Half a dozen who would have been good players who came up later. Interesting thing about Jackie Robinson, the brooklyn dodgers actually stole Jackie Robinson from the monarchs. They never compensated them. Wilkinson who owned the team and a man who had part ownership, they could not say anything, because they would be looked upon as holding the black player back if they were to argue this debate about why didnt you compensate us for this player. This is a business. So they didnt say anything. Quietly, they had their own boycott. No kansas city monarch plays for the dodgers again. Thats the way they boycotted. Brooklyn dodgers had many great players, but they didnt have guys who came from the kansas city monarchs. The monarchs sent more players to the big leagues than any other negro team. Do you have any record of anthony kansas in the monarchs . Sure. My dad played for anthony against the monarchs about 90 years ago, i think. Okay. If theres some way you could id really appreciate it.
Baseball. We played so for love, and we played for pride. Ma and we said and made much more. The hotelmo bugs, the roads whe crowds dont roar. The city life came with the lifs i chose, but we made due and came through because dammit we m were pros. N we played in the shadow of the s babe, lou gehrig, and the rest. G thenstad behind that big leagued fence while they were called the best. But we played them well, and we gave them hell with every hit tm and pitch. Then stayed behind that colored line and watched those guys gete rich. But did they see josh gibsons ri swing or satchel throuacross hi stuff . Do you know how bad it feels when your best y is not good enough . When clouds roll in across the sky to clo hide the brightest m its then youll find some stars dont shine, some folks were born too soon. Some so god bless you, Jackie Robinson, willie mays, and all. D you wore our numbers on your back when you played big league ball. And everyig time you hit one o slid or laid one down, y
Game. They had to get themselves to d the game and t they had to buy their uniforms. Y t are you aware of how the players got paid . Oh, sure. The fortunate thing if you were playing for the kansas city monarchs, you are essentially y playing for the new york yankees of the negro league. Wilkin so wilkinson always paid his players. I have run into players over to years who told me that theyre t still waiting for their check from a game they played in 1928. But that wasnt the case with wilkinson. And rue foster as well. He kept immaculate records. Atse players made money playing in those games. Re those one of the reasons the bea monarchs were so successful bullet rogan was there until he retired. Newt allen was there from 1922 to 1946. The players came and they loved playing for j. L. Wilkinson, and they got paid well, and so theyo stayed. Money, butorked fheir they got paid well, and so d but, yeah, these werent pickups games. If they came toe abilene, theres going to be a promoter, a
Be chosen by you or would somebody else have been chosen just in retrospect . In retrospect somebody else would have probably been chosen. Are you going to tell us who . Here is the reason why i say that. Jackie robinson was chosen during world war ii. The best afterricanamerican Baseball Players were in the war so they werent even here. So maybe he was one of the better players. He was an excellent joychoice w you look back on it. I know he needed someone who was comfortable playing with white players because that was going to be a completely new environment. Jackie had that. Funny thing is willy brown becomes the third player and i mentioned that he left the st. Louis browns and never came pack. One of the reasons was because he wasnt like jackie. I interviewed his wife and she said he did what he all did. He complained. When he got to the browns he complained because he used a 40 ounce bat and his players were playing with 32. He said how do you guys play with 32 ounce bats. Where a
Negro leaguers. To show you how much ability was in the negro leagues they lost. They had all those hall of famers and they lost. I might also mention bibs. Most africanamericans at that time went to black colleges. Bibs went to indiana state. He was out of terra haute, indiana. So bibs was there and because of his great play at the college and some of the work that i was able to do to bring recognition to him and people started to Pay Attention to him, today hes in the indiana sports hall of fame and also the indiana state hall of fame as well. I thought you might want to take at that look at a few of these guys. Theres turkey stearns. They called him turkey because of the way he looked when he ran. Back then they used to pick really good nicknames. Nowadays if you listen to the games they just shorten up the names. Back then they watched the player, watched how far you act. Bell, people remember his name, he got his nickname. He becomes cool papa bell. Turkey got his name because of