And now an exclusive interview with David Bassey for Dodger Talker. We're joined right now by a very special man, a man that is keeping the voices alive of the Negro Leagues, and he is the president of the Negro League Museum. He is the best dressed man in Kansas City. That's the one and only Bob Kendrick. Bob, thanks a lot for joining us.
Oh, Dave, it was great to see you man. Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Well, the franchise of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcomb, just to name a few. I mean, it is special to come to Kansas City and see the museum.
Well, and there's a bridge between the two cities, because a lot of people don't know, Dave, that Jackie Robinson's illustrious professional baseball career began right here in Kansas City with the great Kansas City Monarchs in nineteen forty five in the Negro Leagues.
Now, he was only here for five months, but.
As I tell people, the five months he's been in Kansas City, he fell in love with everything that Kansas City is famous for.
Barbecue and zaz I love that.
Yeah, And Jackie was a big man of jazz and baseball and all that. And Roy Campanella three time MVP. He was a big player in the negro Leagues as well well.
Narah and the Dodgers had a litany of great stars that came out of the negro Leagues. Camp He joined the team in the negro Leagues called the Baltimore Elite Giants. Now it's spelled Elite, but it's pronounced elite because you make those negro leaguers mad if you call him the Elite Giants. Well, Campy joins the elites as a fifteen year old catcher. Can you believe a fifteen year old
kid catching professionally in the negro Leagues? But as I tell my guests, he was not your typical fifteen year old. He was a fifteen year old man style, but he was fifteen nevertheless, and the great Raleigh biss MACKI took him under his wing and taught him the art of catching. And I don't have to tell Dodger fans. Roy Campanella will become a three time MVP with the Brooklyn Dodgers before a tragic car accident left him paralyzed and cut short what was still Hall of Fame career.
When we come to the Negro League Museum and you tell the stories of the negro Leagues, are you mesmerized as much as we are, even though you've told the stories many times? Oh?
Man, this never gets old for me. It doesn't.
And every time I get a young athlete of any sports discipline, but particularly my young Major League baseball players, it just fills me with great joy to walk them through that museum, to share the stories, many of these stories that the lay great Buck O'Neil and other legendary negro leaguers shared with me, and in doing so, I feel like I'm keeping them alive in my mind and
in my heart. But the thing that I share that the threat that they have with those who played in the negro Leagues is real simple love of the game.
You play this game because you love it. And I know sometimes as fans we.
Can get a little fickle because we equate everything to money, and so these guys are afforded an opportunity to make a great living, but it's still about the love of the game. They are still playing a game that they played for free, and if they had to play it for free, they would still play it for free. But as I remind them, you will never see a greater example of love of the game than you do when
you walk through the Negro League's Baseball Museum. They had to love it in order to endure the things that they had to endure.
What's the lasting legacy of Jackie Robinson with the Negro Leagues and just how special is it for him to be not only the face of American sports history, but American history period.
Absolutely?
Well, you know, we take great pride that Kansas City and the Negro Leagues gave America arguably its greatest hero
in Jackie Robinson. And for those who subscribe to the belief that one individual cannot invoke change, well you need to look no further than Jackie Roosevelt Robinson because when he walked out on that field as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he was called everything but my mother would say, but a child of God when he walked out there, and he handled himself with such grace, class and dignity. But the other side of the ledger is that he was also shouldering the weight of twenty one
million black folks who were counting on him to succeed. Yeah, and that's an enormous amount of pressure for any one individual to have to bear, and he did it with tremendous grace, class, and dignity. We should never forget Jackie Robinson, and Baseball has made it such. The Dodger organization has made it such that baseball fans likely won't ever forget Jackie Robinson. And certainly, as long as that museum is there operating here in Kansas City, his story will always.
Be at the forefront.
But so will those other trailblazers, those who built the bridge that allow Jackie to cross over and for others to then follow right behind him.
Bob, before I let you go show Haltani one of the greatest players we've ever seen in Major League Baseball? Was there anybody like Otani and the Negro leagues?
Well, the thing that I love about this phenom by the name of shoe hey Atani is that it has opened up the opportunity for me to talk about the great two way stars of the Negro leagues. And so when Shoe Hay first gets here to play in the major leagues, everyone was saying, Babe Ruth. But in my opinion, baby Ruth is a wrong comparison. The real comparison is to a guy named Wilbur Bullet Rogan, who was a star pitcher for the Kansas City Monarchs.
He is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
But when Bullet Rogan wasn't pitching and he was a dominant pitcher, he played the outfield and hit cleanup for the Kansas City Monarchs. Now let me tell you, you don't just hit clean up for the Kancity Monarch.
You've got to be able to rake.
And in the words of the immortal Leroy satchel Page, in the beautiful vernacular of LeRoy's Satchel Page, who said that Bullet Rogan is the onliest ball player I ever heard of. I've ever seen that pitch and hit in the clean up position. That was Robert Bullet Joe Rogan.
All right, you got a parallel to show. Hey, Otani, I knew you would have the answer to that.
No, But you know, I, like the rest of us, I'm a baseball fan. We marvel at what Shoh has done. And it also gives me an opportunity to talk about that connection between the negro leagues in Japan, because the negro leagues go to Japan in nineteen twenty seven. Man, that's seven years before Babe Ruth and as all Americans go. And they've been commonly credited with having taken our brand of professional baseball to the Japanese, but it's not true.
It was a team called the Philadelphia Royal Giants. They go over to Japan in nineteen twenty seven, they play a twenty four game exhibition series. They go twenty three to zero to one on that tour, and if you were to talk to the older Japanese baseball historian, they will tell you that it was that tour and a subsequent tour by that same Philadelphia Royal Giant that was the spark that lit the flame that is now the
fire for professional baseball in Japan. And it's certainly played a role in why we were able to get stars such as today Nomo, my dear friend ichi Rosuzuka, who's about to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and of course this phenom by the name of sho Hey Antani. The Negro leagues play a pivotal role. They help make our game the global game that it is today. They just never were given credit for it.
That's why the Negro Leagues can never be forgotten and it never will be forgotten because Bob Kendrick has continued to tell the story of the great negro Leagues, and the Negro League Museum Hall of Fame is one place that you have to come to and see our good friend Bob Kendrick when you come to Kansas City. Thanks a lot for the time, and man, the best stressed guy in Kansas City.
Thank you, No, it is my pleasure.
I want to thank all those Dodger fans who filled up the museum over this weekend series. Thank you guys for coming by and seeing us. Thank you for your support, and thank you for the opportunity to be on the show.
Hey we love Bob Kendrick. Thanks a lot for the time Bob, and hey we love the stories.