The Soul of Baseball (17 page)

There was a certain rhythm to conversations when Negro Leagues players got together. They hugged and almost immediately asked each other who died since the last time they had seen each other. The numbers of Negro Leagues players dwindled—there were, at that time, fewer than fifty players left who played in the Negro Leagues before Jackie Robinson crossed the color line. The number seemed to shrink almost daily.

“You look good,” Buck said to an old catcher named Otha Bailey.

“You look good,” Bailey said.

“What do you know?”

“Nothing. How’s Double Duty?”

“I don’t think he has much more time. What about Patterson?”

“Which Patterson?”

“Pat. Did he die?”

“Yes,” Bailey says.

“Did he die at home?”

“Yes, at home.”

“Good,” Buck said. “Well, that’s good.”

O
THA
B
AILEY WAS
a small man, no taller than five foot six, but even at seventy-five years old you could see the rough and intense catcher he had been in the Negro Leagues many years before. He once missed a chance to try out for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He never explained exactly why he missed it, but when asked if he felt badly about it, Bailey said he did not need to prove himself by playing in the Major Leagues.

Buck heard a story about Otha Bailey once. Buck said there was a big and nasty pitcher named Bill Powell on the Birmingham Black Barons. One game, Powell could not or would not throw strikes—you never could tell with Powell. This wildness went on for an inning or two, and then Otha Bailey, the catcher that day, walked out to the mound. He took off his mask, looked up into Powell’s face—Bailey had to look way up—and he snarled: “If you don’t start throwing the ball over the plate, I’m going to kick you from one side of this park to the other.”

“What happened then?” James Lee asked.

“Way I heard it,” Buck said, “Bill Powell started throwing strikes. How about it, Otha? Is that true?”

Otha Bailey looked a bit sheepish. But he nodded.

“Baseball turned me into a madman,” he said, “but I wasn’t scared of nobody.”

J
OHN
S
CHUERHOLZ, ONE
of the most admired men working in baseball, walked in. He wore his trademark suspenders. He hugged Buck. They had known each other for almost forty years. One thing that became clear the longer I traveled with Buck: Everybody knew him. Buck and Schuerholz had first met in Kansas City, when Schuerholz worked for the Royals. In time, Schuerholz would become general manager of the Royals, and the team would win the World Series. Now Schuerholz was the general manager of the Atlanta Braves, and his team had won thirteen consecutive division championships, a record. His Braves, against predictions, were winning the division again.

“I see you’re doing it again, John,” Buck said.

“It’s not me, you know that, Buck.”

“You’re a smart man, John. A smart man.”

“You taught me well.”

“Yes,” Buck said. “Yes I did.”

In time, baseball people always start talking about golf. Schuerholz asked Buck about shooting his age—that’s a big thing in golf, shooting a score equal to or lower than your age. Buck first shot his age when he was seventy-five years old, and he has shot his age almost every year since.

“You still shoot your age?” Schuerholz asked.

“Yeah,” Buck said. “But that’s not a good score anymore.”

A
FTER THOSE
N
EGRO
Leagues players talked about health and family and the friends who were gone, there was silence. Buck never liked silence. He pounded his fist on the table and asked the men, “Okay, where was the last game that you played?”

That sparked the conversation. There were two distinct eras of players. There were the men who played after Jackie Robinson, and they remembered hard times. The pay was not steady. The owners were not reliable. The buses broke down. Shattered glass scattered in the infields. Some of these players celebrated their pain. They argued about which infield had the most glass and which owner was the stingiest. They debated which town was most racist. They tried to top each other when talking about the worst thing a fan ever yelled at them. They laughed at the pain the way veteran soldiers might joke about basic training.

Buck and Red Moore did not speak about injustice. They alone at the table had played in a different Negro Leagues, the one before Jackie Robinson crossed. That was a league fighting for survival. Hopelessness hovered over their games. The players knew, no matter what happened, no matter how well they played, no matter how many home runs they hit, and no matter how many batters they struck out, they were fated to play in the shadows. That hopelessness was too much for some. In the early parts of the twentieth century, a gifted dark-skinned Cuban player named Luis Bustamante committed suicide. In his farewell note he wrote the five haunting words that summed up crushed dreams and suppressed rage.

He wrote: “They won’t let us prove.”

But, Buck said, there was something else in the hopelessness. There was freedom. These Negro Leaguers were not playing the game for anyone else. They played only for themselves, the pay, though unsteady, the cheers of their neighbors, and the bliss of playing the game just right. Baseball in the Negro Leagues was a little bit rougher, a little bit sweeter, a little bit faster, a little bit cooler, and a little bit more fun than anything Buck ever saw in Major League baseball. No, Buck and Red Moore did not tell stories about injustice like the others. They told a funny story about Cocaína García, who pitched in Cuba and had a fastball that would numb you like cocaine. They talked about Goose Tatum, the former Globetrotters player, who used to leave the crowd laughing with his baseball clowning but was so mean he once pulled out a screwdriver and stabbed Hilton Smith during a game. Buck told a tale about Frank Duncan. He was a good player and manager, and his wife, Julia Lee, was a renowned jazz singer, a favorite of President Harry Truman. “Baseball and jazz, the two greatest things in the world,” Buck said.

In Kansas City, there was a small hole in the back of the dugout. And baseball players were baseball players. They would look through that hole during games so they could see up women’s dresses. Sometimes you would see them pushing each other out of the way so they could get their turn to look. Nobody took longer turns than Frank Duncan.

One day Frank Duncan was looking through the hole and laughing. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped laughing. You could hear his shout echoing throughout the stadium.
“Julia!”
he bellowed.
“Pull down your damn dress!”

 

Funny.

That’s what I remember most,

Stories.

Don’t remember the games much.

Don’t remember names much.

Don’t remember the bad times.

I forget who won and lost most of the time.

Stories.

Silly stories.

I remember those.

 

R
ED
M
OORE’S WIFE
sat next to him and buttoned his jersey. Buck watched them for a long time.

“I see you’re still taking care of him,” Buck said softly when she had finished. He blinked and looked away.

B
ATTING PRACTICE WAS
about to begin, and a woman who worked for the Braves came into the conference room and told the men she was ready to take them down to the field. “First,” she said, “if anybody needs to go to the bathroom, then you better go now.” It sounded strange, this young woman telling men who had lived hundreds of years to go to the bathroom. Half of them went.

When they got to the field, Major League players rushed over to hug Buck. One of the huggers was Julio Franco, the oldest player in the Major Leagues. Franco had just turned forty-seven, making him the oldest everyday player in the big leagues since World War II had ended. Buck smiled and said, “I could have sworn I played with you in the Negro Leagues, Julio.”

Franco could not stop laughing.

A
FTER THE CEREMONY,
the other Negro Leagues players scattered, and Buck went to a suite and sat alone so he could watch the game quietly. Every so often, someone wandered up to his table and asked him for an autograph or a story. He obliged. Buck looked at peace. He said: “This was a good day.”

He looked around the room and said, “Is there anything sweet in this suite?”

The young woman who worked for the Braves walked over, gave her most alluring smile, and said, “What did you have in mind, Buck?”

He smiled and said, “Oh, Lord, I want something that won’t kill me. How about a cookie?”

Buck got four or five cookies. He ate one and wrapped the others. He headed for the exit. As he passed the young woman who worked for the Braves, Buck said, “I’m sure I will see you again.”

“I love the way you say that,” she said. “You are so filled with hope.”

And Buck asked: “What else is there in the world?”

B
uck O’Neil had never been to a horse race before, and he looked thrilled as the car glided slowly past the San Diego palm trees and the beautiful joggers. “In my neighborhood in Kansas City, you need a fat belly to go jogging,” Buck said. “Not here. Why are these skinny people running?” Autumn was closing in, though you would never know it in San Diego. Seasons blended together here. We were going to Del Mar. Our host was Bob Turnauckas, the president of a company called “Beyond Meetings & Incentives,” and he could not stop talking about how much Buck would love Del Mar. He said that it was the track of the stars, it was where Pat O’Brien bet, Sinatra was there. Bing Crosby sang Del Mar’s song: “Where the Turf Meets the Surf.”

“A lot of that is gone,” Bob said with sadness in his voice. “But there’s still some star power. You’ll see. There’s still some glamour at Del Mar.”

“All right,” Buck said. “I love glamour.”

“Look in your envelope, Buck. I included a thirty-dollar ticket in there for you to use.”

“All right, then. I’m going to bet on some horses.”

Sometimes on our trip—not often, but sometimes—Buck seemed to shed a few years. It was quite an astonishing thing. Wrinkles in his face would straighten. His hair would darken. His voice—so much of Buck’s energy was in that voice—would get louder. In that car, he looked like a kid about to do something naughty. Buck liked to say that when he played for the Kansas City Monarchs and especially when he managed the Monarchs, the team had class. They had suits fitted at Matlaw’s. Bartenders throughout the Midwest were warned to cut off Kansas City Monarchs players before they drank too much. The Monarchs, in Buck’s memory, stayed sober, played bridge, and dutifully wrote letters home to their wives every night. And, of course, they never gambled. Kansas City was a gambling haven in the 1930s. Buck insisted the Monarchs rose above temptation and craps tables.

“No sir, it meant something to be a Monarch,” Buck said. “The Memphis Red Sox, that team, well, they shot dice.”

He laughed. You could tell he was proud to remember the Monarchs being all class. And you could tell that, in some small way, he suspected that the Memphis Red Sox might have had more fun. These were complicated memories. In any case, he looked forward to betting on horses.

“Nothing but winners today, Buck,” Bob said as the car pulled into a parking garage with flashy cars.

“Nothing but winners,” Buck said.

Before the first race, talk swirled around baseball. Double Duty Radcliffe was on his mind. Duty had played with Buck in the Negro Leagues. He died the day before. He was 103. “You’re not allowed to feel sad for a man who lived to be one hundred and three,” Buck said. He remembered a Double Duty story. It seems that Duty—like Buck—had not been to a racetrack until late in his life. Once he got there, though, he made up for lost time. He bet liberally. In one race, he got a tip and wagered way too much on a horse Buck thought was called “Wild Willow.” Duty’s face was flushed from the start of the race, but his friends insisted that the tip looked good. Wild Willow took the lead in the backstretch and pulled away. Wild Willow headed into the stretch ahead by three or four lengths and was looking good.

Then Wild Willow started to fade. Duty did not understand the inner workings of horses, and he did not know what furlongs meant. He did not appreciate any of the complexities of the sport of kings. But he instinctively knew a dying horse. He jumped up and down as if he were riding himself. The other horses closed fast. Duty kept shouting and jumping, he prayed and swore and made promises he could not have kept. And finally, when he could not take it anymore, when Wild Willow and another horse raced stride for stride to the finish, Duty ran down to the rail and yelled with everything he had:
“Slide, dammit, slide!”

“He lost, of course,” Buck said. The thought of losing inspired Buck to talk about his favorite team, the Kansas City Royals, who were in the middle of a long losing streak. The streak would end up being nineteen games, the longest losing streak in almost twenty years. But it was not the losing that consumed Buck. The Royals lost stupid. In one game, the manager—a lifelong baseball man named Buddy Bell—had sent out the wrong lineup card. In another game, the Royals led by five runs going into the ninth inning and lost the game after their right fielder drop-kicked a ball and their left fielder dropped a pop-up. One first baseman had hurt himself swinging a bat during a rain delay. Another first baseman had been consigned to the Minor Leagues after committing numerous humorous baseball crimes, like the time he got hit in the back by a throw from his own outfielder.

The most spectacular play of the Royals season came later, during another loss, when two Royals outfielders settled under a fly ball. They looked at each other, acknowledged each other, maybe even exchanged recipes. Then, together, they casually jogged toward the dugout to signify the end of the inning. The ball plopped softly behind them. Nobody, not even Buck, had ever seen anything like that.

“After a while, losing starts to infect everything,” Buck said. “Pretty soon you can’t even do the most basic things in the world. I’ve even seen people like that, people in business, they get into a rut, and they can’t get out no matter how hard they try.”

Harvey, the kind of man you only meet at a racetrack, wore a wrinkled Negro Leagues T-shirt especially for the occasion of meeting Buck O’Neil. He also wore a crumpled baseball cap, but that was not in Buck’s honor. He always wore that baseball cap. Harvey looked to be in his seventies, and he looked vaguely lost, and he introduced himself by saying he was probably the only person alive who had seen both Joe Louis–Max Schmeling fights of the 1930s.

“Harvey could not wait to meet you, Buck,” Bob Turnauckas said.

“I have something to show you,” Harvey said, and he reached under his shirt and pulled out a clear plastic bag. Inside the bag, he had a baseball with all sorts of scribbling on it. He handed it to Buck. The baseball had autographs.

“I used to stand outside the Polo Grounds and get the Giants to sign baseballs,” Harvey said. “I have three more like this. I think this one—yeah, look. This one has Rogers Hornsby’s autograph.”

Buck looked hard and, sure enough, there was the signature of Hornsby, one of the greatest players who ever lived. Buck said that Hornsby refused to go to the movies because he thought it would harm his batting eye. Harvey nodded and said that was not the only great player he had met in those days. He met Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell (“Nice guy”). He met Hall of Famer Bill Terry (“Nice guy”). And he met Hornsby. “He was not such a nice guy,” Harvey said.

“He could sure hit,” Buck said.

Buck asked Harvey if he remembered his first baseball game. Harvey did. He said the game was at Yankee Stadium. He did not remember many of the game details. Instead he remembered how green everything looked. He remembered being carried over the turnstile so his father would not have to pay for a ticket. He remembered standing up on his seat so he could see the field. He also seemed to remember that Babe Ruth hit a home run.

“Isn’t that funny?” Buck asked. “People always remember someone famous hitting a home run in their first game. Harvey, I’ll bet you and I are the only ones in this whole place who saw Babe Ruth hit a home run.”

Harvey nodded, told us again that he saw both Joe Louis–Max Schmeling fights. He then went back to his seat to watch the first race. As he walked away, Bob Turnauckas whispered: “You would never know it, but Harvey is filthy rich. He’s absolutely loaded. I don’t know what he did. But he lives in an enormous house right around here, right next to Jenny Craig, the diet woman.”

Buck placed his first bet on a horse called “Irish Look.” He said: “Hey, I’m O’Neil, I’m Irish, let’s give it a try.” He seemed impressed by the look of Irish Look as he trotted by. Buck was not quite as impressed when Irish Look finished a distant sixth.

“That’s all right!” Buck shouted out as Irish Look trotted by again. “You’re still my friend!”

Between races, a man sang an off-key version of “When the Turf Meets the Surf,” to overwhelming boos. Buck shouted, “You just keep on singing!” He saw a little girl hugging her father, and he said, “That’s your daddy, isn’t it?” He got into a conversation with a man from Arkansas. His wife, sitting next to him, was from Ohio.

“You married a Yankee?” Buck asked the man.

“I was drunk when I married her,” he said.

“You know,” Buck said, “I think she was the one who was drunk.”

Buck studied the
Daily Racing Form
a bit harder for the second race and found a horse named “Queen of Soul.” He said, “Well, that’s a winner for sure.” Queen of Soul was owned by the diet woman herself, Jenny Craig, which only got Buck more excited. Queen of Soul started fast, but even Buck could tell she would not last. As the Queen died in the stretch, Buck shook his head and looked at Bob Turnauckas.

“Why,” he asked, “would anyone bet their own money on this stuff?”

T
HE NEXT DAY,
Buck had an appearance at the Rock Island Art Gallery on Coronado Island. A young artist, Kadir Nelson, was showing a series of Negro Leagues paintings there. And the owner of the gallery, Mark Cohen, had idolized Buck since he was a child.

“I feel cold,” Buck said to Cohen as we rode over the Coronado Bay Bridge.

“Do you want me to turn off the air conditioner?” Cohen asked.

“No,” Buck said. “It’s a different kind of cold.”

Mark immediately seemed to understand. He told Buck that the Coronado Bridge, at its highest point, stands two hundred feet over Coronado Bay, and for many years that high point has drawn the eye of people who feel lost. More than two hundred people have jumped off the bridge and killed themselves. A thousand more have been talked off the edge at the last instant. “It’s one of the biggest suicide spots in America,” Cohen said.

“Well, that explains it,” Buck said as he shivered.

Mark then said that the bridge was famous for a dog that somehow fell off the bridge. He fell into the water, a fireman fished him out. “He’s still alive,” Cohen said. “Everybody knows him.”

Buck smiled. “I’ll think about that.”

Mark Cohen became a writer and the owner of an art gallery, but before that, when he was a boy, he had been a huge Cubs fan in Chicago. And the most magical day of his childhood—perhaps the most magical day of his life—had been when he won a baseball trivia contest on the radio. He won free tickets to a Cubs game and, even more amazing, the chance to go on the field before the game began and sit in the Cubs dugout. He could remember everything about that day. He remembered how different the Boston ivy on the outfield walls looked up close. He remembered how smooth the infield dirt felt beneath his shoes; it was a little like walking on the sand at the beach. More than anything, he remembered how nervous he was as he sat in the dugout next to a tall, handsome coach who asked his name.

“Mark,” he said.

“You play ball, Mark?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you are quite the ballplayer.”

That, of course, was Buck O’Neil. Now here it was, more than forty years later, and Mark said he felt just as nervous sitting next to Buck in the car.

“I remember I wouldn’t stop talking,” Mark said. “I’m sure I drove you crazy.”

“Kids can’t drive me crazy,” Buck said. “Impossible.”

We arrived at the Rock Island Gallery, and Mark drove us around back. There was an unmarked door there. Mark said, “We’ll go through here.”

Buck stopped cold. His face went blank.

“Let me tell you something right now,” he said. “I don’t like going in back doors.”

Mark froze. His mouth opened. Horror burned in his eyes. “I’m so ssss—”

Buck put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

Kadir Nelson waited inside the gallery. He had made a reputation as an artist for the stars. He had illustrated kids’ books for Hollywood types like Debbie Allen, Will Smith, and Spike Lee. He worked with Steven Spielberg on the art direction of the movie
Amistad
. He liked doing that. But these Negro Leagues paintings were something, perhaps, a little closer to his heart. He loved sports, especially baseball, and here, he could blend myth and reality.

One of his paintings was of Stuart Jones, a six-foot-six giant everybody called “Slim.” Slim Jones was a left-handed pitcher from Baltimore, and he could throw a baseball about as hard as any man alive, even Satchel Paige. They faced each other a few times—Slim and Satchel—and the most famous of their duels happened in 1934, at Yankee Stadium. They were the two best pitchers in the Negro Leagues then, and more than thirty thousand people cheered in the stands. The two men pushed and inspired each other as great rivals can. For the first six innings, nobody reached base against Slim Jones. He would give up three hits in all, Satch gave up six, twenty-one men had struck out. Witnesses would say that no two men had ever thrown baseballs any faster. Darkness brought the game to a close with the score still tied.

Not long after that game, though, Slim Jones’s fastball began to slow. He drank a lot. He palled around with shady characters. He constantly asked for money. The Negro Leagues historians say he did not win a single baseball game in 1935. And he despaired. Three years after that, he sold his winter coat for his last bottle of whiskey and he was found on the street, frozen and dead. Kadir Nelson’s painting, called
Low and Away,
captures him during his great game against Satchel Paige, and Slim Jones is outsized, he towers over the scene like a New York skyscraper, but the painting also has a certain sadness.

“I like that one,” Buck said as he looked at Slim Jones. “But this is my favorite.”

He pointed to a painting called
Coooool Papa Bell
. In it, an enormous Cool Papa Bell slides into third base. He is stretched out, elongated, so that he must be fifteen feet tall. Cool Papa’s leg slides into the bag just as the baseball is about to land in the third baseman’s glove.