else? thank you so much. this was great. [applause] thank you. >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. tv,ext, on american history a small historian phil dixon talks about the kansas city monarchs, the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's negro leagues. we will hear about the contributions the monarchs made to the baseball world, including teacher hall of fame players and several innovations like these of light for night games. the dwight d eisenhower

presidential library and museum hosted this event. >> first, i want to say good afternoon and thank some people. of course tim for letting me come and speak to you today. and of course samantha, who handled a lot of the publicity for the event. she did just a wonderful job. there was also a local radio station who did a great interview and between newspaper and radio, i'm always appreciative of all the people who support your visit. i want to thank all of them before i get started. i'm going to jump right into it and tell you why we are here. the kansas city monarchs were a negro league baseball team. perhaps most of you have heard of them. some of the great players -- maybe you heard of jackie robinson or satchel paige. organized 1920, 1920 four and one the first world championship. that was 90 years ago.

way torying to figure a honor these brave men who purely play for the love of the game because they did not make great salaries back then. i decided i was going to visit 90 cities to commemorate the negrohs efforts as a league baseball team. they played in more than 90 cities, so i'm going to 90 cities and that just scratches the surface of all the places the kansas city monarchs did. ambassadors for the game. for me, my journey started a long time ago. as a child, i collected baseball cards and i went nuts with that. about baseball and cap collecting, collecting, collecting in the collection kept growing and growing. my knowledge grew, so not only did i know about baseball to to sticks, but the thing that captured me the most were baseball tories.

backs of to read the whatever stories they have and then i gravitated to books and kept growing. finally, this brings me home to abilene. here is what happened. jobt my first full-time working for an outdoor retail store. and they of college bounced me around to a few places in colorado springs at albuquerque for a little while. then i ended up in topeka come in kansas. i always talk baseball, no matter where i go. someone mentioned there was a negro league that played ball into the gun. -- it wasnow his name carol ray moffatt and the that association, he later passed and i decided to do a tribute to him

, so in doing this tribute, once you get to being the kind of person who loves to collect information, i challenge myself and say i'm going to do but -- i'm going to find every game the kansas city monarchs ever played will stop that was an aggressive deal back in 1980. there was no internet at the time, so if you want to know the name of a library, if you want to write the library, you have to go to the library and they had a big book with all the library addresses and i would go ad write letters, it was labor of love and a passion that kept growing. needless to say, i was able to find games played in abilene because of that. as a tribute to the kansas city -- what, what i'm going i'm doing now is going to towns they played and the name of my

program is the kansas city monarchs and our hometown. let me give you an overview of the kansas city monarchs. they were organized in 1920. they were charter members of the negro national leagues. they won their first championship in 1923, but at that time, they did not have a world series. in 1924, they played the eastern colored league and the kansas city monarchs one. they were out of derby in sylvania. in 1925, they returned to the world series will stop they returned back to the world series as the best team in the eastern color league and they want. the kansas city monarchs continued to play and by 1925 date one another championship under the leadership of a guy named wilber "bullet" rogan and

we will learn more about him in just a moment. along the way, the kansas city monarchs played exhibition games. i will explain how that happened. in the negro league, they had a regular schedule. gains -- most of those games would be on the weekend when they could draw the largest audience. they would play friday, saturday, sunday and sometimes on monday. if you are coming from kansas city, going to st. louis where there is a larger city in between -- we are talking about the golden age of town baseball. these are grown fellows playing menball and these are grown playing baseball. as you can see, the monarchs you can see920's, they'll lay lost three times in over 400 exhibition games. so they had good teams but the

monarchs were hard to beat. during that time when they were barnstorming, the first time they came to abilene was 1923 and they were on the trains. act925, there was a highway and they started building up the highways connecting all the major cities and some not so major together. the owner of the kansas city monarchs, being this creative genius that he was, he decided he would use a bus to transport his players and they could go places on a different scale than the railroad. they could go to cities who were not along the railroad lines will stop he became the first team to travel exclusively by bus. the other thing that is interesting is the kansas city monarchs in 1930, they popularized night a small.

when you think of night baseball, you don't think of the monarchs. 1935, they remember talk about cincinnati lighting up the park. that is the day i learned as a child. this is when night baseball started in the major leagues. but in kansas city, it started in 1930 and wilkerson, being the innovative genius he was, he wanted to make night baseball popular. after what het had seen in carnivals and circuses. he created towers he could take on trucks from city to city and popularized night baseball. the major leagues were skeptical of night baseball. it has been reported that the president of the american league said it was a passing fad and would never last. he said lights would be to baseball what talkies are two movies will stop another

interesting bit of history is the first all-night world series where all the games were played in the night was 1985, when the kansas city royals lay the st. louis cardinals. it took that long. the first world series game at night was not until 1971. monarchshe 1930's, the are popularizing that. their pitcher, one of them pitched the first no-hitter in 1930 under the lights. this is one of his greatest innovations and when he does not often get credit for. he should because it revolutionized a small everywhere. the monarchs spent a lot of time barnstorming. 1930, the depression had hit most major cities in the leagues. st. louis, chicago, all of those

cities were in depression. wilkinson decided to pull his team out of the league and go 100% aren't storming. what he was able to do to that was take the monarchs to places they could not go in between their schedule. western come out to kansas, take a week and come back. league,got out of the they went as far as the pacific coast, portland, washington state, idaho, they went down to mexico, over the border into mexico, up to canada into sassa -- into saskatchewan. they went all over the place. places, all of those you could see they rarely lost will stop this was an awfully good team. barnstorming is the part

most people had the opportunity to see the kansas city monarchs. this is the way most baseball fans had a chance to see them, especially outside the major city. towns teams knew how great the monarchs were. ballplayer can recognize another ballplayer, no doubt about it stop when they saw the kansas city monarchs, they recognize how good these players were. this picture right here was played in blue rapids, kansas. shows how9 and that popular they were. teams were willing to post with the kansas city monarchs, and this was a time when racial divides could be pretty tough. but the kansas city monarchs were welcome almost every place they went. because of his great innovations, gl wilkinson who we

have pictured here -- jl here,son who is pictured -- i might mention that when they organize the negro national leagues, he was the only white manager or white owner in the league. 1911,at came about was in he organized a team called the all nations. the all nations had many nationalities on one team traveling together. cuban, they had john donaldson, an african-american out of missouri , one of the greatest left-handers that ever lived. and aad an italian guy couple of guys who played in the major leagues. they had whites, blacks, native american played with them and the first professional japanese player played on wilkinson's team.

that team played up until world war i. they were decimated by the draft of world war i. when that opportunity becomes available, because of his food his and friendliness, and relationships with various races, he was picked to organize a team and that is how he became the only white owner in the negro national league. the monarchs first manager had started with wilkinson years ago and was trying in cooperstown, new york. along the way, they had other players that join them. the name ofan by andy cooper. he was a refugee born in waco, texas, but was raised in wichita , kansas but plays for the detroit stars. wilkinson traded to players at the beginning and he comes to the monarchs and remains there

until he died while he was the manager of the monarchs in 1940. he comes and because he was such an outstanding player, he is in the major league baseball hall of fame in cooperstown, new york. players,e greatest especially during the 1920's, there was none greater than wilber "bullet" rogan. and many people to this day have not heard his name. if i had the same group of people here in 1920 and i was to mention his name, they would know exactly who i was talking about. he was widely publicized. i personally think he was the greatest all-around baseball player that ever lived. right before we started this whole new decade and new century, they did all of these

polls of the greatest baseball players. everybody picks babe ruth, but let me tell you what rogan was able to do. like ruth, he was a pitcher and he invented a pitch called the palm ball which is a change of pace. so he was a great pitcher. he won over 400 games as a pitcher. he was also a great batter, and he hit full home run power and he was 5'7". 400 home runs as a batter. he was a consistent 300 hitter. he also played the outfield when he was not pitching and had a tremendous arm. he was a fast runner. he could run a 100 yards -- in 10 seconds. , he managed the monarchs and led them to the pennant in 1929.

in 1934, they had a record of 134 wins and 14 losses. when he wasn't doing that, he drove the bus. there are lots of games i could talk about that i have two-year in abilene. this is one of the things i do when i go to cities, talk about the game in that town. there's a game in junction city i would like to add, so we will get to that. the first time the monarchs came was 1923, august 17. unique isthat was this didn't happen too often -- they came to abilene twice in the same year. backs rare that we go twice, so that says something to abilene right there. to 1938, but there were

other games along the way. back in september 15th and got rained out again. 1939, sonother game in i can't give you much detail. we've got some interesting games. integration and blacks being on teams with lights in kansas was not new. people were prepared long before the kansas city monarchs came. in the 1880's, but feller, the first african-american to play minor-league a small played at topeka in 1886. there was another gentleman out jones andansas named he was from atchison.

they played in the kansas date league, so kansas was one of the last leagues to include african-american players and a lot of people were not aware of this knowledge. first picture i found of an integrated team in the state of kansas. , there were scouts from other cities trying to figure out how they could beat the monarchs. ins article here appeared the manhattan morning chronicle. i saw a reference from the manager coming over to manhattan. be playingoing to them and they wanted to see how they could beat the monarchs, so he comes over and scouts monarchs because you would not think people were actually scouting teams at that time. the first time they came through, they handle the local

team, beat them 10 to two. mendes is in the game. he is probably one of the earliest hall of famer's, and wilber "bullet" rogan is there and wilkinson was there as well. sweet pearsonmed -- he was a local player and a heck of a good picture. he's probably good enough to go to the big leagues. the big leagues did not always pay a large amount of money, and they could get work on teams like that. they came to abilene and beat abilene but would you believe abilene is proud of that? in that paper, they printed there was some mean satisfaction

knowing the kansas city monarchs beat them 13 21. i thought that was interesting. that happens all the time. if you did not eat them, maybe you could look better than their surrounding towns. what was interesting is when the monarchs organized, the first league president was a gentleman i the name of andrew foster. he had been managing teams -- he had four teams -- he did the detroit stars and the chicago american giants and he was booking those teams and getting five to 10% of the gate wherever they played. they needed foster to come into the league to be a part of it because he controlled four or five of the best teams.

he gave up the booking money to join the new league. in order to satisfy him, they said we would give you a percent of every game. the new teams plus the team they used to book, -- they had an agreement with roster that they had to pay 10% to foster. he kept immaculate records will stop i was able to come across to record book and was able find out exactly how much they made in abilene. abilene, according to the newspaper account, had 1000 people at the game. the monarchs share -- they charged 65%. made $341 playing in abilene. the gate receipts

from the other cities -- in junction city, they made $406. leroy, they could not get a crowd there all stop they made $75. that gives you a view of how important these games were. abilene still had their great pitcher, so they invited the monarchs back twice in 1925. this is the lineup that appear here in 1925 when the monarchs came through. names like wilber "bullet" rogan did not play that day. foreman is actually

buried in coffeyville, kansas. clifford bell was a texan. this was the team they played. was notbullet" rogan pitching that day. outfield 143 and wouldn't you believe it, he hit the only home run of the game. again, how much money did they make? ledgerack to foster's and there were 900 people in that first game. $260.narchs made what is interesting is if you go down to the 20th, they were in birmingham, alabama and they

made $160 playing on the first day they went to birmingham. they made more in abilene and see whyam stop you can these games are important and that's why the monarchs continued to barnstorm. the people of abilene were not satisfied because they had never seen bullet rogan pitch. so they had to invite them back. he comes to town and this is the final score -- 11 to four. abilene scores four runs off of them, which is quite a feat. that day, the public got their money's worth seeing that game. the monarchs hit for home runs. bullet rogan added another home run to his dominant list of home when people talk about the home runs and if you

look at some of the books, these are not the home runs there talking about. these are games people generally don't know about. this is the kind of research i specialize in. he went to a pittsburgh state college. we mention he was from the humboldt area and wade johnston steubenville, ohio. baseball,etired from he ran a bait and tackle store and specialized in selling arms. that's what he did after his living. to hitting a home run, rogan struck out 12 day. so abilene finally got a chance to see bullet rogan.

but abilene did something that was a fee as well. the newspaper thought it was a great feat. so they wrote it up. to beaid it something proud of because he's considered one of the world's best pitchers pitcherp not the best in kansas or missouri, the world's best pitcher. they knew something back then about baseball. once again, we go back to foster's ledger and this is what we find. the monarchs take that day crowd,much that are $420. once again, you take a closer look and see the monarchs left here and this has to be a different secretary.

that is definitely abilene. they don't play again until the eighth and they play against the st. louis stars will stop abilene made more money than the keep stressing i that because people keep wondering why they play these exhibition games when they have elite. the reason why is income. one other game i like to talk about -- i like to talk about three or four games in every city. i try to pick some of the more interesting games to talk about. the other games i have in in 1939-- there's one and i'm still trying to pull all the details to. they were as late as 1955. usually when i go somewhere to

speak, there's an old baseball player in the audience who says they were here in 1952 and we played against them. because i go and start digging that information out and trying to see what happened in the game, so anyway, one of the next games i wanted to mention was 1938, and the monarchs came down and they were going to play in debt -- injunction city. this is what the newspaper said about rogan. undoubtedly the most famous in negro baseball of this or any other day besides being a fiendish hitter and playing the outfield when he is not pitching, he was second to none on the mound in his heyday. he had speed, his fadeaway was similar to that of masterson, and major-league batters who

batted against him said he was as good as any pitcher they had ever faced, and this is what rogan inwriting about his final season, going back to all these places that the monarchs played, and he is 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. e 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. they come to town with four negro leaguers. to show you how much ability was in the negro leagues they lost. they had all those hall of famers and they lost. i might also mention bibs. most african-americans at that time went to black colleges. bibs went to indiana state. he was out of terra haute, indiana. so bibs was there and because of his great play at the college and some of the work that i was able to do to bring recognition

to him and people started to pay attention to him, today he's in the indiana sports hall of fame and also the indiana state hall of fame as well. i thought you might want to take at that look at a few of these guys. there's turkey stearns. they called him turkey because of the way he looked when he ran. back then they used to pick really good nicknames. nowadays if you listen to the games they just shorten up the names. back then they watched the player, watched how far you act. bell, people remember his name, he got his nickname. he becomes cool papa bell. turkey got his name 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. and the first african-american to come in 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 of better days. so i threat plow, the picking bag to join the home stay grace and all summer long we played the states and then headed south for fall through rain and dust we load the bus so we can play baseball. we played philosopher and pride and could have made much more. the roads where crowds don't roar. the alling night rides with is seedy life i chose but we made do and came through because damn it we were pros. we played in the shadow of babe and lou gehrig and the rest and stood behind the big league fence while they were called the best. we played them well and gave them hell with every hidden pitch and stayed behind that colored line and watch those guys get rich. did they see josh gibson swing or see satchel throw his stuff or you know how bad it feels when your best is not good enough. when clouds roll in across the sky to hide the brightest moon

you'll find some stars don't shine some folks were born too soon. god bless you jackie robinson and willie mays and all you wore our numbers on your backs when you played big league ball and every time you hit one out slid or laid one down you carried us from that old bus to the halls of coopers. town. my name is drake, my name is newt allen, but you won't remember that. i'm just one more along the score who played with ball and 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 town ball 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 "the soul of the game" and it wasn't that great of a movie. even "42," it came out last year, they have one little part in the front that talks about the kansas city monarchs and, you know, you don't see any footage. i think not only the kansas city monarchs, a really good movie could be written about the whole black baseball experience. i think you would need somebody who knew what was going on to write a good movie about it. and i might mention too, when i first started doing research on the negro leagues, going back to the early '80s, i've just seen

so many things change. when i first started doing research people said oh, you won't find photographs. and, of course, after i found 600 of them, actually i found close to 1,000, 600 in the book, called the negro baseball league photographic history, people thought you couldn't find pictures. i killed that myth. i'm also trying to popularize the fact that the monarchs and these teams in the negro leagues played in all these cities. there's so many great stories that could be told. hopefully i would like to see it in my lifetime as well. >> thank you. i had a coach and a teacher when i was in junior high that played early days of pro football. and they got paid, if they got in the game. they had to get themselves to the game and had to buy their uniforms. are you aware of how the players got paid? >> oh, sure. the fortunate thing if you were playing for the kansas city

monarchs you were essentially playing for the new york yankees in the negro league. wilkinson always paid his players. now i have run into players over the years who told me that they are still waiting for third check for a game they played in 1928. but that wasn't the case with wilkinson. and foster as well, kept immaculate records. players made money playing those teams. that's one of the reasons why the monarchs were so successful because they had players, bullet rogan there was from 1920 to 1938 when he retired. newt joseph was there from 1922 to 1937. newt allen was there from 1922 to 1946. the players came and they loved playing for j.l. wilkinson. and they got paid well and so they stayed. they worked for their money but they got paid well and so, but, yeah, these weren't pick up games. if they came to abilene there

was a promoter and the promoter knew we would get ex-amount of the gate and i have to pay the monarchs 65% of the gate. it was pretty tough going for some depending on the own but wilkinson paid his players well. this kind of ties in with that question. when you showed a couple of shots, one of the records where they played it looked like you had maybe eight, maybe nine games in a row where they played days in a row and also you showed the picture of the town team when they are barn storming the town team along with the monarchs and unless i miscounted it looked like ten guys. typically how many traveled on the team and were they that limited on players. >> i know in 1929 they had to cut their roster down and they carried 13 players. so you could play over 100 games with 13 players. you need a guy like bullet rogan who could play the outfield at

the same time he could pitch. so he was like two players in one. so they could carry a smaller roster like that and still play. it just depends. sometimes some of the players might not have gotten into the picture but they used to carry about 15 players. as a matter of fact, that picture was taken right before a fair. i might men's too, when the monarchs were supposed to come here in 1927 some kind of -- it got rained out. i know they played a lot of fairs and events like that which helped to draw people to the fair. a lot of county fairs. >> given the discrimination of the day where they would stay when they would play. would they stay on the bus or could they get accommodation.

>> accommodation and eating could be tough. i interviewed one player and asked him what he remembered the best about barn storstorming an you couldn't pull up to a mcdonald's or a restaurant and go in and get your food. they had to go around to the back of the building to get their food. wilkinson, to his credit, some places wouldn't feed the monarchs so he wouldn't eat there either. so he tried to fight for good treatment for his players. so, it was tough. if they were playing where they could come and play the game and get back to kansas city the same day that's what they did. if they are out and say they are not able to stay there, there were a number of rooming houses -- as a matter of fact there was lady i know she was from south dakota, african-american lady and later moved to kansas city and she said that the only black people that she saw from outside her community were musician, circus people and baseball players

because those were the only ones that came in and room with her. she knew lots of circus and musicians and athletes but didn't know anybody else. boardinghouses would take up the slack and some places they would have, you know, some of the larger cities they would have black owned hotels. but out in this part of the country if they played in, you know, if they played in, say, sioux falls, south dakota or omaha and they could get back the same day they came back the same day. one thing i may mention they played almost every single day. so they were on that bus all the time. one last thing i'll mention there was a lady she was married to a ball player who played for the memphis red sox, his name was larry brown and this was his wife and i interviewed her. she married him and then went with the team on the trip. and she was on the bus with the team and she said we were gone for a month and we stayed in a hotel two times.

>> thank you. most of us know that the first black player that went to the major leagues was not 100% chosen on talent alone. in your research, and what you look at, would that same person be chosen by you or would somebody else have been chosen, just in retrospect? >> here is the reason why i say that. jackie robinson was chosen during world war ii. the best african-american baseball players were in the war. they weren't even here. maybe he was one of the better players. i can't deny one thing. he was an excellent choice when you look back on it. i mean, you couldn't get a better choice. i know he needed someone comfortable with playing with

white players. jackie had that. funny thing is, willy brown becomes the third player. he was left the browns and caner came back. his wife said, did he pretty much what he always did. one of the things, he complained. when he got to the st. louis browns, he complained because he used 40 hours at bat and their players were playing with 32. he said i don't have bats. how do you play with 32-ounce bat sis? that didn't make him too popular. he hit a home run with a 32. the other thing when he got to the hotel, he would go out at night. he liked to take a drink every now and then. his wife said, they are watching you. he couldn't be anybody but himself. even though he was a great ballplayer, he probably wasn't the best pick and the best fit. i could think of some other

people -- there were a lot of great young players who ended up coming up later. doby. irvin as a possibility coming up. they wanted older players. there were great older players around. roy campanella who came up with the dodgers, he would have been an excellent choice. later on he was. i might mention one thing that -- i could probably name a half a dozen who would have been good players who came up later. interesting thing about jackie robinson, the brooklyn dodgers actually stole jackie robinson from the monarchs. they never compensated them. wilkinson who owned the team and a man who had part ownership, they could not say anything, because they would be looked upon as holding the black player back if they were to argue this debate about why didn't you compensate us for this player.

this is a business. so they didn't say anything. quiet quietly, they had their own boycott. no kansas city monarch plays for the dodgers again. that's the way they boycotted. brooklyn dodgers. >> do you have any record of anthony kansas in the monarchs? >> sure. >> my dad played for anthony about 90 years ago. if there's some way you could -- i would appreciate it. it's been a long time since i even knew -- my dad has been

gone 50 years. >> i tell you what. they did play anthony kansas. as i was coming down the freeway today, i'm driving past all these places that i know the monarchs appeared. i know they played at fort riley, at junction city, they were at manhattan, clay center. i can go out west. practically any city that was a city had a baseball team, and they had a kansas league that they would play in. they played all the those cities of not one year, different years. i would do research. i will get your name. i will be happy to supply that information. >> about 1959, satchel spent the summer and pitched for salina blue jays. unfortunately, we still, as a

team, suffered under the discrimination scenarios. they didn't spent many nights overnight. but they traveled by bus. of course, after the game liked to eat somewhere. there were many times -- the time i remember was in mcpherson they told satchel that he would come in the back door. the whole team got up and left. i commend the manager and sponsor for that. i was fortunate enough to be the bat boy. i got to see a lot of satchel and the other players. as late as 1959, the black ballplayers were still suffering under that discrimination. >> that's an incident. i appreciate that comment. i was in nevada last sunday, and there was a ballplayer who played for that team who played against satchel. he was actually on the team with him as well.

he mentioned the 1959 as well. he had great stories. satchel page, you know -- let me put it this way. kansas had its own unique form of racism. i know a little bit about boxing. boxing was considered a contact sport. so until 1938, i think it was 1938 was the first year that they would let black amateur boxers fight white amateur boxers in kansas. they could go in missouri. but kansas black fighters couldn't fight the white fighters in kansas to qualify. they had to fight other black players -- black fighters in kansas. in certain sports, they had high school rules. they considered basketball a contact sport. so many black schools couldn't play against white schools in basketball because those were some of the rules. slowly, those rules have disappeared. but it was pretty tough times.

there was a gentleman by the name of -- actually, he has -- there's two players. he has a couple of grandsons. i will recall his name. he played for the colorado springs sky sox. he told me the story of -- his name was sam harriston. he said he had to go in the back. he would go in the back of the restaurant and where the cooks were. the cooks were black. so he would go back there and the players would go in the front. they are out in the restaurant. they pay $5. they get their meal, whatever it was. probably didn't cost $5 back then. he was in the back. so he was eating twice as much food. when he would leave, they would give him a to-go sack. so he would leave, and he would tell me stories about that night, his teammate, what did your people put in the sack for you? they were hungry again. he was the only one with a sack.

you make the best out of a bad situation. that's what some of the players did. sam, of course, has his -- he had two sons that played in the big leagues and now he has two grandsons that play in the big leagues. i guess he did pretty good. >> was the barnstorming something all the negro team leagues did or just the monarchs, what they wanted to do? >> all the teams tried. i will put it that way. you could see it was a very l lucrative in the money. had you to build a tradition. two of the greatest were the homestead grays and the kansas city monarchs. the monarchs for the most part, they tied up kansas, nebraska, parts of colorado, arkansas. they pretty much dominated that area. that was the team. and then there was one great

white barnstorming team which the house of david. what's interesting, the house of david was booked by tom baird. they also booked the kansas city monarchs. they had a nice little scheme going. they would bring the house of david would come in and play the local team and pretty much beat them. they had great players as well. then the monarchs would come through. they would play the local team. the same people are booking them. they would beat the local team. so now the people realize, the house of david and the monarchs are good teams. look what they did to our local team. then they would turn around and book a came, the monarchs against the house of david and get three dates out of the same city. they did this all over the country. barnstorming was -- it was intelligent move from the money side. the teams who barnstormed the best survived the longest.

>> if we don't have any additional questions, phil will be >> you're watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter @c-spanhistory for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. >> tonight at 6:30 p.m. eastern, supreme court chief justice john roberts discusses the magna carta on its 800th anniversary. he reflects on why there was a need for the magna carta, how it helped to shape a young and growing america, and it's significance today. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> 200 years ago on august 24,

1814, british soldiers routed american troops at the battle of bladensburg just outside washington, d.c. the victory left the nation's capital wide open to british forces, who burned down the white house. next on american history tv, the war of 1812 scholars and authors discuss the british burning of washington. this hour-long event took place at bladensburg waterfront park in maryland. we are ready. great. first, i want to welcome everyone to this roundtable discussion on the war of 1812. we are certainly happy to have you in bladensburg, maryland, in prince george's county. you know, i am the county and iive, rushern baker, get the pleasure of doing something i love to do, and that it's talking about history and the role the county and state played. i want to welcome the c-span audience who might be watching today on this 200th anniversary