Harrisburg Giants Negro Leagues Tribute Night

UNIVERSITY PARK — Willie Fordham, Jim Weedon and Dan Werner spent more than an hour before Sunday’s State College Spikes game against the Brooklyn Cyclones describing the conditions they endured to play baseball.

Too bad the players lounging on the leather furniture, munching on fresh fruit and watching television didn’t stop by Porter Gardens for a few minutes.

They missed the reason why they can work in comfort.

Fordham, Weedon and Werner played for the Harrisburg Giants of the Negro Leagues during the 1950s. The Spikes invited the trio to Medlar Field at Lubrano Park to chat with fans and toss ceremonial first pitches.

The game they discussed doesn’t resemble the one the Spikes play.

The Giants wore wool uniforms, the ones that cause grown men to lose weight on toasty days. The Spikes wear cotton. If it gets too hot or cold, they receive $50 undershirts.

The Giants played on a field that didn’t have checkered grass or red clay. The Giants played on City Island, where the current Harrisburg Senators hold their home games. The island has changed during the past 50 years.

“We played on stones and everything else you can think of,” Weedon said.

The playing surface never developed into a convenient excuse for an injury. Players sustained aches, pains, bruises and sprains. They received massages from the trainer and trotted onto the field the next day.

“Very seldom did we get hurt,” Fordham said. “We were in good shape from playing every day.”

As he walked around Porter Gardens, Weedon lifted a pinky finger he broke during a game with the Giants. The injury never sent Weedon to the hospital or disabled list. A trainer broke off the end of a popsicle stick and Weedon played the outfield with a stadium-made splint on his finger.

Werner and Fordham pitched for the Giants. They were two of six pitchers on the 25-man roster. The Giants didn’t need anymore pitchers.

Fordham and Weedon tossed complete games almost every time they started, cutting out the long, middle, short, specialty and shutdown relievers. Fordham said his outings often lasted 200 pitches and he never sustained a serious arm injury.

By comparison, the Spikes have 17 pitchers on their roster. The Pittsburgh Pirates haven’t permitted one to throw 100 pitches this season.

The Giants’ pitchers never entered a charter bus with ice around their shoulders. They didn’t take buses to the games, which were played within a 200-mile radius of Harrisburg.

They carpooled, sometimes packing five or six men into a car. The player with the car never received mileage money.

“The driver had to pay for everything,” Werner said. “The rest of us went along for the ride.”

The team didn’t compensate players for many things. They never received signing bonuses that could buy houses or money to pay the rent.

“Every now and then we would get a quarter,” Weedon said. “We played because we loved baseball.”

They waited to receive their quarters. Military obligations delayed baseball careers.

“When Uncle Sam called, you had to go,” Fordham said. “We all missed some of our prime years in baseball.”

Fordham went to Germany. Weedon went somewhere worse. He spent two years in Mississippi during the 1940s, a hostile place for African-Americans.

The men visited some hostile places during their playing career.

They once played a game in Shamokin, a gritty city in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Region. Their arrival in Shamokin was anticipated for the wrong reasons. The city greeted the Giants with a banner displaying a racial epitaph.

The sign – and the rowdy crowd – make the drunk in Section 103 appear tame.

“We beat them 13-0,” Fordham said. “They had to respect us then.”

The men are all respected now. They visit professional ballparks across the state and speak at colleges and high schools.

They were in Lancaster earlier this season. They will be in York later this month. Dr. Bob Allen, a former Penn State professor, has spent more than 363 hours gathering footage for an oral history project about the Negro Leagues.

“We love doing this,” Fordham said. “It makes us feel proud and special.”

The Spikes and Cyclones wore Negro League uniforms Sunday.

Nobody left the clubhouse to hear Fordham, Weedon or Werner speak.

They had their own game to play.

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