Shades of Greatness, Neale Henderson
- 07-28-2004
- By Tom Shanahan, San Diego Hall of Champions
For the talented black baseball players on San Diego High’s championship teams of the 1930s and 1940s, race was one barrier they encountered if they dreamed of playing professionally. Other obstacles included distance.
San Diego was a long way from the roots of the Negro League franchises based in cities such as Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Chicago. But Neale "Bobo" Henderson, Gene Richardson and Curtis Everett had someone watching out for them, someone to bridge the miles separating the West Coast and an opportunity with the famed Kansas City Monarchs.
Mike Morrow, San Diego High’s legendary coach from 1927 to 1950 (except for the World War II years), would place a phone call to the Monarchs’ owner and tell him he had a prospect for the club.
Thus began the Negro Leagues career of Henderson, a .539-hitting shortstop at San Diego High and first-team pick on the All-Southern California Interscholastic Federation team, with the Monarchs under legendary coach Buck O’Neil. Richardson, a pitcher, and Everett, a catcher, also were San Diego High stars Morrow placed with the Monarchs.
“Mike Morrow was a wonderful man,” said Henderson, now 74 and making his home in the Skyline area of San Diego. “He was like a father to me. He thought it was terrible that black ballplayers couldn’t play with white ballplayers, and he would say so. Mike Morrow didn’t have any prejudice in him. If he thought you were a good enough ballplayer, he would make that phone call for you.”
Although Henderson graduated from San Diego High two years after Jackie Robinson broke Major League baseball’s color line with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, it would be many more years before doors opened for black players to be routinely scouted and signed by Major League franchises to play in their minor-league systems.
Hank Aaron, a Hall-of-Famer and baseball’s home run king, got his pro start in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns before his rookie season with the Milwaukee Braves. Ernie Banks and Elston Howard played for the Monarchs during Henderson’s time with the team, 1949-53. Banks later became a Hall-of-Famer with the Chicago Cubs and played until 1971. Howard won World Series titles with the New York Yankees and played until 1968.
Henderson recognizes that Morrow was once the connection for San Diego and the Negro Leagues, and now he hopes the “Shades of Greatness” art exhibit will serve as a modern-day connection for San Diegans with the Negro Leagues. “Shades of Greatness” is a touring art exhibit from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., that visits the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum July 28-Sept. 18.
“To me the Negro Leagues were better than the Major Leagues,” Henderson said. “It was better than the time of my life.”
Henderson saw most of the legends of the Negro Leagues, including Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson.
“Satchel Paige was everything you’ve heard about him,” Henderson said. “Those stories about him telling Josh Gibson he was going to throw him a fastball and still strike him out are all true. He was a funny guy, but a lot of guys didn’t like him because he would tell you what he was really thinking.”
Henderson adds white players from the Major Leagues would pick up tips watching Negro Leagues games or playing exhibitions. He claims the pickoff move that Yankees Hall-of-Fame pitcher Whitey Ford was recognized for was something Richardson, his San Diego High teammate who was a left-handed pitcher for the Monarchs, had previously perfected in the Negro Leagues.
“The white players used to emulate a lot of things we did,” Henderson said.
Henderson gets riled at the suggestion the Negro Leagues were inferior in talent or at appreciating the fundamentals of the game. He says “Soul of the Game,” a 1996 HBO fictionalized movie about the Negro Leagues in the 1940s, unfairly depicted players leaping high to catch wild throws and committing other fundamental errors.
“When we took infield, every throw was right where it was supposed to be,” Henderson said. “We were very disciplined in the way we played the game. Buck taught fundamentals and was a wonderful manager. Buck knew how to talk to people. But if you would have hit a home a run and stood there and watched it go out like players do today, Buck would say, ‘Hit the showers! You’re done for the day!’ Buck would never have stood for that.”
One irony of Henderson’s Negro Leagues experience is the door barring him from integrated baseball didn’t slam down in front him until he was an adult. At San Diego High, his teammates were whites as well as Hispanics.
Tommy Martinez was one of Henderson’s best friends on the 1949 team that beat Santa Barbara High and future Hall-of-Famer Eddie Matthews in a SCIF championship game played at Lane Field, the former downtown park of the then-Pacific Coast_League San Diego Padres. Henderson and Martinez were both first-team All-SCIF choices.
“We were a team that did things together,” Henderson said. “When we would go up to Long Beach for Coast League games, we would play four games over two days. The black players couldn’t stay in a hotel, so Mike Morrow had the whole team would sleep in the gym.”
But as an adult, Henderson joined the Monarchs as a “19-year-old kid making $300 a month.” His mother bought a house with the money he made from his first year in the Negro Leagues. Henderson, who lives in the Skyline area, still owns that first home on San Miguel and Oceanview and rents out the place.
“That was a lot of money to be making back then,” Henderson said. “The Monarchs sent almost all of it home to my mother because I was only 19. They gave me enough money for toothpaste and things like that _ I didn’t shave yet, so I didn’t need those things _ and the team fed us. We had to wear white shirts and a tie when we traveled.”
Although San Diegans would only see the Negro Leagues when a team would barnstorm the West Coast _ Satchel Paige once brought a team to San Diego that Henderson saw play as a high school kid at Lane Field _ Henderson knew more about the Negro Leagues than his San Diego High teammates.
He had spent part of his youth growing up in Fort Smith, Ark., a town that was a regular stop for Negro League games. Henderson would serve as a batboy for the Monarchs and his brother for the Homestead Grays when the teams came to town.
“I saw Cool Papa Bell play in those days, and he taught me how to run the bases,” Henderson said. “The players would let us come out on the field with them. I took infield with them, and they showed me how to charge the ball.”
Henderson and other former Negro Leaguers worry that too few young African-Americans are aware of the significance of the Negro Leagues in American history. But that’s not all that concerns him. He worries too few young African-Americans are even interested in today’s Major Leagues.
“Black kids are giving up on baseball,” he said. “They think it’s too slow. They’re too much into basketball. I try to tell them baseball is the best game.”
Whereas as baseball once was segregated, with black kids denied a chance to play in the Major Leagues, now African-American kids aren’t seeking the opportunity to play in one of America’s most visible sports. There are Latin players, Asian players from Japan and Korea and black players from Latin countries filling rosters.
“I remember myself and some other Negro League players did an autograph show a few years ago at the Del Mar Fair,” Henderson said. “The white kids knew more about the Negro Leagues than the black kids. Only about two black kids came. I hope black kids in San Diego come down to the Hall of Champions and see this exhibit. Baseball is a wonderful game. I love the game of baseball.”
Gene Richardson, pitcher, Kansas City Monarchs, 1947-50, 1952-53; Baltimore Elite Giants, 1951.
John Ritchey, catcher, Chicago American Giants 1947.
Neale Henderson, infielder/outfielder, Kansas City Monarchs, 1949-53
Walter McCoy, pitcher, Chicago American Giants, 1945-48
Curtis Everett, catcher, outfielder, Kansas City Monarchs, 1950-51
