Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

MAJOR TELEVISION PROJECT PROPOSED

"This can be enlightening, informative and inspiring. And if it's done right, it can bring (the Negro Leagues) legacy into proper perspective."

Bob Kendrick, Director of Marketing, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Kansas City Star.

kansascity.com

Posted on Thu, Jan. 20, 2005

Essay on Negro Leagues falls into the right hands

By HOWARD RICHMAN
The Kansas City Star

The impetus for a proposed television miniseries on the Negro Leagues comes from an unlikely place: Manhattan, Kan.

Kansas State University President Jon Wefald was so moved by a trip to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum when he visited it a handful of years ago in Kansas City, he wrote an essay about the league.

Wefald, a historian and sports aficionado, sent his words to friends he thought might be in interested in the topic. The work eventually made it into the hands of Warner Brothers' Dick Robertson.

Robertson, who is president of domestic television distribution at Warner Bros., said that his company was determined to honor the Negro Leagues with a television miniseries based on Wefald's idea.

"Without Dr. Wefald, none of this would have happened," Robertson said.

Buck O'Neil, the resident ambassador of the museum, couldn't be happier.

"This will really let the people know what the Negro Leagues were all about," he said. "And I want them to know the real story."

The Negro Leagues were founded in 1920 in a meeting at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City. The Leagues maintained a high level of professional skill and became centerpieces for economic development in many black communities.

In 1945, the Brooklyn Dodgers recruited Jackie Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs to become the first African-American in the modern era to play on a Major League Baseball team. While the event was a key moment in baseball and civil rights history, it led to the decline of the Negro Leagues, which folded in the early 1960s.

Robertson said Warner Bros. is pitching the project to the major TV networks. His hope is that the movie possibly would be broadcast as a two-part miniseries. The goal is to have it ready by November 2006.

The cast has not yet been determined, but Robertson does have Suzanne de Passe on board. She was executive producer of the award-winning miniseries Lonesome Dove, and was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing the screenplay to Lady Sings the Blues.

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum plans on playing a part in the production.

"We will be directly involved," museum spokesman Bobby Kendrick said. "We are going to be there with folks to make sure it is as accurate as can be. This catapults the museum into a national and international spotlight. It's huge."

Wefald, who has written essays on topics ranging from Genghis Khan (published in December 1996 by National Geographic) to the Roman Empire, can still recall the trip to the museum that got this rolling.

"I was totally moved," he said. "I thought, 'Wow, I've got to read more about this.' I read 10 or 12 books before I decided to write something because I thought it would be interesting.

"I concentrated on the Kansas City Monarchs. I sent it to mainly friends who I thought might be fascinated."

Wefald tried to market the idea to movie companies, but nothing materialized until a Kansas connection linked Wefald to his big break.

Wichita businessman Tom Devlin, who also has a home in California, forwarded his copy of the essay to a California neighbor: Robertson.

Robertson met with Wefald and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum executive director Don Motley in October 2003 to discuss the possibilities.

Ken Burns' Emmy Award-winning 1994 documentary Baseball helped shed some light on the Negro Leagues, but Motley said there has not been anything like it to capture life in the Negro Leagues.

Kendrick feels this will be the project.

"It will shed the real light on the Negro Leagues," he said. "Buck always said you don't have to fictionalize it to make it interesting. People sometimes cling to stereotypes, so this gives us an opportunity to shed the real light."

"This can be enlightening, informative and inspiring. And if it's done right, it can bring (the Negro Leagues) legacy into proper perspective."

O'Neil agreed.

"We had some great baseball teams, some great players," he said. "It wasn't a bunch of clowns."

"The way they do this, I know they're going to do it up right. That's the only way it should be done."

Kendrick said three notable movies have been made about the Negro Leagues: The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, a 1976 film featuring Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor and James Earl Jones; Don't Look Back: The Story of Leroy 'Satchel' Paige, a TV movie made in 1981 starring Louis Gossett Jr.; and Soul of the Game, a 1996 movie that Motley said O'Neil panned.

"Buck and I were walking out (after viewing it)," Motley said. "And Buck says, 'I hope I live long enough where they do a real movie on the Negro Leagues.' In the movie, Jackie Robinson and Josh Gibson (two legendary black baseball players) were best buddies. That made Buck uptight because Josh's son told us his dad really didn't know Jackie Robinson."

Wefald says he doesn't intend to be paid for his part. Robertson, though, plans to make K-State a beneficiary if the project succeeds.

"Dick wants to award a scholarship for an African-American baseball player who comes to Kansas State," Wefald said. "That would be nice for the university. All I want out of it is to put the Negro Leagues on the map. It's a great story. It's a story of hope, and that things can change."

To reach Howard Richman, send e-mail to hrichman@kcstar.com.

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