- Thank you Michael.

And folks happy baseball season.

I know we're in the middle of it right now.

And to celebrate, we are sitting down today with Paul Allen baseball enthusiast and author, author behind Bright Lights and Black Stars.

Paul, thank you for coming by and taking the time to talk with us today.

- Well thanks for having me.

It's nice to be heard.

- I am so excited to get started talking with you.

And my experience is mostly on the American side of baseball.

Yours is more on the Canadian side, is that correct?

- Well, that's true but my background and where I lived always exposed me to the Detroit Tigers.

And you know, at my age I can tell you that expansion hadn't taken place.

So, you know, as young kids growing up, we knew all the players that played for the Yankees and you know, the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers and the White Sox.

We knew all those.

So, you know, it kind of, kind of both.

Plus my dad was born in the States in North Carolina.

- Just from this alone, I can already tell you know a lot about baseball, but I gotta know where did this love for baseball all begin?

- Oh, I would say it started in North Carolina.

My dad came from North Carolina up to Canada and we always went back, you know, from, gosh, I was a toddler.

We always went back in the summer to visit my grandmother, my aunt and my uncle.

And my uncle actually in 1945 played in the first year the inaugural year of the Carolina League.

He played for the Durham Bulls.

So he was a pitcher and of course it didn't take him much.

Didn't have to encourage him at all to wanna play catch with me.

So my dad played a little bit in high school, so you know, he, he taught me how to, you know, throw, catch, and he would pitch batting practice.

And then, you know, as I got a little bit older, Chatham Ontario, which is about 60 miles north northeast of Detroit, a club by the name of the JCs, a business club, men's Business Club started a little league and they, they modeled it after the, the little league that was started in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

They bought land by the railroad tracks.

They built a diamond.

In 1952, I was 10 years old and I was playing baseball.

- And were you playing with these catcher's mitts right here?

I see these ones you brought in.

- Oh gosh, this is probably one of my first baseball gloves.

- Oh my goodness.

Look - At that thing.

I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say that's late forties, maybe early fifties.

And I think they weren't certain what I was gonna do.

And a cousin in North Carolina contributed the catchers mitt - Wow.

- When you look at those things, you wonder how anybody caught a ball.

- Yeah, I mean like when you go to like a Dick's Sporting Goods, you don't see stuff like that anymore.

Like, it's like, it's more hyper - like you gotta see the wear on this.

We're gonna get a cutaway shot of this in a minute, but like there's wear on this, like it's showing its age.

So you said, what was your little league team's name again?

- Well, we played in a league and the names have changed now, you know, we've updated things.

But I played Squirt peewee, Banham Midget Junior Intermediate, and eventually senior inter-county base baseball.

- See, my education's more on hockey so I immediately recognize, and I know that's the goal.

- Yeah, they've, changed it to under 10, under 11, under 18.

You know, they don't use those names, but at the time, you know, historically that's what we were called.

I played for the Chicago White Sox.

Oh, and I was a pitcher, but I made all star teams.

I was fortunate, I had really great coaches.

I could tell you a lot about my coaches, former pro players.

You know, we weren't in the back woods of Canada.

We had ball players that had played in semi-pro in the inner county.

And I had three that played professional baseball in the States.

So we were, well, well taught and grounded with fundamentalism and we did well.

I played on two provincial championships, which is like your state championship.

Unclassified, so we played against the big cities and we won.

And we had a pitcher, the third best pitcher on our team was a guy you may have heard of by the name of Fergie Jenkins, the first Canadian to be elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

But he was the third pitcher.

But let's face it, I mean he surpassed all of us and was a great pitcher and still a good friend.

- This is all in your semi-pro inner county time you said, correct?

- Well this is before that.

That's what we would call minor league.

Well not even minor league, it's just young adult teenager Period time.

- Because you played, so, because you played in, you played for about nine years before starting in the inner County League, is that correct?

- Well actually I played nine years in the inner county.

- Oh, - Okay.

- I played eight years in London.

That, this is my London majors hat.

There's a nice blue one with the, you know, the old English L on it.

And, and then I played one year for the Branford Red Sox.

But that's the semi-pro league that I wrote the book about.

- And you played with a lot of notable figures.

I've got a list here, right here you played with people like Tom Burgess, Russ Evon, Ray yell, Roy McKay, you had an amazing coach in the form of Norm Aldridge.

And are there any funny stories you can tell me about your time in those leagues?

- Well, yeah, sure.

I can tell you about Tom Burgess.

Tom Burgess is a London guy, a great ball player, signed with the St.

Louis Cardinals.

Played for the Rochester Red Wings.

He's in the Hall of Fame with the Rochester Red Wings.

And he was a first baseman and an outfielder and he just grew up at the wrong time because there was another player who played the outfield and first base by the name of Stan Musial.

So he was not gonna knock Stan Musial out of the lineup.

So he, he kind of went back and forth between the Cardinals and the Rochester Red Wings.

And then he later signed with the California Angels.

When he retired from baseball, he became the manager.

'cause he's a London Ontario guy of the London baseball team.

And he was a great dresser, wore cardigans and nice, nice slacks, nice shoes, quality guy.

And he would come into the clubhouse and, you know, get into his uniform and, and run out on the field for batting practice.

And a couple guys were always left in the clubhouse.

And we had a catcher who was a terrific guy.

His name was Dave Pook and he played in the Giants organization, came back and played in, in semi-pro with London and Pooky goes over and sees these silk shorts that Burgess was wearing and had hung them up and he took 'em off, took 'em off the hook, put 'em over his baseball uniform and paraded around the clubhouse to laughter.

And I was one of them.

And he's going boys, he says, this is what it's like in the show.

He says, when you're in the big leagues, you wear these type of clothes.

- Oh my - Goodness.

And Burgess walks through the door and sees him and, and give credit to Tom Burgess.

He, he handled it and he says Pook, he said, if I had another catcher, you'd be sitting.

But Pook was a great guy.

I'll tell you another dave Pook story.

- Well, I gotta ask you another one because I would be remiss if we did not talk about your book.

- Okay.

- We got, 'cause I, I am on of the understanding that it was the, your time in the Semipro that really was where this book started.

Tell me a little bit about how that happened.

- Basically because of some baseball reunions, you know, the older you get, you get sentimental and you want to get together with the guys.

Some of them had passed away.

So let's get together with the guys that are still kicking tell long, tall stories.

We always say the older we get, the better we were.

But I had a reunion in London and fortunately my first all star baseball coach, a professor at the University of Western Ontario by the name of Jack Fairs, was at the reunion and he was a catcher for the London team.

He could have played pro but he went into university teaching instead.

And he brought back memories of him and, and we heard stories about some of the players that he played with, some of the names that you mentioned and some of the great Negro League players.

And I thought, boy, that's a story.

And then I went to Branford, same thing, played with the Branford guys.

Jimmy Wilkes was there who played in the Negro Leagues, started talking to him.

And I just thought, this is a great story.

No one had ever written a book about the inner County Baseball league and that that's how it started.

And I just thought there's too many good stories not to share.

- And something that really fascinated me when we were talking over the phone, you had mentioned that they are starting to recognize the Negro League as something comparable to the MLB.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Well, I think it's a couple years ago, major League Baseball made an announcement and they said, we have done enough research, we know how good the Negro League players were and we now recognize them as equivalent to the Major League baseball.

- Wow.

So that recognition put the Major League baseball, you know, on top of recognizing great players and the Negro League players are now recognized and people are saying, gosh, I didn't know that.

And they wanna find out more about the Negro League and those great players.

They know the names of some of them, but it's, it's a terrific recognition for great ball players.

- And honestly, some of the people you featured in this, you were even telling me off camera, Jackie Robinson was one of the people in that, in that league.

Is that correct?

- Jackie Robinson didn't play in the inner county, but he did play in Montreal.

He signed with the Montreal Royals and that was a triple A team and he played in Canada.

And he said in, in his book, people in Montreal and Canada don't know how important they were for my progress and development because they treated me as an equal.

And he also said when they won, they won the International League championship and the people ran out on the field and they mobbed everybody and they had him up on his shoulders.

And he said in his book, that's the first time a black guy was mobbed in happiness.

Wow.

So, but you know, there were ne league players that started in 1949 in the inner County Baseball league.

That's, and they were great players - And that's all covered in this book.

Now I'm getting the wrap up signal, so I gotta know where can people go to find out more about this to get even get this book?

- Well the book is on Amazon, so that's an easy way to do it.

And you know, and if they want to email me if you, if you give my email address, I can order author copies and mail them directly.

But probably the easiest way is Amazon.

There's a couple places, you know, your listening area, Kingston, you know, Gananoque would probably have to drive too far 'cause I have a most in towns where I grew up but American listeners could, you know, get it on Amazon quite easily if they got prime or get it through their kids, they don't even, even better pay for the shipping.

- Hey PBS is on prime.

So that's a big plus.

There you go.

There you go.

Well Paul, thank you so much again for coming here to talk with us.

People go check out this book.

It is certainly worth the read, especially for you baseball fans.

And Paul, thank you again for taking the time to chat with us.

Well thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.