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Page 10 | Landmarks 2007
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Feature—Craft
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STORY: LAURA GUTSCHKE
PHOTO: TONY PILKINGTON
J
ERRY CRAFT (B.S., ANIMAL
husbandry, 1960) pitched for five semiprofessional West Texas teams from the
time he was a high school student until he
was 22. But, walking to the pitcher’s
mound one Sunday afternoon in the
summer of 1959 became more than a rou-
tine exercise in playing a beloved game. As the
only white man in a Wichita Falls stadium full
of black people, it was the first step on a twoyear, life-changing odyssey.
Although Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of professional baseball in 1947, integration
was slow in rippling through other parts of the
country. Craft believes he is the only white man
to have played for a team in the West Texas
Colored League.
“It was a very unique experience, and I enjoyed it,” said Craft. “We’d caravan in our own
cars to games all over—Aspermont, Stamford,
Waco, Abilene, towns in Oklahoma. We played
black teams, white teams, Hispanic teams, but no
mixed teams.”
Most of the baseball mementoes in Craft’s office
today in Jacksboro relate to his time as a member
of the Stars, whose home games were in Wichita
Falls on Sundays and Graham on Wednesdays.
During the 1959 and 1960 seasons, Craft
learned about race, loyalty and hope, and those
life experiences interwove into his later ventures
as a rancher, cable television pioneer, Democratic Party leader, school board member, Jacksboro
mayor and philanthropist.
BECOMING A STAR
Raised on a family ranch, Craft was a standout
athlete at Jacksboro High School. He was offered a
scholarship at Texas A&M to play baseball and football, but one spring visit to the then all-male campus prompted Craft to find a co-ed school instead.
He enrolled at Texas Tech and walked on
to the baseball team. When the roster needed
trimming, Craft’s skinny frame—at 6 foot, 155
pounds—made him an easy cut that freshman
year. During the summer he grew two inches,
added 30 pounds of muscle and pitched for a
semi-pro team. When he returned to Texas Tech,
Craft says he declined invitations to return to the
baseball team.
“It was a pride thing, and I regretted later not
going back,” said Craft.
In the summer of 1958, Craft played in the OilBelt Semi-Professional League at Wichita Falls
and was offered a contract to join the Boston Red
Sox farm team system. He talked over the offer
with his best friend, Monroe Henderson, a short
stop at Texas Tech who had once been to a Baltimore Orioles camp. They outlined their strengths
and weaknesses. Craft decided that his ability
to read batters, control his pitches and throw a
dropping curve ball was not enough to overcome
an average fast ball.
“I could beat any AA pitcher, but not as many
AAA ones. I’ve always been realistic about my talents and strengths and weaknesses,” Craft said.
“I told Monroe, ‘I can’t see us riding around in
old school busses, living in Podunk and making a
few dollars simply because we love baseball’.”
So, Craft stayed in school and enjoyed being
a member of the Livestock Judging Team and
Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. The first night
home from Texas Tech in the summer of 1959,
Craft got a call from Carl Sedberry Jr., manager
for the Stars.
IT WAS A VERY
UNIQUE EXPERIENCE,
AND I ENJOYED IT
“I want you to play for us,” Craft recalls Sedberry saying.
“Well, who are you?” Craft said.
“The Stars.”
“I’ve never heard of you.”
“We’ve been around.”
“I thought I knew every team.”
“We’ll be at Spudder Park (in Wichita Falls)
on Sunday to play the Abilene Blues. They’re our
biggest rival,” Sedberry said.
Craft didn’t know that team either, but he did
like the pay of $75 a game.
“How good are you?” asked Craft.
“Really good. We have good fielders and good
hitters, but I need a top-notch pitcher. Come see
us on Sunday,” Sedberry said.
On Sunday Craft arrived at Spudder Park and
thought that the all-black teams and crowds
meant he was at the wrong place. He drove to two
other empty ball fields and returned to Spudder.
A man in a coat and tie and snap-brim hat
walked up.
“He said, ‘Hello, Mr. Craft. I’m Mr. Sedberry.’ I
dropped my jaw,” Craft recalls.
“You didn’t know I was black.”
“No sir.”
“Well, we hear you’re not a prejudice man.”
When Craft wondered aloud how the crowd and
other players would accept him, Mr. Sedberry replied, “It’s going to be an interesting experiment.”
The Stars were a rag-tag team who had never
beaten the well-uniformed, cocky Abilene Blues,
Craft said.
Page 11
Sedberry’s plan was to start the game with his
worst pitcher while Craft warmed up. When the
Stars were down 7-1 in the second inning, Sedberry sent Craft in with one out and bases loaded.
“In the stadium, there was music playing and
the fans were joking and drinking in the stands.
As I walked out, it got quiet,” Craft recalls.
The batter hit Craft’s first pitch to the second base
man, who made a double play to end the inning.
The next inning, the first Blues batter, stood
on home plate and smiled at Craft. The umpire
did not make him move to the batter’s box. Craft
walked him in four pitches, and the next batter, the coach’s son, also stood on the middle of
home plate.
looked up and all these black people were jumping up and coming to me. I told someone later I
felt like Custer at that moment.”
But, the cheering crowd surrounded Craft and
hoisted him on their shoulders.
Early on, the Stars players were standoffish
to Craft.
“The team was slow to accept me. I understood that. I didn’t push it. But, they liked my
pitching, and they came to like me,” said Craft.
At first, teammates derogatively referred to
him as “white boy.”
“Then, they would introduce me as ‘our white
boy.’ Eventually, they would tell other teams,
‘This is our white boy Jerry,’” said Craft.
At a blacks-only restaurant, Craft was refused
service. When he walked out, so did his teammates, leaving their meals behind.
Craft stayed with the Stars because of the
baseball and the camaraderie.
“It was fun to caravan with them. Doggone,
they could sing. And, tell jokes. They would tailgate after games. I didn’t know what that was
playing on other teams,” said Craft.
He formed a lifelong bond with teammate Clarence Myles, and he had insightful conversations
about baseball, race and life with Sedberry. Craft
remembers one such talk after a Fourth of July
game in Windthorst. The Stars and their families
joined their opponents—German dairy farmers
who filled their water jug with beer—and their
families for a picnic and shot fireworks together.
Sedberry said, “I want to see the injustices of
segregation righted, but I’m so afraid our people
are going to lose their identity with integration”.
As they drank together and watched the white
and black families socialize, Craft remembers
Sedberry saying, “Maybe there’s just a chance
this integration thing will work.”
“I told him it’s got to because it’s coming,”
Craft said. “Who would have thought we could
see the possibilities because of a black team and
a German team getting together,” said Sedberry.
LIFE AFTER BASEBALL
Craft’s semi-pro baseball career ended after
the 1960 summer baseball season, and his new
ventures had their own rewards. He worked fulltime on the family’s cattle ranches near Jacksboro and in New Mexico.
aimed a pitch for the batter’s side, but he turned
THE CHEERING CROWD
SURROUNDED CRAFT
AND HOISTED HIM ON
THEIR SHOULDERS.
into the ball and was hit in the chest.
MORE THAN A GAME
“Mr. Sedberry called a time out. I asked,
‘Doesn’t he know a batter’s box?’” Craft recalls.
“Yes.”
“So, why is he doing this?”
“Because you’re white.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Hit him in the head.”
When Craft said he did not want to do that—
batters did not wear helmets then—Sedberry
told him to hit the batter in the arm or leg. Craft
In 1968, Craft and Tom Creighton, then state
Despite his father’s disapproval, Craft stayed
senator from Mineral Wells, started a cable com-
with the Stars. On road trips, Craft experienced
pany in Bowie. Craft and his family next formed
The Blues coach stormed out with a bat and
America’s second tier for its black citizens. He slept
or bought 11 additional cable companies in a 40-
exchanged terse words with Craft, Sedberry and
in his car at a three-day tournament in Ranger like
mile radius of Jacksboro. Craft was president of
the umpire. Eventually, the batter got up OK and
his teammates because hotels refused rentals to
the Texas Cable Television Association in 1983
the game resumed. The Blues stood in the bat-
black people. Bathroom breaks were along country
and 1984 and on the National Cable Television
ter’s box the rest of the game and as far as they
roads because white businesses barred blacks from
Association Board of Directors in 1988, represent-
could from the plate. The Stars won 18-7.
their restrooms. He took the players’ pooled money
ing small system operators. When the Craft family
to buy food and drinks at whites-only grocery stores
sold their operations in 1989, the business was the
while his teammates waited in the parking lot.
fifth largest independent cable company in Texas.
“I hit him in the heart. He fell and his eyes
rolled back,” Craft said. “I thought he was dead.”
“They (the Blues) just fell apart,” said Craft.
“after I struck out the side in the 9th inning, I
Page 12 | Landmarks 2007
Texas politics also attracted Craft. In the early
1960s and 1970s, he was the then youngest person elected to the State Democratic Executive
Committee, which carries out platform initiatives
of the Texas Democratic Party. He eventually
served six consecutive, two-year terms, working
under Texas governors John Connally, Preston
Smith and Dolph Briscoe.
“Rural leadership dominated the Democratic
party then,” said Craft.
He was elected a delegate to the 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago.
FACT FILE
Awards: “Good Scout Award,” Boy
Scouts of America; Jacksboro’s Outstanding Citizen Award (twice); Inducted into
the Jacksboro High School Hall of Fame,
along with his sister, professional golfer
Linda Craft.
Boards and Public Offices: Chairman
of the Board, Jacksboro National Bank
and the Bowie Bank; Mayor of Jacksboro,
1991-present; school board member for 10
years; former member of Midwestern State
University Board of Regents; appointed by
governors Ann Richards, George W. Bush
and Rick Perry to an 11-county Appraisal
Regional Review Committee.
Family: Craft married Pamela Bouldin, who
is assistant director of probation for Jack and
Wise counties, in 2002. Between them they
have five children and five grandchildren.
Craft then focused on local politics and community activities because of his children. After
a divorce from his first wife, Craft had sole custody of his three children: Jay David, Sue and
Clint. He coached little league baseball for 21
years and was a scoutmaster for Jacksboro Boy
Scout Troop 111. He was elected to the Jacksboro
school board and served 10 years, including two
terms as president.
In 1991, Craft successfully ran for mayor. He
has been reelected every two years since. In
1997, the Wal-Mart Foundation named him the
needed revenue for the city and accept city trash
at no charge.
Philanthropic interests also are keeping Craft
busy. He founded the Endowment Committee at
First United Methodist Church in Jacksboro. In
1991, he and his late sister, professional golfer
Linda Craft, started the Jacksboro High School
Ex-Student Association Scholarship Committee.
Craft today serves as chairman, soliciting donations from individuals and corporations to fund
six $4,000 scholarships every year for deserving
graduates of Jacksboro High School. Scholarships totaling about $250,000 have been awarded thus far.
“We’ve given scholarships to kids going to
Harvard and to kids going to TSTI (Texas State
Technical Institute) to be plumbers,” said Craft.
“We have a neat awards ceremony, and the kids
often acknowledge God and the love of their parents for their success.”
The Jacksboro Chamber of Commerce has
named Craft Jacksboro’s Outstanding Citizen twice.
Despite his political and business success, it is
his exploits 48 years ago on an all-black baseball
team that have garnered the most public interest
in recent years.
Craft’s friend Larry McMurtry, an Oscar-winning screenwriter and novelist, wrote a screenplay about Craft and the Stars, which the movie
rights to have recently expired. Dr. Kathleen
Sullivan Porter, a lecturer in the Department of
English at the University of Texas at Arlington
who teaches a Baseball in Film class, encouraged
Craft to write a book about his experience after
HIS NEW VENTURES
HAD THEIR
OWN REWARDS
nation’s second best mayor of towns with populations of 25,000 or less.
He considers some of his accomplishments as
mayor to be whittling down the city’s debt, updating zoning and coding guidelines to ensure
orderly growth and several economic development initiatives, including the construction of a
nearby state prison that created 275 jobs and a
soon-to-open privately managed landfill. Despite
opposition from county residents, Craft championed the business because it will generate much-
he talked to her students in 2005. She guided
him through the process and edited each chapter as he wrote them on yellow, letter-pad paper.
Southern Methodist University Press is reviewing
the manuscript. She also has written a screenplay
based on Craft’s book.
“It (Craft’s story) is an interesting part of Texas history and of sports history,” said Dr. Porter.
Craft says he did not join the Stars to change
race relations. He just wanted to play baseball. In
the end, he and his teammates did a little of both.
Page 13