The Washington Informer: Opinions/Editorials

He was 16 when he joined the Giants in 1947, the same year Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by playing with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Eddie, now 76, remembers he and the other Black players were ecstatic over Robinson’s accomplishments.

“That was something that really made us proud – that finally somebody had broken the barrier and that Jackie Robinson was so successful,” Eddie recalls. “The guys were hoping they might have the opportunity to play in the league after that. But the door was just starting to open. They were good enough but didn’t have the opportunity. A lot of them were too old when the time came.”

“You had to be very, very good. I was an average ballplayer. I didn’t have the potential,” he explained. “I was what they called ‘a good field, no hit player.’ But I played with a lot of people who were qualified to play in the league, if only they had been given a chance.”

On weekends, when his “professional” team wasn’t playing, Eddie barnstormed, basically playing exhibition games. Some of these were against White teams. “We would get paid depending on how many people showed up. It was never much,” he said.

At times on the field with him might be Leroy “Satchel” Paige, the legendary pitcher whose career spanned five decades, including playing in the major league; Minnie Minosa, who played in the Negro League’s New York Cubans before joining the major league’s Cleveland Indians; Buck O’Neil, who eventually became a coach for the Chicago Cubs, the first Black coach in the major league, and Jim “Junior” Gilliam, who would go on to win four World Series rings with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

This was pretty heady stuff for a teenager. “I was the youngest one on my team,” said Eddie.

He had always been an athlete, so he followed his friend and mentor Leo Syke Burnette, who played centerfield for the Giants. Some of the guys Eddie met on the fields are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Some of the worst times were playing before White audiences.

“It was awful. The audience called you names and after the game they might have a picnic outside and everything said was forgotten,” he said. “In the game, out in the sands, you knew what you were because they hollered (racial epithets) at you. But they showed up because they loved to see us play.”

Today, Eddie appreciates the experience of living history on so many baseball fields. “We had fun – the traveling, seeing different places and playing,” he said.

The Harrisburg Giants were the first Black baseball team to integrate. In 1954, the team won the Eastern League Negro League Championship. Eddie played one more year. By this time, White teams were hiring away the best of the Black players.

Now, Eddie and some of the other last survivors are being honored at ceremonies around the country. “It’s a chance to meet some of the guys you used to play with,” said Eddie, who works as a “vehicle for hire” in Charlotte, N.C., carrying people to appointments for the city’s Department of Social Services.

He’s a gentle, generous spirit with a quick wit and easy smile. He wasn’t left bitter by playing doubleheaders in sand fields while people hurled racial slurs at him and his teammates. You can still look at Eddie and imagine the young guy who cheered for Jackie Robinson; still see the kid who believed even then, that if he just did his part well, one day, professional baseball teams would just hire the best players – regardless of race.

Patrice Gaines is a career journalist and author of "Laughing in the Dark: From Colored Girl to Woman of Color – A Journey from Prison to Power and Moments of Grace.” She lives outside of Charlotte, N.C., where she is co-founder of The Brown Angel Center, a program for women who have been incarcerated.