GaryMrMets
07-02-2004, 03:06 AM
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/9048263.htm
Posted on Thu, Jul. 17, 1997
Sky-high and headed home
Barnstorming youngsters wind up an enriching trip
By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer
For the Anderson Monarchs, the bus ride of a lifetime ends today.
They are to return to South Philadelphia, ending their 2,000-mile journey aboard an old, cramped, cream-colored oven that has bounced along the highways of the Northeast and Midwest.
For nearly two weeks, through the summer heat, the team has replicated the old Negro Leagues' barnstorming tours of the 1930s and 1940s, recalling a time when black ballplayers were banned from the majors.
These 15 youngsters, all but one of them African American, faced no such barrier. But they could imagine its sting as they pushed from town to town in a bus with hard seats, no toilet, no air-conditioning, no legroom.
“I feel like Jackie Robinson,” said 10-year-old David Pough.
It was Robinson who set them on this course, their living observance of his skill and sacrifice in breaking baseball's color barrier 50 years ago.
But it hasn't exactly been the same. In their travels, these youngsters have been met with cheers, television cameras, and keys to the city - not with signs that say, “Whites Only.”
Retired Cardinals great Ozzie Smith met them in St. Louis, signing balls and shaking hands. And in Cleveland, after watching the major-league all-stars work out, they played at League Park, on the same field where Babe Ruth hit his 500th home run.
In Chicago, they toured Wrigley Field. In Brooklyn, N.Y., there was solemn reflection at Robinson's grave; in Kentucky, an exuberant tour of the factory that makes Louisville Slugger baseball bats.
The attention turned 10- and 11-year-old boys into media-savvy athletes.
“How did you do in your game last night?” a reporter asked the players this week.
“No comment!” three of them answered in unison.
See, the Monarchs had lost.
They won the first three games of the tour, then lost three straight. The loss in Kansas City, Mo., was the hardest. In that one, they took a no-hitter into the sixth inning before losing both the no-hitter and the game.
On Tuesday evening in Louisville, they got back on the winning track, boosting their record to 4-3 heading into their final game in Pittsburgh last night.
The tour's only discordant note came in Dyersville, Iowa, said coach Steve Bandura , who works for the Philadelphia Recreation Department and conceived this expedition. There, the team's pickup game on the “Field of Dreams,” where the movie of the same name was filmed, was interrupted by a worker who complained that the raucous play of this group of black youngsters would scare other customers away.
On the bus , the players spent their time arguing over who's better, Barry Bonds or Mike Piazza. They shot pictures of one another with a camera borrowed from a news photographer. They played high-intensity games of Uno and performed impersonations of Beavis and Butt-head.
By today, they will have stormed through 10 cities, been on television all over the country, and been written up in Baseball Weekly and the New York Times.
So far only one person has lost his glove - the coach. And, despite the lure of ballparks and hotel swimming pools, the boys never forgot why they were there. Or they were quickly reminded when they did.
“Dang, it's hot in here,” 10-year-old Marquis Harris piped up as the bus rolled through Louisville.
“That's the whole thing about doing this thing,” answered Anthony Deadwyler, 11.
From roughly 1920 to 1960, about 2,600 ballplayers competed on teams in the Negro Leagues in 30 cities. Today, only about 200 former players are alive to tell the tale. In their day, they were the sporting elite of their communities, playing on teams such as the Philadelphia Stars - whose field at 18th and Fitzwater Streets now is used by the young Monarchs - and the Grays and Crawfords in Pittsburgh.
Buck O'Neil, who starred for the Kansas City Monarchs, from whom the young Philadelphians took their team name, remembered traveling with 11 men crammed into one car, playing two or three games in one day so the promoters could get the most for their money, stopping at roadside stands to buy bread and bologna because they weren't allowed to eat in whites-only restaurants.
These Monarchs played once a day. And they ate wherever they pleased.
For D'Var Brown, 11, the trip's most important moment was seeing Jackie Robinson's grave - it made the man real to him, he said. That and meeting O'Neil, who told them to be proud, play hard, and go forward.
“He gave us an example not to have fear,” D'Var said. “And he told us how to play baseball.”
* On Tuesday morning, the loud, choking cough of the bus engine caused doors to crack open at the Days Inn in Louisville, and sleepy Monarchs poked their heads out. Everybody was tired from the ride from St. Louis.
“It's a lot of traveling,” said assistant coach Beau Champ.
By 9:30 a.m., the players were scurrying through the Louisville Slugger factory and museum downtown, tapping on the giant, 120-foot steel bat that stands outside.
Inside, they lingered over one of Ruth's bats and marveled at the statistics compiled by Josh Gibson, an immortal of the Negro Leagues credited with more than 1,000 career home runs. The boys paused at lathes that turn Northern white ash from the forests of Pennsylvania into sleek cylindrical sticks wielded by men named Griffey and Gwynn.
And in the museum lobby, they got their first look at the team they would be playing that night - the West Louisville All-Stars. Several Monarchs frowned. These players looked older, bigger and stronger.
Then it was back on the bus and off to City Hall, where city leaders had declared this Anderson Monarchs Day. The players got keys to the city, which they pinned onto their hats.
From there, they journeyed to Cardinal Stadium, a converted football field with all the charm of a parking lot, to see a triple-A game between the last-place Louisville Redbirds and the New Orleans Zephyrs. The Redbirds won, 2-1, under a scorching sun. Hardly anybody watched the game.
* The Monarchs looked stylish in their dark-blue jerseys and pinstriped pants as they began at Shawnee Park on Tuesday night. But their early play was ragged at best.
The first Monarchs batter struck out without swinging. In the bottom of the first, the Louisville team scored without getting a hit, converting a walk, a steal and a wild pitch into a run.
But in the third, the Monarchs started stringing together singles, steals and walks. Meanwhile, the Louisville stars couldn't hold onto anything; they committed three errors and gave up five runs.
D'Var Brown, the Monarchs' pitcher, was blowing the ball past players twice his size. Even the park announcer grew impatient with the local team: “Turn off that wind,” he said after yet another all-star struck out. Some of the local spectators were cheering for the Monarchs.
“I'm supporting the team,” said Louisville resident Viola Frye. “The whole team gave me their autograph.”
The Monarchs cruised to an 8-3 victory. On the way back to the hotel, the players sang their team song at the top of their lungs.
* Most of the Monarchs never played baseball until a few years ago, and some had never been away from home. So for them, the journey itself was a powerful learning experience.
And Bandura is determined that their real-life education won't end when the team returns to the Marian Anderson Recreation Center in South Philadelphia.
“The baseball is secondary,” he said. “I want them to play their best, but it's also what they're learning.”
For one thing, they return home more knowledgeable about the Negro Leagues and their role in its proud and still-evolving history.
“I tell them, `Never forget this,' “ said assistant coach Champ. “ `Remember this time you spent. Remember the time you spent with each other.' “
The players say they'll remember. And they say they've learned that lessons can be taught in many ways - not the least in a rumbling bus with a bent back bumper and a fender held together by duct tape.
“I think it's a great thing we're doing,” said Dyshon Marable, 11. “I know other kids our age would like the experience.”
Posted on Thu, Jul. 17, 1997
Sky-high and headed home
Barnstorming youngsters wind up an enriching trip
By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer
For the Anderson Monarchs, the bus ride of a lifetime ends today.
They are to return to South Philadelphia, ending their 2,000-mile journey aboard an old, cramped, cream-colored oven that has bounced along the highways of the Northeast and Midwest.
For nearly two weeks, through the summer heat, the team has replicated the old Negro Leagues' barnstorming tours of the 1930s and 1940s, recalling a time when black ballplayers were banned from the majors.
These 15 youngsters, all but one of them African American, faced no such barrier. But they could imagine its sting as they pushed from town to town in a bus with hard seats, no toilet, no air-conditioning, no legroom.
“I feel like Jackie Robinson,” said 10-year-old David Pough.
It was Robinson who set them on this course, their living observance of his skill and sacrifice in breaking baseball's color barrier 50 years ago.
But it hasn't exactly been the same. In their travels, these youngsters have been met with cheers, television cameras, and keys to the city - not with signs that say, “Whites Only.”
Retired Cardinals great Ozzie Smith met them in St. Louis, signing balls and shaking hands. And in Cleveland, after watching the major-league all-stars work out, they played at League Park, on the same field where Babe Ruth hit his 500th home run.
In Chicago, they toured Wrigley Field. In Brooklyn, N.Y., there was solemn reflection at Robinson's grave; in Kentucky, an exuberant tour of the factory that makes Louisville Slugger baseball bats.
The attention turned 10- and 11-year-old boys into media-savvy athletes.
“How did you do in your game last night?” a reporter asked the players this week.
“No comment!” three of them answered in unison.
See, the Monarchs had lost.
They won the first three games of the tour, then lost three straight. The loss in Kansas City, Mo., was the hardest. In that one, they took a no-hitter into the sixth inning before losing both the no-hitter and the game.
On Tuesday evening in Louisville, they got back on the winning track, boosting their record to 4-3 heading into their final game in Pittsburgh last night.
The tour's only discordant note came in Dyersville, Iowa, said coach Steve Bandura , who works for the Philadelphia Recreation Department and conceived this expedition. There, the team's pickup game on the “Field of Dreams,” where the movie of the same name was filmed, was interrupted by a worker who complained that the raucous play of this group of black youngsters would scare other customers away.
On the bus , the players spent their time arguing over who's better, Barry Bonds or Mike Piazza. They shot pictures of one another with a camera borrowed from a news photographer. They played high-intensity games of Uno and performed impersonations of Beavis and Butt-head.
By today, they will have stormed through 10 cities, been on television all over the country, and been written up in Baseball Weekly and the New York Times.
So far only one person has lost his glove - the coach. And, despite the lure of ballparks and hotel swimming pools, the boys never forgot why they were there. Or they were quickly reminded when they did.
“Dang, it's hot in here,” 10-year-old Marquis Harris piped up as the bus rolled through Louisville.
“That's the whole thing about doing this thing,” answered Anthony Deadwyler, 11.
From roughly 1920 to 1960, about 2,600 ballplayers competed on teams in the Negro Leagues in 30 cities. Today, only about 200 former players are alive to tell the tale. In their day, they were the sporting elite of their communities, playing on teams such as the Philadelphia Stars - whose field at 18th and Fitzwater Streets now is used by the young Monarchs - and the Grays and Crawfords in Pittsburgh.
Buck O'Neil, who starred for the Kansas City Monarchs, from whom the young Philadelphians took their team name, remembered traveling with 11 men crammed into one car, playing two or three games in one day so the promoters could get the most for their money, stopping at roadside stands to buy bread and bologna because they weren't allowed to eat in whites-only restaurants.
These Monarchs played once a day. And they ate wherever they pleased.
For D'Var Brown, 11, the trip's most important moment was seeing Jackie Robinson's grave - it made the man real to him, he said. That and meeting O'Neil, who told them to be proud, play hard, and go forward.
“He gave us an example not to have fear,” D'Var said. “And he told us how to play baseball.”
* On Tuesday morning, the loud, choking cough of the bus engine caused doors to crack open at the Days Inn in Louisville, and sleepy Monarchs poked their heads out. Everybody was tired from the ride from St. Louis.
“It's a lot of traveling,” said assistant coach Beau Champ.
By 9:30 a.m., the players were scurrying through the Louisville Slugger factory and museum downtown, tapping on the giant, 120-foot steel bat that stands outside.
Inside, they lingered over one of Ruth's bats and marveled at the statistics compiled by Josh Gibson, an immortal of the Negro Leagues credited with more than 1,000 career home runs. The boys paused at lathes that turn Northern white ash from the forests of Pennsylvania into sleek cylindrical sticks wielded by men named Griffey and Gwynn.
And in the museum lobby, they got their first look at the team they would be playing that night - the West Louisville All-Stars. Several Monarchs frowned. These players looked older, bigger and stronger.
Then it was back on the bus and off to City Hall, where city leaders had declared this Anderson Monarchs Day. The players got keys to the city, which they pinned onto their hats.
From there, they journeyed to Cardinal Stadium, a converted football field with all the charm of a parking lot, to see a triple-A game between the last-place Louisville Redbirds and the New Orleans Zephyrs. The Redbirds won, 2-1, under a scorching sun. Hardly anybody watched the game.
* The Monarchs looked stylish in their dark-blue jerseys and pinstriped pants as they began at Shawnee Park on Tuesday night. But their early play was ragged at best.
The first Monarchs batter struck out without swinging. In the bottom of the first, the Louisville team scored without getting a hit, converting a walk, a steal and a wild pitch into a run.
But in the third, the Monarchs started stringing together singles, steals and walks. Meanwhile, the Louisville stars couldn't hold onto anything; they committed three errors and gave up five runs.
D'Var Brown, the Monarchs' pitcher, was blowing the ball past players twice his size. Even the park announcer grew impatient with the local team: “Turn off that wind,” he said after yet another all-star struck out. Some of the local spectators were cheering for the Monarchs.
“I'm supporting the team,” said Louisville resident Viola Frye. “The whole team gave me their autograph.”
The Monarchs cruised to an 8-3 victory. On the way back to the hotel, the players sang their team song at the top of their lungs.
* Most of the Monarchs never played baseball until a few years ago, and some had never been away from home. So for them, the journey itself was a powerful learning experience.
And Bandura is determined that their real-life education won't end when the team returns to the Marian Anderson Recreation Center in South Philadelphia.
“The baseball is secondary,” he said. “I want them to play their best, but it's also what they're learning.”
For one thing, they return home more knowledgeable about the Negro Leagues and their role in its proud and still-evolving history.
“I tell them, `Never forget this,' “ said assistant coach Champ. “ `Remember this time you spent. Remember the time you spent with each other.' “
The players say they'll remember. And they say they've learned that lessons can be taught in many ways - not the least in a rumbling bus with a bent back bumper and a fender held together by duct tape.
“I think it's a great thing we're doing,” said Dyshon Marable, 11. “I know other kids our age would like the experience.”