I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.
Willie Wells, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Buck Leonard, Quincy Troupe, Satchel Paige - earlier than when he was called up - Oscar Charleston and Josh Gibson. You see what kind of talent we had, and guys in the majors knew it too.
We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball, and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball uniforms, and we thought that we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game, and we liked to play it.
Playing for the Kansas City Monarchs was like my school, my learning, my world. It was my whole life.
When I went to Brooklyn in 1948 Jackie Robinson was at the height of his brilliant career.
I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron. They were tremendous players, but they were no Josh Gibson.
One time he (Cool Papa Bell) hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second.
I would love to see as many of the black players as possible in today's Major League Baseball make every effort to go to the Negro Leagues Museum and get a first-hand view of how it all started.
I developed an interest in the history of the Negro leagues to the point where I visited the museum in Kansas City, Mo., twice and made the museum an integral part of my unheralded 2005 coming-of-age baseball novel, 'Scooter.'
What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.
In the Negro Leagues, I played every day.
I guess what really made me a Dodgers fan from the beginning was that the team had Jackie Robinson, the first 'Negro' in the major leagues.
The NBA Schedule was made up by one man, Eddie Gottlieb, who had owned the Philadelphia Warriors. Eddie had a Buddha-like body and a crinkly smile, and because he had also been an owner in baseball's old Negro leagues, he was known as the Mogul.
Many of the greatest black athletes of all time played baseball for no money and no recognition. I'm just sorry many major league fans never got to see them play, because many of them were awesome.
We used to have an all-Black baseball team, all Black stars and when White folks took Jackie Robinson and brought him into the major league that was the beginning of the crushing of Black baseball teams and leagues.
Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth.
In the Negro Leagues, we'd play three games a day on the weekends. Then we'd ride the bus and travel to play the next day someplace else. You'd hang your shirt out the bus window to dry.
I was glad to play in the Negro Leagues. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
