PENDLETON — To a generation raised in an era of pampered athletes with multi-million dollar contracts, lavish lifestyles and extensive rap sheets, the world of professional baseball may seem more like a soap opera than an honorable profession.

todd wetherington | daily herald Negro Hall of Fame member Carl Long speaks to students at Willis Hare Elementary during the school’s annual Black History Month program on Friday. Advertisement

But for the group of young African American ballplayers who came of age in the era before integration, the national pastime provided a means of escape and a hard fought lesson in the art of perseverance.

Friday, students at Willis Hare Elementary got a chance to see a walking, talking embodiment of that era in the form of Carl Long, a member of the Negro League Hall of Fame. Long spoke to students about the struggles and triumphs of those years during the school’s annual Black History Month presentation.

Dressed in a grey pin-stripped Negro League Museum uniform, the 73-year-old Rock Hill, S.C., native spoke about his early days on the field and the struggles faced by him and other African American players as they traveled throughout the country.

 “I’ve had a hard life but God has looked out for me. I grew up picking cotton in the fields with my family. We didn’t have any baseballs where I lived, so we used to throw rocks. I’d be out in the morning and night throwing rocks at everything. At the age of 14 I had a dream. My daddy told me ‘I’m going to let you go off and play baseball but you’ve got to be back home on time to go back to school in September.’”

Long made his professional debut playing outfield for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1952. He stayed with Birmingham throughout the ‘53 season and in ‘54 was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates and sent to their minor league team, the St. Jean Canadians of the Provincial League.

 Long isn’t shy when it comes to discussing his accomplishments on the field during this time. “The Pirates paid me $45,000 to sign that contract. I could run a mile, I could throw, I had a real good arm. I could hit the ball a mile also,” he said with a satisfied smile, stating that he hit 20 home runs his first year with St. Johns. During these years he also played against some of baseball’s most legendary names: “Ever heard of Hank Aaron?” he asked with a grin. “Willie Mays and me played together. Jackie Robinson … talk about a good time.”

In 1955 Long moved on to play for the Billings Mustangs in the Pioneer League and also saw some action for Phoenix in the Arizona-Mexico League. On April 17, 1956, he was picked up by the Kinston Eagles of the Carolina League, becoming the team’s first African American ball player. During his first year in Kinston, he drove in 111 runs, a record that has been equaled but never surpassed.

Following his stint with Kinston, Long played for the Beaumont Pirates of the Big State League and finally for Mexico City where he batted .407 his first year before being sidelined with a shoulder injury.

Though Long has fond memories of his days on the field, he didn’t hesitate to detail the struggles faced by African American ball players in 1950’s era America. “Some places the sheriff told us we had to be out of there before the sun goes down. Some places they wouldn’t let us eat, so we stopped the bus and got bologna sandwiches, cinnamon buns, nabs, that’s how we lived. I’ve seen blacks hanging from the limb of a tree. I was scared to death. Some places we couldn’t take a shower after ballgames, we had to go jump in the creek. We loved baseball. We wanted to play and we were good at it. But that’s what it was during that time.”

After his baseball career was put on hold by the shoulder injury, Long moved to Kinston, where he continued to break down racial barriers off the field. He took a job with the Lenoir County Sheriff’s Department in 1968, becoming the county’s first black deputy sheriff, and eventually, detective.

After his stint in law enforcement, the ex-ball player took a job with a local bus company, becoming the first African American bus driver in the city’s history. Retiring from his driving job in 1989, he’s been traveling the country, speaking at schools and youth camps, sharing his stories and hammering home the importance of hard work and education.

“You gotta stay in school. Listen to your teachers,” he told the students. “ My father let me play ball, but he always made sure I was in school. You can be anything you want to be.” He also had a word for parents. “Parents gotta take charge. Take the kids to a ballgame. Show them what’s right and wrong.”

After signing baseball cards and hats for the students and posing for photos, Long took a moment to reflect on his career and the state of baseball today.

“People ask me what it was like back then, I can tell you but you can’t understand. You’d have to live through it, you’d have to have been black back in those days to understand.

“These guys today, they pay them too much, I don’t blame the ballplayers, but they’re overpaid. You don’t have the good ballplayers like we were. Those guys were great. It’s an altogether different game now.”

As he packed up the memorabilia from a brief but stellar career, Long recounted a memory that’s stayed with him throughout the years.

“When I was in the Carolina League, we were playing one day and this old white guy who was sitting behind home plate kept yelling stuff like “Hit that n***** on the head, hit that c***. He’d yell every time I got up to the plate. Well, I went 4 for 5 that day. I hit two homers, a double and a single and drove in 6 runs. So finally a little white lady comes up and tells him to keep his mouth shut. Well, next game he was there and he didn’t say a thing. I went 0 for 4. You see, things like that just motivated me, sure it did. All that stuff just made me what I am.”