instant but it's the idea is to not be caught and not have it be visible to one of the judges. and so in that way it's very much like old pedestrianism was. i think competitive race walking was -- was in the first modern olympics in 1896, was it? 1896 and one of the few sports and maybe the only sport that has been in every single olympics since then there has been race walking. and so you can really see a direct line from the old time pedestrianism to modern race walk but in a larger sense you can see the direct line from the idea of sport as entertainment the idea that people attend a sporting event not just to watch the event but to see the fireworks and watch the

scoreboard and hear the -- you know, hear the music between plays. the music all the time it is so loud i don't know why it is so loud in stadiums today. you can't even talk but that's just my thing. but you really do see a direct line between pedestrianism and modern professional sports. and most of the pedestrians tried to switch to bicycles but they weren't very good at it. but two of the pedestrians, edward westin and daniel o'leary they continued to stage walking expeditions well into their 80s. westin walked from new york to san francisco in about 1907 and again sold one of these pamphlets along the way. he did a walk from new york to minneapolis and sold a pamphlet and the sponsor was the packard

car company. westin did not like cars just because he thought they made people walk less. iconically, westin, in 1927 was crossing a street in manhattan and was hit by a car. and was left crippled and never walked again and died two years later at the age of 90. o'leary fared a little better. he would stage walk expeditions before major league walk games. he would challenge a player to run around the races while he walked around once. more often than not he would pass a hat through the stands collecting nichols and dimes and this is how he funded his

retirement. i imagine -- he performed before a game in chicago between the white sox and the a's in 1927 and i imagine the players in the dugout who were all born well, well after the golden age they had never heard of pedestrianism and they must have been bemused by the sight of this old man walking around the bases as fast as he could. but would have been blown away he had made more in six days than any of them would make in the entire season of 1927. it was a sport that flashed very brightly for a very short time. and then disappeared almost as quickly as it game on the scene. and i have written the definitive history of it. that's all i have to say if anybody has any questions, i'd

be happy to take them. [ applause ] i don't know if we have a microphone. no microphone. we'll just -- just speak loudly. what is the name of my book? afterwards. "pedestrianism: when watching people walk is america's favorite spectator sport" and it's on sale right over there. what a coincidence. what are the odds. >> two questions did the women walk against other women or against other men? and also did any of the walkers suffer favorly bad health consequences? >> did the women every compete against men?

as far as i know, they did not. women's races were usually held at madison square garden there would be six-day women's races but women did not participate in any of the men's races. but the sport was so popular clubs were organized all over the country. there was a department store league in new york that -- that the department stores competed against each other and this would be a team affair where, there might be four or five people and the accumulative mileage would be the score for the team and i suspect that women participated in those events but not the major races. the other question was about the long-term health effects. westin and o'leary who lived to be 87 and 90 were the exception. you hear many stories of guys who died very young in their

50s. frank hart, very famous african-american, as i mentioned, probably the most famous black athlete in america after he won his major six-day race, 1880-1881 he suffered a complete collapse. don't really know what happened. i sent what i could get from the papers to a couple of -- what do you call the doctors who diagnosis you? pathologist? and their consensus either he contracted encephalitis or suffered a stroke. you think that walking would make you healthy but walking six days straight for 500 to 600 miles in six days, that i wouldn't recommend as a health

regimen. >> did they use special shoes? >> did they use special shoes? early on, no. many would walk just in their work boots and there are many stories of toenails falling off after two or three days. and serious injuries to their feet and legs. as it became more famous and more lucrative and as the competitors could afford it they would go to -- there were 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. endurance athletes in that regard. no nike. >> i greatly enjoyed your book -- >> this gentleman talked about how he thought my book "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 thing. i'm glad the presidents still don't do. that so anyway. he was really kind of a poor guy. he was the last president to become a regular citizen again in a way. and so on this trip they stayed at hotels and ate at roadside diners and crashed with friends

in indianapolis one night. it's the story of this trip and also how being an ex-president has changed. it's -- yeah, it's -- they came to new york. they actually stayed at the waldorf in new york for four nights. i was curious how they could afford that. at the truman library i found a letter from the general manager of the waldorf saying we would be happy to have you as our guest and harry wrote back and said he thought that would be all right. so he wasn't averse to taking a few perks here and there. and i went back and recreated it and found people who encountered him. he got pulled over on the turnpike for driving in the left

lane. harry just liked to get in the left lane and just keep going. so he got pulled over by a cop and the cop, a state trooper is still stampler. 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. ;úpbout participating 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

were very poor. they had working 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. the cross country walks and the difficulty therein. yeah, there were -- there really were no marked roads. a lot of westinn walks across country especially going east coast to west coast. he also did a walk to lchk weos angeles were done along railroad beds. a lot of the walking did he, which is more difficult in some ways than walking an bad roads. as i said there were no reliable road maps so he would often find

himself off course. one of the problems from the walk from boston to washington that he attempts to do in ten days and was four hours late. he got to philadelphia and took a wrong turn. it wasn't until 10, 15 miles down the line that he realized he took the wrong road. so it was very difficult. the prizes. as i said most of the six day races you would win a percentage of the gate. so you might win for a big race $20,000. often the long distance races were done for gambling so there would be wagers made. 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 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. he 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 far as truman, yeah, he

walked -- i forget what it was. what was his old military pace of 60 steps a minute or something. he was famous for his walks. he liked to walk around washington. there's a good story where the secret service hated it. well, the secret service had been protecting fdr for 12 years and really didn't have to worry about fdr going on long walks. so they were used to sitting around smoking all day. one day harry goes out of the office having to deposit his check at the bank. it took them two blocks to catch-up with him. the secret service did a thing where they decided they were going to fix the traffic lights so he would always hit the walk signals as soon as he was out on his walks in washington. he returned independence,

missouri and he walked right up to the very end. he died in '73, he was 88 years old. he was a firm believer in walking. in fact, he was probably young enough, i know he remembers the 1884 -- at least he would have heard from, you know, his parents or other older people about the great 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.

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 meals and drinks while they walked, obviously to save time. maybe they'd have a big old piece of rare meat and chew on it and that was it. i don't know how you would eat the greasy eel broth while you were walking without burning yourself but yeah, meals were taken while they walked. all right.

well, thank you so much again. i really appreciate your attention. [ applause ] provider. watch us on tv, like us on facebook, follow outside >> american history tv is normally seen on weekends but while congress is on its summer break we're presenting it on primetime. coming up the history of the kansas city monarchs negro league team and the impact it had on baseball. that's followed by a skufgs racism in sports over the years, former pro athletes bill russell and jim brown tell their stories. then a look at when walking was the nation's most popular spectator sport. >> here's a great read to deed your summer reading list, c-span's sunday's at 8:00.

>> i always knew there was a risk in the bohemian lifestyle 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. hear. 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 contained the seeds 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 engaging stories in "sundays at 8 accounts. >> phil dixon on the kansas city monarchs the longest running baseball franchise in negro league history. mr. dixon discusses how the monarchs created a number of hall of famers and brought new innovations to the game, include lights for night games. the dwight d. eisenhower presidential library and museum hosted this hour long event. >> first i want to say good afternoon, and i want to thank some people, of course, tim for giving me this opportunity to come down and speak with you today. i'm really excited about it and samantha who handled a lot of

the publicity for the event she did just a wonderful job and without people like that, also there was a local radio station that did a great interview, and between newspaper, radio, i'm always appreciative of all the people who support your visit and so i want to thank all of them before i get started. i'm going to jump right into it and tell you a little bit about why i'm here. the kansas city monarchs was a negro league baseball team and most of you have heard of them. maybe you heard of jackie robinson or satchel paige. they were organized in 1920, 194 they won the first world championship. that was 90 years ago. 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 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, growing, 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 every game the kansas city monarchs ever played.

that was pretty aggressive idea back in that 1980. there was no internet at that time. so if you wanted to know the name of the library say if they played in abilene, you write to the library, had to go the library. they had a big book with all the library addresses, i write them down. i would write letters. i had all these letters. it was a labor of love and a passion that just kept on growing. and needless to say, i was able to find games that were played in abilene because of that. so, as a tribute to the kansas city monarchs who were way in kansas city, what i'm doing now is going to towns that they played and name of my program is the kansas city monarchs and our home town. now, give you a little bit of overview of the kansas city monarchs as i said a moment ago they were organized in 1920. and they were charter members of the negro national league.

and they won their first championship in 1923 p.m. at that time they didn't have a world series. so 1924 they played the eastern colored league, hilldale team and the monarchs won. 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 st. louis, there's a 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 in the kansas city monarchs first team to travel exclusively by bus. the other thing that i think is always interesting is that the kansas city monarchs in 1930, they popularized night baseball. you think of night baseball you don't think of the monarchs. most people remember the date, i think it was may 24th, 1935, when they talk about cincinnati lighting up its park. that's the date i learned as a child. this is when night baseball

started in the major leagues. but actually with the kansas city monarchs it started in 1930. wilkinson being the basebabseba innovator and genius he was he wanted to make night baseball popular. he saw carnivals and circuses had lights and he created some towers he could take on trucks from city to city and popularized this night baseball. now the major leagues were skeptical of the night baseball, so it's been recorded that ben johnson president of the american league said it was a passing fad, it would never last. and wilkinson said that lights will be to baseball what talkies are to movies. another bit of interesting bit of history is that the first all night world series where all the games were played in the night was 1985 when the kansas city royals played the st. louis cardinals. so it took that long. as a matter of fact, the first

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 his team out of the league and go 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 monarchs they recognized how good these players were. and this picture right here, this game was played in blue rapids kansas. that's the 1939 and that shows how popular they were, teams were willing to pose with the kansas city monarchs and this is at a time when racial divide could be pretty tough. but the kansas city monarchs were welcomed almost every place they went. so because of his great innovations, j.l. wilkinson we have pictured here is now a member of the baseball hall of fame in cooperstown, new york. one of his pitchers -- i might mention wilkinson also when they organized the negro national league he was the only white

manager in the league or white owner in the league and how that came about was because in 1911 he organized a team called the all nations. and the all nations had many nationalities on one team traveling together. so jose mendez was them. and he was cuban. they had john donaldson an african-american out of missouri, one of the greatest left-handers that ever lived. they had an italian guy, they had a couple of guys that played formerly in the major league. they had whites, blacks, a native american that played with them, and the first professional 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. andy cooper was born in 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 able to do. first of all rogan like ruth was jyí2 pitcher. he actually invent ad pitch, rogan did called the palm ball which is change of pace. rogan was a great pitcher.

as a pitcher he won over 400 games. as a pitcher. also he was a great batter. and he hit with home run power and he was 5'7". he hit over 400 home runs as a batter. he was a consistent .300 hitter. as for average, he also played the outfield when he wasn't pitching, and was a gold glove outfielder, tremendous arm. he was a fast runner. he could run a 100 yard dash in less than ten seconds or right in ten seconds in that area. and on top of that he managed the monarchs and he led them to the pennant in 1929 and in 1934 they had a record of 134 wins and 14 losses and he managed that team and when he wasn't doing all of that he drove the bus. [ laughter ] so, there are lots of games i

could talk about that happened here in abilene and this is kind of -- this is one of the things i do when i go to cities. i talk about the games in that particular town. and there was one interesting game in junction city i would like to add. we'll get to that. the first time the monarchs came 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 something that was quite a feat as well. a guy named haas and taylor first name unknown hit a home run off of rogan and the newspaper thought that was a great feat and they wroit up.

said something to be proud of because he's considered one of the world's best pitchers. not the best pitcher in kansas or missouri, the world's best pitcher. they knew something back then about baseball. and once again, we can go back to foster's ledger and this is what we find. the monarchs take that day with bullet rogan, $420. and once again, if you take a closer look you see that the monarchs left here and once again this had to be a different secretary because the way they spelled abilene is completely different than the first secretary. we know the date and that's definitely abilene. so if you noticed that on august 2nd, there in abilene they don't play again until the 8th and then in st. louis playing against the st. louis stars. you notice abilene made more

money than a league team the st. louis stars. i keep stressing that. people wonder why would they play these exhibition games when you have a league. the reason why is one thing 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

trying to see 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 and they would have these band johnson leagues and be all over kansas, these band johnson leagues would be. so one of the things the monarchs pretty much handled those band johnson league teams. so they started to book other negro league teams to play against the kansas city monarchs in cities throughout kansas. so in the later years starting maybe 1937, you start to see the league teams outside of kansas city and in communities like this. the monarchs came to town with

four hall of famers, which is pretty unique. the name that is not shown was the manager, andy cooper who did not play. of course we know he's in the hall of fame. they picked up another guy named norman turkey stearns. he was with detroit. wilkinson always would try to get turkey. in fact he had him for a little bit in 1934 when they played the denver post-tournament. he was a fantastic player. he was a guy that used to talk to his bats. buck o'neal told me the story he always carried a 33 ounce and 34 ounce bat, and buck said that he was rooming with him and he said he went out and came back and turkey was in there and had the 34 and the 33 ounce bat and he carried his bats. he slept with his 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 played a lot of 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.