If it feels as if baseball has undergone a bit of a revitalization in 2023, you’re not mistaken. The on-field product from Major League Baseball has been rejuvenated by rule changes and a youth movement from coast to coast. College baseball has set new records for viewership as interest in the NCAA game has grown year after year. Even an independent team like the Savannah Bananas found its moment in the sun with its entertainment-driven game and talents. Yet baseball looks at its past to talk about its present more than any other sport, and this year has given us new examinations of those who came before us.
In theaters around the country comes “The League,” a new documentary on the Negro Leagues directed by Sam Pollard (with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson from The Roots as an executive producer). Pollard deftly weaves together archival footage of game film, interviews, and newspaper articles with modern-day reenactments that bring iconic names such as Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige to life.
The brainchild of this featured film is music journalist Byron Motley, whose father, Bob, was an umpire in the famed circuit starting in 1948. Bob wrote several books about his baseball life, including one with his son, and was the last living umpire in the Negro Leagues until his passing in 2017 at the age of 94.
A producer for “The League,” Byron Motley spoke to Awful Announcing about growing up with stories on the Negro Leagues – including one involving baseball’s greatest ambassador – relatively overlooked figures of the era, and how the film became a love letter to his late father.
Awful Announcing: So what the inspiration behind this film?
Motley: Growing up and hearing those stories, and then when I saw Ken Burns’ documentary he did on baseball, he devoted one hour to the Negro Leagues. And as I was watching that, I thought “This is really good but these are not the stories I heard as a kid growing up. And there’s a lot more to the story.” And this was like 20, almost 30 years ago.
And so I was having dinner with a friend of mine in New York, who’s a filmmaker, and we were chatting. And I just started talking about the Burns piece. Then I started telling him my father’s stories, and he was laughing, and really understood and got it. I was basically pitching him to do a documentary in the Negro Leagues. And I got to the end of what I had to tell him, he says, “well, you know, I’m not the person to do this. You are.” And I laughed so loud, I was on the floor, I was laughing so hard because I thought that man is nuts. So anyway, he would call me from New York, and I was living in L.A. He would call me like, once a week. And first thing he was saying is, “How’s that project coming along?” I said, “I’m not doing that!” So fast forward two years later, I finally got the light in my mind’s like, “Oh, I can do this”, and started working on the process of doing the documentary. So I kind of have to thank Ken Burns inspiring me to do what I did.
AA: When you grew up as a kid and your friends are talking about the best players, maybe trading cards with one another, what was that like for you, knowing that you were hearing stories from your father about these legends that your peers never saw play? Your friends came of age when the “white” major leagues were the only show in town at this point.
Motley: Yeah, you know, I kind of took it for granted like all folks growing up because he would tell stories, then I would come look at my mother and my sister, and we were gonna roll our eyes like “Oh, God, he’s talking about those guys, again!” But at the same time, I knew that they were great, great players.
I’ve been into baseball since I was a kid, we would go to every Royals home game, before that the Kansas City A’s. I was at Satchel Paige’s game when he came back at the age of 59 and pitched three shutout innings to get his Major League pension. I remember seeing that man, the old man on the mound pitching. And then at other games, he would be sitting in the rocking chair at home plate, you know, you know, this is back in the in the early 50s or early 60s. Yeah, I remember that distinctly. So I grew up watching that history, watching some of those players.
As a kid, you see that, you hear about that but you don’t really appreciate it. I’m glad that over time as I heard those stories, and my father kept talking about the stories that I finally got, I got it. This was incredible history. Men who really play for the love of the game not to make a lot of money. No players were making a lot of money back then. But they were playing the game they love and so I honored them for that.
AA: Because you were so close to the subject, to the history, was it easier or was it actually more challenging to put the research together in order to tell the story you wanted?
Motley: No, it’s easier because I learned a lot. I learned stories that my father had not told me. The other players who I interviewed and the study that I did, books that I started reading, and seeing different films or documentaries about the Negro Leagues that were around at the time… I started to learn more about who they were, and what they did, and what they accomplished. So it really inspired me to want to tell even more, and to do it the right way, what I felt was the right way.
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AA: There are certain figures of the Negro Leagues that have become well-known long after they’ve left us, whether we’re talking about the great players such as Paige and Josh Gibson as well as the owners like Cumberland Posey and Effa Manley. Are there some that you think more people should know about, even if they were featured in this documentary?
Motley: Yeah, all of them. (Laughs) They know about all of them. Every single one of them deserves to be known and recognized.
I mean, the three women that played in the leagues – Toni Stone, Connie Morgan, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson. They weren’t really discussed in this doc but that is extraordinary – women playing alongside men. In the same ball field? That would have never happened in the majors back then. So yeah, stories like that, that are a lot more people involved in the leagues that deserve more attention. It’s hard to pick out because all of them have great stories to tell.
AA: This is also a love letter to your dad in some ways, right?
Motley: Absolutely, absolutely, could have been even more. There are more stories that could have been interwoven in this that he knew and told from the book that we did. So yeah, this is definitely a love letter to him.
And the fact that he was an umpire, you know, people don’t think about the umpires, umpires get no credit. It’s all about the players. But what people always forget is that the umpire controls the game. And so my father was always like, “I don’t care if they don’t like the umpires or not. I’m in control of the game. Period.” So, you know, if the player went act a fool, and, you know, take dirt and throw it on my father, whatever, you’re out of the game.
AA: There wasn’t an official narrator to “The League,” but is that why you sort of made him the voice of the film?
Motley: Yeah, I think so. It had to be his voice because it was different than the other ones. So the perspective of an umpire was different than what it would had been if a player telling the story. The umpire has a different aspect of knowing the game and seeing how it’s going. And like I said, he’s really in control.
The only time that Buck O’Neil, who you saw on the film in his 70 years in baseball swing was only thrown out of one baseball game, and my father was the one who threw him out. And that’s not mentioned in the doc, but it’s hilarious. And yet, they had to sleep in the same bed together. That night, my father didn’t have a room to stay in. He got to the hotel, and my father said “Oh s***, I don’t have room! What am I going to do?” Buck said, “stay in my room, here’s my key to the room.” So they have to sleep in the same bed together after my father threw him out of the game. But it’s stories like that are just, they’re legendary. And that to me is that is my favorite story.
AA: If the ability was there, what were the stories left on the cutting room floor that you would have loved to include in the film?
Motley: How the musicians were more involved in the leagues and people realize.
The Mills Brothers, from the 30s and 40s, very popular group at the time, and they would travel on the bus to go to do their shows with different Negro League teams to save money, so and they were chummy and friendly with these players. And I was going to interview one of the last living Mills Brothers down in Palm Springs 20-plus years ago, and he passed away the night before the interview. I just gotten started on doing this and I thought “My God, that’s just the sign, get these interviews while you can. Because there’s no guarantee they’re all going to be around the next day.” And that would have been a fantastic interview and hearing him talk about traveling on the bus with these players.
There are so many so many other stories. But this documentary gives you a good feel of who these people were. But I always tell people that if you want to know more go out and read some books and learn it on your own.
“The League, produced by Magnolia Pictures, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. The 90-minute documentary is now playing in select theaters nationwide, and is available to rent or buy on all major digital platforms.”
