(upbeat music) - We're honored to once again be joined by our good friend Bob Kendrick, who is president of the Negro League Baseball Museum.

Their website's up check it out.

Bob, good to see you again.

- Man, it's great to see you as well.

And again, thanks for having me on the show.

And by the way, check out the interview we did with Bob on the great Elston Howard as part of our series Remember Them.

Jacqui Tricarico and I, who co-anchors She co-anchors the show as our executive producer.

Jacqui was like, "We need to do something on Eltson Howard", a great Yankee, more to that story.

Here we go.

Bob, we were having a conversation after that in which we were talking about integration from the Negro leagues into the major leagues.

I want you to share, not just with me, In a private conversation.

So the Yankees, who were one of the last teams to integrate.

- Yeah.

- With Elston Howard, the first African American baseball player with the Yankees, who should have been by all rights, he knew baseball better than any manager of the Yankees.

- Yes, sir.

- Never gonna happen, even though he was a coach, not gonna happen.

Tell everyone about the letter that is on display at the museum, your museum, from, is it Lee MacPhail's father?

- I believe so, Larry MacPhail.

- Larry MacPhail.

- Who was, was he- - Who was then- - Was he an owner or a- - He was the managing partner for the Yankees.

- What the heck, so 1945.

(Bob laughing) - 1945.

- What the heck is in the letter that's in the museum that puts integration of baseball and a lot of other issues, including race relations, in context?

Go ahead.

- Well, one of the treasured items that we have in our archives is called the MacPhail Memorandum, and it was written by New York Yankees managing partner Larry MacPhail in late 1945.

Well, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had put together a commission to explore the integration of Major League Baseball.

There was a lot of pressure being put on Major League Baseball to open its doors to those Black and brown players from the Negro Leagues.

And the mayor was one of those pushing that agenda.

Well, MacPhail was part of this commission.

He pens the infamous MacPhail Memorandum that we have here on display at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

But the interesting thing about the letter that he wrote, there were some points of validity included in the body of the letter.

For instance, he would say, "If we sign players from the Negro Leagues, we will put the Negro Leagues out of business."

That was going to be a natural byproduct of what was going to occur with integration.

- 'Cause you take the best players?

- You take the best players and it was just ultimately going to hurt he league.

So he's right there.

He would also say that, "We can't just go take these players from their teams because they are legally bound by contract."

And again, theoretically, he is right once again.

Now, Branch Rickey didn't necessarily think this.

- With the Brooklyn Dodgers?

- Exactly.

Because contrary to popular belief, he did not sign Jackie Robinson away from the Kansas City Monarchs, Steve.

He took Jackie Robinson away from the Kansas City Monarchs.

The Monarchs' owner, J.L.

Wilkinson, as my late mother would say, never got one red cent for a ball player who was under contract, uh huh.

But that's a whole 'nother story.

But again, theoretically, MacPhail is right.

But then he would go on to say something completely asinine.

He would say, "You know they lack the faculties to play in our league."

Now, I don't- - They, they.

- Yeah, they, those players from the Negro Leagues, exactly.

And I don't know where you had to be a Rhodes Scholar to play baseball, but that was this underlying belief that those Black players weren't smart enough to play in the Major Leagues.

But here's the thing.

Over 40% of the athletes who called the Negro Leagues home had some level of college education.

Less than 5% of those who played in the Major Leagues at the same time had any college education for the simple reason that the Major Leagues then didn't want you to go college.

They got you right out of high school.

- From high school right in?

- Exactly, and then you work your way to the big league.

Well, the Negro Leagues didn't have that kinda sophisticated training regimen.

What they did was, they would spring train on the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities.

They would play the Black college baseball team, recruit a great deal (Steve laughing) of their workforce from those HBCUs, and as a result, had a disproportionate number of college-educated athletes in comparison to the Major Leagues.

So that had no validity whatsoever.

But then he finally gets to the crux of the matter.

- Go ahead.

- By the time that letter was written, near the end of 1945, the New York Yankees had made nearly $100,000 off the Negro Leagues.

They were renting Yankee Stadium.

They were renting Ruppert Stadium across the river in Newark and Blues Stadium here in Kansas City to those Negro League teams.

They did not want to lose that source of revenue.

And as I always tell my guests, anytime they say it ain't about the money, - It's about the money.

- It's always about the money.

(Bob laughing) By the way, plug your guests.

Talk about, plug your podcast, Bob.

- Yes, the podcast is called "Black Diamonds."

We've completed five seasons, over 100 episodes.

"Black Diamonds: Untold Stories of the Negro Leagues."

I had my dear friend, the great Curtis Granderson, voice the MacPhail Memorandum in one of those episodes.

And Steve, as you can well imagine, as he was reading that initially, he was blown away by its context and just trying to understand the complexities of what again a segregated society was and how these Black players were viewed.

- So first of all, I wanna thank Bob and the great team at the Negro League Baseball Museum.

Those of us who love baseball, who grew up loving baseball, for me, loving the Yankees, and we did a whole Yankee week with my colleague and friend Neal Shapiro, the president of WNET, and we included Elston Howard and some other great Black baseball players with the Yankees, it's a beautiful game, but if we do not acknowledge, recognize, and talk candidly, openly about the abject racism and, I mean, it's dead wrong.

And to read that MacPhail letter (Bob laughing) the way you did, the excerpts from it, puts things in context.

Even if you wanna be Yankee fans, you can't deny the history.

You can't deny that the Yankees were one of the last teams to integrate and take in Ellie Howard.

And we have- - They got one, but they went out and got a good one.

(laughing) - They got a great one.

And I wanna thank Bob for putting that in perspective.

Bob, you have an open invitation to help share historically relevant, significant facts, not just about baseball, but about society and America and the Negro Leagues and why they're so important.

Thank you, Bob, we appreciate it.

- Oh, my absolute pleasure, thank you all.

- Same here.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Hackensack Meridian Health.

The Adubado Center for Media Leadership.

The Center for Autism New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Fund for New Jersey.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

And by NJ Transit.

Promotional support provided by The Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey.

And by BestofNJ.com.

- Hi, Mary.

So sorry you’re not feeling well today.

Let’s see what we can do.