They Were Among the Best, but Few Knew About Them

Lou Dials and Bobby Robinson were majestic baseball players of the 1930s who may have been on a par with Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott and Jimmie Foxx, but few fans ever heard of them.

The reason is they spent their entire careers shuttling around Negro League cities on run-down buses, staying in shabby hotels, receiving low pay and getting little recognition.

Used to black stars such as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Tony Gwynn, it is difficult now for Americans to imagine a time when the sport was not integrated.

But from 1887 until 1947 there was the all-white major leagues -- and its minor-league system -- and the Negro Leagues for blacks and Hispanics, as baseball mirrored segregated America.

“Lots of black players could have played in the majors then. We’d watch the Tigers play and I can remember a third baseman for Detroit -- he couldn’t touch me playing third,” Bobby Robinson, now, 85, said in a recent interview from his Chicago home.

“Their manager said if I was a white boy, I would be the Tigers’ third baseman. I thought about that. It made me feel bad,” said Robinson. “White boys made more money, but it was more than that -- it was the pride.”

Oddly, black and white teams would play exhibitions between seasons in the 1930s and 1940s, and the blacks did well in those games, both players remembered.

“The whites were afraid that if they allowed Negroes to play on the same team with them, the Negroes would dominate the game like they do football and basketball,” said Dials, also 85.

Dials, a star outfielder and first baseman, broke in with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants in 1925, and also played for the Memphis Red Sox, Detroit Stars, Cleveland Giants and New York Black Yankees in the Negro Leagues.

In 1943 -- three years before Jackie Robinson played for Montreal -- Dials, then 39, was one of three black players offered contracts from the Los Angeles franchise in the white Pacific Coast League.

“But a week before spring training, they told me another team wouldn’t let me sign, and there was no place for me no matter how good I was.”

Dials said he was glad when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

“I only wish it had been me. I’m quite sure I could have done the same thing,” said Dials, a resident of Modesto, Calif., who was in Chicago earlier this summer for the National Sports Collectors Convention. “But I don’t know if I could have handled the heckling Jackie had to go through.”

At the convention, Tom Kloessler of Milwaukee was one of many collectors lining up to get Dials’ autograph.

“I think he has a good shot at getting into the Hall of Fame, and I collect Hall of Fame signatures,” Kloessler explained.

Dials, a 1927 University of California graduate in electrical engineering, thinks his election to the Hall may come next year.

Many records were lost from the old days, but Dials was credited with winning the National League batting title in 1931 with a .382 average, leading the Detroit Stars to the Negro championship.

“I caught the last out of the championship game,” said Bobby Robinson. “I had all the players on our team sign the ball. I still have it, and me and Lou are the only ones still alive.”

Dials and Robinson -- void of bitterness despite playing under racial bias or what was called Jim Crow -- look back over their playing days with fond memories.

“I have no regrets being a baseball player. I think about that time every day,” said Robinson. “I’d like to see the players one more time.”

Dials said the toughest pitcher he ever faced was Wilbert “Bullet” Rogan. “Without a doubt. Casey Stengel said the same thing,” said Dials.

The best all-around ballplayer, according to Dials, was Martin DiHigo.

“He could pitch, he could hit,” said Dials. “He was a Cuban who played in the Negro Leagues.”

DiHigo is among about a dozen oldtime Negro League players admitted to the Hall of Fame since Cooperstown’s officials decided to try to right some of baseball’s wrongs.

The Negro Leagues had plenty of hardships.

“It was pretty rough traveling by bus, and playing so many games -- sometimes two or three games a day,” Bobby Robinson said. “You’d ride all night and get up the next day and play.”

Robinson broke in with the Indianapolis ABCs in 1925, and later played for the Cleveland Elites, Memphis Red Sox, Detroit Stars, Cleveland Stars and Cleveland Red Sox.

“The most I ever made was between $300 and $400 a month, plus meal money -- $1,” said Robinson, a brick mason after baseball. “You could get ham and eggs then for 30 cents.”

Yet, their salaries were two or three times greater than those of black workers at the time.

Dials still fills with pride over breakthroughs by blacks in and out of sports, including this season’s first meeting between black major-league managers, Frank Robinson’s Baltimore Orioles and Cito Gaston’s Toronto Blue Jays in June.

“It makes me feel elated. Those guys paid their dues,” said Dials, who now promotes a line of Negro League baseball cards.

He think his baseball life may have helped him live longer.

“And I don’t smoke or drink coffee,” he added.