The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Righting a Wrong in Baseball History

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Until Jackie Robinson's arrival in 1947, baseball banned players of colour. But something extraordinary happened this season: A new attempt to right the wrongs of history. Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, joins The Agenda to explain this forgotten history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the joys of following sports is trying to remember endless reams of numbers, and no sport loves its statistics more than Major League Baseball. Babe Ruth's 714 career home runs, Lou Gehrig's 23 career grand slams, Ty Cobb's 4189 career hits. But baseball's dirty little secret has been that all of those records were achieved by and against white players only. Until Jackie Robinson's arrival in 1947, baseball banned players of color. But something extraordinary happened this season, a new attempt to right the wrongs of history. And Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro League's Baseball Museum, joins us now from

Kansas City, Missouri for more. Mr. Kendrick, a great of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, joins us now from Kansas City, Missouri, for more. Mr. Kendrick, a great pleasure to have you on our program. How are you doing today? Man, I am doing great. It is great to be with you. Thanks so much for having me. Not at all. I think we need a bit of a history lesson first, though. While Babe and Lou were setting their Major League records,

where did the greatest black baseball players of that day play? They played in the Negro Leagues. They created a league of their own. And Steve, that league was established right here in Kansas City, right around the corner from where my office resides here at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. The old Purcell YMCA is where Andrew Roop Foster led a contingent

of eight independent Black baseball team owners into Kansas City. They met there and on February 13, 1920, established the Negro National League, the first successful organized Black baseball league. The Negro Leagues would then go on to operate amazingly for 40 years from 1920 until 1960. And as you can well imagine, that surprises so many of my visitors because they come in understanding that Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. And I think the basic assumption is, well, if Jackie breaks the color barrier in 1947,

if there was a Negro league, surely it must have ended in and around that time. But the leagues operated for another 13 years. Why? Because it took Major League Baseball 12 years before every Major League team had at least one Black baseball player. The Boston Red Sox were the last team to integrate in 1959 when they signed a ball player by

the name of Elijah Pumse Green. That would complete the integration cycle. By 1960, the Negro League ceased operations because by then the best young black and brown stars had moved into the major leagues or into the minor league system, and there was no replenishing system. The big question that historians have looked at over the year is, we all know what stars the white ballplayers were in major league baseball. What about the black ballplayers of their day?

Were they as good? What's history's verdict on that? Well, I'm going to say this the way that my dear friend and the founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum would say it very poignantly, I should say very succinctly, but very poignantly, we could play. And he wanted everybody to understand that they could play. And Steve, we carry a poster here in our gift shop at the museum that I think surmises it so beautifully. It says, 440 feet is 440 feet, no matter what color your skin.

And so the idea and the notion that one's skin color could dictate their ability to play a game, well, we know that is ludicrous. And the Negro leagues, from a talent standpoint, that league wouldn't take a back seat to any league. You had some of the greatest athletes to ever put on a baseball uniform competing there in the Negro leagues, and you had a nucleus of both black and Hispanic talent that was playing the highest level in which black and brown could play in this country, that being the Negro leagues.

Well, let's do a little education here. Everyone's heard of Babe Ruth, but not everyone's heard of Oscar Charleston. And we should know who he is. Tell us about him. Yes, you should know who Oscar Charleston, whom again my dear friend, the late great Bucco Neal, would say without hesitation,

the greatest baseball player he ever saw. Now he thought Willie Mays to be the greatest major leaguer and Steve, most folks concur because Willie Mays could beat you every way in which you could be beaten. He could beat you with his bat, he could beat you with his arm, with his legs, with his glove, and of course Willie Mays's illustrious professional baseball career began in the Negro Leagues as a 17-year-old patrolling center field for the Birmingham Black Barons. But Buck believed that Oscar Charleston to be the greatest baseball player he had ever seen. He saw pretty much all of the greats. Oscar Charleston was an early-era Negro Liga who could do everything. The consummate five-tool player. Hit for power, hit for average, could field,

could run, could throw. In 1921, Oscar Charleston had one of the greatest baseball seasons, not in black baseball history, but in baseball history as a member then of the St. Louis Giants, when he led the Negro Leagues in home runs, triples, doubles, stolen bases and batting average in the same season. He was the Shohei Otani of his time, eh? Gotcha. Well, and I should say, we just put a picture up of Mr. Charleston while we were speaking, and you're right, he looks like he could play.

He could play. He was tenacious. You know, he was oftentimes described as having had the power of Babe Ruth, the defensive powers of Trist Speaker, and the tenacity of Ty Cobb. Yeah, Oscar would fight you. Now, he usually wouldn't start the fight, but he would end the fight, all wrapped up into one dynamic package. Well, for I guess about 50 years, statisticians have been scouring the old box scores and

trying to gather the numbers that the black ball players put up a century ago. And earlier this year, Major League Baseball really came up with a very important decision on how to treat those statistics. Fill us in. What did they decide? It was epic. It was a tremendous milestone, I dare say, not just for Negro League history, black baseball history, but American history. And this goes back,

Steve, to December 16th of 2020 when Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred made the historic announcement, first and foremost, that the major leagues were going to recognize the Negro League, certainly for what I already knew it to be a Major League and that it would roll the records of the Negro Leagues into the record books of a Major League Baseball. And on May 29th of this year it became official. A dream team of Negro League historians and researchers worked diligently for the next three plus years to kind of pull together the quantitative data that was necessary to essentially rewrite the pages of American history and include the Negro Leagues and their statistics in those record books of

Major League Baseball. This was long overdue. And the reason that I say that is that very few folks realize that in 1969, Major League Baseball put together a commission to examine all of the professional baseball leagues that operated during the time that the National and American League operated. And those other leagues had been formally recognized by Major League Baseball. The Negro leagues had been blatantly omitted. Yeah, they had been ignored. And so with one fell swoop of the pen, Commissioner Manfred essentially rewrote history to include the Negro leagues. And I commend him for what he was so courageous to do because he did

what others could have done, but didn't do. And so on May 29th, all of a sudden now you see the name of Josh Gibson, who you can make a legitimate case, the greatest hitter this game has ever seen. Because now his record single season batting average of 466 and Steve I'm gonna step out on a limb and say that one ain't gonna be broken. Well okay we've got a picture of Josh Gibson up right now and I guess yeah the point we need to make here is that for the longest time if you asked a baseball fan who is the greatest average hitter of all time, you'd say Ty Cobb, because his 367 was recognized.

Okay, if you take the Negro League stats into account, then Josh is number one now, is that right? He is number one for single season batting record. He is number one for lifetime batting average of 372. Uh-huh. And he's number one in own base percentage. And as the folks can see from that photograph, he was doing it as a catcher. Amazing. Catchers don't do that. No, you get power or maybe average, but rarely do you get the combination of the two. And look at the physique. I tell people, if you wanted to get an understanding

of who Josh Gibson resembled physically, think the great Bo Jackson as a catcher, and you got Josh Gibson. But Bo couldn't hit the ball like Josh Gibson. Bo had plenty of power, but Gibson combined great power with great hitting ability. He is one of the greatest hitters this game has ever seen. So he was a great hitter with power, tremendous power.

I gather that baseball saber matricians, as they're called, have scoured the universe looking for box scores and they've only found about 75% of them. How much hope do you have that you'll be able to find quote unquote the rest of the story? Oh they will. They will. You know it was an arduous task you know for what the work that these historians have done. But I go back to think about my friend Pete Gorton over at the Donaldson Network, where they've spent the last 20 years unearthing information about one ball player, the great John Donaldson. And John Donaldson, who will not be included in these numbers that we see that basically started from 1920 and went through 1948. John Donaldson did most of

his work pre Negro leagues. But Steve, they've accounted for over 400 verifiable wins, over 5,000 strikeouts, and there's still unearthing information on just that one player. So you know that there's still much more out there to be ascertained. But the one thing that we know is that these numbers certainly provide an understanding of the talent that was there in the Negro Leagues because those players like Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Ernie Banks, who come out of the Negro Leagues and would be young stars in the major leagues. They were young ballplayers in the Negro Leagues who became some of the major league's biggest stars.

That's their lineage. It's not far-fetched. I know as much as people want to try to believe that because this league was primarily black folks, that it couldn't be as good as the league that had all these great white ballplayers. That's just not the case. Honestly, it makes no sense to even think that that would be the case. And we see the great success that those young ball players from the Negro Leagues had when they went into Major League Baseball. One of my favorite factoids relative to the immediate impact that the Negro Leagues had on Major League Baseball,

from 1949 through 1959, nine of 11 National League MVPs were former Negro League stars. Steve, these are not rookies of the year. We're not even counting rookies of the year. We're talking MVPs. As my friend Buck could say, they could play. I want to ask you about a little piece of punctuation. And humor me for a second as I set this up.

You well remember that in 1961, when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single season home run record, they put a little asterisk beside Roger 61, because they said, you got 162 games to make that record, whereas the Babe only had 154 games to set his previous record. Is there any danger of asterisks being placed beside these Negro League records?

It won't be asterisks placed by Major League Baseball. They will be formally and officially recognized amongst the greats of this game with no asterisk just exactly what they accomplished in the games in which they competed and played in. Now will others want to put asterisks by it? Maybe, perhaps, but it's okay. And that's okay. And that's the beauty of baseball. We continue to have these kinds of debates. I just encourage everybody who maybe believed that this league was inferior for some reason, come on over and see old Bob here at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and walk through this place and get a clear understanding of the

greatness of this league. No, they could indeed play and they built a tremendous baseball enterprise that had far-reaching ramifications beyond the baseball field, but I'm thrilled that they are finally getting acknowledged in a way in which they should have been acknowledged years ago and for the handful of Negro League players who are still with us and the families of those who have long gone. This was significant in so many ways. I should ask you in following up on that, this has been one of the great missions of your life, to have these men recognized and to have their statistics honored.

How does victory taste? Well, it tastes sweet. And for me, I don't know, Steve, if I've dwelled as much on the statistics, even though I know, and you alluded to this in the opening of this segment, baseball is a beautiful game of comparison and statistics. And the one thing that had kind of hampered, I guess, the mindset of those who had doubt about the Negro Leagues is that the statistics

weren't readily available. And so now we've provided that statistical data that many of those needed to help them understand how good these players were in the Negro League. But as typical when you provide the stats they say well that ain't enough we need more. But you know if for all of us we're tremendously proud and I am even more proud of that team of historians and researchers who work so diligently. I was part of the committee. I didn't do any research. Yeah, I dodged probability and statistics for about three years when I was in college. So they needed, they did not need my input in this whatsoever, but the team of historians and researchers who have dedicated themselves for doing this kind of work for some of them 20, 30 years or more.

This was significant. And we are all very proud of that milestone moment that took place on May 29th when it became an official entry into the record books of Major League Baseball. I'm going to perhaps inappropriately use my moderator's prerogative here to ask you a rather selfish question, which is my favorite ball player of all time is Ted Williams. And they always said about Ted, there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived. And you know, you were telling me before we went on air, Ted Williams, who was kind of a crusty curmudgeonly old guy for most of his career, but he was a champion of the black ball player. And I wonder if you could share that story. He absolutely was.

And Ted Williams, upon his own induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, used his platform defiantly to advocate for the inclusion of Negro League players to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Steve, as he would go on to say, as symbols of those great black stars who weren't there because they'd never been given a chance. Five years later, Satchel Page becomes the first from the Negro Leagues who went in solely for his Negro Leagues career. Now, Jackie Robinson was already in,

but Jackie went in for his Major League career, even though his baseball career, professional baseball career, began in the Negro Leagues. This does not happen without Ted Williams' application. You needed a star player to push this agenda, because the average Joe Ball player, no one was going to push this agenda. Because the average Joe ball player, no one was going to pay any attention. And of course, as we discussed off camera,

Ted Williams was of Mexican-American descent. So he had a heart for this, and he had competed with and against those players, particularly in many of those Spanish speaking countries. Because when they played winter ball, there was no separation. They all played together. So the Major Leagues knew that these guys could play.

It was just simply the social conditions of our time and fear that kept them out of the Major Leagues. And I always prefer the word fear, because I don't think the superstar major league was ever concerned about integration. Ted Williams wasn't concerned about integration, Steve, because Ted Williams could play. It was that average major league that was concerned

about integration, because if you allow this influx of both black and brown talent in, I might lose my job. You know, when Jackie Robinson came up in 1947, guess what? He took somebody's job, and he took the job of a teammate's friend. And that was the overarching concern, is what would happen if you open the door and all of this talent can just move freely into the major leagues.

You know, I think probably the best place to end this conversation is to have you tell us a story about your great friend, Buck O'Neill, who was one of the truly great ambassadors of baseball and a very funny guy. Can you hit us up with a funny Buck O'Neill story? Well, one of my favorite Buck O'Neill stories of many, and he would oftentimes tell the story, they're playing, he's playing as a member of Satchel Page

and his Satchel Page All-Stars, and they're playing in the Denver Post tournament, and they're playing against an all-white semi-pro team. And so Buck says the first kid from the Coors dugout gets into the batter's box, he digs in, satchel throws him a fastball, kids swung as hard as he could, Steve topped it, dribbled it down the third base line, it stays fair, he beats it out, gets an infield hit. Well, about that time, Buck says one of the kids on the Coors team steps out on top of the dugout steps and he yells out,

let's beat him. He ain't nothing but an overrated donkey. Well, Satchel Page, Steve, you know, Satchel was probably more offended by being called overrated than he was by being called a donkey. And he looks over at first base and Satchel has a nickname for everybody. And his nickname famously for Buck O'Neill was Nancy. And that's a whole other story. We ain't got time to tell that story.

He looks over at first base, he says, Nancy, did you hear that? Buck said, yes, Satchel, I heard him. He said, Nancy, bring him in. So Buck is playing first base, he turns and motions for the outfield to take a couple steps in. Satchel looks over at first base, he says, Nancy, bring him all the way in. Honest to God's truth, there were seven guys kneeling around the mouth, Satchel Page and the catcher, and Satchel strikes out the side on nine straight pitches. He says Satchel looks until the coolers dug out and says, overrated darky hay. And of course by now the kid that said this, he was embarrassed.

They were all crying and all the guys came out to apologize to Satchel and his teammates. But Buck O'Neill swore to the day he died that if he had one game to win, and any choice of any pitcher from any era, it would be the legendary Leroy Satchel Page. As Buck would say, you might beat him when he was out there messing around. But when he was locked and loaded, forget about it.

That's a fantastic story. And I got to tell you, I know the Nancy story and people should look that one up because that's hilarious too. It is hilarious. That is a great story. Mr. Kendrick, I want to recommend two things before we go. Number one, you do a podcast called Black Diamonds,

which I'm a big fan of. And I listen to all the time. I heard your interview with Andre Dawson the other day. And I would encourage people to go look that up, Black Diamonds, the podcast, and of course your Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, which is on my bucket list. And I gotta get there before I push up daisies, and I will.

Yeah, and you got to get here because we're getting ready to build a new one. So you got to see the old one and then come and see the new one. Of course, we got to raise about 30 million dollars to build this new one. But we did announce plans to build a new 30 plus thousand square foot Negro Leagues Baseball Museum that's going to be built right around the corner from where we're currently operating the Negro Leagues Museum now. And I'm really excited about this next phase of growth for our museum and what that means for really the baseball world to have this wonderful edifice known

as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum as the gateway into historic 18th and Vine here in Kansas City. So man, I look forward to seeing you and when you come, the ribs are on me. That's very generous of you. I can't wait to shake your hand and see all of your great work. Thank you for joining us on TVO tonight.

And yeah, they could play. You're damn right they could play. They could play. Thank you, Steve.