The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 38

THE ENQUIRER CIO SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2007 BASEBALL SPECIAL REPORT Today, we take a look back at two important anniversaries his month marks in the history of Cincinnati baseball and society in general lV ,01 I t. 'i ilf. Vn ,111 -Inf. iYiii irt 1 r.iYt (ffff i.Wrtn.li ProvidedBaseball Hall of Fame The Cincinnati Tigers played in the Negro American League for only one season, in 1937, but many of their players went on to become some of the greatest performers in the league. ri IF wm In 1937, Cincinnati boasted one of its greatest baseball teams ever a short-lived, but mighty Negro League squad A vi By John Erardi jerardienquirer.com wenty-three years before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major-league baseball, Cincinnati native William DeHart Hubbard broke it in the Olympics, becoming the first black athlete to win a gold medal in an individual cabbie at Union Terminal for being black.

"Things were really segregated we couldn't stay in the downtown hotels or eat in the restaurants," McClain recalled. "The Cotton Club was the main place we had for entertainment. It was on the first floor of the Sterling Hotel, and Henry was (part-own-prt of that. ton. The musicians me-down uniforms.

The Tigers possibly had the best young player in Cincinnati in outfielder Robinson, who was in his early 20s when Hubbard bought him to town in 1935 from Grand Rapids, Mich. Robinson played mostly in the outfield with the Tigers, but he was also a capable shortstop. From 193845, Robinson was a starting outfielder in five of the eight Negro League All-Star DeHart Hubbard knew track sport (running long jump, Paris, 1924). Thirteen years after that, Hubbard would become the brains behind Cincinnati's first Negro League team of note, the Cincinnati Tigers. Although the Tigers were part of the Negro League for just one year, they left their mark on the city's rich baseball history.

could stay right there, or at the fjnd base-Manse (on the east side). I didn't that Henry (financially alded players who never got the recognition he deserved: he just played hard and played well, mostly for the Memphis Red Sox," Irvin writes. "He was their drawing card a crowd pleaser. He was a really good hitter and a good outfielder, and he could steal bases. "He wasn't flashy, and he didn't have the reputation that some of the better-known players like Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard and a lot of others had, so he was bypassed when it came to the Hall of Fame." Robinson never played in the major leagues, but he was at least around to see the color line broken.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Ferguson, who did so much to put the Tigers on the Negro Leagues map. In May 1946, Ferguson was chairman of the NAACP's membership committee. He had just returned to his office from a meeting at which plans were made for the national convention of the NAACP to come to Cincinnati that June, when he had a heart attack and died. He was 50 years old. One year later, Jackie Robinson came to town with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Games, including four straight, from 1938-41. He even made it back to the game in 1948, as the starting left fielder in his late 30s. He made eight All-Star teams in all. And he dominated in those games, hitting .476, second only to Josh Gibson's .483. Robinson's .810 slugging percentage was second only to Mule Sut-tles.

Robinson is featured in a new book titled "Few and Chosen: Defining Negro League Greatness," by Monte Irvin, who himself was a Negro Leagues star and Baseball Hall of Famer. "Neil Robinson is one of those unher backed the Tigers), but I'm not surprised. He was quite a figure in town, a well-liked guy, and he was my friend." Lost to history is why the Tigers disbanded after the 1937 season, but their legacy continued. Tigers players eventually led other Negro League teams to championships. Hubbard not only knew a lot about track and field, he obviously understood baseball.

And he probably could have helped the Reds, who finished in last place in the National League that season. Ironically, the Tigers wore the Reds' hand- The team, which featured several players who became Negro League legends, was arguably the best one in town. It was funded by a businessman, Henry Ferguson, who owned shares in various businesses and who published the black newspaper, "The Mirror." And it featured, among other stars, Neil Robinson, whom one author calls one of the best left fielders in Negro League history. The Tigers were the outgrowth of an amateur baseball team that Hubbard ran here, called Excelsior. The core of the Tigers team he founded in 1934 came from that amateur team.

By the time the Tigers entered the newly formed Negro American League on May 8, 1937, Hubbard had assembled a talented roster. "He (Ferguson) was quite a guy, one of our early black business pioneers," said William McClain, who came to Cincinnati in 1937 after he graduated from the law school at the University of Michigan, and was refused service by a white "What I saw, heard and felt that day was the sound of liberation" f-ShXU On May 14, "ir-W anm then fn 15. wftntti 15, went i i i I Lamar Kilgore, 75, is a retired attorney from to IU1 Crosley Field to see Jackie Robinson. f7p, I fulfil (Fk nV tf li 1 LatJ mm By John Erardi jerardienquirer.com Lamar Kilgore was a 15-year-old newsboy from Springfield when he first saw Jackie Robinson on May 14, 1947. It was Robinson's second game in Cincinnati, a day game after a night game.

That morning, Kilgore rode the train here with 300 other newsboys. They were seated behind the third-base dugout at Crosley Field. In the park that day was Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey, who had engineered this "Great Experiment" and hand-picked Robinson to carry it out. It was the Dodgers' first road trip of the season. Robinson had been treated decendy by Reds fans the night before, according to contemporary accounts.

If there was a lot of name-calling at the park that night, it wasn't reported in the newspapers. Jonathan Eig, author of a new book, "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season," reports in his else going on, something in the air which I did not understand, but which almost compelled me to stay. I dared to seat myself on the concrete steps separating the seating sections. "I had no more (done that) when Robinson (struck the ball) and rocketed toward first (base and was called safe) At first there was a split second of stunned silence followed by a surreal experience which I only witnessed but somehow shared on a most fundamental and visceral level. "The frenzy I was witnessing had little to do with baseball.

Every person in the upper tier was standing with arms stretched to the heavens, waving them back and forth in unison as if in worship It was the sound of unrestrained joy They were applauding with hysterical force while repeating a three-word mantra: "Jackie, Oh "Jackie, Oh "It was only after many years that I realized that what I saW, heard and felt that day was the sound of liberation or the hope of liberation. Only then did I understand that the black man in that batter's box represented hope more powerful than any words could impart" book that Robinson received a pleasant recep "When we (the newsboys) managed to stop gawking like hayseeds at the towering scale of the grandstand, we could see the faces, hear the voices and feel the vibes of the future Hall of Famers and the hometown crowd. We were all but startled by the noise level of the public address announcers, the organist and the roar of the fans (which were) particularly strong from one part of the vast ballpark "Sometime early in the game, my curiosity overcame my fear of the vast unknown Guided by the increasingly loud noise of the fans, I made my way to the upper tier. My timing was accidentally perfect as I entered the sunlit upper deck. "I found an atmosphere very different from the lower stands.

To begin with, every single seat was taken and all were 'colored Unlike the fans in the lower stands, many, particularly the ladies, were dressed in what appeared to be their finest All were standing and screaming. Although I was no stranger to hometown crowds packed into the echo chambers of small-town gyms, the noise here was louder than I had ever heard. Being the sole white face in the crowd was intimidating, in fact frightening. However, there was something tion in Cincinnati, and that the Dodger wrote well of it in a diary he was writing for the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper. I "Wendell Smith was phost-writincf for a (Robinson), but the word they used was that the fans in Cincinnati were Eig said.

Robinson also had kind words for Cincinnati fans at the end of the season, Eig said. Kilgore, now a 75-year-old retired attorney from Philadelphia, recalls vividly the experience he had during Robinson's second game here. He wrote about it in a recent letter to an Enquirer reporter. Here is a portion of it A. A -4 Li 7 Enquirer file photos Jackie Robinson was treated Well by Cincinnati fans early in his career, according to Robinson's own accounts that were published In the Pittsburgh Courier.

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