‘Black baseball is like oxygen’: Doug Glanville on the joy of playing to honor the Negro Leagues
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Doug Glanville, ESPN MLB analyst
No matter who you are, there are times and places in baseball when you wonder how you got there. Saturday’s Hall of Fame East-West Classic at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York, was one of those times for me. Being a small part of the greatness collected on the field that day was humbling, and the events of the weekend swirled in my mind as I stepped into the batter’s box.
The last time I’d hit in any competitive landscape was 13 years ago in the same Doubleday Stadium. Only two of my four children were born then, which meant this was the first (and maybe last) time they’d get to see their dad play. In addition to my resurrected baseball equipment that I pulled from storage, I was carrying 10 more unshaped pounds and a graying beard.
A lot had led up to this moment. The work of two captains, CC Sabathia and Chris Young, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum inspired a reunion of dozens of former major league stars. They assembled us to honor and recreate the Negro Leagues’ All-Star Game, an annual event that took place in MLB ballparks at the pinnacle of independent Black baseball. It was also a celebration of the Hall of Fame’s newest exhibit, The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball.
Everyone on the East-West roster was a big leaguer, or at least had been at one point, and we were also family on this day, connected by our common experiences and the constructs of color and race.
From the moment I checked in at the luxurious Otesaga Resort Hotel on Friday, I could feel the escalating sense that I had been invited to a royal ball. Then I saw the royalty. The lobby was teeming with greats of the game’s past: Dave Winfield, Ferguson Jenkins, Jim Rice, Ryne Sandberg, Fred McGriff, Ozzie Smith.
I was told I needed to try on my uniform, provided by the Hall of Fame, to make sure it fit. I unfurled it in my room, bit by bit, wondering if the measurements I gave were accurate. Once I had it on, I took a picture to send to my family. It was a different me than I envisioned. I kept thinking, “I look more like a coach.”
But I would be one of 24 players. Tony Gwynn Jr. and I wondered together how hard we should play. Before the bus trip over to the Hall, all of us got together to exhale and laugh, and officially open the new exhibit. Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch teased us about the sometimes faulty measurements we’d sent in for our uniform sizes, saying “some of you said you were size medium.”
Prince Fielder, known during his career for his power and size, replied, “Why are you all looking at me?” and the room broke out in laughter.
I might not be a size medium anymore, nor a Hall of Famer, but in the jaw-dropping awe of the exhibit’s opening it didn’t matter. The Hairston family was represented by Scott and Jerry Jr., whose grandfather, Sam, was a Triple Crown winner in the Negro Leagues. Fergie Jenkins was there to again honor his parents — his father, who could not rise in baseball due to his color, and his mother, who was blind. I worked on the committee that helped shape the new exhibit and I knew the tone that was set. This Hall of Souls was not about statistics, but humanity.
The red-carpet affair culminated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. At one point, we all gathered for a picture. As I stood among the likes of Harold Baines, Ken Griffey Jr., Rollie Fingers, Jim Kaat, Joe Torre, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith, Lee Smith, Jenkins, McGriff, Rice, Sandberg and Winfield, I tweeted, “Did someone calculate the total Wins Above Replacement on that stage?”.
Did someone calculate the total Wins Above Replacement on that stage? #MLB @SportsInfo_SIS https://t.co/V4AhJwja0Y
— Doug Glanville (@dougglanville) May 25, 2024
I also walked through the new exhibit for the first time. It’s a celebration of a Black experience that also provides a certain kind of armor, and an affirmation of the value and the impact Black baseball has had on the game we love. There was perseverance, dedication and the fight for equality. But there was also protection, unity and love. It allows us to point to the undeniably hard truths as we ran the bases of history, an antidote against dismissal of our trials with racism along the way. It is much harder to deny our experience when we have a shared story.
Documenting those stories — and initiatives just this week like adding Negro League marks to MLB’s leaderboards — builds a bridge to the past through the names we already know: Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Effa Manley. But more importantly, it’s a path to the many anonymous Black players who filled up rosters from coast to coast.
I particularly loved reading the published appeals made by many to demand equality. The words of Wendell Smith, a famed sports writer of the time, remind us that we were athletes but also advocates, in search of an ever-moving home plate.
On game day, we met to go over the lineups and took our spots 1 through 9 in the batting order.
I was batting ninth, as the designated hitter, which helped insure my 53-year-old body did not have to run too much. I listened to my teammates introduce themselves, and most had incredible baseball resumés. I had no All-Star Games or Gold Glove awards to speak of, so mine was left to my best season, when I hit .325 with 11 home runs. I wondered later what I should have added — my errorless streak to end my career, my hitting streaks in 1998, my stolen base success rate before the pitch clock?
But at game time, there was no turning back. We all were here and more importantly, we all deserved to be here. Fittingly, we had no names on our backs. We could not fit all of those who came before us on our jerseys, so we stood on their backs instead.
During the pregame festivities, the unforgettable conversations I’d been having ran through my mind. Getting ribbed by Sabathia for showing up with “so many bats.” Swapping stories with Murray over dinner. Mookie Wilson taking me back to a commercial I loved as a kid, when he was with the Mets. Being a part of this historic event was like jumping into a silent movie and finding out there are words being spoken, only no one else but us can hear them.
Just before first pitch, I thought of what poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony about the listening required to hear the Black voices of baseball:
“And when you listen, you discover that chorus surrounds you like oxygen. Black baseball is literally everywhere.”
In its essence: Black baseball is like oxygen.
In many ways, the deep breath I normally take in the batter’s box felt freer this time. Maybe it was because I knew more about how I got into that box. It was palpable that I could share that revelation with a special kind of baseball family, some sitting in the stands, some suited up, who walked through the world in the uniform of darker skin.
In my first at-bat in the game, I executed my routine. I kicked my spikes into the dirt to set in motion my own personal baseball history — my nod to Mike Schmidt with a subtle tap of the outside corner of the plate.
I walked, and when I reached first, Fielder was standing there. I had played against his dad, Cecil. When we spoke, he said, “I know this is an exhibition, but it is so hard to turn it off.” “Impossible to turn it off,” I told him. (Even still, I didn’t try to steal second, though Tyson Ross was employing a high leg kick that I would have taken as an invitation in my younger days.)
But our competitive spirit was cooperative, just as the survival of the Negro Leagues depended on working together — as a business and as a community. At our East-West exhibition, I felt I had new teammates in time, where I am not alone in that batter’s box.
Fit for the drama, we were down 4-2 going into the bottom of the fifth inning. With two outs, up stepped Ryan Howard. He was a rookie in my last season with the Phillies, when I became an example for him of what happens when you age in this game. Years later, as his career was winding down, he told me: “Now I know how you felt when you got old.”
Now, we were all veterans. We were all making — and listening to — the sounds of the game, as we’d done for years or decades. And nothing is more undeniable than the crack of a bat on a well-struck baseball.
Howard’s made our dugout jump. “He got him,” I said.
And he had.
Exit velocity — unknown. Launch angle — who’s measuring? We knew by the senses we’d honed all of our lives.
The ball cleared the fence, giving us a 5-4 lead going into the last inning. We met at home plate to celebrate. (Most of us were too old to jump too high.)
It would turn out to be the winning swing, but we had already won the moment the first pitch was thrown.
When the game was over, I broke bread again with my teammates and our families. My family had seen me play — some for the first time, and possibly for the last — but I’d shared so much more than just at-bats. It was a day for history, honor, equality and the value of playing for something so much bigger than yourself.
Perhaps most of all, it was our tribute to the spirit of the game.
Later, back at the Hall, a fan came over to take a photo during an autograph session. She said this:
“You guys played with such joy.”
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Andrea Adelson
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Notre Dame had one last chance to beat Miami, 1:04 left on the clock, redshirt freshman CJ Carr charged with driving the Irish down the field.
Miami coach Mario Cristobal surveyed the field from the opposite sideline. He had a feeling his stalwart defensive ends, Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor, would come through and take advantage of the tired Irish offensive line.
Sure enough, Mesidor and Bain came up with sacks on back-to-back plays to end the game, sealing the No. 10 Hurricanes’ raucous 27-24 victory over No. 6 Notre Dame on Sunday night.
“You know the old saying, these are heavyweight bouts, and rounds 11 through 15 are going to separate the winners and the guys that don’t win it,” Cristobal said. “So we knew it was going to somehow, some way, get to this, and we just felt that if we were tired, that they were going to be more tired. And that was a chance at ‘whatever it takes mentality,’ and going to get it done.”
Perhaps even more gratifying was watching the Miami defense make the plays to seal a game. Last season, the Hurricanes lost a chance to play in the ACC championship game after blowing a 21-0 lead to Syracuse to end the regular season. Cristobal made staff changes, bringing in new defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman to revamp not just the scheme but the attitude with which Miami played.
Injuries hampered Mesidor and Bain last season. But leading into the matchup with Notre Dame, both talked about feeling healthy and ready to play well in the new aggressive scheme that would allow them to make plays.
“We go through the two-minute drill every single day in the hot sun,” Mesidor said. “When the lights are up, and it’s cool outside, and when the moment is right, we’re going to get after it.”
He then referenced their uniform numbers. Mesidor wears No. 3 and Bain wears No. 4.
“Three and four all day,” Mesidor said.
“All day!” Bain said in response. “Best in the nation.”
Both players said it did not go unnoticed that Notre Dame was the favorite in the game. Bain showed his cellphone lock screen during his postgame news conference, with a screen grab of an article that, he said, had negative things to say about him.
Perhaps that provided a little extra motivation. But it seemed renewing a rivalry with the Irish was motivation enough. Scores of former players and coaches, including Jimmy Johnson, Michael Irvin, Devin Hester and Ray Lewis, stood on the sideline in one of the most anticipated home season openers in recent memory.
Carson Beck made his debut for the Hurricanes, after transferring from Georgia, and helped get his team in position for the game-winning score after Notre Dame erased a two-touchdown lead and tied the game at 24 with 3:21 remaining.
Miami had dominated up front for a majority of the game, but after scoring on the opening drive of the third quarter, the play calling turned conservative, and the Hurricanes mustered 15 yards on their ensuing four drives.
Beck said he told his teammates when they got the ball back they were going to go down the field and score. He opened the drive with a completion to CJ Daniels, who wowed earlier in the game with a one-handed leaping 20-yard touchdown catch to give Miami the lead at halftime. From there, Miami handed off to CharMar Brown, who got the Hurricanes into field goal range.
That set up transfer kicker Carter Davis to line up for a 47-yard field goal attempt. Davis beat out two other kickers to win the starting job but had spent the bulk of his career as a kickoff specialist. Headed into Sunday night, he had gone 4-of-11 in his career on field goal attempts.
Beck said he was nervous as he saw Davis line up. Davis said he went through his mental checklist, trying not to let the sold-out crowd get to him.
“Once I looked up at it and I saw it was in, I’d say my heartbeat skipped, plus accelerated, because I was just so excited for it,” Davis said.
Beck finished 20-of-31 for 205 yards with two touchdowns. Carr, making his first career start, made some gutty plays throughout the course of the game — including a diving 7-yard run to tie the game up. But with the game on the line, he was unable to even get an opportunity for a score, thanks to the Miami defense.
Notre Dame has now lost seven straight road games to Miami.
“Tonight wasn’t good enough out of me, specifically. We’ve got to get better,” Carr said.
Coach Marcus Freeman said, “Every goal we have is ahead of us,” but added that the Irish have to play better on the offensive and defensive lines. The Irish had one sack and struggled to get after Beck.
“You’re not going to be really successful on defense if you can’t get pressure on the quarterback with four-man rushes,” Freeman said.
Miami did that, particularly at the end of the game, when it stepped the pressure up on Carr. The result was its first win over an AP Top 10 opponent since beating No. 3 Notre Dame 41-8 in 2017.
“It’s just an unbelievable night for so many people that poured so much into this,” Cristobal said. “Just grateful to be in this opportunity and really hungry and driven [for] the next one.”
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