Leon Day No-Hits on Opening Day

Further Cuts from Our Team

The first draft of Our Team clocked in at 180,000 words, almost twice the book’s contracted length. Hard cuts needed to be made. I eliminated five chapters and trimmed down others. It was all for the best, but I’ve always wished that I could salvage some of those scraps. Here’s another one: a snippet about Leon Day’s no-hitter for the Newark Eagles on Opening Day of the 1946 season.

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May 5, 1946, broke gloomy and cool across Newark. It was a Sunday, and African American churchgoers, umbrellas in hand, whisked to services through spitting rain, the men in dark suits, fedoras, and overcoats that draped to their knees; the women wreathed in flowery dresses and colorful hats and coats. By the time the congregations adjourned at midday, the drizzle had cleared but gray clouds continued to veil the sun, holding temperatures near fifty. But unseasonal weather wasn’t going to keep fans from the ballpark that afternoon—not on opening day of the Newark Eagles’ season.

Some dashed home to stuff picnic baskets full of potato salad, cornbread, and chicken. No one dared change into something more casual. Church clothing was part of the pomp and pageantry of opening day, itself an occasion for the city’s Black community to revel in themselves after the drawn-out winter.

Food in tow, families lined up at bus stops in hopes of hitching a ride before too many passengers jammed the aisles. For a nickel they could board the exhaust-spewing No. 31 bus that rumbled down South Orange Avenue en route to the Ironbound, the immigrant-heavy district that housed Ruppert Stadium. There, amid a drab factory-scape of pipes and smokestacks and railroad lines, beneath the Pulaski Skyway that linked Newark to the west bank of the Hudson River, arriving fans poured through the wooden ballpark’s gates and caught their first glimpse of a field as green as a billiards table. Painted onto the steel posts hoisting up the grandstand were “No Gambling” signs. Vendors hawked hot dogs for fifteen cents, soda for a dime. The faint stench of burning trash wafted over from the nearby city dump. Finding their seats, fans slapped one another on the back and hollered out greetings to those they hadn’t run into since last season.

Eagles co-owner Effa Manley presided over the pregame festivities, alongside various cultural and political luminaries. Then she took her customary seat in the press box atop the grandstand. Even before the first pitch, the tension ran thick. That afternoon’s opponent, the Philadelphia Stars, had finished neck-and-neck with the Eagles the previous year, but they weren’t the sole source of anxiety. It was everything: the end of the war, the returning players back in uniform, the uncertainty of the Negro Leagues as a whole in the wake of Jackie Robinson’s signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ organization months earlier.

Toeing the mound for the Eagles was the staff ace. At five-foot-nine, 170 pounds, Leon Day didn’t look the part of a power pitcher, but his fastball, which he hurled without a windup, suggested otherwise. Day was less than three months removed from his years-long stint in the Army during World War II. Of all the Eagles, he had withstood some of the heaviest combat overseas. Shortly after D-Day, his battalion had stormed Utah Beach in northern France amid heavy fire. One night, while he was unloading ammunition from incoming ships, German planes, he later told author James A. Riley, “lit the beach up so bright that you could have read a newspaper.” He survived but paid a price. Like Monte Irvin, the Eagles shortstop, Day felt that the war had taken something from him that he might never get back.

No one would’ve guessed as much that afternoon. For six innings, Day held the Stars hitless. His adversary on the mound, Barney Brown, matched him for five but ran into trouble in the bottom of the sixth. With the score knotted at zero, Clarence Israel, the Eagles light-hitting third baseman, smashed a triple off the wall in right-centerfield. Eagles second baseman Larry Doby came up next, wagging his thirty-five-ounce ash bat above his shoulders. Brown tossed one down the middle and Doby rapped the ball right back at him, through the pitcher’s box and into center. Israel jogged home for the first run of the year.

Realizing his team would need more, Doby danced down the line and then darted to second, barreling into the bag ahead of the throw. After Monte Irvin popped up, first baseman Lennie Pearson stepped into the box. The crowd, impatient for another hit, groaned when Pearson tapped a dribbling grounder to second. Doby, taking off on contact, rounded third and just kept going, breaking for home with reckless abandon.

Stars first baseman Doc Dennis saw it all the way. After fielding the throw from second, he rifled the ball to the catcher, Bill Cash, with time to spare. Ten feet from home, Doby flopped onto his belly and skidded headfirst through the dirt. Cash, on his knees, the ball palmed in his ungloved hand, lunged out to tag him. As if by instinct, Doby tucked his right arm behind him to avoid it. With his left hand he grazed the side of the plate. The throw had beaten him; Cash had been lying in wait. By all measures, Doby should’ve been out. But the umpire, Peter Strauch, spread his arms and yelled, “Safe!”

At once, Cash wheeled around and stalked after the umpire, screaming and stomping in disbelief. Red-faced with rage, Cash flailed his arms and smacked Strauch in the face. He crumpled to the ground. The Stars manager, Homer “Goose” Curry, sprinted onto the field and, instead of defusing the situation, took a few swings of his own at Strauch. Both benches emptied. Fans jumped down from the stands, ready to brawl. The few cops there called for backup. Mayhem ensued. Finally, the gates swung open and mounted policemen galloped in, the horses’ hooves punching divots in the field. The sight of them seemed to snap everyone to their senses. Cash and Curry were tossed from the game, with Curry being escorted away by the cops.

From the dugout Leon Day soaked it all in with bemusement. He hadn’t charged onto the field with the others. In no way was he going to spoil his afternoon with a fistfight. When order resumed, he picked up where he’d left off, blanking the Stars in the seventh and eighth.

Coming into the ninth, Day still hadn’t surrendered a hit. After quickly dispatching the first two men, Day didn’t waste time on the last. To Henry McHenry, a pitcher and occasional outfielder, Day blazed three straight fastballs over the heart of the plate. McHenry swung at each of them, never once making contact.

The crowd, already riled up, erupted. Seat cushions rained down on the field while teammates hoisted Day onto their shoulders. Afterward, displeased with the mess, New York Yankees’ executives would ban seat cushions from future Eagles’ games at Ruppert Stadium. But that was later. For now, what mattered was the noise and the celebration and the undeniable sense that this team was destined for something greater.