NEGRO LEAGUER'S TRIP TO HALL A YEAR TOO LONG.Byline: Mary Pemberton Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Geraldine Day has her memories. And she has memorabilia - autographed baseballs and baseball cards from the glory days when her husband, Leon Day Leon Day (October 30 1916 - March 13 1995) was an American right-handed pitcher in the Negro Leagues. He played for the Baltimore Black Sox, the Brooklyn & Newark Eagles, and the Baltimore Elite Giants. He was born in Alexandria, Virginia. , was a Negro Leagues Negro leagues Associations of teams of black baseball players active largely between 1920 and the late 1940s. The principal leagues were the Negro National League, originally organized by Rube Foster in 1920, and the Negro American League, organized in 1937. pitching sensation. They lived on love, and baseball. ``He never had anything, and I never had anything. It was just the love we had for each other,'' Geraldine Day said. ``We had it rough the whole 34 years we were together.'' Her husband died last year at age 78, just six days after being elected to baseball's Hall of Fame, and Geraldine still has it rough. If Leon had been recognized for his talents sooner, or had lived longer, Geraldine might not have to work second shift at a recycling plant, sorting paper and driving a forklift for $190 a week in take-home pay take-home pay n. The amount of one's salary remaining after federal, state, and often city income taxes and various other deductions have been withheld. . When she attends this weekend's Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Cooperstown, N.Y., her thoughts will be with her husband and how he should have been there last year. ``I'm going to be thinking . . . how great it would have been if he had been alive after he got in, how pretty I would have been set,'' she said. The most Leon Day ever made was $600 a month in 1955. If he had lived to see his induction, he could have made $75,000 the first year at card shows, agent Bob Allen
Bob Allen (born 1958) is an American politician who has been a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives since 2000, representing Florida's 32nd district. said. In the first four years, he could have made $250,000. ``He could have become famous overnight,'' Allen said. ``Unfortunately, he didn't get the breaks.'' Geraldine, 57, lives alone in a modest two-bedroom apartment in southwest Baltimore, surrounded by the memories of her life with one of the greatest baseball players ever. A shelf in the corner of the spare bedroom displays dozens of baseballs signed by Willie Mays Noun 1. Willie Mays - United States baseball player (born in 1931) Mays, Say Hey Kid, Willie Howard Mays Jr. , Joe DiMaggio, Ernie Banks, Richie Allen and Ray Dandridge. A half-dozen dusty photo albums filled with signed baseball cards line the bottom shelf of a bookcase bookcase Piece of furniture fitted with shelves, formerly often enclosed by doors. In early times the ambry, or wall cupboard, was used to hold books. Bookcases were included in the medieval fittings of college libraries in Britain. . On the wall is a framed black and white photo of Leon being carried on the shoulders of his teammates after pitching a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Stars. As a pitcher for the Newark Eagles, Day appeared in a record seven Negro Leagues All-Star games and set a league record in 1942 by striking out 18 batters in one game. Day faced the celebrated Satchel Paige, the Kansas City Monarchs The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro Leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri and owned by J.L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 1930. pitcher who was the first Negro Leaguer elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, four times and beat him three times. Day became eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame in the early 1970s when a list of possible inductees from the Negro Leagues was drawn up. In 1993, he was one vote shy of the required 75 percent needed for election by the veterans committee. Roy Campanella, a friend of Day's, was on the panel but was sick that day and couldn't cast the deciding vote. Day found out on March 7, 1995, that he had finally made it. ``It's too bad they waited so long, God almighty,'' said Day, then in a Baltimore hospital bed being treated for a heart condition, diabetes and gout gout, condition that manifests itself as recurrent attacks of acute arthritis, which may become chronic and deforming. It results from deposits of uric acid crystals in connective tissue or joints. . ``They could have done it when I could have enjoyed it more.'' After retiring from baseball in 1955, Day tended bar and worked as a security guard. For a time, he was on welfare. He retired at age 63 when his health began to fail. Geraldine kept working. She found employment at a plant that made bleach bottles, another that tested nozzles for oil burners, and one that made pizza crust. She picked rotten peaches off a conveyer belt. Geraldine, who had cancer and still suffers some health problems, gets $460 a month to pay her rent from the Baseball Assistance Team, a charitable organization in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of supported by Major League Baseball "MLB" and "Major Leagues" redirect here. For other uses, see MLB (disambiguation) and Major Leagues (disambiguation). Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. . Frank Slocum, the group's executive director, said the group doesn't have the resources to do much more than help with necessities. ``The black ballplayers didn't get a chance,'' Slocum said. ``We can't give them their youth back, put the spring back in his legs. But we try to put some food back in his belly.'' Bob Hieronimus, who has a weekly talk show on WCBM WCBM Worshipful Company of Builders Merchants (UK) radio in Baltimore and lobbied to get Day inducted into the Hall of Fame, does what he can to help Geraldine. He has raised about $3,500 for her from the sale of Leon Day memorabilia. Charles S. Winner, attorney for the Negro League Baseball
The Negro Leagues were American professional baseball leagues comprising predominantly African-American teams. Association in Manassas, Va., said Geraldine is not alone in having to rely on the kindness of strangers. ``There are scant little benefits at all for any of the survivors of these ballplayers,'' Winner said. ``I am not sure that the major leagues have done all that they could to benefit the Negro League players.'' Geraldine gets no royalty money from Major League Baseball Properties, baseball's marketing arm. Royalties from the sale of Negro Leagues memorabilia are reserved for surviving players only, with half going to the players and the other half split between the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., and the Jackie Robinson Foundation The Jackie Robinson Foundation is a non-profit organization which provides scholarships to minority youths for higher education, as well as preserving the legacy of Baseball Hall of Fame member, Jackie Robinson. . The Negro League Baseball Players The people below are some of the most notable who played Negro League baseball, beginning with its first organized structure in 1920 until 1960, after Major League Baseball's color line barring African American players had been broken. Association was started about five years ago to provide emergency funds for Negro Leagues players. The group raises money through the sale of memorabilia and appearances at sports banquets, card shows and schools. The average age of its 160 members is 77. ``It is hard on some of the ballplayers, because they are really indigent indigent 1) n. a person so poor and needy that he/she cannot provide the necessities of life (food, clothing, decent shelter) for himself/herself. 2) n. one without sufficient income to afford a lawyer for defense in a criminal case. ,'' said board member Bill ``Ready'' Cash, who played from 1943-1950 for the Philadelphia Stars. Until the nature of the game changes, Negro Leagues players won't get what is rightfully theirs, said Stanley Glenn, 69, the association's vice president. About two years ago, Major League Baseball brought the Negro Leaguers under their medical plan. Pensions, however, have never materialized. Geraldine, recently forced to sell baseballs signed by Phil Rizzuto and Frank Robinson for $175 at a local memorabilia show, thinks major league baseball could do more to help, but she's too proud to ask. ``I'm not going to get on the phone and beg anyone. But why not drop a check in thBe mail once in a while?'' she said. ``What is the spouse supposed to do? Go in a corner and die?'' Despite her circumstances, Geraldine is not bitter. When she feels down, she turns to her church for answers. ``The way I feel about it is that it wasn't meant to be,'' Geraldine said. ``The Lord has a plan. I'm waiting on the Lord. I know he has a brighter day for me.'' |
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