Black Baseball’s National Showcase - the East-West Game

Until recently, even avid fans knew little of Negro League history or the rich culture of black baseball that preceded the Jackie Robinson Era. Few fans knew that for a more than a half a century, some of the greatest ball players excelled behind an artificial, but very solid color line. Behind the color barrier were quality championship teams like the Kansas City Monarchs, the Homestead Grays, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Chicago American Giants, the Newark Eagles, the Cleveland Buckeyes and other top professional teams. They had players with catchy names; like Buck and Mule, Turkey and Rabbit, the Rev and the Devil, Cool Papa and Pop, Schoolboy and Sonnyman, Smokey and Satch, coming in all shades and sizes to play a game between the white foul lines. Now, can we examine their true greatness without racial blinders.

The pinnacle of any Negro League season was the East-West Game. It was an All-Star game and World Series all wrapped in one spectacle. Starting in 1933, the game was played annually at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, with additional appearances in other parks in selected years. It brought thousands of fans to the Grand Hotel in Chicago, becoming the single most important black sporting event in America. Horrendous economic conditions of the thirties, and disagreement among league officials on a World Series format from 1928 to 1941, precluded any annual championship series, making the All-Star game black baseball’s grandest attraction.

Eventually, all-star attendance grew to over 50,000 often outdrawing its major league counterpart in the early to mid-forties. Generally speaking, many historians, players, and fans argued that the overall success of the Chicago All-Star games was one of the most important factors in the integration of major league baseball.

The fans chose teams by voting through the nation’s two largest black newspapers, the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, voice of the voiceless people. Both papers were weeklies that owed much of their success to excellent political and sports coverage. These papers and smaller black presses promoted the East-West classics, giving fans across the country an opportunity to discover many stars — the batting power of Buck Leonard, Mule Suttles, and Turkey Stearnes; the lightning speed of Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, and Sam Jethroe, and the pitching magic of Leon Day, Hilton Smith, and Satchel Paige. This abundance of talent raised optimism that black players were ready for the white majors. With black league play normally ignored by the white press, the East-West attraction offered an excuse for white America to see black baseball’s best performers under one tent.

Except for a radio broadcast of a Joe Louis fight, this game was the biggest sporting event in black America. In 1995, at the 75^th anniversary dinner held by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, Monte Irvin, a 22-year-old outfielder for the Newark Eagles in 1941, recalled the tingle that surrounded the game:

One of Kansas City’s greatest was Satchel Paige. Satchel and I became great friends after a lot of turmoil in the beginning. Satch was the center of attention, and he knew it. As we stood around the batting cage, he’d say, ‘Fellas, the East-West Game belongs to me. I don’t have to pitch but two or three innings, so I’m gonna be very stingy today. In fact, I’m givin’ up nothin’. When I get around to the Grand Hotel tonight, I’ll buy you a beer. But today, nothin’ Zero!’ You know something. He was right!

On a hot Sunday afternoon, around the eighth inning the whole stadium started chanting, ‘Satchel, Satchel, we want Satchel!’ Satchel got up and warmed up and took that long lopping stride of his across the outfield grass to the pitcher’s mound. My buddy and teammate Len Pearson was the first hitter. I leaned over to him and said, ‘Lenny, I feel sorry for you!’ He said, ‘Why?’ You’re the first hitter and you know what Satchel’s wants to do to the first hitter? He went and took his swings and came back and sat down. I said, ‘How did he look?’ Lenny replied, ‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen him yet.’ Satchel pitched the eight and ninth, and the only hit we got off of him was a swinging bunt by Roy Campanella.

Irvin recalled another story, In the 1939 East-West all-star game, the bases were loaded and we were behind by a couple of runs. Up comes Mule Suttles, a big home run hitter just like Babe Ruth. He came to the plate and on a 3-2 pitch, he popped the ball up for the third out. At the Grand Hotel that night, about four o’clock in the morning, Mule said, ‘If I had that pitch just one more time, I’m sure I could do something with it.’ After another four or five more beers, he said, ‘I wish I had that pitch one more time.’

Another player, John “Buck” O’Neil recalled his experience at the classic, Let me tell you a little bit about the East-West game, because for a black ballplayer and black baseball fans, that was something special. Gus Greenlee began the game in 1933, the same year that the major leagues began their all-star game, and in the same ballpark, Comiskey Park in Chicago. That was the greatest idea Gus ever had, because it made black people feel involved in baseball like they’d never been before. While the big leagues left the choice of players up to the sportswriters, Gus left it up to the fans. After reading about great players in the Defender and Courier for so many years, they could cut out that ballot in the black papers, send it in, and have a say. That was a pretty important thing for black people to do in those days, to be able to vote, even if it was just for ballplayers, and they sent in thousands and thousands of ballots. It was like an avalanche!

Buck continues, Right away it was clear that our game meant a lot more than a big-league game. Theirs’ was, and is, more or less an exhibition. But for black folks, the East-West Game was a matter of racial pride. Black people came from all over to Chicago every year -- that’s why we outdrew the big-league game some years, because we always had fifty thousand people at ours, and almost all of them were black people; not until after Jackie Robinson [played] did any whites come out.

In fact, we kept the game in Chicago because it was in the middle of the country, and people could get there from all over. The Illinois Central Railroad would put on a special coach from New Orleans to Chicago. They would pick up people all through Mississippi and Tennessee, right on into Chicago. The Sante Fe Chief would be picking up people in Wichita and Kansas City. The New York Central would come in from the East.

Buck boasted, This was ‘the’ weekend. It was near the last weekend before school started, so a lot of kids would save up their nickels and dimes. In Chicago, all the black stores would sell tickets to the game. I remember in ’42 box seats went for $1.65, grandstand seats for $1.10, and it was fifty-cents for a bleacher seat. And those stores on the South Side, from 40^th to 50^th Streets, like the Ben Franklin Department Store, Monarch Tailors, Harry’s Men Shop, the South Center Department Store, they’d all have a big sign out, EAST-WEST TICKETS SOLD HERE. Because that would get people into the stores. A guy would come in and buy a ticket, and while he was there he might buy a hat or a pair of shoes.

The weekend was always a party. All the hotels on the South Side were filled. All the big nightclubs were hopping. Lena Horne was at the Regal club, and all the pubs had live entertainment. At the ’42 game, Marva Louis, Joe Louis’ wife and a wonderful singer, threw out the first ball with all the big shots there, you know what the atmosphere was like for us in Chicago. If you were anybody, you were at the East-West Game. And for many of us, if you were coming to Chicago, you would also be picking up your fall wardrobe.

Sam, a writer for the Baltimore Afro-American fondly remembers his days at black baseball’s biggest event. Now 94, Lacy recalls, It was a holiday for at least 48 hours. People would just about come from everywhere. Mainly because it was such a spectacle. It was better than our present all-star game because the interest was focused purely on black folks.

Train, bus, automobile, very little flying, somehow fans managed to get there. I would go on my vacation during all-star week so that I could be there the entire week. I didn’t want to miss anything!

In those days we played ball to win. It was not an exhibition game like it is today. It wasn’t just a case of showing up. Guys would vie for positions on the team. And the audience participation was much more rabid than it is now. Much more rabid! Now days, attention is so divided among so many people.

For example, there was a game played here recently in Washington [DC] and Bill White [National League President] had me in his box. It was different! Just different! People didn’t go overboard and get excited about the play on the field. At the East-West game, we just raised hell from the first pitch, right on through to the end of the game. It was case where it was much more enjoyable. More like a picnic.

On July 8, 1933, Pittsburgh Courier’s John L. Clark, later an officer in the Negro National League, wrote about the current state of Negro League baseball. His text in part read:

“Strange as it seems, the [white] dailies agreed almost unanimously that the status of leading Negro clubs was on a par with major league clubs. The players have just about done their part. They have played to win, kept in reasonably good physical shape and showed the fire and temperament of big league showmen. The owners, unfortunately, have closed shop on the idea. They no doubt are willing and glad to receive the honor and profit which goes with the improved status, but seem to have nothing to contribute.

Many inconsistencies continue to exist in the business administration of Negro baseball. [Black] Owners will put out large amounts of money for uniforms, automobiles and buses, pay high salaries to managers and business agents. They will equip the team properly and provide transportation facilities, hire men to direct strategy and men to collect their share of the money; but the majority will not spend 60 cents or $1 for a score book. Nor will they pay to have records kept and transmitted of the games played.

Posters, placards and other forms of announcements are brought to advertise games to be played. But owners seem to have adopted a public-be-damned policy on reporting the outcome of the games. Very seldom do we find one man out of 16 or 18 who has time to visit a telegraph office and inform the “stay-at-homes” whether the team won or lost. And in those rare cases when this is done, the local newspapers must guess at hits, runs, errors, doubles, triples, strikeouts, stolen bases and the many other things which happen in a ball game -- and which make records.

Owners have refused to recognize those factors, which make records, and in turn are deaf, dumb and blind to the fact that status is based on records of performance, good or bad. They seem to discount the fact that interest can be stimulated, maintained or killed outright by records alone. Worst of all, they are unfair to the public by withholding this information. Their general conduct is more like first-year sandlot promoters than big league owners.

Because this phase of the game has gone unrecognized is one of the genuine reasons why the status of Negro players cannot be proved. If we cannot prove by facts, we surely should not expect the other fellow to accept by oral commendation. Figures mean rating when available for comparison. But when one side produces figures and the other relies on memory and imagination, the comparison is unfair and unacceptable.

It might not happen this year, nor next year! But some of these days a few men who venture to gamble thousands of baseball players will wake up. They will discover in the awakening that the only way to put Negro baseball on a par with what we call major leagues is to keep records of performances, relay the same information to the public and play fair with the press.

When this is done the status of clubs, leagues and players will approach the major league level.”

Theories abound as to why statistical information was not provided to the public or the media on a regular basis. One is that players would not justify asking for a raise, because they could not demonstrate, statistically, how well they performed on the field. Another is that the owners could always argue at season end over which team was the league champion, with the most influential owner arguing and filibustering his way to the league crown. This was never more evident than at the end of the 1933 season.

In the bitter Depression year of 1932, eager to have a championship team, all-star game creator Gus Greenlee raided rival teams of their top performers for his Pittsburgh Crawfords. Cum Posey’s Homestead Grays lost catcher Josh Gibson, pitcher Ted Radcliffe, outfielders Ted Page and Cool Papa Bell, plus first baseman Oscar Charleston to Big Red’s team. Greenlee also added third baseman Judy Johnson from the Hilldale Club of Philadelphia. Yet, the talent-rich Crawfords struggled to third place with a won-lost record of 32-26 in the short-lived East-West League of 1932. The next season they joined the newly organized Negro National League. In a split season, the Crawfords lost the first half to the Chicago American Giants by one game, and the American Giants also claimed the second half of the season. Greenlee challenged the validity of some of the league games played in the second half by the Chicago club. After considerable debate, league president Greenlee declared his team the Negro National League Champions for 1933.

From this legacy of sparse data in mind, this book attempts the difficult feat of presenting complete box scores of every all-star game from 1933 to 1953. Seven previously unpublished game records are shown: the second games of 1939, 1947 and 1948 (in New York City), 1942 (Cleveland), and 1946 (Washington, DC), plus newly re-discovered all-star games played in 1951, 1952, 1953. Corrections have been made to previously published box scores, spelling of player names is repaired, revised totals for at bats, hits, runs scored and batted in are presented. Added to each pitcher's totals are earned runs, hit batsmen, and wild pitches. Calculation of team batting averages, slugging percentages, earned run averages and other previously unpublished statistics are used to determine all-time leaders.

In addition, the appendix will list day-by-day batting and pitching records, the leaders in batting and pitching for team and individual honors, plus all-time team rosters, personal all-star team selections, along with other vital statistics and historical trivia about the classics. Unfortunately, some box scores do not show attendance, time length of game, men left-on-base, managers and coaches, etc.

Every attempt has been made to assure accuracy of the data to match articles written by the leading sportswriters from the period. Despite an attempt for a complete statistical analysis of the East-West games, missing data may remain lost. As the eminent Albert Einstein once said, Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that is counted is worth counting.

Financial reports are presented verbatim from the official league records. The reports, by the various league secretaries, are as they were original typed; with misspellings, incorrect totals and format abnormalities.

Finally, comparative game accounts from the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier and other selected newspapers are provided to give the readers a view of how the games were reported through the eyes of writers in their cities.