NEGRO DIAMOND: LEAGUE MUSEUM

Unearthing Kansas City’s sports treasure: the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Those who saw James “Cool Papa” Bell run say he moved like the wind and was easily the fastest man ever on the baseball diamond. They swear he could glide around the bases in a cat-like 12 seconds. They used to call him the Tan Cheetah. Not even Olympic great Jesse Owens would compete against him. One time, when Bell’s Kansas City Monarchs were playing a traveling team from Mexico, the speedy outfielder went from first base to third so quickly that they thought he’d cut across the field.

While you won’t catch footage of that legendary play at Kansas City’s Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (www.nlbm.com)—the only such museum in the world—you will see other images (or, in most cases, blurs) of the great Bell in action. There is also a jersey and other mementos honoring the late Hall of Famer in the way national heroes ought to be honored.

During the ’30s and ’40s, to many people living in inner-city communities, countless black ballplayers out there on the diamonds were icons—hitting, fielding and pitching as well as, or often better than, their white counterparts, according to written records. Like blacks in other professions during the segregated times, they persevered and fashioned their own way.

Andrew “Rube” Foster was a gifted pitcher-turned-pitchman. When he was a burly 40-year-old owner of a flashy Minor League Baseball team in Chicago, Foster organized a meeting at a Kansas City YMCA to discuss starting a new eight-team league for non-whites. It was forward thinking. It was dangerous. It was 1920. Foster spearheaded it anyway, and, almost instantaneously, the Negro National League took off. For the next few decades, while mainstream America was enamored of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, blacks were proudly singing the praises of Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard.

“This is a sport we once dominated,” explains Negro Leagues Baseball Museum director of marketing Bob Kendrick. “As a matter of fact, if you didn’t play baseball, something was wrong with you. Everybody loved baseball. But after stadiums left for the suburbs, we started to become less and less enchanted with the game. And then the other sports became more popular. But black folks have been playing baseball since right after the Civil War. This was no new phenomenon.”

Somewhere between Jackie Robinson’s landmark 1947 signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Bill Russell’s NBA rise in the late ’50s, that all changed. It’s the goal of this $2.5-million, 10,000-square-foot museum to regenerate interest. “Some folks may have been introduced at some point to snippets,” says Kendrick, standing next to a theater where you can watch highlights of Bell working the bases. “But they’ve never really gotten the real story of the Negro Leagues. Visitors are just amazed at the breadth and depth and the magnitude of what this represents, not only in the history of baseball, but in the history of this country.”

More story-driven than artifact-exhibiting, the museum sits in the same retro-styled building that houses the American Jazz Museum, in the revitalized 18th and Vine Street section of Kansas City. Upon entering the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, you see a diagram recalling all the former teams, from the hard-hitting Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords to the hardly-known Detroit Wolves and Jacksonville Red Caps. Follow what looks to be a walkway towards a vintage stadium, and the journey begins. And it doesn’t end until you’ve met all the players, been awed by their accomplishments and blown away by the adversity they had to overcome.

You’ll learn about Buck O’Neil, the Negro Leagues’ most famous manager and arguably its most vital preserver of history living today. Eleven years ago, O’Neil, who went on to become the Major League’s first black coach, was introduced to the masses in Ken Burns’ critically applauded “Baseball” series on PBS. A poignant and charismatic speaker, O’Neil used the documentary as a platform to paint his former league in such a light that people couldn’t help but take notice.

Visitors are amazed at the magnitude of what this museum represents. Not only in the history of baseball, but in the history of this country.

“Before the Ken Burns documentary,” claims the sharp-as-ever 93-year-old, “90% of the people in this country didn’t know anything about the Negro Leagues. But after the Ken Burns documentary, people started to gather information. [They now know that] Jackie Robinson signed that contract before Brown vs. Board of Education. That was before sister Rosa Parks said, ‘I’m tired today. I’m not going to the back of that bus.’ Dr King was a sophomore at Morehouse College. So, this actually started the Civil Rights Movement.”

Those who used the engaging nine-part history lesson as motivation to learn more about the Negro Leagues grew to know pitching legend Leroy “Satchel” Paige and the aforementioned Gibson and Leonard well. The museum pays deserving tribute to each of those wonderful players. Still, it’s the history center’s acknowledgement of lesser-known stars, such as Oscar Charleston, Bullet Joe Rogan, Hilton Smith and Judy Johnson, that really makes it special. The interactive lessons, lifestyle exhibits and intriguing fact cards—did you know that the Negro Leagues introduced night baseball in 1930, some five years prior to the majors?—that make the experience so memorable.

“That’s why the museum’s role is so important,” insists Kendrick, who’s now standing at the Field of Dreams, a replica of a baseball diamond, complete with life-size statues of nine Negro Leagues stars in their positions. “It’s about creating access. For years, nobody had access to this story. If you don’t control the pen, you don’t control the story. We’ve always depended on someone else to write our story. Very rarely is it ever written with the kind of accuracy or relevancy that it should be. With this institution, we’re essentially taking control of the pen.”

It’s kind of ironic that Satchel’s original gravestone is the last thing you see at the museum, because, in a sense, that’s precisely where your appreciation for the league should be born—when it’s time to go home and share the encounter with others. The gift shop helps you in this endeavor, as books, videos, T-shirts and Buck O’Neil Bobblehead dolls are available for purchase.

Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and other slugging legends got their start in the Negro Leagues. And, as Kendrick puts it, “They’re all recognized as some of the greatest baseball players in history. They’re in everybody’s top 50. But, however good you remember them being, they weren’t the best players in the Negro Leagues. There were other Negro Leagues veterans who were far superior than they were. That helps people understand the talent level. There were hundreds of players who would have been stars in the Major Leagues had they been given the opportunity.”

WORDS DEMARCO WILLIAMS
Photos courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum