They played the game of baseball in a time when it was arguably played in its purest form.

In the 1950s, they didn’t deal with player endorsements or worries about performance-enhancing drugs. No, the Orangeburg Black Sox didn’t play for the money or the glory. They simply played for the love of the game.

“Baseball was one of the biggest sports at that time,” Black Sox organizer Lucius Mack. “Football was (played) with the schools. Baseball was (played) with everybody that wanted to play or could play. Those were really the main sports at that time. We went to football games on the weekends to see high school football and State College, but that was on the weekends. We were connected with the baseball team almost everyday because we went to practice everyday.”

The Black Sox, a semi-professional baseball team, were just one of several teams around Orangeburg that played on a seemingly regular basis. Organized after the Orangeburg Tigers disbanded, the Black Sox put together a string of players that some say could have played professionally.

“Back then, we played baseball,” Black Sox center fielder Howard Williams said. “There wasn’t any playing around. We had good coaches and good players. I’m talkin’ about number-one players. If we wouldn’t have grown up so early, all of us would’ve been in the pros.”

But they weren’t just players. Williams and the Mack brothers were working men by day and baseball players by night. Even with an almost daily routine of work first, practice second, the time they spent doing so was never dull or tiresome.

“Since baseball is a summer game and it’s played when the days are long,” Lucius Mack said, “most of us got off from work around 4 or 5 in the evening. At 6 o’clock, you could still go to practice. We’d practice until it would get dark and we would stay out there and talk until it got darker because we had fun laughing and telling jokes. We had a good time.”

The Black Sox had the luxury of playing at a few different fields in Orangeburg, but they called Mirmow Field home. On the weekends they weren’t watching football or on the road playing against other teams, they would host games at Mirmow Field drawing a crowd and creating an unparalled buzz about the game and the local players.

“We had good crowds that came to support us,” Black Sox pitcher James Mack said. “They would even travel with us, but we had good crowds at Mirmow Field. At the time, we started getting a little bit of whites to come and watch us. Orangeburg didn’t go for that, but we finally started playing whites in Orangeburg.”

In the ‘50s, segregation still ran rampant through the Southeast and Orangeburg was no different. However, the Black Sox had very little trouble during their playing days.

“We had a team out of Augusta that had some soldiers on the team,” Lucius Mack recalled, “and the people in Augusta were just like the people all over South Carolina at the time. So, we had that team come in here to play with us one Saturday night and the police department found out about it and made them cancel the game.”

According to the Mack brothers, that was the only trouble that they had. Still, experiences like that along with the time each player spent with each other as teammates strengthened the bond that they currently hold.

“Right now, I try to keep in contact with most of them,” Williams said. “We’re getting to be the older guys.”

The Black Sox even held a reunion in April to bring members of the team and those who were acquainted with them to reminisce about their playing days. Their playing days may be behind them, but the Black Sox still keep up with the game today. Their love for baseball is as strong now as it was back when they suited up and took the field. However, there aren’t as many African-Americans that play baseball today as there were in the ‘50s and the Black Sox believe that other sports had a hand in getting them away from baseball.

“I think basketball took a lot of the kids out of it,” Lucius Mack said. “I had two grandsons and they wanted to play sports. I tried to get them to play baseball because you don’t have to be a big guy to play baseball. All you’ve got to do is have a little speed and play good defense and you could play, but they wouldn’t do it. They wanted to play basketball. That’s what they got into until they stopped playing sports altogether. Baseball is just not a popular sport now like it was in those days.”

T&D Sports Writer Emery Glover can be reached by e-mail at eglover@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5532. Check out his blog, Cover 2, at www.thetandd.com.

You must be logged in to comment.