When baseball was Atlantic City's pastime

t’s the middle of the third inning, and it’s not looking good for Atlantic City High School. Absegami is leading nine to zip. A lone spectator in the visitor stands sighs into her cellphone.

“These guys can’t catch a cold out here,” she says.

Undeterred, No. 11, sophomore Jared Avril, hustles to his post in left field so he has time to warm up. He’s mindful of his body language, something his coaches reinforce to him often — stand proud, even when you’re getting whooped.

“Who’s going to throw to me?” he yells to his teammates. Then, more quietly: “It’s not over till it’s over.”

Avril may not know it. but he’s part of a larger Atlantic City legacy — one that is in danger of dying out. He’s one of the few African-American players on the team in a city with a deep history of successful minority baseball players.

“When I told my black friends I was trying out last year, they were like … ‘Baseball? Really?’” Avril explained.

The disbelief is understandable. The sport — which requires more money and larger facilities — has declined in popularity nationally and locally, and African-American youth are disproportionately affected.

“Right now, the sport’s dead in Atlantic City,” said Brent Bean, head coach of the high school team. Since none of the grade schools on the island offer a feeder program, he’s forced to start from scratch.

Recruiting players over the morning announcements beginning every January, he encourages kids who’ve never picked up a mitt to give it a try, and he offers his own equipment to students who can’t put up $100 for a glove.

“As kids, we played basketball, football ... the standard African-American sports,” Avril said. “I grew up across the street from the Pop Lloyd stadium, and sometimes we’d hang out on it. But it never occurred to me to pick up a bat. I just never thought of it as an option.”

Avril eventually found his way into the sport as a freshman, after feeling his passion for those “standard” sports waning. This luxury of choice wasn’t always available for black athletes in Atlantic City. At the turn of the 20th century, long before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, African Americans formed their own teams. They barnstormed the country competing in cow pastures and on rodeo fields. In 1920, Andrew “Rube” Foster, a black, Chicago-based pitcher, spearheaded the formation of an organized Negro National League.

‘The game was king here’

One of the better teams, the Bacharach Giants, was based in Atlantic City’s Northside, considered one of the most vibrant black communities in the nation at the time. In both 1926 and 1927, the Giants competed in the Negro League World Series (though they suffered tough losses to the Chicago American Giants each time.)

The roster included several exceptional athletes over the years, but none more legendary than John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, affectionately known as the grandfather of black baseball. The soft-spoken shortstop, who didn’t smoke, drink or curse, was once cited by Babe Ruth as the greatest ballplayer of all time, regardless of race. Others called him “The Shovel” for his tendency to scoop dirt while fielding ground balls. Ty Cobb, former Detroit Tiger and another contender for greatest of all time, reportedly swore off facing black players altogether after being shown up by Lloyd in a game.

Yet, unlike Ruth and Cobb, Lloyd, who was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1977, isn’t a household name. After retirement, he worked as the city’s Little League commissioner and as a janitor in Atlantic City’s Indiana Avenue School, where he kept a bucket of baseball equipment in a custodial closet. When kids got in trouble, he took them outside to have a catch and to show them a more positive way to channel their energy.

“People don’t know his name because Negro baseball games were played in the shadows of the major leagues,” said Bob Allen, PhD, who teaches a course on black baseball at Stockton University. “The whole history exists in the shadows.”

On the road, African-American athletes faced open hostility, including bricks and racial slurs hurled at their bus. At the same time, the players of the Bacharach Giants and the semi-pro teams that followed were hometown heroes. They weren’t always compensated like heroes — many had secondary jobs as plumbers, waiters or construction workers — but they packed their stadiums with thousands of energized fans, black and white.

On Sundays, Atlantic City residents went to segregated churches but then came together for an athletic spectacle that “made white supremacy a little less believable,” Allen said.

Entertainers who performed in the city — such as jazz legends Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong — stopped by to experience a buzzy energy that galvanized the spirit of the town. The sport became the third piece to the Northside’s social triptych: prayer, music, baseball.

“The game was king here,” said Ralph E. Hunter Sr., director of the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey. “Afterward, there’d be a great parade from Connecticut Avenue all the way down to Kentucky Avenue. It was like Mardi Gras. This was Atlantic City’s pastime as much as it was America’s.”

This kind of rapport with fans was one thing that set Negro League athletes apart from their white counterparts. Another was a more aggressive, daring, inventive style of play. Think spitballs, never-before-seen pitches and high-action baserunning.

“There’s a certain inhibition that comes with privilege,” said Belinda Manning, poet, community activist and member of Atlantic City’s 48 Blocks art project. “You work within the box you’re given and you don’t tread on the edges. But when a people are oppressed, and they’re given a field in which to operate, they push that creative endeavor — whether it’s dance, painting or, yes, baseball — as far as they can. It’s not about showmanship. It’s about taking that art form and expressing it to its fullest.”

One of the players who exemplified this spirit was Belinda’s late father, Max Manning, a 6-foot-4-inch pitcher who wore Coke-bottle glasses on the mound. In 1937, as a member of Pleasantville High School’s team, he was contacted by the Detroit Tigers for a tryout. But, when scouts showed up to watch him play, they realized he was black and, despite his 90 mph arm, changed their minds. Max Manning became the youngest player on the Johnson All-Stars, a semi-pro team in Atlantic City named for infamous political boss Enoch “Nucky” Johnson. It was managed by Pop Lloyd, who took Max Manning under his wing.

After retiring, Max Manning became a beloved sixth-grade teacher and pitching coach at Pleasantville High School. He lived a life of relative obscurity. And with each passing year, the history of the sport seemed to fade from Atlantic City’s collective memory.

‘Everyone’s game’

Built by the city in 1948 to honor the grandfather of black baseball, Pop Lloyd stadium is unused, litter-strewn and overgrown with Virginia creeper.

Seeing it, you might think the any attempts to preserve this legacy have failed. But that’s not exactly the case.

“This history endures,” Belinda Manning said. “I love that meme — how does it go? They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds. You can’t bury this legacy. It will resurrect again like the phoenix.”

It’s a resilience, she adds, that mirrors that of Atlantic City.

One possible way this legacy will survive to inspire another generation is with the relaunch of a Little League baseball program, which, due to lack of volunteer interest, hasn’t existed in the city for three years. Behind the effort is Atlantic City High School assistant baseball coach Junior Mejia, a native of the Dominican Republic who grew up playing the sport with a rock inside a taped sock for a ball and a tree branch for a bat.

In 1994, as a pre-teen, he moved to the states. While his mom worked as a housekeeper at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, he batted .500 for Atlantic City High School and then competed in a national championship as a student-athlete at Tampa University.

The league is still in its planning stages, but the hope is to launch open clinics this summer before putting together teams and a formal structure.

“One of the byproducts of restarting this baseball effort is that people will learn from their coaches and teammates about the heritage of the Negro League,” said Sixth Ward City Councilman and former Little Leaguer Jesse Kurtz, who is working as a government liaison on the project. “This is an opportunity for people who have different cultural backgrounds to build friendships and have that exchange. This is a quintessential American game, so what better spot to experience the melting pot that is America than on the baseball diamond?”

The campaign has at least one young ambassador so far in Jared Avril. After graduation, he’d like to join the Marines, but until then, he’ll happily educate incredulous classmates on the Negro League history he’s learned more about since playing ball. He’s also considering volunteering with the youth league once it’s up and running.

“I know a lot of people who got caught up in the system, messed up their lives,” Avril said. “And I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to keep my head screwed on right. This keeps me off the streets, because I only have enough time at the end of the day to do my homework and go to bed.”

As for kids who still don’t believe this sport belongs to them?

“Pick up a mitt so you know how it feels to have a baseball glove in your hand,” he said. “This is everyone’s game.”

(This story is part of Stories of Atlantic City, a collaborative reporting focused on telling restorative, untold stories about the city and its people. The project was produced in partnership with Free Press, the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, ivoh (Images of Voices and Hope), Stockton University, Authentic City Partners and ThisIsAC co-founder Evan Sanchez, Grace & Glory Yoga and The Leadership Studio co-founder Alexandra Nunzi, Press of Atlantic City, Route 40, SJNtv and Breaking AC. Stories of Atlantic City is funded with a grant from the NJ Community News and Information Fund at the Community Foundation of New Jersey, a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. To read other stories produced as part of the project, visit storiesofac.com.)