![]() ![]() Some epithets were bestowed by the press, like when Damon Runyon dubbed Ted Radcliffe “Double Duty” for his stellar play as pitcher and catcher. ![]() If giving words new meaning gave the guys a sense of belonging, being baptized with a nickname showed you had really arrived. Beware of nasty types or anyone slick enough to have oil on his bottom both were as unwelcome as an undertaker at a marriage breakfast. Young pitchers who were sacrificed in games that were beyond reach or did not matter were, for reasons no one could explain, called sockamayocks. Barnstorming with a Black team meant scuffling, because the battle was constant. So walking the bases drunk became another way of saying loading them up with runners. It was a shorthand for making their world make sense. For the baseball men, their language was about more than secrecy. It let players talk about fans, foes and anything else without worrying about being overheard, the way immigrant parents used Yiddish, Polish or Italian to keep things from their English-speaking children. Most outsiders never knew because players never used it with them, and even if they overheard they would not have understood. It was baseball so brilliant it could be played without the ball.Īnother way Negro players coped with their wayfaring life in racist surroundings was to dream up their own lexicon – born from necessity, nurtured by humor. The hitter swung so hard, fielders reacted so convincingly, and the runner tore down the line so fast that fans could hardly tell that it was pantomime. Best of all was a riff called Shadow Ball, perfected by a traveling team Satchel later played for: The Indianapolis Clowns. Hurlers like the incomparable Leroy “Satchel” Paige – another player destined for Cooperstown – took his warm-up throws sitting down, with his catcher stationed behind the plate in a rocking chair. Sluggers like future Hall of Famer Josh Gibson learned to hit one-handed or on their knees. The other half they barnstormed the country and the continent, spending so much time dueling with second-rate white teams and dodging the minefields of Jim Crow that they had to laugh to keep from sobbing. Half their life was spent playing in the backwaters of the racially-segregated baseball universe that prevailed in America during the first half of the 20th Century, where Black players wore home-stitched uniforms, played on fields with makeshift fences, and earned enough for room and board but not to support their wife and kids back home. Negro Leaguers were pros at using charm and humor to deflect tension on and off the diamond.
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