The Making of an Artist (and a painting)

While cleaning out my Mom's house after she passed away last summer, I came across a painting I did way, way back in 1985. It was hidden behind a bookcase that was placed in front of it sometime after I left home to go to college. Looking at it again after all these years, I had pause to remember why I became an artist in the first place. So many years have passed since the days I spent locked in my room experimenting with paints and chalks, discovering perspective and learning how to make something look real. We didn't have money growing up, and through necessity I drove myself to master drawing and painting in order to have the nice things I wanted to put on my walls, but could not afford. Later when other kids found I could draw, they would "hire" me to turn out posters and paintings for them as well. Painted jean jackets were popular back then and I made a nice nest egg for college painting Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath on the back of those worn-in jackets. Diner parking lots frequented by burn-outs became my very own art show every time a greasy-haired punk turned around.

This painting of Satchel Paige was done at a special time for me because I was in the process of discovering the Negro Leagues for myself. There weren't very many books back then, no Internet and newspapers were on microfilm or in big bound books in forgotten sections of the library. I guess that was what was so much fun - the discovery part. At 14, 15 or 16 years old, I felt like a dumpy version of Indiana Jones, compiling rosters for the Newark Eagles or reading a contemporary account of a Josh Gibson home run. I felt like I was finding something important that needed to be uncovered again. Box scores and Xerox copies of newspaper articles were nice, but I wanted my own visuals to represent what I loved studying. Not able to find any good pictures of the blackball greats I was learning about, I took a fresh canvas and created my own. I can remember doing this very painting - my easel was set up in a corner of my bedroom and I was playing The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy LP on my old record player. I was experimenting with a technique called "dry brush" which is just what it sounds like - you put a very small amount of paint on your brush and gently move across the canvas, increasing the pressure to make dark sections and ease back to make it lighter. Up close, the painting becomes a mass of abstract brush strokes, but when you pull back and take it all it, it comes together an almost photo-realistic photograph. I wanted to give the painting a grainy, newspaper feeling to it, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. So happy, it hung on the wall all through my high school days and continued to hang there long after my old room was turned into the storage space that all kid's rooms eventually become after they leave home.

Necessity is an odd way of finding a talent, but that's really how I became an artist. The same could be said for this blog as well. Being a designer and illustrator I decided to create my own baseball cards - featuring all the players I wanted to see and written the way I wanted to read about them. In short, to make the set I always wanted when I was a kid. And there you have it: The Infinite Baseball Card Set. It was kind of neat to look at this painting and think that I'm still doing the same thing I did all those years ago - make my own when I could not find or afford what I wanted.

So anyway, I no longer need the painting. Just seeing it again after 25 years was good enough and I have other things on my walls now. I rarely keep any of my old art. I'm always afraid that I'll dwell in the past if I surround myself with older work and usually toss whatever I complete into one of the 4 steamer trunks that are packed with decades of old work. Problem is, a painting won't fit in one of those and I thought I would give someone else the chance to enjoy ol' Satch. I'm putting him up on ebay here. I figure is he sells I'll buy some new paints, brushes and canvas and start painting again. I hope he goes to a good home and whoever gets it knows that for this little-known artist and amateur baseball historian, it was a very important piece of work!

152. Jimmy Horio: The Japanese Ty Cobb

While learning about the Negro Leagues years ago, I became interested in the various teams they competed against when not playing against other black teams. Back before the Second World War there was a whole parallel universe of baseball operating just out of bounds of the recognized leagues affiliated with major league baseball. Researchers Scott Simkus and Gary Ashwill seem to have coined the perfect phrase for these teams and the games they played: "Outsider Baseball". From flickering microfilm and disintegrating yellowing newspapers I learned about the bearded House Of David religious colony from Michigan which sent out as many as 3 different traveling teams a season to play all over the country. I heard about the Nebraska Indians, made up of, you guessed it, Native Americans. I read about barnstorming teams made up of major league stars angling to make a buck. All-Girl teams. Teams of washed up players sponsored by a shoe company. Prison teams. The F.B.I. had a team which J. Edgar Hoover never failed to come out and support. And I also came across the Japanese All-Stars which toured North America in 1935.

Among the Japanese players was a lone American, Jimmy Horio. I was fascinated by what little I could find out about him and when I started this site Horio was among the first players I featured. It was a much too short overview of a career which spanned two continents and 2 decades and heavily influenced the way the game was played in Japan. Over the years I have received many emails asking about him and the original story is consistently one of the most-read pages on my site. Information about Jimmy is hard to find in English, but over the years I have been digging up every article I could find about the 1935 Tokyo Giants and their players. Rob Fitt's beautifully written book "Banzai Babe Ruth", about the 1934 Tour of Japan, features Horio as a minor character and offers some good insight into his time with the Dai Nippon team. I also managed to have some key articles translated from the Japanese by a colleague of my fiancé which helped me gain much insight on how Horio was treated in the Japanese Baseball League. Now I believe I can say this is the most comprehensive article about one of the most interesting and little-known players in "Outsider Baseball" history.


At the same time immigrants from Europe began flooding into the Eastern United States, on the other side of the world there began a similar exodus as thousands of Japanese emigrated to Hawaii and California. At the turn of the 19th century, the Horio family from Hiroshima were one of the many hopefuls to sign a contract to become indentured servants to one of the vast Hawaiian sugar plantations in exchange for free steamship tickets and the chance at a better future.

If at first it seemed too good to be true, the Horio's found out they were right. Passage to Hawaii was spent in the rancid steerage section of the ship packed in with hundreds of other immigrants. When the horrific crossing was over the new immigrants found that life on a Hawaiian plantation was anything but easy. Guards armed with whips made sure the back-breaking field work was done swiftly while the whole Horio family and others like them labored from dawn to dusk under the brutal tropical sun. The Horio's eventually had 8 children of which Jimmy was the seventh and the fifth one born in Hawaii. By the time he was six the family decided to head back to Japan.

Upon returning to Hiroshima, Jimmy Horio entered school and played baseball. However, times were still tough in Japan so Mr. Horio packed up the whole family again and sailed back to Maui in 1919. Continuing his ball playing, Jimmy grew up to be quite tall for the time, 5'-11" and this helped propel him to become a star athlete in his high school, playing basketball and track in addition to baseball. Outside of school Horio made local headlines with his advanced play in the semi-pro Maui plantation league. 

Once again Horio's father decided to head back to Hiroshima, but this time Jimmy stayed behind. He was an American and he never was able to speak Japanese without a halting, heavy accent. He dropped out of high school and dedicated himself to fulfilling his dream - becoming the first Japanese-American to play in the major leagues. Since Hawaii didn't have anything more advanced than sandlot and factory league teams, and the chance of being spotted by a major league scout was slim-to-none, Jimmy decided to try his luck in Southern California.

Los Angeles had a thriving Japanese community and like every other ethnic enclave in the country, the Japanese had their own baseball teams. Horio got a job as a truck driver and played a season with a lower-tier team sponsored by the Grand Central Market. When the Grand Centrals met the L.A. Nippons, California's best Japanese team, for the 1930 Southern California Japanese League title, the Nippons invited Horio to join them. One of his new teammates was Yoshio Takahashi, a fellow Hawaiian and in a few years the two would be among the pioneers of the pre-war Japanese Baseball League. The Nippons visited Japan in 1931, a tour that helped spread the popularity of the game in that country. Since Jimmy was bigger than a typical Japanese male at the time, he particularly impressed local fans with his hitting and outfield play. He had become a switch hitter by now, also a rarity in Japan as almost every player hit right-handed. Since he spoke Japanese, something many of the second-generation players on the L.A. Nippons did not, Horio cultivated friendships with many of the opposing players, a connection he would put to use later on in his career.

When the Nippons returned to Los Angeles and no professional scout came to offer a contract, Horio went looking for them. In the spring of 1934 he earned himself a place on the Sioux Falls Canaries of the Nebraska State League. The Canaries were an unaffiliated Class D club and none of his teammates would make it to the bigs, but at least he had his foot in the door.  His spirited play earned him the nickname "The Yellow Peril" and though his average was only a meager .250, he ran the base paths with abandon and his play in the outfield was stellar. In August a news wire service picked up on Horio and ran a syndicated story under the headline "Nippon Slugger Really Hits' Em" along with his picture. Another story lauded him as one of the attractions of the league and claimed that he "takes to professional baseball like a hobo to a hand out." Kind of a clumsy analogy but at least the establishment was taking notice of the Hawaiian. A Cardinals scout came to Sioux Falls to take a better look at Horio, but by the end of the 1934 season nothing ever came of it and he returned to Los Angeles.

Although he told reporters in Nebraska he was 21, Jimmy was now 27, married, and facing a rapidly closing window of opportunity to get to the majors. It was while contemplating his future in the fall of 1934 that he read about the major league tour of Japan that winter and the Japanese national team that was being formed to oppose them. With stars like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx, there was bound to be lots of opportunity to show what he could do - if only he could get a place on the Japanese team. Horio reasoned that the Japanese would surely value his American expertise and they'd have to let him join the team - they just didn't know that yet. Like his Father before him, Jimmy packed up his wife, boarded a ship and sailed off into an unknown future.

When Horio reached Japan he wrote to the new Japanese team's manager, Daisuke Miyake, and got himself a tryout. Showing the fast, aggressive way of play he learned as an American he easily earned himself a place on the Dai Nippon (meaning "All-Japan") club. He was disappointed to learn there was no salary paid to any of the ballplayers but he must have figured the chance to showcase his talents against the best big league players in the world was worth the risk. Miyake also told Horio that after the exhibition games against the Americans there would be a new professional Japanese league and when it began the Yomiuri Shinbum newspaper, who was sponsoring the Dai Nippon team, would pay him retroactively.

Before the Americans arrived Horio helped train the Japanese players. The press, both American and Japanese, had covered the lead-up to the tour with considerable enthusiasm and Horio knew that the opportunity to play against a team like the American All-Stars was a once in a lifetime chance. At first he performed well. His daring base running made him stand out from the other Japanese players and he fielded impressively as well. However as the tour wore on Horio was hampered by sickness and became more and more ineffective. His fielding suffered and his hitting, which was never his strong suit, fell off drastically. After 15 games he batted a disappointing .195. His one highlight was a dramatic 3-run homer hit off Washington Senators ace Earl Whitehill. Horio told a Japanese newspaper that while he was disappointed with his performance, a few of the big leaguers were kind to him and offered constructive advice to improve. But when the Americans sailed away in the beginning of December, the elusive contract he was hoping for from a big league team failed to materialize. Still without a paying job, Horio signed on with the Dai Nippon team for their tour of North America which was departing in February. At least he would get free passage back to America.

The team was called "The Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu" (Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club), but by the time they played their first game in America they'd been renamed the "Tokyo Giants" by Lefty O'Doul, who helped arrange the team's schedule. 

The Giants' toured extensively, playing all-levels of ball clubs from small town factory teams to AAA level minor league teams. Gauging their success and talent is not an easy thing to do as they did extremely well against amateur teams and decent against minor league opposition, however the games against minor league teams were during spring training and many of the teams did not field their best players. None-the-less, the tour was very successful and huge crowds packed the ballpark when the Japanese came to town. American audiences were fascinated by their cultural differences such as tipping their caps and bowing deeply to the umpire when coming to bat or being thrown out steeling. Particularly noted during the tour was Jimmy Horio's excellent fielding and newspaper accounts are filled with mentions of the Japanese-American's exploits in the center field. He was also promoted as their power hitter and in the Giants' batting lineup he was often featured in the cleanup slot. His fluency in Japanese and English made it much easier for the tour to navigate it's way through the back roads of North America. It is reported that the Tokyo Giants' record for the 1935 tour stood at 74 wins and 34 losses. More importantly to Jimmy Horio was that the acclaim he received on the tour led to that elusive professional contract.

After the Japanese players went home in July, Horio happily stayed in the United States as he'd signed a contract with the Sacramento Senators of the Pacific Coast League. The opportunity to play in the PCL might have been initiated by a helpful recommendation from "Lefty" O'Doul who was now playing-manager of the San Francisco Seals. Again, news wire services picked up Horio's story and made him a minor news item across the country as he began playing in the highest rung of minor league baseball. The Senators had a working agreement with the Brooklyn Dodgers and more than half of his teammates would go on to play in the majors. With Brooklyn's lousy record leaving them perpetually mired in the second-division along with bleak prospects, it was not far-fetched to assume Jimmy Horio might actually become the first Asian-American in the major leagues. He got into 10 games and was batting .260 when tragedy struck.

Horio's wife Yoshiko had been in a car accident earlier that spring from which she seemingly recovered. However in late July while Jimmy was playing for Sacramento she was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital. With Jimmy at her side she passed away on August 2nd. Two weeks later Horio returned to the Senators, but understandably distracted, he wasn't very effective.

Throughout the Pacific Coast League local Japanese fans turned out to stage "Jimmy Horio Days" when Sacramento came to town. On August 25th San Francisco held their tribute to the only Japanese-American in professional ball. Japanese Boy Scouts marched on the field and women who dressed in traditional kimonos were admitted free. When Sacramento traveled to Los Angeles to play the Angels on September 1st, the local Japanese community delegation presented Horio with a bouquet of flowers when he came to bat in the first inning. With 9 out of 10 fans in the stands of Japanese decent that day, Jimmy reciprocated by smashing a single and scoring two runs as the Senators beat the Angels.

The "Jimmy Horio Day" in L.A. was the high watermark of his season. In the 10 games he played in after returning from his wife's death in he went 5 for 21 and his average stood at the .250 mark when the season ended.

Now a 30 year-old widower with a mediocre season of minor league ball behind him, Horio was at a cross-road. He was seething about not being paid his retro-active money by the Yomiuri Shimbun when a Japanese League failed to emerge in 1935 and he desperately cast around for a new team to play for. Finally, the Seattle Indians invited him to their spring training camp in Santa Monica. Among the exhibition games Seattle had lined up was one against the 1936 edition of the Tokyo Giants. The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper decided to once again send a team to North America, but this time it wasn't a mere exhibition tour - this was spring training for the inaugural Nippon Professional Baseball League season.

Still sore about his money, Horio begged Seattle manager Dutch Reuther to play him against his former team. Boiling over with anger, the Giants former center fielder hit a two-run single that led the way to a 9-0 route of the Japanese. Despite his timely hitting against his old team the Indians declined to give him a contract when they broke camp and started the season.

Apparently Jimmy patched things up with the Giants, because a month after the game in Santa Monica, Horio was back with the team and was given much ink in a feature article in the Spokane Daily Chronicle. After the Giants' spring training Jimmy returned to Japan and officially joined the Nippon Professional Baseball League. Although the Giants declined to sign him, Horio joined the Hankyu Ball Club which was managed by Daisuke Miyake, the man who led the Dia Nippon and Tokyo Giants. Again, although his averages were low, .233 for the first half of the split season and .217 for the second, his influence on the game in Japan well out-weighed his offensive output. The press dubbed him "The Ty Cobb of Japan." 

Though recognized at the time as being a great influence in how the Japanese played the game, like most innovators, he was far from popular. Due to his rudimentary Japanese, Horio had trouble fitting in with his teammates who almost to a man had attended the best universities in Japan. Horio had dropped out of high school and had lived a far from ideal life as had most of his teammates. On the field he was stoic and unemotional. His face was described as fearless with a perpetually stubbly chin.  Horio's great height, combined with strength said to be superhuman, made him the most imposing player in the islands. Unlike the other players in the league, Horio swung-away like American sluggers, highly unorthodox and offensive to the "hit and run" John McGraw-like way the Japanese played the game. While his average may not have showed it, Horio was famous (or infamous) for the furious speed of his line-drives which no other player on the island could match. While most players owned only a single bat, Horio travelled with several dozen which the conservative Japanese must have viewed as frivolous. 

Horio steadily increased his batting average, batting over or close to .300 for the 1937-41 seasons. He further made himself unpopular among Japanese fans when he switched from Hankyu to the Hanshin Tigers, Hankyu's hated rival. He starred for the Tigers until 1941 when he and Tadashi Kameda, another American player in Japan, left the island due to the deteriorating political situation between the two countries.

Jimmy continued to play semi-pro ball in Hawaii during the war, playing until he was 39 years-old. Back in Hiroshima his father passed away in 1943 and he lost a brother when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city in August of 1945. Jimmy Horio died from bone cancer in 1949 and although he never reached his goal of becoming the first Japanese-American in the majors, his influence on the game in Japan is still felt, forever known as "The Ty Cobb of Japan".

Memorial Day

By the morning of March 4th, 1945, the boys of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division had become hardened veterans. Most had just arrived in Europe barely 3 months before and now those same freshly minted young soldiers had checked the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, chased their asses back across the Rhine and were now slugging their way into the Third Reich itself. The war was close to being over with, the Allies gaining more momentum everyday and the enemy knew it. If the Germans were only fighting the western powers they most likely would have caved in already. However, on the other side of Germany the Soviets were smashing towards Berlin and every day they held out meant more Germans could make their way west to be captured or at least get to an area occupied by the western Allies. No one wanted to be around when the Russians came so the war ground on.

The boys of G Company probably didn’t care much about the reason why the Germans still fought them tooth and nail. Each man had had his life interrupted and shipped half way around the globe to stop an evil that was threatening to swallow the whole world. The boys of G Company had left pretty young wives, anxious mothers, college classrooms or good jobs and took up a Garand Rifle to do their part. Complaining about what they were missing out on was pointless - the fella next to you had the same story. Maybe even better than yours. Nah, complaining wouldn’t do any good. Best thing was to keep marching forward and get this over with. As they wearily crossed the makeshift bridge built over the Kyll River they just cared about the fight they had ahead of them that afternoon and the one after that and the one after that until these Krauts threw in the towel.

If any of the boys in G Company were still sleepy, chances are the mortar fire that greeted them as the crossed the bridge woke them up. The enemy they’d been chasing since Luxembourg had dug in around the town of Erdorf. As the German lines collapsed and contracted the enemy became more dense, more desperate. Besides regular infantry, G Company was marching right into redeployed artillery and Panzer units. As they pushed forward the resistance became stiffer and more determined. Each gain was met with vicious counter-attacks and artillery barrages.

G Company was deployed to sweep the fields around the village of Erdorf. This was pleasant farm land of rolling little green hills and blooming trees. To the boys of G Company, the area they were clearing of enemy troops looked a lot like familiar places in the northeast and Midwest United States. Perhaps more than a few were suddenly lost in thoughts of an afternoon spent in surroundings much like this. The boys of G Company thought back to little places they left behind called Sussex County, Washington Courthouse, Mechanicsburg or Crescent Springs.

To the officers of G Company, this place was just called Hill 378.

The company spread out and took a low hill like they had countless other times in the last three months. All very textbook. Regrouping and moving forward, they entered a wooded area where entrenched German troops and the Panzer tanks were waiting. This obstacle, too, was eventually beaten aside by G Company and just like every other hill and wood and field G Company had cleared in the past three months, they left behind some of their own. As the troops emerged on the other side of the wood and continued eastward into Germany, one of the 32 boys they left behind that afternoon was 22 year-old Private First Class Bill Niemeyer of Crescent Springs, Kentucky. The life he had put on hold in order to beat back the evil that darkened the world consisted of his young wife Marie, infant daughters Deanna Gail and Mary Johanna and a promising pitching career in the Chicago Cubs organization.

Even though Bill Niemeyer never made it up to the Cubs, I wanted to depict Bill in a Chicago uniform. Was he good enough to have eventually made it to Wrigley Field? I don’t know. We will never know. The same as we will never know what any of the other boys in G Company who died that afternoon in Germany would have accomplished in their lives. The one thing I do know is that is their sacrifices, all veteran’s sacrifices, made it possible for me to have a good life in the greatest country in the world. As I sit here writing this, I can see and hear my neighbors enjoying this beautiful Memorial Day weekend. The shouts of the boys next door, the couple across the street putting a pair of mountain bikes in their SUV and the girl on the corner attempting to train her new puppy on her green front lawn. In a few hours I will be going over to see my fiancé who I love very much, and share a nice, lazy summer evening. All that I see and hear right at this very moment was possible because of men and women like Bill Niemeyer, a 22 year-old promising ballplayer who once lived right down the street from where I sit right now, the place he left to go off to war and never saw again.

Many thanks to Gary Bedingfield who is the foremost authority on baseball and World war II. While looking around for a ballplayer to feature this Memorial Day I of course consulted his amazing website www.baseballinwartime.com. Consulting a page he constructed showing the many professional ballplayers who died fighting for our country, Bill Niemeyer jumped off the screen. He was born and raised right where I was sitting. I might even pass his relatives at the market or live next door. The fact that he came from this place made his sacrife a bit more personal for me, especially as I sat there with a nice fresh cup of coffee by an open window enjoying the beautiful Kentucky scenery he never saw again. The place of his death was even more interesting as that part of Germany looks very similar to what he had grown up in. I’m glad I found Bill’s name on that website and I encourage every other baseball fan to take a look at Gary Bedingfield’s monumental work. His site features in-depth articles about hundreds (actually it might even be thousands of entries by now!) of players who found themselves in the service during the war. Gary is also an author of two indispensable books on the subject, "Baseball's Dead of World War II: A Roster Of Professional Players Who Died" and one of my personal favorites, "Baseball In World War II Europe (part of the Images of Sports series)."

151. Al Schacht: Fun & Games

When I first started this blog a little over 3 years ago, I started receiving many requests for players to be profiled on here and given The Infinite Baseball Card Set "treatment." Out of all the emails I began to notice that it was not one particular player that was asked for the most, but rather a whole ethnic group: Jewish ballplayers. I did cards and stories on here of Sandy Koufax and Moe Berg, but I began slowly researching different players of the Jewish faith, trying to find characters who would fit in with the kind of stories I like to write - guys with interesting stories who may not be known to the casual fan of baseball history. Al Schacht was one of those guys, and in fact he appears on page 7 of the Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball." While many baseball fans may know of him from the comedy routines he did with Nick Altrock, Al Schacht was actually a real pro ballplayer and had a nice career before he started his second career as a comedian. His story of doing everything possible to attain his goal of playing in the major leagues was both funny and inspiring to me, as I hope it is to you...

Al Schacht was a product of the teaming slums of the Lower East Side. The son of Russian immigrants, Al defied his parents wishes by embracing the American pastime of baseball. His mother, daughter of the village Rabbi back in Russia, was especially against the game, fearing he’ll turn out to be a bum or a loafer if he continued. Despite the warning, Schacht poured his heart and soul into the game. After the family moved to the more rural Bronx, Schacht would walk all the way to the Polo Grounds in Harlem to see his beloved New York Giants play. He went beyond being a  casual fan however and soon made himself useful to the team by running errands for the players. Christy Mathewson especially became a favorite of Schacht and the two struck up a friendship of sorts. Mathewson even taught the young kid how to throw his famed “fadeaway” pitch.

Because of being 5’-11” and only 125 pounds, Schacht was overlooked for his high school team so he put his talents to use on the sandlot and with semi-pro teams. Although he eventually made his high school team, he was later found illegible because of his having played semi-pro ball for pay. So Schacht dropped out of school all together and pursued a career in professional baseball. 

Catching on with a team in Walton, N.Y. he promptly won 16 consecutive games. Before one game he learned that a scout from the Cincinnati Reds was in the stands to watch him. Fearing his diminutive size would work against him before he even had a chance, Schacht pulled on double pairs of socks and a couple of sweatshirts along with sliding pads to make himself seem bigger. The afternoon was hot and the struggling Schacht lost 2-0, but he was called to Cincinnati and put in front of owner Clark Griffith. Seeing that he was much smaller than described, Griffith offered him a minor league contract. Schacht declined, knowing he could make more playing semi-pro ball than in the low minors.

Schacht played around the Northeast for various clubs and after a stint in the army during the First World War, where he did little more than play baseball, Al signed with the Jersey City Skeeters in 1919. The Skeeters were a miserable team, winning only 45 games during the whole season. However, Schacht was the winner of 20 of those contests. After each win Schacht would anonymously send a newspaper clipping of the game to Clark Griffith. Now owner of The Washington Senators, Griffith himself travelled to Jersey City to look Schacht over. After his 10th shutout of the year, Griffith signed Al to play for the Senators. He was a good pitcher for a few seasons but it was his second talent on the diamond that he became known for. 

Al Schacht was a natural clown. Teaming up with former player Nick Altrock, the two made the stands howl with laughter as they went through silent vaudeville routines between innings. Besides being clowns, the two men served as 1st and 3rd base coaches. By all reports Schacht was a well respected coach while with the team. By 1921 Altrock and Schacht were performing all over the league as well as at the World Series. Somewhere along the way however, Altrock and Schacht had a falling out. No one really knows the reason why, some say it was an anti-Semitic remark Altrock made while drunk, others say it was jealousy over Schacht's younger age. Whatever the reason the two silently feuded for years before breaking up the act in 1936. 

Clad in his trademark top hat and tails over a baseball uniform and known as the “Clown Prince of Baseball” Schacht was famous all over the country, even appearing on stage with such celebrities as Bing Crosby. During the Second World War Al volunteered to entertain the troops. Appearing in such remote places as North Africa and the South Pacific, Schacht helped bring a smile to homesick servicemen. After the war he opened up a restaurant in Manhattan which became a hang out for ballplayers and celebrities. The affable Schacht worked the room entertaining his customers.

Throughout his long career Al Schacht never hid that he was a Jew, famously remarking: "There is talk that I am Jewish-just because my father was Jewish, my mother was Jewish, I speak Yiddish and once studied to be a rabbi and a cantor. Well, that's how rumors get started." 

150. Leo Najo: Mythbusting

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who ordered a copy of my little book. I really appreciate all the nice notes you took time to write, it means an awful lot to know you appreciate my drawings and stories. It's one thing to do it and make myself happy doing what I do, but it's quite special when others like it as well. Thanks!

This was a card I had wanted to do for a while and finally included it as a full page illustration in my new book. Leo Najo is one of those characters whose place in history has sometimes been manipulated to fit an author's agenda. I can't stand "revisionist history", especially in baseball. Case in point: That new Jackie Robinson movie showing an evil Fritz Ostermueller beaning Jackie in the head. Never happened that way. Robinson's story is so noble, so damn inspiring, why revise history and needlessly augment what is already a great story? All it did was create a whole generation of fans who think something that never happened happened and what's worse, made a scapegoat out of an innocent man and piss off his family. Not that Ostermueller is completely innocent - he did hit Robinson, but not in the head. Racist or not, no ballplayer is going to drill a guy in the head on purpose, it's just too dangerous. No one wants to be another Carl Mays. Now, I never met Jackie Robinson, but all I have read about the man would make me think that he would have been thoroughly disgusted by what the movie portrayed. But that's a story for another time... What I'm alluding to in Leo Najo's case is that some writers have accused the baseball powers that be of some kind of racist conspiracy to keep the Mexican-born Najo out of the lily-white big leagues. Indeed, that is how I first ran across the name Leo Najo, from an article alleging that he was deliberately sandbagged because he was Mexican. Intrigued, I filed away his name and noted the possible story to look into later. When I finally got around to researching him, the real story came into focus quickly. While organized sports were never known for racial acceptance by any stretch of the imagination, that there was some kind of Masonic conspiracy or something afoot is just insane. Let's set the record straight and put a promising ballplayer in his proper place in baseball history...

His real name was Leonardo Alanís but he was so fast his fans called him “conejo,” Spanish for “rabbit.” Americanized to “Najo,” the slugger was on the fast track to becoming the first Mexican born player in the major leagues. Though slight of build, Najo had power and twice in his career hit for the cycle, smacking a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in the same game. His speed made him one of the best outfielders in any league, once recording an amazing 12 putouts in a single game. With the Okmulgee Drillers in 1925 he hit .356 and led the Western Association with 34 homers and 195 runs scored. This brought Najo national attention and a contract from the Chicago White Sox. Though he played well enough in spring training, the White Sox sent him to the San Antonio Bears with the intention of calling him up later in the summer. 

This is where the conspiracy nuts take over. What happened was Najo was batting over .300 when an outfield collision with teammate Ping Bodie ended his season. The much larger Bodie broke Najo’s leg between the knee and ankle, a serious injury that effectively ended his career. The tin-foil hat guys claim that Ping Bodie was instructed by the unnamed cabal that ruled baseball to run down and intentionally ruin Najo's chance at big league fame. Fact of the matter is, Bodie had just joined the team and was unfamiliar with the outfield layout. On top of that, Bodie was about the size of an ox and it is not surprising that once Bodie started running after a ball he couldn't stop on a dime and avoid a collision. To think that the Chicago White Sox, who were mired in the second division after losing their stars to the Black Sox scandal, would care so much about keeping a Latino from making the majors that they would destroy the most promising thing in their farm system is just insane. But it was a tragic and unintentional accident that probably did prevent Najo from being the first Mexican-born major leaguer.

Najo played a few more seasons but never regained the speed that earned him his nickname. Returning to San Antonio, he raised 11 kids, coached local players, including a young Tom Landry, and remained a South Texas legend. When the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame was founded in 1939, Leo Najo was the first player inducted.

The Books Are Here!

I just opened the box of books this week. Got to say, I'm pretty pleased with 'em, and that's saying a lot. If you remember from other posts, I'm always kind of indifferent to my work once it's been put in print and out of my hands - in fact, I rarely look at my work once it's real. However, looking through the little book today, I think this time I'll be making an exception!

There's a handful of hardcover copies left over from the pre-orders and I will be ordering additional copies once I get more orders for them. Special thanks must go out to my fiancée, Dr. Andrea Gazzaniga and good friend (and Best Man at my wedding) Christian Boyles for reading through the text for me. Also, how rewarding is it that the Official Historian of Major League Baseball John Thorn graciously gave me a quote for the book jacket? That doesn't happen every day, does it!

Soft or Hardcover

Softcover 21 Book $30.00 USD     Hardcover 21 Book $45.00 USD

 

149. Jackie Robinson: A Great Day in Jersey City

Today's post is a re-working of one of my oldest ones on the site. While I liked the original drawing, times change and my style has evolved a bit so when I wanted to include Jackie in my new edition of 21, I decided it was time to give him an update. Since Robinson's first appearance in 1946 was such a momentous occasion, and being from New Jersey, I wanted to show a bit of the old ballpark in Jersey City where the game took place. That's Roosevelt Stadium's distinctive scoreboard in the background. I liked this drawing so much I made it a full-page illustration in 21. I tried to depict Robinson as being full of confidence, ready to take the field for the first time, the weight of a whole race upon his able shoulders. It was an important day and I wanted to make this an important drawing.

67 years ago today, Jackie Robinson sat in the visitor's locker room of Jersey City's Roosevelt Stadium. Suiting up with his Montréal Royals teammates, Robinson was about to do what no black man had done since 1899 - play in an organized baseball game. Johnny Wright, another black ballplayer was on the roster that day, too, but Wright was a pitcher and was not going to play. Once the bands stopped and Mayor Hague threw out the first ball, Robinson was on his own. Opening Day in Jersey City was a big deal back then, a city-wide holiday. The Hague political machine that ran the city since 1917 expected every single municipal employee to purchase a ticket in order to give Jersey City the largest opening day crowd every year. Although 25,000 fans streamed through the turnstiles that afternoon, twice than number was sold. Still, with 25,000, Jersey City easily led the International League in attendance that day, and they got to witness history being made.

From the story accompanying the illustration in 21:

When Jackie Robinson took the field at Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium on April 18, 1946 he became the first black ballplayer in organized baseball since 1899. Robinson’s fame as a college athlete, his university education, and experience as an army officer made him the perfect man for a very difficult job. Many Negro League ballplayers expressed disappointment that he was to be the first to integrate the game. His manager with Montréal silently questioned whether or not a black man was even human. Bob Feller, who pitched against Robinson in 1945, thought so little of his talent said “If he were a white man, I doubt if they would even consider him big league material, except perhaps as a bat boy.” Robinson faced it all with quiet dignity and strength. In that first game in Jersey City he went 4 for 5, including a three-run homer, scored 4 runs, drove in 3 and stole 2 bases. Overcoming immense racial pressure, Jackie won over his teammates and fans with his natural physical ability and intense drive to win. Sparked by his play, Montréal won the Little World Series of 1946 and the next year he was playing for Brooklyn. Through his sheer determination Jackie Robinson not only paved the way for the desegregation of the major leagues but also the modern civil rights movement. 

Don't forget the card I posted yesterday of Happy Chandler, the Commissioner of Baseball who backed up Branch Rickey when he wanted to bring Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers.

148. "Happy" Chandler: Instrumental to Integration

With all the hoopla these past few weeks about Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball, I thought before I wheel out my new Robinson card and story this week, I'd feature one man who was directly responsible for the destruction of the color line. He's a guy that I will include in the next edition of 21, which will have a "Baseball in Kentucky" theme in tribute to my adopted state. While Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey gets the well-deserved lions share of ink for his part in integrating the modern game, Happy Chandler played an instrumental, though not well-recognized part.

 He was one of those old-time baby-kissing, glad-handing southern politicians with a billion-watt smile, the kind you see in cartoons. He was elected governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky two separate times, represented the state in the United States Senate and was the second Commissioner of Baseball. But before all of that, Happy Chandler was a shortstop.

In the long line of Commissioners of Baseball, Happy Chandler is the only one to have played the game professionally. He was a star athlete in high school and played ball for Transylvania College. He reportedly tossed a no-hitter playing for Grafton in North Dakota's Red River Valley League in 1920 (the town even named the local baseball field after him) and was invited to a tryout with the Saskatoon Quakers but returned to college instead.

During the summers of 1922 and 1923 he played for the Lexington Reos of the Blue Grass League. The Blue Grass League was a Class D circuit, the lowest classification at the time, but it was professional baseball and one of his teammates was future Hall of Famer and member of the famed 1927 Yankees, Earle Combs. Chandler played in less than 20 games but for a time considered pursuing baseball as a career. He also served as a league umpire during the two seasons he spent with the Reos before deciding to attend Harvard Law School.

Chandler worked his way up the ladder of Kentucky politics, first in Woodford County then on to the state level. He was a fiscally conservative Democrat and by 1935 was elected governor. He switched over to the United States Senate in 1939 and it was there that he was approached to become the second Commissioner of Baseball.

Kennesaw Mountain Landis had held the post since 1920 and upon his death the team owners elected Chandler to succeed him. In the period between Landis' death and Chandlers appointment, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey  signed Jackie Robinson and Johnny Wright to Montreal Royals contracts making them the first blacks to play professional ball since Hippo Galloway in 1899. 

After the 1946 season, Rickey wanted to transfer Robinson's contract to the Dodgers, something that the Commissioner's office had to approve. Rickey went to personally see Chandler who gave his complete support. The Dodgers' general manager later said that without Chandlers full support he would not have been able to bring Robinson to Brooklyn.

Why did Chandler give his support to something his predecessor had vehemently opposed? There are two quotes attributed to him in regards to his approval of the smashing of the color line. The first was given right after he was named Commissioner. Ric Roberts of the Pittsburgh Courier asked Chandler about blacks playing pro ball to which he responded: "If they can fight and die in Okinawa, Guadalcanal, in the South Pacific, they can play baseball in America." Coming after more than 25 years of double-talk and out right lies by the former Commissioner, Chandler's statement came as a bombshell, not just for it's strait-forwardness but because of where he was from. Kentucky in 1946 was still a Jim Crow state and Chandler's words were sure to upset more than a few of his constituents. 

The second quote shows the way he was thinking not just about baseball but the whole idea of institutionalized racism. From his autobiography Chandler had this to say to Branch Rickey at their meeting in 1946:

"I've already done a lot of thinking about this whole racial situation in our country. As a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, I got to know a lot about our casualties during the war. Plenty of Negro boys were willing to go out and fight and die for this country. Is it right when they came back to tell them they can't play the national pastime? You know, Branch, I'm going to have to meet my Maker some day. And if He asks me why I didn't let this boy play, and I say it's because he's black, that might not be a satisfactory answer. If the Lord made some people black, and some white, and some red or yellow, he must have had a pretty good reason. It isn't my job to decide which colors can play big league baseball. It is my job to see that the game is fairly played and that everybody has an equal chance. I think if I do that, I can face my Maker with a clear conscience."

As Commissioner Chandler did as much as he could to limit the on-field racism Robinson and the other black players faced. When the St. Louis Cardinals threatened to strike if they had to face Robinson he pledged that any player who failed to take the field would be immediately suspended. After Phillies manager Ben Chapman disgraced himself and the game with sickening racial taunts when his team faced the Dodgers, Chandler made it clear that any more of that would earn him and the team severe disciplinary measures.

Besides his part in integrating the game, Chandler was known as the “Players Commissioner." After the Pittsburgh Pirates almost went on strike for more players rights, Chandler established the first pension fund using the proceeds from selling the radio broadcast rights to the World Series. He also tried to keep the game free of the threat posed by gamblers and gangsters when he suspended Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher before the 1947 season. While popular culture has often portrayed Durocher's suspension being brought on by his affair with the married actress Lorraine Day, in actuality he earned it by palling around with Bugsy Siegal and other seedy underworld figures.

For all he did for the game, Chandler's reign as Commissioner came to an abrupt end in 1951 when he resigned after the team owners twice refused to extend his contract. It was a loss for the game as Chandler was its most forward-thinking leader for many decades. He went back to politics and in 1955 was re-elected governor during which he over-saw the integration of the states' public school system. He was inducted to the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame in 1957 and in 1982 he took his place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Still smiling, he lived until the age of 92, dying of a heart attack in 1991.

Though he isn't remembered today as reverently as Branch Rickey or Jackie Robinson, Happy Chandler was indeed instrumental in the games' integration.

Infinite Baseball Card Set On the Air

 Last week I was surprised by the invitation to be interviewed on the Stealing Home podcast. Since I mostly listen to podcasts and books on tape while I work everyday, I was familiar with Stealing Home and subscribe to it. If you haven't heard it before, it's put together by David Temple and offers an hour-long discussion on baseball history and related subjects. Besides covering interesting subjects and David's insightful observations, Stealing Home is a thoroughly professional production that actually surpasses most talk radio shows. The episode I was asked to participate in was Number 6: Art. On it I talk about why I started the Infinite Baseball Card Set, the why and how I choose the players I do and what makes my drawings different than other baseball artists. It was a fun conversation and while I have a hard time talking about my work, David's radio experience put me entirely at ease and made the whole interview easy for me. I hope you take the time to check out the episode and also check out the other installments in David's unique series. My part starts about 29 minutes into the show.

The Book

Well, here it is! Just in time for Opening Day... These are some of the 2 page spreads that are in the new Infinite Baseball Card book. The book reproduces 35 of my favorite cards and stories and offers a whole new way to enjoy what I've been doing on the web for 3 years. Since the cards are so small, what I did was enlarge the drawings and accompany them with the stories from the back in a readable point size (I know my Grandma will be happy!). The size of the book is a smart 7x7 inches - large enough to set out on your coffee table but compact enough to carry around with you.

I'm really proud of the work in this little book, but what I'm most proud of is the quote that John Thorn, Official Historian of Major League Baseball and one of my favorite authors, lent to me for the back cover:

"Gary Cieradkowski is to me the most interesting artist working in baseball today. His bold graphic style recalls America's poster kings of yore--Edward Penfield, J.C. Leyendecker, Fred G. Cooper--and his love of the game breathes new life into heroes long gone."

Many of the cards have been published on the site but some, such as Jackie Robinson, Leo Najo and Dutch Faust are brand-new. I also took this opportunity to "tune-up" some of my older drawings like Jimmy Claxton, Eddie Gaedel and Honus Wagner especially for this book. 

The proofreaders are finishing up this weekend and I hope to send the book to the printer next week. There's two versions of the book, one a hard cover and the other soft cover and they can be pre-ordered at the paypal option below. You will be notified via email when it is ready to ship to you and I will also make a post on this site...

Hard Cover or Soft Cover

Soft Cover $30.00 USD    Hard Cover $45.00 USD