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Baseball historian, author brings message in Buckeye Local visit

BUCKEYE LOCAL SPEAKER — Phil S. Dixon became interested in baseball in general and later Negro League Baseball when he began collecting baseball cards in his youth. He memorized statistics on the backs of the cards and by age 19, the avid collector had approximately 50,000 cards. “There is loads of history on the back of those cards,” he told youngsters at Buckeye Local High School during an assembly on Thursday. - Esther McCoy

CONNERSVILLE — “Do you know about Wade Johnston?” was one of the first questions asked by Phil S. Dixon, African-American baseball historian and author.

Dixon spoke Thursday to teens at Buckeye Local High School.

Through his expertise on baseball history and writing numerous books on baseball, he won the Casey Award for the Best Baseball Book of 1992 and received a Society of American Baseball Researchers MacMillan Award for his excellence as a researcher. And one of his biggest interests is the Negro League Baseball Museum, where he is a co-founder and current board member in Kansas City, Mo.

Johnston was born in Steubenville and buried in Steubenville but during his life he played baseball with the Kansas Monarchs in the Negro League. He later came back to Steubenville and operated a bait shop, according to Dixon, who is regarded as a walking encyclopedia of baseball history and African-Americans in baseball.

Dixon, has been touring the country since 2014 in his bid to spread goodwill and heal racial relationships through baseball history in the places where it actually occurred. Between 2014-15, he logged more than 35,000 miles by car, visiting 98 cities. He has visited 133 cities during the tour, that benefits the historical black colleges.

He told of Leroy “Satchel” Paige, a pitcher in the American Negro League, who pitched for the Cleveland Indians in 1948. His career spanned five decades in baseball and he was very good with witty sayings as well.

Dixon discussed a statue of Paige that stands in Kansas City, and recalled his opportunity to write on a stone tablet on the back. “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” That is one is one of the Satchel-isms that Dixon put on the back.

Babe Ruth of the Yankees actually played against a Negro League team once and had three hits but the game was still lost, the author said. He asked the audience of young people, and teachers who were more knowledgeable, if they knew who “The Babe” played for and someone knew it was the “Yankees” and he had hit 714 home runs.

John Gibson of the Homestead Grays of the American Negro League had hit more in his career, it was noted.

“Young people get turned off by baseball,” Dixon said, noting that less than one-fourth held up their hands in appreciating baseball. “You have to speak the baseball language to understand it,” he said.

He asked Lexie Swiger to stand and asked a baseball question which she correctly answered. Sean Millard was invited to come up and wasn’t sure what 6 to 4 to 3 meant–hearing it meant going to the shortstop, to second base and to first.

“You need to know the language of baseball to understand it,” Dixon explained.

“Jackie Robinson was brought up to the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey and was not treated with the same respect as the white players. Robinson took much abuse but he changed baseball. He had a forerunner of 50 years in breaking through to the majors though,” he explained.

“Moses Fleetwood Walker was born in Mount Pleasant and was taken in by the American Association in 1884 but he played against all sorts of opposition and in 1889 was out baseball. With his college education at Oberlin College, he was able to go on to other endeavors,” Dixon said.

Walker is buried in Steubenville’s Union Cemetery.

“I’m asking you to do what you love–and do it with a passion as these players did. I have visited over 130 cities, some small and some large and the racial relations are not in a good place but I have never had a situation,” he said in closing.

(McCoy can be contacted at emccoy@heraldstaronline.com.)

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