Legends Series—Mudcat Grant and Al
Oliver (February 14, 2004)
On February 14, former major
league stars Jim “Mudcat” Grant and Al Oliver visited the Hall of Fame to
participate in a Legends Series
event. Grant, one of a dozen African-American pitchers to win 20 games in a
major league season, won two games and hit a key home run during the 1965 World
Series. Oliver, a lifetime .303 hitter and the 1982 winner of the National
League’s batting crown, helped the Pittsburgh Pirates to the World Championship
in 1971.
The educational program with
Grant and Oliver, which featured a number of children in the audience,
highlighted the Hall of Fame’s celebration of Black History Month. The
following is a partial transcript of that interview, which was conducted by the
Hall’s Bruce Markusen and took place in front of a capacity crowd in the
Bullpen Theater.
Markusen: Why is baseball struggling in drawing more young
African Americans to play the game?
Oliver: The bottom line is, I really don’t think that they
have had the proper Afro Americans to market the game of baseball. Basketball
has Michael Jordan. Football has so many guys, like Walter Payton. Baseball, for
whatever reason, did not have that proper player. It seems like they were
lacking something—you take the Ken Griffey Juniors, the Barry Bonds. In Barry’s
case, they say he didn’t get along with members of the media. Ken Griffey would
have probably been the one that could
have promoted it.
Our young people look at TV
today. And TV is a vital part of their lives. And what they see is what they
do. They see a Michael Jordan soaring through the air. They see a Barry Bonds
hitting balls out. But see, that’s not marketable. And they see these running
backs and these wide receivers. Deion Sanders was a perfect example. Everyone
wanted to be like Deion.
If baseball would market the
Afro Americans just a little bit more, then it would be easier for myself and
guys like Mudcat to go out into the inner cities and promote baseball so much
better. When I was coming up, that’s all that you saw. Growing up in Ohio, you
look at the Cincinnati Reds—Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson. You look at the
Cleveland Browns—Jim Brown. The marketing [today] is really not there, and I
think that’s the main reason.
Markusen: One of the programs that baseball—Major League
Baseball—has tried to push over the last decade or so is RBI—Reviving Baseball
in the Inner Cities. What kinds of strides do you think RBI is making?
Oliver: I think they’re doing the best that they can do. I
know that Mudcat and I have talked briefly about that this morning. I really
believe that they need to bring in more players who have been there, ballplayers
who have been successful. I really
believe the more successful that you’ve been, the more you have to offer. The
more that you’ve been around, the more that you’ve been well-traveled, like
Mudcat especially. Mudcat has seen it all. I believe there’s nothing in this world that Jim “Mudcat” Grant
has not seen! And people he’s come in contact with, and things that he knows.
I really think that sometimes
we can be our own worst enemy—the Afro American—if you really get down to the
truth of the matter. Sometimes there is a tendency not to invite another Afro
American, afraid that this particular one might know more than you do. And as a
result, you don’t invite him because [you think] you might lose your job. It’s
not about that. The only thing that we want to do is be supportive and enhance
your program. We don’t want your job.
Markusen: Mudcat, your thoughts on RBI?
Grant: I’m really disappointed in the RBI program. The
intention of it was to promote baseball in the inner city. It hasn’t gotten
very much promotion. And on top of that, for some reason, they will not use
ex-African American ballplayers. We beg to be used. We’re not called for
certain events; we’re not called for certain tournaments. I think if they use us more, the program
will improve. I think right now it may be a semi-political thing. As long as
baseball promotes the word ‘RBI,’ it would seem [in their minds] to be OK, but
nothing is really happening in the inner city communities when it comes to RBI.
We have to get the cities involved where the ballfields are, where the RBI
players play. Take care of the field a little bit. You know, run that machine
over there. Don’t let [the field] get so bad that the kids don’t want to play.
So we have to get the cities involved; they’ve been ignoring where the inner
city kids play.
But I’m more disappointed in
the head of the RBI program because we don’t make a point [of getting former
black players involved]. I think we are afraid to say that this is definitely
an inner city program. Say it. And
then do it. And then when you do the
program, bring white kids in, too. Let them mix. Let them do things. But first
do the job that the RBI program is supposed to do. It’s an inner city program;
get these kids playing baseball. Call us, so we can motivate parents to be
managers and so forth.
Oliver: Mudcat just hit on one key point when he said ‘inner
city,’ but let’s bring in whites. Today’s society, in the inner city, you see
whites as well. And what better way can we learn about each other. See, that’s
where we need to be at in 2004. This is not 1804. We should be like this now.
What better way to bring people together to learn about each other, and find
out that, hey, we are all in this together.
Grant: We’ve done that in the past. We were much segregated
in baseball, as all of you know. But then Jackie [Robinson] came in, Larry Doby
came in, and then the rest of us came in and we taught America that we could
live together, that we could worship together, that we could play together,
that we could understand one another’s history. We did that. But we need to make the point of starting first in the inner city. Get out there
and motivate these children and mothers and dads. We need to say, ‘If you’re
kid played baseball, and he gets to the point that he’s pretty good, he may sign
a contract where you won’t have to work for the rest of your life.’
Oliver: That’s true.
Grant: That’s true! We haven’t done that yet. We haven’t
convinced our black parents, ‘Man, look at the opportunities.’ Jackie
[Robinson] must be rolling over in his grave right now. He must be. Jackie died from all of the pressures that happened
in the game and what he had to do. And here we are, not taking advantage of
that. And I think part of the blame belongs to us, too. We’re going to change
that, by the way. We’re going to change that. We’re going to make some people
angry, but we’re going to change that.
Markusen: Mudcat, you grew up in Florida. How did you become
interested in baseball? How did you start playing?
Grant: I was the batboy of the local black team in
Lacootchee, when I was about five years old. It was a sandlot team, a mill
team. We sold baseballs and made baseballs, and I was the batboy. Somehow or
other I got hooked [on baseball]. I was always interested in music and I could
play the organ like nobody. But then somebody gave me a baseball, and for some
reason I forgot how to play the organ. I kept playing [baseball]. I remember
when there was no one to play with, I would take a tennis ball and throw it up
against the house and then grab a bat and hit it. And I would draw circles, big
circles, semi-circles, and smaller circles, and then I would hit [into the
circles]. Onetime my mother said, ‘I don’t want you hitting that ball against
this house no more.’ But I did—and she outran me. {crowd laughs}
And I kept on playing. Then I
got to the point where this game, it just took. It just took over. At the age
of 14, I was one of the ten best baseball players in the state of Florida. At
the age of 15, I was the best baseball player in the state of Florida—in the Negro
league schools. Of course, we weren’t allowed to go to white schools back in
those days. But I kept it up and got better, much better. Reflecting on it now,
I know I was better, but then, you don’t think that way [at the time]. I
remember at the end of a game when they brought me in to pitch—I was the third
baseman—I threw so hard that the opposing high schoolers would not come to bat;
the coaches had to kick them out of the dugout. I used to wonder, ‘Why don’t
they want to come up and hit against me?’ It wasn’t until I was like 30 years
old that I realized that I could play!
One day I was in a high
school tournament as a third baseman. I got four hits. And we needed to win the
game. So the coach brought me in [to pitch], and the [home plate] umpire was
Fred Merkle. {Oliver laughs} What you laughing at? Anybody remember Fred Merkle?
Do you know the Fred Merkle story? {A child shouts out, ‘Bonehead!’} Bonehead Merkle,
that’s it, that’s him. He was the umpire. And I was throwing so hard that the
catcher couldn’t catch the ball; it was hitting Bonehead all over the shins. So
he told the Cleveland Indians, ‘There’s a guy I think you should all take a
look at.’ And that’s how it started from there. Mr. Merkle was a wonderful man.
His wife and Mr. Merkle became friends of mine. And back in those days, when a
bird-dog scout recommended you, they got paid as you went [up the minor league
ladder], and so I was able to earn them a piece of money. So that’s how I got
started.
Markusen: For those who don’t remember, Fred Merkle, playing
against the Chicago Cubs, failed to touch second base on what was essentially a
game-winning hit, and by a technicality, they got the forceout at second base.
It basically cost the [New York Giants] the pennant, and Merkle unfortunately
was known as ‘Bonehead,’ a nickname that I’ve sometimes shared with him over
the years.
Let me pick up on something
you said, Mudcat. Throwing the ball up against the house. I grew up in the
early to mid-1970s. My father was a huge baseball fan. That was one of the
things that I did, was throw the ball—a rubber ball, a tennis ball—and I ruined
our glass door that we had leading into our kitchen. And then ultimately I
found this big boulder that I could throw the ball up against and I would play
imaginary games. I think that’s something we don’t see from the kids today—the
imaginary games, the creative games, playing games like “Running The Bases”
where you get hung up between two bases. I think that’s something that’s needed
today, whether you’re talking black, white, or Latin American youngsters, that
creativity.
Grant: Sure. Sure. There’s no doubt about that. Even though
we have more organized baseball now than we had back in those days.
Oliver: Did you play “fungo?”
Grant: Oh yes.
Oliver: You see, we had fungo when we were youngsters. Fungo
was a game where if you were the hitter and you hit the ball past the pitcher,
it was a single. You hit the ball past the next guy, behind him, it was a
double. Off the fence was a triple. And naturally over the fence was a home
run. And that’s how you became a real good hitter. Those were the things back
then that we did. We created our own games. And like Mudcat was saying, I used
to throw the ball up against the steps. The steps would be from here to this
young man right here [in the front row of the theater]. I would throw the ball
as hard as I could, and [former major leaguer] Larry [Hisle] went to pick it.
And that’s where I obtained the nickname “Scoop” to this day. I always had the
ability to pick it at first base. Nobody could throw the ball by me at first base,
even if they tried. I could catch anything. But like I told my shortstop and
the other infielders, when I have to
throw the ball, be ready. But I’ll
catch yours! I had a good arm, but where it was going at times I didn’t know.
And that’s where it all started, just from throwing the ball up against the
steps.
Markusen: At what age, Al, did you start playing ball?
Oliver: Organized ball?
Markusen: Just picking up a glove and a bat.
Oliver: Probably when I was five or six. Just like one of my
grandsons now; it is really amazing to watch him. Yeah, five or six I started
with bat and ball. At five or six, I also started with basketball, football. I
mean we did everything. My mother said when I was about six years old, ‘Junior
is going to be a ballplayer.’ That’s what she told my dad. And she was right.
Junior turned out to be a ballplayer. The thing was, you really didn’t know
what sport because back then we played them all. But she was right [about me
choosing baseball].
Markusen: When you were a youngster, you didn’t need to get two
whole teams of nine players apiece. You were able to use these games to
overcome the lack of numbers.
Oliver: Yes, right. Because we didn’t have a full team until
I started playing Little League ball. And I started playing Little League at
age ten. Those were the fun days.
Markusen: Mudcat, you wanted to say something.
Grant: I was going to say, to be fair to the other sports
back in those days, there was very little made of football. There was very
little made of basketball. Most everybody played the game of baseball. So today
we have to be a little bit more creative in getting these kids to play
baseball. There really has to be a serious effort in that inner city to get the
kids to play today, because there’s no more stickball, there’s no more throwing
it against the steps.
Baseball, too, must try to
get the black fans back. You have to make a pointed effort as you do in any
other marketing scheme. I remember when Pepsi Cola outdid Coca Cola by simply
getting some black girls jumping a rope [in a television commercial]. So
sometimes you have to make an effort. I remember in 1958, I was the only black
pitcher in the league at that time and I had won about four games. We went to
Detroit, and I came off [the field] to take batting practice, and the bleachers
were full of black people. I said to Larry Doby, ‘Larry, there must be a
promotion out here or something.’ He said, ‘No, don’t you know why they come
out? They came to see you.’ I said, ‘You’re joking.’ He said, ‘No, they came
here to see you. Let’s go out to the outfield.’ And we went from foul line to
foul line, just shaking hands. So we’ve got to make an effort [like that] to
get them back into the game.
I don’t think there’s hip-hop
in baseball. There’s hip-hop in basketball and football. But there’s no hip-hop
in baseball. We’re going to have to try hop-hip.
{the crowd laughs}
Markusen: Mudcat, you mentioned Larry Doby. He was your hero
growing up. Tell us about that.
Grant: Well, with Jackie Robinson, you had people spill out
into the streets when Jackie Robinson signed. Every player, every kid, was
Jackie Robinson. ‘I’m Robbie. I’m Jackie. I’m JR.’ But I was Larry Doby. I got
beat up every day because I was not
Jackie Robinson. I said, ‘I’m Larry Doby.’ For some reason that struck me
because it was seven weeks—11 weeks later [after Robinson’s debut]—that Doby
made his debut. That was 1947, ’48. And in 1958, about ten years later, Larry
Doby became my roommate. In spring training—this was 1957—they told me, ‘You’re
going to room with Larry Doby.’ I said, ‘Uh, uh.’ They said, ‘Yes, you are!’
So I got in the room and they
were still at the ballpark. And then Larry came in a little bit later, and I
was sitting in one spot. Larry said, ‘Well, you must be Mudcat Grant.’ I said,
‘Yes sir, Mr. Doby.’ He asked, ‘Do you like that bed over there?’ I said, ‘Yes
sir, Mr. Doby.’ He said, ‘You like TV?’ I said, ‘Yes sir, Mr. Doby.’ He said,
‘We’re going to have to get rid of this yes sir, Mr. Doby.’ I said, ‘Yes sir,
Mr. Doby.’ {the crowd laughs}
He taught me just about
everything. I know the history of Larry Doby, because late at night Larry would
pace, late at night. He would yell, he would scream. This is how he would
overcome some of the difficulties that he had to go through. I know it was
difficult. And then he taught me, ‘This is what you’re going to have to face
[as a black player]. You’ve got to face it, and when you cross the white lines,
you better win. It ain’t about, ‘Oh, this is so bad for me.’ You better win. Because
if you don’t win, good-bye, see you later.’
Markusen: Did Larry know that you were the guy that idolized
him? Did you ever tell him about that?
Grant: I told him that about in the middle of the season. I
couldn’t tell him [right away]. But I told him in the middle of the season and
that seemed to touch him pretty good that I was rooming with my idol. But of
course you know that Larry himself wasn’t hurt [physically], but he was hurt by
the fact that Jackie was the first to sign. And we don’t forget Larry Doby, but
Larry came 11 weeks later and went through the same thing, but it wasn’t New
York City, it was Cleveland, Ohio. And
even to this day, as we celebrate Black History Month, we hear Jackie, Jackie,
and [basketball great] Bill Russell, and nothing about Larry Doby. That hurts
me, too.
Markusen: Larry passed away recently, just this past year. Had you been keeping in touch with him?
Grant: See him all the time. He got crabbier as he got older!
{the crowd laughs} But I’m very close to his family and we always had
good times together, Larry and I. We
always had a lot to talk in baseball, but he was kind of stubborn because he
knew I wanted him to tell the story. He said ‘Don’t you tell me what to do.’
And I said ‘I’m telling you what to do, you tell this story.’ He said ‘Shut
up.’ I said ‘Don’t tell me to shut up.’ We didn’t get the story, but I’m gonna
tell it anyway.
Markusen: Al, how about you? Did you have a baseball idol or
hero growing up?
Oliver: Not so much hero because you know my dad was my
mentor, but the guys that I had high respect for were Frank Robinson and Vada
Pinson. So being from southern Ohio and
being a Reds fan, those were the two guys. And who was ever to think later that
one day I would play against Frank and [oppose] him to the World Series and
then play for him as a player. So those two were the ones that I really
enjoyed watch play. You know, I would
tell any young person today, you know, don’t get so much hung up on us as
athletes. It starts from home. Look at your parents as your role models;
those are your true role models. Yes, I do feel that we have an obligation and
that’s to be good citizens, be productive on the field, and do the things that
we know that we’re supposed to do. But those were the two guys that I looked
at, Frank and Vada.
Markusen: Robinson was one of the most hard-nosed players I can
remember seeing. He would take guys out
at second base. Was that an aspect of his play that you really liked, how hard
he played the game?
Oliver: How hard he played, there’s no question about that.
You know, and Vada’s smoothness as a runner, yeah, I always liked those
hard-playing players, I always did. Because I played with a lot of them, you
know, throughout my career. Hard players, hard-nosed… Frank is hard-nosed as a
manager, too.
Grant: Yeah, he was hard-nosed. You speak to him, you know,
you play against him and say ‘How are you doing, Frank?’ He’ll say ‘What are
you speaking to me for?’
Oliver: But Frank has settled down. You know, really it’s
amazing. It’s great to see because he’s
such a good guy and one other thing about Frank Robinson is that he is one of
the most intelligent people that I have ever been around… He can stand next to
you with his manager, I’ll never forget, he could almost call every pitch. I mean he was smart.
Grant: And underrated.
Oliver: Oh yeah.
Grant: Frank deserves to be [ranked] up there.
Markusen: How’d you fare against him [Robinson]?
Grant: Not too good!
Markusen: Mudcat, let’s talk about that time period that you
came up; 1958 was the year that you made your major league debut for the
Cleveland Indians. Especially for the youngsters here, I think it’s important
to realize how different America was, how different it was for the black
player. Segregation was going on seemingly in every aspect of society. Some of
it was so ridiculous, to the point of segregated water fountains, hotels,
restaurants. As a major league player, how affected were you by all of that and
were there any efforts made by your teammates or the organization to help
shield you from it?
Grant: First, I wasn’t affected by it because by that time,
I had my mother nail confidence into me where I could overcome it. But I still
got training by the African Americans that were already there. You’re right,
though, some of the kids here can’t associate with what was going on back in
those days. It just doesn’t seem real because now we’re in a different
generation. But we could not stay at the same hotels, especially in spring
training. We could not drink at the same water fountain. In fact, [Indians
pitcher] Gary Bell went to a fountain one day, and one said ‘white’ and one
said ‘colored.’ And we looked underneath and the pipe went to the same [place].
Is it going that way or is it going that way? No, it was going the same
way.
[Let me talk about] Ted
Williams. Some of the white players, man, they could not put up with this, but
were afraid to say something. Even today some of the white players need closure
because they know they should have said something and didn’t say anything. But
Ted Williams did. We were in New Orleans, one of the most segregated cities
there was at that time. What they did with us, we played the Boston Red Sox in
an exhibition game; this was during spring training. So you flew in on the
airplane, and then after you come through the airport, the white players and
all of the bags [for both white and black players] went on the bus and went to
the white hotel. We could not ride in a white cab so they put us outside of the
airport into some grassy areas where we waited for black cabs to come and pick
us up. Sometimes it would be an hour; sometimes it would be two hours that we
had to wait there. Now the cab would pick us up and we would go to the black
hotel or motel or bed-and-breakfast. And the bags would be over at the white
hotel. Now the Boston Red Sox had been sued to get black players on the time.
They had two black players, Pumpsie Green and Earl Wilson. Me and Vic Power
were the only two black players on the Cleveland Indians. So four black players
couldn’t merge onto a hotel. If you did, it created some problems. The four of
us couldn’t go, so we pulled straws. For the first time ever I lost the pool. Now
I’ve got to go to the hotel. And I did. I went over to the hotel. You had to
pay the black cab driver four times as much to drive to the white hotel because
it was dangerous. So I get out of the cab and this guy walked up to me and he
said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘Well actually, I’ve come to get those
bags.’ The bags were still sitting in the lobby. He said, ‘You ain’t got no
bags here.’ And I said, ‘Those bags belong to the colored baseball players.’ He
said, ‘That’s a likely story. You ain’t coming in here.’ So Ted Williams—and this
is three hours later—Ted Williams was coming back from dinner. So he saw me—Ted
Williams and the trainer. Ted said, ‘Hey, how ya doing?’ I said, “Well Ted, I’m
not doing too good. You know I can’t stay here.’ He said, ‘It’s a shame you
can’t stay here.’ I said, ‘And our bags are sitting right over there. But this
bellman won’t let me go and get the bags.’ So Ted said, ‘Mud, you know, the
bellman is right. You shouldn’t be going over there to get them bags. HE should be going over there to get
them bags.’ Ted then said [to the bellman], ‘That’s right, boy. Go over there
and get them bags!’ {crowd erupts in laughter}
So those were some of the
things that happened back in those days.