0:03

Hi, it's mo. When I first

0:05

came up with the idea from obituaries

0:07

in twenty eighteen, it was clear

0:09

that sticking only with dearly departed

0:12

people would be too easy. The

0:14

fun part was coming up with concepts,

0:16

countries, things that had

0:18

never gotten a sendoff. I mean, things

0:21

rarely get obituaries right. The

0:24

idea of a defunct sports team

0:26

was one of the first non human entities

0:28

that sparked my imagination back

0:31

when I was eight. During that brief stretch

0:33

when I decided I wanted to play soccer,

0:36

my ever indulgent parents took me

0:38

to see the Washington Diplomat's

0:40

soccer team play the New York Cosmos,

0:43

both teams no longer with us. The

0:45

only thing I remember from the game is

0:47

that the great Pele played for the Cosmos,

0:50

and Peley wasn't just a great player, he

0:53

went by one name like

0:55

Cher. I never actually ended

0:57

up playing soccer. For

1:00

the podcast, we considered doing an

1:02

episode on ice hockey's Hartford

1:04

Whalers, and we still may.

1:06

They have some super fans step forward

1:09

to convince us why we should. And yes,

1:11

I know, the team didn't technically die,

1:13

It just moved south to become the

1:15

Carolina Hurricanes, but the logo

1:18

they had in Hartford was fabulous.

1:21

Ultimately, my co author on the Mobituary's

1:23

book, Jonathan Greenberg, suggested

1:26

we devote a chapter to a team

1:28

that lasted less than a year but

1:31

packed in more drama than the New

1:33

York Jets have in their franchise history.

1:36

Did I get that right? This story

1:38

includes one of the most celebrated

1:41

names in baseball history. It

1:43

also includes one of the biggest names

1:45

in twentieth century dictatorship.

1:48

It's a whale of a tale. That

1:50

one's for you, Hartford. I'm

1:53

Morocca and this is Mobituaries,

2:03

This moment death of a

2:06

sports team, Los Dragones

2:08

de Siuda Trujillo, nineteen

2:11

thirty seven to nineteen

2:13

thirty seven. If

2:26

you don't think of me as a sports guy, I

2:28

get it. You'll hear the mobit for my short

2:30

lived baseball career at the end of this

2:32

chapter. I'm not obviously

2:35

athletic, although I can do a one handed

2:37

cartwheel with a glass of water in my free hand

2:40

without spilling a drop. But

2:42

I love drama, and sports

2:45

is guaranteed drama. The

2:47

sides are always clear. You've got winners,

2:49

You've got losers, heroes and villains.

2:52

I was eleven years old when the Americans

2:55

yay, defeated the Soviets

2:57

oooh in ice hockey at the Lake

2:59

Platte Olympics. I've

3:01

heard that the movie Miracle, which depicts

3:04

that event, is terrific. I'm

3:06

sure it is, but I don't need to see

3:08

it. I can remember the thrill of

3:10

the Miracle on ice as it happened.

3:13

Actually it was on tape delay. And

3:15

if you happen to grow up in the Washington, DC

3:18

area, as I did, you may remember

3:20

that our local news anchor actually

3:22

announced the final score during

3:25

a commercial break in the middle of

3:27

the game. I'm pretty sure she had

3:29

to go into the witness protection program after

3:31

that. Even better,

3:33

I like drama with big personalities.

3:36

So a story about one of baseball's

3:39

all time great pictures and a bloodthirsty

3:41

Latin American dictator set in the nineteen

3:44

thirties on an island nation. I'm

3:47

in Leroy

3:49

Satchel Page was born on July

3:52

seventh, nineteen oh six, one

3:54

of eleven children born to a poor

3:56

African American family in Alabama.

3:59

He started work at a young age

4:01

carrying bags at the mobile train

4:03

station for a dime apiece. He

4:06

realized he could make a lot more money if

4:08

he strung all the satchels on a pole

4:10

and carried them in a single trip. That's

4:13

how he earned his famous nickname. Black

4:16

players were barred from Major League Baseball

4:18

starting in eighteen eighty four, shortly

4:21

after Toledo's Moses fleetwood Walker

4:23

became the first African American to

4:26

play pro ball. You'll hear about him

4:28

later. The ban wouldn't

4:30

be lifted until nineteen forty seven,

4:32

the year Jackie Robinson became a Brooklyn

4:34

Dodger. So In nineteen twenty six,

4:37

at the age of nineteen, the tall

4:39

and sinewy Page tried out

4:41

for the all black Chattanooga White

4:43

Sox, reportedly throwing with

4:46

such accuracy that he could from

4:48

the mound knock over soda bottles

4:50

lined up on home plate. Page

4:53

became known not just as the hardest

4:55

thrower around, but also the most

4:58

creative. He was a showman on

5:00

the mound with his high leg kicks, and

5:02

off the mound, he became known for his homespun

5:05

wit. His later six

5:07

rules for staying young included avoid

5:10

fried meats which angry up the blood.

5:12

Makes sense to me over

5:15

a forty year career, Satchel

5:17

Page would become one of history's most

5:19

beloved players. One of the few

5:21

Negro League players known to white

5:23

fans during baseball's long segregated

5:26

era, Page knew

5:28

how good he was. He would tell his

5:30

fielders to sit down on the grass behind

5:33

him while he struck out the opposing team.

5:36

Joe DiMaggio, who batted against

5:38

Page in an exhibition game in nineteen thirty

5:40

six, called him the best he'd

5:42

ever faced. In nineteen

5:45

thirty one, he signed with the Pittsburgh

5:47

Crawfords, one of the greatest Negro

5:49

League teams ever assembled, arguably

5:52

one of the greatest baseball teams ever.

5:55

Page's teammates eventually included

5:58

cool Papa Bell, the fastest

6:00

man in baseball. Page one

6:02

said that Bell could turn off the lights and jump

6:05

into bed before the room got dark, and

6:07

the great catcher Josh Gibson,

6:10

the Black Babe Ruth, who was

6:12

estimated to have hit more than eight

6:14

hundred home runs in his career. The

6:17

team's owner, Gus Greenley, was

6:19

a larger than life figure. A

6:22

machine gunner in the trenches of France

6:24

during World War One. The six foot

6:26

two mixed race Greenley came

6:28

back with shrapnel in his left leg,

6:31

but that didn't stop him from running bootleg

6:33

whiskey to speakeasies. His

6:36

sprawling numbers racket basically

6:38

in illegal lottery, earned at its height

6:41

twenty five thousand dollars a day.

6:44

Naturally, he opened his own nightclub and

6:46

used the profits to buy off police

6:48

and politicians and provide

6:51

loans to black people who had been rejected

6:53

by white owned banks. With

6:55

his outsized personality, wealth

6:57

and charm, he dominated Pittsburgh

7:00

politics, music, business,

7:03

and sports. Greenlee

7:05

financed the first stadium built

7:08

exclusively for a black ball club,

7:10

Greenlee Field and what else would he

7:12

call it? Even installing lights.

7:15

For six years, the Pittsburgh Crawfords

7:18

dominated the Negro National League,

7:21

but the end was in sight. The depression

7:24

was eroding the Negro League's financial

7:26

foundation, and state attorneys

7:28

general were cracking down on numbers running.

7:31

Greenlee faced a handful of indictments,

7:34

and he could not be as free with the salaries

7:36

as he had been. In such a climate,

7:38

The cross with a roster for the

7:40

ages assembled by rating. Other Negro

7:43

League teams were themselves raided

7:46

the man who stole their talent. General

7:48

Lissimo Raphael Trujillo,

7:51

the brutal strong man who had

7:53

taken control of the Dominican Republic

7:56

in nineteen thirty. If

7:58

there were a Hall of Fame for bloodthirsty

8:01

dictators, Trujillo would be

8:03

voted in unanimously on the

8:05

first ballot. As a boy,

8:07

he had collected shiny metal bottle

8:09

caps to pin on his shirt in imitation

8:12

of a military leader. He began

8:14

his rise to power by serving in a street

8:17

gang, and then worked as the paid

8:19

muscle for the wealthy owners of sugar plantations.

8:22

After he forced Orasiovaskez

8:25

from power. Trujillo, then a general,

8:27

won the election of nineteen thirty with

8:29

an impressively high ninety nine

8:32

point two percent of the vote, although

8:34

the numbers are somewhat less impressive once

8:36

you learn that all the other candidates withdrew

8:39

because of death threats from Trujillo's

8:41

goons. Once in

8:43

power, he renamed the country's capital

8:45

city of Santo Domingo Siudad

8:47

Trujillo. He renamed the country's

8:50

tallest mountain, Pico Trujillo.

8:53

He renamed the province of San Cristobal

8:56

Trujillo Province. He

8:58

made his three year old son, Ramphis

9:00

a colonel. To be clear, a three

9:03

year old in military uniform is kind

9:05

of cute on Halloween. Trujillo

9:08

later did allow an opposition party to organize

9:11

such a policy he believed made it much

9:13

easier to identify and murder his

9:16

political enemies. The

9:18

story of how Page came to play for

9:20

Trujillo is told in Avril

9:22

Ace Smith's terrific book The

9:25

Pitcher and the Dictator. Trujillo

9:27

himself was not much of a baseball fan,

9:30

but he knew that the Dominican people loved

9:32

the game, and he thought a successful

9:35

team would be good for public relations.

9:37

During the upcoming pseudo election of

9:39

nineteen thirty seven, he directed

9:41

a diminutive dentist named Enrique

9:44

Ibar to form Lostragonos

9:47

des Sioudad Trujillo the

9:49

Trujillo City Dragons. The

9:51

goal was to defeat the reigning Island

9:54

Champs Lasestreas Orientales

9:56

of San Pedro the San Pedro

9:58

Eastern Stars, with Trujillo

10:01

bankrolling him. Eyebar traveled to

10:03

New Orleans in the winter of nineteen thirty

10:05

six, where Page was training. Iebar

10:08

offered Page a contract of thirty thousand

10:11

dollars, a ridiculous sum to

10:13

a player who was receiving a few hundred a

10:15

month from Greenley. Page

10:17

knew he was underpaid in the Negro leagues.

10:20

That bunch would hold on to a dollar bill until

10:23

Old George screened in pain, he

10:25

said of the Negro League owners. What's

10:28

more, he was tired of the segregation

10:30

he faced when playing in the South, where

10:32

it could be hard to find a restaurant or hotel,

10:35

or even a gas station that would serve black

10:37

people. Page took the money

10:39

with one condition. He insisted

10:42

on bringing his catcher, Cy Perkins.

10:45

The two became the toast of Siudad

10:48

Trujillo and were soon joined by

10:50

other Negro League stars. The

10:52

American players were thrilled with the music,

10:54

the food, the beer, and what Ace

10:57

Smith discreetly calls las casas

10:59

deccika us. Page

11:01

was not one for monogamy. The story

11:04

goes that he was once served with divorce

11:06

papers on the bound at Wrigley Field. Never

11:09

be unfaithful to a lover, except

11:11

with your wife, he equipped. Satchel

11:13

and Cy had the money to enjoy it all,

11:16

and not a single establishment was closed

11:18

to them because of the color of their skin. In

11:21

Trujillo's dictatorship, they had

11:23

more freedom than they'd had at home in the States.

11:26

But Page's first outing was rougher

11:28

than expected. He gave up six runs

11:31

in five innings. Soon enough,

11:33

a pseudonymous newspaper column suggested

11:36

that stricter off the field control

11:38

of the high paved players was needed. The

11:41

late nights and sleepy mornings were catching

11:43

up with the American stars. At

11:46

the same time, the two other Dominican

11:48

clubs there were just three teams on

11:50

the island were bringing in their own

11:52

ringers from stateside. The

11:55

president of one of those clubs flew to Pittsburgh

11:57

to court Greenley's remaining stars.

12:00

Greenley, already in a rage over the

12:02

defection of Page, had the visitors

12:05

arrested by his friends in the Pittsburgh Police

12:07

Force. Alas, unlike

12:09

Trujillo, he lacked the power to

12:11

imprison people who hadn't committed any

12:13

crime, and the Dominicans were released.

12:16

Back in the dr Satchel's performance

12:18

improved, but his team was still

12:20

struggling. Another article in Trujillo's

12:23

state sanctioned newspaper called

12:25

for a curb on the licentiousness

12:28

of the American players, whose reckless

12:30

lifestyle was undermining the team's success.

12:33

The head of Trujillo's death squads

12:36

was put in charge of discipline, and armed

12:39

thugs became constant companions

12:41

of Satchel and the Americans, shadowing

12:44

them wherever they went. Bars

12:46

in nightclubs were off limits. No

12:48

store owner would sell them whiskey. As

12:51

for the casastchkas no

12:54

chance. Evenings

12:56

instead were spent playing long games

12:58

of cards at the hotel. Even

13:00

team practices lost to their casual,

13:03

playful air. I started

13:05

wishing of his home when all those soldiers started

13:07

following us around everywhere we went, and

13:10

even stood out in front of our rooms at night, wrote

13:12

Page in his autobiography. The

13:15

new regiment of chastity and sobriety

13:18

may have been less fun, but it worked

13:20

wonders on the field. By the time

13:22

the playoffs came around, Page was sporting

13:25

a six one record. Los Dragonez

13:27

defeated Lasstreas for the championship

13:30

eight to six. Page really

13:32

couldn't afford to let the team down. As

13:35

he later recalled, he was terrified

13:37

of failure, thinking the whole time

13:39

about the line of Trujillo's soldiers

13:41

arrayed on the edges of the field, knives

13:43

and guns tucked into their belts clearly

13:46

visible. The championship

13:48

trophy was presented to Trujillo's

13:50

son, Colonel Raphael L.

13:52

Trujillo Martinez, now all of

13:54

eight years old. This

13:57

remarkable season, however, rang

13:59

the death knell for the Dragones. The

14:07

Dominican clubs, for all the excitement

14:09

of the season, had essentially bankrupted

14:11

themselves with their spending sprees, and

14:14

the entire league was disbanded. Satchel

14:16

and the other American players collected their

14:19

winnings and moved on. Banned

14:21

from the Negro leagues for defecting and unable

14:24

to play for Major League Baseball, page

14:26

and the others had no option but to

14:28

barnstorm the nation, sporting

14:30

the pinstripes of Los Dragones, billing

14:33

themselves as Trujillo's All Stars,

14:36

even defeating the National Negro League

14:38

All Stars at Yankee Stadium in September

14:41

nineteen thirty seven. Eventually,

14:44

the National Negro League rescinded its

14:46

lifetime bans of Satchel and the other

14:48

defectors. He continued

14:50

to pitch, despite age and some injuries.

14:54

With the death of Major League Baseball Commissioner

14:56

Kennesaw Landis in nineteen forty four,

14:59

the time was right for integration of the

15:01

major leagues, and Jackie Robinson

15:03

broke the color line in nineteen forty

15:05

seven. The next year, Page

15:08

signed with the Cleveland Indians, helping

15:10

them to win the World Series they

15:13

haven't won since. The forty

15:15

two year old Page was the oldest rookie

15:18

in Major league history. He

15:20

played for five years in the majors, was

15:22

twice named an All Star, and even

15:24

made a return appearance pitching three

15:26

scoreless innings for the nineteen sixty five

15:29

Kansas City As at age fifty

15:31

nine. Yes, that's right,

15:34

at age fifty nine. It's

15:38

great to watch Satchel Page and TV appearances

15:40

from the nineteen sixties and seventies, adored

15:43

by the panelists on What's My Line

15:46

and tossing a ball with host Steve

15:48

Allen on I've Got a Secret. Dick

15:50

Cavitt invited him on in nineteen seventy

15:52

one, shortly after Page became the

15:55

first negro leaguer to be voted into

15:57

Baseball's Hall of Fame. Page

15:59

is five and gracious, even pretending

16:02

to be charmed by fellow guest Salvador

16:04

Dali, who brought along his pet

16:06

ant eater. When Cavit asks

16:09

Page, how good the players in the Negro

16:11

leagues were, he answers, Back

16:13

in those days, they had a lot of Satchel Pages.

16:16

There wasn't just one. I just pitched

16:18

more than everybody else back then. I'm

16:20

as old as Methuselah, he says, as

16:23

if to suggest that his longevity,

16:25

rather than his great talent, is the main reason

16:27

he's remembered. In the

16:29

last of his six Rules for Staying

16:32

young, he wrote, don't look

16:34

back, something might be gaining on you.

16:37

Page had outlasted Greenley, who

16:39

died in nineteen fifty two, and the tyrant

16:42

Trujillo, who was assassinated

16:44

in nineteen sixty one, and the

16:46

fabulous, if short lived teams

16:48

on which he had starred. The owners,

16:51

the teams, and the leagues themselves

16:53

passed on, but Satchel Page

16:55

himself seemed to just keep

16:57

going. And

17:01

other teams you can't root for anymore.

17:05

The Philadelphia SPAZ nineteen

17:07

seventeen to nineteen fifty nine.

17:11

The letters stand for South Philadelphia

17:14

Hebrew Association, founded

17:16

by Eddie the Mogul Gottlieb in nineteen

17:18

eighteen. The Spas dominated

17:21

basketball back when it was referred

17:23

to as the Jewish game because

17:25

it required, in the words of one New York

17:27

postwriter, an alert, scheming

17:30

mind and flashy trickiness. The

17:32

Svas dominated the American Basketball

17:35

League in the nineteen thirties and forties,

17:37

winning seven titles in thirteen

17:40

years. Stars included household

17:42

names such as Harry Litwack,

17:45

Csy Caselman, Moe Goldman,

17:47

Irv Torgoff, Red Wolf,

17:50

Max Poznak, and perennial MVP

17:52

candidate Shikey Gottoffer. But

17:55

the demographics of basketball, always

17:58

an urban game at heart, were all ready changing.

18:01

The Great Migration was bringing millions

18:03

of African Americans to the cities of the

18:05

North, while Jews were moving their

18:07

families to the suburbs. Gottlieb

18:10

sold the Spas to Red Klotz,

18:12

a former player, who refashioned them

18:15

the Washington Generals, a traveling

18:17

opponent for Abe Saberstein's Harlem

18:19

Globetrotters. For the next forty

18:22

four years, they served as stooges

18:24

for the world's most famous exhibition club.

18:27

Gottlieb meanwhile founded the Philadelphia

18:30

Warriors of the NBA, signed

18:32

a kid named Wilt Chamberlain and

18:34

never looked back. The

18:38

New Jersey Generals nineteen

18:40

eighty three to nineteen eighty five. In

18:44

nineteen eighty three, the upstart United

18:46

States Football League put the formidable

18:49

National Football League on notice, paying

18:51

big salaries for high profile stars,

18:54

including Heisman Trophy winner Herschel

18:56

Walker and future Hall of Famer

18:58

Jim Kelly. The next year, a

19:00

New York real estate baron named Donald

19:03

J. Trump joined the league, buying

19:05

the New Jersey Generals for about nine

19:07

million dollars. I could have

19:10

bought an NFL team, he said to The New York

19:12

Times. Is iraburke ou At the time. I

19:14

feel sorry for the poor guy who's going to buy

19:16

the Dallas Cowboys. He continued. It's

19:19

a no win situation for him because if

19:21

he wins, well, so what they've won

19:23

through the years. And if he loses, which

19:25

seems likely because they're having troubles, he'll

19:28

be known to the world as a loser. Within

19:30

two years, the USFL collapsed

19:33

and Trump ended up twenty two million dollars

19:35

in the red. The Cowboys are currently

19:38

worth five billion dollars. The

19:43

Washington Senators eighteen

19:45

ninety one to nineteen seventy

19:47

one, the

19:49

Washington Senators baseball team died

19:52

three times. The first Washington

19:54

Senators played from eighteen ninety one

19:57

to eighteen ninety nine. We know little

19:59

about them except that they were awful. In

20:01

nineteen hundred, the team folded, but

20:04

when the American League was founded in nineteen

20:06

oh one, the Senators were reborn.

20:09

They were awful, too, losing so much

20:11

that in nineteen oh four sportswriter Charles

20:13

Dryden equipped Washington first

20:16

in war, first in peace, and last

20:18

in the American League. On the bright

20:21

side, their historic ineptitude inspired

20:23

the musical Damn Yankees, in

20:25

which a Senator's fan sells his

20:28

soul to the devil in exchange for a

20:30

World Series victory. That's

20:32

the show where Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon

20:34

met. Now that's a team. In

20:37

the nineteen fifties, as franchises

20:39

began moving westward, owner Calvin

20:42

Griffith vowed the team would remain in

20:44

Washington forever. He

20:47

decamped with the team from Minnesota two

20:49

years later. Senators three

20:51

point zero, hastily assembled at the behest

20:54

of President Eisenhower, lasted

20:56

only a decade. Their last game

20:58

was a riot on September thirtieth,

21:01

nineteen seventy one, The Senators were

21:03

leading in the top of the ninth when irate

21:06

fans stormed the field and stole

21:08

home. They also stole first,

21:11

second, and third, grabbed handfuls

21:13

of the infield grass, and ran off with the

21:15

bat boys' chairs. When the umpires

21:17

couldn't clear the field, the game was ruled

21:20

a forfeit. Maurice

21:23

Raca's Little league career nineteen

21:26

seventy nine to nineteen seventy

21:28

nine, as reported by

21:30

my older brother, Lawrence Raca, I

21:34

don't remember if the opponent was Blessed

21:36

Sacrament or Saint Camillas or our

21:38

Lady of Lords. What matters is

21:40

that the nineteen seventy nine Little Flower

21:42

Midget be baseball team was being

21:45

humiliated once again, this

21:47

time in its final game, another

21:49

blowout in a last place and soon

21:51

to be mercifully completed Catholic

21:54

Youth Organization season. The

21:56

culprit this time was the hulking fourth

21:58

grader batting clean up up for the other team.

22:01

He'd already crushed two Titanic

22:03

homers before coming to bat with the

22:05

bases loaded in the top of the seventh. Sitting

22:08

on the hill with the rest of the tiny crowd

22:10

at Bethesda, Maryland's Westmorland

22:12

Park. My parents and I leaned forward

22:15

in nervous anticipation. The

22:17

infielders retreated to the edge of the outfield

22:20

grass and panicked self defense.

22:22

Maurice, who was usually on the bench, betrayed

22:25

no feelings in center field, where he

22:27

was safe at least from decapitation. A

22:30

head taller than the rest of the players, slugger

22:33

swung violently, sending a

22:35

towering fly to left, eliciting

22:38

ooze, and as before, it hooked and

22:40

landed harmlessly foul, just

22:42

beyond the left fielder's stumbling, tumbling

22:45

reach. Again and again, this

22:47

happened, the ooze and oz turning

22:49

to laughs a fourth time, then

22:52

a fifth. Another soaring fly

22:54

ball, another round of expectant

22:57

laughter, building toward crescendo, suddenly

23:00

stifled by a blur, a near collision,

23:03

and the longest split second of silence

23:05

in Cyo history. It

23:08

was Maurice, running full speed

23:10

from center past left. At

23:12

the last possible instant, he thrust

23:15

his gloved left hand to the absolute

23:18

limit of his reach, his body at a

23:20

perfect forty five degree angle to the

23:22

ground, just the tippy toes of his right

23:24

foot, touching like mercury with a Paul

23:26

Blair autographed Wilson. The

23:29

ball stuck to his palm like belcrow

23:31

as his momentum nearly sent him into a

23:33

cartwheel, and it stayed in his glove

23:36

as the crowd erupted in wild cheers,

23:38

and the entire last place nineteen

23:40

seventy nine Little Flower Midget

23:42

Bee baseball team ran out and mobbed

23:45

him on the spot. It took three

23:47

minutes for the umpire to restore order and

23:49

send everyone back to their positions. My

23:53

brother was not a great baseball player, nor

23:55

a particularly enthusiastic one. He

23:58

knew early on that his first season

24:00

of cyo baseball would be his last.

24:04

But what he lacked in love and skill for the

24:06

game he made up in fidelity to

24:08

two foundational rules. Always

24:11

hustle and always back up your teammates.

24:14

As far as improbable defensive heroics

24:16

go, you can have the big money stakes

24:19

of Derek Jeter's playoff flip or

24:21

the perfect cinematography of Lupas's

24:23

Bad News Bears miracle. I'll

24:26

take the one that jumped right off the pages of

24:28

Joseph Campbell that day at

24:30

Westmoreland Park, I

24:39

hope you enjoyed this Mobituary.

24:42

Be sure to check out Mobituary's

24:44

Great Lives Worth Reliving, the

24:46

New York Times best selling book, now

24:49

available in paperback and audiobook.

24:52

It includes plenty of stories not in

24:54

the podcast special thanks

24:56

to Jonathan Greenberg and Jonathan

24:59

carp, Richard Rarer, and Chris Lynch

25:02

at Simon and Schuster. You can

25:04

listen to our final episode of the season

25:06

in the new year.