Racine's Willie Woods looks back fondly on life in baseball
By Greg Giesen
Journal Times | Posted: Saturday, February 21, 2009 12:00 am
The voices and memories of a special part of Racine's baseball heritage are fading fast.
Gone will be the stories about Albert "Red" Woods, who started a game by walking the first five batters. When his manager came to pull him, Woods asked why he was being pulled in the middle of a no-hitter.
Gone will be the stores of the Chicago American Giants of the Negro League and a multitude of legendary players passing through the area on barnstorming tours.
Gone will be the memories of the Racine Blues semi-pro Negro baseball team.
Thankfully, there's Willie Woods, a right fielder for the Blues and a direct link to a time when baseball moved from a deeply segregated game to one where the diamond is shared by players of every race, creed and color.
Woods, 89, was born in Alabama and moved to Racine in 1944 after being discharged from the Army at Fort McCoy near Tomah.
From the time he was a child in elementary school through his adulthood, Woods played baseball. And while the game has helped get him a job and allowed him to face some Hall of Fame legends, it was also filled with frustrations - especially during the late 1940s and early 1950s when the color of a man's skin mattered more than his talent.
"It was just the way it was," Woods said. "You didn't have any feelings toward one another because you knew that we couldn't play against the whites. So the blacks had their own team."
In Racine, that team was the Blues and they took on all comers.
"Any team that wanted to book us, we'd play them," Woods said. "We didn't care who they were. We played against Lou Brock. I played against all of them."
All of them included legendary Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige at Horlick Field. Paige, who was know for talking big and then having the talent to back it up, boasted he would strike out the entire Blues team. The only thing he didn't expect was Woods.
"Satchel Paige got up there and he told us he was going to strike us all out. I told him, I said, 'You know, I know you. You've probably forgotten me Satchel Page, but I know you,' " said Woods, who faced the pitcher while growing up in Alabama. "I said, 'You ain't gonna strike me out.' I might not get a hit off of him, but he wasn't going to strike me out. And, he didn't. He couldn't strike me out."
Woods also played against Hall of Famer Josh Gibson and other Negro League greats, but what sticks out was the camaraderie he had with his teammates.
"We'd all have a lot of fun," Woods said. "It was real nice. It was good playing against them. They respected one another and they took care of one another. They were just like brothers because we all were playing. There was no fussing, no fighting, nothing like that."
In 1947, an infielder for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers named Jackie Robinson finally broke the color barrier and Woods, who once batted .491 during a season with the Blues, received a shot at making a major league team - the Chicago Cubs.
"My manager came out and brought me a letter," Woods said. "He told me that he wanted me to try out with the Cubs. I was working at Belle City and I took the letter to Belle City and told them I wanted some time off. So, they gave me some time off - two weeks I believe it was - and I used to come home every night. I went back-and-forth. They said my play was great, I was just a little too old."
The Cubs rejection stung considering that he was good enough.
"I was in my late 20s, I had so many miles they couldn't get any money out of me," Wood said. "Because of how old I was they couldn't get any money out of me."
The rejection didn't keep Woods from being a trailblazer like Robinson. Instead, he became the first black baseball player to play for the American Cleaners team during the 1950s in Racine.
"American Cleaners was all white," Woods said. "The manager wanted me to play with them. I was the only black."
That didn't mean he was always welcomed to play. When the American Cleaners played in tournaments, they would take away Woods' uniform and give it to someone else because it was a white team. But he understood his work was starting something bigger.
"(It was difficult) when I played with them and helped them out all year," Woods said. "I dealt with it. I went to the game and watched it and everything. I'd never get mad, I'd deal with it. I figured that from time to time every year things would change.
"I'd always be there and believed things would get better. And, it got better - sports, baseball, everything," Woods said. "They wanted what the black had, but they didn't want the black to make good. In Racine, a lot of people in Racine are nice, don't get me wrong, but it's the same thing."
Woods, though, admits that Racine certainly has made progress in the area of race relations.
"I've seen a lot of progress," Woods said. "They have a ways to go. You see people these days and you deal with the same stuff. They have a ways to go. But, they have come a long way since I've come here."
And we have people like Woods to thank for our progress.
A bit about Willie Woods
Greatest baseball player he ever saw: Catcher Lloyd "Pepper" Bassett. "They nicknamed him rocking chair because he'd sit in a rocking chair and catch. And, he'd throw you out trying to steal a base. He was the greatest. I've never seen anyone else do it so he must have been the greatest."
Baseball gets him a job: In the early 1940s, Woods got a job at American Cast Iron and Pipe Company because he was a talented baseball player. "If you could play baseball you could get a job. … So that's how I got a job at ACIPCO," Woods said.
Thoughts about the election of President Barack Obama: "Like the Bible says before the end of time the top will go to the bottom and the bottom will rise to the top and the Bible doesn't lie. A lot of people don't care for it, but that's the way it is. I never thought I would be here to see a black fella (elected president). But the good Lord left me here to see history made."
Thoughts about today's baseball players: "I think it's too much money. They're not playing for the game, they're playing for the money that they are getting. That's the way I think about baseball today. That's not the reason to play."
Are there players that do have that spirit you used to play with?: "A lot of them have that spirit and want to play baseball. I can't pinpoint them by name, but they are out there because I've been watching them."