0:00

Hey there, 30 for 30 listeners. I

0:02

want to invite you on a journey. Back

0:04

to when America's pastime was about

0:07

more than just winning and losing. Racial

0:09

segregation forced Black baseball

0:12

players to forge their own path, creating

0:15

leagues that are often left out of history

0:17

and record books. I'm Vanessa Ivey-Rose. My

0:20

grandfather was the legendary Norman

0:23

Turkey Stearns. And on this season

0:25

of Reclaimed, a podcast from ESPN's

0:28

partners at ABC, we're going

0:30

there, telling the stories of the forgotten

0:32

legends of Black baseball. Today,

0:35

we're bringing you episode one

0:37

of Reclaimed, the Forgotten League. If

0:40

you like it, you can hear the rest of the story

0:42

at the link in our episode description, or

0:45

stick with us right here. We'll be sharing

0:47

the rest of this incredible six-episode

0:49

series in the days to come. It's

0:56

game day at Comerica Park

0:58

in Detroit, home of the Tigers.

1:02

It's June, and there's rows

1:04

upon rows of empty green plastic seats,

1:07

just beginning to be warmed by the summer sun.

1:11

The pitcher's mound is covered. The

1:14

perfect green of the outfield is undisturbed.

1:15

This

1:20

is what the ballpark is like, hours

1:22

before the crowd gets here. The

1:24

setup is like any other baseball game during

1:27

the regular season. In a few

1:29

hours, those familiar players will

1:31

run out to a familiar field. Hot

1:33

dogs will be eaten, beer will be poured,

1:37

but one thing will be different, the

1:39

opening song.

1:42

At the edge of the field, there are two singers

1:44

doing a soundcheck. Tonight,

1:47

and for one night only, these

1:49

singers will perform Lift Every

1:52

Voice and Sing.

1:53

🎵Lift every voice and sing, Lord, let

1:55

our praises ring

1:58

out to Thee.🎵

2:02

Many people call it the Black National

2:04

Anthem. Tonight's performance

2:07

of it is part of what the Tigers call

2:09

Negro Leagues Weekend. One

2:12

weekend in the heart of summer to

2:14

honor those who weren't allowed to play in the major leagues.

2:18

Those who could only play in separate leagues,

2:21

all because of the color of their skin.

2:36

These singers are the daughters of one of the best

2:38

Negro League players of all time, Turkey

2:41

Stearns. Turkey loved

2:44

the Tigers, went to every game he could, but

2:47

he could never set foot on their field as a player.

2:51

Now, every year, the Tigers raise

2:53

the flag of his Negro League team, high

2:56

above the stadium, and his daughters

2:59

sing for the crowd. Their

3:02

performance is special for me, maybe

3:05

more than for anyone else in the audience. These

3:08

singers are my mom and aunt. Turkey

3:11

Stearns is my grandfather.

3:15

And there's two stories to be told about how we

3:17

got to this performance at this stadium. One

3:20

is the story of how racism kept some of the

3:22

best baseball players out of

3:24

the major leagues. The

3:27

other is about how we reconcile

3:29

the game we love today with

3:31

where it's been and what it's done.

3:35

Because until we give those stories a home,

3:38

are we just talking to an empty room? Or

3:45

singing in an empty stadium? From

4:02

ABC Audio, this is

4:04

Reclaimed, The Forgotten

4:07

League.

4:08

I'm Vanessa Ivey-Rose.

4:12

Episode 1, A

4:15

Gentleman's Agreement. All

4:21

right, all right, all right, we made it inside. We

4:24

are walking over to our seats, but all

4:26

these awesome aromas are hitting me,

4:29

so I have to get something. I'm smelling

4:31

the hot dogs, I'm smelling the

4:33

popcorn, the pretzels look good,

4:36

but I think tonight is going to be a Kill Bossa

4:38

night, so let me head up here

4:39

and get one of these Kill

4:41

Bossas so I can start the game off right. Tradicious.

4:46

Listen, I don't just go

4:48

to

4:48

Tiger's Games on New Year League's weekend. I'm

4:51

there every weekend I can in summer.

4:54

I've loved baseball since I was seven years

4:56

old, and I'm

4:58

originally from Detroit, so

5:01

I'm used to heading downtown

5:02

to Comerica Park and

5:03

seeing that old English D covering

5:06

the heads and hearts of Tiger's fans. If

5:08

you know, you know. Before

5:11

heading into the stadium,

5:12

it's sort of a ritual for me to walk over

5:14

to my granddad's plaque, which

5:17

is located right outside of Comerica

5:19

Park behind Center Field, which

5:22

is the position he actually used to play.

5:23

Inside the stadium,

5:26

the Tigers have statues of their most famous

5:28

stars. There's some Detroit

5:30

legends, Al K. Line,

5:33

Ty Cobb,

5:34

Willie Horton.

5:36

In 2007, they added

5:38

a plaque for granddad. It's got his

5:40

name on it, and his birth and death year,

5:43

and some facts about the team he played for. It

5:47

also shows his face, a

5:49

carving that looks like bronze. But

5:52

granddad's plaque isn't where the other players are.

5:55

His plaque is outside, on

5:57

an exterior wall, on the southeast side of

5:59

the stadium. of the stadium, which

6:02

is extremely poetic, isn't

6:04

it?

6:05

So Granddad, I can see you right

6:07

now. I'm staring at you face to

6:09

face and

6:12

we're getting ready to take on the Minnesota Twins

6:14

tonight. So I hope the Tigers make

6:16

you proud. I love you.

6:20

I feel grateful to stand in front of the plaque.

6:23

I know it's not really him,

6:25

but it's the closest I can get to looking into his

6:27

eyes right now.

6:30

The feelings I have for him

6:31

are as real as they come. He

6:34

died in 1979 and I was born in 1983. And

6:39

it is possible to deeply miss someone

6:42

you've never met. Having

6:44

that plaque there means a lot to me, but

6:47

sometimes it feels like the people around me here

6:49

at the stadium don't see it. And

6:52

if they do, they don't

6:54

see what it means. Even

6:58

on Negro League's weekend, when the stadium

7:00

is full, not many

7:02

people in the crowd have heard of my grandfather. In

7:05

fact, one year I

7:08

wore a hat that said turkey sterns on it. Someone

7:11

stopped me to ask, turkey

7:13

sterns? What's a turkey

7:15

sterns? Imagine

7:18

asking,

7:19

what's a Babe Ruth?

7:22

That comparison is not an exaggeration.

7:25

Turkey stats speak for themselves.

7:28

He had a career batting average of 348, and

7:32

his wins above replacement number was 49.5.

7:37

And for anyone that doesn't speak baseball,

7:40

that's good, really

7:42

good. His

7:45

fellow players remember him sending that ball

7:47

over the stadium fences many

7:49

times. Turkey once said himself,

7:52

that he hit so many home runs, he

7:54

stopped counting them. He should

7:56

be considered one of the greatest of all time, but

7:59

very few. people know it. He's

8:01

a forgotten legend. It's almost like

8:04

I feel like if I go to a Tigers game one

8:06

day I'll see him show up out there on the field. Oh,

8:10

okay

8:11

that's out of here, that's out of here.

8:13

Yeah! Whoo!

8:19

Okay, okay!

8:21

It was my grandma who introduced me to

8:23

the game. I remember sitting

8:26

on her living room floor watching the

8:28

Tigers with her all the time.

8:31

She told me that I reminded her of Grandpa Turkey.

8:34

She told me that my light was like his.

8:38

She brought him closer to me in a way that I'd never

8:40

thought about before and started

8:43

a quest to get to know this person who

8:45

looms so large in our family history. Grandma

8:52

Nettie isn't around anymore, but

8:54

there are still people in my life

8:56

who knew my Grandpa father. He was a very

8:58

quiet person.

9:00

That's my auntie Roz.

9:01

Not talkative at all like me.

9:03

And my mom Joyce.

9:06

And my mom's right. My mom,

9:08

my aunt,

9:09

and me. When it comes to being talkative,

9:12

we definitely take more after my grandma than

9:15

Grandpa Turkey. Now

9:18

I want to clear something up right here. Turkey

9:21

is not his birth name. Oh,

9:24

Dad's name is his real

9:26

name. He was born Norman Thomas Stearns

9:29

on May 8, 1901 in Nashville, Tennessee. And

9:33

he got his nickname Turkey when

9:35

he started playing baseball because they used

9:37

to have races before the game and Dad would always

9:40

win. And so they said he was fast.

9:44

Everyone seems to have a different story for

9:46

why Turkey is called Turkey, even

9:49

in our own family. Now I

9:51

asked him and he said because

9:53

he had a pot belly, but people said he stuck his

9:56

chest out when he ran and he flapped his wings.

9:59

Some people say It was because of his pot belly.

10:01

But I've never seen dad with a pot belly, so I don't

10:03

think that's true. I think my version is

10:05

better. And not to side

10:08

with either one on this sous-sous debate here.

10:10

But my mom's right. Grandpa Turkey

10:13

did tell people he got his nickname

10:15

from having a pot belly as a kid. Aside

10:18

from the nickname, my family doesn't

10:20

know a whole lot about Turkey's early life. He

10:23

once said that his father died when he was a teenager,

10:26

leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings

10:28

alone. He had to help

10:31

out, but he worked

10:32

in grocery stores and on

10:34

the farm. And then they found out

10:36

that dad could play baseball.

10:39

Once he started playing ball, that was it.

10:42

When my aunt says, that was it,

10:45

what she means is kind of, you know,

10:47

that's all she wrote. Like,

10:51

Turkey found baseball and never looked back. As

10:54

if he set the first foot onto a path that

10:57

provided opportunity and growth

10:59

and excitement.

11:01

And that's true.

11:02

But in some ways, that's barely

11:04

scratching the surface. Because

11:07

the path he found was already well-worn

11:09

by people like him. Black men

11:11

who were playing long before

11:12

Turkey's big break.

11:14

Men with a talent for baseball, trying

11:17

to let that talent shine for as big

11:19

an audience as possible.

11:20

People

11:24

tend

11:25

to believe that black baseball started with Jackie

11:27

Robinson,

11:28

but we can go back pretty far

11:30

with it. This is

11:32

Shaquia Taylor, a sports

11:34

and culture editor at the Chicago Tribune. In

11:37

the 1800s, baseball played a vital role

11:39

in

11:42

African-American communities, even before

11:44

the Civil War. It was an important

11:46

part of Canada's history and

11:49

it was an important part of camp life

11:51

during the war. And it was tied

11:54

to African-American

11:56

agitation for civil and political

11:58

rights. During the In the 1840s and 1850s, there

12:00

was a kind of baseball mania spreading

12:06

in the Northeast and African

12:08

Americans who could afford the time and

12:10

expense formed enjoying their own ball clubs.

12:13

Shaquille says that black baseball has always

12:16

been political, always more

12:18

than just a game. Teens

12:20

were formed for and by black

12:23

players. It

12:25

gave them a chance to play their sport,

12:27

sure,

12:28

to be sociable,

12:30

but they were also a place to share ideas.

12:33

One example of this, Shaquille says, was

12:36

the Pippin baseball club, formed

12:38

in Philadelphia in the mid 1860s

12:41

by Jacob White and Octavius Caddo.

12:44

They were educators, intellectuals,

12:47

and civil rights activists, and

12:49

the team was comprised of middle-class

12:52

professionals.

12:53

But Octavius Caddo, he

12:56

used the team for

12:59

his own sort of political

13:02

agenda, if you will, his civil rights agenda.

13:05

And he served on a committee that recruited soldiers

13:07

for the Union Army, but he also

13:09

campaigned for the desegregation of

13:12

streetcars in Philadelphia, as

13:14

well as for the rights of black men

13:16

to vote. So he used

13:19

baseball to drive those

13:21

efforts, and he challenged white ball

13:23

clubs to play the Pippin.

13:26

And in the late 1860s, a

13:28

team took up the challenge, the Olympics.

13:32

Some describe it as the first recorded interracial

13:35

game. And apart from being an interesting

13:37

moment in baseball history, it's

13:40

worth remembering for one of the wildest final

13:42

scores I've ever seen. The

13:45

white team, the Olympics, beat

13:47

the Pippians 44

13:48

to 23.

13:52

That was the actual score. I

13:54

don't think baseball of

13:56

old had the kind of defensive

13:58

strategy

13:59

that we see.

13:59

today.

14:03

The Civil War spread baseball like wildfire.

14:07

Northern, Southern, Black or White.

14:09

You either took the game to war with you or

14:12

you took it home. Games between

14:14

Black and White teams like the Pippians

14:16

and the Olympics and even

14:18

integrated teams of Black and White players didn't

14:21

seem like such an unusual idea anymore.

14:25

We also have to remember this is

14:27

the Reconstruction era. Baseball

14:29

isn't the only place that we're seeing a possibility

14:32

of change occurring, but

14:34

this window doesn't stay open for long. There's

14:37

something creeping over the horizon. It

14:40

is an MLB, not as

14:43

we know it these days, but

14:45

there are what we might think of as precursors

14:47

to a major league system appearing. We

14:50

could call them Perto Leagues, baseball

14:52

associations that try to formalize

14:54

the game, write

14:56

down the rules

14:57

and even begin paying their players. Most

15:02

people say that the first, you know,

15:05

true professional team is the 1869

15:07

Cincinnati Red Stockings. This

15:10

is Leslie Hee-Fee.

15:12

She's an associate professor

15:13

of history

15:14

at Kent State University.

15:16

She's also a member of SABRE, Society

15:19

of American Baseball Research, who

15:21

are responsible for a huge amount of research

15:24

into the Negro Leagues and players

15:26

like my grandfather.

15:27

So as you move forward, Cincinnati

15:30

Red Stockings proved to everybody

15:32

that, wow, if you pay people

15:35

to play, they're gonna be really good and

15:37

you're gonna make a lot of money. And

15:39

because of Cincinnati Red Stockings in that first,

15:42

they didn't lose a game. There were professional

15:44

teams playing before that, but that's

15:46

the recognized one that said, all right, every player

15:49

on that team. And that really changed the nature

15:51

of the game moving forward because you're gonna separate

15:53

out this new professional,

15:55

very organized, white

15:58

baseball from everything else

16:00

that's got to get played. And that's

16:02

the catch.

16:03

Soon,

16:04

these white baseball organizations were springing

16:07

up all over.

16:08

The first major league,

16:10

the National League, is founded in 1876, along

16:12

with a host of others. These

16:16

new leagues were more far-reaching, more

16:19

prestigious, and more exclusive.

16:21

And one of those very first organizations

16:25

basically refused admittance

16:27

to the Philadelphia Pythians,

16:29

and the denial of admission said

16:32

that no team with any player

16:35

with one drop of Negro blood would

16:37

be admitted into the

16:39

national organization. And so,

16:42

of course, that kept the Pythians out.

16:47

A barrier was being placed around white baseball.

16:51

We call it the color line. It

16:54

wasn't a line you could see, but

16:56

you could always feel it.

16:58

The rule that excluded the Pythians

17:00

was only written for one year,

17:03

one season, but its effect

17:06

lingered.

17:07

People call it

17:09

a gentleman's agreement. This

17:11

agreement could be codified without being

17:13

mentioned, enacted without being

17:15

written down. It was de

17:18

facto segregation, and

17:20

it was woven into the fabric of the new leagues.

17:23

As the Pythians had discovered,

17:26

it was entirely at the discretion

17:29

of the white leagues to allow

17:31

or deny entry to black teams.

17:35

But this line wasn't

17:36

absolute, not yet. Play

17:39

between black and white teams persisted, and

17:42

integrated teams were still, in some

17:44

places, able to continue. That

17:48

was until one day in the summer

17:50

of 1887. It's

17:56

mid-July in Newark, New Jersey.

18:01

The stadium of the local integrated team,

18:04

the Little Giants, is packed with 3,000 fans

18:07

waiting for the game. It's

18:10

been a good season to be a Little Giants fan

18:12

and today's game promises to be an exciting

18:14

match. Their opponents have

18:17

traveled all the way from Chicago, the

18:19

White Stockings.

18:21

This team, whose lineup was as white

18:24

as their stockings, was a

18:26

Major League team. The

18:28

minor league level Newark was definitely

18:31

going to be the underdog.

18:33

But

18:34

the home team had a secret weapon.

18:37

Two, actually. Their pitcher

18:39

and their catcher.

18:42

The catcher was a brother named Moses Fleetwood Walker

18:45

and the pitcher was a brother named George Stovey.

18:49

With these star players, Newark had

18:51

the chance to send the visitors crying all

18:53

the way home to Chicago. But

18:55

the White Stockings had their own trick up their sleeve.

18:58

Their captain, Cap Anson.

19:02

Cap Anson was a superstar before there were superstars.

19:05

Blonde,

19:06

blue-eyed,

19:07

a mustache that defied gravity. A

19:10

future Hall of Famer, Anson

19:12

was the first player to cross the 3,000 hit line.

19:15

He was a player's player

19:17

and a respected manager. He

19:19

was also a racist.

19:22

Anson made no bones

19:24

that he didn't want

19:26

to play against black players and have black players,

19:28

certainly not on his team. And so

19:30

on more than one occasion, he would

19:33

threaten teams to

19:35

say, if you've got a black, we're not going to play, we're going

19:37

to forfeit. And that clout

19:40

that you could use, right, in a time

19:42

when, well, if you're not playing, you don't

19:44

get paid.

19:45

In fact,

19:47

unknown to the fans,

19:48

the day before the game, Cap

19:51

Anson had played his hand.

19:53

He sent a telegram

19:54

to the manager of the Little Giants.

19:57

He said his team

19:58

would refuse to take the field. If

20:00

Stovey and Walker were present, the

20:03

manager had a choice to make.

20:07

As the crowds waited in the heat for the game

20:09

to begin, an announcement

20:10

was made.

20:13

Stovey wouldn't be playing today, and a

20:16

flimsy excuse was given. Walker

20:20

didn't play either, but no announcement

20:22

explained why. Clearly,

20:25

Cap got his way. The

20:29

very same day as the Little Giants and White

20:31

Stockings were scheduled to play, there

20:33

was a meeting held by the international league executives.

20:37

This was the league the Little Giants played in,

20:40

an important minor league-like organization.

20:43

By astonishing coincidence

20:45

or design,

20:47

while the fans waited in the stands to hear whether

20:49

Stovey and Walker would play, the

20:52

league voted to ban all future contracts

20:54

with Black players.

21:00

Soon,

21:01

major and minor league teams stopped

21:04

signing or renewing Black players.

21:06

Some teams were so reluctant to let their Black players

21:08

go that they described them publicly

21:11

as Cuban or Native American.

21:15

A light-skinned player called Charlie Grant

21:18

was rechristened

21:19

Chief Tokahama in an attempt

21:21

by the Orioles manager to have him in their major

21:23

league lineup. But he was quickly

21:26

discovered and sent back to play on

21:28

a Black team. Leslie

21:31

Heeffe says people often point to

21:33

that moment with Cap Anson as

21:35

the moment the color line was drawn.

21:38

But really,

21:39

this was all just a sign of the times.

21:42

And in history, timing is very important, as I tell

21:44

my students all the time. Because during Reconstruction,

21:47

this country attempted to

21:49

try to see things

21:51

improve, right? We see African

21:54

Americans elected to Congress, all kinds of things. But

21:56

with the ending of Reconstruction in 1877, All

22:00

of that progress starts to disappear.

22:03

If you're the wrong color, you don't get to play.

22:05

We're going to hear this

22:07

idea a lot in this series, that

22:10

baseball is the reflection of

22:12

what's happening around it. We

22:14

can say it about the late 1800s, and

22:17

we can say it today. But

22:20

every once in a while, there are

22:22

these moments where baseball

22:24

isn't just a reflection of the society it exists

22:27

in, but a reaction to

22:29

it. That's the story

22:31

of the founding of the Negro League. To

22:34

find out how that league began, the

22:37

one that shaped Turkey's life, and by

22:39

extension mine, we'll

22:41

have to talk about what happened on a winter day in 1920

22:45

in Kansas City, Missouri.

22:56

In Kansas City, Missouri, there's a neighborhood

22:59

centered around the cross street

23:00

of 18th and Vine. If

23:03

you've heard good things about barbecuing jazz in this

23:05

city, it's probably from this

23:07

area. There's

23:10

a building there, just off the main street. It's

23:14

a big red brick rectangle that looks

23:17

like an old schoolhouse or something. No frills,

23:19

no funds. Built

23:21

for purpose. A hundred years ago,

23:24

this building was a community

23:26

YMCA, run for and by the black

23:28

community. And it also just so happened to

23:30

be where a pivotal moment in

23:32

Negro League history took place, the

23:35

founding of the Negro National League

23:37

in 1920. Just around the

23:40

corner is the Negro League Baseball Museum,

23:43

run by President Bob Kendrick. His

23:46

museum actually has a very special place in

23:49

the state of New York. His

23:52

museum actually has a small section dedicated

23:54

to Grandpa Turkey, or as Bob

23:56

calls him, the gobbler.

23:59

Oh, the gobbler. Oh yeah,

24:01

no, no, the goblin was one of the greatest

24:03

of all time. And of course he got his nickname

24:05

Turkey because of the way that he

24:08

kind of stood at the plate of a little pigeon toad

24:10

and he ran and his arm flapped like a turkey.

24:13

But as I tell people all the time, this

24:15

turkey could flat out fly.

24:18

So as you may have noticed,

24:20

this is another version of the origin story

24:23

of Turkey's nickname. Maybe

24:25

it was because he was quiet and rarely

24:27

clarified for people. Turkey

24:30

is all part of the mythical qualities of these great

24:32

players that make them hard to pin down

24:34

in the real world.

24:36

In any case,

24:37

Bob's not wrong.

24:39

Turkey stands at the plate was so awkward it

24:41

made him stand out.

24:44

Now the meeting in Kansas City in 1920 was

24:46

in February.

24:49

It was a cold day

24:50

with the winds whipping in from the plains. But

24:53

the weather had to be endured, Bob says, because

24:56

what happened here was a long time

24:58

coming.

25:00

The Negro Leagues were born out

25:02

of the ashes of American segregation,

25:06

an era in this country when

25:08

black and brown athletes were

25:10

denied an opportunity to play Major League Baseball.

25:13

So they came together and they created a league

25:15

of their own. This organized

25:18

effort was really the first to

25:20

succeed because there were others who had attempted,

25:22

but they had failed.

25:24

The cap Anson's Big Stand in 1887 and this

25:26

winter day in 1920, it wasn't like

25:28

black

25:30

baseball

25:31

wasn't being played, but

25:33

it had been limited. It

25:35

couldn't draw the resources the white Major Leagues

25:37

could. The blossoming

25:40

white Major Leagues had created

25:42

a system of mutual support

25:44

to help them weather the bad times

25:46

and excel in the good. In 1920,

25:50

they elected their first commissioner, Kennesaw

25:53

Mountain Landis, who arbitrated

25:56

disputes between owners and kept

25:58

baseball's reputation square. squeaky clean. Black

26:02

baseball had none of those things. Each

26:05

black team was independent. They were

26:07

islands out on their own. Black

26:09

teams would play each other and even

26:11

occasionally their white counterparts, but

26:14

their profits would be drained by just

26:16

keeping their heads above water.

26:19

Always moving on,

26:20

always looking for the next profitable game. It

26:24

wasn't a reliable income. In

26:26

all the prestige of the game, the trophies,

26:29

the acclaim, it belonged to the

26:32

majors. Out of reach behind

26:34

the barrier the white leagues had built and

26:36

maintained. Setting

26:39

up a black league would be difficult. All

26:42

the team owners would have to agree on how it would work.

26:45

And it would be a cultural shift.

26:47

The teams would have to go from the mindset of just

26:49

surviving

26:51

to thriving,

26:52

being able to build something from scratch.

26:55

And that could be daunting. Leslie

26:58

Hee-Fee again.

26:59

If you're going to have a league, for

27:01

example,

27:02

where do you pay?

27:04

One of the problems for a lot of black teams was

27:06

they didn't have their own stadiums. And so if you're

27:08

going to have a league, how do you set that up when you

27:10

don't have stadiums to play in?

27:13

Black teams often ended up paying

27:14

for the privilege of borrowing white team stadiums

27:16

and paid big chunks of their profits

27:19

to white booking agents.

27:21

If you're going to try to establish a league, you

27:23

have to have some kind of employees.

27:25

You have to have some kind of structure. Most

27:27

black teams didn't have any money. Barely,

27:31

you pay your payroll, but do you have extra

27:33

to pay for a commissioner? Do you have extra

27:35

to pay membership into a league? Is it really

27:37

worth it? I would argue that

27:39

the real missing piece was

27:42

the right person to be able to

27:45

convince people

27:46

that this was a good idea, that this was a good

27:48

investment, that it could work. This

27:51

person

27:52

who can unite the teams, it

27:54

would have to be someone special,

27:57

someone with vision.

28:00

So the someone with vision he

28:02

literally is referred to as the father of the Negro

28:05

Leagues is Andrew Rube Foster.

28:08

Andrew Foster, known by

28:10

his nickname Rube, was born

28:13

in Texas just after the end of Reconstruction.

28:16

And long before Foster became the father of

28:18

black baseball, there were moments

28:21

that seemed to define him, that

28:23

molded him into what he would become.

28:27

Rube had experience playing on both black and

28:29

integrated teams early in his career. At

28:32

5'9 and 230 pounds, he was

28:36

big and powerful, yet

28:38

somehow had lightning in his pitching arm.

28:41

His official record is spotty, but

28:43

he claimed to have won 51 out of 55 games in the pitching

28:47

season,

28:48

which I believe

28:49

for the record.

28:53

When the doors to white baseball were being closed

28:55

one by one, white owners

28:57

told him, man, if

29:00

you were white, you'd be on my team

29:02

in a heartbeat.

29:05

In 1907, he moved north to

29:07

Chicago to play for a black team,

29:10

but before long, Rube

29:12

went from being a player to a player

29:14

manager, then team owner.

29:20

Rube Foster had the juice. He

29:22

had the know-how. He was absolutely

29:24

brilliant. I make the case that Rube

29:26

Foster was the most brilliant

29:29

baseball mind this

29:31

sport has ever seen,

29:33

and no one really knows who he is, but

29:35

he was light years ahead of his time.

29:38

Rube sidestepped the problems that most black

29:41

independent baseball teams had at that time.

29:44

No where to play?

29:45

Rube made a deal to use the White Sox Old Stadium.

29:49

Struggling to attract talent?

29:51

Rube assembled an outstanding team

29:54

made up of the best of his former colleagues.

29:57

He taught his team a new style of play. Every

30:00

batter had to perfect the button run, to

30:02

sneak numbers on the board whenever they could. It

30:05

was scrappy, but it worked. Opposing

30:08

teams didn't seem to stand a chance against Rube

30:11

Chicago American Giants. And

30:13

Rube wasn't shy. He

30:15

made himself known both on and off

30:17

the field. He was constantly

30:19

getting into it with other team owners, with

30:22

officials, anyone. But

30:25

he wasn't a street fighter. He

30:28

clapped back by writing columns in black newspapers,

30:30

and he didn't bite his tongue. In

30:33

one of these essays, he called a fellow team owner

30:35

an ingrate. He

30:37

called his old magic dirty and

30:40

undermining and a detriment

30:42

to the game of baseball. Rube

30:46

didn't hesitate to speak his mind, but

30:48

he had a bigger mission. He

30:50

wanted to change everything about the way black

30:53

baseball was being played.

30:56

About a year before the league's founding, he

30:59

began writing a series of essays in the Chicago

31:01

Defender.

31:02

And he just went on

31:04

this very lengthy explanation,

31:09

if you will, of things that were wrong

31:11

with black baseball. And he explained

31:13

how organizing as a

31:16

league would benefit everyone

31:18

involved. Shaquia

31:20

Taylor again.

31:21

He wrote, for anything

31:23

to be successful, we must do it as

31:25

a whole. Which meant he was urging

31:28

the owners of that time to come

31:30

together to save their ball clubs.

31:34

He even urged the

31:36

owners to put their issues with each other

31:38

to the side that this was, you

31:41

know, for the greater good of the

31:43

game, but also for their bank accounts,

31:45

for their pockets. You make more money

31:48

as a unit. What they needed,

31:50

argued Rube, was

31:52

consistency, security.

31:56

No more surviving on scraps. They

31:59

could create a system.

31:59

that secured their future existence, but

32:02

they needed to do it together.

32:07

Apart from the hypocrisy of Rube urging

32:09

people to waste less time on pettiness, the

32:12

essays had a point,

32:14

and their timing seemed to be intentional.

32:16

I would be willing to guess

32:19

he was affected a lot

32:21

by what was happening around him, because

32:24

he was affected by

32:26

the intellectuals

32:29

of his time who were talking about

32:32

the advancement of Black people.

32:34

And so I can only imagine

32:37

if those things affected him that

32:39

so would being in Chicago in 1919.

32:47

In the summer of 1919,

32:49

a color line was crossed,

32:52

not in baseball,

32:53

but at the shoreline of Lake Michigan in

32:55

Chicago. The segregated

32:57

swimming beaches were packed with people cooling

32:59

off in the scorching summer heat wave. On

33:02

the white beach, someone cried out.

33:06

A rat holding some Black teenagers had

33:08

accidentally crossed the invisible line between

33:11

the swimming areas. Outraged,

33:14

the white beachgoers threw rocks

33:16

at the Black teenage boys. One,

33:20

Eugene Williams, was hit

33:23

and drowned. When

33:26

the stone throwers were not arrested, anger

33:29

and confusion spilled over into a race riot.

33:33

It began 13 days of violence and destruction

33:35

in the city, called the Red Summer,

33:38

that left dozens dead, hundreds

33:41

injured, and a thousand Black

33:43

families homeless. We'll

33:47

never know exactly what Rube thought when he

33:49

saw what was happening to his city, but

33:51

events like that, the ones that

33:53

bring out the very worst in us, they're

33:56

bound to have consequences.

33:59

I think in In order to make the decision

34:01

of if they won't

34:03

let us, we'll

34:05

make our

34:05

own, you have to have experienced

34:07

something. You have to have seen something.

34:10

You know, and the desire

34:12

to want more for black baseball,

34:15

I definitely think is rooted

34:17

in witnessing and being a part

34:20

of that

34:20

era.

34:22

Enough was enough.

34:25

After years of writing essays to unify black

34:27

baseball, it was only six

34:29

months after Chicago Red Summer that

34:31

Rube Foster called the meeting with seven other team

34:33

owners at the YMCA in Kansas

34:36

City in February 1920. They'd

34:40

all made the journey to see what he had to say,

34:42

from as far away as Detroit

34:44

to as close as the other side of Kansas City.

34:48

He showed up with an official charter

34:50

for the Negro National League already

34:53

in hand. This was someone who was

34:55

determined. He knew that

34:57

he was going to get what he wanted. He had already convinced

35:00

them to show up to a meeting

35:02

in Kansas City, Missouri. And

35:04

I think if I had to guess, he

35:07

just knew there's no way

35:09

they're going to come all the way here and

35:11

walk away empty handed.

35:13

These team owners had been bitter rivals.

35:17

Bob Kendrick says that Rube has some persuading

35:19

to do.

35:20

When Rube Foster organized the Negro

35:22

Leagues in 1920, not only was he a master

35:25

salesman, he had to convince the other owners

35:27

because Rube had either booking rights or

35:29

ownership of four of the original

35:32

eight Negro League franchises that formed

35:34

the Negro National League in 1920.

35:37

With booking rights, Rube had a lot

35:39

of power. He could decide

35:41

who got to play who

35:43

and where. Decisions

35:45

like that were

35:46

where the money was.

35:48

Rube could, for example, decide to

35:50

play all of his Chicago American Giants

35:53

games on a Friday night, meaning

35:55

that he could draw the biggest crowd. From

35:58

an outsider's perspective. It

36:00

looked like the league would be stacked in Rube's

36:02

favor, a leak of his own

36:04

personal projects.

36:06

During the Kansas City meeting,

36:08

the team owners raised their concerns.

36:11

Rube relented.

36:13

He agreed to give up ownership of three of his

36:15

four teams,

36:16

as long as he got 5% of what was

36:19

collected at the entrance gate,

36:21

of course. Well,

36:22

some upward 400,000 people attended

36:24

Negro League games in his inaugural season.

36:27

Now, I'm a country boy from Georgia. I

36:29

ain't that great at math. But if you get 5% of

36:31

that 400,000, you're doing pretty doggone good.

36:36

Somehow, Rube persuaded the other team

36:38

owners that this unified black baseball

36:40

league was how they could protect themselves,

36:43

how they could thrive.

36:45

After two days of negotiations,

36:48

Rube left the YMCA with the same document

36:50

he arrived with. Now

36:52

it had eight signatures at the bottom.

36:55

And when Foster created the league, what

36:57

a lot of people don't realize was

37:00

he never intended it and thought

37:02

that it was a permanent thing. He

37:05

wanted to create this league

37:06

to give the opportunity

37:08

to show what was possible and

37:10

hope that it would only last until

37:13

Major League Baseball was willing to

37:16

take in, in his view,

37:17

entire teams. Sadly,

37:21

we know that Rube was mistaken on that score. We're

37:25

going to get to this in future episodes. But

37:27

let me give you a spoiler. The

37:29

major leagues did not see the potential in the Negro

37:32

Leagues that Rube did. No

37:34

matter their successes, the league

37:36

and its players would always be categorized

37:39

as lesser than right

37:42

up to today. On

37:45

that winter's day in 1920,

37:48

Rube couldn't have known exactly what the future had

37:50

in store. But as he

37:52

and the other team owners left the Kansas City

37:54

YMCA, they had agreed on

37:56

more than just founding a league.

37:59

in their league president,

38:02

Rube Foster.

38:04

So it was Rube's job to share their model,

38:07

a phrase borrowed from Frederick Douglass.

38:09

We are the ship,

38:11

all else the sea.

38:16

We are the only thing that matters. We

38:19

are rising above the choppy waters. We

38:22

are bound together to keep ourselves

38:25

afloat. And

38:28

this is where my story and Rube's

38:30

meet. Because little did

38:32

my grandfather know, Rube

38:34

Foster's ship was about to

38:36

find him.

38:39

In early 1923, 21-year-old Turkey took an offer

38:42

to travel north. The

38:46

Detroit stars had seen him play in the south and

38:49

offered him a place on their roster. The

38:52

stars were relatively new. They'd

38:55

been founded in 1919

38:56

by Tenny Blount and his business

38:58

partner, an ex-player-term

39:00

manager, by the name of Rube

39:04

Foster. Turkey's

39:06

journey had Rube's fingerprints all over

39:08

it. Without Rube, there

39:11

would be no stars. Without

39:13

the stars, there would be no team

39:16

for Grandpa Turkey to join in Detroit. Without

39:19

the league, there wouldn't be

39:21

the structure for Turkey's career to flourish.

39:24

The Detroit Stars Detroit

39:29

becomes his, as he said, his home

39:32

away from home.

39:32

And his rookie season in 1923, he

39:38

sort of set the tone for what was going to happen. It's

39:41

kind of like watching a major league, in the major leagues,

39:43

a rookie coming in today, and you

39:45

can immediately tell this is going to be somebody... They

39:48

make a splash right from the start. Turkey's

39:50

first season with the Detroit stars, by

39:53

all accounts, was unbelievable. If

39:57

you look up pictures of Turkey, if people want to... He

40:01

says himself that the highest he

40:03

probably ever weighed was 175, but most

40:05

of the time it was in the 160s. He's

40:07

six feet tall. He's a skinny, scrawny, and

40:10

yet moonshot home runs.

40:12

He's credited in the 1920s along with Mule

40:16

Suddles as being the two most

40:19

prominent home run hitters. Mule

40:22

Suddles is enormous. Mule

40:24

looks like he could crush Turkey with

40:26

one hand. I mean, he

40:28

just does. And what

40:30

became apparent was not only could he hit

40:33

and hit for power, he also could

40:35

field, and he was fast.

40:37

Turkey hit 18

40:39

home runs in his rookie year

40:42

and helped push the Stars to second place in the

40:44

league.

40:45

When you hear stories like that, you want to actually

40:48

see what they did, you know?

40:50

Because you just, you can imagine, but

40:53

the imagination is fine, but I would

40:55

just love

40:56

to see Dad in action.

40:59

Because my grandfather was quiet,

41:01

his kids didn't even know he was a star until they

41:03

were almost grown.

41:05

My mom and I,

41:07

they never saw their dad play. My

41:09

father didn't brag. I tell people that all the time.

41:12

He didn't brag. He

41:13

just did, you know? He'd talk

41:15

about games and people and things

41:17

that happened during the game, and that

41:19

was interesting to hear him, but no,

41:22

he wasn't... There's a word braggadocious. He didn't

41:24

do that. I always tell people that he

41:27

and the Negro Leaguers were what I

41:29

consider... You hear the word goat, but I added

41:31

an S to it. Goats, the greatest of all

41:33

time superstars.

41:36

Mom and Auntie Roz were born after he retired,

41:39

and there's no footage of his games.

41:42

There's no footage of

41:43

any of the Negro Leaguers of his era, and

41:45

the people who saw them play firsthand are

41:48

in their 90s or above. And

41:50

there's precious few of them left to tell these

41:53

stories. Here's

41:55

Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro

41:57

Leagues Baseball Museum.

41:59

to something that my late mother would say,

42:02

you don't know what you don't know. And

42:05

honestly, I don't think there was ever a time that

42:08

people didn't want to know about the history of the Negro

42:10

Leagues. They just simply had no

42:12

way to know about the history of the Negro Leagues.

42:15

This is not in the pages of American history books.

42:17

And so countless generations of us went

42:20

through our own formal educations without

42:22

knowing one of the most significant chapters, not in baseball

42:25

history, but in American history.

42:29

Their stories were hidden.

42:31

It was as though after the major leagues integrated

42:34

in 1947, it was

42:36

better for everyone to keep moving forward, to

42:39

not talk about things that made some feel

42:41

uncomfortable. So

42:43

the stories of the Negro Leaguers became an oral

42:45

history, passed from family

42:47

member to family member. It's

42:50

no accident that I heard a lot of my grandfather's

42:52

story from my grandmother.

42:55

But when my grandmother passed,

42:57

I wondered if the stories she carried

42:59

would melt away.

43:02

When would be the proper time and place to

43:04

have an honest conversation about our past?

43:08

Now, 100

43:09

years after

43:10

Rube Foster proclaimed all

43:12

else to see, there's a new opportunity

43:15

for that conversation.

43:17

The move long overdue, the baseball

43:19

record books about to be forever changed.

43:21

Spring training just

43:22

around the corner. We're taking a closer look

43:25

at major change by Major League Baseball,

43:27

which announced

43:27

it. I'll start arguments, which is what

43:29

baseball is all about. There

43:33

was a big announcement by Major League Baseball

43:35

in 2020 that could change

43:37

the way Turkey story is told. And

43:40

not just Turkey, all

43:42

of the Negro Leaguers. It

43:45

could quite literally rewrite American

43:47

history. We are going

43:49

to get to that announcement and what's happened since. But first,

43:52

we have to understand the journey

43:55

that led us there. In

44:02

this season of Reclaim,

44:03

we'll explore how Negro League players

44:06

search to find their place at

44:08

home and abroad. One

44:10

of the players on that team failed

44:12

to say sir to an officer. Sure

44:15

enough, they were beating

44:17

up pretty badly. The Presidente didn't

44:19

bring you down here to lose. The Presidente

44:22

brought you down here

44:24

to win.

44:26

Also, what changed after

44:27

Jackie Robinson broke the color line? And

44:30

what didn't? He didn't want

44:32

to be the person to integrate a team

44:34

because why would he? Why

44:37

would anyone willingly

44:40

put themselves in a position to deal

44:42

with, you know, threats of violence

44:45

and name calling when you just want to

44:47

play a game?

44:47

Last year's World

44:50

Series, not one player on

44:52

both teams was a native born

44:54

African American player, not

44:56

one.

45:05

Reclaim, The Forgotten

45:07

League, is an original production of

45:09

ABC Audio hosted

45:11

by me, Vanessa Ivy Rose.

45:15

This episode was written by Madeline Wood.

45:17

The series was produced by Madeline Wood, Cameron

45:20

Chertavian, Eru Ekpanobi, Camille

45:23

Peterson and Amira Williams.

45:26

Our senior producers on this project were

45:28

Susie Lu and Lakia Brown. Music

45:31

and scoring by Evan Viola. A

45:34

big shout out to our ABC Audio team,

45:37

Liz Alessi, Josh Cohen,

45:39

Ariel Chester, Sasha Aslanian,

45:42

Marwa Milwaukee, Audrey Moss-Tec

45:45

and Erin Fairer. Thanks

45:48

to Tris Donovan, Rick Klein,

45:51

Eric Fial, Anthony Sanik,

45:53

Mara Bush and of course my mom

45:56

Joyce Stearns Thompson and my aunt

45:58

Rosalyn Stearns Brown.

46:00

Laura Mayer is our executive producer.