His goal is to see that the story of Negro Leagues 'is not lost'

By Bill Kent

Facing a group of elementary school children at the Overbrook Park branch of the Philadelphia Free Library, "Doc" Glenn, 80, begins a story that seems inconceivable today - that until 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers, black athletes were not permitted to play on white professional teams.

As president of the Negro League Baseball Players Association, and author of the memoir, Don't Let Anyone Take Your Joy Away: An Inside Look at Negro League Baseball and Its Legacy, Glenn is rarely at home in Yeadon for more than a few days.

Retired as manager of several Philadelphia electrical supply companies, he now travels almost as much as he did when he was a star catcher for the Philadelphia Stars.

Describing what it was like to play in the Negro Leagues, he tells the kids, "It was the greatest time of my life. It was also a time of segregation, when a black person could be arrested and jailed for no reason, when a black person could not go to the same restaurant as a white person. We encountered racism, hardship and humiliation, especially in the South, but I had a chance to travel all over this country, and in Latin America. I got to play the very best baseball ever, with some of the greatest people ever, and I will never forget how good that was."

Stanley Glenn was born in a small Virginia village on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, one of five children of a fisherman. His family moved to Philadelphia when he was 6 - first to a house on Holstein Avenue, near the airport, and later to a duplex at 58th St. and Baltimore Ave. There, Glenn began to play baseball because "every neighborhood had a vacant lot where you could get a game going. The factories and businesses had teams, and would hire some workers because they were great ball players."

His favorite teams were not the Phillies and Athletics, but the Philadelphia Stars and Pittsburgh's Homestead Grays, because "Negro League players had more flair and style, that very same flair and style that Jackie Robinson took with him to the majors. It changed the way baseball is played."

Games at 44th St. and Parkside Ave. (a mural and a statue commemorating the Negro League are there now) were social events. "Folks dressed in their Sunday best, no matter how hot it was."

In 1943, Glenn hit 11 home runs for John Bartram High School. "The Yankees sent a scout to check me out, but he turned and walked out when he learned I was black."

A year later, he signed with the Philadelphia Stars, as No. 2 catcher behind Elkins Park's Bill Cash, who had "the strongest catcher's throwing arm I'd ever seen." Glenn was paid $175 a month, far more than his father earned. Among those Glenn played with were "Satchel" Paige, a very young Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson.

When Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers, Glenn says, the Dodgers needed someone to boost attendance.

"They found him in Jackie. He wasn't just a superior ballplayer, he was a superior human being, putting up with insults and threats, some of them right here in Philadelphia. Jackie knew he had to be a better human being than his tormentors. And he succeeded. He became one of the most, if not the most, important athletes in history."

(Major League Baseball and the Phillies will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's major league debut with a special pre-game ceremony Sunday, April 15, when the Houston Astros are in town. With Bill Cash and one-time Philadelphia Stars infielder Mahlon Duckett of Overbrook Park, Glenn expects to participate.)

Except for a single season he missed when he was drafted into the Army (he was trained in physical therapy to administer to wounded soldiers, thus given the nickname of "Doc"), Glenn played 20 years - for the Philadelphia Stars and then in farm teams in Connecticut, Nebraska and Canada.

He has kept in touch with his teammates, becoming president of the Negro League Baseball Players Association in 2004. Glenn wrote his memoirs to preserve the history. "I don't want what we did to be lost. So much of it is lost already. We played so many games in places where they didn't have newspapers. There used to be 500 players in the association. Now there are around 20.

"How many of you play baseball?" he asks the children. "Don't be shy with sports. If you like it, play it. Your body will be better on the athletic field, your head will be in the right place, your mom won't worry about what might happen to you on the street corner. And you just might be lucky enough to know what it's like to be the best."

Delivering the newspapers used to be a job for kids in the neighborhood

By Tom Woodruff

One of my earliest memories is of my father walking up the 100 block of West Durham Street in Mt. Airy, dressed in a suit and tie (that was required dress for Pennsylvania Railroad office employees), with The Bulletin tucked under his arm.

After dinner, he would read the war news and break down the news to my level of understanding.

Then, while Mom did the dishes, he and I read the comics together.

That was in 1942. Dad was too old for the service; I was too young.

From roughly my 10th to 12th birthdays, I delivered the weekly Germantown Courier in the neighborhood. Then I "graduated" to The Bulletin, after school and on Saturdays.

I had a Bulletin bag, and could fold and toss the paper on my customers' steps or porches with the best of them.

We had to collect from our customers once a week. We didn't realize it then, but it taught us manners, responsibility and even a little math. Some of the money went to Mom, some I saved; the balance was my spending money. When Christmas came, the tips added up to almost $25 - a fortune to me!

Most of the kids in the neighborhood delivered The Bulletin at one time or another. Their experiences were similar. We used to have a paper tossin' contest to see who could toss it the farthest and most accurately. Prize was a free soda.

Serving papers was a kids' profession back then, and all of us took pride in it.

This old paper boy still does. In fact, on my morning walk, I pick up the Inquirer that's been tossed from a passing car onto the sidewalk or driveway, and I toss it onto the porch.

Why do I do that? I want to stay in shape, just in case old paper boys are recalled.

Be around long enough, and you can't miss those who remember you when

"Don't you remember me?" I did. It was Ronnie, the kid down the street I hit over the head with my wooden Tom Mix gun. It broke my Tom Mix gun, I recalled.

It also left a gash that required a couple of stitches, he reminded me.

Ronnie had become a lawyer, but he didn't threaten to sue. I guess the statute of limitations had run out.

I got that Tom Mix gun by sending away to Ralston Purina, sponsor of the Tom Mix radio show.

I may not have liked Ronnie, but I really liked that Tom Mix gun.

His honor ...

If you've lived and worked in the same area as long as I have, you're bound to run into people like Ronnie, who remember you when. And vice versa, of course.

A young man once stopped me on North Broad Street, and introduced himself as "Goddam Jimmy." I remembered him.

On the old Bulletin, there were two copy boys named Jimmy. One was assigned to an editor who was especially loud and profane. "Where's that Goddam Jimmy?" he'd roar when he couldn't find the copy boy, which was often.

Eventually, that's how we differentiated between them. One of the copy boys was "Jimmy;" the other we knew as "Goddam Jimmy." Like Ronnie, the guy whose head broke my Tom Mix gun, he had become a lawyer. I expected his card to read "Goddam Jimmy, Esq.," but it didn't.

Now he's a judge of Common Pleas Court. His card should read "The Hon. Goddam Jimmy," but I'm sure it doesn't.
Presumably, he's easier to locate today than when he was a copy boy.

Formerly known as 'Joey'

Be kind to the office boy, you're told in many companies; he may be your boss some day.

One former Bulletin copy boy is now an editor - on a small-city newspaper upstate. Someone I know was applying for a job there, so I put in a good word.

"Dear Joey ..." I began.

He thanked me, but protested: "I'm the editor of a daily newspaper, with a staff of 50 reporting to me. You're the only person in the world who still calls me Joey."

He'll always be Joey to me.

Incidentally, he was so pleased with his new hire that he messaged me later, "Anyone else you'd like to send us? If they're as good as she is, I'll even let you call me Joey."

She must have really been good.