Willie Mays’ Forgotten Legacy in Hagerstown, Maryland

HAGERSTOWN, Maryland — On June 23, 1950, Willie Mays, a 19-year-old Black League standout, skipped his high school graduation and boarded a train for Maryland. And the next day, in the former city, stronghold of the slave trade, of Hagerstown, Mays will make his debut in affiliated professional baseball, batting sixth and playing center field for the visiting Trenton Giants, the first of nearly 3,000 times he would patrol center field in a Giants uniform.

Three years after Jackie Robinson’s integration into Major League Baseball, Mays became the first black player to appear in the Interstate League, four levels below specializations. But much of the country remained entrenched in Jim Crow laws and mentalities. During the Giants’ weekend series at Municipal Stadium against the Hagerstown Braves, Mays stayed at home in a separate hotel away from his white teammates and the fans’ persistent racist epithets.

“It didn’t take long for me to realize that Hagerstown was the only town in our patrol below the Mason-Dixon Line,” Mays wrote in his 1988 autobiography, “Say Hello.” “When I first stepped onto the field, I heard someone shout, ‘Who’s that running on the field?’ But I didn’t mind.”

Seventy-four years ago this month, a lasting connection was forged between the greatest baseball player of all time and a small town 70 miles northwest of D.C. Mayes, who died last week at age 93, never forgot Hagerstown, both for his role in introducing the game. His Giants career and the way he handled it. In the decades that followed, he recounted his experiences there in books and documentaries. Interviews Even his Hall of Fame induction speech in 1979.

Mays hasn’t forgotten the town either. Although he never played for a local team, multiple iterations of Hagerstown baseball franchises have resulted in Mays’ No. 24 jersey being unavailable since 2004.

The most recent of these franchises is the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars, an expansion team in the independent Atlantic League that plays in a ballpark a mile from where Mays played. On Tuesday, in their first home game since Mays’ death, the Flying Boxcars presented a video tribute and held a moment of silence in his honor.

“He’s probably one of the top five players of all time, so it was always a source of pride for our community that Willie Mays played his first game at Hagerstown Municipal Stadium,” said Flying Boxcars General Manager David Blinkstone. “It has always held a special, historic place in Hagerstown Minor League Baseball history.”

Yet for some, Mays’ experience in Hagerstown remains a neglected aspect of the city’s history. The hotel in the red-lined Jonathan Street neighborhood where Mays once settled has become a church parking lot. The city-owned stadium will be demolished in 2022. Meritus Park, a new downtown stadium that opened last month, contains no permanent tribute to Mays.

Tekeisha Martinez, who serves as Hagerstown’s first black mayor, said Mays’ history with the city “has not been well celebrated, as has been said.” [or] in Hagerstown or our county.”

“All I know are bits and pieces of history,” Martinez said. “If I had known that someone like Willie Mays was walking down Jonathan Street and playing in our town … I would have been more proud as a black woman to be from Hagerstown.”

Mays grew up in Jim Crow, Alabama, but the racism and segregation he encountered in Hagerstown left a lasting impression. When he played in neighboring DC and Baltimore, there were no restrictions on where he could be. “But here in Hagerstown, halfway between those cities, I couldn’t stay with the rest of the team,” he wrote in his autobiography.

The Giants tried to support Mays. A group of his white teammates sneaked into his room at the Harmon Hotel and slept on the floor to keep him company. His manager, Chick Genovese, ate with him at the city’s segregated restaurants.

However, his time with the Giants was Mays’ first experience as the only black player on his team. When Mays played with the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro Leagues, he and his teammates faced racism together. In Hagerstown, he went through it alone.

“It was the first time I had been alone anywhere, and even when I was traveling with the Barons in a lonely situation, at least we were all isolated at the same time and in the same place,” Mays wrote.

The legacy of Mays’ experience in Hagerstown lives on not only for the baseball star, but for the city as well. In 2004, the Hagerstown Suns, the city’s now-defunct minor league franchise, invited Mays back. When he accepted, it was a chance for Hagerstown to make amends after 54 years.

“I thought it was important for the community to have this moment — a second chance, so to speak, with Willie Mays,” said Curt Landes, the former Suns general manager who organized Mays’ visit. “Of course, everyone was aware that his first stay in the community was not well received… So this was an opportunity for the community to look forward to welcoming him back.” [and] Excited to have the chance to redeem themselves. Everyone felt like it was a homecoming.

On August 9, 2004, Mays, 73, was a guest in a city that once mocked him. The ballroom of a downtown hotel was packed with people, with some attendees paying as much as $1,000 for an autograph and a private meeting. As Landis greeted him with a standing ovation, Mays began to cry.

Later that day, Mays returned to Municipal Stadium before a game between the Suns and the Asheville Tourists. He met with the players, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and received a standing ovation.

“He came back under very different circumstances than when he was here in 1950,” said Dan Spedden, a longtime Hagerstown baseball fan who attended the festivities. “He was very generous with it. … He did a good job of outlining in his book how he was treated here in 1950, but when he came back in 2004, I didn’t see any of that hostility or anything like that. He was happy to be here. “I’m happy it was well received.”

While many fans left that day with signed memorabilia, Landes kept a unique souvenir. After learning that May loved homemade chili, Landes and his wife put the family recipe in the slow cooker and brought it to the stadium. Mays enjoyed three bowlfuls, and Landes kept Mays’ spoon as a souvenir.

“I had it framed and it was sitting in my basement,” said Landes, president and general manager of the Class AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs. “From then on, my wife and I called every chili we made Willie Chili.”

Shortly before Mays’ visit, then-Mayor William Brechner announced that the city would rededicate a street the length of Municipal Stadium in Mays’ honor. But nine months later, the City Council voted to keep the old name, East Memorial Boulevard, after a group of veterans argued that the street should serve as a memorial to their service.

Some viewed the incident as a throwback to Hagerstown’s past.

“Willie Mays is a veteran,” said Speden, president of the Hagerstown/Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau. The stigma of that segregation may not have completely disappeared. There was still some of it in many people, and it came out in ways that horrified and embarrassed me.

A few years before his death, Mays said he had come to terms with his history with Hagerstown.

“They wanted to try to make up for the sadness I felt all those years ago,” Mays wrote in a 2020 follow-up memoir, “24.” “The way I imagined it, I couldn’t go through the whole town. The town didn’t hurt me in 1950. The people hurt me. It was nice to be back.”

2024-06-27 21:40:32
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