There were old-fashioned hit-and-runs, where the base runner was off with the pitch and the batter always managed to put the ball into play Bunts were executed precisely. Players slid face-first to beat the tag. Teammates held “skull sessions” after every game to mull over what went wrong and how to make it right. Today it would be called small ball, or smart baseball. It was what the Majors were before the Babe and his era of long ball; it was wild and free, which was liberating for Negroes whose lives off the field were anything but.
