Excerpt © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Excerpt from Elston Howard, Chapter 12 Q: Why did you choose to play professional baseball over going to college? A: My parents were educators. My father was a principal down in New Madrid, Missouri, at the O'Bannon High School. My mother was a dietician for many years, and they wanted me to go to college. I went to Stowe, a teacher's college, a little school in St. Louis, but I dropped out and started playing professional baseball. I went into the black leagues. I played with the Kansas City Monarchs. Ernie Banks was my roommate. We won the Negro American League, which was big in black baseball. Today we have many black stars in the major leagues. It wasn't that way then. When I came in, there were still racial barriers. We couldn't live in the same hotel with the white ballplayers. We'd go down to spring training in St. Petersburg, and we would stay with a private family. We stayed with Del Williams, who had a shoe repair shop. The food was great. His wife used to fix us real good food. Bob Gibson, Bill White, and Sam Jones used to stay at their home. They were playing with the Cardinals. At the time I was the only black member with the Yankees. We had a rough time during spring training. Camp would break for the day, and you had to cross the tracks into the black section to dress, while the white boys would go to the hotel and dress. They'd jump on the bus, while I had to jump in a cab with my uniform and come to the ballpark and go back and then jump back on the train, see. Q: Didn't this make you angry? A: Oh yeah. Being a young man, I was really upset at it. The only time I would get really upset was when you'd hear racial remarks. In those days you heard a lot of racial remarks, and I still get mad today when I hear it. I get offended by it, and if a guy gets on me about it, I go right after him. Excerpted from Baseball Heaven: Up Close and Personal, What It Was Really Like in the Major Leagues by Peter Golenbock All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
