| THE
OLDEST SOLDIER
American Legacy, Spring 2004
The old man moved slowly down Minneapolis's
Fremont Avenue with the help of a cane. He was at least 106 years
old, and a familiar sight in' the neighborhood. He might have looked
less menacing had it not been for the doublebarreled shotgun over
his shoulder and the determination in his eyes. It was a warm June
day, but he wore a sweater and a coat covered with badges.
Henry Mack was
supposed to have been on the porch with his dog and cat. His daughter-in-law
had gone to the store for less than an hour. When she returned home,
a neighbor lady ran out to her, calling "Dad is gone, Dad is gone."
Allie Johnson at first thought the old gentleman had passed away.
When she realized otherwise, she set out on foot to look for him.
Neighbors joined in the search. They found him five blocks from
home, sitting on a porch. A woman who knew him had called him over
and talked him into taking a rest. He told everyone that he was
headed for the Army recruiting station. It was June 1944; the Allies
had just landed on the Normandy beaches.
America was in its third year of
the struggle to defeat totalitarianism. Mack had closely followed
the news since the war began. The defiant old warrior insisted he
had a lot of vigor left to offer his country. Henry Mack was, in
fact, one of the last remaining veterans of the American Civil War.
The coat he wore on his way to the recruiting station was from the
uniform of the Grand Army of the Republic, the once-powerful organization
of Union Army veterans. His exploit that day was particu1arly remarkable,
considering that he was no longer able to climb the stairs in his
house and his GAR coat was kept in a closet on the second floor.
Henry Mack was born a slave near
Fayette, Alabama. The year was about 1836, but no one was ever really
sure. He picked cotton throughout his youth. The overseer was a
violent man, who rode through the fields wielding a rawhide whip.
He decided one day that Henry's mother, Phoebe, was not working
hard enough and threatened to whip her. Henry, then in his mid-twenties,
pleaded with the overseer to beat him instead. The overseer obliged.
When Henry recovered, he determined to run away. He took his mother
with him and they fled, traveling by night, until they came to a
broad river. They followed along its banks until they came upon
a man with a boat who agreed to row them to the far side. The river
was the Mississippi: Henry' and his mother had made their way across
the state of Mississippi and into Arkansas. They were among the
thousands of fugitive slaves who attached themselves to the occupying
Union Army in Helena. Phoebe became a cook, and Henry helped out
around camp.
President Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation, in 1863, transformed the war into a crusade to free
blacks from bondage, and Henry wanted to share in that fight. In
May of that year the U.S. War Department established the Bureau
of Colored Troops. Henry adopted the surname Mack and enlisted in
the United States Army at Helena on December 15, 1863. The Army
assigned him to the 4th Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) Regiment,
which it redesignated the 57th United States Colored Troops (USCT)
in March 1864. The eagerness of African Americans to serve was so
overwhelming that by the end of the war the federal government was
able to form more than 160 regiments from approximately 200,000
volunteers. Mack's initial experience was not unlike that of many
in a war in which disease claimed more casualties than bullets.
At Little Rock, in the winter of 1863-4, he came down with rheumatism
and "was laid up in camp and off duty all winter," he said many
years later. He added that the rheumatism had come back every winter
since.
Private Mack boarded a transport
ship headed up the Arkansas River in early 1864. He remembered for
the rest of his life the image of his mother on the wharf at Helena,
waving good-bye to him. He never saw her again. He and his comrades
were relegated to guard duty on railroad bridges as part of Gen.
Frederick Steele's Camden Expedition. Steele's objective was to
capture Shreveport, Louisiana, and drive the Confederates from southwestern
Arkansas, but he ended up retreating back to Little Rock, barely
managing to save his army. The campaign accomplished little, other
than to define one pattern of conduct that would often reappear:
The Confederates captured a large number of African-American soldiers
at Poison Springs on April 18 and massacred them. When the
57th saw its first action, in a skirmish near Little Rock on April
26, the men understood not only that the war was about race and
freedom but that surrender was not an option.
The 57th took part in two skirmishes
near Little Rock, on May 24 and May 28, 1864. Orders in July then
sent the men to Duvall's Bluff, to strengthen fortifications in
the area. The regiment was on garrison and patrol duty there almost
until the end of the war. After the collapse of the Confederacy
in April 1865, the regiment became part of the occupation force
in Arkansas.
The Department of Arkansas, the
state's administration at war's end, ordered the 57th to Fort Smith
in July. The white citizens of Fort Smith had grown used to the
sight of black soldiers patrolling their city streets and keeping
order; while former Confederates were less than enthusiastic, Arkansas
Unionists praised the soldiers. A reporter for the Fort Smith New
Era witnessed the 57th. in dress parade in early September and
wrote that he "never saw a finer exhibition of a regimental parade.
. . . No one could fail to see the spirit of manly and soldierly
pride with which the men carried themselves. . . . These men know
they are free and no power on earth can reenslave them." The reporter
added, "The behavior of the men when off duty is modest and respectful
and no complaints have been known to exist against them."
In 1866 six companies of the 57th
were sent West to the New Mexico frontier to protect settlers there
from hostile Indians. They stayed through the end of the year, when
their enlistment expired. Those men of the 57th who had gone West
were the first Buffalo Soldiers--African-American regiments authorized
by Congress to perform frontier service for the peacetime military.
Henry Mack couldn't claim this distinction, as his company remained
at Fort Smith.
After the 57th Colored Infantry
mustered out at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in December 1866, Mack
returned to Arkansas. He traveled around the state for several years
searching for his mother, but he never found a trace of her. Life
in Reconstruction-era Arkansas was difficult for African-Americans.
Some white citizens violently resisted change, terrorizing and murdering
both white Republicans and the blacks who attempted to exercise
their new rights to vote and hold office. Federal troops offered
the only protection in the South for African-Americans, and they
were too few to do so effectively. Mack left Arkansas, lived for
a time in Kansas, and moved on to Omaha, Nebraska, in the 1870s
The period known as Reconstruction
ended when the disputed presidential election of 1876 was resolved
by a compromise in which Southern Democrats allowed the Republican
candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, to become President in return for
the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. The abandonment
of African-Americans by the U.S. government was particularly painful
for veterans like Henry Mack, who had worn the uniform of the United
States Army and fought bravely in the nation's service. But Nebraska
offered African-Americans some escape from the oppression in the
South, with jobs available at the Union Pacific Railroad and many
meatpacking companies. By 1890 nearly 700 African-Americans called
Omaha home.
In 1881 Mack married Martha Green,
a widow with three children. Seventeen years later, a physician's
affidavit pronounced him "wholly disabled for the performance of
manual labor. He has been able to do janitor work and such work
as porter." He remained in Omaha, surviving on his military pension
of $10 a month.. He was forced to sign a document in 1912 clarifying
some confusion about his birth date. In it he stated: "I know, according
to what my friends tell me in response to my relating of circumstances
which I had seen in past years. . . I am seventy-five years old
and past." In the end the date was not deemed material and the government
increased Mack's monthly pension to $40 by 1918 and $72 by 1925.
A race riot in Omaha in 1919, which
ended in a lynching, or the death of his wife the next year, may
have led him to move on. He traveled north to Minneapolis, and in
1922, in his late eighties, he became a member of the city's George
N. Morgan Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. The 1930 federal
census lists him and his second wife, Sadie, as residing at 626
Bassett Place in Minneapolis's Third Ward. Sadie was much younger
than he, and the neighborhood children often mistook her for his
daughter. Born in Iowa, she supported both Henry and Clarence, her
son from a previous marriage, by working as a domestic. Money was
tight, as Mack's 1929 letter to the Federal Bureau of Pension reveals:
"A year ago I wrote for an increase in my pension being feeble also
sick at the time being. . . . I am [now] a great deal worse off
having to have constant care and looking after. I am 93 years old.
. . and I sure think I am entitled to an increase. Now dear sir
will you be so kind as to let me know how I can obtain it."
Sadie died in 1935 at the age of
53, whereupon Henry moved in with his stepson. Clarence and his
wife, Allie, were Catholics, but they faithfully drove Henry to
worship every Sunday at his own church, Zion Baptist. They also
took him to his regular GAR post meetings.
Neighborhood children came to know
Henry Mack. One of them, Harry Davis, a lifelong resident of Minneapolis
who later became the city's first African-American to run for mayor,
recalled of Mack, "he liked kids, would always talk to us and play
with us." Davis said that Mack never used vulgar language, unlike
many of the men who hung out on The Avenue-a stretch frequented
by bootleggers, racketeers, and pimps. Children never poked fun
at him, and young men never bothered him. Harry remembered that
the old man was as knowledgeable about current events as most educated
people in the neighborhood.
Everyone knew from his regular appearances
in parades that Henry Mack had been a soldier. The boys never saw
Mack wearing his uniform except in parades, but they knew him as
"that
old soldier" and passed rumors that he was 113 years old.
In 1935 the federal government began
making a serious effort to organize what would surely be the final
national reunion of Civil War veterans. A government field examiner
reported that Henry was "up and about the house and has been feeling
quite well." The report noted, "He is saving his pension funds for
the purpose of attending the Civil War Veterans Encampment." More
than 1,800 veterans-the youngest of them in their early nineties-arrived
at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in late June 1938. The Union contingent
included 58 blacks, among them Henry Mack, aged about 102. The Philadelphia
Afro-American reported that "all traces of discrimination
. . . were absent" at the reunion, and accounts of African-Americans
who attended confirm this. The highlight was the appearance of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt on July 3 to dedicate the Eternal Light
Peace Memorial.
World War II broke out one year
after the reunion. By the time the Minneapolis Tribune honored
Henry Mack on Memorial Day in 1941 as "Minnesota's oldest living
war veteran," at 105, everyone knew that America would be getting
into it.
At the seventy-fifth annual encampment
of the Grand Army of the Republic's Department of Minnesota, held
at the St. Paul Hotel on June 4, 1946 years after the war's end-Henry
Mack was among the 10 veterans in attendance. National membership
in the GAR, which had stood at over a hundred thousand in 1920,
and still more than twenty thousand in 1930, was barely a thousand.
Minnesotta's GAR veterans sent a
letter of support to President Roosevelt in 1942, and Mack and four
comrades participated in a large Flag Day parade in June of that
year, to the applause of the crowd. The next month, the Minnesota
GAR held a somewhat tardy 105th birthday party for Mack at their
July 1 meeting, presenting him with many gifts including a silk
flag.
Not everyone celebrated Mack's 105th
birthday with joy. One member of the city's GAR Ladies organization
wrote the administrator of Veterans Affairs in Washington on July
2: "Mr. Mack has a foster son, married to a white woman, who claims
Henry Mack is 105 this next 4th of July. . . there is a big 'to-do'
about it . . . our oldest was Andrew Larson of Willimar 102 next
August 4th." Larson claimed to have proof of his age in the form
of a Norwegian birth certificate. Another letter, written two months
later, strongly supported Mack: "We patriotic people have many opportunities
to give Henry Mack all the honors to which he is rightfully entitled,
the fact that he is colored, was a slave and the one and only veteran
who really knew what that war meant, should be enough. . . ."
Minnesota continued to honor Mack
as its oldest veteran, but he missed the national GAR reunion in
Indianapolis that summer. The problem was arthritis-not his own,
but that of his stepson Clarence, who was going to accompany him.
Allie, Clarence's wife, told a reporter, "Dad could have gone on
by himself but he just got out of the notion when his plans were
upset. . . . Why, he went along last Monday to the State Fair, where
he was a guest at the army day program. Dad said he knew he could
get out there and march right up with the rest of them if he had
to."
His public appearances continued
throughout the war, his regular presence at public gatherings as
a member of the Minnesota GAR serving to remind people that blacks
had defended the nation for generations.
Only seven members made it to the
Minnesota GAR's seventy-seventh encampment in 1943, and they elected
Henry Mack junior vice-commander. The war effort was consuming the
energy of the entire nation, and African-Americans were again rushing
to enlist. There was some question at first as to whether they would
be allowed to fight in the segregated military, but one who proved
his heroism was a pilot named Harold Brown from Henry Mack's own
neighborhood.
While African-Americans battled
for freedom abroad, national and local black leaders demanded to
know how true freedom could still be denied them at home. The world-famous
singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson visited the Twin Cities
in early December 1944 to perform in Shakespeare's Othello. Robeson's
contract specified that he would play only cities "where there will
be absolutely no discrimination or segregation in the audience."
Through all of the national debate, Henry Mack's regular appearances
in his GAR uniform demonstrated his own firm resolve.
He was one of only three at the
encampment in Minneapolis in 1944, where in his report as junior
vice-commander he noted, "As the years pass and our ranks grow less
and less, there is less and less work for us to do." In December
of 1944, just six months after making his way to the Army recruiting
station' he fell at home and broke his hip. He entered the Veterans'
Hospital and never left it. He requested in one of his last conversations
that "when the time came for him to go and be with his comrades
in heaven that the Grand Army take charge." He died late in the
morning of April 8, 1945.
At his funeral the Reverend Claude
Ireland presided, with the Theodor Petersen American Legion Post
delivering a full Grand Army of the Republic military service. His
remains were laid to rest in Fort Snelling National Cemetery.
Henry Mack did not live to see President
Harry S. Truman integrate the United States military, or the civil
rights movement of the 1960s, but by his longevity, he became himself
a living symbol of the long service of African-Americans to the
nation, and of their continuing struggle. The camaraderie and solidarity
that the members of the Minnesota GAR showed one another in their
many public appearances demonstrated how society could and should
function among all Americans. In the end, Henry Mack and his comrades
in ,the GAR helped win more than one war.
Stephen Chicoine is the executive
director of TURN (Twin Cities Urban Reconciliation Network) in Minneapolis.
He is the author of John Basil Turchin and the Fight to Free
the Slaves, recently published by Greenwood Publishing Group.
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|
ONE
GLORIOUS SEASON: How Baseball helped to integrate Decatur, Illinois
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society , Volume 96 , number
1, Spring 2003, pages 80-97
Jim Freeman
never intended to become a part of history. The Decatur native only
wanted a chance to play major league baseball. That was not an easy
thing for an African American to accomplish in 1952. Only five other
major league teams had integrated since Branch Rickey signed Jackie
Robinson to play for his Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. One minor league
team barred a black player from playing after he made one appearance
and another league attempted to expel a franchise after trying to
put a black player on the field. Many circuits did not commence
integrating until 1953. Even with the door open, however slightly,
in major league baseball, the nation had a long way to go down the
path of integration. The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) legal strategy was slowly working through
the courts to end segregation in schools, but the Supreme Court's
landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision was two years away.
Rosa Parks would not make her decision to refuse to give up her
seat on the bus for another three years and the Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr. had not yet gained national prominence.
Freeman left
high school in Decatur in February 1943 to enter the United States
Army. It was in the Army that he began playing baseball. Upon his
return home to Decatur in 1946, Freeman played softball on a local
team called The Jolly Boys. He went to tryouts for the St. Louis
Cardinals in 1947 at the suggestion of Decatur sportswriter Howard
Millard. Advocates of integration argued, "If he is good enough
for the Navy (or Army), he's good enough for the majors." Freeman
made a good showing at the camp, but Cardinals hitting instructor
"Runt" Meers confided to him that the Cardinals were just not ready
to sign an African-American player. Meers recommended Freeman to
a friend with the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs. Harold Seymour
wrote in his classic America: The People's Game, "One way children
of foreign birth or parentage could fit into the new culture was
to take part in baseball, and early on, many of them perceived it
their badge as Americans." Even that path was denied African Americans.
Baseball historian Edward G. White wrote that stereotypes of African
Americans suggested that they could never be fully integrated, that
"In terms of melting pot theory, certain inherently 'black' characteristics
could never be melted down." Arthur Mann, Branch Rickey's biographer,
challenged with, "How can you call it an All-American sport if you
exclude black Americans?"
Jim Freeman
began the 1948 baseball season with the Monarchs, playing on the
traveling team. Baseball immortal Satchel Paige was the drawing
card and Cool Papa Bell, a legend in his own right, was manager.
Paige had learned by this time that clowning around generated bigger
gate receipts. While his assortment of pitches dazzled batters,
he was equally talented as a performer. Freeman remembers Paige
would pitch three innings and then take off in his chauffeured Cadillac.
Jackie Robinson's 1947 season in the major leagues was the beginning
of the end for the Negro leagues. The Cleveland Indians signed Satchel
Paige for the 1948 season while the Monarchs traveling team was
in Fargo, North Dakota. The team fell apart and Jim Freeman ended
up in Minneapolis, playing for Harry Crump's Colored House of David
and the Broadway Clowns. These teams also would vanish in a relatively
short period of time. As several owners of Negro League franchises
predicted, the end of segregation in baseball meant that fewer African
Americans would earn a living from baseball due to the demise of
the Negro leagues. It would be many more years before major league
franchises hired African Americans as front-office personnel, coaches,
and managers.
Baseball fans
of all persuasions could not help but take note of the Cleveland
Indians' 1948 American League pennant and World Series championship
led by African Americans Larry Doby and Satchel Paige (Paige, the
oldest rookie ever to play in the major leagues, finished the season
with a 6-1 record, but never again pitched as well). The fact that
Cleveland also set a major league attendance record that season
(one that stood for thirty-two years) convincingly destroyed the
argument that white fans would never support an integrated team.
Yet, while the beginnings of integration in major league baseball
were promising, early racial breakthroughs in major league baseball
arguably had less impact on countless small towns across America.
Television, after all, was only just being introduced into American
homes.
Decatur, Illinois
had a long tradition of baseball since the days following the Civil
War. Decatur was a charter member of the Interstate League formed
in 1888. The minor league Commodores, often referred to as the Commies,
had been in Decatur since 1903. Fans Field, built in 1927, was regarded
by many as one of the finest parks in the minor leagues. Baseball
Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis himself dedicated the new
stadium with Bill Veeck of the Chicago Cubs in attendance.16 Decatur
was among the very first cities in organized baseball to introduce
lighting for night games, doing so in 1932. A number of baseball
greats, including Hall-of-Famer Carl Hubbell, played for Decatur
in the early days and many others came to town to play against the
Commies.
The railroads
and associated heavy industry established Decatur as an important
town in early twentieth-century central Illinois. African Americans,
moving up from the South to find a new life, settled in Decatur.
Although racial policies in the North were different in some ways
from those in the South, segregation, while not legislated, remained
an every day fact of life. Most restaurants in Decatur did not serve
African Americans. They were only allowed to view movies at local
theaters from the balconies. African Americans rarely attended baseball
games at Fans Field unless Negro League teams were passing through
central Illinois and there had never been a black baseball player
on the Decatur Commies.
Decatur was
without a professional baseball team for the 1951 baseball season
and it appeared for a time that the situation would remain the same
for the 1952 season. The Mississippi-Ohio Valley League was prepared
to expand to eight teams with league play to begin during the first
week of May, but no one had stepped up to buy the Decatur franchise
as March came to an end. The return of baseball to the town became
a regular subject in the columns of Decatur Review Sports Editor
Howard V. Millard. The Decatur Herald and Review published the Herald
in the morning, the Review in the evening and a combined edition
on Sunday. Millard, in his thirtieth year writing for the Decatur
paper, had been president of the predecessor Illinois State League
and was part of a group of baseball boosters, known as Decatur Baseball,
Inc. The headlines read "Decatur Is Returning to Organized Baseball"
as a jubilant Millard reported on 8 April 1952. Dick King, general
manager of the Gonzalez Baseball system, signed the contract "last
night just before he caught the train for St. Louis."
The season was
about to start and there was little time to waste. King promptly
ordered two sets of twenty uniforms at a cost of forty-five dollars
each, although he had no players yet for his team. He managed five
other baseball teams for Gonzalez Baseball System. Arturo Gonzalez
was an attorney in Del Rio, Texas, a predominantly Hispanic town
on the Mexican border. Gonzalez first got into baseball in 1939
when he started up a team in his hometown of Del Rio to play in
the Big State League. Baseball was Gonzalez's passion, but a sidelight.
He was a sophisticated attorney, whose bilingual ability made him
invaluable to American oil companies interested in the Caribbean
region. He represented Houston oil companies, first in Venezuela
and later in Cuba in the 1940s. Gonzalez met Joe Cambria in Cuba
in the course of business and the two became close friends. Cambria
was the man responsible over the years for numerous fine Cuban baseball
players that became established in the major leagues, particularly
for Calvin Griffith's Washington Senators. Gonzalez began to import
Cuban baseball players into his various teams through Cambria in
1949.
Arturo Gonzalez
laughs when asked how a man in Del Rio, Texas came to own a baseball
franchise in Decatur, Illinois. His initial response to Dick King
was "What do I want with Decatur, Illinois? I don't even know where
it is!" Gonzalez adds, however, that Dick King could be very persuasive
about baseball matters and urged him to seize the opportunity. Gonzalez
and his wife immediately drove to San Antonio, where they caught
a plane to St. Louis. Representatives of Decatur Baseball Inc. met
the couple at St. Louis and drove them to Decatur. Gonzalez agreed
to buy the franchise after seeing the town and inspecting the fine
facility at Fans Field. The entire process took less than one month.
As a result, the Decatur Commodores became one of eight teams in
the 1952 Mississippi-Ohio Valley (MOV) League.
Gonzalez moved
quickly to pull together players for the pending season. he hired
his friend, Julio "YuYu" Acosta, as player-manager. Acosta, a veteran
of the Cuban leagues, had pitched for Bill Veeck at Milwaukee in
the American Association League in 1944 and 1945 and hit .330 in
the Longhorn League in 1950. Gonzalez sent Acosta to Havana to sign
some ballplayers, while he called the Secretary for Carribean Affairs
in the United States State Department to request the American Consulate
in Havana begin preparing visas for the players.
Decatur also
had close ties to St. Louis. Bill Veeck left the Cleveland Indians
and took Satchel Paige with him to the St. Louis Browns. Decatur
radio station WDZ carried Browns games and ads touted, "Drink a
toast with smooth n' gold mellow Falstaff to the great game of baseball
and the return of Dizzy Dean." Dean had had a fine career as a pitcher
for the St. Louis Cardinals and was extremely popular throughout
the Midwest. "The Pride of St. Louis," a Hollywood movie honoring
Dean's career, would be released that summer of 1952. Dean was not
only a big fan of Satchel Paige, but also a personal friend. Minnie
Minoso and Satchel Paige became to the Midwest what Jackie Robinson
had been to the nation. Jim Freeman would play a similar role for
his hometown of Decatur. Baseball was leading integration, helping
to change America.
The primary
concern of Decatur fans in the spring of 1952 was how the Commodores
would field a squad in time for the season. The Decatur Herald and
Review of 13 April 1952 reported that the Commies would have a Cuban
player/manager and noted that the "Little Cuban" had some "difficulty
in speaking our language." Millard told readers on 20 April there
were already eight players in camp and Julio Acosta was ready to
leave Havana with ten more players as soon as visas could be arranged.
The fact that Cuba was a multiracial society would have been a clue
for Decatur fans that change was in the air. Days later, Acosta
and his contingent flew to Miami and boarded the Gonzalez Baseball
bus for Decatur. The 20 April Decatur Sunday Herald and Review featured
a photo of four ballplayers, noting "In English or Spanish, Baseball
Same to These Boys." The four Cubans were declared the advance guard
of the 1952 Commie contingent. The Commies tryout camp opened on
22 April. Julio Acosta arrived in Decatur on 25 April with nine
Cuban ballplayers, telling a Decatur sportswriter how impressed
he was with the fine ballpark.
Millard prepared
Decatur for a historical event when he wrote in his column on 24
April: "There are some states like Florida which has a state law
preventing whites competing against Negroes but the trend is the
other way and of course our sports have been largely responsible
for it. For years Decatur fans have cheered Negro athletes on their
own high school and college teams and have always been ready to
give due credit to a Negro boy who stood out as a worthwhile opponent.
. . ." Millard continued: ". . . it is quite likely that some Negro
boy will make baseball history in this city at Fans Field. It will
be the first time that a Negro player has ever worn a Commie baseball
suit. . . ." He reported the statement by General Manager Dick King
at the previous night's baseball meeting that there would likely
be " . . . one and possibly two Negroes on the club."
One of these
was Jim Freeman. The Decatur native, who had been playing baseball
in Minneapolis, returned home in the off-season. The owner of the
Colored House of David died that winter and the team fell apart.
The Decatur Commodores was the opportunity for which Jim Freeman
had been waiting and he took it. The Decatur Herald of 29 April
referred to Freeman as, "Among the better prospects." The article
also mentioned black Cuban Carlos "Charlie" Paula as a likely starter
in the outfield. Dick King remembers Paula as a big, strapping ballplayer
(he was six feet four inches tall) with a great arm who could run
like a greyhound.
Bold lettering
on a full-page newspaper ad that weekend proclaimed "New Manager,
New Team, New Faces, New Spirit, New Club" and read: "the Commies
made up of younger players, many from the island of Cuba will give
the local fans . . . an interesting brand of ball." Box seats were
$1.50 for the opener and general admission was $1.00 with $0.40
for children under twelve.
Opening day,
Sunday, 4 May, Decatur versus Hannibal. The sports section of the
Decatur Sunday Herald & Review featured the Commodore team photo.
Cubans Pete Naranjo and Carlos Paula, along with Decatur native
Jim Freeman, shared the distinction of being the first blacks ever
to appear on a professional baseball roster in Decatur. Arturo Gonzalez
and his wife flew to Decatur on the Gonzalez Baseball plane to attend
the game and the Decatur Review featured a photo of the owner and
his lovely wife in their box seat on the third base line. Gonzalez
recalls as to prejudice in Decatur, "I didn't notice any difference
at all and I didn't expect any."
Four thousand
fans saw the Commies knock the Hannibal pitcher out of the game
in the first inning and go on to defeat Hannibal by a score of 8-5.
Jim Freeman, "the Decatur Negro third-baseman" led the Commies,
going three-for-three at the plate. Julio Acosta drew a few boos
when he came to the plate in the bottom of the eighth, still hitless.
He singled to score a run, then stole second, advanced to third
and scored.
Hannibal won
Monday's game by a score of 5-3. Julio Acosta started game three
against Hannibal. The Stags shelled the Commies Manager and won
15-4, suggesting that Acosta, who had once been a solid AAA pitcher,
had lost his touch. One of the few bright spots for the Commies
was centerfielder Charlie Paula, who hit a triple and a booming
three-run homer. The Commies added some talent. Veteran Catcher
Andy Smith of Tola, Illinois joined the Commodores. Smith had had
a promising major league career-slated to be the backup catcher
for the Cleveland Indians-before he headed off to the Second World
War. He distinguished himself in the Pacific Theater as a member
of an elite reconnaissance unit and returned after the war with
shrapnel in his arm and legs. The velocity of his throw was never
again the same, but his accuracy remained uncanny. An opposing ballplayer
told Jim Freeman, "Nobody throws as soft as Andy Smith and throws
out as many base runners."
The Danville
Dans came to Decatur on Sunday for the Commodores first doubleheader
of the 1952 season. They were what Millard referred to as " . .
. just about an all-Boston Braves group of athletes," as the team's
major league owners kept the Dans well supplied with talent. Player/manager
Virl Minnis led the rough-and-tumble bunch, which reminded some
of an earlier era of the game. The Commies swept both games. Jim
Freeman doubled and hit his first home run of the season. The three-hundred
sixty-foot shot gave Millard cause to write: "It was a lusty clout
off the bat of Jim Freeman, the Negro boy with the big smile." Charlie
Paula, "the big outfielder," drove in four runs with two singles
and Pete Naranjo got the win. Paris edged Decatur 3-2 the following
night, despite a Charlie Paula home run.
The Commies
trounced Vincennes 14-7 on 23 May and moved into a tie for first
place with Danville behind "Decatur boy Jim Freeman, who put the
finishing touches on" with a grand slam. Freeman, Paula, and Naranjo
anchored a solid Decatur team that delighted its fans. Decatur defeated
Hannibal 9-6 and 10-1 on 30 May with Charlie Paula going six-for-eight
in the doubleheader. Jim Freeman, "Decatur's own outfielder," did
his part also, hitting a home run, a double, and two singles and
came up with a sensational shoestring catch of a line drive.
There were some
problems, racial and otherwise, however infrequently. Freeman recalls
racial slurs and "all kinds of trouble" in Mattoon. Hannibal fans,
in contrast, were never rude or insulting to him-they would call
out to him jokingly, perhaps to tell him that there was a telephone
call for him as he approached the plate to hit. But Missouri was
still enforcing segregation in 1952. Freeman and his fellow black
teammates, unable to stay at the local hotel with their white teammates,
had to spend the night in Hannibal at private homes. Then there
was an incident at Danville in which Freeman pulled a couple of
guys off of a teammate. The opposing players warned Freeman "We'll
get you." The Decatur Chief of Police sent a couple of officers
to accompany the team and protect Freeman on the next road game
at Danville.
Millard's 1
June "Bait for Bugs" column addressed the integration of organized
baseball in Decatur, writing, "No one can deny that there are several
colorful players on the local roster, players who may go far in
the profession if that is what they desire most. Then the Negro
population of the city is pleased that one or more of their boys
have been given a chance to compete with others on even terms for
a place on the team." Charlie Paula helped emphasize that point,
blasting his fourth home run on 1 June against Mount Vernon. Decatur
was red-hot, one game behind first-place Danville. When Decatur
beat Danville 5-4 on 6 June, the Commies moved into a tie for first
place. Decatur had a winner on its hands and the success on the
field helped convince skeptics to accept the social change introduced
by the Gonzalez Baseball System. The 8 June Decatur Sunday Herald
and Review featured a large montage of Freeman, Paula, and Naranjo
under the heading "First Negroes Ever to Play Ball with Commies."
Charlie Paula was leading the league with a blistering .434 batting
average. As the major league's All-Star break approached at the
beginning of July, Dick King attempted to get an exhibition game
for his red-hot Commies with the St. Louis Cardinals, but was unsuccessful.
Jim Freeman would have loved the opportunity.
The biggest
event in Decatur on the eve of the Fourth of July was the near-escape
of Okey, the Fairview Park bear who scaled the eleven-foot fence
that was supposed to contain him. But attention soon turned to the
big holiday doubleheader against Canton. Paid attendance for the
Fourth of July at Fans Field was 4,350. Pete Naranjo, in an amazing
feat, rarely seen any longer in baseball, pitched two complete games
for the Commies and Harvey Noland did the same for Canton. Decatur
lost 2-1 in the first game in which Charlie Paula was robbed of
an extra base hit on a sensational over-the-shoulder catch deep
into right center. The Commies won the second 3-0.
While the baseball
season proceeded into summer, the 1952 presidential race shaped
up as a choice between Republican Dwight Elsenhower and Democrat
Adlai Stevenson. The war against Communist aggression in Korea was
well underway and American casualties were mounting. The Decatur
paper regularly published mention of local boys serving in Korea.
"Retreat, Hell," a movie of the Marines' ordeal at Chosin Reservoir,
was playing at Decatur's Lincoln Theater. The double-threat of the
Soviet Union and Communist China threatened democracy and Senator
Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was at the peak of his power, witch-hunting
throughout the nation for Communist sympathizers. While the Republican
National Convention applauded McCarthy for his call for action in
the fight against "disloyalty and treason," the Democratic National
Convention debated a platform to include a Federal agency to investigate
racial discrimination. There were more immediate dangers. The dreaded
disease, polio, peaked in the United States that year with over
twenty thousand afflicted. There were over two thousand reported
cases in Illinois in 1952 and central Illinois was one of the hot
spots. The Decatur Commodores finished the first half of MOV league
play in third place with Danville in first place and Paris in second
place. The Commies went into a slide as second half play began.
Decatur led Paris 4-1 going into the ninth inning on 10 July. Paris
managed to tie the score at 4-4 and send the game into extra innings.
Pete Naranjo had ten strikeouts going into the thirteenth inning
and lost the game on an inside-the-park home run. Paris won again
the next night, beating the Commies 5-3, and then swept the series
with a 9-3 win. Decatur lost to Danville 8-5, despite Charlie Paula's
two triples and again the following night to establish a five game
losing streak.
The Commies
refused to let their spirits fall and returned to their winning
ways with gutsy play. Pete Naranjo won his tenth game in an 8-3
victory over Canton on 31 July Charlie Paula hit a line drive to
center and scored all the way around the bases. Decatur split a
doubleheader with Hannibal the next day with Jim Freeman stealing
home for the winning run in the first game. Decatur's Cuban infield
shone on defense. Veteran Julio Acosta anchored first base. Orlando
Moreno was at second. Gus Chenard, a seventeen-year old phenomenon
from Havana, played shortstop like a veteran and thrilled the fans
with his outstanding defensive play and his rifle arm. Juan Medina,
a twenty-year-old who Dick King claimed had "one of the finest throwing
arms in baseball," came up in early June and became a standout third
baseman. Twenty-three year old pitcher Guillermo "Gil" Grajeda joined
the Commies from Sweetwater in early August and became best friends
with Medina. Medina and the other Cuban players, who spoke only
broken English, relied on Mexican ballplayers like Grajeda to order
dinner for them.
By September,
Decatur remained in third place, eight-and-a-half games behind league-leading
Paris and six-and-a-half behind second place Danville. Pitcher Pete
Naranjo, playing right field for the injured Charlie Paula, led
the Commies to victory over Hannibal on 31 August with two doubles
and a triple in three times at bat and three runs-batted-in. The
Commies went into the final series of the season against Mattoon
needing only one win in three games to clinch third place. Pete
Naranjo opened for the Commies, allowing only a walk in three innings.
Gil Grajeda followed and Paul Begovac finished the game for Decatur.
The trio of hurlers did not allow a single Mattoon base runner past
second base. The Commies hit the Mattoon pitchers hard and came
away with a 9-0 victory and a third place finish. Millard noted
that even Lucille and her trick horse Daisy, who performed for the
fans, outshone the Mattoon club that night. That did not detract
from the Decatur team's first finish in the top half of the league
in a decade.
Mattoon won
the next game by a score of 5-2. The series and the season closed
with the Commies taking a 7-6 eleventh inning win. Decatur manager
Julian Acosta used six pitchers, only one who was a pitcher in the
team rotation. Even business manager "Tiny" Chapman got in the game.
The four hundred pound ex-football player caught the first inning
and singled in his lone at-bat. Millard referred to Chapman's hit
as a "Mountain Side" liner and claimed a record had been set for
the heaviest ever Decatur ballplayer. The real highlight of the
game was the presentation of the most popular player award. Mayor
Robert Willis gave catcher Andy Smith a Bulova Watch from Carson's
Jewelry Store on behalf of the collective vote of the hometown fans.
Third-place
Decatur began the Shaughnessy playoffs on Friday, 5 September at
Paris, facing the second-place finisher in a best-of-five series.
Only four players had been with the Commies since opening day, Charlie
Paula, Jim Freeman, Pete Naranjo, and Gus Chenard. The Decatur-Paris
winner was to playoff against the winner of the series between pennant
winner Danville and fourth-place Hannibal. Paris had won the previous
season's pennant and Danville the Shaughnessy playoffs and the two
were favored to square off again for the championship series.
Paris boasted
a solid lineup of hitters, foremost of whom was Clinton "Butch"
McCord. The Negro League veteran finished the 1952 season with a
.395 batting average and his second straight MOV hitting title.
McCord had the power to go with the average, blasting fifteen home
runs during the season. McCord's hitting prowess caused Millard
to write in his column, "Why is Clint McCord still playing in the
MOV after a great season in 1951 is a question many baseball fans
have been wondering." Nor could opponents pitch around McCord. Lakers
teammates Jim Zapp, also a Negro league veteran, finished the season
with a .330 average, twenty home runs and a record-setting 136 runs-batted-in.
The Paris Lakers
opened the playoff series with fifteen-game winner Jim Paolo. Paolo
held Decatur for eight innings, while the Lakers put on a hitting
exhibition. Jim Zapp hit his twenty-first home run of the season
and Gene Brand his thirteenth. The score was a lopsided 11-2 going
into the bottom of the ninth. The Commies gave it all they had in
the ninth inning with Phil Rizzo and Charley Paula blasting home
runs. But four runs were not enough and Paris came out on top, 11-6.
Decatur faced
Paris ace Neil Maxa in game two. Maxa boasted twenty-one wins on
the season. The Commies went with Paul Begovac on the mound. Decatur
leadoff hitter Phil Rizzo set the tone, starting the game with a
home run. Paris tied the game in the fourth when Butch McCord drove
in a run. Decatur took charge in the sixth. Jim Freeman smashed
a bases-loaded double to right center to score three runs and Rocky
Carlini followed with a two run homer over the left field fence.
Paris had big innings in the eighth and ninth, but it was not enough.
Begovac went all the way for Decatur, allowing just seven hits and
the Commies evened the playoffs at one-to-one.
The series shifted
to Decatur's Fans Field for game three on Sunday afternoon with
a crowd of 1,285 in attendance. Commie pitcher Pete Naranjo pitched
three good innings before being knocked out in the fourth as Butch
McCord continued to plague Decatur pitchers. Paris won 4-2 to put
the Commies in a do-or-die situation.
Review Sports
Editor Howard Millard noted that the entire season rested "on the
good right arm of little Gil Grajeda" for game four. Jim Paolo started
the game for Paris, but the Commies jumped on Paolo for two runs
in the second inning and added two more in the third at which point
he was relieved. The contest was heated and the umpire threw the
Laker catcher out of the game in the third inning and a Laker relief
pitcher in the fifth inning. The Commies had a commanding 10-1 lead
after five innings. Paris scored two runs in the eighth when McCord
singled and Chadwick drove a shot way over the left field fence.
The Lakers had another rally beginning in the ninth with a runner
in scoring position. Jim Freeman put an end to that with a spectacular
one-handed catch of a long drive by Quincy Smith, the Lakers leadoff
hitter. Grajeda fanned Laker Jim Turner to end the game and the
Commies tied the series at two games each. Grajeda pitched nine
full innings for the Commies, giving up only nine hits while fanning
eleven and walking only two. Butch McCord went three-for-four with
a triple and Doyle Chadwick hit a homer for the losers.
The Decatur
Review announced "Final Battle of Paris Set Here Tonight." Millard
wrote of the ejections of the two Paris players in the previous
game: "The fans liked it all very much and should be back tonight
not only for the game but any side shows that may be provided."
The game was hard fought from the start. Paris opened the game by
scoring and Decatur responded with four runs in its half of the
first inning. Decatur led Paris by a slim 7-6 margin after six innings.
Commie reliever Larry Higgins came in and allowed only one hit in
the last three innings to clinch the game and the series for the
ecstatic Decatur fans. A stunned Paris went home, their season over.
The local editorial
staff for the Decatur Herald deserved as much acclaim from the hometown
fans as the Decatur Commodores themselves. An 11 September editorial
boldly attacked Senator Joseph McCarthy's "irresponsible approach
... under the guise of patriotism." Meanwhile, the polio epidemic
continued to ravage Illinois and the nation. Casualties continued
to mount in the bloody fighting in Korea. Baseball remained a welcome
distraction that fall of 1952.
The championship
playoff was an improbable match-up between Decatur and Hannibal
after the Stags shocked Danville three-games-to-one in their series.
While perhaps not as formidable as Paris, Hannibal featured the
power hitting of big first baseman Sam Wiggins and a solid pitching
staff. Former Commie Nick Starasta provided solid catching for the
Stags. Hannibal, not expecting to be in the playoffs, had leased
out their ballpark to an outdoor show. Consequently, the entire
series was played in Decatur at Fans Field.
The opening
game of the championship playoff between Decatur and Hannibal was
a thriller. Neil Maxa, star pitcher for Paris, was allowed to sign
and play for Hannibal in the series. He held the Commies to only
six hits. Pete Naranjo was equally tough on the mound, giving up
only six singles and not allowing a single runner past second base.
He coolly worked himself out of several jams with base runners on
first and second. Naranjo also hit a double in the sixth inning
and scored the game's only run, as well as adding another double
in the ninth. Decatur won 1-0 and Naranjo earned his fifteenth victory
of the season. Millard wrote that Naranjo had the best control at
his age of any lefty who had ever pitched for the Commies. The praise
was particularly noteworthy, as Millard had seen thirty years of
baseball in Decatur, including Hall-of-Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell.
He suggested that he was not alone in considering Naranjo as the
best Decatur prospect for the major leagues.
Game two was
another thriller. Decatur led early on 1-0. Hubert Brooks kept Hannibal
scoreless for six innings until being knocked out in the seventh.
Hannibal led 4-1going into the bottom of the ninth inning. Hannibal
hurler Armando Diaz, a nineteen game winner with an earned run average
of less than a run per game, seemed in complete control. When Gus
Chenard grounded out for the first out, some fans began to head
for the parking lot. That was when Bob Leonhard turned the course
of the game, ripping a sharp single. Charley Paula also connected
for a single to advance Leonhard and some of the departing fans
in the aisles took a seat. Stag manager Nick Starasta ordered Diaz
to walk Julio Acosta to load the bases and set up a double play.
Andy Smith drove in Leonhard with a ground ball that forced out
Acosta at second base. Jim Freeman stepped up to the plate with
two outs and the Commodores behind by a score of 4-2. Millard recalled
that Freeman "could not have looked worse on one swing." The veteran
ballplayer dug in and waited for his pitch. He brought the crowd
to its feet with a double off the center field fence that drove
home two runs to tie the game and sent it to extra innings.
Hannibal was
unable to get anything going in its half of the tenth inning. The
Commies carried the emotional edge from the seemingly improbable
salvation in the big ninth inning. Decatur shortstop Phil Rizzo
hit a high hopper off the third baseman's glove that was scored
a hit. A desperation throw, recognizing Rizzo as the winning run,
went over the first baseman's head into right field. The speedy
Rizzo went all the way around the bases and scored to the delight
of the fans-only to be sent back to third base on a ground rule.
A screaming line drive by Bob Leonhard right at the third baseman
almost doubled off Rizzo but for his quickness. Hannibal again elected
to intentionally walk the veteran Acosta and pitch to Andy Smith
with two outs and the bases loaded. Smith coolly sent a drive into
center field to score Rizzo and win the game for Decatur. There
was pandemonium at Fans Field.
In the third
game, Cuban southpaw Amanico Ferro, who had dazzled Danville in
the preliminary playoffs, started for Hannibal. Ferro threw a two-hitter
against Decatur, setting thirteen Commies down swinging. More than
two thousand fans showed up at Fans Field in anticipation of a celebration
that was not to be.
Sunday, 14 September
was the final day of the season. Game four began at 2:30 in the
afternoon. It was agreed that if Hannibal won and a fifth game was
necessary that the game would be played that evening at 7:30. Republican
vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon was interviewed on "Meet
the Press" on WMAQ radio that morning. One can imagine that Decatur
was not focused for the moment on the ensuing election.
The fourth game
of the 1952 MOV Shaughnessy Playoffs pitted Decatur's Pete Naranjo
against Hannibal's Boots Budde. Howard Millard noted with concern
that the former Millikin University standout, "can be mighty mighty
tough out there on the rubber." The game was a masterful pitching
duel for nine full innings with neither side able to put a run across
the plate. Naranjo set down the Stags in order in the second, fourth,
fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth innings. Hannibal had only two hits
against Naranjo. Budde was also tough. Decatur threatened only in
the third inning when Jim Freeman led off with a walk and advanced
to second on a Carlini single. But Budde settled down and retired
the next three batters.
Jim Freeman
led off the top half of the tenth inning for Decatur. He ripped
a sharp single to center that got away. Freeman ended up at third
base with no outs and Decatur fans were on their feet. Decatur had
won only one playoff championship in its entire history, that being
in 1938. Rocky Carlini grounded to the third baseman, but was distracted
enough trying to hold Freeman, that he overthrew to first base.
The Decatur Review of the following day featured a photo of Freeman
scoring. Gus Chenard beat out a hit to shortstop with two outs,
scoring Carlini. Bob Leonhard singled to right to advance Chenard
and "Charlie Paula got the last hit of the 1952 season" to score
Chenard. Pete Naranjo set down the Stags one-two-three in their
half of the inning and Decatur won the championship series. Bob
Fallstrom of the Decatur Herald wrote, "the 1,468 fans whooped it
up in no small manner."
The Decatur
City Council met on Monday and passed a resolution to officially
designate Monday, 15 September 1952 as Decatur Commies Day. The
City Council, noting the importance of the season in more ways than
one, noted:
Whereas a timely
hit by a Decatur boy named Jim Freeman played no small part in this
splendid tenth inning triumph, therefore, be it resolved ... that
all citizens are charged particularly with offering congratulations
and felicitaciones to these men as occasion arises, and especially
to Decatur resident Jim Freeman.
The Decatur
Review included a feature that same day on a one hundred year old
man in East St. Louis. Henry Fuller, born a slave in South Carolina
in 1852, reminisced about seeing Mr. Lincoln as a young boy and
insisted that Lincoln was the first President of the United States
as he was the first to begin to bring the nation together. Nearly
one hundred years later, the United States was finally getting on
with the job. The 1952 Decatur Commies played their small role in
the larger game.
The Gonzalez
Baseball System continued to own and operate the Decatur Commodore
baseball franchise through the 1954 season. The Commodores opened
the 1953 season with eleven members from the 1952 squad, including
Jim Freeman, Andy Smith, Charlie Paula and Pete Naranjo. The Commies
won the MOV League pennant that year and repeated in 1954. Then
Gonzalez Baseball System let the Decatur franchise go. The Commodores
never again had the success, which they experienced under the Gonzalez
Baseball System, winning the league only once in the next twenty
years and often residing in the second division of the league. The
last Decatur Commodores team played in 1974.
Decatur's Fans
Field no longer exists. It broke Jim Freeman's heart to see the
classic stadium torn down. Arturo Gonzalez was quite disappointed
to hear of its demise. As John Clifford wrote in Mostly Minor Leaguers,
his history of the Decatur Commodores, "To this day the decision
to dismantle the grandstand prompts debate."
Jim Freeman
still resides with his wife in Decatur on Rogers Street, where he
has lived for many years. He is content with his life and speaks
with enjoyment of his days in organized baseball. He had three good
years with Decatur, but never made it to the major leagues. By the
time that the St. Louis Cardinals finally integrated in 1954, Freeman
was thirty years old, old enough to move on beyond the Commies and
find a new career beyond baseball. Men like Freeman, Butch McCord,
Quincy Smith, and others were talented African American baseball
players perhaps just a few years ahead of their time. Then again,
they accomplished so much as it was. Baseball historian Edward G.
White wrote: "by 1953, when it appeared that baseball was very much
the same enterprise it had been in 1923, or even, in some respects,
1903, it was in fact already on its way to becoming a radically
different enterprise."
Jim Freeman
kept in touch with his good friend Andy Smith over the years. He
traveled to attend the memorial service last year upon Smith's passing.
Andy Smith's remains are interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
Charlie Paula became Carlos Paula, the first ever African American
to play for the Washington Senators. His .299 batting average was
highest among American League rookies in 1955, but his stay in the
big leagues was brief. His fielding was less impressive than his
hitting, according to one long-time Senators fan. Further, the Senators
began accumulating power hitters. Paula bounced around afterwards
and passed away in 1985. Pete Naranjo, to the surprise of Howard
Millard and others, never made it into the major leagues. He played
ball somewhere in Mexico for a time and has not been heard from
for years. Dick King remains active as ever in baseball as the head
of the All-American Association of Baseball Clubs. Arturo Gonzalez
is alive and well at the age of ninety-four. He still goes to his
law office in Del Rio every day and recently celebrated his sixty-seventh
year as an attorney.
The integration
of America was a long slow process and involved many heroes, some
of them whose names are in danger of being forgotten. Each region
and each town within that region was another struggle within itself.
Baseball was very much a part of America's fabric of society in
those days, arguably more so than today. Men like Arturo Gonzalez
and Dick King helped to change Decatur, the Midwest, and America,
as did Jim Freeman, Charlie Paula, and Pete Naranjo.
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