Ex-Player Trumpets Negro Leagues, but Feds Cry Foul : Baseball: Letters written to major league officials demanding recognition were threatening, U.S. attorney says. Associates of the former outfielder say he is zealous but harmless.

Sitting amid piles of correspondence and post-Christmas clutter, Alfred Henry was working diligently on another broadside against professional baseball when he heard a brusque knock on the door of his tiny condominium.

He got up slowly to open the door.

At 65, with a severe case of diabetes, a bad back and wrecked knees, Henry no longer moves with the speed and grace he displayed as an all-star football player in the Army and a baseball outfielder with the Baltimore Elite Giants in the Negro Leagues.

To his amazement, he found two FBI agents at the door. They had come to arrest him on a federal charge of sending threatening letters to officials of major league baseball, including Bud Selig, the acting commissioner.

The agents read Henry his rights, handcuffed him behind his back and hauled him off to federal prison in San Diego, where he spent 24 hours before being released on New Year’s Eve.

Now Henry faces possible extradition to New York and charges that carry a maximum seven years in prison, all because of passages in five letters he wrote between May and December.

The letters upbraided baseball officials, accusing them of ignoring the historic contributions of the Negro Leagues and not doing enough for African American youth. They often finished with ominous-sounding warnings of violence brewing in urban America.

On May 20, he wrote Selig proposing a business venture and ended with a postscript: “When Peacefull overtures are exhausted Look-Out Violence.” On July 5, he wrote again to Selig with the parting shot: “It is unfortunate you mis-read me--but life is choices!!! I will be your worst enemy.”

His former minister says Henry is a harmless guy who likes to talk loud and does not know when to back down. A former Negro Leagues teammate says Henry is just a lonely and forgotten ex-jock who has gotten puffed up with self-importance.

But the U.S. attorney’s office in New York takes a more sinister view of Henry’s letters and has charged him with violating federal laws prohibiting the transmission of threats to the person, property or reputation of another.

Henry’s lawyer, David Cohen, retorts that his client was just writing the truth as he sees it, that he never intended to harm anyone, and that his overheated prose, while rude and startling, is constitutionally protected political speech.

“When you get kids 17 or 18, you can’t do a damn thing with them,” Henry said in a recent interview. “You got to teach them early at 7, 8 and 9, give them something to see, to do, to be proud of, so they won’t go burning and looting. That’s what I’m talking, an alternative. You understand?”

Among other things, he wants young blacks to be told about the proud history of the Negro Leagues, which flourished when big-league baseball was for whites only. For a year he has been writing letters warning of violence if the Negro Leagues history is allowed to die.

Henry has used his home computer to write letters to major league baseball officials, the Upper Deck playing card company, Congressional Black Caucus, National Urban League and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, among others. His prose is often tactless and angry.

To major league baseball, Henry offered sketchily drawn business proposals where he would supply hats and T-shirts commemorating the Negro Leagues in exchange for a cut of the profits. He requested money for an educational program and sports complex.

In September he wrote to the baseball executive in charge of marketing, Leonard Coleman, who is black: “When peacefull solutions do not occur--then violence occurs. Will bloodstains be on Leonard Coleman’s hands spring of 1994???”

What prompted baseball officials to contact the FBI was a follow-up letter Henry sent to Coleman on Dec. 9, mentioning the rampage in which six people were killed on a Long Island commuter train two days earlier, allegedly by a black man who had a history of racial animosity.

Henry wrote: “May a word to the wise suffice. (Those killings were) not just a thrill-joy, but frustrations built up over a period of time!!”

Three weeks later, Henry, who had never been arrested before, was behind bars. “We had a tragedy here Dec. 7,” said Kate Cosenza, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, referring to the Long Island killings. “That should put this case in context.”

Henry maintains that his arrest is just another example of American racism. “You got to get rid of a nigger with a brain,” Henry said. “He’s the worst enemy.”

The Negro Leagues began in the 1920s and survived into the late 1950s. As more African American players joined the major leagues and attendance at Negro Leagues games fell, the leagues folded.

Henry’s anger bubbled over just as major league baseball, after long ignoring the Negro Leagues, has begun making efforts to honor its heritage and assist the surviving players financially.

Ceremonies honoring the leagues have been held in several stadiums, and more are planned. Negro Leagues players have been invited to all-star and old-timer games.

A health plan was established by major league baseball for Negro Leagues players and their spouses. In December, a plan was announced to market a line of Negro Leagues memorabilia, with profits split among the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and Negro League veterans.

To Henry, those efforts have been too little, too late. He feels ripped off. He says he spent his own money to have a T-shirt and cap designed but was not included in the memorabilia plan.

He is particularly angry that the plan’s profits will go only to players who played before 1947, the year Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke the color line. Henry’s only season was 1950.

After the Giants, Henry played a year in a Canadian league and then, racked by bad knees from a football injury, was forced to find another way to make a living.

He worked in a book bindery and then sold cars. He moved five years ago to this blue-collar suburb of San Diego. He lives on $1,200 a month in Army disability payments and Social Security.

“He’s a great guy, but sometimes his energies get misdirected,” said the Rev. Julius R. Bennett, the pastor at Henry’s former church. “He can be intolerant of people who disagree with him, but he’s harmless.”