In the Shadow of Greatness. (Triple Play)

I guess it began with a baseball cap. I had been working as an associate producer at ESPN for about two years when, to my pleasant surprise, my superiors decided to throw me a bone, as it were, and send me out to work an occasional game on the road. Besides the regional trips to Shea Stadium and Fenway Park, I was flown to exotic locales like Milwaukee and Cleveland maybe once a month or so, and being an amateur baseball memorabilia collector, I decided I would add a cap to my collection at every park I worked. The cap I bought did not have to be of local derivation, however. In Cleveland, for instance, I visited the Indians' Store and picked out a Japanese League hat--a little black number with a Hanshin Tigers logo. (I later discovered that the colors were wrong! The Hanshin Tigers wear white hats with blue stripes.) At Fenway one afternoon, I wandered into the Landsdowne Shop and bought a Chicago White Sox cap circa 1919--reminiscent of the one worn in Eight Men Out. And so I found myself one summer day ducking in and out of the numerous gift shops on Jerome Avenue, just outside of Yankee Stadium. Having been born and bred just blocks from The Big House, I knew most of these stores like the back of my glove and figured it would take something really special to catch my eye here. I had narrowed my decision down to a new Oakland road hat with the white A's on the front (a cap they eventually wore for just one season) or the just reintroduced Cincinnati candy stripe home cap, when a whole shelf of hats suddenly caught my eye. They were definitely a line of caps that I did not recognize. There was a blue cap with a white C and a black one with three little black Bs and a nice white one with a black bill and a black interlocking CA that really caught my eye. It wasn't until I saw a hat with a big black X on it, like the one Spike Lee used to wear, that I realized I was gazing at a display of hats from the old Negro Leagues. Now, I have been a baseball fan since I was seven years old; have played stickball, punchball, or softball every year since then; and have considered myself a fledgling baseball historian since I was old enough to read. It was my detailed attention to the game, I felt, that got me my job at ESPN in the first place, but I had to admit that I had no knowledge of--or, more importantly, no interest in--the history of black baseball. As a matter of fact, up to that point, I had often argued with colleagues that it was foolish to even allow Negro Leagues players into the Hall of Fame! Their bloated statistics seemed unreliable, and the competition they faced was unknown at best, indistinguished at worst. I remember shaking my head and clucking my tongue in despair when it was announced that the likes of Ray Dandridge or Cool Papa Bell were inducted into the hallowed foyers of Cooperstown. I am not prejudiced by any means--I guess I was simply guilty of being a baseball elitist. But here I was, staring at this strikingly attractive cap, memorializing the Chicago American Giants, and considering adding it to my growing collection. I was reaching into my back pocket for the twenty-three bucks when the baseball purist inside me stopped in midmotion and I felt a sudden pang of guilt. Realizing, of course, that I knew nothing of this league or its members, I settled on the Oakland cap instead and promised myself that I would take the time to learn a little more about the legendary Negro Leagues before I felt I had earned the right to walk around wearing one of their caps. Only then could I return to Jerome Avenue armed with enough knowledge to confidently purchase the white Chicago American Giants cap. Within a week I was hooked. I had purchased paperback copies of as many Negro Leagues narratives as I could and found them incredibly rich in history, the stories and anecdotes as captivating as any I had ever read about Ruth, Cobb, or Stengel. …

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