Remembering Their League and Their Own : Sports: Five veterans of baseball’s black teams raise funds for former comrades and remind people what it was like before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in the majors.

Eight-year-old Michael Price had a question: Why did the black and white ballplayers have to be in separate leagues?

“That was a tough one to answer,” said Monty DeGraff, who accompanied the youngster Saturday on a trip through history. “How do you explain something like that to a kid?”

Michael was among the many inquisitive visitors enlightened Saturday about the early days of baseball during an appearance of five Negro League veterans at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, an event geared to Black History Month.

The former ballplayers held court outside Magic Johnson’s sporting apparel outlet, autographing photographs, talking about the lessons of the bad old days and trying to raise some funds for financially ailing ex-teammates and their widows.

“This is a part of history that a lot of people just don’t know,” said Merle Porter, 72, whose classic first-baseman’s stretch was on display in a sepia-toned snapshot on sale Saturday for $1, with autograph.

Seated in front of store windows featuring merchandise costing more than they earned in a week playing baseball, the five served as vivid reminders of officially sanctioned segregation--an era that many would just as soon not recall, and that others are largely unaware of. Porter and the other former players are among a handful of Negro League veterans who speak to schools and other groups regularly, reminding people what it was like before Jackie Robinson broke major league baseball’s color line in 1947.

“The young kids today think they have it tough, but they don’t even know how much harder it was back then,” said Ronald Haynes, 28, who was there to see his grandfather, Sammie Haynes, one-time star catcher for the Kansas City Monarchs whose career was cut short by glaucoma, an eye disease that has left him blind. “I never got to see my grandfather play baseball, but it’s very gratifying to see him here.”

The elder Haynes, resplendent in a red suit, recalled starting out with the Atlanta Black Crackers as an eager 18-year-old, competing against teams like the Asheville Blues and the Macon Peaches. He spoke of long bus rides and playing three games in a day, of nonstop barnstorming tours, of second-rate hotels and cramped facilities--but always enthusiastic fans.

“We didn’t have time to worry about being kept out of the major leagues,” said Sammie Haynes, 73. “Negro League baseball was competitive. Don’t ever let anyone ever tell you it wasn’t. If we worried too much about being kept out of the white leagues someone else would be up to take our job.”

Fran Matthews, a former first-baseman seated alongside Haynes, nodded in agreement. “I played with about 10 people who should be in the Hall of Fame and aren’t,” said the ex-Newark Eagle, now 76. “We played as well or better than anyone.”

Their pay, however, seldom matched their effort. A good Negro League salary, Haynes said, would be about $200 a month, although stars such as the legendary slugger Josh Gibson and pitcher Satchel Paige earned more. Today, the ex-players said, financial woes plague about 200 Negro League veterans and their widows. The $1 photo sales at the mall are part of a larger fund-raising effort.

“We played for the love of the game and we never made much money,” noted Haynes, speaking in rapid-fire fashion and exhibiting seemingly flawless recall of those days. “We’ve got former ballplayers out there, and their widows, who can hardly pay their medical bills.”

For the many youths who sought to touch his hands and say a few words, Haynes offered sound advice: Sports are a fine thing to love, but don’t expect to make a living at it.

“I tell ‘em to get an education, that’s the only way to get ahead,” said Haynes, fingering a fading photograph of an imposing-looking young man wearing a catcher’s mitt and gripping a baseball. “We were lucky. We were the few who could make it professionally.”

Like his former diamond mates, Haynes betrayed no bitterness about his exclusion from the major leagues. “That was then,” he said. “It’s a new day now, and we’ve all got to live together. That’s the only way we’re gonna make things work.”