WHEN LIFE THROWS YOU A CURVE BALLIt was the 1st spring-like day of the season. AHHHHHHH! a perfect day for baseball! Who knew I would be shooting the breeze with former Negro League baseball player José Piloto.
The Negro Baseball League was a racially-divided nation's response to allowing black people to play baseball back in the 1930 and 40's. And here it is the year 2003 and here is José Piloto. Still here to tell us all about how he played for the Negro Leagues back in 1946 as a left-handed pitcher for the Memphis Red Sox. Still here in our nation's capital, in Washington, DC, displaying his baseball memorabilia. Pictures, his glove, books, his baseball, baseball card-all neatly displayed on the sidewalk next to him.
High School students are passing by and pause to look. We tell them, "Hey, he played for the Negro Leagues. We might as well have told them in another language. The young high school students didn't seem to understand. It was like they were thinking – isn't that something in my history books? They kept going-probably to go play some ball.
Don Piloto showed us some of his memorabilia. Specifically, a book entitled: The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, which says that José Piloto is not only dead but was killed in a brawl while in Mexico. But here he is, in the flesh, on Columbia Road, in Washington, DC. After reviewing all his marvelous memorabilia, the much awaited interview begins.
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