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History relived Old-timers reminisce about Negro Leagues
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- To most people, it's just a chicken wire fence at the entrance to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. To the old men at the Negro Leagues reunion, it is a sad and deeply symbolic reminder of their unfulfilled youth. "Everywhere we'd go in the Southland, that's what they would use to separate us," said Harold Gould, 76, who pitched for the Philadelphia Stars. He stared at the chicken wire and pointed a long, bony finger at it. "The Caucasians stayed on one side of that fence and the minorities stayed on the other. Every place we played in the Southland, it was there." About 150 former Negro League players were in Kansas City for an awards dinner and to reminisce over old times. From all over the country they came, many stooped with age and wrinkled by the years. Some were helped along by their children and grandchildren as they gazed upon pictures and objects from a part of the fabric of American history they all experienced as very young men. The oldest was Ted "Double-Duty" Radcliffe, 98, who got his nickname from pitching the first game of doubleheaders and then catching the second. "We all played for the love of the game," said Gould. For most, it was their first visit to the 10-year-old museum, which stands just one block from the place in midtown Kansas City where the Negro Leagues began 80 years ago. "It feels good to be here with these old friends," said Ted Raspberry, 87, who once owned the Kansas City Monarchs. "It's good to remember that we were just out there playing baseball under the warm sun, doing what we wanted to do. It's wonderful to see these old friends. It ended with the opportunity for Negroes to play in the major leagues. Jackie (Robinson) did that."
As they stopped at the various exhibits to talk and reminisce, the old men noted that big-money contracts are not all that separate them from modern major leaguers. "Today, a young player will get a sore finger and he'll sit out for two weeks," said Wilmer Harris, a pitcher for the Philadelphia Stars. "In our day, if you had a sore finger, you'd tie two fingers together and go out and play. You never wanted to come out of the game." Gould recalled a popular sign that whites often placed in the park when Negro League teams played white teams. "The guy would say, 'If you can read, run. If you can't read, run anyhow,"' he said. "It happened. I was there. We couldn't dress in some of the parks. We had to go in peoples' houses and change clothes, come back and play and then go back there and change. You can imagine the inconvenience. You can imagine what that took from us. You see a shower and a bathroom there and you can't use it. You've got to go somewhere else." Another problem for the Negro League players was a lack of any formal instruction. "We all learned to play in the sandlots," Gould said. "If they had had the one-on-one training and coaching players get today, there's no telling how good these guys could have been. How many home runs would Josh Gibson have hit then?" One thing the old players cannot understand is why modern players, especially young black athletes, do not visit the museum more. "I couldn't wait to get here," Gould said. "I wanted to relive the past as best as I could. I wanted to rediscover it. I wish more people were curious about those times. I wish the young players today cared more than they do."
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