President ial library and museum hosted this event. First, i want to say good afternoon and thank some people. Of course tim for letting me come and speak to you today. And of course samantha, who handled a lot of the publicity for the event. She did just a wonderful job. There was also a local Radio Station who did a great interview and between newspaper and radio, im always appreciative of all the people who support your visit. I want to thank all of them before i get started. Im going to jump right into it and tell you why we are here. The kansas city monarchs were a Negro League Baseball team. Perhaps most of you have heard of them. Some of the great players maybe you heard of Jackie Robinson or Satchel Paige. Organized 1920, 1920 four and one the first world championship. That was 90 years ago. Way torying to figure a honor these brave men who purely play for the love of the game because they did not make great salaries back then. I decided i was going to visit 90 cities to commemorate the negrohs efforts as a League Baseball team. They played in more than 90 cities, so im going to 90 cities and that just scratches the surface of all the places the kansas city monarchs did. Ambassadors for the game. For me, my journey started a long time ago. As a child, i collected baseball cards and i went nuts with that. About baseball and cap collecting, collecting, collecting in the collection kept growing and growing. My knowledge grew, so not only did i know about baseball to to sticks, but the thing that captured me the most were baseball tories. Backs of to read the whatever stories they have and then i gravitated to books and kept growing. Finally, this brings me home to abilene. Here is what happened. Jobt my first fulltime working for an outdoor retail store. And they of college bounced me around to a few places in Colorado Springs at albuquerque for a little while. Then i ended up in topeka come in kansas. I always talk baseball, no matter where i go. Someone mentioned there was a negro league that played ball into the gun. It wasnow his name Carol Ray Moffatt and the that association, he later passed and i decided to do a tribute to him , so in doing this tribute, once you get to being the kind of person who loves to collect information, i challenge myself and say im going to do but im going to find every game the kansas city monarchs ever played will stop that was an aggressive deal back in 1980. There was no internet at the time, so if you want to know the name of a library, if you want to write the library, you have to go to the library and they had a big book with all the library addresses and i would go ad write letters, it was labor of love and a passion that kept growing. Needless to say, i was able to find games played in abilene because of that. As a tribute to the kansas city what, what im going im doing now is going to towns they played and the name of my program is the kansas city monarchs and our hometown. Let me give you an overview of the kansas city monarchs. They were organized in 1920. They were charter members of the Negro National leagues. They won their first championship in 1923, but at that time, they did not have a world series. In 1924, they played the Eastern Colored League and the kansas city monarchs one. They were out of derby in sylvania. In 1925, they returned to the world series will stop they returned back to the world series as the best team in the eastern color league and they want. The kansas city monarchs continued to play and by 1925 date one another championship under the leadership of a guy named wilber bullet rogan and we will learn more about him in just a moment. Along the way, the kansas city monarchs played exhibition games. I will explain how that happened. In the negro league, they had a regular schedule. Gains most of those games would be on the weekend when they could draw the largest audience. They would play friday, saturday, sunday and sometimes on monday. If you are coming from kansas city, going to st. Louis where there is a larger city in between we are talking about the golden age of town baseball. These are grown fellows playing menball and these are grown playing baseball. As you can see, the monarchs you can see920s, theyll lay lost three times in over 400 exhibition games. So they had good teams but the monarchs were hard to beat. During that time when they were barnstorming, the first time they came to abilene was 1923 and they were on the trains. Act925, there was a highway and they started building up the highways connecting all the major cities and some not so major together. The owner of the kansas city monarchs, being this Creative Genius that he was, he decided he would use a bus to transport his players and they could go places on a different scale than the railroad. They could go to cities who were not along the Railroad Lines will stop he became the first team to travel exclusively by bus. The other thing that is interesting is the kansas city monarchs in 1930, they popularized night a small. When you think of night baseball, you dont think of the monarchs. 1935, they remember talk about cincinnati lighting up the park. That is the day i learned as a child. This is when night baseball started in the major leagues. But in kansas city, it started in 1930 and wilkerson, being the innovative genius he was, he wanted to make night baseball popular. After what het had seen in carnivals and circuses. He created towers he could take on trucks from city to city and popularized night baseball. The major leagues were skeptical of night baseball. It has been reported that the president of the American League said it was a passing fad and would never last. He said lights would be to baseball what talkies are two movies will stop another interesting bit of history is the first allnight world series where all the games were played in the night was 1985, when the Kansas City Royals lay the st. Louis cardinals. It took that long. The first World Series Game at night was not until 1971. Monarchshe 1930s, the are popularizing that. Their pitcher, one of them pitched the first nohitter in 1930 under the lights. This is one of his greatest innovations and when he does not often get credit for. He should because it revolutionized a small everywhere. The monarchs spent a lot of time barnstorming. 1930, the depression had hit most major cities in the leagues. St. Louis, chicago, all of those cities were in depression. Wilkinson decided to pull his team out of the league and go 100 arent storming. What he was able to do to that was take the monarchs to places they could not go in between their schedule. Western come out to kansas, take a week and come back. League,got out of the they went as far as the pacific coast, portland, washington state, idaho, they went down to mexico, over the border into mexico, up to canada into sassa into saskatchewan. They went all over the place. Places, all of those you could see they rarely lost will stop this was an awfully good team. Barnstorming is the part most people had the opportunity to see the kansas city monarchs. This is the way most baseball fans had a chance to see them, especially outside the major city. Towns teams knew how great the monarchs were. Ballplayer can recognize another ballplayer, no doubt about it stop when they saw the kansas city monarchs, they recognize how good these players were. This picture right here was played in blue rapids, kansas. Shows how9 and that popular they were. Teams were willing to post with the kansas city monarchs, and this was a time when racial divides could be pretty tough. But the kansas city monarchs were welcome almost every place they went. Because of his great innovations, gl wilkinson who we have pictured here jl here,son who is pictured i might mention that when they organize the Negro National leagues, he was the only white manager or white owner in the league. 1911,at came about was in he organized a team called the all nations. The all nations had many nationalities on one team traveling together. Cuban, they had john donaldson, an africanamerican out of missouri , one of the greatest lefthanders that ever lived. And aad an italian guy couple of guys who played in the major leagues. They had whites, blacks, native american played with them and the first professional japanese player played on wilkinsons team. That team played up until world war i. They were decimated by the draft of world war i. When that opportunity becomes available, because of his food his and friendliness, and relationships with various races, he was picked to organize a team and that is how he became the only white owner in the Negro National league. The monarchs first manager had started with wilkinson years ago and was trying in cooperstown, new york. Along the way, they had other players that join them. The name ofan by andy cooper. He was a refugee born in waco, texas, but was raised in wichita , kansas but plays for the detroit stars. Wilkinson traded to players at the beginning and he comes to the monarchs and remains there until he died while he was the manager of the monarchs in 1940. He comes and because he was such an outstanding player, he is in the major League Baseball hall of fame in cooperstown, new york. Players,e greatest especially during the 1920s, there was none greater than wilber bullet rogan. And many people to this day have not heard his name. If i had the same group of people here in 1920 and i was to mention his name, they would know exactly who i was talking about. He was widely publicized. I personally think he was the greatest allaround baseball player that ever lived. Right before we started this whole new decade and new century, they did all of these polls of the greatest Baseball Players. Everybody picks babe ruth, but let me tell you what rogan was able to do. Like ruth, he was a pitcher and he invented a pitch called the palm ball which is a change of pace. So he was a great pitcher. He won over 400 games as a pitcher. He was also a great batter, and he hit full home run power and he was 57. 400 home runs as a batter. He was a consistent 300 hitter. He also played the outfield when he was not pitching and had a tremendous arm. He was a fast runner. He could run a 100 yards in 10 seconds. , he managed the monarchs and led them to the pennant in 1929. In 1934, they had a record of 134 wins and 14 losses. When he wasnt doing that, he drove the bus. There are lots of games i could talk about that i have twoyear in abilene. This is one of the things i do when i go to cities, talk about the game in that town. Theres a game in Junction City i would like to add, so we will get to that. The first time the monarchs came was 1923, august 17. Unique isthat was this didnt happen too often they came to abilene twice in the same year. Backs rare that we go twice, so that says something to abilene right there. To 1938, but there were other games along the way. Back in september 15th and got rained out again. 1939, sonother game in i cant give you much detail. Weve got some interesting games. Integration and blacks being on teams with lights in kansas was not new. People were prepared long before the kansas city monarchs came. In the 1880s, but feller, the first africanamerican to play minorleague a small played at topeka in 1886. There was another gentleman out jones andansas named he was from atchison. They played in the kansas date league, so kansas was one of the last leagues to include africanamerican players and a lot of people were not aware of this knowledge. First picture i found of an integrated team in the state of kansas. , there were scouts from other cities trying to figure out how they could beat the monarchs. Ins article here appeared the manhattan morning chronicle. I saw a reference from the manager coming over to manhattan. Be playingoing to them and they wanted to see how they could beat the monarchs, so he comes over and scouts monarchs because you would not think people were actually scouting teams at that time. The first time they came through, they handle the local team, beat them 10 to two. Mendes is in the game. He is probably one of the earliest hall of famers, and wilber bullet rogan is there and wilkinson was there as well. Sweet pearsonmed he was a local player and a heck of a good picture. Hes probably good enough to go to the big leagues. The big leagues did not always pay a large amount of money, and they could get work on teams like that. They came to abilene and beat abilene but would you believe abilene is proud of that . In that paper, they printed there was some mean satisfaction knowing the kansas city monarchs beat them 13 21. I thought that was interesting. That happens all the time. If you did not eat them, maybe you could look better than their surrounding towns. What was interesting is when the monarchs organized, the first League President was a gentleman i the name of andrew foster. He had been managing teams he had four teams he did the detroit stars and the chicago American Giants and he was booking those teams and getting five to 10 of the gate wherever they played. They needed foster to come into the league to be a part of it because he controlled four or five of the best teams. He gave up the booking money to join the new league. In order to satisfy him, they said we would give you a percent of every game. The new teams plus the team they used to book, they had an agreement with roster that they had to pay 10 to foster. He kept immaculate records will stop i was able to come across to record book and was able find out exactly how much they made in abilene. Abilene, according to the newspaper account, had 1000 people at the game. The monarchs share they charged 65 . Made 341 playing in abilene. The gate receipts from the other cities in Junction City, they made 406. Leroy, they could not get a crowd there all stop they made 75. That gives you a view of how important these games were. Abilene still had their great pitcher, so they invited the monarchs back twice in 1925. This is the lineup that appear here in 1925 when the monarchs came through. Names like wilber bullet rogan did not play that day. Foreman is actually buried in coffeyville, kansas. Clifford bell was a texan. This was the team they played. Was notbullet rogan pitching that day. Outfield 143 and wouldnt you believe it, he hit the only home run of the game. Again, how much money did they make . Ledgerack to fosters and there were 900 people in that first game. 260. Narchs made what is interesting is if you go down to the 20th, they were in birmingham, alabama and they made 160 playing on the first day they went to birmingham. They made more in abilene and see whyam stop you can these games are important and thats why the monarchs continued to barnstorm. The people of abilene were not satisfied because they had never seen bullet rogan pitch. So they had to invite them back. He comes to town and this is the final score 11 to four. Abilene scores four runs off of them, which is quite a feat. That day, the public got their moneys worth seeing that game. The monarchs hit for home runs. Bullet rogan added another home run to his dominant list of home when people talk about the home runs and if you look at some of the books, these are not the home runs there talking about. These are games people generally dont know about. This is the kind of research i specialize in. He went to a pittsburgh state college. We mention he was from the humboldt area and Wade Johnston steubenville, ohio. Baseball,etired from he ran a bait and tackle store and specialized in selling arms. Thats what he did after his living. To hitting a home run, rogan struck out 12 day. So abilene finally got a chance to see bullet rogan. But abilene did something that was a fee as well. The newspaper thought it was a great feat. So they wrote it up. To beaid it something proud of because hes considered one of the worlds best pitchers pitcherp not the best in kansas or missouri, the worlds best pitcher. They knew Something Back then about baseball. Once again, we go back to fosters ledger and this is what we find. The monarchs take that day crowd,much that are 420. Once again, you take a closer look and see the monarchs left here and this has to be a different secretary. That is definitely abilene. They dont play again until the eighth and they play against the st. Louis stars will stop abilene made more money than the keep stressing i that because people keep wondering why they play these exhibition games when they have elite. The reason why is income. One other game i like to talk about i like to talk about three or four games in every city. I try to pick some of the more interesting games to talk about. The other games i have in in 1939 theres one and im still trying to pull all the details to. They were as late as 1955. Usually when i go somewhere to speak, theres an old baseball player in the audience who says they were here in 1952 and we played against them. Because i go and start digging that information out and trying to see what happened in the game, so anyway, one of the next games i wanted to mention was 1938, and the monarchs came down and they were going to play in debt inJunction City. This is what the newspaper said about rogan. Undoubtedly the most famous in negro baseball of this or any other day besides being a fiendish hitter and playing the outfield when he is not pitching, he was second to none on the mound in his heyday. He had speed, his fadeaway was similar to that of masterson, and majorleague batters who batted against him said he was as good as any pitcher they had ever faced, and this is what rogan inwriting about his final season, going back to all these places that the monarchs played, and he is basically making that last round trip around the league. And that just kind of shows the popularity he had. When the monarchs showed up in Junction City, things had changed in baseball. E had. When the monarchs showed up in Junction City, things had changed in baseball. The golden era of town baseball had begun to die. At this particular point most teams had like College Players and young guys and they would have these band Johnson Leagues and be all over kansas, these band