negro-baseball-league.com

They called Cool Papa Bell the fastest man in spikes (though Negro Leaguer Oscar Chalston stole more bases). In 1948, the 46 year-old Bell wrapped up his ancient legs for one last game against white big leaguers. With Bell on first and the Cardinals’ Murray Dickson pitching, Satchel Paige laid down a bunt. Bell was off with the pitch, reached second when bat hit ball, and kept streaking to the uncovered third. The Red Sox’ Roy Partee ran to cover the bag, so Bell raced past him and slid across the now unguarded plate. He had scored from first on a bunt.

Big Bill Foster of Calvert Texas was 19 years younger than his half-brother, Rube, and was probably the greatest black left-hander of all time. In 1926 his Chicago American Giants faced the Kansas City Monarchs in the playoff and went into the final game losing four games to three. On a snowy day in Chicago, Bill beat KC’s great Bullet Rogan 1-0 to open a double header. His teammates begged him to go back for game two. “You pitching?” demanded Rogan, grabbing the ball himself. Foster won again 5-0, his double-header shutout putting the Giants in the World Series.

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.

http://www.centredaily.com/sports/story/153267.html

Bill Pinkney also played for the New York Blue Sox of the Negro Baseball Leagues in the 1940′s and early 1950′s.

Rhythm and blues singer Bill Pinkney, the last surviving member of the original lineup of The Drifters, was found dead in his hotel room hours before he was due to perform in a July 4 celebration.

Police spokesman Jimmie Flynt said 81-year-old Pinkney was found dead on Wednesday evening at the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort in Florida. There was no evidence of foul play, he said.

Pinkney was scheduled to perform with The Original Drifters that night for U.S. Independence Day festivities.

His manager Maxine Porter said Pinkney had been suffering from heart problems recently but that it was too soon to say if the cause of death was a heart attack.

She said a funeral would be held next week in Sumter in Pinkney’s home state of South Carolina.

The Drifters were known for such hits as “Money Honey,” “Under the Boardwalk,” and the 1954 cover version of “White Christmas.”

Pinkney, a World War Two veteran and former pitcher for the New York Blue Sox of the Negro Baseball League, was the only surviving member of the original lineup of the group that formed in 1953. He left the group in 1958 in a dispute over money and set up The Original Drifters.

Seven members of The Drifters, including Pinkney, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Silas is second from the right in the second row.  In 2006, he was 111 years old.  He never played in the Major Leagues because of the Color Line. He was born in 1895.

He’s likely the oldest living professional baseball player from either the Majors of the Negro Leagues.

Wayne Stivers, who spearheaded the fact-finding committee that led to 17 people associated with the Negro leagues being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this summer, said: “We were aware there was a Si Simmons and that he played. But we didn’t know he was still alive. We figured, 110, no — this man is not alive. My reaction was, ‘We need to talk with him immediately.’ ”Simmons’s first games were not in the Negro leagues as they are now remembered. The first established circuit, the Negro National League, started in 1920. Before that, local all-black teams would play against one another, against all-white teams or occasionally against groups of big leaguers barnstorming in the off-season.

Having grown up in a central Philadelphia row house on 17th and Bainbridge Streets, Simmons was a left-handed pitcher who was signed by the nearby Germantown Blue Ribbons, a well-regarded team. He said he started pitching for the Blue Ribbons at age 16 or 17, meaning 1912 or 1913. Box scores and articles from The Philadelphia Inquirer describe the 5-foot-10 Simmons as routinely striking out 10 or more batters while getting a hit or two a game.

Simmons had difficulty remembering all the teams he played on. While unable to explain in detail, he indicated that players, particularly pitchers, were often picked up by other teams for brief stretches, so he might have played select games for other teams as well. (Experts confirmed that this practice was commonplace.) Researchers have uncovered box scores and game recaps with his name from many years throughout the 1910’s and beyond.

Two box scores from 1926 show Simmons pitching in relief for the New York Lincoln Giants of the Eastern Colored League. He also played at least one game for the Negro National League’s Cuban Stars in 1929.