An Interview With Connie Johnson

The former Kansas City Monarch, who pitched against the best hitters in both the Negro Leagues and the majors, talks about his career playing baseball around the world

Interviewed by Eric Enders
March 8, 2000 

For a decade, tall, hard-throwing righthander Connie Johnson was one of the best pitchers in the Negro Leagues. Clifford Johnson, Jr., was born in 1922 in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and signed with the Kansas City Monarchs at age 18. He pitched in two East-West games (1940 and 1950) and, after going 11-2 with the Monarchs the latter year, was signed by the Chicago White Sox. He played five seasons in the majors with the White Sox and Baltimore Orioles, going 40-39, but his greatest achievements were accomplished in the near-anonymity of the Negro Leagues. He currently resides in Kansas City, Missouri.

Signing With the Monarchs

Yeah, I could throw all right, but that’s all. But they said, “we want you to play tonight.” So I went out and pitched, and after the game I tried to find Joe Greene. You see, Joe Greene played with the Monarchs, he was the catcher, and he was from my hometown. I went through him, that’s how they found out who I was.  So I went to see him and I told him I was going home. He said, “You’re not going home. Why don’t you go with us?” I said, “Go where?,” and he said, “To play ball.” So I went, and I had been there about a month and a half when they picked me for the East-West Game. I didn’t even know what the East-West Game was! They told me that was the game where the best players played against each other, and I said, “Man, what do you want me going out there for? I’ve only been here a month and a half!” But they said you better go, so I did. I pitched that game, and I fired ’em in there.

Making the Majors

I’ll tell you how it happened. After I’d won eleven straight, I asked my owner for a raise. Well, he didn’t want to give me a raise. So one day they had a scout there looking at Bill Cash, he was a catcher for Philadelphia. But Cash, he did bad things. He’d throw the ball to second kind of low, and the ball would hit the ground before it would get there, you know, trying to throw the ball on a line. We’d try to talk to him, but he’d throw his bat when he’d strike out or pop up, or he’d knock the water thing down. He did everything wrong. I don’t know what happened to him, but he just... some guys just try to impress  people. But you don’t impress people that way. But I pitched a one-hitter and hit a home run, then I pitched a two-hitter and got another base hit, and they got me. I wasn’t thinking about going to the White Sox. I wasn’t thinking about going to the majors, or any of that. But a kid brought me a telegram one day, he said, “Here, Connie, I’ve got a telegram for you.” I got it, read it, and he sat there looking at me— he knew what was in it, you know. I told him it wasn’t nothing. He said, “You sure it ain’t nothin?” I said the White Sox just called me. “The White Sox just called you! And you ain’t gonna look more expressive than that? Man!” And that’s all there was to it, they bought me. When I left the Monarchs, I knew they wouldn’t be in it too much longer. They didn’t have any of the real good ballplayers anymore like they had before. All of them were going to the majors, or Puerto Rico, or Cuba, places like that.

I went to Colorado Springs and won 18 or 19 games, broke Bobby Shantz’s strikeout record, and they called me to go down to spring training. I went down there, but I got wild — so wild that they sent me to Charleston. After Charleston, they sent me to Toronto. I went 12-2, and then they called me.

The best guys I played with? Oh, Willard Brown, Ted Strong... Thompson, the one with the Giants. O’Neil, he was nice. One thing about it, he was a team man. He was the captain, and if there was anything wrong he’d go out and we’d talk it over. Willard Brown was just lazy. I don’t know if he was lazy, or just... He was one of those guys, you can’t get him to do nothing. He didn’t train too good in spring training, you know. And then a lot of times his back would get out of whack, though it didn’t stay long. His back would bother him ’cause he wouldn’t train. Now, none of the other boys ever had anything. We never had anything like these sprains these guys got today. We didn’t train like they did in the majors. They didn’t take exercise but two or three days. We’d take exercise two or three weeks. Look, I was so sore I couldn’t go eat. I ain’t lying, I had to crawl out of the bed! That’s how sore you were. So after that I went to the majors.

Hank Thompson, he killed a guy once down in Texas, and then he’d drink. He’d drink all the time after that. The police told him, they said “Hank, you’d better pack up.” Oh, he started drinking. He’d get into a lot of bad things. He robbed a store up there in New York, all that stuff. All because of his drinking. When he was sober he was nice. He liked to play all the time, like a kid. He used to catch the bad hops. Hit the ball to him, and he was the smoothest second baseman I’ve ever seen. And he could hit that ball as far as anybody— Doby and all of ‘em, he hit the ball as far as anybody. He was a home run hitter, and one of the best.

The East-West Game

The 1950 East-West Game, I think that’s the one where I hit the ball and went to third. You know how a player when he hits the ball, he’s supposed to run to first? Well, by mistake I went to third.  Yeah, but later I hit a triple on top of that fence, deep center field in Chicago. I was angry. I didn’t care if the ball hit me or nothing. I was just mad, and just swung at it. I was mad because I had made that old crazy mistake, running to third. But he threw it up there and I hit it— boy, I hit it good. I wasn’t that good of a hitter, but I was angry. I got mad, you know, I wasn’t worried about him throwing at me or nothing. The ball was getting closer, and I wasn’t worried about nothing except where I hit the ball.

Yeah, man, they had those trains... what do you call it when trains come from different parts of the country? Excursion, that’s it. They had ’em coming from Memphis and all over the place to Chicago, because everybody wanted to see the big game. Black and white people both. But with those crowds, you know what I did? I’d pretend that there was only one person out there. If there was one person out there, I wouldn’t mind it, it wouldn’t bother me. So that’s what I did. Anything I did, I didn’t worry about the people. That’s why I could pitch anywhere, anytime. Because I knew I could pitch. I could throw the ball and strike out some people. But I’ll tell you what. I never did like to pitch in my hometown, because you have too much pressure on you at home. You try to win, you got your people there and everything. I couldn’t pitch. I won some games there, but I felt better away. Away from home, I was a pitching star.

Brooks Robinson and Ray Dandridge

Brooks Robinson was just crazy. He was one of these loose guys who’d do anything, catch anything... Brooks Robinson was just loose. But Dandridge, he was good too. He wasn’t loose like that, though. It’s hard to compare them, because each of them was just about as good as the other one. Take hits from you, and things like that. I knew Brooks Robinson more than I did Dandridge. We’d go out together and stuff like that. Then later on he started hitting. He might’ve beat Dandridge. Might have.

They were alike, they were just about alike. You had some good ballplayers going to the East-West game, and you had some good players going to the All-Star Game. It’s kind of hard to compare.

They have better stuff now than we had back in those days. They have better sticks, you know. They’ve got better everything now in baseball. They’ve got webbed gloves. You can’t throw at ‘em. It’s different now. Like McGwire and Sosa. Man, in my league, if you hit home runs like that you’d be laying on the ground all the time. Yeah, they would. See, but they don’t have nothing to worry about.  That’s the way it’s so very different.

I tell you what, I have never had a favorite player.  Look, I didn’t ever intend to play ball. I never played no hardball. I played softball, tennis ball. We were in school once, and the school team was playing an outside team. One of our guys got hurt sliding, and I was the next biggest boy there. But I said no, I don’t want to play hardball, I play softball. That’s the only thing I played. So I went out there, but I said look, I ain’t going to catch that ball with my hands. I’ll run and go pick it up, but that’s it. So I went out there. And man, the first ball hit was hit to me. Over my head. I started running for it, running, running, and then I looked up and I saw the ball. And I went up with my hand and caught the ball, and threw it back to catch the guy going back to first. So I started playing hardball after that.

I only ever wanted to do one thing: see more places. New York, Chicago, New Orleans. That’s all I ever wanted to do. I made it, and I saw the places I wanted to see. The strange thing was, when I first started I wanted to see New York. Frank Duncan, the manager,  was driving the bus, and he got on the George Washington Bridge and just stopped. When he stopped I looked all around, I could see all over New York. And I always wondered why Frank stopped the bus then. I still don’t know why he stopped, but I saw New York. I saw New York, right there.

And you know what? It wasn’t me doing all that stuff. It was somebody else. Because I couldn’t have done the things I did. No way in the world for me to do the things I did. It’s got to be somebody else, it couldn’t be me. I feel like all my life there’s been something guiding me. I had a good time, though. I have no regrets. The world owes me nothing. If anything, I might owe the world.

Interview Transcript © 2000 by Eric E. Enders

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