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Righting
wrongs Denied
opportunity, Negro Leaguers seek pension, respect
NORTH MIAMI, Fla. - Tears spill down Juan Armenteros' cheeks as he talks
about the years of racist insults, the sleepless nights on stiff bus seats
when hotels wouldn't let him through their doors and the lunch counters
that wouldn't give him a seat because of the color of his skin. But as he leans back in his rocking chair, Armenteros hears the sound of
a fastball rocketing off the sweet spot of his bat and a strike three
popping in his catcher's mitt. He sees himself laughing with his teammates
during the three years he spent with the Kansas City Monarchs and
remembers the wisdom of his manager, Buck O'Neil. Armenteros, suffering
from bladder cancer and shaky from chemotherapy, begins to weep. "This conversation makes me feel young," the 75-year-old
Cuban-born Armenteros says in the living room of his tidy North Miami
home. "Oh, I love this game." The only thing missing, Armenteros claims, was a shot at Major League
Baseball, an opportunity he believes he never got because he is black. He
joined the Monarchs in 1953, six years after Jackie Robinson broke
baseball's color line in 1947. But integration was a slow, labored process
that took more than a decade to complete, and many black players were left
out. "We were denied opportunity," Armenteros says, "and that
wasn't right." Fifty years later, the seeds planted by Negro Leaguers like Armenteros
have yielded huge dividends. Baseball has blossomed into an international
game, largely fueled by the charisma of black and Latin players, from
Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum has become one of Kansas City's top
attractions. Apparel companies sell millions of dollars worth of jerseys
and jackets inspired by the Negro Leagues, and manufacturers are
predicting merchandise honoring the Monarchs, the Black Yankees, the
Homestead Grays, and other long-defunct clubs will be the next big thing. But many of the Negro Leaguers who nurtured the game in the
African-American community during decades of baseball apartheid haven't
received a dime. They're all senior citizens now, and many are in failing
health, struggling to pay for medical care. "They were screwed badly by baseball and society," says former
baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, who apologized to Negro League players
at a Hall of Fame banquet and provided health benefits to some former
Negro League players in 1992. After years of being ignored, however, these players are finally being
heard. A former Negro League pitcher, a U.S. Senator and prominent civil
rights leaders have banded together to call attention to their plight, and
are optimistic that help is on the way. Bob "Peach-Head" Mitchell, Armenteros' former teammate on the
Monarchs, has lobbied Major League Baseball to extend eligibility in the
Negro League pension plan it established in 1997, and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)
has also asked commissioner Bud Selig to expand the plan. Nelson is considering calling congressional hearings on the plight of
Negro League players. "We need to convince Major League Baseball that
these players need a pension," Nelson says. "It's time to
correct an injustice." The NAACP approved a resolution supporting Mitchell's efforts at its
convention in July, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson says his Rainbow/PUSH
coalition has embraced the cause. Forty-one men currently receive the $10,000-a-year pension, but Mitchell
says the eligibility requirements - four years of service with the Negro
Leagues and/or the Major Leagues, with careers beginning prior to 1948 -
exclude 135 others. Most, like Armenteros and Mitchell, played in the Negro Leagues in the
1950s, as baseball was slowly and reluctantly opening its doors to blacks.
Others put in less than four years because of military service. Some
simply can't provide documents or other proof that would make them
eligible. "What Mitchell is doing is right," says Hall of Famer O'Neil,
the chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.
"The opportunities were limited for a lot of players even after
Jackie. Baseball should help these men - and a lot of them need
help." *
* * When
Armenteros joined the Monarchs in 1953, there were only 26 black players
on Major League teams, and eight of the 16 clubs - including the Yankees -
still had all-white rosters. The last team to sign an African-American,
the Boston Red Sox, didn't do so until 1959, 2˝ years after Robinson
retired. "We didn't get a chance to play in the majors because of
institutional racism," says Mitchell. MLB is reviewing Mitchell's request, according to executive vice
president Rob Manfred. But Manfred says baseball already does far more
than it really has to - it also provides health insurance for 34 Negro
League players and spouses, and many others have received help from the
Baseball Assistance Team, the MLB-funded charity for former players,
coaches and umpires who are down on their luck. "I understand Bob Mitchell wants us to help, and in a perfect
world, we'd do it," Manfred says. "But we really did an
extraordinary thing when we created this program. No other employer has
created a pension program for people who did not even work for them."
Mitchell wants baseball to pay up to $60,000 in retroactive pension pay
to dozens of Negro Leaguers with four years of service whose careers began
after 1947, and then $10,000 annually. He also has asked for a lump sum -
up to $25,000 - for players with three or fewer years in the Negro
Leagues. Mitchell estimates the total cost would be about $3 million to start the
program an d about $410,000 to maintain it, what he calls "chump
change" for an industry with $3.6 billion in revenue in 2001. But baseball officials are also worried about setting an expensive
precedent. A Michigan law firm claiming to represent 1,100 former MLB
players who did not qualify for pensions under old vesting rules says if
baseball can pony up for Negro Leaguers, it should retroactively award
benefits to their clients, too, or face a $1 billion lawsuit in October. "The overwhelming majority of our 1,100 retirees are white,"
attorneys James Acho and Kevin Cummings wrote in an Aug. 5 letter to
Manfred and Selig. "To just ignore their plight is tantamount to
reverse discrimination." To complicate matters further, Mitchell's pitch is vehemently opposed by
many Negro Leaguers who played before Robinson broke the color line. The
crusade to expand pension eligibility has added new fuel to a fierce
debate: Who has the right to call himself a Negro League player? Many of those who played before 1947 say the Negro Leagues ended after
the Negro National League folded in 1948. The Negro American League carried on until 1960, but Major League
Baseball and its farm systems had siphoned off the top talent by the early
'50s, say many of those players. The players who followed weren't denied
opportunity - they simply weren't good enough. "If you weren't in Major League Baseball by the '50s, you were
either too old or you didn't have the talent," says former
Philadelphia Stars catcher Stanley Glenn, now vice president of the Negro
Leagues Baseball Players Association. Monte Irvin, the Giants' Hall of Famer who played in the 1940s with the
Newark Eagles, suspects some of those pushing for broader eligibility are
trying to hitch a ride on a gravy train. "Every guy who played on a
sandlot after 1950 wants to be compensated," Irvin says. "You
have to have rules." Larry Lester, the co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and
the co-director of an exhaustive study on African-American baseball,
agrees that by the mid-'50s, Negro League ball had slipped, but he doubts
everybody who is pushing for a pension is looking for a handout. "The talent declined but it didn't happen overnight. I understand
Major League Baseball's position and I understand the need for a
cutoff," says Lester. "But they should look at each player
individually to see if they had a legitimate opportunity to play Major
League Baseball." Jim Robinson, an infielder with the Stars, Monarchs, and Indianapolis
Clowns during the 1950s who also played in the Cardinals farm system, says
the post-1947 Negro Leagues produced some of the greatest names in
history: Mays, Aaron and Ernie Banks all played for Negro League teams in
the '50s. "The talent couldn't have been too bad," says
Robinson, who learned to play ball in Central Park and still lives in New
York. "We get together with the older guys (those who played prior to
1948) at card shows and things like that, and some of them try to ignore
us," Robinson adds. "That's sad to me." Some big-league
clubs didn't want too many black players on their roster, says Al Burrows,
a pitcher with the Clowns and Black Yankees who also played in the
Washington Senators farm system. "They'd let Negro players play 9-10
years in the minors," Burrows says "They'd hold them back."
Others argue that Major League Baseball ruined the livelihoods of 1950s
Negro Leaguers and that it now owes them something. Black players and
owners did not oppose integration, of course, but when Jackie Robinson and
others began trickling into the big leagues, the fans abandoned the Negro
Leagues. The third-largest industry in black America - behind insurance
and Madame C.J. Walker's cosmetics empire - quickly crumbled. "It was an economic engine," says Union County College
professor Larry Hogan, a Negro Leagues expert, "that benefitted a
whole lot of people." *
* * Mitchell
says he's encouraged by recent discussions with baseball. Selig, he says,
always replies to his letters and promised to forward the matter to
baseball's Park Avenue staff. Mitchell finally heard from the New York office last year, when chief
financial officer Jonathan Mariner called him and agreed to pay the
players who do qualify for the pension monthly, instead of quarterly, a
big difference for seniors on fixed incomes. "I think Selig likes the concept. I think he wants to do
more," Mitchell says. "I think he'll turn around on this." For Juan Armenteros, who might not live long enough to reap the benefits
of his teammate's work, recognition from Major League Baseball would mean
everything. "I know I was pretty good," he says, wiping the
tears from his eyes. "I have a lot of feeling for this game. I
enjoyed playing it so much." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
