Touring the Bases With: Bob Luke, Negro Leagues Author

The first “Outta the Parkway” Podcast on Thursday, February 17 at 7:30 pm will feature Bob Luke, noted author of The Baltimore Elite Giants ,  and Dwayne Sims, founder and CEO of the Negro League Legends Hall of Fame.  I had the pleasure of talking to Bob Luke this weekend and he was kind enough to answer some preliminary questions about the Baltimore Elite Giants.  Listen to the podcast for a wide-ranging discussion of the Negro leagues in the Baltimore-Washington area–hotbed of baseball history.

Q.  Roy Campanella was one of the most well-known talents to play for The Baltimore Elite Giants, starting as a teenager in 1938.  Whose idea was it to have him tutor with Biz Mackey at the end of his fine career and doesn’t it remind you of Pudge tutoring the fine young Nationals catcher, Wilson Ramos?

Bob Luke:  Mackey himself decided to take Campanella under his wing.  The veteran had a sharp eye for talent. He knew when he first saw Campanella that the sixteen year-old had all the makings of a star. Mackey proved to be a tough mentor. “There were times when Biz made me cry,” Campanella recalled, “with his constant dogging.  But nobody ever had a better teacher.”  When the Los Angeles Dodgers gave Campanella a night in 1959, he made sure Mackey had a seat of honor. And yes, I do see a parallel with Pudge and Ramos.

Q.  One of the last Baltimore Elite players just died, Butch McCord?  Did you get a chance to interview him?

Bob Buke:  I spent three days in Nashville with Butch, a gracious, straightforward, and hospitable gentleman. He answered all my questions, gave me access to his extensive memorabilia collection, and took me to two games of the minor league Nashville Sounds. Many people came by to say hi to Butch each night. He will be missed.

Q.  You seemed to develop an affinity for the story of some of the players like Bill “Daddy” Byrd and “Pee Wee” Butts.  Who were your favorites and which of the players on the Elites do you think have been overlooked for the Hall of Fame?

Bob Luke:  They all had their own story, of course, but Byrd and Butts did stand out for me. Butts exuded energy and enthusiasm not only at shortstop but also at the clubs and night spots. He lost his temper rarely but once did express disagreement with an umpires’ call by jumping up and down on him. Byrd was the stalwart of the team – played sixteen years for the Elites. He coached younger players. He made the list of finalists for the Hall of Fame but fell a few votes short of induction.  Mackey was another favorite for me. He excelled as player, coach, and manager into his late 40’s for the Elites and the Eagles and richly deserved his belated induction into the Hall in 2006.

Q.  The issue of contracts–the lack thereof–and the players jumping back and forth between the Negro leagues and Latin American clubs is a huge issue.  Why did the Negro league owners never opt for contracts until after the signing of Jackie Robinson by Branch Rickey?

Bob Luke:.  The lack of binding contracts with a reserve clause was but one example of the owners’ lackadaisical approach. They had no central office and held their meetings in hotels in the various cities. While each owner maintained a set of files, the leagues did not have a central filing system. The league presidents were also team owners which led to conflicts of interests. The owners passed resolutions penalizing those who jumped but rarely enforced their own mandates. A Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Monte Irvin filled a lot seats when they came back. It’s hard to say why they operated in this manner other than to speculate that they ran their other businesses, mostly numbers and clubs, in a similar way. Rickey’s signing of Robinson came as a wake-up call for them. He stole Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs, talking to no one but Robinson and making no payments to the Monarchs. He obtained Campanella from the Elites and Don Newcombe from the Newark Eagles in the same way.

Q.  The draw of Latin American baseball for Negro league players was uniform.  Do you think it was the money alone or also the chance to experience stardom in countries where the level of discrimination was so diminished from what they saw in the U.S.?

Bob Luke:.  Money motivated many a player to jump to Latin American where a man could triple or quadruple his salary and receive free maid service and an apartment to boot. But freedom was a big draw as well.  Players received universal adulation in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and in Mexico where Willie Wells, premier shortstop of the 1930’s said, “Here they treat me like a man.” Monty Irvin felt he could run for mayor in Mexico City. He said it usually took him three weeks to get re-acclimated to life in the States.

Q.  Players like Bill “Daddy” Byrd and Campanella played almost as much baseball in Latin America as in the states, has there ever been an attempt to catalog their statistical performance there to provide an overall tally of their accomplishments?

Bob Luke:  I don’t know if there has or not, but just tallying players’ performances in the States has always been a challenge. A lack of funds prevented many games, league games as well as the barnstorming games that teams played to supplement their income, from being scored. The shortage of records has been the major impediment to many deserving Negro leaguers getting into the Hall of Fame.

Q.  The intense rivalry between the Grays and the Elites makes up one of the central dramas of your book.  I had not appreciated that aspect of local Negro league play.  Do you think the rivalry has gotten fair coverage in other books on the Negro leagues?

Bob Luke:  Other authors have discussed the Elites – Grays rivalry. I highlighted it because of the clubs’ close proximity after the Grays moved to D.C. in 1940. Fans from Baltimore and Washington traveled to games in the other’s city. The Elites played in D.C. for two years before moving to Baltimore in 1938. In truth, all the eastern teams had a rivalry with the Grays; the most powerful team in the Negro National League.

Q.  What do you think was the fiercest competition in the Negro leagues?

Bob Luke:  The competition was fierce everywhere. Everybody played hard and rough.  Every pitcher had his favorite bean ball. Players slid into bases with spikes high trying to “undress” the inattentive infielder. First basemen had to protect themselves from being spiked by a runner racing down the line. In addition to jumping on umpires, some took a punch at the man in blue. Speedy base runners, in poorly lit night games with only one umpire, could get away with running directly from first to third without bothering with second.  Many former players I spoke with described this style of play with pride in their voice.

Q.  You pay a lot of attention to crowd size in various venues for the Negro leagues.  It is interesting to note that even in the best of times the Baltimore crowds were smaller than in other cities.  For instance you note the crowds at Briggs Stadium in Detroit as reaching almost 30,000 during one western swing by the team, but even the most fever-pitched games against the Grays seldom drew more than 10,000 in Baltimore–even at the Orioles’ stadium.  Why were the crowds in their hometown smaller?

Bob Luke:  I think there were two reasons. The capacity of the ball parks in Baltimore fell below that in cities like New York and Detroit.  Orioles Park sat about 15,000 while the Elites home park, Bugle Field, where the Elites played 90% of their home games, sat only 6,000. The owners of Orioles Park, with a few exceptions, refused to allow the Elites to play there. Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and Briggs Stadium sat well over 25,000 each. Secondly, Baltimore’s population was about half that of Detroit’s and 15% of New York’s in 1940.

Q.  The friction between Effa Manley, general manager of the Newark Eagles, and Tom Wilson, owner of the Elites and president of the Negro National League, is another key drama in the book.  What was at the heart of the disagreement?  Was it just the baseball?

Bob Luke:  Baseball was the least of their differences. Effa considered Wilson a poor manager.  She continually tried to replace him with men she thought would do a better job but couldn’t gain the support of a majority of other owners until 1947. She went on record saying he’d rather have a little fun than attend to the league’s affairs. She also thought a league president also owning a team in the league led to unseemly conflicts of interest. Effa had a larger interest than just baseball.  She wanted to advance the cause of African Americans and thought the league’s haphazard management detracted from that goal. Her gender no doubt added to Wilson’s pique.

Q.  Of course these issues came to the fore when Branch Rickey raided the league and refused to pay compensation because he called the Negro league’s a “racket.”  What are your thoughts on Rickey’s reaction to the Negro leagues?  They seem unfair in retrospect and are almost as reactionary as those who upheld the color barrier.

Bob Luke:  I find it ironic that the man credited with advancing integration by signing the first African American ball player took the disdainful stance that he did toward the Negro leagues. Rickey comes across as a bully charging into teams with few resources, the Kansas City Monarchs and the Newark Eagles, to steal players. Effa put a stop to that when she threatened to sue him after he had signed Monte Irvin without talking to Abe or herself or offering any payment. Bill Veeck took a different approach when he signed Larry Doby, also with the Eagles, the first black in the American League, to a Cleveland Indians contract in 1947. He talked with Effa beforehand and paid the Manleys; albeit a modest sum of $15,000.

Q.  When the Negro league owners finally deposed Tom Wilson as league president in 1947, you describe the opposition ownership in terms of couples: Effa and Abe Manley from Newark, the Black Yankees’ James and Maude Semler, Ethel Posey of the Grays.  Why were women so much more active in the Negro Leagues?  Isn’t it a curious contrast to white society at the time where women were excluded from executive positions?

Bob Luke:  By that time Ethel Posey was half-owner of the Grays. Cum Posey died the year before. Maude Semler attended owners’ meetings in the late ‘40’s but didn’t take an active role. Billie Hardin administered the affairs of the Atlanta Black Crackers for her husband Tom though in a much less vocal manner than did Effa.  In all cases the women were wives of owners and saw their baseball role as one of supporting their husband. Effa was always very clear that Abe knew more baseball than she did, and that she was helping him out; not running the show. Abe made most of the player related decisions but maintained a low-key personna. That said, it is a curious difference as you point out. There were no women in executive or even staff positions in the majors, wives or otherwise.

Q.  Do you think the Negro leagues waited too long to oust Tom Wilson?  Would it have been easier to confront Branch Rickey’s raids if the Manley’s and others had been able to clean up the leagues earlier?

Bob Luke:  Without a doubt.  The black press continually called the owners to task for their lack of organization and questionable decisions perhaps reinforcing Rickey’s view of the leagues as a racket.  Had the owners operated from a business plan for the league as an organization, they could have taken Rickey on en mass and forced Rickey to deal with the league and team executives as well as pay for players. But by the late 40’s the lack of organization was becoming a moot point. Veeck, and Horace Stoneham, owner of the New York Giants, were paying modest sums for Negro league players. Other major league owners followed. The Negro leagues’ days became increasingly numbered.

Q.  The run of the Baltimore Elite Giants from 1938 to 1950 saw such important strides in racial integration and overall progress: access to defense jobs in Baltimore during the war, integration of the police force, the housing initiatives of Mayor McKeldin, do you think enough of the social history of the Negro League era is woven into other books on the topic?

Bob Luke:  I think it’s important context to add. Baseball in the white and black communities had some things in common.  Parents, mostly fathers, took their children, mostly sons, to the games.  Young boys, regardless of color, loved the game and dreamed of the day when they would toe the rubber or stride from the on deck circle to the batter’s box with the game on the line to the cheers of thousands.  But baseball in the black community also afforded black fans of all ages and gender a prized sanctuary from the pains and humiliations of a racist society. Without an understanding of the racial dynamics in the cities where Negro league teams played, it’s hard to appreciate the social value of the game for African-Americans.

Q.  Did your research into Effa Manley’s confrontations with Baltimore Elite Giants owner Tom Wilson lead to your interest in her and your new book coming out in March?

Bob Luke:  It did. I wanted to learn more about this vivacious, intelligent, feisty woman who made such a splash at the highest levels of Negro league baseball.

Q.  What are some of the different issues you address in your new book coming out in March?

Bob Luke:  In my new book, The Most Famous Woman in Baseball: Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues, I go into more detail about her confrontations with Wilson as well as with other owners, sportswriters, publicity men, players, the Mexican consulate, and her step-brother.  I also discuss her work with the NAACP, her WW II volunteer activities, her formative years in Philadelphia, how she made cookies for her nieces and nephews on Sunday visits, her management of Abe’s real estate investments, and her life after baseball. She moved to Los Angeles where she married twice after Abe died and worked to keep the memory of the Negro leagues alive until she died in 1981. I also include some previously unpublished information about Abe.