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They Played In Obscurity99Negro League Players Have ReunionBy HERBERT SPARROWAssociated Press WriterASHLAND, Ky. (AP) -They played in obscurity in America’s largest cities.But some 25 former Negro League baseball players journeyed to this northeasternKentucky industrial community to receive therecognition and bask in the limelight that evaded them when they were among the nation’s finest ballplayers.Some participants in Tuesday’s second annual Negro League Baseball Resnion, disgruntled withwhat they consider their continued neglect byorganized baseball, feelAshland should become the capital for black baseball in ^pnerica.Othello “Chico” Renfro, a farmer Negro League playerwho is now a sportscaster in Atlanta, proposed Tuesday night the establishment of a Negro Baseball Hall of Famehere.Renfro, who also works as a consultant with a beer company, said he had talked to officials of his company concerning possible sponsorship of the hall of fame. Renfro said he hoped that enough corporate backing could be obtained to make thehall a reality.“If you could take a trip to Cooperstown (the New York site of basebalT’s Hall of Fame) and see the one table set aside for Negro baseball, you would know the place for the Negro Baseball Hall of Fame is here in Ashland, Kentucky,” Renfro said at a banquet that wrapped up daylong ceremonies.Earlier in the day, Joe Black, who pitched in the Negro League and later in the major leagues after baseball’s color barrier was broken in the late 1940s, also criticized the treatment of black players by the Hall of Fame.“I think they have got to do more,” Black said. “You are not going to make up for a hundred years by picking one person a year. ”Black was criticizing a now-defunct special committee which selected nine former bnegro League stars for the Cooperstown shrine.However, most of the day was spent in reminiscing by the ballplayers, who urged that the reunion be continued in the future.“I hope you continue to do it,” Black said at the banquet. “Each of these gentlemendeserve a place in the sun. Many people have forgotten them over the years.”The unique reunion began last year as the brainchild of a local weekly newspaper publisher who wanted to honor Greenup, Ky., native Clint Thomas, often referred to as the “Black Joe Dimaggio.”The publisher, Tom Stultz, has since sold his paper and moved to Chicago to study for the ministry, and the event was taken over this year by the Tri-State Fair and Regatta.Monte Irvin, a member of the Hall of Fame and deputy to Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, says he has gotten financial commitments from two corporations to help finance another reunion next year.Effa Manley, co-owner of the old Newark Eagles in the Negro National League, was the honored guest at this year’s reunion.Ashland Mayor Jack Thompson described the 80-year-old Mrs. Manley’s “dynamic life has left its print for all time on American baseball.”Most of the approximately 20 players who attended expressed no bitterness for being denied a chance at playing in the white major leagues. Buck O’Neill, who developed a number of future major league stars while managing the Kansas City Monarchs, said “I don’t feel sorry for any of these men here. Don’t cry for them. They have had a beautiful life.”
Newspaper Details
Corbin Times Tribune
Corbin, Kentucky, US
Wed, Jun 25, 1980
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
WV, USA 16 Jun 2022
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