Major League Baseball celebrates its integration of baseball this weekend.
The league brings the "Civil Rights Game" to be played during the Reds and White Sox series.
On Wednesday morning two former players from the Negro League were at the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum viewing the most recent exhibit about their former league.
"I was there. I seen this and seen that, but I – you look at my record – there's zilch!," was Chuck Harmon's reaction, because he played for only four days in the Negro League.
But he went on to be the first African American to play for the Cincinnati Reds.
He was in awe of the display.
"You walk in here and it's there, so you don't have to talk about it,” said Harmon.
Another player, Thomas "High Pockets" Turner, played for the Chicago American Giants.
"Baseball with me was just my life and it started in high school.,” said Turner.
His career lasted only one year because of financial reasons. He earned a mere $400 a month and he explained Chicago was not inexpensive to live in during the 1940s,
"February of 1947, my wife had my first child and I just couldn't make it," he said. Turner left baseball and took a job parking cars.
Neither of the men wanted to talk much about themselves – and are appreciative that Major League Baseball is celebrating the integration of professional baseball.
Harmon said, "I think it's, you know, they want to show history so you got to show it all." And Turner kept it simple, "I think it's a long time coming."
The "Civil Rights Game" will be played this Saturday, June 20, at Great American Ballpark in downtown Cincinnati.
Cincinnati had a Negro League team called the "Clowns" in 1943.
