the 1952 World Series. He virtually carried the Dodgers on his back that series, starting the first, fourth and seventh games, although he had entered the series as a relief pitcher who sometimes 1952 World Series program.
know he could pitch that well…. That man can play anywhere,’ “ Irvin says. “He had a high, hard fastball. I knew he was going to make it. I had no doubts at all about him, and he was confident in himself. “…Great athlete, fine person,” Irvin says. “I thought he ate too much,” he adds with a laugh. “We called him Digits, because he had big fingers. He was smart, excellent student…helpful. We both did pretty well academically. After we left school, I used to call him. I’d say, ‘Joe, you know you were sui generis.’ Because he was, one of a kind.” *
arrived at games with an FBI escort because of death threats against him. Black pitched well in his second and third starts as well, but the Dodgers lost the championship. However, Black, 1952 National League Rookie of the Year and the first African-American to win a World Series game, had earned something much greater for himself and his people. Calvin “Cal” Irvin played football with Black at Morgan State for three years. Irvin left Morgan early and went to the University of Illinois, where he received his bachelor’s degree. He played with the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues for part of a summer, decided the baseball lifestyle wasn’t for him and moved on to Columbia University, where he got his master’s. He had a long career as an athletic coach and retired from North Carolina A&T State University as athletic director. He says he was not surprised that his good friend Joe Black made the majors and did well, as had Irvin’s brother, Hall of Famer Monte Irvin. “I saw him pitch. I said, ‘Man, I didn’t
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At Hubbard Junior High School in Plainfield in 1960, teacher Joe Black called the roll. Black had played in the major leagues for a total of six seasons, pitching for Cincinnati and Washington after leaving Brooklyn, before a shoulder injury ended his career and began the next outstanding chapters of his life. He had returned to Plainfield and gained almost universal respect and admiration for his skills as an educator and mentor of young students. Steven M. Selzer, now an attorney in Rockville, Md., remembers. “…I came to junior high, seventh grade, and Joe is counting out the roll call. He says ‘Selzer, Steve.’ And I look at him, and he looks at me. And he says, ‘Are you Nathan Selzer’s son?’ And I go, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ And there was sort of an electricity there, and that’s when we formed the bond.” The bond between Selzer and his mentor and friend, Joe Black, would last for the
Black received his bachelor’s degree from Morgan in 1950 and then followed Jackie Robinson and a handful of other great black players into the majors. MORGAN MAGAZINE
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next 40 years, until Black succumbed to cancer this past May 17th in Scottsdale, Ariz., at age 78. “He was a commanding figure, about 6 foot 3, 220 pounds, with a deep voice. And he loved knowledge,” Selzer says. “He wanted to impart knowledge, and he loved discipline as well within the schools…. He came up with something he called happy hour, and he applied it to people who acted out in his class. They would be invited to school an hour early, to the gym, where they would experience a nice, hour-long workout which he enjoyed tremendously. I went one time when I acted out in his class, and that was enough. It’s sort of funny because when I went off to college at George Washington University in D.C., I was seeing all these signs that said, ‘Come on in! Happy Hour!’ I said, ‘I’m not going in there!” “He was a tough teacher,” Selzer says. “He believed that education was serious business. And while he had a great sense of humor, it was very important to him to impart good values.” As remarkable as this story of intergenerational, interethnic friendship in black and white may seem, it is only one of many, many remarkable stories in which Joe Black starred as a friend and guide, hero and angel. After seven years in the Plainfield school system, he took a job with Greyhound Corporation as a marketing representative. Five years later, in 1967, he became vice president of a Greyhound subsidiary and the first black vice president of a major transportation company in the U.S. Two years after that, Greyhound made him corporate vice president. He stayed with the company for 20 years, accepting with grace the many ancillary responsibilities that came with being one of the small number of black senior executives in Corporate America at the time and uplifting the lives of people all along the way, inside his family and out. “My father was the most amazing person I’ve ever met and probably ever
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Jackie Robinson