October 06, 1999 09:02:57 CST Verdell Mathis: Homegrown Memphis Hurler A 1993 interview with the legendary Memphis Red Sox pitcher. P. Mills Reprinted from Black Ball News Verdell “Lefty” Mathis Memphis, Tennessee (August, 1993) Crawfordsville, over in Arkansas – that’s where I was born. I have four brothers and five sisters, so you might say we had a pretty big family. My father was a railroad man with the Missouri Pacific Railroad. We came to Memphis when I was just a little boy, and except for the years I spent in New York after I was done playing baseball, I’ve lived in Memphis all my life. Baseball has been important to me for as long as I can remember. Except for my family, I guess baseball was the most important thing. I can’t remember when I first started playing, but I’m sure it was as soon as I was old enough to pick up the ball and throw it. I remember playing softball games when I was five years old, and I played softball and baseball all up through grade school. Everybody, all the boys, played baseball back then. We all wanted to be professional baseball players when we grew up, just like most boys. I don’t suppose any of us really thought we would ever actually get a chance do it. When we were kids we all had our heroes, and my hero was Satchel Paige. I tried to keep up with everything he did by reading the papers. I also followed the Memphis Red Sox real close, and I read everything I could get my hands on about baseball. I went to all the games I could, and I would try to meet the players at the ballpark and at the hotel. I wanted to be around the baseball players all the time and be a part of anything that had to do with baseball. I met a lot of players and got to know some of them real well. That helped me later on, I think. By the time I got to high school I had made up my mind that I was going to be a professional player. Oh, I didn’t really know that I was going to be good enough to do it, but it was what I had my sights set on. I had a good record on the high school team, and, when I was still in high school, I started playing with a semi-pro team that my high school coach, William Lowe, put together. The team was called the Brooklyn Royal Giants. (ed. note: This was not the Brooklyn Royal Giants team of New York. Many semi-pro teams took the names of well known professional squads.) Now, Memphis wasn’t like Birmingham and other towns in the South that had a lot of industrial teams. Industrial teams had big companies that sponsored them. In Memphis we had semi-pro teams. These teams played exhibition games in Memphis and out in the little towns for a part of the gate money. That money would pay expenses and, maybe, a little would be left for the players. We didn’t have any sponsor to pay for equipment or anything. Our team, the Royal Giants, did pretty good and became one of the top semi-pro teams in and around Memphis. We had a lot of good young players on the team. I was pitching, and we were playing pretty good. So, in 1937 the coach decided that we were good enough to go out on the road and try to make some money. Of course, that was an exciting idea to me at the time. In 1937 the team booked some games out in the Midwest, starting up in Texas and Oklahoma, and working our way north into Minnesota and Iowa. We would play games against just about anybody along the way. Some of the teams were just a bunch of local players who got a team together just to play us, then there were other teams that were pretty good semi-pro outfits. The best teams we played, though, were some of the professional teams that barnstormed through that part of the country regularly. The team I remember most was a barnstorming team from Texas called the Texas Spiders (ed. note: called both the Mineola Black Spiders and Texas Spiders, operating from Mineola, Texas). That team had a player-manager named Reuben Jones who later helped me get with the Memphis Red Sox. The Black Spiders were a good team. We hooked up with them in Kansas and played several games up in that area, then we played them quite a lot up in Minnesota, Idaho and Iowa. A lot of the teams playing up in Iowa and Minnesota were really good. You know, a lot of professional players, white and black, from the Negro Leagues and major leagues, would come up there after their regular baseball season was over and play with the barnstorming teams. There were a number of tournaments up there that paid good money to the winners, so other big name players would put together teams and come up to compete. In fact, the first time I met Bob Feller was in one of those tournaments up there. He was just a kid then – maybe seventeen years old, or something like that. He was already a star pitcher with Cleveland, but, after the regular season, he was playing up there. Let me tell you, he was tough! We didn’t make a lot of money up there, but we usually made enough to get by. Times were hard on everybody back then, no matter what they were doing to make a living. It was the Depression. I was happy to be making a living playing ball, so I kept going back up there. Besides, it was good experience to play against some of the really good players like Feller who were in those tournaments and playing exhibition games. At that time I wanted more than any to play for the Memphis Red Sox – to break into the organized Negro leagues. I kept hoping that by playing all those games against players from the major black teams somebody would notice me and help me get on with one of the big clubs. Of course, if I had my choice, it would have been the Memphis Red Sox, since I lived in Memphis and was such a big fan when I was growing up. Well, as it worked out, I got my wish. Reuben Jones, the fellow I was telling you managed the Texas Spiders, took a liking to me. He was impressed with my pitching and talked to me several times about how I ought to be pitching with one of the League teams. As luck would have it, after the 1939 season, Jones was signed by the Martin Brothers to manage the Memphis club the following year. Well, as soon as he got that job, he sent word that he wanted me to pitch for the Red Sox! The Red Sox team was owned by the Martin brothers: J. B. Martin, who became commissioner of the league; Dr. W. S. Martin, who was the owner of the team; and, B. B. Martin, who did the team’s booking and managed the ballpark. There was another brother involved in the team too, but I don’t remember seeing him too often. Anyway, when Reuben Jones got to Memphis to put together the team, he went to see Dr. W. S. Martin and told him he wanted to sign me to a contract. Dr. Martin didn’t seem too enthusiastic about me, but maybe that was his way of negotiating. He offered me a contract with a $65 per month salary. Well, I couldn’t afford to play for that. I had a family to support. And, since playing for the Red Sox was a full time job, there wouldn’t be any opportunity for me to hold down a second job to make the money I needed. I was afraid that I was going to have to pass up the one thing I wanted to do more than anything else – play for the Red Sox! I talked with Reuben Jones and told him that if I couldn’t get any more money than Dr. Martin offered I would have to turn it down. Reuben told me not to worry about it, that he had a plan for getting the money I needed. The next day, he went to see Dr. Martin on his own and made a bet with him. “You sign Mathis to a contract for $125 per month, and I will personally guarantee that he will be worth the money. If he doesn’t make good, you pay him the $65 per month you offered him, and I will pay the $60 difference. On the other hand, if he does make good and turns out to be an asset to this team, you will pay the $125 per month, just like you would for any other top quality player.” Dr. Martin agreed to these terms, and I signed a contract to play with the Memphis club. Reuben Jones never lost a penny betting on me! Things didn’t start off too good for me with the Red Sox. I remember my first appearance in a game. It was one of the high points and low points of my life at the same time. Because I was a rookie, I wasn’t given the chance to start a ballgame right away. I was held out as a relief pitcher. The first time I was called on to pitch was in Memphis in a game against the Baltimore Elite Giants, a powerful hitting ballclub. I was called in during the ninth inning with the game on the line. I was nervous as a cat when the first batter stepped into the batter’s box, but I somehow managed to strike him out. After that strikeout, I was feeling a little more relaxed. The second batter stepped in, and I struck him out too! So, now I was really feeling good. Then lightning struck! I bore down to get the third out and end the game as a hero, but the batter had a different idea. I wound up and threw my best pitch. He drew back and made his best swing – HOMERUN! Oh, Lord, I felt like Charlie Liebrandt when he threw up that big homerun in the World Series last year. I was sick. It wasn’t the World Series, but it was just as big to me. It was my first appearance as a genuine professional pitcher. I still wish I had that pitch back! Fortunately, things got better for me after that. It didn’t take me long to get used to pitching in the league, and I was one of the top pitchers by the time I had finished my first season. I had a lot of help from Larry Brown, the Red Sox catcher. You talk about a ballplayer! Larry had a lot of experience, and he sort of took me under his wing and taught me what I needed to know about pitching to the big hitters in the league. In 1940, I was given a chance to be on the West squad in the East-West All-Star game in Chicago, but Dr. Martin blocked my chance to go. I hadn’t been with the Red Sox very long, and he thought I was getting too much attention for my own good. That’s what he said! He told me that he didn’t want me to go to the All-Star game because he thought I would come back with the “big head.” Maybe he was thinking I would want more money next season since I had made the All-Star team! But, when I was put on the West team for the East-West game the next year, 1941, Dr. Martin still didn’t want me to go. W. S. Welch, manager of the Birmingham Black Barons, was responsible for convincing Dr. Martin to let me go in ’41. Welch was going to manage the West team, and he wanted me on it. Martin had already told me that he wasn’t going to let me go, but Welch insisted that he couldn’t stop me from being in the game. I don’t know just what Welch said to Dr. Martin, but I wound up going Chicago to be in the game. At that time, none of the players on the West team were being paid for participating in the East-West game. Satchel, of course, insisted that he was going to get paid or he wasn’t going to play. The promoters of the game knew that the fans, and there were thousands of them coming to the game, would be disappointed if Satchel didn’t pitch. So, Satchel pretty much had them over a barrel. I don’t to this day know what kind of deal he made with the promoters, but Satchel got paid for his appearance. Well, all the rest of us felt like we should get something too. All the players on the West squad got together at the hotel, and we had a meeting to talk about how we could get paid. Some of the players for the East team were meeting at their hotel to discuss the same thing. The promoters were offering to pay us by giving us each a Bulova wristwatch. That was a nice thing, a Bulova wrist watch. But, we felt like we should get some cash too! At any rate, everyone finally decided that the players on the winning team should get $200 each, and the players on the losing team should get $100 each. The promoters weren’t real crazy about the idea, but what could they do? They had a ballpark full of thousands of fans who had paid to see a game. The promoters stood to make a lot of money. They weren’t about to call the game off! So, they agreed to pay us. My next trip to the East-West game was in 1943, then I went again in 1944. Both times I was the starting pitcher for the West, and we won both games. The East had those teams with all the big hitters. Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Roy Campanella and Cool Papa Bell were playing on the East team in those years. In 1943,I teamed up with Satchel to beat the East 2-1. They didn’t score a single run off me. The next year, 1944, I was the winning pitcher. I started the game and didn’t give up a score. So, I had real good success against all those power hitters that were supposed to beat our West team so badly. Those guys couldn’t believe they had lost those games! As I said earlier, Satchel was my hero when I was young. After I got into professional baseball, I became friends with Satchel, and I learned a lot of things from him. But, because he had been my hero when I was young, I wanted to pitch especially good when I came up against him. The biggest thrills I had in my career were the two times I beat Satchel in big games. The first time was in 1943. They were having a special day for Satchel at Wrigley Field in Chicago. It was Satchel Paige Day, and they were honoring him there at the park. It was a really big event. That day I started the game against Satchel, and I pitched one of my best games ever. I beat Satchel 2-1. That was a great day! The second game was in Kansas City. It was another one of those days that so many parks held honoring Satchel. Of course, since Satchel was associated so closely with Kansas City and the Monarchs, it was really a big day. I beat him by the same score, 2-1. Those were the biggest days of my career – even bigger than the East-West games. I didn’t just play baseball during the regular league season. I played all the time. You didn’t get paid enough playing for the Red Sox to keep you up during the winter. When the season was over, I would go down to South America and play down there. Larry Brown and I played for a Mexican team in Tampico. There were a lot of good players from the Negro Leagues playing down there at that time. Sometimes it seemed like we were playing an All-Star game back home. The team in Mexico City had some really great players, like Willie Wells and Josh Gibson, so it was always good baseball. Then in 1945, I went to Venezuela with one of the best teams that ever was. We had Campanella, Buck Leonard, Gene Benson and Jackie Robinson on that team. So, baseball was a full-time, year round job for me. As I told you earlier, I met Bob Feller when I was barnstorming back in the thirties. Since he had played against Negro teams since he was a kid, Feller knew better than just about anybody the quality of players that were in the Negro Leagues. He had become good friends with Satchel Paige before the war and competed against him in tournament games. So, in 1946 Feller got the idea to put together two teams – one with major league stars, and the other with the top black players – and barnstorm across the country after the regular season was over. He thought it would be a big attraction for the fans. Boy, was he right! Feller got together some of the best major league stars, like Bob Lemon and Stan Musial. He asked Satchel to put together a team of All-Stars from our league, and Satchel asked me to go along with him. We had a group of the best black players, like Hilton Smith, who was another Monarchs pitcher. We toured all across the country, and people filled the ballparks to see those games everywhere we played. They had standing room only crowds. We made good money on that tour and traveled first class. I think a lot of people were surprised to see how good our All-Star team was. Not Feller, though. He already knew. I continued playing for the Red Sox, pitching every time it was my turn, until 1948. When Jackie Robinson was signed by the Dodgers, then other players were brought into the white baseball organizations, I thought that there was a good chance I would have an opportunity to play in the major leagues. In 1946 and 1947 there were major league scouts looking at players all over the East and Midwest. But, for some reason, there was very little scouting done down South. You know, even after Robinson made it into the majors, it was quite a while before any of the white minor league teams in the South allowed black players. The players who made it into the majors for the first three or four years were all with the Negro teams in the East. Campanella and Joe Black played for the Baltimore team. Lary Doby and Monte Irvin were with the Newark Eagles. All those guys were from teams up North. The white teams just didn’t do much scouting in the South. Willie Mays and Piper Davis were about the first ones from a Southern team, the Black Barons, to be given a try in the white leagues, and that wasn’t for four or five years after Robinson was brought up with the Dodgers. By that time my career was over. Early in the 1948 season I injured my arm. I had an elbow problem that was going to take several months to heal. I was supposed to sit out the rest of the season, but felt like I needed to be playing. So, instead of sitting out, I just stopped pitching for a couple of months and played the outfield and first base instead. And, before the season was over, I went back to pitching. Well, I didn’t give the elbow a chance to heal, and I was never able to pitch well again. I stayed in baseball another couple of years, but I wasn’t pitching. I played quite a bit of outfield, and some games at first base. The manager wanted me to stay on because I could hit. In fact, I was always a pretty good hitter, and had played outfield on days I didn’t pitch all through my career at Memphis. But, without being able to pitch, I wasn’t the same ball player. So, I never got the chance to play in the majors. After baseball, I moved my family to New York. I had a job working with Chock Full ‘O’ Nuts, and later went into the plastering business. The good thing about living in New York was that I got to see a lot of baseball games. I went to see the New and Brooklyn teams play the whole time I was there. But, in 1969 I moved back to Memphis because it was home. How do I feel about my career? My career was great. I mean, it was great for me. Not everybody gets to do what they want. When I was a teenager I made a wish to someday play for the Memphis Red sox. I got exactly what I wished for. That doesn’t happen very often.