The incomparable linguist Yogi Berra allegedly said: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Eight years ago this week, faced with that decision, the fork my wife and I took on an interstate in Missouri led us to the Harry Truman Presidential Library in his hometown, Independence.
The other fork went to the a place that’s called — despite today’s political correctness — the “Negro” Leagues Baseball Museum, in Kansas City.
Our travel itinerary dictated we could go to only one of them. Having enjoyed several presidential libraries, we were eager to see Truman’s. We weren’t disappointed, but it meant skipping the shrine to Black baseball. Had we gone, perhaps we’d have heard of William Clarence Mathews.
He was the Jackie Robinson before Jackie Robinson, who became big league baseball’s first Black player, an historic event that’s celebrated annually, as it will be again next month. Mathews, the first Black to play professional baseball, is believed to have come this close to the majors, 42 years before Robinson.
His is also a fascinating story.
Born in the deep south (Alabama), Mathews used his sports abilities to earn acceptance in a prestigious Massachusetts college where he was the lone Black student. He also earned a ticket to Harvard and a place on the baseball team that went 75-18 in his four years there. Nearby, the National League’s last-place Boston Nationals — who became the Braves before moving to Milwaukee and 13 years later to Atlanta — had such a bad team that player-manager Fred Tenney entertained the thought of signing Mathews. He was a star shortstop one local newspaper called Harvard’s greatest big league prospect, so accepted by teammates that they cancelled trips when opponents refused to play against him. Every Ivy Leaguer knew all about William C. Mathews.
What happened?
A story by Anthony Castrovince, a writer for MLB.com since 2004, uncovered this quote from then-Chicago Cubs President Jim Hart: “Personally, I have no objections to a Negro playing baseball, but I do not think it is right to inflict him on others who have objections or forcing white players to sleep in the same car with him and associate as intimately as they would have to under such conditions. That is the real objection to a Negro in baseball.”
Mathews signed instead to play professional baseball in the unassociated Northern League, at Burlington, Vermont. In 2022, Burlington honoured the history he made. Ivy League conference champions now win the William Clarence Mathews Trophy. He is mentioned, though not enshrined, in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
After one season, he became a lawyer and, ultimately, was appointed to a legal position of note by President William Taft. He and Jackie Robinson shared many similar and admirable traits: intellectual, tolerant, talented, persecuted…and both left a legacy of overcoming injustices. Matthews died of a perforated ulcer, at age 51. Robinson died of complications from diabetes, at 53.
My father was born the year William C. Mathews didn’t get the chance to break baseball’s colour barrier. I was born the year Jackie Robinson did.
Yes, it was a generous generation between what could have happened and when it did.
The question lingers: What took so long?
