several competitions in london and they went to the famous shoemaker in london that actually specialized in making shoes for pedestrians which were a soft leather that was bound very tightly to their feet. but the equipment they worked with was pretty rudimentary. you know, i don't think the clothing was very comfortable. a lot of wool shirts, bad boots,

you know, the conditions weren't great. they did not have any of the advantages of modern endurance athletes in that regard. no nike. >> i greatly enjoyed your book -- >> this gentleman talked about "harry truman's excellent adventure was -- what did you say? greatest book ever written. i think you said greatest book ever written. i'm writing that down for a blush. "harry trum truman's excellent adventure" they took a road trip. they lived in independence, speech in washington and their daughter lived in new york. they decided to just drive their

chrysler from missouri to the east coast and back again. i think it took about two and a half weeks. but at the time, expresidents had no secret service protection and no pensions and harry was not a wealthy guy by any means. the expenses of the white house was paid out of his salary. when he left the white house in early '53 he had had to take a loan out from a bank in washington to help make ends meet and he refused to commercialize the presidency. he would not take lucrative speaking fees or sit on corporate boards, that sort of .

i found him. he's retired in arizona. there were reported that he had just pulled true man over to get his autograph. i asked manly about this and he said no, i didn't. i didn't. i wish i had. it might be worth something today but he never got his autograph. >> -- surprised at the pedestrian iminnence that he wasn't allowed to compete. >> the question was about american indians participating in pedestrian matches. i really didn't come across much of that. i will say that most of the americans took place in new york. boston, fefl and some in london. also many of the pedestrians

guys. they had sponsored. they had to find somebody to put up the $100 entry fee author th for them. i imagine it was difficult to people to find someone willing to help them pay the $100 entrance fee. yes. >> i think you mentioned the d pedestrians, there were trading cars. did you find any of those? >> i was able to find -- the question was about pedestrians on trading cards. yes, i was able to find a reproduced one. the originals are actually quite expensive. they can be 2, $300. as i said my books don't generate -- it's a tough one to pass -- to get past the wife. do you mind if i 3 a $300 trading card of a pedestrian.

it's not like it's going to be honus wagner. there are countries that reproduce vintage trading cards. i as warizos able to get one fr. it's on sale there

westinn would find a backer or somebody willing to put up $10,000 and was confident he could finish the race, finish the walk from portland maine to

washington in less than 30 days and find another gambler who was tolli willing to say he couldn't. it was interesting because in races like that -- but in walking fe walking's like that there was a lot of fear that somebody might try to sabotage him so he wouldn't make it. he actually brought a food taster along with him when he did the walk from portland, maine to chicago to make sure nobody tried to poison him. even if you made him sick for two days, it might be enough for his schedule to be off. was meticulous about his schedule. he scheduled ef mvery minute. he had everything scheduled out. when he would sleep or eat. those sorts of things. if he was taken off of that schedule, he would be in

trouble. >> a couple of comments. it seems that the speed that you referred to seems phenomenal especially over that period of time. number two, true man was famous for being a walker. evide everyday he took his constitutional walk. >> referring to the speed of the pedestrians in the competitive races, i think -- it's hard to tell. we have to photographs, much less moving pictures. it's a shame. it was still the age of line drawings and engraving but the way people described westinn's walk really sounded similar to what race walking was today. they said he had a wobbling walk. he moved his hips. i had a feeling that he walked fast much like modern race walkers do. as walking matches

that had taken place about ten years before he was born. >> one more. >> how did timing work in terms of when the athletes would take a nap? how would keep track of that? >> how would timing work when athletes took a nap? >> well, you were on your own when you took a nap. you could sleep as much as you

wanted but you were sacrificing that time on the track. i know in the major arenas like in new york and chicago, there was a large clock on the wall so everybody could keep track of how long people slept and how long they were on the track but nobody really kept statistics about exactly how long somebody was on the track or slept. if you took a nap, you were really taking your chances because of the rest of the field could just continue walking. yeah, it's interesting. the idea of timing and timing to the second and minute. it was -- you can't really trust all of the times you hear sometimes, you know, where somebody would say oh, i walked 500 miles in five days. 14 hours and 23 minutes. well, how good was the clock? think didn't have court timing

or anything. a lot in the book i kind of try to take with a grain of salt when people say oh, he walked 100 miles in 19 hours. it's like it's not always easy to be sure. yes. >> how did they eat? they ate while theywere allowed attendant that would help them, i don't know, cut the stake while they were walking. but they took their the bohemia

and i decided to take it and whether it's an illusion or not, i don't think it is, it helped my concentration. it stopped me being bored. stopped other people being boring to some extent. it would keep me awake. make me want the evening to go on longer, to enhance the moment. if i was asked would i do it again, the answer is probably yes, i would have quit earlier possibly hoping to get away with the whole thing. easy for me to says of course. not very nice for my children to hear. it sounds irresponsible if i say i would do it again. but the truth is it would be hypocritical of me to say. but i did know. >> vote union and the soviet system in eastern europe of its own destruction.

many of the problems we saw at the end begin at the very beginning. i spoke already about day tempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential dissidence every way. if you tell an artist you have lñgwk'ñ

>> there's 41 enthat was 90 yea.

i was trying to figure a way to honor these great men who purely played for the love of the game because they didn't make great salaries back then, and so i decided i was going to visit 90

cities to basically commemorate the monarchs' efforts as a negro league baseball team. now they played in more than 90 cities, so i'm going to 90 cities and believe me that just scratches the is your facilitates all the places that the kansas city monarchs did. they were great ambassadors for the game. for me my journey started a long time ago. as a child i collected baseball cards and i kind of went nuts with that. so i found out about baseball and i just kept collecting, collecting, collecting and the collection kept growing, and my knowledge grew. and so not only did i know about the baseball statistics but the thing that captured me the most were baseball stories. so i liked to read the backs and whatever stories they had and then i gravitated to books and just kept growing. and finally, this kind of brings me home to abilene and here's what happened.

i got my first full time job working for a retail store. i was out of college and they bounced me around to a few places. i was in colorado springs, albuquerque for a little while, wichita and i ended up in topeka, kansas. i always talked baseball, no matter where i went. i always talked baseball. somebody mentioned there was a negro leaguer that had played ball who lived in topeka. and i got to know this negro leaguer, his name was carroll ray and he was on that '24 team. he later passed. but through that association i decided to do a little tribute to him. so in doing this tribute, you know, once again being that kind of person who loves to collect information, you know, i challenged myself. i said i'm going to find everyw.

in 1925 they returned to the world series but they didn't win. hilldale won. they were the best team in the eastern colored league. the kansas city monarchs don continued to play and by 1929 they won another championship by bullet rogan. the kansas city monarchs played exhibition games. in the negro league they had a regular schedule. you had eight teams and they had a regular schedule. but most of those games would be

on the weekend when they could draw the largest audience. so they would play friday, saturday, sunday and then sometimes on monday. well in between that if you're coming from kansas city going to lot of cities in between and remember we're talk about the golden age of town baseball. and these are grown fellows who are playing baseball and some of them were, you know, workers in the town but they loved baseball as well. these are grown men playing baseball. as you can see, the monarchs during the 1920s, this is an article from the kansas city kansas daily traveller, you see they only lost three times in over 400 exhibition games. the towns had good teams but the monarchs were hard to beat. during that time when they were barnstorming of course the first time they came to abilene was in 1923 and they were on trains but in 1925 there was a highway act

and they started building up the highways, connecting all the major cities and some not so major together and so the owner of the kansas city monarchs being this creative genius he was, his name was j.l. wilkinson decided he would use a bus to transport his players and they could go places on a different schedule than the railroad, get more games in, they could go to cities who weren't along the railroad lines. so in that he became the first first kansas city monarchs

weekends game at night wasn't until 1971 and back in the 1930s the monarchs were popularizing that. as a matter of fact, their pitcher, one of them pitched the first no-hitter back in 1930 under the lights. so this is up with of his greatest innovations and one he doesn't get credit for but he should because it revolutionized major baseball and baseball every where. the monarchs spent a lot of time barnstorming. and in 1930, the depression had pretty much hit most of the major cities that were in the league. so st. louis, st. louis, chicago, all those cities were in depressions. and so wilkinson decided to pull 100% barnstorming. so what he was able to do through that is to take the monarchs to places that they

couldn't go in between their schedule. so like in between their schedule he could come out to western kansas, take a week, take a few days and come back to kansas city. well, when he went, got out of the league they went as far as the pacific coast, they went to portland, washington state, idaho, they went down to mexico, went over the border into mexico. they went up to canada. they went all the way to saskatchewan, alberta. they went all over the place. going to all those places you can see they rarely lost. this was an awfully good team. but the barnstorming is the part that most people had the opportunity to see the kansas city monarchs. this is the way that most baseball fans had a chance to see the kansas city monarchs especially outside of the major cities. this picture here is a barnstorming picture. you can see the towns' teams

they knew how great the monarchs were and most -- a ball player can recognize another ball player, no doubt about it. so when they saw the kansas city the first professionaled how

japanese player played on wilkinson's team. so that team played right up until world war i and they were pretty much decimated by the draft in world war i. so when the opportunity comes in 1920 because of his goodwill and friendliness and his relationships with various

races, he was picked to organize a team and that's how he became the only white owner in the negro league. mendez, outstanding player. monarchs first manager. he started with wilkinson years ago. he also has been enshrined in cooperstown, new york. also, along the way they had other players that joined them. this gentleman by the name of andy cooper. waco, texas but raised in wichita, kansas. 1920 he plays for the detroit stars in the negro national league in a in 1920 wilkinson traded two players to get him and he comes to the kansas city month marks and remains there and died while he was the manager of the monarchs in 1940. but he comes. and because he was such an outstanding player, he too is in the major league baseball hall of fame at cooperstown, new

york. but of all the greatest players, especially during the 1920s, there was none greater than wilbur bull jet rogan. many people to this day have not heard of rogan's name. if i had the same group of people here in 1920 and i was to mention rogan's name they would know exactly who i was talking about. he was widely publicized and here's the reason why i personally think he was the greatest all around baseball player that ever lived. you know right before, you know, we went and started this whole new decade and new century they did all these polls of the greatest baseball players of our time. of course everybody picks babe ruth. let me tell you what rogan was e

as i said was in 1923, august 17th. and one thing that was unique, this didn't happen too often, in 1925 they came to abilene twice in the same year. that was rare that they would go back to barnstorming city twice. i tell you that says something for abilene right there. and, of course, in -- i jumped to 1938. there were some other games along the way. 1926 they came here in august and got rained out. then they came back in september 15th of 1927, they got rained out again. there's another game i know in 1939, i'm still trying to find information on so i can't give

you much detail on that one. but we got some interesting games i do want to talk to. now keep in mind, integration in the area of blacks being on teams with whites in kansas was not new and so people were kind of already prepared long before the kansas city monarchs came. this is a pitcher here of the humbolt team. bud fowler first france's played in topeka in 1886 and another gentleman by the name of burt wakefield out of troy, kansas and his name was jones, burt jones and he was from atchison and they played in the kansas state league. so kansas was one of the last leagues to include african-american players and a lot of people weren't aware of this knowledge, but this is the earliest picture i ever found of the integrated team in the state

of kansas. now these games -- there were always scouts from other cities trying to figure out how they could beat the monarchs. in this particular article here that appeared in the manhattan morning chronicle, i saw a reference that the manager coming over from manhattan to scout the kansas city monarchs because they were going to be playing them and he wanted to see how he could beat the monarchs. he comes over and scouts the monarchs which is kind of interesting because you wouldn't think that people were scouting teams at that time. of course when he got over here this is what he saw. the kansas city monarchs, the first time they came through they pretty much handled the local team, beat them 10-2. as you notice, mendez is in the game. the guy who was in the hall of fame. and he's probably one of the earliest hall of famers and bullet rogan in the hall of fame was also there that day.

wilkinson their owner was there as well. in that game there was a guy by the. >> i'm of swede, his name was pa pearson. he was a heck of a good pitcher and good enough to go the big leagues but in times like those big leagues didn't pay the larger amount of money so some guys if they had a good enough job they didn't leave and could get work in town teams. so they come to abilene, pretty much beat abilene. because the score was 10-2 would you believe abilene was proud of that. in the paper they printed that there's some mean satisfaction knowing that the kansas city monarchs defeated junction city 13-1 and abilene only 10-2. i thought that was interesting.

that happened all the time. if you couldn't beat them maybe you could look better than the surrounding towns. when the monarchs organized in 1929, the first league president was andrew rube foster. he had a couple of teams. he was booking those teams and getting eater 5% or 10% of the gate wherever they played. so they needed rube foster to come in to the league to be a part of the league because he controlled five or four of the best teams. they had to convince him to give up his booking money to come in to the league and join the new league. so in order to satisfy him they said that we will give you 5% from every game that's played in the negro national league. so the new teams plus the teams

he used to book, they were going to give him 5%. detroit they had an agreement with detroit they had to pay 10% to foster. he kept immaculate records and so i was able to come across his record book and what i was able on the find out exactly how much money they made in abilene. and so if you look here, abilene, according to the newspaper account, had 1,000 people at the game. and the monarchs' share, once again they got a share, the monarchs charged 65% of the take. they made $341 playing in abilene. you can see the gate receipt from the other cities that they played in junction city. leroy, they couldn't get a crowd, $75. but it just kind of gives you a

view of how important these games were from a profit stance. the monarchs had pretty much handled abilene but abilene still had their great pitcher swede. they invited the monarchs back twice in 1925. is this lineup that appeared here in 1925 when the monarchs came through. some of these names like bullet rogan, he was in left field that day. didn't pitch that day. and so they come through and some of the players like gerard swit he was born in humbolt. sylvester foreman is buried in coffeyville, kansas. bill drake, chet brewer born and raised in leavenworth. this is the team that they played. bullet rogan wasn't pitching

that day but pearson for the local team struck out the end of the kansas city monarchs and that was going some back then. bullet rogan played outfield and went one for three. he hit the only home run of the game. so when they came, once again, how much money did they make, right? so we go back to foster's ledger. and there were 900 people in that first game. and the monarchs for their take of the game made $260. now what's interesting, if you look, the monarchs are in abilene on the 9th. if you go down to the 20th you can see they were in birmingham, alabama and you could see they made $160 playing on the first day they went to birmingham. so they made more in abilene than they made in birmingham and birmingham was a league town so you can see why these games are pretty important and that's why the monarchs continued

barnstorming. i guess the people in abilene were not satisfied because they had never seen bullet rogan pitch. so they had to invite them back to see bullet rogan pitch. bullet rogan comes to town and this is the final core, 11-4 and bullet rogan pitches and abilene scores four runs off of them. there were 15,000 people at this game, and i think that day the public got their money's worth seeing that game. the monarchs get four home runs. and wouldn't you know it, bullet rogan added another home run to his already dominant list of home runs and once again when people talk about the home runs that rogan hit, you go online and look at the books these are not the home runs they talk about. these are games people generally don't know about. and so this is kind of research i specialize in. of course we mentioned gerard swit. he went to pittsburgh state

college, also played football and was a great player and he was from the humbolt area. wayne johnston and "the box score" they put johnson but it was wayne johnston and he lived in steubenville, ohio. actually after he refrird baseball, an older guy he ran a store, a bait and tackle store and specialized in setting worms. so that's what he did after his living. in addition to hitting a home run rogan struck out 12 that day. this is a pretty good player. abilene finally got a chance to see bullet rogan. but abilene did some it

was income. so, one other game i would like to talk about -- i usually talk about three or four games in every city. i try to pick some of the more interesting games to talk about. so one of the games i want to talk about -- i might mention the other games that i have in abilene were rain occupants and things like that. there's one in 1939 still trying to pull all the details to. there could be other times they came as late as 1955, usually when i go somewhere to speak there's an old baseball player in the audience that say hey they were here in 1952 and, you know, we played against them. so i'm always finding new information every where i go and that's quite exciting to me because i go instantly and start digging that information out and

how -- what happened in the game. the next game i want to mention was rogan's last season in 1938, and the monarchs came down and they were going to play in junction city. this is what the newspaper wrote about rogan's name. rogan is the most famous one in negro baseball in this or any other day despite being a fiendish hitter and playing the outfield when he's not a pitcher. he has speed. his fadeaway was that of masterson and his control was almost perfect. major league batters who batted against him said he was as good as any pitcher they ever faced. this is what they are writing about rogan in his final season he's going back to all these places that the monarchs played and he's basically making that

last round trip around the league. and that just kind of shows the popularity he had. when the monarchs showed up in junction city, things had changed in baseball. the golden era of town baseball had begun to die. at this particular point most teams had like college players and young guys bats.

took them to the room. and the monarchs had lost a game that day and he used the 33 bat and it went about this far from

going over the fence and buck said he was talking to his bats and talking to the 33. i said i used you today i didn't hit the home run. if i had to use you the 34 ounce bat i would have hit that home run and we would have won the game. turkey when they interviewed him years later they asked him how many home runs did you hit. he said i have no idea because i only counted them when they won the ball game. so he was just a great player. he's on that team. of course, got bullet rogan in his final season. he's on that team. you have another guy called willard brown. brown was playing shortstop. actually he's playing third base in this particular game but shortstop. he ended. being a great player. he went to the major leagues. most people know about jackie robinson being the first african-american in the major leagues. he was in the national league. two monarchs were the third and

fourth. they signed the same day. they went to the st. louis browns. willard brown was one of them. the other was hank thompson later played with the giants. they signed third and fourth african-american players and willard brown goes out and hits a home run on august 13th against newsome, hits a home run and he becomes the first black player to hit a home run in the major leagues. not jackie, not larry dobie, willard brown. willard brown is coming back to the monarchs and never gets back to the engage leagues. he played minor league baseball and had 400 home runs playing with the negro league teams. i think he had another couple of home runs playing in the minor league ball in the texas league, and he also holds the current record for the most home runs hit in the puerto rican winter league, 27 in the puerto rican winter league. this was a good ball player. they come to town with four

negro lea because of

the way he ran. there's bell with his son playing for the monarchs. the player in the background has an alphabet not a number. that was one of wilkinson's innovations that did not work. of course, this gentleman here, you probably heard his name, buck o'neal. 1938 he was playing his first season with the kansas city monarchs. another interesting thing about this pitcher, baseball players

go through certain phases. right now in the major leagues we're in the beard phase. a lot of guys have beards, facial hair. this guy had no facial hair. that was the phase that they were in at that particular time, the clean cut kind of look. this is very young buck o'neal, by the way. irfrican-american the major leagues or had been playing with a mustache was satchel paige. you find pitchers of satchel paige you'll find he has a mustache in the 1930s which was kind of rare. once again satchel paige was rare himself. so, you know, in going around and giving talks on the negro leagues and trying to go back to as many cities as i can, and talk about various games and that they played in those cities, you know, occasionally, you know, you hear something that really summarizes the

experience. i was listening to a song. i hard it. that's a great song. you know what? i'm halfway decent poet let me change it. so i kind of adapted it and so i would like to say it four here today and i'll close with that. it goes something like this. my name is bullet rogan. my name is turkey stearns. my name is buck o'neal. but my age is way beyond. i spread my prime in baseball shoes but my sporting days are gone. i'm just one more forgotten face among the black face teams an old dark horse that came the course they called the negro leagues. i worked the fields in tennessee but i dreamed ofscore who playe

bat. but when you seek out heroes and praise the great pastime, remember those old brown face pros, the stars that did not shine. [ applause ] so with that conclusion what i would like to do is open it up for any questions you might have related to the negro leagues and i want to thank everybody for coming, hitting junction city tomorrow and believe it or not sunday i'm in salisbury, missouri. so i'm jumping across the state and just having a ball talking baseball and talking local baseball that doesn't get talked about very much but having fun bringing the history of the kansas city monarchs and the alive again.

>> yes. this has been very interesting. i thank you very much for your presentation. i'm so sorry there aren't more people here to enjoy this and to learn more about the monarchs. i would like to know has there ever been or do you think there ever will be a movie that goes back and delves into the history of the monarchs because they were a great inspiration, a foot hold to all of the black players in the american leagues today, in fact all sports, i think. >> yeah. that's an excellent question. i think, you know, i'm a person who grew up watching baseball movies, and i would say that there's been some attempts to write a few movies. there was one called