RiverDogs honor past on Saturday

The Post and Courier

Wilton R. Stewart, the executive director of the Cannon St. YMCA and Vermort A. Brown, a pitcher, first baseman and outfielder for the 1955 Cannon Street All Star team, watches historian Augustus Holt as he holds a replica of the baseball jersey team members wore. They spoke to sixth-graders at Lambs Elementary school in North Charleston in 2004. Holt is historian for the 1955 Cannon Street All Star team and president of Charleston American Little League Baseball.

Charleston will show its reverence for the history of America's national pastime Saturday with a lineup of special honors and events before the RiverDogs' game against the Hickory (N.C.) Crawdads. The game starts at 7:05 p.m.

South Carolina State University will present the team's fourth annual Negro League Baseball Night at The Joe. Former Negro League players Larry LeGrande and Clifford Layton will be there to meet baseball fans and sign autographs. Layton pitched for the New York Black Yankees. Former Indianapolis Clowns team member LeGrande served as catcher for famed pitcher Satchel Paige .

And as an added tip of the baseball cap, the RiverDogs will honor the late Hall of Famer Larry Doby, who played in the Negro Leagues, by giving away 1,000 Larry Doby Newark Eagles replica jerseys. Doby, a Camden native, was the first black player to enter the American League.

Both teams will don Negro League uniforms. The RiverDogs will represent the Newark Eagles and the Crawdads will wear uniforms from the Homestead (Pa.) Grays.

"We're bringing the story back to life through these players as a racial healing kind of thing," said RiverDogs sales director Harold Craw .

To top it all off, local baseball hero Augustus "Gus" Holt will be officially inducted into the Charleston Humanitarian Hall of Fame. Holt formerly served as the president of the Charleston American Little League and started a team on which his son Lawrence played.

Lawrence died in 1999, a few months after he graduated from high school, from a brain tumor. His family set up the Lawrence A. Holt scholarship for one high school senior each year.

"He was going into engineering, so that's the basis of the scholarship," Craw said. The money is usually awarded to a student who plans to study in the same field. There will be a small silent auction at the game, with all proceeds going toward the scholarship fund.

Holt is also known for his efforts to bring the story of the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars baseball team to light.

In 1955, the all-black team was denied its legitimate shot at a Little League World Series title. The preteen boys made it to the series partly because white teams in the state refused to play them.

The team traveled to Williamsport, Pa., only to be told that it was against the rules for them to play because they earned their spot in the series based on forfeited games.

"Locally, they got boycotted and then it got to the state level and then the regional level in Georgia," Craw said.

Since Holt's push for the team's recognition, a book has been written about them, plans for a movie titled "The Cannon Street Boys" are well under way. The team was invited back to Williamsport six years ago to accept a 1955 championship banner.

Craw said events like this one are important to the Charleston community because of the area's rich baseball history. He hopes black youngsters will come out to see some of the people who worked hard and made sacrifices so others would be able to play the game.

Reach Sophia Rodriguez at 937-5538 or srodriguez@postandcourier.com.