****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The Journal of Biddy Owens: The Negro Leagues is a young adult novel by Walter Dean Myers, which retells the ups and downs of the Birmingham Black Barons’ 1948 season through the eyes of 17-year-old Biddy Owens. The book, which features pitcher Jimmie Newberry on the cover, was released as part of Scholastic’s “My Name Is America” collection. The series was a set of historical novels that were written as journals by fictional characters who told stories in the context of historical events.Biddy Owens loves baseball and longs to play professionally for his hometown Birmingham Black Barons. To get his start in the game, he is willing to do whatever it takes. He becomes the team’s equipment manager, scorekeeper, and occasionally fills in as a right fielder. While Biddy admires Birmingham’s player-manager, Piper Davis, he knows to avoid him after a loss. No one hated to lose more than Davis, and his passionate drive to win is palpable throughout the book. Another player, Bill Greason, befriends Biddy and regularly offers him life lessons.The book opens on May 1 as the Black Barons face off against the Cleveland Buckeyes on the opening day of the Negro American League (NAL) schedule. Biddy is struck by the intensity of the colors at Rick-wood Field — the bright green grass, the wide blue skies, and the golden brown infield. The day is a happy one as the Black Barons win, 11-2. Of course, as any baseball fan knows, a title is not one in a single day.The NAL may have had a shorter official league schedule than the major leagues, but players on the Black Barons would have scoffed at the suggestion that they played less games than big leaguers. In fact, they played far more. For every league game, clubs supplemented their revenue by playing two to three exhibition games against other Negro League teams, local all-star squads, and barnstorming outfits. Negro Leaguers did not have the luxury of ten-game homestands and reasonable road trips by train, which featured three-game series in the same ballparks like major league teams did. The Black Barons rarely played at home and spent most of their time riding in the cramped confines of a hot bus traveling far and wide. A doubleheader at Rickwood on a Sunday might be followed by two more in Anniston on Monday, more games in Meridian, Mississippi on Tuesday, followed by a trip to Cleveland, and two more weeks of traveling. Sometimes they had to go without meals and restful sleep was a rare commodity.Biddy knows he will eventually have to decide between playing baseball and furthering his education as he writes: “Life on the road can be boring. I like seeing all the cities but bouncing along in the bus or sleeping on some hard bed in a cheap hotel is not my idea of paradise. If I go to college I would have more things that I could do.” While life in the Negro Leagues was hard for the players, the larger problem was the difficulty of traveling throughout the Jim Crow South. Every aspect of any road trip had to be planned from bathroom breaks to meals, and lodging. No planning could prevent the daily indignities the team suffered on the road.Myers expertly blends the story of the Black Barons’ season with Biddy’s home life and he develops the supporting characters well. Biddy’s mother is against his dream of becoming a baseball player. While his father is supportive, he would like to see his son attend college to open more opportunities for him.By early July, the Black Barons clinched the first half of the NAL title. The team also added another 17-year-old player, Willie Mays, to replace center fielder Bobby Robinson, who broke his leg in his game. Unlike Biddy, Mays has incredible natural ability in all facets of the game and remained a starter even after Robinson returned.Myers also foreshadows the end of the Negro Leagues, which had already begun to decline. By 1948, fans were more interested in news of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, and Satchel Paige, who were all playing in the major leagues. In African-American newspapers like the Kansas City Call and the Birmingham World, those players’ exploits were front-page news. Teams in the NAL and NNL became an afterthought. Even so, Myers tells the story of the exciting NAL Championship Series be-tween Birmingham and the Kansas City Monarchs as well as the final Negro League World Series.The Journal of Biddy Owens is part "Ball Four" and part "Willie’s Boys". It is an excellent read and an altogether thought-provoking look at one of the great Black Barons teams, the end of an era in baseball, and a much broader look at life in the Deep South before the Civil Rights Movement. The book is a fine addition to the Rickwood Library.
