Curveball (25 page)

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What some called promotional gimmicks were not limited to the Negro League. Many believed Bill Veeck, owner of the St. Louis Browns in the major leagues, pushed baseball closer to entertainment than Syd Pollock did. Veeck also used clowns to pump up the crowd and once sent in dwarf Eddie Gaedel to pinch-hit. Another time, Veeck called on fans to help manage a Browns game by asking them to hold up placards from the grandstand calling for a “Bunt” or “Hit and Run.”

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Two of the pitchers who left the Clowns in 1953 were James and Leander Tugerson, who signed with the Hot Springs [Arkansas] Bathers, becoming the first black players to integrate the Cotton State League. League officials and other teams in the league said segregation had to be upheld and that black players could not play against white teams in the South. Mississippi Attorney General J. P. Coleman got into the debate and ruled that if the Tugersons pitched against white teams in his state, he was sure “such proposed exhibitions would violate the public policy of Mississippi.” The Tugerson brothers, Air Force veterans who accounted for over twenty wins with the Clowns in 1952, became the subjects of editorials in black newspapers across the country. “[Georgy] Malenkov, Joe Stalin, and Adolph Hitler could play ball in Mississippi if they were good enough to make a team,” the
Chicago Defender
wrote in an April 11, 1953, editorial. “But a black boy who fought to keep Missis-sippians safe from the Nazi hordes is denied this privilege.”

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According to Pollock’s son, Syd increased Toni Stone’s salary during the 1953 season to $350 a month and eventually $400 a month, making her the highest paid Indianapolis Clowns player (Alan Pollock with James A. Riley, editor,
Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams
, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006, 243).

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Toni told her family that in her early days in the Bay Area, she played pickup games with the DiMaggio brothers. In 1992, Stone repeated the story to
Oakland Tribune
columnist Miki Turner. Stone told Turner that she shagged balls in Golden Gate Park and worked out with Vincent DiMaggio. I have been unable to confirm or deny Stone’s story (Maria Bartlow-Reed interview with the author, March 10, 2008; Toni Stone interview with Miki Turner. Turner’s interview notes shared with author July 10, 2009).

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Pollock was forcibly removed from the Clowns bus in the early 1930s when Alabama troopers insisted he obey state segregation laws (Alan Pollock with James A. Riley, editor,
Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams
, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006, 88).

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Since the Negro League season did not officially begin until May 15, 1953, preseason games with other league clubs (the Monarchs, the Memphis Red Sox, and the Birmingham Black Barons) were recorded as exhibition games.

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The Clowns’ team comedians were King Tut (Richard King), Spec Bebop (Ralph Bell), and later Ed Hamman. They performed before the game and in between innings and did not play baseball on the team. Tut was a vocal critic and cheerleader for the Clowns. At times he berated them as the “sorriest bunch I ever saw” and later praised them as “the best baseball club ever.” King Tut was similarly opinionated about Toni Stone, often telling her, “Shit, woman. You can’t play no ball. You ought to be home washing dishes” (Alan Pollock with James A. Riley, editor,
Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams
, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006, 114, 244–245).

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Forecasters were right. On June 9 while in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the Clowns received word of another storm following them. The day before, 115 people had been killed in Flint, Michigan. As tornadoes moved across the Great Lakes and into New England, one touched down in Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 9, causing ninety-four deaths and nearly 1,300 injuries. The debris field from the storm was so vast that people fifty miles away reported seeing first oak leaves, then rags and shingles, and finally insulation and clapboard planks rain down. Pieces of a frozen mattress were found in Boston Harbor nearly an hour away from Worcester. The year 1953 proved to be the worst season for tornado deaths in U.S. history.

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Statistics released by the Baltimore
Afro-American
for July 11, 1953, also included the following information for Neil, Banks, and Stone. Neil achieved his average based on playing in twenty-six games with ninety-three at bats. Banks appeared in twenty-one games and had seventy-three at bats. Stone appeared in twenty-five games with thirty-six at bats. See also Marilyn Cohen,
No Girls in the Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women from Baseball.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2009, 85.