Posted on Sun, Feb. 18, 2007
THE
'GOOD OL' DAYS' ON THE DIAMOND
VIN MANNIX
The Herald
The baseball diamond is long gone, but Waymon Armstead can still see it
beyond the two- and three-story homes clustered in
He can see the barbecue smoke.
He can hear the crowds.
He can smell the outfield grass he patrolled more than
50 years ago.
"I could run like a deer then," said the
centerfielder fans called "Stan the Man," as the 80-year-old gazed
out his apartment window. "I just can't walk now . . ."
Yet neither age nor a stroke has stilled the pride that
wells up within Armstead as another baseball season
beckons the memories.
Memories shared by Robert "Bubba" Bowden,
James "Son" Copeland and Morris Paskell.
Memories of the
Now in the autumn of their lives, these grand old men
were truly the boys of summer.
Boys who grew up around the game
during segregation.
"Yeah, the good ol'
days," said Armstead, whose No. 6 jersey and
left-handed hitting for power and average reminded fans of St. Louis Cardinals'
legend Stan Musial. "Young kids don't know about us, but the old people
do."
The Nine Devils were
During its halcyon days a half-century ago, the Nine
Devils played 70 to 75 games a year against teams from Daytona, Miami, Orlando,
St. Petersburg and West Palm Beach, as well as against barnstorming all-star
teams.
"We used to dominate," said Bowden, 79, a
third baseman, leadoff man and base-stealing threat, whose older brother,
William, was also a Nine Devil. "We were pretty good back then."
Which is how the team got its name.
They were the Bradenton Aces, but, "One year we
started off with nine straight wins and we became the Nine Devils," said
Copeland, 82, whose playing career began at 13 and spanned three decades.
The wall of his home is like a shrine to the Nine
Devils.
A faded team photo shows Snow Riley, Elijah Barber,
Jewel Lee, Robert Royal, Hugh Yancey, Red Hughes and Buck Walter with Armstead, Bowden, Copeland and then-owner Bish Christopher.
These men weren't professional athletes, either.
They were city sanitation workers, dry cleaning owners,
field hands and golf course groundskeepers, who donned cotton uniforms, picked
up bats, put on fielder's mitts and became baseball stars on the weekends.
Even segregation couldn't stop that.
Ask Fredi Brown, whose
brother, O.C. Sears, played third base in the 1930s.
"It was a great source of entertainment,"
said the co-founder of the
That connection resonated for Joe Grissett
Jr., whose father, Joe Sr., pitched for the Nine Devils.
A retired educator, he remembers running home after
Sunday school at
"I used to live there on Sunday afternoons," Grissett Jr. said. "For a poor kid from the projects,
this was our closest connection to big league baseball. They had some great
players, just as good as the majors."
Home games were festive affairs, whether the Nine
Devils played at their ballfield or at McKechnie. They averaged about 1,500 fans.
"Going to see them play was part of our
lives," said Norma Marie Tarver Dunwoody, a retired school administrator,
and Grissett Sr.'s niece.
Paskell, whose uncle, Buck
Walker, was a Nine Devils manager, remembers the packed stands and the good
times.
"Women wearing their Sunday hats, people laughing
. . . ," said the 68-year-old, a second baseman for two years.
"Everybody knew each other. It was beautiful."
While the same might not be said about road games at
certain cities, they remember the warm treatment they received despite
segregation.
Like in
"When we'd beat them, people would be calling us
names, but afterward, one black lady would always cook up a big mess of soul
food because they knew we couldn't eat at the restaurants," Paskell recalled. "If we won, they'd hardly want to
give us gas."
Bus rides could be grueling too.
There was no Interstate 75, no I-4, just dusty,
two-lane roads.
"Oh, man, those bus rides'd
kill you, especially going to
The Nine Devils didn't play for money, that's for sure.
Their cut of the gate went anywhere from $6 or $7 to
$21 apiece, depending on where they played.
They invariably made more on the road, particularly in
But that was secondary.
"It was a chance to play," Copeland said.
And play they could.
'We . . . did pretty well'
According to Bradenton Herald archives, besides the
FSNL ballclubs, the Nine Devils would play
barnstorming all-star teams with future Hall of Famers
such as Josh Gibson and Larry Doby, as well as major
leaguers Jim "Mudcat" Grant, Ed Charles and
Clarence "Choo Choo"
Coleman. They also played Negro League ballclubs like
the Cleveland Buckeyes, Homestead Grays and Indianapolis Clowns.
"I would say we were as good as most Triple-A
teams, if not better," Bowden said. "We went up against some good
players and did pretty well against them."
Paskell had the best seat
in the house.
Playing alongside Bowden and Copeland and taking cutoff
throws from Armstead, he remembers them as big
brothers.
"Waymon was a hell of an
athlete," he said. "On a ball hit into the gap, he'd run it down and
throw you out. Son was small, but he had good wrists. You talk about Hank
Aaron's wrists? You should've seen Son's wrists. Bubba was one of the best
bunters I've ever seen. You see Jackie Robinson dancing back and forth when he
was on base? Bubba could do all that, then steal
second and third."
Al Swilley saw it, too. He
played outfield for the Nine Devils from 1952 to 1960.
"I thought I was a hot shot, but I found out there
were a lot of things I didn't know," the 73-year-old said. "I was
good, but they taught me a lot about the game."
Those baseball skills got them a shot, albeit a long
one, at the big leagues.
Armstead, Bowden and
Copeland had farm-team tryouts in
Armstead said it was for the
Chicago Cubs, Bowden said it was the Chicago White Sox and Copeland said he
can't remember.
Either way, Armstead was
assigned to the Borger Gassers, a Class C club high up the Texas Panhandle in
the old West Texas-New Mexico League.
Bowden and Copeland were assigned to
They'd heard
"I said, 'I can't go. I won't go.' If somebody
hits me, I can't turn my cheek," Bowden said. "So
me and Son came back home."
Armstead would join them a
year later.
"We weren't making much money, about $150 a
month," he recalled. "I said, 'I can make more than that working for
the city.' I'm glad I played, though."
They all are.
Their regrets are few.
"You wish you had a chance to play again like when
you were young," Copeland said.
The "good ol'
days" with the Bradenton Nine Devils.
"It was a good feeling. I enjoyed it. I really
did," Armstead said. "We put a whippin' on 'em, yessir."
Vin Mannix
is the Bradenton
Herald's local
columnist. Please call Vin
at 745-7055, or write him at the