Part one of a two-part Black History Month story
This is a history lesson about the Negro Leagues and there will be a quiz at the end. Jerry Izenberg, 95 years old and columnist emeritus of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, has written his 16th book and second novel, entitled “Damn You, Josh Gibson: A Ghost Story” (Admission Press). The book was released during Super Bowl week.
It is a magical, informative read about a former Negro Leaguer (Jeff the Jet) and his grandson (Jeffy) as they magically travel through time. Along the way, they meet the historic ghosts of Gibson, Monte Irvin, Satchel Paige, Max Manning, and many other baseball greats.
It was an era when Black baseball players, the crème de la crème, were not welcomed into the Major Leagues until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Izenberg covered the Negro Leagues, especially the Newark Eagles, and wrote this book for one reason: the stories needed to be told and the lives savored.
The book is a fantasy, but the stories from the ballplayers are all true. This labor of love has been Izenberg’s mission for the past 13 years. “The book was rejected in three places 10 years ago,” he said, now living in Henderson, Nevada, with his wife Aileen of 46 years. “I did change it. It’s a fantasy, but it was a little too much in the beginning. I had this flying Studebaker, but now I think it works with the team bus and the cloud and the window.”
Hall of Famer Larry Doby of the Newark Eagles was the second man to break the color barrier and the first in the American League for the then Cleveland Indians. He had it rougher than Robinson, according to Izenberg, because people in Brooklyn saw Jackie walking down the street. Doby was invisible.
“Doby was very bitter,” Izenberg said about one of his best friends. Like the time he showed up at Izenberg’s house with snow on the ground. “He asked me what did I drink and in those days, I said whatever’s wet,” he recalled. Doby left, came back with a bottle, started venting, and didn’t leave until 10 the next morning. “That’s when I became his psychiatrist.”
Eventually, the players had no reason to be bitter, as Monte Irvin, another Izenberg confidante, explained. “It was the best time of my life,” Irvin told him. “Rode that Eagles’s bus and we sang songs, quoted poems. We made fun of each other. It was just the happiest time because we knew that this is where we were meant to play.”
Doby died in 2003, Irvin in 2016.
The book focuses on a composite of the old Negro Leaguer and his grandson. The old-timer mirrors Max Manning, one of the Leagues’ greatest pitchers. He was a member of the 1946 World Champion Newark Eagles, as were Irvin and Doby.
“He got his degree and became a math teacher,” said Izenberg. “He built his house in Pleasantville, New Jersey, with his own two hands and I can attest to that because I spent a lot of time in it. The living room floor was crooked.”
He chuckled at that memory. Although he never pitched in the Majors, Manning told him he was fine. “I never would have gotten a college degree if I’d hung around here. I’m having a good life and I’m constructive. I’m teaching kids who need to be taught,” as Izenberg recalled about Manning’s state of mind. He died in 2003.
Now the quiz. It’s a simple one. Google some of the names in this article, learn about and remember these men and their journey — and pass the knowledge forward.
Great history — I have a very long reading list, but I’m adding this book to it!
(Wish he’d have kept the Stude, though. I wonder if Oscar drove one…)
My own adventure in Negro League research began about ten years ago. And I learned that Larry Doby played under an assumed name (Larry Walker) when he first joined the Eagles. And Monte Irvin hit home runs in three different games on the same day (August 17, 1941) when he was with the Eagles. The Josh Gibson home run count stands at 460. 384 home runs were hit in Negro League games played at Newark’s Ruppert Stadium from 1936 through 1949 (26 by Irvin, 14 by Doby, and 37 by the less well-known Lennie Pearson). SABR did a book on the 1946 Eagles with biographies of each of the players and the owners, Abe and Effa Manley. And the Newark Eagles were the Brooklyn Eagles in 1935, before moving to Newark.