For the past thirty-five years I have been fascinated by the colorful and exciting posters once used by promoters to announce upcoming sporting events and musical attractions. As the owner of one of the last traditional show poster shops in the country, I am always on the lookout for old, original posters and the wood engravings and magnesium plates that were used to produce them. Several years ago the search for these rarities took me into the small, deteriorating shop of one of the country’s oldest showcard printers in a small Southern town. After examining several old wood engravings and plates for minstrel shows that traveled through the South during the 1930s, I asked the young manager if the shop had ever printed posters for Negro baseball teams.
“Yes,” he replied while looking back toward the stairs leading to the basement. “I came across a couple of old posters like that down in the basement a while back. I put them up somewhere, if I can just remember where. You know, I also found a really crazy looking plate down there that had something to do with a black baseball show. It’s not a whole poster, just an art cut used on a poster. It’s really a racist thing! I don’t think it was a real team, or anything. I think it must have been used in some sort of KKK propaganda.”
Of course, my curiosity was greatly aroused. After a few minutes of intensive search the manager located the object of my curiosity. To my great surprise he handed me an elaborate steel engraving of the artwork used on posters promoting appearances of the Zulu Cannibal Giants during the 1930s! Grass skirts, bare feet, painted faces and baseball bats that closely resembled war clubs – a drawing that would not have looked at all out of place on the inflammatory handbills and posters used by white supremacist groups to ridicule and demean Negroes. Upon learning that the drawing was used to promote a real Negro baseball team that traveled around the country, regularly playing and performing in the outlandish get-ups shown in the picture, the printer was genuinely stunned.
“I don’t know much about baseball,” he protested. “I am not much of a sports fan. But, I have seen the Harlem Globetrotters, and I know there other comedy basketball teams. The Globetrotters put on a really good show. They were funny. But, this isn’t really very funny. This is too much!”
In recent years, as attention has increasingly been given to Negro baseball, there has been a reluctance on the part of historians to talk about the novelty and clowning teams – baseball troupes like the Zulu Cannibal Giants and Ethiopian Clowns. In fact, many of those who are active in promoting awareness of Negro baseball history believe history will be best served if the Zulus, Clowns and similar teams are simply swept under the carpet and forgotten. And, many former players are quick to disassociate themselves from the novelty teams, even players who at one time performed with those squads.
Were the novelty teams merely perverse sideshows on the outer periphery of Negro baseball, or were they a legitimate part of Negro baseball history deserving of mention and recognition? To answer this question, it seems necessary to look at the nature of baseball as, fundamentally, an entertainment industry and the social and economic context within which baseball clowning arose.
Many historians point out that the exaggerated racial stereo types exploited by such teams as the Zulus had their roots in nineteenth century black minstrelsy and were perfected in the stage performances of black entertainers who worked the T.O.B.A. theater circuit from Florida to Chicago. Interesting is the fact that the audiences to which these performers played were principally made up of Negro patrons who found great humor in the routines.
The same comic routines that brought forth laughter from black audiences in performance theaters continued to evoke laughter when performed on screen in the Negro cinema productions of the 1920s and 1930s. If the routines, which included numerous exaggerations of racial stereotypes, were generally regarded by black audiences as demeaning, it is difficult to explain why they were so popular.
The reason these performances were not offensive to black patrons is to be found in the spirit of the performance and in the high level of professionalism exhibited by the performers. The successful comic is gifted with the ability to make us laugh at ourselves by exaggerating the ridiculous in the characteristics we share with the comic character. Instinctively, we know when our ridiculous qualities are presented to us in good humor and can differentiate such a presentation from one that is the product of a mean spirit. Further, while we may enjoy laughing at ridiculous portrayals of ourselves when among our friends and peers, we may resent it when other social groups laugh at us. It is not uncommon today to hear black comics use racially derogatory language in club performances and on television. This language is considered acceptable when used by a black entertainer performing before a black audience, but not so acceptable in performances before mixed or predominantly white audiences. And, the use of such language by a white performer before any audience would be deemed outrageous.
During the 1920s and 1930s “blackface” performances became quite popular in the vaudeville routines of white performers. As the exaggerated racial stereotypes popularized by black comics were adopted by white vaudevillians performing in blackface, the Negro press began to warn that black comic routines were being perverted to reinforce undesirable racial stereotypes in the minds of white audiences. Black entertainers of all types were urged to abandon “step and fetchit” characterizations and to steer clear of any comic material which portrayed Negro characters as stupid, shiftless or lazy. “As long as our entertainers continue to provide white audiences with reasons to laugh at colored people,” wrote one black newspaper columnist, “we cannot blame white audiences for believing what they see on stage.”
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with black ballplayers donning grass skirts and performing comic antics on a baseball field. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with black ballplayers taking on the appearance of circus clowns and performing circus like routines with baseballs and bats. The danger in such performances is that the audience will fail to “get the joke” and believe the comic behavior contained in the skits to be generally representative of the behavior of colored people.
If the comic routines of novelty baseball teams had not been coupled with extraordinary baseball skills it might have been easier for white audiences to fail to “get the joke.” Certainly, there were dozens of minor novelty teams barnstorming through the country during the 1930s whose baseball skills fell considerably below their comic abilities. On the other hand, the major novelty teams whose names became widely recognized quickly dispelled any question about their baseball prowess once any game commenced. The most famous of these teams was the Indianapolis Clowns.
The Clowns were formed in Miami just after the stock market crash of 1929. Originally named the Miami Clowns, then the Ethiopian Clowns, the team traded not only on comedy but fielded a first rate baseball nine as well. Negro Leagues legend, David Barnhill, who also took on the character of Impo in the routines performed by the Zulus, was not unrepresentative of the quality of players fielded by the Clowns during the 1930s. Barnhill, who became the mainstay of a powerful New York Cubans pitching staff later in his career, was joined by such legendary players as John “Buck” O’Neil on the roster of the early Clowns.
Regularly the team took on the powerhouse clubs of the Negro Leagues, teams like the Monarchs, Elite Giants and Chicago American Giants, and compiled a respectable record in those contests. There is no question that the Ethiopian Clowns was a first class baseball team. Why, then, was it necessary for the team to augment its serious baseball performances with comedy? For the same reasons that lead hundreds of minor league team owners to employ the zany Al Schacht, the white “Clown Prince of Baseball” to entertain fans in ballparks throughout the country. For the same reasons that Bill Veeck turned to Schacht’s successor, the hilarious Max Patkin, to attract fans to the ballpark during the difficult days of World War II. The comic routines of these performers, like those of the Clowns, gave potential paying customers one more reason to come to the ballpark and bring the family.
In the early 193()s, when both the Ethiopian Clowns and Zulu Giants were born, even the established teams of the Negro National League were failing under the economic pressures of the Depression. Just as the owners of white minor league teams were turning to attractions like Al Schact to bring paying customers to games, enterprising promoters of black baseball were looking for ways to make their product more enticing to fans. Although the Clowns and Zulus were conceived and formed by black baseball men, sharp white promoters like Syd Pollock were quick to recognize the economic potential of novelty teams that could put on an entertaining pre-game show and follow it up with a dis play of professional baseball skills that was no less dazzling.
Promoters like Pollock realized that fans were attracted to appearances of the original House of David squads by the unusual appearance of the bearded players. Capitalizing on this gimmick, Pollock formed the totally contrived aggregation he called the Cuban House of David. Featuring top players like Luis “Lefty” Tiant, Sr., the Cuban HOD successfully toured the United States during the early ’30s under Pollock’s sponsorship.Though the team performed no comedy routine, the outlandish appearance of Negro and Latin players sporting the flowing beards of the House of David religious sect was sufficiently ridiculous to bring fans to the ballpark. Even the great Babe Ruth amused fans by sporting a fake beard while performing in exhibition contests against the House of David.
After acquiring ownership of the Clowns in 1932, Pollock undertook the biggest promotional campaign of his career to establish the team as a legitimate entertainment attraction. The success of the Clowns was largely due to Pollock’s realization that clowning was the gimmick that brought fans into the ballpark – quality baseball was what kept them coming back.
Throughout the more than 30 years that Pollock was associated with the Clowns the team’s prowess at the ticket gate was surpassed only by Abe Saperstein’s basketball Globetrotters. In fact, several great Negro athletes like Piper Davis (recent Alabama Sports Hall of Fame inductee) and Reese “Goose” Tatum did double duty for Pollock and Saperstein, playing baseball with the Clowns during the summer and traveling with the Magicians of Basketball during the winter months. The most prolific showman-athletes, extraordinary performers like Tatum, enjoyed a tremendous personal popularity that was not limited to the sports-loving public. There is no doubt that clowning broadened the appeal and marketability of professional Negro baseball. And why not? It had worked for those financially struggling white teams that had turned to Al Schacht to generate a little excitement!
The entrance of the Clowns into the Negro American League in 1941 clearly demonstrated the legitimacy of the club as a professional baseball team. But, the comic ingredient in the team’s appearances continued to add to its fan appeal, making the Indianapolis Clowns the most long lived of all Negro Leagues teams. Many of the biggest stars of Negro Leagues baseball, players like Pepper Bassett and managers like Hall-of-Famer Oscar Charleston, wore the Clowns uniform during the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. The team produced many of the major league stars that thrilled the nation during the ’50s and ’60s including Homerun King, Hank Aaron. If this is a legacy of which the Clowns alumni are now to be ashamed, it is difficult to imagine a legacy of which one can be proud.
In 1993 there is little need for clowning in professional sports at the major league level. But, in cities like San Diego, Houston and Pittsburgh where teams have been struggling with declining attendance levels, team owners have sponsored post-game concerts by popular recording artists, ballpark performances by magicians and extravagant pyrotechnic displays to lure fans to home games. However, the old-time baseball clowns like the legendary Max Patkin continue to play a full schedule of dates in minor league parks throughout the country, and novelty teams like the incredible King and His Court, the highly entertaining softball entourage, continue the clowning tradition as a profitable attraction for community organization fundraisers. The routines performed by Patkin today differ little from those performed by base ball clowns fifty years ago, and the King and His Court continue to please audiences with much of the ball-handling magic and comic tricks popularized by Negro clowning teams during the 1930s.
Last summer I took my thirteen-year-old son to see Max Patkin perform at a home game of the Nashville Sounds. Later in the summer we drove some sixty miles from our home to a tiny Lions Club field in rural Tennessee to see Eddie Feigner “The King” and his Court entertain the locals. Watching these showmen today, one is both entertained and stricken with a sense of nostalgia and sadness – sadness prompted by the realization that these performers may well be the last in a great tradition. The ballpark comic is not disappearing because an enlightened citizenry now adjudges his antics unworthy of the game, nor because modern fans find his performances less humorous than fans of yesterday. The comic is not fading into obscurity because his routines, the same routines created and performed by his predecessors, offend the sensibilities of his audience. The ballpark comic has simply been displaced by the technology of our time. In the age of DiamondVision the entertainment of the old-time ballpark comic is far too tame.
Those of us who are fascinated by the history of baseball and the contributions of the men who toiled in the Negro Leagues are keenly aware of the despicable social conditions that subjected an entire race to daily indignity. Though we may differ in our assessments of the progress made in reforming those conditions, we can all agree that progress has been made. And, we can all agree that the stagnant ideas and repressive ideologies that sustained racial segregation must be continually re-identified and repudiated.
Certainly, just as any medium of communication is susceptible to perversion by the unscrupulous and misanthropic, so may comedy be used as a tool of oppression. But, we must dispense our judgments fairly and be cautious to resist the sin of generalization that played so important a part in the bigotry of old. Laughter is prized by all people of every race and in every nation. The honest and benign clown is loved by all and due our respect and appreciation.
Though to many of us baseball seems something quite more than mere entertainment, it is, fundamentally, nothing more. America has always appreciated her entertainers, elevated them to a high position in our society and rewarded them with admiration and respect. Now that the respect and admiration so long overdue is in some measure being paid to the baseball players of the Negro Leagues, we will shame no one but ourselves with a severe judgment of the player-clown. He made us laugh at ourselves and with one another. Whose contribution can count for more?
