American Legion, Episode 1: An Excerpt from “Cracks in the Outfield Wall”
The following is an excerpt from Cracks in the Outfield Wall: The History of Baseball Integration in the Carolinas by Chris Holaday, which is now available wherever books are sold.
In the summer of 1934, six teams of high school–age boys met in Gastonia, North Carolina, for a three-day tournament to decide the Eastern Sectional Champion of American Legion baseball. The winner would advance to Chicago and face the top team from the West to determine the overall national champion. The six teams meeting in Gastonia originated from Cincinnati; Charlotte; Tampa; Springfield, Massachusetts; Trenton, New Jersey; and Cumberland, Maryland. “Very little is known of the teams to play here except for Charlotte,” wrote the reporter for the Charlotte Observer in a tournament preview. Truer words could not have been spoken, because when the Springfield team arrived, it had a Black member.
American Legion baseball was sponsored by a nonprofit service organization for the veterans of World War I. In 1919, American veterans in Paris founded a group that was open to any soldier, sailor, or marine who had served between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918. They named it the American Legion, and posts, as they were called, of the organization soon spread across the United States. The American Legion National Convention passed a resolution in 1923 expressing firm support of equal rights and opportunities “without distinction as to race, color, creed or class.” Separate posts were established for Black and white members, however, primarily because the armed forces were segregated—and Jim Crows laws in the South would not have allowed anything other.
The goal of the American Legion was to focus on benefits and support for veterans as well as programs for children. The organization soon identified athletic competition as a way to promote health, sportsmanship, and active citizenship. Based upon those ideals, the first American Legion baseball program for high schoolage boys was founded in South Dakota in 1925. Legion posts around the country began to adopt similar programs, and tournaments featuring post teams soon followed. The program rapidly expanded, and teams representing Legion posts began to play tournaments to determine state and regional champions.
The Legion’s first national baseball tournament for teenagers was held in Philadelphia in 1926. While the vast majority of participants in these tournaments were white, it was not unheard of for a team to have a Black member in areas of the country where racial interaction was permissible.
The atmosphere surrounding the 1934 tournament in Gastonia was festive. A parade was scheduled on August 23 before the opening game at the stadium of Gastonia High School. That evening, a banquet for all teams and Legion officials, including C. M. “Chuck” Wilson from the national headquarters, was planned at Gastonia’s Armington Hotel. Bands played to welcome the teams as they disembarked from their trains. But band members reportedly stopped mid-note when the star pitcher for Springfield Post 21 from Massachusetts, Ernest “Bunny” Taliaferro, stepped off the train.
When the Springfield players went to their hotel, complications immediately arose. Coach Syd Harris was informed that, per local ordinances (in other words, Jim Crow laws), Taliaferro would not be allowed to stay in the hotel with his teammates. The only exception would be if the coach listed Taliaferro as his valet. Then, in a back room, the player could be given a cot—not a bed, however, because those were for white people. When the team protested this arrangement, tournament officials attempted to find a solution. What they proposed was that Taliaferro stay in the home of a local Black doctor while in town. In this scenario, though, not only would the teenager be staying with a stranger in a strange town but he would not be able to dine or even socialize with his teammates.
The only exception would be if the coach listed Taliaferro as his valet. Then, in a back room, the player could be given a cot—not a bed, however, because those were for white people.
On that first day in Gastonia, Springfield Post 21 was scheduled to have a practice session. By that time, word had spread that the team had a Black member. A crowd showed up at the practice and booed Taliaferro when he came up to bat. Soon onlookers began assaulting the team with thrown objects. The situation deteriorated rapidly from that: Coach Harris received a threatening phone call at the hotel, and the Cumberland and Tampa teams stated that they refused to play against a Black athlete. Springfield Post 21 was essentially left with the only option of removing Taliaferro from its roster if it wanted to participate in the tournament.
Being first told that Taliaferro was not allowed to stay with them and now that he couldn’t play was too much for the rest of the Springfield squad. Team captain Tony King refused to take the field without Taliaferro, and the rest of the team agreed. Syd Harris decided it was time to leave Gastonia. He sent a telegram back to his Legion post: “Situation too dangerous. Boys threatened. Bringing team home.” The team boarded a train and headed north. The athletes arrived in Springfield to a very supportive crowd.
The treatment of the Springfield team was met with outrage in Massachusetts and made national news. A telegraph from Springfield mayor Henry Martens to Frank Samuels, national adjutant of the American Legion at the organization’s headquarters in Indianapolis, stated, “Public indignation here at the treatment accorded Springfield post junior baseball team at Gastonia, N.C. leads me to urge your organization to accede request for participation of Springfield team in Chicago play-off.” Commander William Connelly of the Springfield Legion post commented that the national Legion “is faced with the clear question of whether it will choose to stand by the principles it professes, or whether it will permit intimidation by a group apparently uninterested in fair play of the spirit of a free America.” In the Boston Globe, sportswriter Jerry Nason said, “A brace of Southern teams, or the officials thereof, refused to plant a foot on a field where a Negro boy stood, glove in hand, waiting to oppose them.”
Being first told that Taliaferro was not allowed to stay with them and now that he couldn’t play was too much for the rest of the Springfield squad.
Though the Associated Press indicated that Tampa and Cumberland had actually refused to play, the Charlotte Observer reported that the two teams had merely stated that they did not like the idea of playing but did not refuse, as it would have meant forfeiture. Somewhat surprisingly, the Charlotte team in the tournament did not refuse to play Springfield. The Boston Globe reported that Charlotte “adapted itself to the ticklish sit-ation, displaying excellent sportsmanship in stating that it would play regardless of the setting as it was ‘the Legionaire thing to do.’”
The treatment of the Springfield team drew general condemnation in the newspapers of the North. Many articles even expressed surprise at the discrimination that Bunny Taliaferro faced. It is understandable that a bunch of high school kids from Massachusetts were not familiar with the South and its laws, but most adults, especially newspaper reporters, should have had knowledge of the discriminatory treatment of Black citizens in all aspects of life in the South. And racial discrimination was certainly not limited to the South; it was just more obvious and supported by laws. In the South, the common sentiment regarding the incident was more “That’s just the way it is here and those guys should have known better.” Charlotte sports columnist Wade Ison wrote, “It is no fault of the American Legion that the state of North Carolina laws prohibit a negro from stopping at a hotel for white people. It appears that the Springfield delegation acted a bit hasty, for had they stayed the darkie boy could have put up with the Gastonia doctor and other teams would have either played the Springfield team or would have withdrawn from the tournament. It’s a pretty good rule to act like Romans when in Rome.”
The Springfield incident may have been the first time that the issue of race was ever addressed on a baseball field in the Carolinas. It was an issue that no one, particularly white baseball officials, wanted to address. Doing so would mean they would have to confront the larger issue of Jim Crow laws. The general feeling was that white people had their baseball and Black people had their baseball, and that was how things were supposed to remain.
The Springfield incident may have been the first time that the issue of race was ever addressed on a baseball field in the Carolinas.
More than eight decades later, when the mayor of Gastonia learned of the events surrounding the 1934 Legion tournament, he sent a letter of apology to the mayor of Springfield. The two mayors then arranged a weekend of “friendship baseball” for which the team from Gastonia Post 23 traveled to Massachusetts for a series of three games against Springfield-area Legion teams.
Continue reading in Cracks in the Outfield Wall
Chris Holaday is a writer, college teacher, and historian in Durham, North Carolina.
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