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I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act.

I was all-state in four sports in New Jersey, but sometimes I couldn't get served at a restaurant two blocks from my high school. There were no job opportunities then... the only thing a black youth could aspire to be was a bellboy or a pullman or an elevator operator, or, maybe, a teacher. There was a time when all we had was black baseball.

I started getting on my feet and clowning around, and they ended up putting me in a play when I was 12. And I was hooked.

I was the youngest of about nine boys in the neighborhood, and we played ball all the time, and I looked up to them, and they let me play around with them, and we just had a good time.

When I played, I received racial abuse but I was just one of a few black players and we weren't backed up by the authorities.

Those days were very tough. All my teammates are white, and it was a different time. I couldn't go out to eat with the white players; I had to wait until someone brought something out to the bus. We couldn't stay in the same hotels.

Like the Negro League players, I traveled through the segregated south as a young man. Because I was black, I was denied service at many restaurants and could only drink from water fountains marked 'Colored.' When I went to the movies, I would have to sit in the Colored balcony.

Sometimes I was in school plays, but only when the kid they'd originally picked got sick and they asked me to substitute.

I was the most reckless little kid. I only had guy friends. I had a Nintendo, and when I went to normal school, I used to tape it under my desk and then pull it out and play on it.

I spent my whole life trying to play the games males play.