Trailblazing Bill White was breaking into Major League Baseball when I was learning my ABCs. I don’t recall watching him play first base in the 1964 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals or coveting his Topps baseball card. Nonetheless, he became a trailblazer and legend for a generation of baseball fans.
White was from my hometown, Warren (OH), and a graduate of Warren G. Harding High School. Anyone who could read and write was aware that he played first base in the big leagues for more than a dozen years, was the voice of the New York Yankees from 1971 to 1988, and president of MLB’s National League from 1989 to 1994.
This week, White, 92, received the Buck O’Neil Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is the seventh person to be so honored. The others are Buck O’Neil (2008), Roland Hemond (2011), Joe Garagiola (2014), Rachel Robinson (2017), David Montgomery (2020), and Carl Erskine (2023).
In all my years as a sportswriter and sports editor in Warren, I never crossed paths with Bill White, but he was an icon within a rich sports community. After helping legendary Harding Coach Steve Arnold write his autobiography, Born to Lead, this past year, I learned of White’s autobiography, Uppity, published in 2011. I downloaded it from Amazon and immersed myself in the play-by-play account of baseball at the advent of racial integration and before free agency changed it forever. In many ways, it was an eye-opener.
Here are some things I learned about William DeKova “Bill” White that every Warrenite should know:
■ Bill was born in Lakewood (FL) in 1934, and his single mother moved to Warren for financial opportunity.
■ He played football, basketball, and baseball at WGH, but was not a star performer. He warmed the bench for the Panther baseball team. Academics set him apart.
■ Bill was president of his senior class at Harding, which created a social problem. Traditionally, the senior class president kicked off homecoming festivities by dancing with the homecoming queen, who was white in 1952. The tradition was promptly discontinued because such racial mixing was unacceptable in 1952.
■ White attended Hiram College with plans for a career in medicine. At the time, Hiram didn’t have a baseball team.
■ Legendary Leo Durocher signed the future eight-time All-Star and Golden Glove winner to his first contract in 1953. The minimum salary of a major league player in the 1950s was $5,000. White’s mother had to sign his contract because he hadn’t reached the legal age of 21 yet.
■ Bill was the only African American player for the Danville (VA) Leafs, a Class B team in the Carolina League. Playing in the South was where he learned to ignore the racial slurs of some teammates and far too many vociferous fans.
■ In 1956, Bill White made his major league debut with the Giants, hitting a home run against the Cardinals in his very first at-bat. He ended his playing career with a .286 batting average and 202 home runs. He played thirteen seasons for the New York/San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, and Philadelphia Phillies.
■ White became the first African American play-by-play voice of the New York Yankees and shared the microphone with legendary Phil Rizzuto for eighteen years.
■ When he was appointed president of the National League, Bill resented it when the news media repeatedly referred to him as the first African American to head a major sports league in America
Uppity is a treat for baseball fans, young and old. The author spins tales about Willie Mays, Curt Flood, the outspoken George Steinbrenner, the irascible Marge Schott and Howard Cossell, Phil Rizzuto, and many more. White takes readers back to a time when baseball was America’s Game, an era when a small-town boy could reach the pinnacle of success on sheer determination and principle.
Thanks, Bill White, for sharing your memories. I’m sorry it took me so long to make my way to your autobiography. And congratulations for being recognized in Cooperstown at long last.