Negro League collection is a passion for ex-coach

Michael Carter – a vice president at Sinclair Community College – has reproduction jerseys, memorabilia, and books from the Negro Leagues that he will display today as part of Black History Month at the school.

Jim Witmer/Staff Photo Michael Carter – a vice president at Sinclair Community College – has reproduction jerseys, memorabilia, and books from the Negro Leagues that he will display today as part of Black History Month at the school.

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By Tom Archdeacon Updated 7:11 AM Wednesday, February 22, 2012

It’s always a treat to discover an unknown side of someone, to find out about a hobby to which they are dedicated, a private passion they embrace.

I’ve known Michael Carter as a high school basketball coach — first as an assistant at Springfield South and then as the head coach at Trotwood-Madison for seven years in the 1990s. For the past two years, he’s been the senior vice president of student services and marketing at Sinclair Community College.

Today, though, as part of the celebration of Black History Month at Sinclair, he’ll have some of his collection of Negro League baseball memorabilia on display and give a presentation at noon in the Building 8 student activities area beneath the gymnasium.

Along with nearly two dozen replica jerseys and dugout jackets, he’ll have caps, books, photos and a film clip. He’ll talk about a few of his favorite teams including the Dayton Marcos, one of the original eight teams in the Negro National League when it was formed in 1920.

Actually the little-known local team was around for more than a decade before the Negro Leagues and barnstormed across the Midwest playing against each town’s best white players.

“One of the teams I love talking about because of their story is the House of David,” Carter said. “They were a white team that played with Negro League teams, mainly because they were a religious sect from Benton Harbor, Mich., and they were ostracized. The men didn’t cut their hair, they had long beards and were supposed to be celibate.

“They were one of America’s most popular barnstorming teams — they were real performers and they invented the game of pepper — and they helped break the color barrier. They’d show up in towns, bringing a Negro League team with them, and require the (host) team to play the Negro League team, too.

“Then after the game, when they went to eat at the local restaurant, they would bring the Negro League team along in with them.

“It’s quite a story.”

Carter said he first became interested in the Negro Leagues when he was growing up on Lexington Avenue in Springfield’s East End: “A man who lived two doors down — Mr. Ballard — had played in the Negro Leagues. He was a postman and the most pleasant man in the world. But he’d never watch a Major League Baseball game. He was bitter over all that. And he wouldn’t talk about it much. ... But my dad told me stories.”

The segregationist stance of big-league baseball spawned the Negro Leagues and while some of the players — guys like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige — went on to MLB fame when integration came, other stars, like the great Homestead Grays pitcher Ray Brown — who once threw a perfect game against the Chicago American Giants and no-hit the New York Yankees in Puerto Rico — faded into obscurity.

Brown was buried for more than four decades in an unmarked grave in Green Castle Cemetery on Nicholas Road in West Dayton. Finally in 2008, two years after he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he got a tombstone and some recognition thanks to a grass roots community effort here.

Carter’s interest in Negro League jerseys came as a spinoff from a summer job he had while he was attending Wittenberg University in Springfield.

“I worked at a vintage clothing store, Rick’s Fashion American — the name played off the cafe in Casablanca,” he said. “Ray Cantrell was the owner and his place became one of the largest vintage clothing distributors in the country.

“He outfitted movies like ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Casino,’ ‘Malcolm X’ and ‘Seabiscuit.’ He’d rent them the clothing, they’d keep it a few months and then send it back. In fact, I have the double-breasted coat Jeff Bridges wore in ‘Seabiscuit.’ Ray gave it to me before he died. Now his wife Debbie runs the store.”

Eventually Carter dovetailed the vintage clothes and Negro Leagues interests and got his first jersey — of the Pittsburgh Crawfords –— from the Ebbets Field Flannels company.

After that his older brother, Darnell, a Springfield attorney, began getting him a different Negro League jersey or jacket for his birthdays and each Christmas.

“I’d say that’s a pretty good big brother,” Carter grinned.

Along the way he’s added to the collection and some of that garb — jerseys from the Chattanooga Choo Choos, Indianapolis Clowns, Birmingham Black Barons, Bachrach Giants of Atlantic City and many more — was hanging in his office Tuesday.

As Sinclair tried to expand its Black History Month offerings this year, Carter’s administrative assistant, Tammy Cooper, convinced him to make his hobby part of the show.

The jerseys will be on display today in Building 8 and Thursday and Friday from noon to 5 p.m. in Building 10, Room 315. It’s free and open to the public.

Carter, who has four children of his own ages 21 to 18, believes many young people today have little knowledge of long-past ventures like the Negro Leagues and often, he said, “not a great interest to find out about them. ... It’s just the times we live in. All the technology is great, but it’s driven us to little sound bites rather than going into something in much depth.”

With a local interest story like the Marcos and a national curiosity like the House of David, he hopes to at least introduce people to a little bit of a fascinating past.

And there is one other plus to his exhibit.

“The rest of the year my collection, especially the jackets, are in our coat closet at home,” he said with a grin. “My wife always complains that they take up all the room and I ought to get them out of there.”

Now he has.

And we’re all the richer for it.

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