How one teenager unearthed baseball's untold history - Cam Perron

I've always collected baseball cards.

I first started playing baseball when I was eight years old,

and when my hometown, Red Sox won the World Series in 2004,

I began meeting many of the players

at autograph signings and events around Boston.

But I noticed a few things in common.

These players weren't very friendly, they were all quite overpaid

and they acted more like celebrities.

In middle school, a friend introduced me to a new way to collect autographs:

writing the players through the mail.

In doing so, I would write a letter, send a self-addressed stamped envelope,

and send a few baseball cards.

Within a few weeks, I'd often get a response.

But it was never the modern players that would send back.

It was always the players from the 50s and 60s,

who were much friendlier,

and much less recognized during their career.

So, I continued to write letters to these retired ball players,

and in 2007, Topps Baseball Cards came out with a set

where they included a few Negro league baseball player cards.

Negro league was a period from 1920 to the 1960s

where blacks who were segregated from playing in the Major Leagues

played in their own baseball league,

often busing around the country, playing two to three games a day,

under much less glamorous conditions.

But over time,

due to the lack of glamorization and public interest,

everything just kind of faded away,

leaving the history of the Negro leagues behind.

So, I ended up writing to these players in this set

and within a few weeks, they signed my cards.

From here, I began writing to Negro leaguers

who didn't have baseball cards.

Guys that were, you know, even less recognized.

And in my letters, I'd often include my phone number,

and a few of them began reaching out to me.

When I started speaking with them,

I noticed they all had a few things in common.

None of them had baseball cards, none of them had any documentation,

no newspaper articles, no sorts of photos from their career,

just nothing tying them to the game.

And lastly, they had just left all their teammates behind.

They hadn't stayed in touch with any of their teammates.

So, I tried to change this,

and I started off by making baseball cards on my home computer.

Printing them out, designing them and sending them to ball players.

And what I also did is I began signing up for newspaper archive websites

where I'd find old newspaper articles

that would give these guys the recognition that, you know, tied them to the game.

And lastly, I began becoming kind of like a private investigator,

tracking down their former teammates

and trying to get these guys back in touch.

From here, I went on and I just spoke to these players.

It got to the point where I actually had players calling me up,

asking me for information.

And by the time I was a freshman in high school,

it was no longer a hobby at all.

I had gone from an autograph collector to this Negro league research obsession.

I even asked for Negro league autographs and stamps for Christmas.

So, going on through high school,

I began to take this work in the Negro league much more seriously.

I started working with adult Negro league researchers

where I began working on a few different programs.

The first being the Negro League Annual Reunion

in Birmingham, Alabama.

At the reunion, we'd have about 50 to 60 Negro league ball players

from around the country,

and they'd all come together,

and these players would just, you know, sit in the hotel lobby for me

from 8am until the late hours of the night

just catching up, telling stories,

and here we just had a week of events

and these guys got some of this recognition and honor

that they never really had before.

The second program that I began working on was the Negro League Pension Program.

And the Pension Program was a program that was offered by Major League Baseball,

and if you played four years in the Negro league,

and you can document it,

these players would be entitled to 10,000 dollars a year.

This meant a lot for these players.

Many of these guys never really did much after baseball,

they didn't make much money.

So, when I was able to get these players pensions,

it really made a difference.

When I started doing this, I encountered a lot of difficulty.

I had to go through hundreds and hundreds of newspaper articles

trying to find this documentation to prove they played,

and in many cases I did.

Also I want to mention,

when I was speaking with these players on the phone,

tracking them down, it wasn't easy either.

I would go through hundreds of articles

trying to look for names, find information,

and I encountered quite a lot of failure.

I would call people up, it would be the wrong person.

It would be really awkward.

I'd also have a lot of times where I'd call players up,

and they didn't want to speak at all to me.

They would hang up.

When I said the word baseball, they would just refuse to talk altogether.

This was because they faced a lot of segregation during their careers.

Along with the lack of glamorization that they faced,

they also dealt with a lot of racism on and off the baseball field,

which just lasted with them throughout their whole lives.

These guys, you know,

it was very emotional for them to talk about baseball,

and it was really hard to kind of get these guys back, you know,

talking about this game that they had kind of left behind.

Lastly though, I encountered, you know, quite a lot of success as well.

Some of these guys I'd call up, I'd talk to them for two to three hours,

and these guys would just go on and on about their stories,

telling me, like, exact baseball games and memories that they had.

Nowadays, I've attended four Negro League Reunions,

three of which I've actually roomed with former Negro league ball player

Russell "Crazy Legs" Patterson of the Indianapolis Clowns.

He actually snores at night, in case you all were wondering.

I've worked on about a dozen pensions

and I've tracked down over a hundred Negro league ball players,

constantly finding new ball players,

getting them in touch with their former teammates,

bringing baseball back into these players' lives

and bringing these guys back into the game.

(Music)

Thank you!

(Applause)