Sports

Cleon Jones always will be remembered as a key player in the miracle that was the 1969 world champion New York Mets. 
Even before that, the former leftfielder was part of a different, ongoing miracle: making Mobile, Alabamas Africatown, his hometown neighborhood, a better place to live. 
When the Mets baseballs longstanding joke since their inception in 1962 won the Series, it was Jones who caught a fly ball off the bat of Baltimores Davey Johnson for the final out. Fans went wild. A ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes was scheduled. 
Jones celebrated with his team, but instead of joining the parade, he returned to Africatown, the place that, emotionally, hes never really left. 
I just wanted to share it with my community as soon as I could, Jones said of his rapid departure from New York. 
<h3>HELPING TO FILL THE VOID</h3> 
Africatown, about three miles north of downtown Mobile, is a reminder of Americas darker past. Its where Clotilda, the last known slave ship to enter the United States, arrived in 1860. History says 110 enslaved individuals were smuggled in from the former African territory known as the Kingdom of Dahomey. The United States had prohibited the importation of slaves with a law passed in 1807, but the practice continued in clandestine fashion. The Clotilda was said to have been set ablaze after its voyage of human cargo. 
At 76, Jones remains an active part of the effort to revitalize his neighborhood. He paints houses, picks up trash, tends to the community garden and even helps renovate and rebuild some of the decaying structures. 
Its something Ive always done, even when I played, he said this month. I always came back home and took part in the things I thought I needed to take part in. People that stayed here got educated and found good jobs. They moved to the west side of Mobile, in other words across town. What do they say, moving on up? Thats what they did. They moved up and moved out. 
That left a void because the land that their parents had fought for, they just left it abandoned. 
As a result, we have blight of all kinds. Empty dwellings, run-down properties. We have a lot of senior citizens; they cant do a whole lot of things. When I was brought up here in the 50s and 60s, it was probably 97 percent black and had about eight- to 10,000 people. Its about 1,800 now. 
In 2012, the ground level of a house owned by Carolyn Edwards was damaged by fire. The wheelchair-bound senior citizen was forced to live in the attic before finally moving to a temporary location. Jones, his wife, Angela, and other volunteers rebuilt the downstairs. 
What Cleon did for me was Gods work, Edwards said in an interview with the Mets. I am back among my friends and neighbors. Life has meaning for me. I didnt think it would be possible to get back home again after the fire. Cleon and Angela help so many people. They are what makes our community great. We all care for each other. To say just thank you to Cleon and Angela is not enough. Right after the fire, I never thought I could smile again. Now life is good again. 
A typical day for Jones starts at 8 a.m. 
This time of year, were cleaning up properties, he said. Its too damp to paint. We tackle properties. We give ourselves a day or two on most properties. Im on a tractor, a lawn mower on top of a roof driving nails and whatnot. People my age come and help out. I appreciate whatever they have to give to make somebody elses life meaningful. 
Theres also a community garden, a symbol of hope, that stands out amid the disrepair and neglect. We helped them put in an irrigation system, said Jamey Roberts, the senior director of neighborhood development for the city of Mobile. They had been carrying buckets of water out there for 60 years. Cleon was the driving force behind getting that irrigation system in. 
<h3>HOME OF BASEBALL ICONS</h3> 
Jones grew up in a region of Alabama that spawned Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Ozzie Smith and a few hundred miles away in Westfield, Alabama Willie Mays. Tommie Agee, Jones teammate on the Mets, also came from Mobile. Jones lost a longtime friend when Agee died of a reported heart attack in 2001. He was 58. 
Jones interest in baseball developed when he played as a youth with, among others, Aaron and his brother, Tommie. 
I never thought coming up that I was the best athlete in my neighborhood, not one time, not one moment, because I wasnt, Jones said. I had more competition in my neighborhood than I did in professional baseball. There was not one time in professional baseball that I thought I wasnt going to make it, but there were a lot of times in my neighborhood I didnt think I was going to make the starting lineup on a baseball team that we had. The talent pool was just that great. 
Jones was raised by his grandmother, who was known as Mama Myrt. Growing up, we cooked a pot of beans, we didnt have no meat to put in it, he said. We would write the word meat on a piece of paper and put it in the pot. I never owned my own glove till I was 13 or 14. I used neighbors stuff. 
Jones got to meet Paige, the great Negro Leagues pitcher, later in life. My motivation was always the same as Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson, he said. We looked at it if they could make it, we could. 
Jones did. Signed by the Mets in 1963, he was a September call-up that year, spent 1964 in the minors and made the major-league Mets starting lineup in 1965. 
<h3>PULLED BY HODGES </h3> 
Jones spent 12 seasons with the Mets and had a lifetime batting average of .281. His best season came in 1969, when he batted .340 (third behind Pete Roses .348 and Roberto Clementes .345) and made the All-Star team. 
On July 30 of that year, something happened that created a stir. Jones was removed in the second game of a doubleheader by manager Gil Hodges in what observers assumed was a lack of hustle while going after a ball hit by the Astros Johnny Edwards. 
Weve been on the road trip. I had a bad ankle and twisted my ankle in Montreal, Jones said. Gil and I had a conversation. I told him as long as I was swinging the bat good and I wasnt hurting the team defensively, I wanted to stay in the lineup. Johnny Edwards hit a ball down the leftfield line. No way I was going to stop him even on a dry field from getting to second base. This ball hit just right inside the line. I threw the ball back in and went back to my position. 
Gil came out of the dugout. I thought he was going to take out the pitcher. He passed the pitcher. I thought he was coming to take [shortstop] Bud Harrelson out. He passed Bud Harrelson. Then I looked around to the bullpen, no one there. He said, Jonesy, are you all right? I said, Yeah, Im fine. He said, You think you could have held him to a single? I said, Gil, look down. He looked down. His feet were in the water, my feet were under water. The field was wet, Im talking about really, really wet. He said, Oh, I forgot you got that bad ankle. He said were getting our tails kicked, you need to come on out of this game. I said OK, thats fine. 
It created a postgame uproar with the media. To me, it was unusual what he did, but knowing Gil Hodges, hes not the kind of guy that embarrasses anybody, Jones said. From everyone elses standpoint, they felt like it was an embarrassment. I didnt because of the conversation we had prior to that. But if it was meant to wake the people up on the team, so theyre all thinking, If he does Jonesy that way, he might do me that way, so be it. 
Hodges died in 1972. Years ago, his wife, Joan, said her husband seemed to regret his action with Jones after she chastised him for making such a public display. She said he then told her that evening, I never realized till I passed the pitchers mound and I couldnt turn back. 
Teammate Ron Swoboda, now 74, said Hodges action with Jones was purposeful. I think everybody got the message, he said from New Orleans. I hated the idea that Cleon Jones, who was one of those guys we couldnt have done it without his play, became the poster boy for wake up and get after it. 
The Mets got the message, though it took a while. They trailed the Cubs by 5 12 games in the National League East after that doubleheader loss to the Astros, then were in third place and 10 out after play on Aug. 13. They won 14 of their last 17 in August and took over first on Sept. 10 before winning the division title by eight games. 
Jones hit .429 with a home run and four RBIs against the Braves in the National League Championship Series. He hit only .158 in the World Series but played a key role in Game 5. 
With the Orioles leading 3-0 in the sixth inning, Dave McNally threw a pitch that appeared to hit Jones on the foot, but plate umpire Lou DiMuro initially ruled that it had not hit him. 
Hodges got the ball, which had rolled into the Mets dugout, and argued that it had a shoe-polish smudge and that Jones should be awarded first base. DiMuro agreed. Donn Clendenon then hit a two-run homer and the Mets rallied for a 5-3 victory. 
There were plenty of tales about how the ball got that smudge, but Jones maintains that his shoe was hit by the pitch. They used to shine the shoes before every game in those days, he said. 
In the ninth inning of that game, Jones was in left when Johnson hit that fly ball in his direction. When I settled on the ball, I kept saying, Come on down, baby, come on down, baby, Jones said. Then I dropped to one knee and said, Its all over, thank God. 
Jones said in that moment, he thought of all the losing seasons he had endured with the Mets. I was in on all of it, he said. We were a joke one day, world champions the next day. 
<h3>SIMPLE LIVING</h3> 
Jones describes his home in Africatown as a modest 2,500-square-foot dwelling. 
Ive always tried to live in a way people could approach me and feel like I was still part of the community, he said. Our door is open to any and everybody. People feel free to come and talk when they have problems. We try to help people take care of their problems. 
You can have millions of dollars, but you dont have the kind of relationship that I have with the neighborhood you grew up with and things you know need to be developed. I dont have the finances, but Im in a position to talk to other folks and pool resources. I can make some of these things happen. What they see is a person they can reach out to. I dont walk up to a kid and say, Im Cleon Jones, I played for the New York Mets. I try to present myself as a friend. 
If you like me just because I was a baseball player, how can that motivate you? I dont put myself out there with all the things that Ive done, being in the World Series, playing in the All-Star Game. All those things would be meaningless to me without this. Im not looking for accolades. Im looking for results. 
Im proud of who I am and where I came from, he said. I get my rewards every day. I have something to go to bed for every night and I have something to get up for every morning. I loved being a Met, but the top of my list always has been what I could do for others, not what I could do for myself. 
Jones was released by the Mets on July 27, 1975, after refusing to play in left for then-manager Yogi Berra, who wanted the injured Jones to play the outfield after a pinch-hitting appearance. Jones played in 1,213 games for the team. 
In 1976, he signed with the White Sox but was released after appearing in 12 games. 
Then he made it all the way home.

Baseball

New York Mets

spCLEON190224

Ex-Met Cleon Jones making a difference in his community

Cleon Jones making a difference in his community

R588TN

Bernard Tomlin had just finished playing in an early 1970s University of Utah basketball game when he was approached by a man and his young daughter. He said she wanted to know what it was like to be black. 
He said she just wanted to meet you because youre black. Shes never been close to a black person, Tomlin, a 1971 graduate of Malverne High School, said Friday. Then she touched my face and he just handed her to me. 
Another person might have been outraged, but Tomlin said he thought the question came from love . . . It was her fathers opportunity to say to her, This man breathes and he walks; hes the same as you. I think that was the reason he let me hold her. 
Tomlin has preached that thoughtful kindness to a legion of young African-American players in his 28 years of coaching college basketball. 
He is 411-340 as a head coach, the last 18 at SUNY Old Westbury, where he led the Panthers to the NCAA Division III Tournament in the 2015-16 season. 
But Tomlin, 66, a resident of Lakeview in West Hempstead, is not just about coaching. 
He talks about his history and African-American history with his players. 
I think the most important thing is that they realize that everything wasnt always the way it is now, he said. And they do have to not take for granted some of the opportunities that they have. Its such a big job in between all these things becoming what we would perceive as normal. This [month] is a time for them to think about that . . . They should know that there was a struggle for some of the things right now that are there to enjoy. 
<h3>PLAYERS APPRECIATION</h3> 
Tomlins former players are his disciples. Hes always going to think positive and look for the glass half full, said Anthony Bryant, who graduated from Old Westbury in 2003. 
Stephon Odle, a special education instructor for the Longwood school district, said: He is a man of good class in any situation that hes presented with. Thats what he preached with us, playing with class. 
Tomlin grew up in the South Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium. His late father, Samuel, was a supervisor for Joyva Candy Company for 50 years. His mother, Minnie, now 94, worked for the New York City Department of Welfare. 
Tomlin idolized Mickey Mantle and Oscar Robertson. He said he did not see color and hoped no one saw it in him. 
Growing up in the South Bronx, we lived in different locations, he said. I was in the projects for a couple of years. My background gave me the opportunity to experience living in every situation and with kids that had issues. I was fortunate that I had two working parents, but at the same time, I know exactly where these guys are coming from. 
It was good training for counseling the young athletes he would encounter in his coaching career. 
Tomlin coached locally at Adelphi and Stony Brook before Old Westbury, where he is 285-203. In terms of basketball, his most successful graduate was 6-8 Lester Prosper, who lived in a group home while attending the college, with NBA scouts eyeing him in the schools Clark Center. Prosper, now 30, has had a long professional basketball career overseas. 
Prosper was prepared when his Tomlin moment occurred a few years ago in, of all places, his church in Miami. 
A couple came up to me and said they had never liked black people, Prosper said last month from London. Something just told us to come over and sit with you. The way you treat people, you made us look at people differently. 
Prosper took the comments as a compliment and said he had Tomlin to thank for that. 
He helped me to carry myself as a man with poise, he said. Carry yourself in public with poise. Theres still a lot of prejudice out there, of course, but you deal with it. 
Nathaniel Vaughn, now in marketing, is another of Tomlins many success stories. 
He wants me to speak to his [Old Westbury] team, Vaughn said. I dont want to sugarcoat anything. Ill let them know there will be struggles along the way. Its inevitable, you may not be treated fairly all the time, but nonetheless push through. Have the intestinal fortitude to overcome these adversities that you undoubtedly will face. 
<h3>STAR ON THE COURT</h3> 
Tomlins Malverne record of 45 points in one game lasted until 2009, when Dashawn Moorer scored 56 in an overtime game. 
Tomlin, a guard, transferred from Utah to Hofstra, where he had a 42-point game in the 1974-75 season. In 1976, he played on the first Hofstra team to make the NCAA Division I Tournament. 
Tomlin was taken in the sixth round of the 1976 NBA Draft by the New Orleans Jazz. He did not make it to the NBA but played briefly for Brooklyn and Wilkes-Barre in the Eastern Basketball Association. He then assisted at Hofstra, Duquesne, St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island under fellow Malverne graduate Al Skinner. 
Tomlin thought he was on track to become a Division I head coach when he was hired at Stony Brook to begin the 1991-92 season. Stony Brook was making the transition to D-I, but Tomlins teams went 100-109 and he was let go after the 1998-99 season just before the program was fully elevated. 
You cant carry these things, Tomlin said. As a Christian man, were taught to forgive. Forgiveness is a critical part of living, I think, a happy life. So I forgive, but I didnt forget it in terms of career opportunities. I deserved to have that chance to coach that team as a Division I coach. 
Richard Laskowski, Stony Brooks athletic director at that time, said last month that the decision had nothing to do with race. 
I knew he would be disappointed. But I felt we needed to change, to go with a coach that had experience in Division I, who was known as a Division I coach, Laskowski said. I wanted to go with who I thought was the best person at that particular time. Not a color. 
Laskowski eventually hired former Fordham coach Nick Macarchuk for the mens team and Trish Roberts, a black woman, for the womens team. 
Tomlins former players at Stony Brook were upset that their coach was not retained. 
We busted our butts on the court to get that D-I position for him, said Kwa Hollywood Gibbs, who coaches Faith Preps elite team in Manhattan. We thought it was already mapped out because we were beating D-Is as a D-II. 
Ron Duckett, who played for Tomlin at Stony Brook, said his coach taught him to persevere. Duckett went on to become an author of cookbooks under his pen name, Ron Douglas. He had a New York Times bestseller, Americas Most Wanted Recipes, in which he created foods that duplicated or even improved the taste of meals from popular eateries such as Kentucky Fried Chicken. 
Duckett said of Tomlin, Hes a very professional role model and father figure. He spoke eloquently. He was just somebody you could aspire to be as a young athlete. The way he conducted himself, the way he treated other people. 
Tomlin guided Duckett down the right path. For someone like me, I didnt have a father growing up, you look at your coach as a role model when you dont have a dad, Duckett said. He was definitely a person like that for me. He always told me to stay with my studies and keep my grades up. Being black and being in the entrepreneurial world, there is a self-confidence, self-esteem issue still amongst young black people in this country. 
The time is approaching when Tomlin will step away from coaching, he said, to devote his energies to his newly formed faith-based clothing line entitled Gods Prepared Athlete. Its message clothing, he said. 
Tomlin has made a career of delivering the message.

College

College Basketball

SPTOMLIN190217

Bernard Tomlin a role model for his players

SPSUNY-OWMHoops10

Before every Bellport High School home basketball game, as each player is introduced, he runs to the corner of the court, bends down and respectfully touches the name painted on the floor. It is an enduring and vibrant tribute to the figure who is identified in large script lettering: “Randy Smith Class of 1967.” 
The court was dedicated to Smith 10 years ago, weeks after his death, a reminder that his surprising journey toward becoming an NBA All-Star began right in Bellport. 
Everyone who enters the gym sees a Randy Smith sign above the front door and, once inside, notices his retired No. 32 on a banner hanging from the ceiling above the midcourt line. 
“He was great, a very gifted player. He had all the gifts it took to be a superstar,” said Carlton Bullock, who was a year behind Smith at Bellport and played with him on the 1966-67 varsity. “He was great at any sport.”   
That is the thing about Smith. He left behind memories just as vivid on the soccer field (that arguably was his best sport) and the high jump pit (he set a state record by clearing 6 feet, 6 ¾ inches). 
In a 1997 interview with Newsday, Smith said, “I liked baseball, too, but no girls were out there watching anybody play baseball.” Had he stuck with it, he might very well have made the major leagues. 
Beyond all of that, though, was the Randy Smith that family, friends and acquaintances knew. To them, he was more than his 12-year NBA career, including a season with the Knicks. There was an inner strength beyond his then-record streak of 906 consecutive NBA games. There was a higher rung even than being the Most Valuable Player of the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, with 27 points in 29 minutes. 
To those who knew him best, he was a humble, kind soul whose first post-playing job with the league was helping former players in need and who often returned to Bellport to raise spirits and hopes at his alma mater. 
“You never saw Randy upset or angry or not smiling,” said basketball Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo, who played his first 4&nbsp;1⁄2 years with Smith on the Buffalo Braves. “He was just happy all the time. He didn’t let bad calls bother him and he wasn’t bothered by things that were happening in his life.” 
Plus, he sure could play. “First and foremost, he was an outstanding, fabulous athlete,” McAdoo said from Miami, where he is a scout for the Heat after 19 years as an assistant coach. “He was the fastest basketball player I’ve ever encountered. From baseline to baseline, foul line to foul line, I’ve never seen anything like it. He had world-class speed.” 
“Run and jump out the gym, man. He used to give me fits. Randy Smith was [Russell] Westbrook before Westbrook,” Knicks Hall of Famer Walt Frazier said. “He came in a little after me. He actually idolized me, ended up with the Rolls-Royce and all that. The guy used to give me hell. He was so fast. Might have been the best athlete in the league . . . I wish he was on my team. I would have slept better.” 
Combine that with a world-class work ethic and you’ve got a success story, one of the best pro basketball players to come out of Long Island. 
“While I was there,” McAdoo said of his Buffalo years, “his jumper got better, his ballhandling got better. Randy was a guy who just played all summer. For him, being a seventh-round draft pick and not expecting to make the team, he just put it all out there. He made that team easily, going away.”   
Not that Smith or anyone else was thinking NBA when he was a teenager in Bellport. He was just a very solid high school player, one who was named to Newsday’s 1967 All-Long Island second team (among the players on the first team was Cold Spring Harbor’s Chip Morton, whose son, Charlie, saved Game 7 of the 2017 World Series for the Astros). 
“He was a good teammate. He was unselfish, he would do whatever he could to make the guys around him better,” Bullock said. “He liked to kid around, do a little singing. You know, back in the day, guys would sit around on street corners and do a little doo-wop. He was into all that, the Motown sound.” 
Was he as good a musician as he was an athlete? “Ah, he was OK,” Bullock said with a laugh. 
What makes Smith’s rise so compelling was that he was not recruited by major college basketball programs. He drew Buffalo State’s interest with a record performance in the state track meet, which was held on campus. He eventually went out for soccer, which was a Division I sport there, and became an All-American. 
He figured he might as well try basketball, too. He not only made the squad but led it to three conference championships. As a junior in 1969-70, he averaged 26.5 points and 14.5 rebounds as the team reached the NCAA College Division Final Four. The Braves, a second-year NBA expansion team possibly looking for some good local publicity, chose him in the seventh round of the 1971 draft. 
Seventh-round picks rarely made it past the early days of training camp, but Smith hit the ground running and never stopped. 
“He could dribble faster than other people could run,” said McAdoo,&nbsp;who joined the team in 1972. “He was the catalyst in making us the fastest team in the NBA. I remember when I got to the Lakers, they talked about Showtime, and when Phoenix had Steve Nash with Mike D’Antoni, they talked about getting downcourt in seven seconds or less. Well, if they looked, they would see that the Buffalo Braves did that long before Showtime or the Phoenix fast break existed. We were just so fast. 
“What made me think about Randy’s speed was when I got traded to the New York Knicks. It took me about two or three weeks before I could get adjusted to Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe. I used to get a rebound and throw it out there for Randy and he would run under it and get it. I was throwing passes out to Frazier and Monroe and they just would watch the ball go out of bounds. It was a big adjustment for me.” 
Smith began as a defensive specialist and grew so much as a scorer that he averaged more than 20 points four years in a row. The Cavaliers and Knicks each traded a first-round pick to get him. His then-record consecutive-games streak would have gone on longer, but he had to wait 24 hours to clear waivers when he went (by his own request) from the San Diego Clippers to the contending Hawks in 1983. The league ruled that the streak was over because he had missed a game. 
No hard feelings. He was gracious when A.C. Green broke the mark in 1997, showing up for the game (as did baseball’s Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr.). Smith had a history of graciousness. 
While he was with the Braves, he bought a house for his mother in North Carolina. A popular story in Buffalo says he once noticed two fans stranded in the cold after a game, brought them home and established friendships with both. 
Distance and stardom never kept him apart from Bellport. “He would come back in the summers, and whenever he was there, he was great,” said Jim McGowan, who coached Bellport in the 1980s and 1990s and whose wife was in Smith’s graduating class. “Once the kids saw him, everybody wanted to challenge him. He was playing two-on-two, three-on-three. The kids loved it.   
“The first time he came in, he was like Joe Namath. He pulled up in a Rolls-Royce and had a fur coat on. I said, ‘Weren’t you hot?’ He said, ‘Yeah, but I wanted to make an impression.’ ” 
Smith’s point was that Bellport’s teenagers should aspire and know they can get somewhere. “He harped on going to class, getting an education and making something out of your life,” McGowan said. 
Bellport was shaken by the news in June 2009 that Smith, 60, died of a heart attack while on a treadmill at Mohegan Sun, where he was an executive host. Tears flowed. Tributes followed. 
As Bullock said this week, “He represented Bellport to the best. He carried himself well. It was good to see him do great.” 
To this day, his successors in Bellport Clippers uniforms look up to him as they reach down to touch the name emblazoned on their court. 
With Steve Popper

Basketball

SPRANDY190210

Randy Smith still is the pride of Bellport

Randy Smith still the pride of Bellport

spRANDY190210

Hank Aaron encountered plenty of racism in his life, but nothing prepared him for the hatred and death threats he received as he chased Babe Ruth’s career home run record nearly 45 years ago. 
Among the many hate-filled letters he was sent was one that he shared years later in Sports Illustrated: “You are not going to break his record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. Whites are far more superior than [slur] .&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;. My gun is watching your every black move.’’ 
Aaron, who will turn 85 Tuesday, says the night of April 8, 1974 — when he hit his 715th home run at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to break Ruth’s record — brings back memories that are much more bitter than sweet. The path to breaking Ruth’s mark of 714 was filled with anguish, he said. 
Racial segregation was commonplace while Aaron was growing up in Mobile, Alabama. He saw how his father had to yield his place in line at a general store when a white customer entered. And there were times when his mother called him into the house and the family hid under a bed because the Ku Klux Klan was marching past the house. 
Aaron faced the racism of the Deep South while winning the South Atlantic League’s MVP award with Jacksonville as a 19-year-old in 1953. And when Aaron was a shy rookie with the Braves in 1954, manager Charlie Grimm reportedly nicknamed him “Stepin Fetchit,’’ a vaudeville comedian billed as “The laziest man in the world.’’ 
Years later, as he closed in on Ruth’s record, Aaron was assigned a bodyguard because of the death threats and hundreds of pieces of hate mail he received. 
Aaron kept most of the hate mail. Former Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Jim Auchmutey wrote in 1996, “The hate mail, the death threats, the racial slurs, they’re all there, boxed up like toxic waste .&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;. Billye Aaron has read about how her husband goes up in the attic and digs out those letters and picks at the psychic wounds he suffered as a black man threatening a white man’s legacy .&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;” 
Aaron spent the first 12 years of his major-league career in Milwaukee (he hit 398 home runs), but when the franchise shifted to Atlanta in 1966, the Braves’ new home did not feel like the land of the free to Aaron. At the time, he said he preferred playing on the road rather than in front of the sparse crowds the Braves were drawing. He interpreted that ambivalence as bigotry, which he experienced in that first season in Atlanta, when his first&nbsp;wife heard racial taunts targeting her husband as she sat in the stands. 
Aaron said he has vivid recollections of those times. “It brings back a very foul taste in my mouth,’’ he said from Atlanta in mid-January. “I had to send my kids to private school. My daughter, who was in college at the time, couldn’t go out of the dorms. She was threatened with letters all the time. It was a horrible moment for me to try to break the record, really. The police were saying all of these probably are crank letters, but some of them maybe were for real. The team stayed at one hotel and I stayed at another. I sometimes had to sleep in the ballpark by myself. I had to slip out of back doors of ballparks.’’ 
Aaron’s teammates sympathized. “Everybody was excited except him,’’ said Frank Tepedino, 71, of St. James, a former Yankee who joined the Braves in 1973. “We had the FBI traveling with us. He never ever made anything out of it. He kept everything to himself.’’ 
Davey Johnson, 76, the Braves second baseman who would later manage the 1986 world champion Mets, said from New Smyrna Beach, Florida: “We didn’t see color, we saw talent. As a ballplayer, you never see color. You see talent and teammates.’’ 
Another teammate, Dusty Baker, watched Aaron open some of the hateful letters. “I could see when he got a bad letter,’’ Baker, 69, said from San Francisco. “He’d drop it and go into the trainer’s room. One said, ‘Get out of here [slur].’ Another one saying somebody in a red jacket’s going to shoot him. Me and [teammate] Ralph Garr were like, ‘We’ll be with you.’ We were looking up in the stands, more scared that something would happen than Hank was. Hank just went ahead with his life.’’ 
How did Aaron cope? “He’s a man,’’ Baker said. “He’s a strong man. A strong black man. This made him stronger and more determined and he concentrated harder. It wasn’t only playing against Babe Ruth, he was playing against parts of America.’’ &nbsp; 
<h3>&nbsp;CHASING THE RECORD &nbsp;</h3> 
A 40-homer season in 1973 at age 39 left Aaron with 713 home runs. The sports world had the entire winter to focus on No. 714, which would tie Ruth’s record. The hate mail already had started. 
“I didn’t expect it to be that harsh, really,’’ Aaron said. “I thought I was just playing baseball and bringing a little joy for somebody to come to the ballpark and have fun with me hitting a home run.’’ 
As the 1974 season started, the Braves, and by extension Aaron, came under fire from then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn when the team indicated Aaron would skip the season-opening three-game series in Cincinnati so he could break Ruth’s record before the home fans in Atlanta. Kuhn ordered Aaron to play in two of those three games. 
On Opening Day, April 4, with Kuhn in attendance, Aaron homered in the first inning off Jack Billingham to tie Ruth’s record. Aaron sat out the next game and was 0-for-3 in the third game. 
The Braves’ home opener was April 8 against the Dodgers and drew a capacity crowd of 53,775. Kuhn, who was not in attendance (he said he had a previous commitment in Cleveland), drew plenty of criticism for his no-show. Aaron, who said he bears no malice toward Kuhn,&nbsp;said “I was intent” on breaking the record against the Dodgers. 
Former Yankees lefthander Al Downing was the starting pitcher and walked Aaron in the second inning. Darrell Evans reached base on an error to start the Braves’ fourth. Aaron was next and Downing’s first pitch was a ball. Braves broadcaster Milo Hamilton described what came next: 
“He’s sitting on 714. Here’s the pitch by Downing, swinging .&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;. there’s a drive into left-centerfield .&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;. that ball is gonna beeee .&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;. outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!’’ 
Downing, 76, who lives in Stevensville, California, said: “It was a fastball, it stayed up. That ball was right in the middle of the plate. I said, ‘Please don’t swing.’ I knew if he hit it, it was gone.’’ 
Downing, who is black, said he had long revered Aaron as a trailblazer for African- American players. “Pride long before him going for home runs,’’ Downing said. “Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, those guys are the pioneers. So when we came along, it was difficult, but not so difficult.’’ 
Downing said Aaron’s challenge of Ruth’s record “wasn’t a case of the society embracing Babe Ruth. I think it was a society saying we don’t expect this guy being the man capable of — why is he the one to break Babe Ruth’s record? This is a country that had gone through two world wars, the Korean conflict. You would have thought those events would have brought this nation together. But it didn’t.’’ 
After No. 715 cleared the leftfield fence that night, two young fans ran onto the field. At the time, amid the threats and all of the hate mail, their intentions toward Aaron may have seemed unclear . . . until they congratulated him on the basepath. Aaron said he recalled, “I felt like I wanted to make sure I touched all the bases because anything might happen.’’ 
The record was his, but that did not stop the vulgar letters. “The hate kept going. That stayed right there,’’ he said. 
As baseball’s new home run king, Aaron said he got one commercial endorsement — as a spokesman for Magnavox, an electronics company. 
“The opportunities were not there,’’ he said. “It was still very much ‘you’re black, I’m white.’ Things were not any different for me than they were for Jackie [Robinson] when he first started out in baseball. It wasn’t enjoyable for me. I had no enjoyment at all. When Pete Rose was going after the [all-time] hits record, he enjoyed it, he had a lovely time. I didn’t have that time. I was hounded, talked about. When I signed a contract for $100,000 and one day I didn’t play, somebody said, ‘You mean the hundred-thousand-dollar boy isn’t playing?’ It was awful, really.’’ 
<h3>THE AFTERMATH</h3> 
It has taken decades, but Aaron said he now can reflect on and appreciate what he accomplished. 
“I find the world has changed and people today respect me more now than they did even 20 years ago,’’ he said. “I think people grew up and understand. Baseball is a game. If you have the ability to play it and can do certain things, whatever records you accomplished, you deserve to break the record.’’ 
Aaron finished his Hall of Fame career in 1976 with 755 homers. His record lasted until Aug. 8, 2007, when Barry Bonds, whom many have accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, hit No. 756 (he retired with 762). 
Aaron said he never has spoken to Bonds about the record. ‘’I guess you could say that I think in terms of if someone’s going to break a record and don’t have the respect of playing with all of the God-given talent, then they don’t deserve to have the record,’’ Aaron said. “So that’s the asterisk I put on it.’’ 
Cubs Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who played many times against Aaron, said from Chicago: “I think Henry Aaron is the home run king. Here’s a black guy who’s going to break Babe Ruth’s record, who&nbsp;stood out in the game for so many years. People were jealous because it was a black guy.’’ 
Dusty Baker managed Bonds in San Francisco before he surpassed Aaron’s record. “Barry was awesome during that.&nbsp;He captured all of baseball,’’ Baker said. “I don't really get into comparisons, what somebody did or didn't do, because I don't know. Hank was the best I played with and Barry was the best that played for me.’’ 
Former commissioner Bud Selig has said he considers Aaron the rightful record-holder. “And I haven’t changed my mind,’’ Selig, 84, said from Milwaukee. 
It was Selig, then president of the Brewers, who brought Aaron back to Milwaukee for the final two seasons of his 23-year career. Selig recalled Aaron showing him some of the earlier hate mail from Atlanta. “It was really emotional,’’ Selig said. “I was stunned that people could write what they wrote.’’ 
Selig, who was criticized for being slow to react during the steroid era but has pointed to a landmark Joint Drug Agreement during his tenure, said he never considered nullifying Bonds’ home run total. &nbsp;&nbsp;“No, because I think that's a slippery slope,’’ he said. “Any time a commissioner does that,&nbsp;you're taking a lot of gambles . . . I'm glad I didn't do it. The downside is where do you stop when you start changing things?’’ 
 Neither Aaron nor Selig was in San Francisco the night Bonds broke Aaron’s record. Aaron did pretape a video offering his congratulations, and Selig said he did the same in a phone call to Bonds. 
Aaron said he always knew his home run record would not last forever. “It was mine for a long time,’’ he said. “I owned it for a while. I lived with it for a while. I respected it. And I still believe in it."

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Hank Aaron recalls racism during his chase for Babe Ruth's home run record

Aaron recalls racism during his chase for HR record

MILWAUKEE BRAVES AARON

Since 2004, the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project has installed 38 headstones to graves of African Americans associated with pro baseball before and during the Negro Leagues. Three of the players are members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
John “Jimmie” Crutchfield (1910-93): Teamed with `Cool’’ Papa Bell and Ted Page on the Pittsburgh Crawfords in what was considered best outfield in the Negro Leagues. Made a barehanded catch in the 1935 All-Star game.
John Wesley Donaldson (1891-1970): Lefthanded pitcher won over 400 games, struck out more than 5,000 and threw 14 no-hitters in a largely barnstorming career. Later became MLB’s first full- time African American scout. 
“Candy Jim” Taylor (1884-1948): Infielder who played on the 1928 St. Louis Stars, winners of the Negro National League championship. Batted .389 in 1927. 
Robert ``Fuzzy’’ Garrett (1902-1997): Shortstop who played with Kansas City Monarchs and later in pro basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters. Also umpired. 
Theodore ``High Pockets” Trent (1903-1944): Pitcher for the St. Louis Stars. Also called ``Stringbean’’ and ``Big Florida’’ because of his height. 
Daniel Gardner Burley (1907-1962): Sports reporter and editor who covered the Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson’s entry into Major League Baseball in 1947. Became managing editor of Jet Magazine and associate editor for Ebony Magazine. 
Guy C. Ousley (1911-1964): Played from 1931-32 with the Chicago American Giants, Memphis Red Sox, Cleveland Cubs and Louisville Black Caps. 
William James “Jack” Marshall (1908-1990): Light-hitting but good fielder. Played every position but pitcher in a 19-year career. 
Roosevelt “Rosey” Davis (1904-1968): RHP went 65-41 from 1924-44. 
Paul James Hardy (1910-1979): Catcher for seven tears from 1932-45. Ended career in 1939 with Kansas City Monarchs. 
Othello Strong (1923-1991): Pitcher who hit four home runs and batted .317 in 1951 for the Winnipeg Buffaloes, a team reportedly comprised largely of former Negro League players. 
Jonathan Boyce “Steel Arm” Taylor (1879-1956): A RHP who in 1903 started 30 to 40 games for the Birmingham Giants. Brothers Ben, C.I. and Johnny joined him on the Giants in 1908. 
Franklin L. Mann (1894-1965): Sketchy information for Mann, who is known to have played first base for the 1918 Chicago Union Giants. 
Lester Lockett (1912-2005): Outfielder from 1938-50, mainly for Birmingham Black Barons and Baltimore Elite Giants. Three-time All-Star. 
Gable Patterson (1919-1991): Outfielder who served in World War II. Started career with New York Black Yankees in 1941. 
Robert Gaston (1910-2000): Backup catcher to future Hall of Famer Josh Gibson. 
Sam Bankhead (1910-1976): Played for 20 years, starting in 1930. Named first-team utility player on the All-time Negro Leagues All-Star team. 
William “Bobby” Robinson (1903-1902: Played from 1925-42. Called ``The Human Vacuum cleaner’’ based on his fielding ability. William Miller “Big Bill” Gatewood (1881-1962): Pitcher and outfielder for 15 teams in a 24-year career. Said to have developed future Hall of Famer Satchel Paige. 
James “Sap” Ivory (1939-2008): Played toward the end of the Negro leagues. Was in spring training for the San Francisco Giants in 1957 but failed to make the team. 
FRANK GRANT (1865-1937): Hall of Famer. In 1887, at 22, the middle infielder he hit 11 home runs and stole 40 bases for the Buffalo Bisons of the International League. 
Carroll Ray “Dink” Mothell (1897-1980): Played from 1920-34. Starting center fielder for Kansas City Monarchs on their 1924 pennant-winning team. 
SOLOMON “SOL” WHITE (1868-1955): Hall of Famer was infielder, manager, executive and author of baseball books. First played in Long Islands Babylon Village. Died in Central Islip, buried in Staten Island. 
George Walter Ball (1877-1946): Played 10 years as the only black on all-white minor league teams in Minnesota and North Dakota. Pitched into his 40s as the Negro Leagues were formed in 1920. 
Bruce “Buddy” Petway (1885-1941): Started playing in the early 1900s. Known as the greatest defensive catcher in black baseball history, once throwing out six would-be base stealers. Threw out Ty Cobb in an exhibition game against the Tigers. 
PETE HILL (1882-1951): Hall of Famer. Lifetime batting average of .326. Considered the best hitter of the ``dead ball’’ era. 
Olivia Taylor (1885-1935): First female owner of a black baseball team, taking over the Indianapolis ABC’s in 1922 when her husband, C.I. Taylor, died. 
Ted Page (1903-1984): Part of a group of Negro Leagues players who faced Dizzy Dean, Paul Dean, Larry French and retired Hack Wilson in an exhibition series. 
Ted Strong (1914-1978): Hit .308 for four teams, including the Monarchs. Also played basketball with the Globetrotters. 
William ``Billy’’ Francis (1879-1942): The 5-5 third baseman spent time with eight teams and also played in Cuba. He managed in the Negro National League. 
Grant ``Home Run’’ Johnson (1872-1963): Believed to have hit 60 homers for the Page Fence Giants in 1895. Reportedly played until he was 58. Career home run total is not known. 
Constance Enola Morgan (1935-1996) At 5-4, became the third female to play Negro Leagues Baseball when signed in 1954 by Indianapolis Clowns. Was said to be a good fielder in her one season with the team. 
Fred Goree (1892-1925) Owner and manager of the Chicago Independent Giants. 
William Binga: (1869-1950): Third baseman, catcher and manager before the Negro Leagues began. Associated with 15 teams during his career. 
Clarence E. ``Waxey’’ Williams (1866-1934): The catcher started his career in 1885 with the Cuban Giants, the first all-black professional team. 
John Thomas ``Topeka Jack’’ Johnson (1883-1940: Infielder and manager who started his career in 1903 with the Chicago Union Giants. Also was a professional boxer and trainer. 
Weldy Wilberforce Walker (1860-1937): In 1884, the outfielder became the second black to play to play in the American Association, then an affiliate of Major League Baseball, behind his brother, Moses Fleetwood. 
Gus Brooks (1867-1895): Played for the St. Louis West Ends, Chicago Union and Page Fence Giants.

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Meet the Negro League players honored by Grave Marker Project

Meet the players honored by Grave Marker Project

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As Negro Leagues baseball star Solomon White was being enshrined in Cooperstown, his remains were in an unmarked grave, where they had been for more than 50 years. 
White’s career began near Long Island’s Argyle Hotel in Babylon Village in 1887. When he died at 87 in 1955, his body went unclaimed and was unceremoniously placed in a grave on Staten Island. 
That indignity continued even beyond White’s 2006 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. 
Decades after White’s death of a pulmonary embolism at Central Islip State Hospital, a monumental injustice is being addressed by the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project. Four years ago, a headstone was placed on White’s grave at Frederick Douglass Memorial Park. 
White’s is one of 38 headstones placed by the project, which was started in 2004 by Jeremy Krock, a Peoria, Illinois, anesthesiologist. 
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Krock, who is white, said the case of Jimmie Crutchfield first piqued his interest. Krock said his relatives had followed Crutchfield, who worked in the coal mines of Ardmore, Missouri, before playing in the Negro Leagues with “Cool’’ Papa Bell and Satchel Paige as teammates. “My family didn’t see a color barrier,’’ Krock said. 
Krock said he discovered that there was no headstone on the grave of Crutchfield, who died in 1993 and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery outside of Chicago. “I realized he had no family,’’ Krock said. “No one was there to make sure his grave was marked.’’ 
Krock set out to raise funds, about $1,500, to purchase a marker for Crutchfield, who in 1932 played in the first Negro League World Series before 45,000 at Yankee Stadium. He found interest from the Society for American Baseball Research. “Members started sending me checks, made out to Jeremy Krock, sight unseen,” he said. “Jimmie was beloved in this community of historians. They sent me so much money that I started hunting other graves.’’ 
Among the 38 gravestones placed by Krock’s group are Hall of Famers White, Frank Grant and Pete Hill. Ron Hill, a 72-year-old great nephew living in Los Angeles, is hoping to see the headstone. “My father always said to us there was a baseball player in the family,’’ Ron Hill said. “He didn’t say how good he was.’’ 
Krock said, “We’ve done Hall of Famers, we do people no one has ever heard of. Pete Hill was a labor of love over many years, with many people helping out. We knew that he collapsed at a bus stop in Syracuse, but that was all we could find. His death certificate said his body was transported to Chicago for burial. I searched transit records, funeral homes, traditionally black cemeteries, and even the cemetery where his son was buried in Gary, Indiana. Finally, I discovered his burial in a Catholic cemetery in Alsip, Ill.’’ 
Hill now has a marker in Holy Sepulchre, where former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley was laid to rest. Burr Oak Cemetery, where Crutchfield is buried, is also located in Alsip. 
Most of the players have no living relatives, but sometimes the Project finds a family member. Patricia Hawkins, daughter of William “The Human Vacuum Cleaner’’ Robinson, was thrilled when Krock contacted her about placing a marker on her father’s grave in 2010. He died in 2002 at 98. 
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“What it felt like was that someone cared enough to do a project for these men based on the fact that they may have been forgotten,” she said. “There may have never been anyone left to think about to talk about to give thought to their legacy.’’ 
Hawkins said she could not afford to put a headstone on her father’s grave. “His savings were not big, my mom passed away prior to him,’’ Hawkins said from Chicago. “We were raising five foster children in addition to five of our own. What he did have was spent on his care. Of course, we talked about the marker but that was having to be put back on the back burner. the expenses of life you know. Just the walk of Life.’’ 
Hawkins said her father told stories of his life in the Negro Leagues. “White owners would sometimes say if it wasn’t for the color of his skin you’d be playing for us. He talked about how they had to go to the back of the restaurant, they couldn’t, of course, go in. He said he ate a lot of peanut butter and crackers because he would go in the store and buy it. He just refused to go to the back door and be served. 
“He talked about how he could not look white men in their eyes. That’s one thing he insisted on us. Whenever we talked to him or anyone, he insisted we make eye contact. He said based on where he came from — which was nowhere in his words — he didn’t allow people to get into his head because of racism. He said he saw it, he knew it for what it was but he never allowed it to belittle who he knows he was.’’ 
Krock is not always successful in his search. Right now he is seeking the burial site of William Bedford, who was struck by lightning while playing in Atlantic City in August of 1909. His body supposedly was shipped to Cairo, the southern-most city in Illinois, located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. “Unfortunately, because of the high water table, cemeteries were outside of Cairo and records are poor,’’ Krock said. “I have been unable to locate his burial site in the Cairo area.’’ 
Krock worked on Sol White’s marker with Ralph Carhart, who heads the 19th Century Grave Marker Project in New York. Both have been working on the case of Cristóbal Torriente, a Cuban outfielder in the Negro Leagues who died in 1938 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006. They had been advocating for Torriente to have a marker in Calvary Cemetery in Queens. A spokesman said cemetery records indicate Torriente is buried in a non-titled — or pauper’s grave, where markers are prohibited. 
Joseph Zwilling, director for the office of communications for the Archdiocese of New York, recently asked officials at Cavalry about the Torriente matter and said Torriente has been added “to their list of notable individuals buried in the cemetery, along with the location of his grave. That list is given to those who ask where famous people are buried. Along with that, they have also put a small cross, listing his name, date of death, and section grave number nearby the grave where he is interred.’’ 
However, Carhart said Cuban officials said that Torriente’s remains are in Cuba and DNA results are expected soon. 
Krock’s group did not have to chase down one former Negro Leagues player buried on Long Island. Richard “Cannonball’’ Redding, who played for Brooklyn Royal Giants and was said to have struck out Babe Ruth three times on nine pitches in an exhibition game, is buried in the Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale. A World War I veteran, Redding has a headstone, a spokesman for the cemetery said. 
Krock said there are likely “hundreds’’ of players lying in unmarked graves in cemeteries across the country. “We have death records from the Negro Leagues. I go state by state. It’s just a never-ending project,” he said. “It’s a good never-ending. I’m glad we’re able to fulfill it, one player at a time.’’

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On a mission to give final dignity to Negro Leagues players

Mission to give final dignity to Negro Leagues players

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Barbara Barker

In his three decades as an NBA executive, Steve Mills has stood on many of the great basketball courts in the world. 
He has been to games at old Boston Garden, Chicago’s United Center and the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles. As the current executive president of the Knicks, his home office is Madison Square Garden, often referred to as the World’s Most Famous Arena. 
Few courts, however, have the emotional impact for Mills as the one he stood on earlier this month at Hempstead High School. Mills grew up on this court, which 11 years ago was named the Ollie Mills Memorial Basketball court after his father, a longtime Hempstead educator and basketball coach. 
Some people need to leave home to make their mark in life. Others, like Ollie Mills, do so by dedicating themselves to the same place for years. Ollie, say those who knew him, was a driving force behind not only his son’s success, but also the success of so many in the Hempstead community. 
“My father, he got people to dream,” Mills said as he stood over a painting on the court of a student carrying his books with the words Ollie Mills Gymnasium printed underneath. “He created opportunity for a lot of people.” 
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Ollie Mills was the first African American to teach at Hempstead High School when the district hired him in 1957, according to Hempstead mayor Don Ryan. 
Ollie, who died in 2005 at the age of 74, taught business education at Hempstead for 30 years. He also established himself as one of the most successful basketball coaches in the history of Nassau County. 
Ollie Mills, according to Newsday records, is the only coach ever to win Nassau County championship basketball championships for both boys (1973) and girls (1980-83). 
In nine seasons as the Hempstead boys coach, he went 135-26. His team’s 1973 Section VIII final win over Roslyn at the Nassau Coliseum drew 10,112, at the time the largest paying crowd to see a high school game on Long Island. 
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After getting a master’s degree at Adelphi, he returned to coach the girls and went 140-9 in seven years. His tenure included one magical stretch where the Tigers went 92-3, had a 52-game winning streak and won the state championship with a 27-0 record. 
“He was like a father to me,” said Lisa Smith, who played on all four county championship teams before playing at the University of Mississippi and St. John’s. “He took me on my first college visit. I’m not sure if I would have gone to college if it hadn’t been for him.” 
Smith is far from the only player to feel that way. Ryan was on the first team Mills&nbsp;coached. He later went on to work as a teacher under Mills in the school’s business education department and coached basketball at the Percy Jackson Youth Center in Hempstead. 
Mills and his brother Charlie Mills, who had followed Ollie to Hempstead and eventually became the school’s principal, founded the youth center with a few Ping-Pong tables in an old deli and later moved it to a larger venue on Jackson Street. Ollie Mills was the director of the center from 1966-1987, while his brother was the assistant director. 
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“Ollie Mills was not only a great coach, but he was a great educator and a great man,” Ryan said. “He and his brother were both incredibly dedicated to this community. There are a lot of people who are where they are today because of Ollie. His impact can still be felt here today.” 
Al Williams, now a teacher at Hempstead, was a four-year starter for Mills in the late 1960s and went on to play at Niagara University. He said Mills was a constant presence in his life, teaching and coaching him during the school year and employing him in the summer through a program that did maintenance on gas stations. 
“They had a bash for us at the end of the summer, and he would make us wear a suit and tie,” Williams said. “He told us, ‘If you look good, you feel good.’ We just didn’t learn about basketball from him. We learned about life.” 
The person Ollie Mills had the biggest influence on, however, didn’t play for him in high school. 
Steve Mills, who replaced Phil Jackson as president of the Knicks last July, grew up in a two-bedroom house in Roosevelt, around the corner from Julius Erving and down the street from rap stars Chuck D and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy. 
The Mills were a basketball crazy family. When it rained, Steve and his brother Doug would drive their mom nuts by dribbling the ball on the cement front porch. When it wasn’t raining, they could either be found with their father at the Hempstead High School gym or the neighborhood courts in Hempstead and Roosevelt. 
A talented point guard, Steve was all set to go to basketball powerhouse Long Island Lutheran. All set, until his father ran into a friend Albee Swartz who was trying to upgrade the basketball program at Friends Academy in Locust Valley. 
“My parents were a stickler for education and they made me go to Friends,” Mills said. “At first, I was pretty unhappy about it. 
“It was a culture shock. One of things about Long Island, at least when I was growing up, it was a really, really segregated area. Everyone I knew was black. Friends maybe had six or seven black kids at the school.” 
Mills got over his shock and thrived in the classroom and on the basketball court. His doing so paved the way for more than 30 kids from the Roosevelt and Hempstead area to come to Friends over the past three decades. 
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After playing four years for legendary coach Pete Carril at Princeton University, Mills briefly played professional basketball in Ecuador and then took a job at Chemical Bank. Once again, his father ran into a friend and there was a change of plans. 
Cecil Watkins, who was a director of community and special programs for the NBA, told Ollie Mills there was a job opening at the league. 
“I took Cecil my resume that night,” Mills said with a laugh. “Until that day, I had no idea you could work in sports. I thought you could just play and coach.” 
Steve Mills worked for the NBA for 16 years, rising to account executive to senior vice president of player development. That was followed by 10 years at Madison Square Garden Company, where he had a wide-range of responsibilities that included overseeing business and basketball operations for the Knicks and Liberty and the business operations for the Rangers. 
Now in his second stint at the Garden after leaving to work for Magic Johnson Enterprises, Mills and Knicks general manager Scott Perry are the first African American president and general manager tandem to work the NBA. 
Mills said he gets a thrill every time he walks into the Garden, especially since it was a place he couldn’t afford to go to when he was growing up. Yet, it’s clear he also gets a unique kind of thrill walking into the gymnasium named after his father. 
Said Mills: “My dad was an educator and impacted so many people. I know I lived it and I saw it. He really made a difference.”

New York Knicks

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Knicks’ Steve Mills was guided by legendary father Ollie

Knicks’ Steve Mills guided by his legendary father

Knicks president Steve Mills tours his old Long Island neighborhoods

Newsday

Knicks president Mills tours his old LI neighborhoods

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Neil Best

Michael A. Jones grew up in Pittsburgh, long after the heyday of Negro Leagues baseball there and long after the death in the city of one of that era’s biggest stars.
But there was no escaping the name as it echoed through the decades, even if it became but a whisper: Josh Gibson, the man believed to have hit more home runs than anyone else in the history of the game.
“Some say he died of a broken heart,” Jones said. “I would hear that and say: ‘What?’ As I got older, I heard the statement again and I was like, wow, that sounds so dramatic.”
So Jones turned it into a drama. His play, “Josh: The Black Babe Ruth,” recounts the life, times and death at age 35 of the man widely regarded as the greatest slugger in the Negro Leagues and perhaps the best — period.
It opened last spring and is back for a limited engagement through Feb. 25, timed for Black History Month, at the Theater for the New City in the East Village in Manhattan.
Jones began writing 12 years ago, and after years of research, interviews — including with Sean Gibson, Josh’s great-grandson — and revisions, the result is a play focused on a fraught era in the transition to the integration of Major League Baseball.
On one hand, Gibson and Satchel Paige are the biggest names in black baseball and rightly expect to be among the first to get the call. On the other, Jackie Robinson is a better fit in terms of age, background and temperament.
Gibson, devastated, dies in January 1947 — three months before Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers — under circumstances that remain unclear. Was it a stroke? An aneurysm? A drug overdose? Cancer? Or the aforementioned broken heart?
The play, directed by Bette Howard, does not offer a definitive answer. It suffices that it answers the question of who Gibson was. Even non-sports fans know Robinson. Even casual fans likely have heard of Paige, and might recall Buck O’Neil from Ken Burns’ 1994 “Baseball” documentary.
But Gibson is the headliner among a group of players from the pre-Robinson era whose careers largely are known to Negro Leagues aficionados and relatively few others.
Even if you have heard of Gibson, many of the names of others mentioned by historians at a recent post-show panel discussion likely would draw a blank. They include the likes of Turkey Stearnes, Clyde Parris, Cristobal Torriente, Pop Lloyd and many, many others.
“They were there, and it’s so terrible that people don’t know about it,” said Philip Ross, one of the historians on the panel.
But none was better at hitting a baseball into the far reaches of ballparks — including big-league parks such as Yankee Stadium — than Gibson.
<h4>BIRTH OF A LEGEND</h4>
Born in Georgia in 1911, he moved with his family to Pittsburgh, where he learned the game and played for the Homestead Grays and later the Pittsburgh Crawfords, both legendary Negro Leagues teams.
Reliable statistics are difficult to come by, but by any measure they were extraordinary. They landed him in the Hall of Fame in 1972 — the second Negro Leaguer there after Paige, who reached the majors at age 42 in 1948, a year after Gibson died. Paige lived until 1982, affording him time to introduce himself to later generations of fans, while Gibson faded into history. No one under age 80 or so today can clearly recall him playing — or living. 
His plaque in Cooperstown serves as a reminder:
“CONSIDERED GREATEST SLUGGER IN NEGRO BASEBALL LEAGUES. POWER HITTING CATCHER WHO HIT ALMOST 800 HOME RUNS IN LEAGUE AND INDEPENDENT BASEBALL DURING HIS 17-YEAR CAREER. CREDITED WITH HAVING BEEN NEGRO NATIONAL LEAGUE BATTING CHAMPION IN 1936-38-43-45.”
The Hall of Fame website includes this quote from former Cleveland Buckeyes pitcher-manager Alonzo Boone:
“Josh was a better power hitter than Babe Ruth, Ted Williams or anybody else I’ve ever seen.”
<h4>SPOTLIGHT ON GIBSON</h4>
Education is part of the participants’ satisfaction in Jones’ play.
“Definitely, that’s one of the things that I love about this play is that when people come here, they’re like, ‘How come I don’t know about this person? This is insane,’ ” said Daphne Danielle, who plays Gibson’s common-law wife, Hattie.
“A lot of people, they’ve heard of Satchel Paige. But you say ‘Josh Gibson’ and they’re like, ‘I think I’ve heard the name, but I’m not sure.’ . . . People who are playing baseball, or anybody, should know about him. Just know the name.”
Danielle said the play has added resonance because her grandfather, Sam Barber, briefly was a Negro Leaguer.
Daniel Danielson, who portrays Paige, wept as he spoke of his family’s connection to baseball and its racial history, including a cousin, George Lombard, who is the current Dodgers’ first-base coach and whose mother, Posey, was a white civil rights activist.
He referred to the larger-than-life Paige as “Michael Jordan times Clayton Kershaw times LeBron James times 10 more people.”
As for Gibson, portrayed by David Roberts, it’s complicated. 
<figure class="image2 image" data-attr-f="default" data-attr-img-credits="" data-attr-img-height="" data-attr-img-width="" data-attr-show-caption="true" data-href="#/content/contentid/image.1.16776757" data-onecms-id="contentid/image.1.16776757" data-onecms-type="image">
 <img alt="" src="/image-service/alias/contentid/image.1.16776757/1.16776757.jpg?f=default"> 
 <figcaption></figcaption> 
</figure>Perhaps he would have struggled with life off the field, including a relationship with a mistress who appears not to have been a positive influence, even if he had come along 20 or 50 or 80 years later. But life in 1930s baseball did him few favors.

“I speak about Babe Ruth as ‘the white Josh Gibson,’ ” Ross said. “I think that Josh was a better hitter. He had to do things on fields that were tough to play on, and living in a segregated country . . . Yet he flourished, and everywhere he played, the ball went out.”
<h4>BIG MAN, BIG STORY</h4>
Ross added that while Jones’ writing is powerful, the play “doesn’t even touch the power of the man as a hitter. He became a pretty good catcher. He was a fast runner when he was younger. But as a hitter, he was scary.
“In his personal life, especially as he got older, the pressures of life really got to Josh Gibson. But on the field he smiled. He was happy. He loved being on a ballfield. He loved playing. And he was strong. If there was a fight, you got behind Gibson; nobody would go through him.”
Jones said telling theatergoers about Gibson’s career is part of his task but that it goes beyond that.
“This story is America,” he said. “You can’t just say America’s black and white, because every time you do that, something else comes up and you say, ‘That’s complicated.’ . . . This is about life.”
Ross said the earliest recorded game involving black players was in New York in 1857, but it was not until the 1920s that the first successful Negro League formed. Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers was the beginning of the end.
By the 1950s, teams had to get more creative in marketing, and the Indianapolis Clowns employed female stars such as Toni Stone, Connie Morgan and Mamie Johnson, not to mention a male up-and-comer named Hank Aaron.
The number of living Negro Leaguers is dwindling rapidly, as are the number of fans who watched them play.
So all we have left is debate, which is part of the fun. Gibson likely would be pleased to know that he still is in the conversation.
“I always end off [speaking engagements] by saying, ‘Thanks to Jackie Robinson, we have a CC Sabathia, but if not for Satchel Paige, we wouldn’t have Jackie Robinson,’ ” Ross said.
“Was Babe Ruth the better hitter or not the better hitter? I don’t know. But we can enjoy discussing it.”

SPJOSH0218

IMGJ6AI_WEB

'Josh: The Black Babe Ruth' brings Negro Leagues legend Gibson to life

SPJOSH0218_WEB

Who was John Wesley Donaldson and why is there a network of 500 baseball researchers bent on getting him a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame?
According to the website baseball-reference.com, Donaldson pitched in the Negro Leagues from 1916-21 and compiled a 23-20 record. The website acknowledges that his career numbers are incomplete.
In reality, Donaldson — who played for the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1918 — won more than 400 games in a barnstorming career that began before the Negro Leagues were created. Like Negro Leagues legend Satchel Paige, Donaldson was still pitching — and winning — well beyond what modern-day players call their prime. Unlike Paige, Donaldson has yet to be enshrined in Cooperstown.
“John Donaldson . . . showed Satchel the way, and the fact is, there are many people who saw them both who say John Donaldson was just as good as Satchel,” Negro Leagues icon Buck O’Neil wrote of Donaldson in his 1996 autobiography “I Was Right on Time.” 
The 500-member-strong Donaldson Network is a grass-roots group of researchers who hope to uncover every victory and strikeout by Donaldson, a founding member of the famed Kansas City Monarchs in 1920. His career spanned from 1908-40. Research by the network has discovered more than 400 victories, more than 5,000 strikeouts and 14 no-hitters by Donaldson. 
Here’s the way Donaldson is described on the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame website: “His beautiful drop and wide assortment of curves, combined with a good fastball and change up, made him one of the best lefthanders in the history of black baseball.”
Donaldson, who played the outfield when he wasn’t pitching, also was handy with a bat. Baseball-reference lists his career batting average at .289. 
Donaldson started his career in 1908 at 17 with the Hannaca Blues in Glasgow, Missouri, his first stop on what Donaldson expert Peter Gorton said was a career that spanned 550 cities and towns across the country, including Brooklyn and Queens. He later played for the Tennessee Rats, a traveling baseball and minstrel show. Donaldson also went to George R. Smith College, a historically black school in Sedalia, Missouri.
Donaldson’s playing career ended seven years before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, but he did make it into organized baseball as a scout for the Chicago White Sox. He died in 1970 at 79. 
In 2006, before most of his career numbers were uncovered, Donaldson was on the ballot — along with O’Neil, Minnie Minoso and others — of Cooperstown’s Special Committee on the Negro Leagues Elections. The final vote was not disclosed, but Donaldson, Minoso and O’Neil were not among the 17 elected. Donaldson will come up for another vote in 2020 under the Early Baseball Committee, which will consider candidates of all ethnicities who played between 1871-1949.
<h4>PRIDE &amp; PREJUDICE</h4>
John Wesley Donaldson was proud of his heritage — so proud that he refused to sneak into the majors by posing as something he was not. 
“I am not ashamed of my color,’’ he told Michigan’s Ironwood Daily Globe in 1932. “I am light enough so that baseball men told me before I became known that I could be passed off as a Cuban. One prominent baseball man, in fact, offered me a nice sum [$10,000 in 1917] if I would go to Cuba, change my name and let him take me into this country as a Cuban.”
Donaldson, who made a point of saying, “I love my mother,” would have had to renounce his family and his ancestry to skirt Major League Baseball’s unwritten rule that prohibited blacks from joining its clubs.
“One of the agreements was that I was never again to visit my mother or to have anything to do with colored people,” Donaldson said. “I refused.”
<h4>PROVIDING THE NUMBERS</h4>
Gorton, a 48-year-old speech consultant who grew up near Bertha, Minnesota — a tiny town where Donaldson once played — started The Donaldson Network in 2000. 
He said the committee was working with statistics of “between 250 and 300 wins; verified strikeouts were probably around 2,000. Those are numbers that were printed in the newspaper and were very accurate. They were checked and double-checked by lots of people. Paige said he struck out 10,000 guys and Josh Gibson said he hit 600 home runs. All these Negro League legendary statistical things weren’t going to apply to John Donaldson.’’ Gorton said his stats come from 5,800 newspaper clippings. 
He knows that getting Donaldson into Cooperstown won’t be easy, but the research into his numbers could help.
“The Baseball Hall of Fame, you can’t go to the front steps of the museum with a bullhorn,’’ Gorton said in January. “He deserves another look. We just want to tell the story. How do you survive those tumultuous times that he did? Before the league starts, when the league is going on, when the league is over, post-integration as a scout for the Chicago White Sox, he has the whole story of Negro League Baseball . . . He’s a shining star for what black baseball is all about.’’
Larry Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, was a voting member of the Hall of Fame committee in 2006. “At the time, we did not have as much statistical information as we have today,’’ Lester said from Kansas City. “That may have changed some votes to the positive for Mr. Donaldson. At the time, we had to go with what we knew.” 
Lester would not reveal how he voted then but said his vote now would be a “yea.” 
Raymond Doswell, vice president of curatorial services at the museum, said he voted for Donaldson.
“From what historians have said and from what I’ve studied, he was a person that was kind of in between the beginnings of black involvement in baseball and the Negro League,’’ Doswell said. “He was somewhat transcendent in that he was so successful traveling the country. He used to play with highly-sought-after athletes from many teams. 
“A lot of emphasis was placed on Donaldson during the league play,’’ Doswell continued. “He had a lot of advocates in the room, but if anything, I think it may have come down to folks maybe not valuing the barnstorming numbers. I voted for him. It might be possible that others would be persuaded otherwise with this new research. It adds prolific data to support his candidacy. No one was arguing that he wasn’t worthy of consideration.”
Donaldson was close to 30 when official Negro Leagues Baseball started. “If you look at the 404 known wins and 5,034 strikeouts, a microscopic percentage’’ of that was compiled in the Negro Leagues, Gorton said. “John Donaldson was the king of barnstorming.”
PRIDE &amp; PREJUDICE II
John Wesley Donaldson on being taunted because of his race:
“I am clean morally and physically. I go to my church and contribute my share,” he told the Ironwood Daily Globe in 1932. “I keep my body and mind clean. And yet when I go out there to play baseball, it is not unusual to hear some fan cry out: ‘Hit the dirty [racial epithet].’ That hurts. For I have no recourse. I am getting paid, I suppose, to take that. But why should fans become personal? If I act the part of a gentleman, am I not entitled to a little respect?”
Donaldson’s talents did not go unnoticed by mainstream baseball. John McGraw, the Hall of Fame New York Giants manager, reportedly called him the “greatest I have ever seen’’ but followed that praise with a comment that showed the ugliness of the day’s racial intolerance: “If I could dunk him in calamine lotion,” he said, “I’d sign him.’’ 
Former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent, now 79, was the non-voting chairman of the Hall of Fame committee in 2006. “I was the first and only commissioner up to my time to apologize to those Negro League players for what baseball did to them,’’ Vincent said in January. “But it wasn’t baseball’s unique crime; it was a crime that everybody committed.’’
EPILOGUE
Donaldson spent the last years of his life in Chicago, where he was a shipping clerk for the post office, said Frank Castleman, 83, who was married to Donaldson’s niece, Jacqueline, until her death six years ago.
Gorton said his research indicated that Donaldson suffered a stroke and had medical bills at the end of his life. 
In 2004, the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project placed a stone on Donaldson’s grave at Burr Oak Cemetery in south suburban Chicago. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf reportedly made a contribution to Donaldson’s stone. Donaldson had been hired by the White Sox in 1949 as MLB’s first full-time black scout. He reportedly scouted future Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron. 
“He lived large, he died without,’’ said Castleman, who said he still has a portrait of Donaldson in his stairwell. “He had a Rolls-Royce, he had everything at one time. He was supposed to be Satchel Paige before there was a Satchel Paige.’’

SPDON0211

Negro Leagues star John Donaldson is the best pitcher you never heard of

John Donaldson: The best pitcher you never heard of

'39 Seconds' preview

39 Seconds_Oxley Footage_39secondsfilm.com

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — “Who the hell is Imus?”
C. Vivian Stringer said that was her first thought after hearing that wildly popular and equally opinionated radio personality Don Imus had branded her Rutgers women’s basketball team with a racist, sexist epithet that soon would start a national firestorm. 
It was 2007 and Rutgers had made it all the way to the NCAA championship game before losing to Pat Summitt’s Tennessee team. They returned home looking to celebrate their incredible Final Four run, but instead found themselves confused and in pain after learning that Imus, then with WFAN, used racially and morally disparaging remarks to describe her team. 
Today it is almost impossible to imagine someone using that language on a mainstream radio station. Stringer — and the way her team reacted — may be one reason why. 
The coach and her Rutgers players called out Imus and won. His show was canceled.
As Stringer closes in on her 1,000th win — she heads into Sunday’s game against Michigan needing six victories to become the first African-American Division I college basketball coach and sixth coach overall to reach that mark — there is no doubt she is one of the game’s greatest coaches. She holds the distinction of leading three different schools to the Final Four: Rutgers in 2000 and 2007, Iowa in 1993 and Cheyney State in 1982. She has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. She has sent 23 players to the WNBA from Rutgers alone.
Now in her 47th season of coaching, Stringer has impacted the lives of hundreds and coached the United States to a gold medal in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Yet, for many, her greatest legacy remains the impact she had by refusing to allow her team to be defined by ugly rhetoric.
<h4>PAINFUL MEMORY</h4>
Stringer remembers the details and pain of what she calls “that Imus thing” as if it happened yesterday.
On April 3, a Tuesday night, Rutgers lost to Tennessee, 59-46, in the NCAA championship game. 
Imus made his comments the next morning, Wednesday, but it wasn’t until Thursday that the team got hold of a transcript detailing the on-air slurs used by Imus and a producer. 
“I kept reading those words and I was so upset,” Stringer, 69, recalled last week in an interview with Newsday. “I saw this in a lot of different ways. I saw it as racist. But I also saw it as demeaning to women and women’s basketball. What difference does someone’s hair matter? What major athletic event do you look at a guy and talk about hair or his legs?
“I kept thinking, why would he say that? He doesn’t know us. I remember busting my hand on the wall and I was crying because it was bleeding.”
On Friday’s show, Imus apologized for his remarks, saying, “It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.” His show was canceled the following Thursday.
Imus could not be reached for comment on this story. 
<h4>MEETING CHALLENGES HEAD-ON</h4>
In the course of her life and coaching career, Stringer had suffered her fair share of challenges and indignities. When she began coaching at Cheyney State in 1972, the team owned only two leather balls and played in a gym with a roof so flimsy that they had to put bowls on the court to catch the water when it rained. She never had found herself in something like this, though. 
On Friday, two days after the comments, she and the university issued statements condemning Imus’ words and the team was sent home to spend Easter weekend with their families. The story, however, continued to rage. 
That weekend, Stringer said she received calls from everyone from Summitt to Larry King and David Letterman.
It was a phone call from former NBA great Moses Malone that convinced her that she might have to do something more than merely issue a news release.
“He said, ‘They hurt our girls. They hurt our girls,’ ” Stringer said. 
“I really had had no understanding of what had happened. I can honestly say I felt the burden of the world.”
That is the weird thing about defining moments. You don’t get to pick them so much as they pick you.
That is something Stringer first learned in the small mining town of Edenborn, Pennsylvania, when she tried out for the high school cheerleading team.
Stringer loved basketball but her school did not offer the sport for girls. She figured cheerleading would at least get her close to the court, so she mastered the routines and back flips and learned how to yell in a low staccato voice. The tryouts were held in front of the entire school and Stringer thought she had nailed it. Yet a few days later, when the names of the cheerleaders were announced, Stringer wasn’t on the team. Nor was anyone else who wasn’t white.
That night, she said, the president of the local NAACP chapter stopped by her house and talked about how there had never been a black cheerleader in the history of the high school. He had seen Stringer’s tryout and wanted to take her in front of the school board to fight for a place on the team.
“I told him no. I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and have it all go away,” Stringer recalled. “But my dad came to me that night and said, ‘V.I., it’s not just about you. It’s about the generations who come after . . . I knew he was right.”
<h4>IMPORTANT TO FIGHT BACK</h4>
After they came back to campus from the weekend, Stringer met with her Rutgers team and told them the story of how she integrated the cheerleading team. The team decided to hold a news conference on Tuesday.
Matee Ajavon, who was a junior on that team, said they knew they had no choice but to stand up for themselves.
“Coach Stringer, she was furious!” recalled Ajavon, now a guard for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. “I can remember asking questions like “who is Don Imus? Why would he say something like this about us, especially when our hair was popping?” I often joked to lighten the mood, but it was very serious. It wasn’t just important for us but for the world. It was important to spark conversation of race and racism. It was important for the younger generation who looked up to us to see us fight back.”
Stringer may not have known who Imus was, but she was going to make sure the world knew her team and how hard they had worked to get where they were. In a packed news conference that was televised live on several stations, all 10 players wearing their red warm-ups in a sign of unity were lined up in chairs at the Rutgers Athletic Center. Stringer then put a face on what had happened by introducing her players as valedictorians, future doctors and former girl scouts.
Essence Carson, a junior who went on to play for the Liberty and the Sparks, drove home the pain of the slur when she told the news conference that Imus had “stolen a moment of pure grace from us.”
Carson said in an email this past week that the team couldn’t have had a better leader than Stringer during this time.
“Coach Stringer allowed each young woman to speak from her heart, express each and every feeling, and to remain confident that the world too would look at them with respect, compassion, and full of dignity,” she wrote. “You can’t ask of anything more from such a pure soul. Coach C. Vivian Stringer will forever be one of the greatest of all time.”
Two days after the Rutgers news conference, when advertiser after advertiser began to pull out of Imus’ show, parent company CBS canceled it. Eight months after his firing, however, Imus was back on the air on WABC. A week ago, the 77-year-old shock jock announced that his last show will be at the end of March.
Rutgers senior Tyler Scaiffe was only a seventh-grader at the time, but the whole incident made a huge impression on her.
“I remember watching the game with my dad and then we heard what he said,” she said. “I know everything that she’s been through. This is a person who handles everything with respect and class. I’m just proud to have a chance to be a part of her legacy.”
It’s far from a done deal that Stringer will get her 1,000th victory this season. Needing six wins, she has six regular-season games left plus the Big Ten Tournament and likely a postseason tournament. 
There’s no doubt she eventually will get 1,000, though. She signed a four-year deal at the start of this season, meaning she will have coached 50 years by the time it expires. That’s a lot of basketball games, a lot of lives influenced.
“To me, it’s never been about just winning games,” Stringer said.
“Do I love basketball? I love it with a passion. I could sit here for five or six hours and just look at tape . . . I also think there’s a reason I do what I do. I think my purpose has been to influence and try to give stature to women.”
Even if it involves some pain along the way.

Columnists

SPVIV0204

Rutgers’ C. Vivian Stringer called out Don Imus after slur, and won 

Barker: Stringer called out Imus after slur, and won 

SPVIV0204_63B_WEB

Look back at some of the notable black pioneers in sports history, including baseball, the Olympics, basketball, college basketball, boxing, golf, tennis, football, college football, hockey and wrestling.

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Jackie Robinson, baseball

Jackie Robinson BHM cropped

Larry Doby, baseball

Larry Doby BHM

Don Newcombe, baseball

Don Newcombe BHM

Willie Mays, baseball

Willie Mays BHM

Buck O'Neil, baseball

Buck O'Neil BHM

Elston Howard, baseball

Elston Howard BHM

Satchel Paige, baseball

Satchel Paige BHM

Frank Robinson, baseball

Frank Robinson BHM

Bob Watson, baseball

Bob Watson BHM

George Poage, track and field

George Poage BHM

John Baxter Taylor, track and field

spBaxter - BHM

DeHart Hubbard, track and field

DeHart Hubbard BHM

Vonetta Flowers, bobsledding

notable alums - flowers - uab

Shani Davis, speed skating

Shani Davis BHM

Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Nat Clifton, basketball

Sweetwater Clifton BHM

Wayne Embry, basketball

Wayne Embry BHM

Bill Russell, basketball

Bill Russell BHM

Robert L. Johnson, basketball

Robert L. Johnson BHM

Joe Dumars, basketball

Joe Dumars BHM

Will Robinson, college basketball

Will Robinson BHM

Texas Western, college basketball

Texas Western BHM

Jack Johnson, boxing

Jack Johnson BHM

Charlie Sifford, golf

Charlie Sifford BHM

Lee Elder, golf

Lee Elder BHM

Tiger Woods, golf

Tiger Woods BHM

Althea Gibson, tennis

Althea Gibson BHM

Arthur Ashe, tennis

Arthur Ashe BHM

Fritz Pollard, football

Fritz Pollard BHM

Willie Thrower, football

Willie Thrower BHM

Marlin Briscoe, football

Marlin Briscoe BHM

Franco Harris, football

Franco Harris BHM

Doug Williams, football

Doug Williams BHM

Art Shell, football

Art Shell BHM

Ozzie Newsome, football

Ozzie Newsome BHM

Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, football

Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith BHM

Jerry Reese, football

Jerry Reese BHM

Duke Slater, college football

Duke Slater BHM

Ernie Davis, college football

Ernie Davis BHM

Willie Jeffries, college football

Willie Jeffries BHM

Willie O'Ree, hockey

Willie O'Ree BHM

Ron Simmons, wrestling

Ron Simmons BHM

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, wrestling

The Rock BHM

Black pioneers in sports history

From archival interviews with Negro League legends Buck O'Neil and Monte Irvin to commentary from contemporary baseball figures lJoe Torre, Curtis Granderson, Tony Clark and Rob Manfred, Newsday examines the history of Negro League baseball the breaking of the color barrier. (Credit: Newsday staff)

Out of the Shadows: Remembering the Negro Leagues

Out of the Shadows

Oscar Robertson’s high school team in Indianapolis was the first all-black basketball team in the nation to win a state title. What should have been a joyous culmination to that 1955 season became a seminal moment in the life of a young man who would become an NBA legend. 
Tradition had the winning team climbing aboard a fire engine and being lauded downtown in Monument Circle. That was the route taken when Milan High, the team that inspired the 1986 film “Hoosiers,’’ won the title in 1954. 
But not this time, not with this team, which was quickly shuttled past the Circle. “Since we were black,’’ Robertson said recently from Cincinnati, “they decided we were going to tear up the town and they took us to an all-black community center.’’ 
When his team won its second state title the following season, Robertson went home. 
The first championship team was celebrated 60 years later in the Circle, but the original stain was a conscience-raising experience that Robertson, who became known as “The Big O,’’ has never gotten over.
“When you’re young, you don’t forget,’’ said Robertson, 78. “People tell you what you can do and can’t do, it’s almost like animals in the forest. From the time of birth, what you can do and what you can’t do here in America. I knew I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus. I couldn’t go in a family restaurant. I couldn’t go to a lot of places. I’ll never forget when Floyd Patterson fought Ingemar Johansson in Indianapolis. Patterson couldn’t even go into some of the restaurants.’’ 
Robertson embraces black athletes who speak out, but he said the statements are more impactful when they come from successful players. He lauded LeBron James for countering when Knicks president Phil Jackson used the racially tinged term “posse’’ in describing James’ business associates.
“LeBron earned the right to speak out through his play,’’ Robertson said. “When you win and you’re a star and there’s no doubt about it, people expect you to say certain things. And I’m glad that he is saying things that are right.
“It’s really amazing that some whites, maybe they don’t like LeBron’s stature in this position. They always want to come back and say something about it. LeBron took some of his school friends and made them into millionaires. Maybe that’s what they didn’t like about it. It’s sad to say, but when you start to make money as a black person, people don’t like you.’’
<h4>OPPONENT ALSO REMEMBERS SLURS</h4>
Robertson was first noticed at Crispus Attucks High School. Bobby Plump, the Milan High point guard characterized in “Hoosiers,” played against Robertson’s team in a state tournament game in 1954. “I had 28 in that game, he had 22,’’ Plump said from Indianapolis. “Normally, I don’t tell people that — he was only a sophomore.’’
Plump, 80, said he heard racial slurs from motorists in downtown Indianapolis before Milan’s game against Robertson’s team. “People would stop, roll down their windows and yell, ‘Beat those [expletive]!’ ’’ Plump said. “It shocked the hell out of us. There was prejudice, absolutely. We said, ‘What are these people talking about? What’s the matter with them?’ ”
Plump followed Robertson’s progress through college at Cincinnati and then to the NBA, where the 6-5 guard became a 12-time All-Star en route to the Hall of Fame. In the 1961-62 season, his second in the league with the Cincinnati Royals, Robertson became the only player in NBA history to average a triple-double for the season with 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists. He holds the NBA record with 184 triple-doubles in a 14-year career. But Robertson’s triple-double average went largely unnoticed when it occurred. 
“We had no idea of what was going on,’’ former Royals teammate Bucky Bockhorn said from Dayton, Ohio. “We’d go out for a beer and look at the stat sheet and he’d have 27 points, 12 rebounds, 14 assists, and you just took that for granted. It was rarely spoken of.’’
Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (31.0 points, 10.4 rebounds, 10.3 assists) is trying to become only the second player to average a triple-double, and it’s all the current rage around the league. 
Charley Wolf, 90, was coaching the Royals when Robertson accomplished the feat. “Remember that years ago you had to battle Bill Russell, [Wilt] Chamberlain, [Clyde] Lovellette inside,’’ Wolf said from Cincinnati. “They were much bigger.’’ 
Robertson averaged 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 10.6 assists per game in his first five seasons. In addition to the triple-double season, he had four other seasons in that span in which he averaged at least 28.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 9.0 assists per game.
Robertson said Westbrook’s run at his record is “great for the public,’’ but that in his time, “they probably missed tons and tons of assists with players. Now, everything is an assist. If I throw the ball and you dribble it eight or nine times and get a long shot, it’s an assist.’’
<h4>FREE AGENTS OWE THANKS</h4>
One of Robertson’s biggest contributions to the NBA also is largely unnoticed. He was the president of the National Basketball Players Association from 1965-74 and in 1970 led a class-action lawsuit against the league to end the reserve clause, which bound a player to one team for his entire career. It became known as the Oscar Robertson Rule and eventually led to free agency and today’s huge salaries.
“I’m not sure that today’s players will equate Oscar Robertson with the largesse they’ve encountered with free agents. They think of him more as a triple-double guy,’’ said Len Elmore, who played in the NBA from 1974-84 and now is an attorney and ESPN sportscaster. “They think of him as a great player, but I’m not so sure that most of these young people will understand the lengths to which he went to try to create an atmosphere of free agency and give players that ability to move from team to team. Nobody talks about this rule even though they talk about how much money the guys are making. To appreciate what you have, to know what those who preceded you went through in order to attain the rights and abilities you have now. I think you can broaden that to the whole civil rights experience.’’ 
Robertson never made more than $250,000 a season. Today’s minimum salary in the NBA is close to $875,000. As Westbrook chases Robertson’s triple-double average, his 2016-17 salary is a reported $26.54 million. 
“I’m happy that the guys are making the money,’’ Robertson said. “Before the Oscar Robertson case, for so many years, players were restricted. I’m glad that LeBron is making millions and millions of dollars so his family will never have to worry about money again. I played when I played. I played against some of the greatest players in the history of basketball who are in the Hall of Fame, and no one can take that away from me.”

SPOSCAR0206

Oscar Robertson still feels sting of racism from high school days

Robertson still feels sting of racism in high school

SPOSCAR0206_WEB

Though Curt Flood made $90,000, a very good baseball salary in 1969, money wasn’t everything. When the St. Louis Cardinals tried to trade him to Philadelphia, he said “no,” even though all major-league baseball contracts included a “reserve clause” that bound players to their teams even after the expiration of their contracts. 
“A well-paid slave is nonetheless a slave,’’ Flood told sportscaster Howard Cosell after the outfielder sued Major League Baseball in a historic challenge to the reserve system, which had been in place since at least the 1880s.
 Flood, then 31, had been with the Cardinals 12 years, and if the team no longer wanted him, he wanted to have the right to have others bid for his services. The owners thought that would cause a financial calamity.
“That’s the great fallacy,’’ former deputy commissioner Steve Greenberg said, “that baseball could not survive free agency.’’
Cardinals general manager Bing Devine traded Flood, Tim McCarver, Byron Browne and Joe Hoerner to the Phillies for Dick Allen, Cookie Rojas and Jerry Johnson.
“Bing was operating in the system that was there,’’ said Barry Horn, Devine’s son-in-law. “He didn’t begrudge anybody anything.’’ 
On Dec. 14, 1969, Flood sent a letter to baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, writing in part, “I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.’’ 
Flood essentially asked to be declared a free agent — a term not known to baseball. Kuhn denied the request, and Flood’s one-man opposition to the reserve clause ignited a battle that ended in June 1972 with the Supreme Court allowing the clause to stand. 
By that time, Flood, a three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove outfielder, was out of baseball. He died at 59 in 1997, leaving his wife, actress Judy Pace; five children and two stepdaughters. Pace, 73, declined to comment for this story.
“I lost money, coaching jobs, a shot at the Hall of Fame,’’ Flood was quoted after the Supreme Court decision. “But when you weigh that against all the things that are really and truly important, things that are deep inside you, then I think I’ve succeeded.” 
A decision spawning free agency arrived late in 1975 when MLB arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in favor of cases brought by pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally. While Seitz reportedly said Flood’s suit did not directly impact his decision, MLB historian John Thorn said: “There is not a straight line legally; however, there is a straight line emotionally. Pyrrhic victories don’t hold up well in history books, right? But Curt Flood had won. He stood up for principle.”
Flood stood alone against baseball.
“He got no support, no help,’’ said Allan Zerman, Flood’s longtime attorney in St. Louis. “In private, some people would pat him on the back and say, ‘You’re out of your mind. You’ve given up your career, you’ve given up all this money.’ He had some cheerleaders, but they never came forward. They were never present. He said he understood why they wouldn’t jeopardize their careers, but deep down, there’s no question in my mind he was disappointed and hurt.’’ 
Zerman recalled Flood’s reaction to the Supreme Court decision, saying: “He was crushed, disappointed, although it was not totally unexpected. What he couldn’t know at the time was he really had won.’’ 
McCarver, 74, who once considered himself a close friend of Flood’s, recently said: “If there’s anybody with a more courageous legacy in the game, I don’t know who it is. During that time, everybody was talking about the selfish Curt Flood. He was anything but selfish. It was proven to be as legitimate a stance as anyone could make on any particular issue, and yet he was by himself. We were questioned in those days, ‘Would you do it?’ Nobody could afford to do it.”
After the ’69 season. McCarver and former Cardinals teammate Dal Maxvill were on a flight with Flood to Puerto Rico for a meeting of the Players Association. Flood was going to ask for financial help in his $1-million suit against Kuhn and MLB.
“On that flight, I said, ‘Why in the world are you doing this?’ ” Maxvill, 76, said recently. “He said, ‘I just feel like I got to do this.’ I said, ‘You know this will not have a good ending.’ He said, ‘I still have to try it.’ Nobody had ever thought about doing this. He had the guts to do it.’’ 
There were pointed questions to Flood from the players. According to author Brad Snyder, who wrote “A Well-Paid Slave,’’ Dodgers catcher Tom Haller “point-blank asked is this a black power thing? Curt said, ‘No, it’s about a human thing, being able to choose who you want to work for.’ ’’
Zerman said that while Flood championed civil rights issues, race never entered his suit against baseball. 
Flood gained the financial support of the union, but even strident Players Association executive director Marvin Miller reportedly told him the suit would not succeed. 
Flood was supported by Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg, Steve’s father.
“I think he’s kind of a sad case,’’ Steve Greenberg said of Flood. “He was a great player who was a bit of a martyr in a sense. His career was colored by the stand he took. He didn’t feel like he wanted to be treated like chattel and he felt like that’s what the system was doing to him and he took a stand.’’
Maxvill said: “As far as other players saying, ‘If I get traded, I’m not going,’ that never happened. I don’t know that the players today fully appreciate the sacrifice he made for them.’’
Union spokesman Greg Bouris wrote in an email that the “Players Association has made it a priority to educate active players about the union’s history and the sacrifices — individual and collective — of previous generations of players to leave the game better for those who follow. Of course, Curt’s heroic legacy is part of this history.”
Flood sat out the entire 1970 season while his suit went through litigation. Before the Supreme Court decision, Flood was signed by Washington Senators owner Bob Short to a $110,000 contract to play in 1971. Flood lasted only 13 games.
“He said I just can’t hit anymore,’’ former Senators first baseman Frank Howard, 79, said recently. 
Flood’s teammates still did not understand his suit. “We were so used to being with one ballclub and never dreamed that free agency would come into play,’’ Howard said. “He blazed the trail and set the trend for what’s happening in professional sports today. The money these young men are making, it’s all because of him.”
McCarver encountered Flood in 1994 at the White House, where Ken Burns’ documentary “Baseball’’ was being premiered. “It was not a warm meeting, I’m sorry to say,’’ McCarver said. “Because nobody really supported him. It was as cordial as it could be, but it wasn’t cordial.’’
Flood did express solidarity for the players in August 1994 when he addressed them before the strike that ultimately canceled the World Series.
Last summer, the Hall of Fame commemorated Flood on the 45th anniversary of his sitting out the 1970 season. 
“I think Curt is getting posthumously what he should have gotten when he was alive,’’ McCarver said. “That’s small solace, I suppose. But nonetheless, he is getting it. I suppose better to get posthumously than not at all. I certainly wish he had gotten the acclaim he deserved when he was living.’’

SPCURT07

Curt Flood’s sacrifice advanced MLB players toward freedom

Flood’s sacrifice advanced players toward freedom

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