An Irishman's Tribute To The Negro Leagues

Out front, in the battered old hardware store, stood all the reasons in the world for a man like Lazarus Williams to be tired. They lay there, not in the nails, screws, hammers and ratchet sets that lined the shelves, but in pictures. Pictures of hope and pictures of joy. Pictures of dreams unfulfilled and visions of a time that Lazarus Williams wanted to return to for one brief moment, for one more try. In fact, the store (which he’d run for the past 35 years) was really just a front for the museum-like photo gallery that lined the walls.

The pictures were all photos from the long departed Negro Leagues. Pictures of Rube Foster, Smokey Joe Williams, John Henry Lloyd and other early century stars. Team pictures, from Foster’s original Chicago American Giant team right on through to the 1952 Indianapolis Clowns, featuring a young Hank Aaron. There were so many pictures, hundreds of them, that the shelf space for the actual merchandise had slowly dwindled over the years, as Lazarus put up more and more photos.

His right arm hung straight down at his side like a salami in an Italian deli, the result of the defining moment in his life thus far; an incident which had shown his true character, while at the same time had left him wondering if he should have just turned away. Of course, it was his strong moral character that had compelled him to jump in between a knife wielding mugger and his young female prey. A number of others had ignored the cries of the 20 year old (later revealed to be a prostitute) who was being attacked on the platform of the old rail yard on the edge of town. The train that happened to be pulling through at the time was a convenient way out for some of the assorted vagrants and passengers that were present on the platform. But not Lazarus Williams. The 21 year old pitcher, who was heading up to Kansas City for a tryout with the legendary Monarchs, reacted naturally (for him). He instantly intervened and wrestled the man valiantly across the platform for about half a minute, or 30 seconds that changed a life.

The thief was subdued after a vicious struggle, but not without a cost. He had slashed Lazarus once in the stomach and three times in his right arm, his throwing arm. The lacerations were so deep that the muscles and tendons were torn up and down, and were strung out in clusters, like spaghetti. From that day on, though he didn’t lose the arm to amputation, he did lose it to baseball, and so he felt, to life. At the time, he could at least console himself with the fact that he had saved the woman’s life. This thought sustained him during those first two days in the hospital, and kept him from agonizing over his suddenly lost limb. On the third day, however, a nurse came in and informed him that the woman had died of stab wounds to her stomach and chest. It was then that he was told that the girl was a streetwalker, though it didn’t matter much at all to him. He only knew her as a person in trouble. Still, from the moment he learned of the woman’s passing, Lazarus Williams could only long for the time when he had fallen a half minute from heaven.