What Used to Be

What Used to Be

Every year around this time, White Sox Charities holds an All-Star Game of high school players as part of their inner city baseball outreach.  It’s named after Negro Leaguer Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, who earned his nickname when sportswriter Damon Runyan saw Radcliffe catch one game of a double header between the Pittsburgh Crawfords and New York Black Yankees in 1932, then start the second.  In his later years, Radcliffe could often be seen at Sox games.

The Double Duty Classic, though in truth just one game, makes for a perfect feel-good story on the nightly news.  The story I saw Thursday included film of a Negro League All-Star Game, which was held at Comiskey Park.  There were those unmistakable arches circling the field, just as they did when Joe Louis won his heavyweight crown; Larry Doby broke the color line; my father took me to my first game; the Beatles came to play; the South Side Hit Men put on a power display; and a later team found joy in winning ugly.  The memories stopped accumulating after 1990.

Ted Radcliffe lived to be 103.  He outlasted Comiskey Park by almost fifteen years.