writings and efforts of so many great African Americans were undertaken and put to paper as part of the centuries-long battle against bigotry, both codified and understood.

Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King – they’re all legendary because they fought systemic racism. Think of some of the greatest works of Black literature – “The Souls of Black Folk,” “Up from Slavery,” “Native Son,” “The New Negro,” “Invisible Man” – and they all were created to, in some way, counter bigotry and correct the terrible political, economic and social impacts slavery and segregation had on our society.

The people who are counted as important Black politicians and elected officials are, in part, remembered because they were racial pioneers in government. And from Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, John Lewis and John Conyers to Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, these trailblazers used their influence and power to affect achievements of tremendous social justice and political infrastructure.

Sports legends are no different. Isaac Murphy, Major Taylor, Jack Johnson, Fritz Pollard, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Wilma Rudolph, Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe and Charlie Sifford were not only phenomenal, accomplished athletes, but at least some of their importance to American history is the fact that they were firsts for people of color in the athletic world.

Even someone like Michael Jordan, who although wasn’t an athletic trailblazer like Bill Russell or the Harlem Rens were, became such a crucial figure in America, and indeed the world, because he was a Black man who was able to leverage his sporting achievements into an entrepreneurial juggernaut and massive economic success. Folks like Jordan, Tiger Woods and Serena Williams represent the mythic American Dream itself by becoming millionaires and billionaires, something that even early pioneers like Marion Motley, Joe Louis or Jesse Owens couldn’t achieve. 

Which brings us back to baseball, the national pastime, the oldest American sport, and the oldest American athletic business and, quite necessarily, to the Negro Leagues and their sad reason for being.

And, progressing from that, we come to the one and only Jackie Robinson. While Jack Roosevelt Robinson was undeniably an incredible, accomplished athlete regardless of color or era – he would have been a star and Hall of Famer in any league or in any decade – the driving reason he’s held up as an American hero is because he was the first player of color in the modern-era Major Leagues.

And moreover, his greatness and legend and importance also stem from the way he withstood withering hate and abuse when he suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and beyond. He proved himself not just a good baseball player, but as a supremely strong, proud, resolute, honorable person and American. He was himself a Civil Rights pioneer who forever changed America for the better and bolder. That’s why he’s held up as a legend and an American hero today.

But, again, could his life, career and impact even be taught in the schools of Florida, Texas and other states today as a result? Would DeSantis-ites object to any mention in classes of a man who became a great American because of his battle and triumph over segregation and institutional, systemic racism, topics that are now feared taboo by weak, scared whites?

Then extend the example of Jackie Robinson to other American Civil Rights legends. How could a teacher in Florida similarly instruct kids about why Frederick Douglass, Dr. King and Rosa Parks are important if those educators can’t even teach about someone – a “mere” baseball player – as fundamental to the last hundred years of American history and the lingering impact of that history?

When a nationwide movement calling, happily often successfully, for the removal of Confederate and Jim Crow statues, names and titles from the public sphere several years ago, reactionary whites leveled panicked cries of “how history was being erased.” They blustered and bloviated sanctimoniously about how Confederate history was, for better or for worse, American history, and thus shouldn’t be relegated to obscurity.

But now, these same reactionaries are now hypocritically doing the very thing they decried as an American catastrophe – effectively erasing history by banning its teaching. They’re deleting most of Black history from classrooms and textbooks across the country because teaching the reality of that history and the continuing, tragic impact of people of color would make them, and their precious white children, uncomfortable and sad. Snowflakes, indeed.

Black history – and therefore all of American history – is effectively being blotted out from lesson plans. We can’t teach about heroes like Jackie Robinson or MLK without accepting why they’re heroes – their heroism is defined and even exists because of systemic racism.

And without teaching the painful, ugly, centuries-long history of system and institutional racism in America, we cannot even begin to hope for the type of social and cultural reckoning that is absolutely necessary in order to affect nationwide healing that is so feared and almost pathologically avoided by people like DeSantis and his myopic, bigoted, cowardly supporters.

That reckoning with reality then necessarily envelopes the lives of, accomplishments made by and lessons imparted by American athletes like Jackie Robinson – and unavoidably, the Negro Leagues and Black baseball history.

It’s that Black baseball history that, sadly, stands as an emblematic microcosm of the entirety of American history and current American society. And if we can’t teach about Satchel Paige, Cum Posey, Sol White and Rube Foster – themselves relatively benign subjects compared to the shameful legacy of lynchings, mass murder and other violence – then how can we even teach the whole of Black history, as well as, then, the way that terrible, bittersweet history continues to cause the systemic, institutional racism that hasn’t simply disappeared in America, no matter how much some might want it to?

An often overlooked facet of Black baseball history is the sport’s prevalence on a collegiate level. The story of HBCU baseball, as well as African-American trailblazers at once-segregated white institutions, remains a key element in the overall Black baseball tradition.

And now, that history and heritage has been documented on a large scale for the first time by author Jay Sokol, the founder and editor of the definitive HBCU baseball Web site, Black College Nines, who this year published, “The History of HBCU Baseball and Integrators of Historically White College Baseball Program.”

The following is a lightly-edited email interview with Sokol about his book, the importance of HBCU hardball heritage, and the overlooked greatness of HBCU baseball.

Ryan Whirty: Where does your interest in HBCU baseball come from? What drew you to the subject?

Jay Sokol: My lifelong interest in college baseball was born of a personalized autograph of 1960 Ohio State University baseball All-American Tom Perdue (also co-captain of the 1961 national championship football team), who rented an apartment from my father while Perdue was in school. Though growing up in OSU-football-crazy Columbus, Ohio, I became an avid follower of Buckeye baseball, especially its 1966 College World Series championship team.

My interest specifically in HBCU baseball, which I was totally unaware of until this time, grew from reading a simple blurb in a “Faces in the Crowd” section of a 1967 Sports Illustrated  issue about Grambling College’s Ralph Garr. [It’s now called Grambling State University — ed.]

As a sports trading card collector in the 1960s, I was fond of Grambling and other Southwestern Athletic Conference football alums playing pro ball like Ernie Ladd, Buck Buchanan, Lem Barney, Bob Hayes and plenty of others.  As a result of reading about Grambling’s Ralph Garr, I then began discovering HBCU alums in professional baseball like Donn Clendenon, Tommie Agee, George Altman and Lou Brock.

RW: How has the Black College Nines Web site developed and evolved over time? How much of a challenge has it been to keep working on, adding to and improving it?

JS: The Web site, blackcollegenines.com, was created in 2008 as an extension of a project I was working on taking a deeper dive into the life of Charles Thomas, the lone African-American ballplayer on Ohio Wesleyan University baseball teams of 1903-1905 and inspiration for his then coach, Branch Rickey, to someday integrate professional baseball – which Rickey eventually did as general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers when he signed Jackie Robinson to a professional baseball contract in 1945.

Initially, the stories were confined to Black college baseball’s past and short biographical sketches on integrators of historically white college baseball programs, like Charles Thomas.

The name Black College Nines was chosen in order to highlight the historical aspect of black college baseball since the term “Nines” was a prevalent moniker used in the 19th century.

At the time we started up, there was an existing website run by Ruffin Bell called blackcollegebaseball.com. That site reported on current HBCU baseball happenings, and we considered ourselves a sister site dedicated to preserving the legacy of HBCU baseball. Unfortunately, Mr. Bell’s time constraints forced the termination of that great Web site. In time, Michael Coker, a reporter for that defunct site, approached me about expanding our offerings to include the happenings of current day black college baseball, which we did in 2012.

Year by year, blackcollegenines.com has grown (thanks in good part to Michael Coker) to become the recognized source of everything HBCU baseball, including running polls that result in crowning mythical national champions and naming All-Elites (our version of All-American status).

RW: What was the genesis of the book? What prompted you to tackle such a complex, richly textured task of encompassing the history of HBCU baseball?

JS: For much of my adult life, I’ve been a baseball history nut. So, being an HBCU baseball enthusiast, it naturally made me a Black college baseball history buff, too.

But the impetus for the book came from a few other sources. When I originally created the Web site blackcollegenines.com, I came up with the tagline, “Preserving the Legacy of Historically Black College and University baseball.” What better way to preserve that history than to research and then record it and have it as a permanent, lasting tribute to HBCU baseball.

The other sources of inspiration were two quotes I once read and an email of encouragement. One quote, in response to a question posed to College Baseball Hall of Fame coach Roger Cador asking why HBCU baseball matters, Cador stated, “It’s a story that’s extremely important for the making of the history of American baseball.” Another, from Daryl Russell Grigsby, author of Celebrating Ourselves: African-Americans and the Promise of Baseball, stated, “Despite the depth and breadth of baseball, there is no comprehensive record of the role of Historically Black College and Universities in promoting baseball.”

Later, in an email response to a question I asked of Dr. Richard Lapchick, a prolific writer, human rights activist, and internationally recognized expert on sports issues, he ended the email wishing me good luck with my efforts and that it was important work.

RW: What was the most rewarding aspect of researching and completing the book? What was the biggest challenge to overcome?

JS: I found it exhilarating when I’d discover some fact that, as far as I was aware, had not previously been addressed. I think that’s true for most who do any type of historical research. As far as HBCU baseball historical research, I found it frustrating that many accounts in newspapers of the early-20th century failed to accurately identify individual performances, listing only last names – if even that. It was also disappointing that, more often than not, school archives departments had little information (other than photos) about their baseball team’s history. It was disappointing, but understandable in most cases why they didn’t.

RW: Are you pleased with how the book turned out? 

JS: Since I don’t believe there has ever been nearly as much detailed information dedicated solely to the history of HBCU baseball, nor integrators of college baseball programs, I wanted to make sure I was pleased with my effort before publishing … and I’m pretty pleased.

RW: What were some of the most interesting nuggets or discoveries you made along the way?

JS: Two things that really stuck out were the number of early Black college ballplayers who either made careers of baseball, or were involved in seeking racial justice, and that quite a few historically white college baseball integrators went on to careers serving HBCUs either as presidents, professors, athletic administrators or coaches. Examples are James Weldon Johnson and Walter White, both of Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University), who each headed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

A discovery that excited me was locating an HBCU intercollegiate ballgame from 1887 between Louisiana’s Southern University and Straight University (which later merged with New Orleans University to form Dillard University) that pre-dated the only game previously documented. Also, I was provided a copy of a photo of the Wilberforce University baseball team dated 1897 that, unbeknownst to its owner, contained an image of Sol White, the Negro Leaguer who was selected for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

RW: What is the importance of HBCU baseball, and its history in particular, to overall baseball history? How has HBCU baseball contributed to the modern-day game and to those who love the sport?

JS: Well, for starters, I agree with former Southern University head coach Roger Cador, who in an interview with you [this writer] once said it is crucial to remember the sociopolitical conditions in which many HBCU baseball programs developed in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The crucible of segregation and prejudice that existed during Jim Crow shaded everything about the Black educational experience. That includes athletics, even into the mid-20th century.

It’s important overall to baseball history because many stars of Negro League and Major League baseball got their starts playing at HBCUs. So to know their baseball lives means to include their HBCU playing days, too.

RW: What’s next on your agenda? What new challenge are you getting ready to tackle?

JS: It depends … do you think my wife will be reading this? Let’s just say that if there is any second edition with updates since the 2019 college baseball season and newly discovered research, I will only be a collaborator. I would like to learn more of that first HBCU game and the individuals who participated. I think that would be interesting.  

That being said, the future plans include continued work with the current 52 HBCU baseball programs to promote black college baseball and to preserve its legacy via our Web site blackcollegenines.com.

For more information on Sokol’s book, “The History of HBCU Baseball and Integrators of Historically White College Baseball Program,” check out this link. To purchase a copy, go to Amazon. As for this writer in New Orleans, go Gold Rush and go Bleu Devils!

“‘Kimmie,’ as he was known, was the best centerfielder of his day. Noted for letting his bat, arm, and glove do the talking for him, Kimbro said little.”

– Writer Bob Luke in his 2009 book, “The Baltimore Elite Giants: Sport and Society in the Age of Negro League Baseball.”

“I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted to because I didn’t go to school. It just tore me all to pieces. People started calling me ‘bad man’ and ‘evil’ and it just followed me all around my whole baseball time.”

– Henry Kimbro, as quoted by Richard Goldstein of the New York Times in 1999

“My father made me into all the things he was,” Harriet said. “All of [Henry’s traits] was what became a part of me.”

– Harriet Kimbro Hamilton

Today would have been the 111th birthday of centerfielder Henry Kimbro, a native of Nashville, Tenn., who produced one of the steadiest, most impactful and overlooked careers in Negro Leagues history.

Kimbro, in a 17-year career (1937-53) spent primarily with the Baltimore Elite Giants, played in 10 East-West All-Star Games; was part of the Elites club that won the 1949 Negro American League championship; also starred for several seasons in the Cuban Winter League; and compiled a .325 overall batting average, according to the Center for Negro League Baseball Research.

Moreover, during the seasons that now are considered major league (1937-48), Kimbro amassed a cumulative batting line of .304/.396/.441, including the 1947 Negro National League season, in which he led all the major leagues in average (.385), and led the NNL in on-base percentage (.447), slugging percentage (.619), hits (90), runs (75), doubles (24), RBIs (52) and total bases (153).

Expounding on such sterling stats, in a comprehensive biographical article about Kimbro, CNLBR founder Dr. Layton Revel described Kimbro as “an all-around complete ball player. He was a lead-off batter who could hit for average and power. Henry possessed excellent speed. He also was an exemplary outfielder with outstanding range and a strong throwing arm.”

Revel added that Kimbro, in his prime, could hit for both power and average. In his prime he “was considered one of the best outfielders in the Negro Leagues. In addition, his speed was an asset both offensively and defensively. He truly is a ‘forgotten hero’ of Negro League baseball.”

Upon Kimbro’s death on July 11, 1999, Richard Goldstein of the New York Times eulogized the Nashvillian, calling him “[a]n outstanding hitter, speedy on the basepaths and a superb outfielder with a strong arm … A left-handed leadoff batter who invariably let the first pitch go by, Kimbro was adept at slashing low fastballs to the opposite field. …”

Goldstein attributed Kimbro’s on-field skills to the latter’s body type, writing that “Kimbro had a stocky build, at 5 feet 8 inches and 175 pounds, with powerful shoulders and arms developed from swinging on ladders in schoolyards as a youngster.”

However, in what has unfortunately become an all-too-common refrain when discussing Negro Leaguers, many feel Kimbro was, as they say, born too early to enter organized baseball. If he’d come along a few years later, Kimbro could have been a Hall of Famer.

“He is consistently mentioned as one of the men who could have done well in the white major leagues had they been integrated a few years earlier,” wrote Richard Schweid of the Tennessean newspaper out of Nashville in 1987.

A dozen years later, a 1999 issue of the Tennessean quoted former Nashville Sounds owner Larry Schmittou attesting to Kimbro’s talent and poor historical timing.

“He and [fellow Negro Leaguer and Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodger] Junior Gilliam are probably the two best black [sic] baseball players that this city has ever produced,” Schmittou said. “Had he been born a few years later there is no doubt that he would have been a great player in the regular major leagues, too. … he was known by some people as the black [sic] Ty Cobb.”

But was Kimbro’s age when integration began – he was 34 when Jackie Robinson joined the Triple-A Montreal Royals, one of the Dodgers top-level farm teams, in 1946 – the only reason Kimbro never made it to the promised land, or was it something deeper, more complex?

Researchers and fans have always wondered if Kimbro’s personality kept him out of organized baseball? It’s a notion that Kimbro himself might have believed, at least to a certain extent, and he expressed such frustrations to writer Randy Horvick of the Nashville Scene alternative newspaper in May 1996.

“They’d have put me in there and shot me the next day,” Kimbro told Horvick, “because the first time somebody did something to me, I’d have been up at ’em. No way in the world I wouldn’t have fought back.”

Kimbro did indeed acquire a reputation as an angry, combative, ornery player – the great dual-threat All-Star Double Duty Radcliffe called Kimbro “the wildest man I ever saw in baseball and absolutely the hardest to manage” – in addition to amassing such impressive statistics, accolades and on-field accomplishments.

Kimbro earned – quite unfairly – a reputation as an aloof, quiet, ornery loner with a mean streak who had trouble bonding with teammates. But many of those who truly knew him would dispute such a labeling of the Nashville native despite the prevailing impression of him. 

Such a drastic mischaracterization perhaps has been the cause, or at least one of the causes, of Kimbro’s status as an overlooked, underappreciated legend. In fact, many speculate that that contemporaneous, negative assessment of Kimbro’s nature was a factor in his never making it into Organized Baseball.

Some, such as Elite Giants teammate Butch McCord, believe that his undeserved, erroneous reputation is partially why Kimbro has never come close to entering baseball’s valhalla in Cooperstown.

“In most books,” McCord told USA Today reporter Tom Weir in 1997, “people write that Kimbro was the most evil player ever. He ought to be in the Hall of Fame, but politics are going to keep him out.”

Added Stanley Glenn, another baseball contemporary of Kimbro: “A lot of people misunderstood Henry. He was quiet and he stayed to himself and didn’t talk an awful lot. I found him a real fine baseball player.”

Journalists were also aware of Kimbro’s reputation, with Anthony Coleman of the Tennessean writing in 1995 that “[t]he only potential negative related to Henry Kimbro is possibly people’s differing views related  to his personality. By his own admission, he was a loner who tended to keep to himself. In addition Henry has been described as a little unruly and reportedly didn’t get along with umpires.”

However, James Bready of the Baltimore Sun wrote in 1996 that while Kimbro might have been taciturn in nature, the longtime Elite Giant didn’t necessarily need words to prove himself an excellent ballplayer.

“When he wore the uniform,” Bready wrote, “Henry Kimbro volunteered words less often. His bat, his glove, his arm did the talking. Centerfielder and leadoff man, he was a basic asset — 13 years a Baltimore Elite, more than any other player.”

And again, those who knew Kimbro on a personal level said there was a specific reason for the way he carried himself. Dr. Revel, in his CNLBR biography of Kimbro, revealed the truth about Kimbro.

“Dr. Revel, the author of this essay, had the opportunity to personally know Henry Kimbro and  visited with him on numerous occasions over the years,” he wrote. “Dr. Revel’s impression of Henry was that  every time he saw him, he presented himself as a very humble and professional individual. Dr. Revel characterized Henry as a quiet and an unpretentious man who played the game of baseball with a fierce determination. It is Dr. Revel’s assessment that Henry being aloof was more from  the fact that his lack of formal education made him uncomfortable around people and once he got  the reputation of being non-social, it just stuck and followed him throughout his career.”

That brings us to someone who knew Kimbro better than anyone else ever could, or ever did – his daughter, Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton.

I had the honor of speaking with Mrs. Kimbro-Hamilton way back last June, when we both attended the annual SABR Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues conference, which was held in Birmingham, Ala.

I feel terrible for taking so long to write something about the interview I had with Dr. Kimbro-Hamilton; unfortunately, I haven’t been keeping up with my blog like I wished I was. But I figured that Henry’s birthday would be a perfect time to write something up.

She said that Henry was so much more complex that the erroneous image people had of him.

“He was more than that person,” Kimbro-Hamilton told me. “Not too many people know about him, and if they do, they know just what’s in books [which claimed] that he was a loner, that he was mean.”

She added that as with any person, Henry was a complex man who had a depth to him that had to be viewed from all angles.

“Of course, to me he was Daddy,” Harriet said. “But you have to see people from all angles. We all evolve, and we’re not the same person [at different times].”

Dr. Kimbro-Hamilton and I spoke for over an hour, and the experience was both thrilling and elucidating. When it comes down to her father, his personality, his reputation and his legacy, she said, the key notion is education.

Because her father only went to school through the sixth grade, for much of his life he felt ashamed for what he perceived as his lack of education, which led to an inability to and apprehension about trying to express himself.

That lingering, lifelong worry led to an extreme reticence to try to interact with people, as the quote from him at the beginning of this post expressed. It was a truth that his daughter gradually learned while growing up in her family.

Kimbro-Hamilton told me that her father came from a rough background, where often bleak economic realities made it impossible for him to stay in school beyond sixth grade; between needing to help bring in money to help his mother make ends meet (he was one of 10 children), and the stifling segregation that prevented so many African-Americans from things like a quality education and opportunities to reach their full potential – the nearest Black school was 25 miles away from the family home – he was forced to drop out of school and go to work as a youngster.

“He just had a lot of barriers,” Kimbro-Hamilton said. “It was impossible to go to school, so he went to work, and that bothered him. It tore him to pieces.”

She added that through his life, Kimbro saw the hardship and injustice that surrounded him because of segregation and institutional racism, but he was taught as a Black kid to be silent against all the wrongs and all the troubles he experienced.

“A lot of things happened to him,” Harriet said, “and that molded him. He saw a lot of cruel things, and he was cruelly treated when he got a job working at a gas station. It was the worst circumstances ever. Would he even be able to eat?”

This background led Henry to close himself off from others and become a man of few words.

“He was a guarded man,” she added. “African Americans were ripped off and faced threats and intimidation, and he couldn’t speak out in the Jim Crow era. He only spoke when he had something to say. That’s something he taught me.”

Harriet added that her father became resigned to the conditions under which he and his family had to live, resolving to work hard and do all he could for his family.

“He said, ‘It is what it is,” she stated. “All he could do was keep it moving forward.”

That work ethic and determination to provide for his family made him an elite baseball player, and that drive didn’t end when he hung up his cleats in the early 1950s. After stepping away from baseball, Kimbro, still needing to provide for his wife, Erbia, and their four kids, eventually purchased a gas station, and owned and operated his own successful taxi cab company in Nashville, where he’d returned after he retired from baseball. 

Kimbro-Hamilton said her father worked seven days a week, usually from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. That work ethic rubbed off on his kids, she said.

“He taught us to give everything you have, to the last drop,” she said. If you do something, you do it well or don’t do it at all.”

She added, “He was a man focused in on that moment in time. He had kids, and he had to raise them. He said his children weren’t going to grow up like he did.”

Henry laid the foundation for his children’s future success when they were young but also old enough to learn that the world wasn’t always a fair place, and that they’d have numerous obstacles – especially systemic racism – thrown at them. Harriet said her father thus engendered a toughness in his kids. 

“Harshness sometimes breeds character,” she said. “He was harsh, but he was about family first. … I thank God that I had that type of father, and I was glad for it every day.”

While Henry deeply loved and provided for his family, Harriet said, he was also a stern, strict man who valued and taught discipline and achievement.

“He didn’t like people dropping the ball, she said.

She added that her father “had a button” that triggered anger when his kids didn’t work hard or screwed something up. If you did screw up, you darn well were going to fix the problems you caused.

“If you messed up, he was mad at you,” she said. “He said, ‘If I’m giving 125 percent, you are, too.’”

“He would whoop us,” she added solemnly.

But along with that strictness also came faith in his children and their ability to achieve. For Harriet, that meant that he warned her about the tough road she would have to haul as a Black woman, including in academia.

“‘You are educated, and you are a woman,’” Harriet said. “My dad said to stand up to pigtail pullers.”

She added with a smile, “[h]e knew I was the brains of the outfit,” and he didn’t want anyone intimidating his daughter and preventing her from achieving everything he knew she could accomplish.

Thus, aside from Henry becoming a successful business owner, there was another long-term benefit that came out of Henry’s own lack of education and the resulting pain it caused him – because he felt so terrible about his own educational status, he was determined that his children wouldn’t have to go through the shame and frustration that he experienced his entire life.

As a result, Kimbro made sure that, somehow, someway, all of his kids obtained a higher education. All of his children would go to college, and there was no discussion on the matter. 

For Kimbro-Hamilton, her higher-education journey began with a bachelor’s degree at Fisk University, an HBCU located in Nashville, followed by a graduate program in sports administration at Florida State, an experience that shook her at first.

She was the only Black woman in the program, and the workload and classwork proved challenging, to the point that she considered transferring. She called home to talk to her mother, but her dad answered the phone. He reinforced his confidence in Harriet’s ability to overcome the challenge. She overcame it, needless to say, and her education at FSU became one of the greatest experiences of her life. Harriet then obtained a PhD at Temple University.

After obtaining her education, she became a coach at Bethune-Cookman University, an HBCU in Daytona Beach, Fla., and won the first intercollegiate championship the school ever had. Kimbro-Hamilton then embarked on another challenge, one that proved equally as formidable as anything else in her life. At Bethune-Cookman, where athletic administration at first balked at her desire to start up varsity women’s sports, including basketball.

“They just wanted a ‘yes’ person,” Harriet said, adding that the existing Fisk athletic department was a traditional “boys club.”. 

She dug in her heels and, using the life lessons imparted to her by her father, eventually won out. She launched women’s teams, winning a basketball championship. “I had to fight for a piece [of the athletic program],” she said. “It was a fight, and at that time I knew how to fight because of my daddy. “I raised hell,” she added.

Returning to her alma mater Fisk University, she eventually became the university’s athletic director, the first Black woman AD at an NCAA Division III school in the country.

In addition to her achievements at Fisk, Kimbro-Hamilton served as a professor at Stillman College, an HBCU in Tuscaloosa, Ala., before settling into a professorship at Tennessee State, another HBCU in Nashville, from which she retired in 2020. She’s earned accolades, awards and/or halls of fame induction from Fisk, Temple, the Women’s Sports Foundation, and the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports. She chaired the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship Committee, and she served on the committee that selected the roster for the 1984 USA women’s basketball Olympic team that won gold.

Harriet said that she and other trailblazers in women’s sports – she noted legendary University of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt in particular – strove to help change the reputation and quality of women’s athletics. She added that the passage of Title IX, a landmark amendment to civil-rights law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in education, including athletics, provided the legal teeth that aided her obtaining jobs and helping to start women’s sports programs.

“We went in there because we wanted to make a difference,” she said.

But, through it all, Harriet knew how much her father impacted the person she became, a person who overcame odds and obstacles at every turn.

“My father taught me all the things he was,” she said. “All of that was a part of me.”

As Kimbro-Hamilton got older, received her education and embarked on a lengthy career in academia and coaching that included numerous accolades, she developed a desire to eventually tell the world about her father and his true nature. She wanted to relate that instead of being mean and aloof, Henry was an intelligent – Harriet called him “one of the smartest men I ever knew” – hard-working, caring man whose rough childhood that not only caused him to close himself off and become a man of few words, but also made him a stellar baseball player, a successful business owner, and a dependable husband and father.

Kimbro-Hamilton decided to gather up the mementos, photos, articles and other items from throughout his career that he kept in a scrapbook. She poured through the vivid, comprehensive, revealing collection of memorabilia to write a reflective, deeply personal book, “Daddy’s Scrapbook: Henry Kimbro of the Negro Baseball League, a Daughter’s Perspective,” which was published in 2015.

The volume received a great deal of coverage and drew accolades, including the prestigious Robert Peterson Recognition Award at the 19th Jerry Malloy conference. The Peterson Award honors works that further the exploration of Black baseball history and help to create public awareness about the greatness of impact of the Negro Leagues.

Kimbro-Hamilton followed up “Daddy’s Scrapbook” with another incisive, colorful book, “Home Plate: Henry Kimbro and Other Negro Leaguers of Nashville, Tennessee,” which talks about all the Black baseball greats from the city that both Henry Kimbro and Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton called their hometown.

The book, which came out in 2020, was co-authored by Patrick Hamilton, Harriet’s son and Henry’s grandson, and is appropriate for teens and adults. In addition to relating family stories about Henry Kimbro, the volume also discussing other Nashville greats, like slugger Turkey Stearnes, who has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame; Bruce Petway, whom many observers (including the author of this post) deserves a spot in Cooperstown for his superlative defensive skills as a catcher; James Junior Gilliam, who followed up several years in Black baseball with a lengthy career with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers that included the 1953 National League Rookie of the Year award and later stints as one of the first African-American coaches in organized baseball; and Tom Wilson, owner of the Nashville/Baltimore Elite Giants and an executive in the Negro National and Negro Southern leagues.

One of the ultimate ironies of writing about Henry Kimbro and relating his story to the world later in her life was that while Harriet was growing up, her father never discussed his baseball career, to the point that his children barely knew he played at all.

“I really didn’t have an opportunity to sit down and talk with him over a long period of time,” she said. “I didn’t know he was a ballplayer.”

When she eventually gained the gumption to ask her father about the rumors she’d heard about him playing ball, and why he didn’t ever talk about his baseball career, he dismissed the subject.

“He said, ‘Ah, yeah, I played a little bit,’” Harriet said. “That’s all he said.”

But once she fully realized that her father wasn’t just a professional baseball player but that he was also an excellent one, she became captivated by her father’s baseball story, the one that he modestly hid from his kids for so long.

In addition to writing her books on her father and the Negro Leagues, Kimbro-Hamilton’s intense curiosity and fascination about his baseball career led her to attend the Jerry Malloy conference several years ago. The experience with the Negro Leagues “family” further wowed her.

“I was writing the story of my dad, and I read all the books that said he was a terrible person. …

“So I came to the [Malloy conference] to get more information, to see and hear and to connect with people who also had the same goals as me. 

“I got transfixed,” she added. “I loved it. I saw another world. Here were some people who had the same intentions I did, and I had to tell the stories.”

And, she said, “The stories are important to tell.”

Those tales included Henry Kimbro playing with and mentoring younger players on the Elite Giants, including a fresh-faced teenager named Roy Campanella, and a later-generation slugger like James Junior Gilliam.

“That was part of my heritage because of my dad,” Harriet said.

Hopefully, Henry Kimbro was aware of that heritage and the responsibility he and his peers had to fight the good fight and pave the way for new generations to go where the elders never could. But it was still hard to play the game you loved and know that no matter how good you were, you couldn’t get to the promised land.

“I really didn’t think the game would ever be integrated,” Henry Kimbro told Larry Taft of the Tennessean in 1995.

“You had some people in baseball who controlled it, and they weren’t for integration at all. The old judge [then-MLB commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis] …, the way I understood it at the time, didn’t want any part of integration.

“Trying to look ahead at baseball being integrated then was like trying to look through a mountain. We weren’t close enough to [the top] then that we could look in the distance and see the other side.”

But Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton understands how important her father was to baseball history and to the fight for justice and fairness in the national pastime.

“I’m proud my daddy could hold down the fort until Jackie Robinson came along, and all of those [after Robinson],” Harriet said.

She said she knows that her father was good enough to play in the majors had he been only given the chance, but that he and others of the pre-Jackie generation faced hurdles that ultimately kept them out of organized baseball.

But, she added, “I said, ‘I have to tell their stories.’”