Episode 324 - We Just Let Bob Kendrick Talk, That’s the Title

0:00hello everybody welcome to another episode of two strike noise your favorite all-time baseball history podcast my name is jeff i am one half of the show joining me as always from the michael saunders studio this week what was this nickname the something about a bird the condor the condor

0:32studios it is my co-host mark a johnston mark welcome oh my goodness it's today's an exciting day yeah it's a big show today not gonna lie you know it's don't lie whatever you do don't lie it's gonna be fun because when we first started this silly show all those years ago we thought about having guys like like this on the show and but we were nowhere near it and then boom well still we don't know how bob decided to come on our show today yeah we're not sure we didn't know he

1:08heard of us we didn't ask questions we just said yes yes he can come on the show i heard that they were i heard that they wanted to talk to red socks podcasters and of course that's what we get mistaken for often but no doubt this is a very special show we got bob kendrick the president of the negro league museum is here you have if you're listening to this podcast you've definitely seen him a lot you've heard him a lot he is just an incredible human being storyteller we had a blast

1:41and just please stick around that's all i gotta say stick around because that is the main part of the show here today talking to bob about the negro league museum and their expansion and the negro leagues and a whole bunch of baseball stuff so please stick around for that but mark let's make sure that we don't hurt ourselves during this show let's get ready and jump right into bp before we get to mr bob kendrick sounds good so mark we tend to talk about pop culture quite a bit here when it comes

2:14to baseball kind of one of our things pop culture and red socks and whiskey oh yeah those three things those three things so i was waiting for a world cup game to start earlier this week and just flipping through channels well i had like 15 minutes i'm like what yeah i don't want to listen to alexi lawless so let me just watch something else until it starts and for some reason i don't know what the channel is called but it plays just old mainly sitcom and family ties was on i don't think i've seen an episode

2:46of family ties since it was like on the air right so i'm like all right let's just i have no idea what i remember about family ties other than michael j fox so i turned it on and it just so happened this is just so weird it just so happened that this episode was about banning books which hey still relevant today but back in like 1986 87 whenever this episode would have aired it was a thing as well and it cracked me up because the whole joke about this is that the school district was banning books

3:23you could only do book reports on the books that they had said yes and one of the books one of the only books that was approved for students to read was the yogi bera story so throughout this episode there are yogi bera jokes just because all of the students are doing book reports on yogi bera and now know just everything about yogi bera and relate yogi bera anecdotes to everything that they do so it was actually pretty funny just because it was constant yogi bera facts but just kind of weird

4:00that that would be the episode that i happened to just tune in for for like 15 minutes yeah i mean that was like 15 minutes of and you got you got some material out of it yeah by flipping i'm wondering if there is any other baseball related anything during the entirety of family ties yeah makes you wonder i'm not gonna watch them all to find out but i'm i'm assuming wade boggs doesn't show up or anything like that but so let me ask you something though that you mentioned the world cup when does that start

4:31i don't know i haven't i haven't been paying that much attention it's i guess soon okay okay just wondering probably probably sometime soon i don't know let's see speaking of things that are back like the world cup i do want to give a shout out here to you know we we mentioned other baseball podcasts here we've got friends in in the biz that we like to talk about and promote their shows and just there's a lot of great content creators out there yes so i was

5:06very excited because three years to the day that they published their last episode the baseball beyond batting average podcast dropped a new episode wow a week or so ago so if you used to listen to that show and you haven't been paying attention because i don't know why you would think three years to the day after their last episode they would drop a new one but they did and i was very excited so check that out it's baseball beyond batting average it's one of my top 10 i don't

5:38want that that that feels like it needs to be narrower it's in the top 10 of my favorite baseball podcasts they're really good so make sure to check that out if you are not familiar with them or if you have listened to them they i don't know if they're going to be doing more but one episode was great it made me happy so check that out the baseball beyond batting average podcast that is back let's see mark i wanted to talk about the 2016 world series really quickly i don't know cubs fans remember that

6:10at all i don't know maybe they don't talk about it very often but remember the game seven there was the rain delay there was rajay with the big home run and then there was the rain delay apparently so there's a lovable reunion podcast we don't know anybody on that one if they want to reach out to us that's great because it's like it's like riz and and ross and you know all the all the big names from the cubs apparently that i guess they had theo epstein on i guess i mean i watched it he was he was on

6:41it and apparently rob manfred asked the cubs and the guardians if it would be possible during that rain delay to just hold off and pick up the next day in prime time can you believe that that they were thinking about hey let's just stop the game now and uh we'll pick it up tomorrow so we can start again in prime time yeah it just i it took me a second to digest because it just seems silly i mean how ridiculous would that be that's okay that reminds me one and this is a true story

7:20and i'm going to shorten it but when i was in the minor leagues they used to call up and say hey can we switch this promotion and this promotion we got a call on the radio once asking if we could move the seventh inning stretch to the bottom after the seventh inning for what purpose like what purpose they wanted to they wanted to move up a promo and it was like i just remember our pa announcer jeff going no i don't know i mean is there a hard and fast rule when the seventh inning stretch i mean

7:52it's not the half point of the game so it's not like it's i don't know i'd have done it hey everybody people might have noticed i see people standing up but in lieu of what we usually do here there's a dizzy bat race everybody hey that's right exactly but it would have been sponsored by someone still though that makes more sense to me than saying hey we're calling off this game and so we can start again tomorrow in prime time game seven of a world series yeah that's just completely

8:26ridiculous that is wild but thankfully that didn't happen that's our genius in charge of major league baseball let's see here mark let's talk about some collective war for baseball teams tv color guys so think about you're watching your favorite team on your local network so for you that would be the mariners you probably got hyphen ryan roland smith doing uh doing color isn't he usually who

8:56does it yep or angie mentank who's obviously not going to have a war in the major leagues but any team that has a former major league player doing color for them somebody has put together we did this a while like a couple of years ago where we went through the coaching staffs and we tallied up their war for each teams we did like two or three episodes it took a long time that was to test our listeners patience yes yes and you know they got through it and didn't ditch us so if you had to guess who do you think what tv booth has the highest war for the color guys oh man you're gonna drop that

9:32on me if you think about it it's probably pretty easy it's the best booth in baseball it's a three-man booth two of them are color okay hit me with it it's the mets it's the mets baby of course it's the mets because you got you got keith hernandez yes i'm keith hernandez and you've got ron darling so keith okay keith tallied a 60.4 war and darling a 19.6 so that's an 80 war for the mets very nice number two though is the orioles which is impressive because that's just jim palmer on his on his own and

10:08he's got a 68.5 he would be no the orioles would be number one the mets would be number two if they just used keith's war right but after that you've got you've got oral hersheiser with the dodgers with 56 then you drop down quite a bit to the yankees paul o'neill another another seinfeld guy though i'm enjoying that with a 38 mark gubiza for the angels and so on and so forth it goes down who do you think is by the way ryan roland smith a career 0.7 war which is in the bottom six

10:43he's he's a good guy and he's fun to listen to but the career war is not not great who do you think has the lowest career war in the in the tv booth in the big leagues two strike noise well again i said big leagues oh oh you're right what am i thinking i have no idea sir it would be the league leading at least maybe maybe they're not anymore the atlanta franchise oh okay with cj nitkowski who has a

11:15minus 0.1 war and is even a worse person if you've been following the news and what he does on social media so suck it cj yeah so there you are atlanta kim's in last the rangers mike backsick who i know we have talked about because we pulled his card and didn't know who he was during wax back heroes one time is a minus 0.9 and then there's some the blue jays have joe siddle i i remember him sit out i don't remember how you pronounce his name and then kevin franson for the nationals are both minus

11:480.8 tommy hutton for the marlins is a minus 0.6 and then you get into the positives for the rest of them but wow it is it's the mets on top the braves on bottom which is not if you look at the nl east standings it's the opposite it flipped yeah well that's got to be a sign of something i have no idea what yeah well it's a good reason to not listen not watch the braves is it a guccer i don't know what that is okay stand by me it's a great movie oh i think i've seen it once and i know it's i it's

12:21like a gen x 80s like you have to have watched that and i have seen it once and like i said i finally got through goonies for the first time a couple of years ago and that's an awful movie oh my gosh dude you're losing us listeners what are you doing i think if you watched it when it came out you probably love it i think if you haven't and you just watch it now you're like this is not good and i have not seen it it was i i had to struggle to get through it i'd never seen it before but it does not hold up well in social contexts either but we won't get into that well

12:57i mean seinfeld doesn't hold up really well in a lot of things in social contexts either but we talk about that let's go ahead and let the grounds here come out and do their things because mark we've got better things to talk about this week as you have mentioned we've got bob kendrick here from the negro league museum in kansas city and we have got a whole bunch of things to discuss with him he was gracious enough to give us some time and let us ask questions that no matter how hard we tried i'm sure he's been asked them about a million times but we really did work hard on these questions we only

13:30mentioned jackie robinson one time that's right so we did we did kind of try to really come up with some good questions and we both had a heck of a time talking with him so if you're if you're listening to the show and you love baseball history this is a quintessential episode for you definitely is let's go ahead and get into it let's listen to our conversation with bob hendrick well first of all bob thank you so much for joining us this is such a huge honor for us to get to talk to you we talk

14:02about the negro leagues a lot on this being a baseball history podcast and we got some questions all of this is though coming about because right now the negro league museum is you've got to push for a new 30 000 square foot facility in kansas city i'm not gonna lie neither mark nor i have been to kansas city and it is so high on our list just to come and visit you yeah we want to get there before you move and after you move but if you want to tell us quickly about this whole project of updating

14:35well it's an amazing it's been an amazing journey for a little museum jeff that nobody gave any chance of succeeding we started this project in a one-room office in 1990 and then we moved to our current home in november of 1997 so we went from a one-room office to about 10 000 square feet of exhibit space so not an overwhelmingly large footprint but as i remind folks within those 10 000 square feet is a lot of information and it's beautifully curated and of course along that journey we are today recognized

15:09as america's national negro league spacebar museum as deemed and designated so by the united states congress in 2006 but we've outgrown our current home and so we're being very bold to now launch a significant capital campaign a 50 plus million dollar capital campaign to build a new negro leagues campus as the gateway into historic 18th and vine here in kansas city where the museum currently operates but also an international headquarters for both baseball and social history so we are renovating the

15:45old passeo ymca that is the birthplace of the negro leagues that's where rup foster formed the negro leagues in 1920 that's going to be converted into the buckle neil education and research center and as you mentioned we're going to build a brand new 30 plus thousand square foot negro leagues baseball museum adjacent to that historic landmark i guess you could say going full circle right back to the very building that gave birth to the story we're now charged with preserving and then there's also a new

16:15hotel development that's going along with this project for a marriott tribute hotel called the pennant that will be built right into the new negro leagues baseball museum so you can see why i'm so excited or as i like to say i'm as excited as you could be about having to raise 50 plus million dollars that that is so cool and i'm not gonna lie i got chills just hearing you say like rube foster and buck o'neill and stuff because this is just this is so what we do and to get to to talk to you and see

16:47how excited you always are about this it's very cool so we've got a couple of questions for you absolutely so we've talked about bill veck possibly buying a team and integrating i saw something about clark griffith which is really weird considering his anti-integration stance i just want to know if any of those were actually true and integration would have happened before jackie robinson who is that guy that you think could have fit in that personality wise as well as talent wise you know

17:20obviously jackie was very nuanced as to why he was chosen who else are some of those guys that maybe earlier might have been the guy well you know jackie was not branch ricky's first choice his first choice was the great monty irvin and monty irvin had the same pedigree that jackie had college educated served in the military to be honest monty irvin was a better baseball player than jackie robinson and that's not disparaging jackie robinson jackie robinson is one of the greatest athletes in american sports

17:52history it's just how good monty irvin was monty irvin was a five-tool superstar with movie star good looks so he had everything you needed to be a star and that's who branch ricky actually wanted and the negro league owners had recommended monty irvin if someone was going to break the color barrier when now we're talking about 1940s they wanted it to be monty irvin and branch ricky had actually

18:23snuck and signed monty irvin in 1944 monty had just gotten back jeff from world war ii and he was suffering from what he would admit to be shell shock today we call of course would call it ptsd but it wasn't a ptsd that prevented monty from being the first it was a woman by the name of effa manley effa manley of course owned the newark eagles and to say that effa manley couldn't stand branch ricky that might be an understatement she didn't like branch ricky and to be honest rightfully

18:57so because she saw exactly what ricky was going to do ricky fellas was going to come into the negro leagues and essentially raided of his star talent without any compensation to those owners ricky didn't think that the contracts of the negro leagues prevented him from signing these players to an alternative league and so mrs manley threatened to litigate and i think ricky realized that there's no way he can have this public battle with this black woman over this black baseball

19:29player because now the other owners are going to dig deeper into solidarity and try and block this so he backs off of the great monty irvin and that's when he turns his sight here to kansas city to one jackie roosevelt robinson who was playing here for the kansas city monarchs and as i oftentimes tell the story here's how screwed ricky was and ricky has been held as a saint and don't get me wrong there was some righteousness to ricky because as you both know it was going to be a tremendously bold

20:01move to try and buck the system and bring a black player in because you already know you're going to be ostracized by your peers you're going to have to fight with these other owners because they were vehemently against this but ricky was somewhere between a saint and a devil but then again aren't we all uh-huh and i've always theorized that this is what ricky was banking on ricky was banking on the fact that the kansas city monarchs owner couldn't and wouldn't fight back you know why because he was

20:32white jl wilkinson who owned the kansas city monarchs fellas was a white man who made his entire living in black baseball he cannot be the public face of blocking what virtually every black person in america had been waiting for for a black man to play in the major leagues if he's the face that blocks this that fan base that had been so loyal to him they would have assuredly turned their backs and i think ricky knew this so he had wilkie stuck between that proverbial rock and hard place and so publicly

21:08wilkie said all the right things because he has to protect his business interests privately he is seething but he's not seething because the black man's about to play in the major leagues this black man you're gonna take away from me you gonna put me out of business and he was absolutely right and so contrary to popular belief branch ricky did not sign jackie robinson away from the kansas city monarchs he took jackie robinson away from the kansas city monarchs jl wilkinson as my late mother would say he was never paid

21:41not one red cent for a ball player who was under contract but wilkinson did he didn't make any money right from any of those players he made no money and he bowed out gracefully in 1948 he sold his team to his business partner a guy named ty baird because i think wilkie saw the handwriting on the proverbial wall it wasn't a matter of if it was a matter of when the negro leagues were going to fold and he does he bows out gracefully and this story gets even better though fellas and this is why i am pitching right

22:15now for there to be a dramatic tv series made and done on the negro leagues because you can't make this stuff up ty baird had a known affiliation as a kansas city kansas ku klux klansman who made his living in black baseball now you can't make this stuff up what now was there we talk about and obviously when you talk about negro leagues you talk about shadow ball and the entertainment value of that and then there's also the the straight baseball of these incredible players was there anybody i mean satchel

22:51page i think is probably who people are going to think of when they think of both of those kind of a showman and and just a serious baseball talent an incredible baseball talent i should say not just serious but was there any other player that could kind of toe the line and go back and forth between shadow ball and just a straight baseball game oh yeah now you had a bunch of guys because i think the thing that the negro league seemingly understood to a degree far more greater than major league baseball

23:23was that this game was entertainment and i always say this because i want people to understand it doesn't mean that they weren't fundamentally sound but they understood that this game was entertainment so when you went to a negro league game you were going to be thoroughly entertained as my friend buck o'neill would say you couldn't go to the concession stand because you might miss something that you ain't never seen before you see when you combine great athleticism with great

23:56fundamental skills you're going to get something that was special and buck would say that the major leaguers would oftentimes accuse them of showboating well first and foremost that buck would say number one if you got something to show show it yeah no no you got to show it and number two is only showboating when you can't do it yeah and so a guy like a willy wells willy wells el diablo the devil because he could

24:27dig it out of the dirt willy wells fellas was ozzy smith before we ever knew who ozzy smith was he was making those same kind of acrobatic plays that we rightfully celebrate the wizard for having done and coincidentally they both played in st louis uh-huh but willy wells was a power hitting shortstop he had great power to go with great range soft hands quick release yeah willy wells could make those acrobatic plays

24:59but there were so many other guys who were just gifted a lot of your first baseman the great red moore and other guys like that over first base were just dazzling they would put on a show and even though the great goose tatum was a member of the indianapolis clowns and he did a lot of the entertaining goose tatum could flat out play yeah and for those who may have heard this name before and don't

25:29necessarily connect them to baseball goose tatum was an outstanding basketball player for the harlem globetrotters and goose tatum of course is in the basketball hall of fame in springfield massachusetts but goose tatum was a slick fielding first baseman for the indianapolis clowns and he would put on a show but goose tatum could flat out play yeah we've talked about goose before definitely i just want to reiterate that it is an honor mr kendrick to have you on the show so we we've

26:04watched you on a million different shows and being interviewed during baseball games and all that fun stuff so it's exciting for us to have you on now you've mentioned a couple of players that probably aren't household names uh who who would you say is the greatest negro league player that the average fan hasn't heard of so many mark to be honest and i'm gonna mention one even though he's in the national baseball hall of fame most people have never really heard this name and that's the great martin de higo who hailed from cuba martin de higo his nickname was el maestro the master

26:41because he could do it all played all nine positions and played all nine of them well he is the only baseball player in the history of our sport to be enshrined into five different countries baseball halls of fame he's in the mexican cuban venezuelan dominican and in cooperstown in 1938 while playing in the mexican league de higo wins the pitching title he goes 19 and 2 with a ridiculous 0.90 era but the story is even

27:22better the sucker hit 387 that same season and won the batting title as well that makes no sense and my dear friend the late great monte irvin would describe martin de higo as a beautiful ball player he's 6364 statue ask great arm an arm that would rival roberto clemente in the outfield but he did everything and virtually no one knows who the heck martin de higo is how could this be how could we not know about a

27:59ball player the magnitude of the great mountain de higo well that's the plight of the negro leagues or as my late mother would say you don't know what you don't know and that's what this museum does it brings those baseball heroes to life if you are a fan of this game you should know about martin de higo and these other legendary stars of the negro leagues and that's what we're trying to do we're trying to give them a mainstream voice so that baseball fans can at least discuss

28:33them when we have these conversations around great baseball players these players in the negro league should not be excluded they should be part of that conversation absolutely and you know it's funny because i like to talk a lot about mule settles and how important how important rue foster was to baseball overall uh the mule and that 50 ounce bat that's something else out he's called a 50 ounce bat and let me tell y'all he wasn't choking up either no he's called a 50 ounce bat but mule settles had a

29:05lifetime batting average well over 300 to go with that immense power and of course as i was saying when he came to the plate the fans would start chanting kick mule kick because they knew he was going to do something special too and i guess when your nickname is mule you got to be strong and maybe a little stubborn as well i love it i love it as a follow-up question what current player you think would have fit perfectly into the negro leagues if any yeah no i mean you know the first one comes

29:38to mind is the great shohei atani you know i love the fact that shohei has come here to the u.s and has such great success in the major leagues as a two-way player because there were so many naysayers saying oh he won't be able to do that well the negro leagues were filled with great two-way stars you know i just mentioned martin de higo you also had the likes of the legendary wilbur bullet joe rogan and honestly while so many wanted to compare shohei to babe ruth that is not the right comparison

30:10roof pitched for a little while uh-huh but he didn't pitch his entire career bullet rogan is the real comparison bullet rogan was a dynamic pitcher for the kansas city monarchs is in the national baseball hall of fame he threw with a no wind up delivery and yet his nickname is bullet because he could get it up there in a hurry but when bullet rogan wasn't pitching bullet rogan played the outfield and hit cleanup for the kansas city monarchs and in the beautiful vernacular of satchel page

30:44because only satchel could have said it this way he said bullet rogan is the onlyest ball player that i ever seen i ever heard of that pitched and hit cleanup that was bullet joe rogan he led the negro leagues in stolen bases when he was 38 years old and so shohei is a natural to come ellie de la cruz over in cincinnati straight up yeah no that's a that's a negro leagues player right there mookie betts

31:17absolutely could have played in the negro leagues there are a lot of guys who i think bring that exciting brand of baseball and that style that was signaled to a negro leagues baseball to the equation today and that's what makes me excited uh you know sitting there and watching jordan walker the other night walk off that home run derby with easy power yeah that was easy power that he exemplified you know guys like that they bring that kind of negro leagues flair and style to the forefront joe so

31:52yeah i enjoy watching them play there you have it you mentioned shohei otani and just japanese baseball japan i'm sure you have more this is just off the top of my head here but the negro league sent all-star teams to japan just like you know we've we've seen the the major leagues do it sounds like they had no problem playing the negro leagues and welcomed them they became early u.s ambassadors jeff as a matter of fact the negro leagues would go to japan in 1927 fellas that's seven years before babe ruth and his

32:27all americans would go to japan they have been commonly credited with having taken the american brand of professional baseball of professional baseball to the japanese but it's not true it was a team called the philadelphia royal giants a barnstorming group of negro leaguers who would go to japan in 1927 play a 24 game exhibition series they go 23 0 and 1 on the tour the tour was so successful

32:58that seven years later ruth and as all americans would make that track i always preface that with our visitors because as you both know when you look at our game today from a global perspective there are so many ethnicities that make up a major league roster well at the heart of it were the negro leagues they helped make the game the global game that it is today they were just simply never given credit

33:30for it and quite frankly fellas the negro leagues didn't care what color you were all they cared was man can you play and if you can play you can play and i remind folks because you've got some wonderful memorabilia from that tour of japan on display at the museum there were two future hall of famers on that 1927 philadelphia royal giant team the legendary raleigh biz mackie in the national baseball hall of fame would teach a young roy campanella how to catch campy joins a team in the negro leagues called the

34:08baltimore elite giants now it's spelled elite but it's pronounced elite yeah you make those negro leaguers mad if you call them the elite giants uh-uh they were the elite giants and a young roy campanella joins the elites believe it or not y'all when he was 15 years old can you imagine a 15 year old kid catching professionally although campy was not your typical 15 year old he was a 15 year old man child

34:42but he was 15 nevertheless and the great raleigh biz mackie would take him under his wings and taught him the art of catching and as you both know roy campanella would become a three-time mvp with the brooklyn dodgers before a tragic car accident left him paralyzed and cut short what was still a hall of fame career but if campy was alive today he'd tell you the greatest defensive catcher this sport has

35:14ever seen was raleigh biz mackie andy cooper also a big talented left-handed pitcher from waco texas also in the national baseball hall of fame i'll never forget showing that memorabilia from that tour of japan to our friend legendary japanese star now hall of famer the great ichiro suzuki when he came and visited the museum and guys he lit up like a christmas tree when he understood that these

35:46brothers had been to his native homeland as early as 1927 is mackie is i love josh gibson but and i got a thing for catchers in the negro league heavy johnson but biz mackie was by far i think my favorite catcher cool papa bell all-time favorite player ricky henderson's my favorite player of all time and i just see the similarities there but i'm so glad you brought up biz mackie he is one of the i think he might fit in one of those names that people don't always they don't know no they don't know he's in

36:18the hall of fame rightfully so and don't get it twisted because biz mackie can also rake as well now gibson is typically going to get the the mantle of being the greatest catcher when you combine power average as well as defensive ability i would give the nod to josh but if you're just looking at it purely from a defensive standpoint no one compared to the great biz mackie but get biz mackie had a lifetime batting average over 302 he was no slouch at the plate and of course he got his nickname biz

36:51because he gave the opposing players when the batters got in the box he gave them the biz he was always constantly messing with them trying to take their minds off of what they were doing but all the pitchers love throwing to biz mackie is there a an article a photo a word of mouth story that is exciting kind of an urban myth to you that you just haven't been able to make a display or maybe even spread the story whenever you do these kind of interviews just because the providence isn't

37:26there but it's just this great story that you just love well you know the story that comes to mind is obviously the fact that gibson hit one completely out of yankee stadium and as you both know there are a lot of naysayers saying it didn't happen well think about this mickey mantle hit one that hit the light stance in there in yankee stadium or it would have gone out of the ballpark man have you seen the physique of josh gibson and for those who might not understand think bo jackson as a catcher and you've

38:02got josh gibson yeah so i have very little doubt that gibson hit one completely out of yankee stadium but see to me the most impressive thing that i've heard about gibson was he hit one in the right field upper deck in yankee stadium one-handed he was fooled on a change-up and reached out with one hand and hit it into the right field upper deck and they say as he was circling the bases he just

38:33giggling to himself because josh was this very jolly giant of a man he was the kind of guy that was so strong that he could poke you in the arm and it would hurt but it was not his intention to hurt you he was just so naturally strong yeah and so there's i don't know if there's any more lore or legend around any individual player than there is around josh gibson because they don't even look at places in the ballpark that gibson hit balls they look at landmarks so you see that tree over there josh hit one over

39:09there see that warehouse over there josh hit one over that warehouse you know that's the kind of well in baseball babe ruth was kind of this mythical like figure but we also have great records of what he did in negro leagues josh gibson was our john henry yeah just a hard driving man and he could hit that i would have loved to be able to see gibson swing that bat that had to be quite the sight to behold

39:43is there a baseball myth that you've actually been trying for years to dispel you know i think the thing about i don't know if it's necessarily a myth that i've been trying to dispel i think it is the fact that we've tried to help our guests understand that these guys could play you know that's what buck o'neal wanted you to know we could play and they could play you know there's seemingly this mindset that if it didn't happen in the major leagues well then it didn't happen and we're here to tell you that it did

40:17happen i still think to this day the most difficult thing mark for our guests to understand and maybe once they leave here they get a better understanding that there were two professional baseball leagues operating simultaneously to one another one the major leagues gave the best white athlete an opportunity to showcase his world-class baseball abilities the other the negro leagues which did the

40:47exact same thing for the best black and hispanic ball players to showcase their world-class baseball abilities but they were both professional leagues and and i just think that people want to believe that because these athletes were black and brown they weren't as good as their white counterparts that makes no sense we we have a wonderful poster that we carry here in the museum that says 440 feet is 440 feet no matter what color your skin is

41:23i love it that's great bob i love banana ball i've loved banana ball since i first saw it and this year the integration with the clowns and i get why it was the clowns and not the grays or and i love that i want to know is banana ball is that what you would see in shadow ball oh no question what was the atmosphere like in the stands versus you know mark and i go to major league games and we know what that atmosphere is like what would a shadow ball game look like compared to the banana ball and what

41:59was it like in the stands well i think the reason that you saw the rebirth of the indianapolis clowns is that the clowns were doing in 1930s and 40s what the bananas have made so popular today that is in essence what inspired them although they didn't know it inspired them until the bananas came to visit me here at the negro leagues museum in 2022 and i took the guys on a tour of the museum and we have a small section dedicated to the indianapolis clowns and when the bananas owner jesse cole when he saw

42:33that display it was almost as an epiphany hit him at that point in time and i think it was that moment when he realized at some point we're going to bring back the indianapolis clowns and of course i was in savannah savannah back in october of last year to make that historic announcement of the return of the clowns they brought a level of excitement to the game that honestly the bananas are really the first team to bring that kind of energy and excitement you couldn't take your eyes off the field they were

43:08masterful at entertaining but they could also play and of course as you both know the legendary henry aaron began his illustrious hall of fame career as a member of the indianapolis clowns now mr aaron didn't do all the entertaining they had designated guys to do the entertaining but he was a part of that legendary organization they're putting 40 plus thousand people in the stands to watch them but you know as we talked about earlier that's what made negro league's baseball so special anyway

43:42you know the fans were coming dressed up it was a dress-up society but it was even more prominent at a negro league's game everybody's dressed to the nines going to those games because you went to see and you went to be seen and you were going to get a show they were going to put on a show and i think that's why folks have so fond memories of seeing guys like the legendary leroy satchel page and others who in their own way they captivated you with not only their tremendous baseball abilities but their ability

44:20to entertain yeah i tell people all the time satchel page was the muhammad ali of baseball before we ever knew who muhammad ali was yeah that's the bravado the swagger as the kids would say that he brought to the game but that's what you saw when you went to see a negro league's game it was just so different than a major league game because major league baseball back then was essentially a base to base kind of game so you know what i mean the guy got up he got on then the guys moved him over

44:55to second and then the big hitters came in and drove him in nothing wrong with that but in the negro leagues they're gonna drop that bunt take that walk and if they got that walk that's a double because they're gonna steal second they're going to steal third and if you weren't too smart they were stealing home and so the pace of the game was far more exciting it was bold it was aggressive it was daring and that's why fans went to those games because it was just the polar opposite of what

45:27they were seeing in the major leagues and that is why you had a high number of white fans who came over to watch negro leagues baseball and they saw something that they had not really seen before and if you were to talk to those folks they would tell you that they were watching a brand of baseball that many of them would say was better than what they were watching in the major leagues what we know for certain it was a far more entertaining brand of baseball than what was being played in the major

45:57leagues and that's what the bananas and this whole banana ball league which now includes the indianapolis clowns that's what they have captured and they've built a fan base man that is just absolutely incredible you know we're talking about filling up football stadiums to watch these guys put on a show yeah and just like back when the clowns were playing in indianapolis and the negro leagues these kids are great athletes yeah you know how good you got to be to hit a baseball on stilts i i play on

46:29the weekends i know how good you have to be to hit a baseball period bob i know we got to wrap this up but maybe you want to tell us again a little bit about how we can support the national negro league museum and and your expansion yeah absolutely for those who are so inclined and i hope you are please visit us at www.nlbm.com the campaign now is called the legacy plays on and it is to build a brand new negro leagues baseball museum as i remind folks in the memory of my dear friend the late great

47:04buck o'neal every buck literally counts it gets us closer to this goal so there is no contribution too small and as you both know there is no contribution too large so now we would love for you to join us in this effort to build a brand new negro leagues baseball museum there are so many more stories to be told we're excited about the possibility of reimagining what we've done here in this museum today and the opportunities that are out there for us to grow this wonderful museum and impact the

47:41lives of a lot of baseball fans and particular young folks with this amazing story of triumph over adversity awesome bob we'll put that in the show notes and i just cannot tell you again how honored and excited we were when we when i'm when mark and i found out we were going to get to talk to you this has been an absolute joy and we appreciate it and i wish you all the best luck we are definitely going to

48:12come see you we want to see that we want to see the current place this place before we build a new yeah we will we will definitely because we love talking about baseball we we love talking about the negro leagues and history and this has been an absolute honor and we really appreciate it thank you so very much oh guys it's my absolute pleasure thank you both for having me on the show

48:33all right so there you go if you want more information on how you can help how you can donate to the negro league museum check our show notes we will put the links there also mark and i are coming up with some ideas that we're trying to put together to help raise some money for this great cause we're trying to get to kansas city that's not what we're raising money for though we're raising money we want to donate the money to help bob and the museum so we're coming up with some ideas some

49:04that might involve baseball cards some that might involve topics possible future topics for the show some i don't know might happen on our stream we don't know we're putting some things together so just hang out but if you want to donate now look in the show notes and there will be a link there but again thank you very much for bob kendrick for spending some time with us and talking with us that was great mark let's go ahead producer mitch has been kicked out of the building this week yes right michael saunders

49:36not a fan of mitch so he's been kicked out of the kicked out of the studio so we're going to do this on our own i think we can get through it it is time for the final segment of the show it is time hello again friends it's time for another installment of wax packs heroes before we can start though

50:12let's go over the rules mark and jeff are going to play an old-fashioned game of war except this is more like baseball reference war they'll each get one card and will score the baseball reference war of the year of the card but wait they can add or subtract points depending on certain aspects of the card and the player's season any 80s baseball aesthetics the card displays will earn an extra tenth of a point or if they don't like something like two and one stirrups they can subtract a tenth of a point as well also if the player won any awards that season they get a half a point for each if the

50:50player led the league in any categories they'll get a tenth of a point for each positive category but minus half a point for each negative one if there's a hall of famer anywhere on the card that's a whole extra point if the player had a costacos brothers poster made of them they get a half a point for that if ricky henderson or nolan ryan get pulled the round is over jeff automatically wins if either pulls a ricky card and mark wins if nolan is pulled if the player has any pop culture references they get a half a point unless they appeared on seinfeld the simpsons or

51:24sabrina the teenage witch that friends is a whole point for each if the player was suspended for off the field mischief during their career or are on the 2sn don't talk about list that's a minus a half and a whole point respectively so with that out of the way it's time to play wax pack heroes all right mark you've heard the rules as read by none other than the legendary vin scully he has told you how it goes i

51:55i have got some packs here i've got three packs here today i've got kind of some of our standbys that we've got the most of we've got some 87 tops because they're just awesome we've got some 2000 and some 2010s so we've got a wide span here i'm gonna let you choose what year you want to work with you you know i feel like it's time for some 87 tops 87 tops all right uh you want to go first you want to go second i'll go first all right looking up the scoreboard mark currently it is 14 to 11 we are

52:27playing to 20 i have been writing a bit of a hot streak here so let's see if we can keep that intact as we go through some 87 cards with these beautiful wood borders everybody's favorite all right we have got i mean this is this is a great card just starting out with here it's just looks great from the pittsburgh pirates it is johnny ray now this is a great card and you're gonna get bonus right off the right off the bat because he has got real stirrups on check he has got facial hair check he has got

53:04a batting glove on under his glove his fielding glove so there are three tenths of a point right off the bat for johnny ray just a good looking card yeah you know what he just looks sharp in the uniform just yeah and in case you didn't look like a ball player if you look on the back johnny ray swings a 34 inch 30 to 31 ounce bat which that's a drop three for a big leaguer is pretty rare that's

53:36a pretty light bat that's what i swing and i don't use a 34 inch bat i use a 33 inch drop two so i guess maybe i'm just stronger i don't know i'm stronger than johnny ray is what they that's that's what it tells me it's that simple yeah let's go ahead and look at johnny ray overall 10 years in the big leagues the bucks for seven the california angels for three and parts of a season 1987 that was the magical year he was traded at the deadline to the angels from pittsburgh overall second baseman he played in 153

54:12games he hit 289 with the 334 on base 374 slug and a 708 ops and 88 ops plus five home runs 69 ribs four stolen bases for a 1.3 war nothing else on his line is gonna help you out let's see overall let's see he was traded from the astros to the pirates for phil garner scrap iron yeah that looks like that

54:45is really the extent of the interesting things there like yeah let's see though a 1.3 is not bad to go along with the rest of your stuff also played in japan for your cult for a couple of seasons oh he's got he's got a he's got a road sign outside of his hometown of chateau chuteau c-h-o-u-t-e-a-u oklahoma that's that's awfully french for oklahoma i'm not gonna lie that's very french there's an

55:21enclave of of you know canadian frenchmen oh they're all from montreal moved down that's right chateau oklahoma but it says chateau oklahoma home of johnny ray cool i wonder if it's still up hey just another place for us to go visit yeah any of our listeners in oklahoma if you have any idea where chateau oklahoma is let us know take a little road trip and see it is uh it was originally called cody's creek apparently but was changed to chateau after the creek that flows north of the town

55:54was named for a french fur trader okay home of johnny ray so overall that is going to be a 1.6 for you and you will be going up against for me i don't remember this gentleman pitcher well i guess i don't know if he's a pitcher look on the back pitcher for the san francisco giants frank williams and there is nothing on this card except for his chest hair which isn't even going to work for me that would get me any points here he's got like a jay baller look of the chest hair peeking out

56:30from the top of his that's a little bit yeah uh let's see six years in the big leagues three with the giants two with cincinnati one with detroit 1987 he was with cincinnati he went four and oh with a 2.3 era out of the bullpen middle reliever 105 innings out of the bullpen 105 and two-thirds innings wow his arm fell off after this season is what i'm told 101 hits allowed 37 runs 27 earned 60

57:02strikeouts for a 184 era plus and a 2.5 war for a wow that's a heck of a year a middle reliever that's impressive man geez 85 game he got into more than half of the games zero starts 19 games finished two saves wow that's impressive this is a it really is only good year in the big leagues

57:33man what a year it was well i guess the year before with the giants he had a 1.8 war with half of the games and half of the innings pitched i've yeah i've not heard of this guy but he was really good he did go to lewis and clark state college in lewiston okay and he's from kirkland oh really okay yeah and he went to shoreline community college so the places that we know but yeah i've not heard of him let's see frank williams he uh credited with creating the slurve really yes that's interesting that is that is very

58:11interesting side armor so yeah it came easy i imagine also engaged in amateur tough man boxing in the off seasons wow that might be why his arm fell off because he was slurving and tough man boxing geez you don't want to read the end man oh oh no oh my goodness we're just gonna say r.i.p to frank williams that's he wow he's i think his wikipedia page is probably gonna get some views after this but

58:46we're not gonna talk about it wow frank williams i i will thank him because he has won me this round with a 2.5 total so i will take that one to nothing for the good guys all right you have got somebody you might be familiar with he is a pitcher for the oakland a's i'm enjoying this picture here it's dave van olen dave von olen excuse me dvo yes did you know that dave graduated from flushing high school in 1976 as a senior he was 7-1 helping the queens public school athletic title helping team

59:20win the queens the qpsat as they call it in the know okay did you did you uh ball boy for dave yes yes sounds like it you've got a nickname and everything so it's good for it's good that it's your card he's got real stirrups on there as well that will help you out any good stories to pass along about davey no he's very professional and i've had a really good pitcher now he's got a mustache here in this picture on baseball reference but i can't it's just too far away and his mustache has a

59:54blonde i'll give it to you i i think it looks like he's got an extended lip up there so i'll give it okay uh let's see overall five years in the big leagues st louis and the a's for two a piece cleveland for one 1987 his final year in the big leagues with oakland not great appeared in four games 7.5 era six innings pitched 10 hits five earned runs allowed three strikeouts a 59 era plus and a minus 0.1 war a little rough yeah a little rough uh let's see overall not much in the way of

1:00:29transactions to talk about i don't think there's going to be a whole lot of pop culture no there doesn't appear to be finished his professional career with tacoma yes you might have seen his final game i can almost guarantee i did you might have rubbed up baseballs for his final game as far as we know you never know you don't well i mean mostly the bad boys did that but i would occasionally assist all right so overall that's a positive 0.1 for you so there you go all right you're going up against

1:01:01oh this is a great these cards are just so fantastic with the phillies ron reneke and this is a great card it's at shea stadium he's got the zipper blue road phillies uniform the p on the for the on the uniform is so great because it's got the baseball in the middle but i love the placement of it on this uniform because it's not on their heart you know right it's down like by his waist

1:01:33it's a weird placement he does have real stirrups i think that's all i'm gonna get here from this one i'll take it overall ron reneke eight years in the big leagues three for the dodgers two for the phills giants mariners reds and padres for seasons apiece 1987 was his second of those two years in philadelphia a 167 average 293 on base a 269 slug for a 49 ops plus one home run

1:02:04four ribs minus 0.5 war wow yeah that's not good i mean maybe he's got some huge pop culture that's gonna help me out i doubt it yeah drafted drafted in the first round 17th overall in 1977 by the dodgers never traded during his entire career just released and signed released and signed let's see here what else we got manage the brewers i remember that beat out uh beat out bob melton bobby valentine

1:02:38and joey cora those guys all had well i guess joey cora hasn't managed has he's just been coaching yes um also managed the red socks in 2020 after alex cora parted ways the first time we just got bumped up two notches on the great red socks podcast list yeah we did mention the red socks you mentioned the red socks we appear let's see nothing else really that exciting to talk about i mean he's got a long page so i can't promise that there's nothing exciting to talk about we just have

1:03:10to go through these quickly but what that's going to do is that's going to be a minus 0.4 for me and that's going to be a win with dave von olen with his 0.1 is going to beat me out there so congrats way to go dvo one to one your next card is with the red socks another great these cards the pictures are so great it's ed romero with the red socks you're going to get mustache and real stirrups for sure so that's good for you there how many game-winning rbis so you had eight career game-winning

1:03:43rbis to this point i love watching that looking at that stat that always makes me happy that was a big stat back in the day it was and keith hernandez i believe is still the all-time leader with game winning rbis ed romero overall 12 years in the big leagues milwaukee for eight boston for four and then detroit and atlanta 1987 with boston not a great year for him he hit 272 322 on base 294 slug not a lot of power 64 ops plus no home runs 14 rbi he had five extra base hits all year

1:04:18he's you would think that his glove might help him a little with the war but overall a minus 1.2 war ouch but i mean he stayed he stayed in the in you know he stayed up so yeah i mean and i i remember him uh he was like a bench coach for the astros well he's a utility infielder here played all over yeah no uh interesting transactions really to talk about for edwin i oh no it's edgardo ralph

1:04:51romero ralph in the middle yep ralph in the middle ed uh his son eddie is an executive with the red socks what does that mean executive i mean he could be like selling season tickets and be an executive what what does it mean exactly i don't know but oh title is executive vice president and assistant general manager so okay maybe a little bit well a little bit more you might have jumped to conclusions i'm just saying yes that would be eddie romero yeah okay nice you you worked in an office space

1:05:23reference there i'm sure that was on purpose of course all right so nothing though there that is going to help you out that is a minus 0.1 ouch for ed romero cards are great the scores aren't great oh i'm winning this one i don't care what his war is i have got pitcher for the san francisco giants senor smoke juan barringer immediate half a point for the barringer boogie

1:05:57that's right sweet man he's got a good mustache here too i like this though it's a head and shoulders well no it's a waist up shot but he is turned so that you can see his name on the back of the jersey very smart yes yeah i like it juan was a member of the panamanian national team 1972 through 74 i'm assuming that was a junior team and he's not that old let's see senor smoke overall for his career he pitched for 15 years in the big leagues the twins the tigers for four

1:06:35the mets for three atlanta and kansas city for two the giants and the blue jays for one 1987 was his first year with the twins believe he won a world series this year i believe this is even the year that he recorded senor smoke because he used all the highlights from the world series in the music video okay yeah let's see 87 he went eight and one for the twins with a 3.94 era he started six games so a lot of those were out of the bullpen he had four saves 112 innings pitched 100 hits allowed 49 earned

1:07:13runs 110 strikeouts for a 117 era plus and a 2.0 war not even close i told you i was gonna win this one i knew just from the senior smoke that i was gonna win i mean that that was good enough for me for about a third of the league yes uh he was traded with bob melvin to the giants from detroit for eric king dave lapointe and matt noakes that's how the tigers got matt noakes who's i mean that's

1:07:48where i know noakes from the most beringer has a number of nicknames one which is i think everyone knows him as senior smoke also el gasolino which is a big part of the song as well and uh poncho via which cracks me up that it's that's the first one that's mentioned his teammates called him poncho via you know being from panama i don't think i was poncho via from panama i well i will have to listen to a uh history our pen our pen name pam and i jeez let's move on poncho via mexican revolutionary

1:08:29general and politician poncho via i'm gonna say people weren't being very sensitive to his actual heritage when they called him poncho via apparently not yeah that's kind of kind of rude all right but at 2.6 i like it for senior smoke i am up two to one here we go mark your next card i don't know this guy either a lot of middle relievers we're getting here from the cardinals it is tim conroy not tim conway or bummer was it dorf on baseball i drew it tim conway i would be so happy there is nothing

1:09:07for you on this card there is not a single point to be had tim pitched for gateway senior high school in pennsylvania and pitched them to two western pennsylvania league titles okay interesting let's see here tim conroy played for seven years five for my oakland athletic two for the st louis cardinals 1987 was his final year in the big leagues he went three and two with a 5.53 era for st louis 40 and two-thirds innings pitched 48 hits allowed 25 earned runs wow 25 earned runs in 40 and two-thirds

1:09:44innings did not give up a single home run pretty impressive he walked quite a bit walked more than he struck out only struck out 22 walked 25 for a 76 era plus but a minus 0.2 war not great no let's see here transaction wise first round draft pick 20th overall by the a's in the 78 draft he was traded by the a's with mike heath to the cardinals for joaquin anduhar oh really yeah there's two names we like to talk about mike heath who likes to fight guys that are a lot bigger than him and play hearts we've

1:10:19learned in in the clubhouse man okay whatever look man check this out i did not know this about mr conroy drafted in the first round out of gateway senior high school immediately called up by the a's with no minor league pitching experience wow like john olerud and pete in caviglia yeah out of high school though that's insane it says now it says here he's currently a scout for the royals i don't know how there's a literally a note in wikipedia after the word currently with it says when and a

1:10:53question mark wow so yeah just straight out of high school to the big leagues and then it looks like he was probably sent down to vancouver at some point because he appeared in three games there he only appeared in two games for oakland that first year and it went about as well as you would expect an 18 year old going straight to the big leagues from high school would pitch yeah but good for him then they they started him out the next year in double a that was probably the better way to go

1:11:27but overall for you unfortunately that is going to be a minus point two and my card will oh i think i'm gonna win i think i'm gonna win i got for the dodgers oh shoot i've got pedro guerrero nice he's got a mustache here so i will take those points nothing else on this card though is going to help me out i find it hard to believe i don't have him listed as any pop culture references or anything but we'll see good news for me though 1987 he was an all-star this year so that'll get me some

1:12:01additional points okay well it's been fun 15 years in the big leagues for pedro dodgers for 11 cardinals for five this was a good year i mean he was an all-star got nvp uh voting 338 average 416 on base 539 slug for a 955 ops that's a 154 ops plus 27 homers 89 ribs nine stolen bases but he was caught seven times this is impressive for pedro guerrero he struck out 85 times but he walked 74

1:12:37i would expect i would expect that difference between hits and uh strikeouts and walks to be much higher i yeah i mean he had a hack of a swing man he would he would swing that bat hard yeah i mean there are previous seasons where he had twice as many strikeouts as walks but this all equals a 4.7 war okay you barely beat me on this one yeah well we're not done yet i mean he could be on the mitchell report 17 times yeah i don't think so i don't think that's the way it works but still

1:13:08could could be let's see pedro guerrero san pedro de macari well that's why that's why we were so shocked that he his strikeout to walk ratio was kind of even because you can't walk off the island we know exactly i spent i spent that four or five days that i was in the dominican just trying to walk off and i kept just drowning almost so doesn't work you can't hit a walk off oh yeah you could hit a walk

1:13:39off off the island yeah that's all i'm saying yeah uh this is crazy oh go ahead i was just reading go ahead uh no this is crazy uh in april 2017 pedro guerrero suffered a serious stroke doctors feared he was brain dead it was discovered he was in a coma the next morning he made what is considered a miraculous recovery and was moved out of icu speaking to friends and family well that's a lot better than in september of 1999 when he was arrested for the purchase of two hundred thousand

1:14:12dollars of nose candy from an undercover agent and then the next year he was acquitted of drug conspiracy charges after his attorney argued his client did not understand the full implications of the alleged drug deal i'm sure what kind of implications if you're trying to buy two hundred thousand dollars worth of nose clams do you not understand yeah i'm pretty sure he had a decent idea what was going on i think he did as well oh look at the in 2013 he was the manager of the vallejo admirals which is the

1:14:49pacific association right here in the north bay area there's still a team here the martinez sturgeons still play in this league they play like two games a week but they're they're there but the important thing here i think for all of my fan i did say all of my fan in case you that uh all of that will equal a 5.3 for me and that is another win this is just like the nhl i'm getting hot at the

1:15:21end of the season i got a goalie that's just standing on his head that'll give me another win and it is now 15 to 11 oh man i'm gonna have to change the lineup yeah just do the dartboard or draw it out of the hat kind of thing oh yeah that's a good idea yeah all right well that'll do it for this version of wax packs heroes but that'll do it for this episode overall thank you very much for joining us again a super special thank you and shout out to bob hendrix for coming on and talking about the negro league museum their expansion push as well as the history of major league baseball

1:15:57we told him he could come on again anytime he wants we'll see yeah we'll see if that happens because i would love to have him on again the offer has been made even play wax pack heroes with bob that would be something it would just be the whole show because he's got 8 000 stories about everybody so true in the show notes take a look i'll put a link there if you want to donate and help the negro league museum's expansion push if you want more of us i'm going to be posting probably the video

1:16:30as well of us talking to bob so it's probably been edited down here so if you want to see the whole thing i'll put that on our youtube page speaking of youtube we also do stream monday wednesday friday nine o'clock west coast time do some baseball dailies talk baseball talk pop culture do a whole bunch of goofy stuff like that so you can join us there all of our links are in the show notes for all of our socials we also have an email address mark oh is it me it's you yep that's your yes uh you

1:17:03can reach us at twostrikenoise at gmail.com that's two twostrikenoise at gmail.com without producer mitch here after you got kicked out you're kind of lost at your cues yeah i know i i'm still kind of like trying to process everything bob told us i will not mark and i spoke before you know while we were kind of in the waiting room and we both admitted that we were nervous yeah we were nervous

1:17:33to talk to bob all right that'll do it for this episode thank you very much for hanging out with us we will see you again on the next episode of two strike noise thank you god bless you have a great day so you We'll be right back.