A black first baseman who played portions of five seasons between 1938 and 1945 with the Newark Eagles in the segregated Negro National League, Fran Matthews began and ended his baseball career playing for teams in integrated amateur leagues in the Boston area. “Lefty would have made it to the majors in the 1930s as a first baseman, but bucked the intolerable color line of his day,” Jerry Nason wrote of Matthews in the Boston Globe in 1972.i “Lefty was really something.”

The closest the left-handed-hitting Matthews got to playing in Organized Baseball was one game in 1944 when he, as a member of the Boston Colored Giants, reportedly played a few innings with the Lynn (Massachusetts) team in the all-white, semipro New England League. Twenty months later, in 1946, the New England League returned to full professional status as one of the first integrated minor leagues in Organized Baseball, when two blacks, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella, joined the Nashua Dodgers and played their first game in Lynn.

Francis Oliver Matthews was born on November 2, 1916, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is across the Charles River from Boston. Despite the fact that many baseball reference works list his birthplace as the Barbados (the Caribbean island was his father’s homeland), there is indisputable evidence that Matthews was born in Cambridge. He was the only son of Oswald Matthews and Judith Jackson, who were married in Cambridge in February 1909. He had an older sister, Ruth.His father worked as a blacksmith in an automobile factory.

Matthews grew up in an integrated neighborhood in Cambridge, at 60 Kinnaird Street, which had a mix of both black and white residents. He attended an integrated high school, Rindge Technical School, which was Cambridge’s vocational public high school; Cambridge Latin was the college-prep public high school (the two later merged to form today’s Cambridge Rindge & Latin School). As a teenager, his baseball idol was white, not black. “My hero was Lou Gehrig,” Matthews told writer David Cataneo in a 1993 interview, indicating that he didn’t worship slugging black first basemen like Mule Suttles or Buck Leonard.

Matthews excelled on the baseball field for Rindge Tech, as a smooth-fielding first baseman and consistent batter. In June 1933 he was named captain of the baseball team following his sophomore season; he captained the team both his junior and senior seasons. In his junior year, 1934, he batted .400 and was named not just to the Suburban League all-star team (the only black player) but also was a second-team pick on the regional All-Scholastic team selected by the Boston Globe. The first-team first baseman was Elbie Fletcher, of Milton High School, who signed with the Boston Braves immediately after his high-school graduation and appeared in eight games for the Braves that September. The Fletcher-Matthews controversy over who was actually the better high-school first baseman reached a national audience a few years later. In his senior year, 1935, Matthews compiled a .515 batting average and was named first-team All-Scholastic by the Globe.x Although the Globe never mentioned his race in its article, an analysis of the photographs of the individuals selected reveals that Matthews was the only black player.

After graduating from Rindge Tech in June 1935, the 5-foot-8-inch, 180-pound Matthews played first base for a segregated semipro team, the Philadelphia Giants, which was actually a barnstorming team that was based in Boston. Headlining the Giants were pitcher Will “Cannonball” Jackman, known as the Satchel Paige of New England, and catcher Burlin White. The Boston Globe wrote in 1964, prior to an old-timer’s game, that “if civilization had moved more swiftly, today’s fans would be watching several former major leaguers.” Matthews played for the Giants in a number of games staged from Connecticut to Maine during the three summers from 1935 to 1937.In 1938 the team was renamed the Boston Royal Giants.

Art Carter, a writer for the Baltimore Afro-American, one of the largest nationally circulated black newspapers, used Matthews in early 1938 as a prime example of the racial inequities in baseball. “Talking about baseball ability and opportunity to earn money with it, the case of Francis Matthews is ironical, although typical of the trend in the great ‘American’ pastime,” Carter wrote, comparing the situations of Boston-area natives Elbie Fletcher and Matthews. “Fletcher is a regular with the Boston Bees of the National League, drawing a salary of approximately $7,500 annually for seven months’ work, while Matthews is struggling for subsistence in his hometown. Matthews’s color deprives him of a similar chance in the loop.”

For the 1938 season, Matthews did get a chance to play in the Negro National League, when Newark Eagles owner Abe Manley signed him to eventually replace Newark’s iconic but aging first baseman, Mule Suttles. Matthews got his first taste of life in segregated America that spring. After riding day and night on the Eagles’ bus to Florida, the bus stopped on a back road in the Deep South to negotiate a creaky bridge. “We were in some swamps that looked like something out of a horror movie. There was fog on the water and all this Spanish moss hanging down. Out of the woods comes this tall Georgia cracker, with his rifle and his hunting dog,” Matthews recounted in 1993. The man walked around the bus a few times. “Then he spits upside the bus and walks off into the woods,” said Matthews. “That was my introduction to the South.”

Matthews didn’t play much for the Newark Eagles in 1938, as Suttles anchored Newark’s “million dollar infield” that consisted of Suttles at first base, Dick Seay at second base, Willie Wells at shortstop, and Ray Dandridge at third base. Matthews had just 20 official at-bats in 1938, according to the reconstructed statistics compiled by the Negro Leagues Researchers and Authors Group in 2006, which covers only league-sanctioned games, not exhibition contests against other teams. Matthews had no official at-bats for Newark in 1939, although he likely played in several nonleague contests to spell Suttles at first base.

When Suttles was shifted to the outfield for the 1940 season, Matthews finally got his chance to play first base full time for Newark. He produced a .291 batting average in 1940, which ranked him among the top 25 hitters that season. It was the best season of his Negro National League career. That August the Baltimore Afro-American ran a large photo of Matthews on its sports page, with this caption: “Francis (Fran) Matthews, youthful first baseman of the Newark Eagles, whose spectacular play has been one of the contributing factors in the Eagles’ victory streak of eight straight [Negro] National League games.”

After Suttles was traded in 1941, Newark manager Biz Mackey inserted Matthews into the leadoff spot in the Newark batting order to take advantage of his spray-hitting ability to get on base frequently. On Opening Day in 1941 at Newark’s Ruppert Stadium, Matthews hit a home run in his first at-bat to win a stadium giveaway, whose value exceeded his monthly salary. “I got $100, suits, hats, clothes, from the stores which had prizes for the opening day firsts,” Matthews recalled. “It was against Dave Barnhill, who told me, ‘You young so and so, you’ll never get another hit off me.’ And I didn’t.”

Matthews then got the opportunity to play a few games in Yankee Stadium, as Newark nabbed two early-season dates (the Memorial Day holiday and Sunday, June 8) in four-team doubleheaders that were staged there by black teams while the Yankees were on the road. As Matthews later said, “I remember the first time I played in Yankee Stadium. I went over and stood on first base, because my hero was Lou Gehrig. I hit a couple into those right-field seats.”xix Newark lost on Memorial Day to the New York Black Yankees before a crowd of 23,000; on June 8, after a tribute to the recently deceased Gehrig, Newark lost to the Philadelphia Stars before 12,000 spectators.

In between the two games, the New York Times gave Matthews a plug: “Francis Matthews, hard-hitting first baseman, will be one of the Newark Eagles’ chief hopes in their baseball game with the Philadelphia Stars on Sunday.” Other than for Satchel Paige, it was unusual for a white newspaper to tout a black baseball player. Newark finished in second place in the first-half standings in 1941. Matthews was the second leading vote-getter to be first baseman for the Negro National League in the annual East-West All-Star Game; he was edged out by Buck Leonard of the Homestead Grays. After a strong start, though, Matthews sputtered to the end of the season, finishing with a .193 batting average.

By 1941 Matthews acclimated to segregated living conditions in Newark, which differed from his more integrated life back in Boston. He garnered more respect as a ballplayer in Newark, which staged home games in a minor-league stadium, than he did in Boston, where his team played virtually all its games on the road and few at home. Matthews recalled that “we were popular” among the black population of Newark, both male and female. Like many of the Eagles players, he resided during the season in Newark at the Grand Hotel, a black hotel which had a dining room where, Matthews fondly recalled, women looking to meet the players would have them paged by uniform number. One oft-told tale involving Matthews, who had just made a throwing error, was his embarrassment at being cheered up by another set of female admirers, workers in a local house of prostitution, whose madam shouted to him, “Don’t worry, baby, we’re all with you.”

These incidents were etched in Matthews’s memory 50 years after they occurred because he remembered Abe Manley’s morality policy for the Eagles players. “He had the Jack Armstrong, All-American boy idea about the ballplayers – no drinkin’, no smokin’, no women,” Matthews told writer James Overmyer. “He’d say, ‘I don’t want any lovers on my ball club, you can sacrifice for five months.’ It looked like he was going to cry when he saw a ballplayer with a girl.” The thrifty ways of Abe and his wife Effa, the business manager of the Eagles, were also etched in Matthews’ memory. During one of his at-bats in Ruppert Stadium, Matthews had fouled off several pitches into the stands, causing the Manleys to use more new baseballs, at which point Abe sent word to the dugout: “The next time one goes into the stands, it’s going to cost him whatever the ball costs.” It wasn’t just the cost of baseballs where the Manleys pinched pennies; they also stubbornly negotiated contracts with the Eagles players to keep expenses down.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Matthews balked at returning to the Newark Eagles for the 1942 season. He preferred instead to stay in Boston to work at a defense job, where he could make more money than playing with the Eagles (and protect his draft status to avoid serving in the segregated US armed forces). He tried to negotiate for more money, writing to Effa Manley: “I believe we could come to better terms.”When that didn’t work, he played hard-to-get, writing: “I have a very good job and while I’d much rather play ball, I’m only wondering if it would be worth while to quit. … My heart is in baseball but I’m getting no younger and must look out for myself.”

But Mrs. Manley did not like to negotiate with the players, so she refused to budge from her initial offer to Matthews. Effa wouldn’t even negotiate with the team’s biggest star, 23-year-old outfielder Monte Irvin, who sought a $25 raise to his $150 monthly salary for the 1942 season, or else he’d go play ball in Mexico. “I wanted to stay,” Irvin recalled later in life. “She said she couldn’t afford the other $25, so I left.” Effa eventually sent Matthews transportation money to report to Baltimore in late May. After Matthews played a few games with the Eagles in 1942, however, he returned to Boston, thinking, incorrectly, that he had severed his relationship with the Newark Eagles.

During the summer of 1942, Matthews worked at the Watertown Arsenal, where he was a tractor operator and played on the company’s “otherwise all-white baseball team.” Watertown played in the Boston Twilight League in 1942, but then moved up to the more prestigious Boston Park League in 1943, when restrictive gasoline rationing severely limited recreational driving. For the 1943 season, the Boston Royal Giants temporarily disbanded and several of its players, including Jackman, joined the Arsenal team.

On August 12, 1943, Matthews played first base for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. They played the Fore River Shipyard team, which competed in the all-white, semipro New England League, in the first interracial baseball game ever played at Fenway Park. Matthews was 1-for-3 in the game. His one hit was a double, which came with a large dose of embarrassment for Matthews. “A lot of people I know were there. I hit one out to Williamsburg [the right-field bullpen], but the ball hit at the base of the wall.” He tried to stretch the hit into a triple. “It was a close play at third,” Matthews recalled. “They could have called me safe, but they didn’t. I felt like it took me two hours to walk off the field.”

Matthews’ presence with the Monarchs provided a local attraction to draw black fans to watch Satchel Paige pitch at Fenway Park. However, when Matthews tried to continue playing for Kansas City in a game in Washington, D.C., against the Homestead Grays, the owners of the Newark Eagles successfully argued that he was still under contract with Newark and prevented him from joining the Monarchs. “Just before the Star Spangled Banner, here comes [Grays owner] Cum Posey with a telegram from Effa [Manley], stopping me from playing,” Matthews remembered.

In 1944, with travel restrictions loosened, the Boston Royal Giants were resurrected as the Boston Colored Giants to barnstorm throughout New England and New York. On July 25 the Colored Giants played the Lynn Frasers of the New England League in a game that “proved to be a pivotal event in baseball race relations in Lynn.”xl Matthews was ejected from the game in the sixth inning by umpire Tony Routhouska, ostensibly for swearing at the umpire.xli The ejection was followed by a near-riot, “with the cops restoring order in the nick of time as there was a bat somewhere dangling from a player’s hand ready to be used just in case.” Before the altercation in the sixth inning, as the Lynn Telegram-News later reported, Matthews had switched teams to take a few turns at first base for the Frasers.

The Frasers’ use of a black player precipitated a racist-oriented letter to sportswriter J.F. Williams at the Lynn Telegram-News. “Lynn fans are extremely tolerant,” Williams wrote in response to the racial tirade. “Hardly anywhere else is the colored ball player better received than by Lynn fans at Fraser Field. How many times have the fans applauded the brilliant plays of the [black] opposition? … And speaking of intolerance, Matty Matthews, a colored boy, covered first base for the Frasers. What city, in even this state, can show more tolerance. The local fans greeted him as any other player.” The local black newspaper, the Boston Chronicle, confirmed that Matthews had played first base for Lynn: “Hats off to the Fraser Club for giving one of our boys a chance at big time baseball.” Matthews responded to Williams with a very articulate letter that was printed verbatim in the Telegram-News on July 30. He wrote that “the Lynn fans as a whole have received me very well,” and then focused on baseball-related issues rather than “the color question which to me didn’t enter the discussion and therefore is needless.”

A few weeks after the incident in Lynn, Matthews returned to Yankee Stadium one more time, when the Colored Giants played the Black Yankees there on September 10. For Matthews, playing on the hallowed grounds of his boyhood idol, Lou Gehrig, one more time may have rekindled the desire to return to the Negro National League with the Newark Eagles. He rejoined the Eagles for the 1945 season, after a three-year hiatus. Pitcher Don Newcombe was a teammate. No doubt aware of the several tryouts that black players had with major-league teams during the war, including the sham workout of Jackie Robinson with the Boston Red Sox, the 28-year-old Matthews likely returned to Newark for a potential shot at Organized Baseball once the color line was finally broken. However, his dream was shattered, both metaphorically and literally; his arm was broken that summer when he was hit by a pitch.

After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in October 1945, Newcombe was in the next wave of black players signed to play in Organized Baseball. He played with the Nashua Dodgers in 1946 in the New England League, where Lynn was one of the other seven cities in the league.While Newcombe was playing in the now-integrated minor leagues in 1946, Matthews returned to Boston to play for the segregated Colored Giants, which now played a regular schedule as a member of the predominantly white Boston Twilight League, a notch below the Boston Park League.l Matthews played with the Colored Giants until 1950.

In that year, Matthews enlisted in the US Army, which President Harry Truman had integrated in 1948.li In 1952 he was stationed in Germany and wrote a letter to sportswriter Sam Lacy, who quoted portions of it in his column in the Baltimore Afro-American: “I see by the AFRO that Big Don [Newcombe] is about to be inducted. … wouldn’t it be cute if he should wind up in my outfit? … Boy would I give that guy a going-over!” Matthews served in the military for more than two decades, which included a tour of duty in the Vietnam War, where he was awarded both the Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals. In 1972 he was medically retired from the Army at Fort Riley in Kansas, at the rank of first sergeant. Following his military retirement, Matthews lived in Los Angeles.

During the 1990s Matthews was active in promoting the history of the Negro Leagues, after he was interviewed by James Overmyer for his 1993 book Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles. Much of what we know today of Matthews’ thoughts about his baseball career stems from the interviews with Overmyer. Additional insights from Matthews come from his interviews with David Cataneo for his “Peanuts ’n’ Crackerjack” columns in the Boston Herald in 1993; interviews with various writers in Los Angeles at his public appearances with former Negro Leaguers Sammie Haynes and Merle Porter; and information uncovered in the business records of the Newark Eagles that are archived at the Newark Public Library.

In 1993 Matthews threw out the first pitch before a Red Sox game at Fenway Park in a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the first interracial ballgame played at Fenway, in 1943, when Matthews played his one game for Kansas City. Back in Los Angeles, he participated in card-show signings and memorabilia auctions to raise money to help needy former Negro Leaguers. At an elementary-school ceremony for Black History Month in 1993, Matthews talked about playing baseball in the Negro Leagues. “Black baseball is one of the best-kept secrets of black history,” Matthews told the children. “I played with 10 people who should be in the Hall of Fame. I played. I loved it. I’m proud of it.” Weeks later at a card show, Matthews remarked, “We played as well or better than anyone [white].” He also participated in events during 1997 at Dodger Stadium to honor the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first season in the major leagues.

Fran Matthews died on August 24, 1999, in Los Angeles. He is buried at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

Source:

• Society for American Baseball Research