If you walked past Cleophus Brown at the Birmingham Main Post Office without saying more than a brief hello, you might guess that in his not-so-faraway younger days, he had been an athlete. Although 76, Brown’s strong, lean appearance, easy gait, and erect posture defy his years, what really gives him away are his eyes: alert, intense, ageless. He has a competitor’s gaze.
What you wouldn’t know is that he has been to dinner at the White House, that he has been given the keys to the city of Birmingham, that people collect and trade his picture, and that he has played an important role in changing history when all he ever really wanted to do was play baseball.
For the past 30 years, Cleophus Brown has been an MVS driver for the United States Postal Service, but his USPS hat is just one of many that he has chosen to wear during his working years.
In 2004, Brown was inducted into the Negro League Legend Hall of Fame, finally receiving some much-deserved respect and recognition for achievements that occurred a lifetime ago. And with the Negro League Stamps release, there’s certainly more to come.
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He was born in Pinson, Alabama in 1933 to Thomas and Alberta, parents with the foresight to give him a name that means “vision of glory.” His father was a coal miner, while his mother remained at home to care for the children. They lived in a poor, ural area, and Cleophus attended a one-room schoolhouse.
Early on, his love of baseball was apparent, as was his skill at the game. Starting at the playground, he quickly advanced as a teen-ager to playing in what was then called the Industrial League. “Mom always stuck by me,” said Cleophus. “She went to almost every game.”
In Alabama during that time, Industrial League baseball was not your average city or amateur league:
it was the only available option for African-American athletes who wanted to develop their skills, enjoy the attentions of a large fan base, and earn a living. A form of semi-professional baseball that thrived in Alabama during the early and middle 20th century, factories, coal mines, and steel mill teams acquired the best players for their teams by providing them with jobs.
Young athletes were often recruited from street teams and sand lots and were then hired by companies to work in the factories during the week and to play baseball on the week-ends. Teenagers got the chance to play with and against experienced grown men on good teams, which enhanced the development of young talent.
The strongest industrial league in Alabama was in Birmingham, made up mostly of iron and steel industry company teams. At age 16, Cleophus was already on the road, traveling with one such team, but although his mother always supported his baseball ambitions, she insisted that he return home.
“At 16, Kentucky had sent for me. Mom said,‘Come on back and go to school,’” he remembers.Cleophus joined the Army in 1950; during his three years of service, he was stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana and Munich, Germany. One might expect that he would be angry about this interruption to his dream of playing professional baseball, but when asked about his 18 months and 18 days spent with a tank battalion in Germany, Cleophus said, “I enjoyed the beautiful countryside.”
While in the military, he tried out for a military post baseball team and began playing first base. Soon after, he was also pitching for the team and as a southpaw became infamous for his fastball. He didn't allow service to his country to interfere with his development as an athlete but instead looked at this time as an opportunity for growth and improvement.
He had no way of knowing about how times were changing back home or about the decisions that he would be forced to make upon his return to civilian life three years later.
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Jackie Robinson entered the Major Leagues in 1947. The world of professional baseball was now open to African Americans, but was this really true? Most teams resisted integration; the Boston Red Sox didn't draft an African-American player until 1959. The reality was that from 1947 until 1960, black athletes actually had fewer opportunities to compete.
The Negro League was no longer the ultimate goal for star athletes and began to fall apart, crumbling altogether in 1960. The Industrial League was also changing because good players now had other options, along with the fact that the industries that supported the league were dying off as well.
Once back in Alabama, Cleophus was approached by the New York Yankees. At this point, he had to decide what was best for him: should he go to New York, where his hunch was that he would never really be given a chance to play, or should he go with the Negro League with which he was familiar and where he saw a chance for himself to shine? “When I came out of the service, the Yankees came for me. I didn’t go with them because blacks weren’t moving up too fast,” said Cleophus. In 1953, he signed with a Negro League team, the Louisville Clippers.
As a professional player in the Negro League, Cleophus made only about $500 per month. “We were paid on the first and fifteenth of the month,” Cleophus said. The team traveled from city to city on an old bus. In fact, while Cleophus was on the team, the Clipper's old bus broke down, so they traded one of their players, future country music star Charley Pride, to another team for a working bus.
"We rode on the bus to Kansas City, Memphis, Atlanta. We went state to state, playing one team after another,” Cleophus said. Some of the players would sleep on the bus, too, rather than spend their own money for lodging. “And some spent their money to buy beer,” Cleophus said, smiling as he remembered. “Those were good times.”But sometimes, they all had to sleep on the bus. They were black men traveling in the American South, and many hotels, restaurants, and other public facilities were not open to them. This was before Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, and even after that, things didn’t change for a long time. “We stayed where we could. Some hotels, we couldn’t get in. In the little towns, people put us up,” recalls Cleophus.
We had to get our food at the back door because we couldn’t get into most restaurants, either,” said Cleophus. “Sometimes, one guy on the team who was light-colored would go in and get our food.”
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Cleophus played in the Negro League for both the Louisville Clippers and the Birmingham Black Barons until 1955, when persistent arm trouble placed him on the permanent professional sidelines. The Negro League itself folded in 1960.
He then worked for Woodward Iron for 18 years, an appropriate fit. Woodward Iron donated the historic
Rickwood Field, which was where the Birmingham Black Barons had played their games, to the City of Birmingham; it is the oldest ballpark in America that has been in continuous use. After Woodward Iron closed its doors in 1973, Cleophus did a brief stint with Acid Chemical before launching his career with the US Postal Service.
During this time, he married, raised five children, and continued to playing industrial league baseball, which by now had transformed itself into more of a competitive city league rather than minor league outlet for ballplayers. He played recreational baseball for another 40 years, finally hanging up his glove in 1996 at the age of 62.
One would think that with all of this newfound attention, the relatively few Negro League players who still happen to be alive would benefit financially, but that has not been the case. Major League Baseball reached a million-dollar settlement with some of the former Negro League players, but in order to receive any money or benefits, former players had to have started playing prior to 1947 (because MLB contends that this is the year that baseball was integrated, although it wasn’t fully integrated until 1959) AND have played for four years. Like most of the other living former players, Cleophus is excluded from the settlement: he didn’t begin his baseball career until 1953, and he only played for three years. Lawyers are still working on revising terms of the agreement.
