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Negro
League Baseball Four tables of Negro League Baseball artifacts spoke volumes about its history, a short film, “Kings on the Hill: Baseball’s Forgotten Men,” had an articulate narrator and those running the food stand vocalized their intentions to sell baseball-related snacks for a dollar.
But the orations of Arthur Young resonated over the noise of the
Student Center Lounge Monday as Programming Council and University
Ministries sponsored a Negro League Baseball exhibit. Young and his friend, Fred Brazemore, have worked on studying and collecting information about Negro League Baseball for about 10 years. Their collection could fill a small room, while Young’s knowledge of the league could not fit in an entire house. Young, who has retired from his full-time job, travels from school to school and imparts his knowledge to the next generation. Part of his audience Monday came from Tarrant County College. Phyllis Cox and Janet Younger, TCC instructors of continuing education for the workforce department, brought a group of students who are preparing to take the GED exam. “This helps them gain a certain respect for their heritage,” Younger said. “These kids know about basketball and football, but it’s important for them to know about other sports’ history as well.” Tremain Dick, a student at TCC, dropped out of Dunbar High School before his senior year and started working at FedEx. The TCC students were given the assignment of writing an essay about what they saw at the exhibit. “Writing is not my thing,” Dick said. “If it’s not going home, I don’t want to do it. But I know there’s an essay portion on the GED, so I have to learn to write better.” Like Dick, who isn’t taking the conventional route to obtaining college admittance, the players involved in the Negro Baseball League were forced to take a detour to getting into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Since Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball, was inducted in the hall of the fame in 1962, 16 other players who played in the Negro leagues have been inducted. But most of them didn’t live to see their induction ceremony. Young’s favorite pieces of the collection are the pictures of hall-of-fame catcher Josh Gibson. He is known as one of the greatest power hitters of all time, but he died before he got the chance to play in the major leagues. “The day Gibson was selected to play in the Negro leagues, he hit a ball so far they didn’t go get it; they just used another ball,” Young said. “He should have been outstanding, but it just wasn’t meant to be.” These are the stories that Young said he fears will be forgotten. But Amanda Wilsker, PC multicultural chairwoman, said events like the exhibit will assure that the history of the Negro leagues will live on.
“I didn’t know much about the league before this,”
Wilsker said. “A lot of people fit into that category, but
they can learn something new while being educated about history
and today’s culture.”
Rusty Simmons |