Ted Strong Jr. by Sherman L. Jenkins

Author:Sherman L. Jenkins [Jenkins, Sherman L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2016-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

These announcements of African Americans’ transition to white teams only heightened anticipation of the annual East-West All-Star Game, scheduled for Sunday, July 27, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. For the fifth year in a row, the fans did not see fit to elect Ted Jr. to the West squad for the annual event. Even though he managed to become the home run king in 1946, his disappearance in the 1946 Negro Leagues World Series tainted his reputation. The excitement over Jackie Robinson and other Negro Leagues players signing contracts with white teams also overshadowed Ted Jr.’s accomplishments.

He played out the remainder of the 1947 season with the Monarchs. It would be his last year with a team that the African American community in the United States felt was its “Team.” Ted Jr. was among the best there was in Negro Leagues baseball, and he was a bright example of excellence in basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters. However, a new crop of athletes, young, vibrant, and eager to show their stuff, were on the rise, and just having the “natural ability” wasn’t going to cut it anymore. The discipline to train and to commit oneself to always be the best was becoming the norm. Wine, women, and song were slowly being replaced, but Ted Jr. wasn’t ready to see it that way. As noted historian Tim Black put it, “Ted believed he could do any damn thing.”7 He wasn’t from Missouri, but the inexorable evolution of professional sports was showing him that his days as an athlete were slowly coming to an end. The disappointing factor in the Ted Jr. saga was the fact that he had only known baseball and basketball. Professional sports could be good paying jobs for African Americans who were at Ted Jr.’s level. He probably relished the professional sports atmosphere, and with friends like Abe Saperstein, he figured he could depend on them to keep him afloat. As fate would attest, Ted Jr. still had a few good moments left.

The 1947–1948 basketball season for the Harlem Globetrotters opened in Chicago on Thursday, November 13, against the Carlisle Indians at Chicago Stadium. The following Thursday, November 20, the internationally known team took on the New York Celtics, the nationally known white professional basketball team. The Chicago Defender reported that the Globetrotters had signed Lorenzo “Piper” Davis, who had played baseball for the Birmingham Black Barons. This would be the seventh season that Davis had played with the Globetrotters. “Other veterans who will be back are Ermer Robinson, Marquis Haynes, Bernie Price, John Scott, Sam Wheeler, Ted Strong, and others.”8

Abe Saperstein saw the prospects of his team reclaiming the prestige of old since the World War had ended and prosperity abounded in the United States. It would only be a matter of time before one of Saperstein’s prime players, Reece “Goose” Tatum, would rejoin the team after his stint in the military. Saperstein began preparing for the game he felt basketball fans clamored to see and one that he felt would put the Harlem Globetrotters truly on top of the basketball world.

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