Mickey Stubblefield may not have had to travel great distances to break the color barrier in the old Kitty League, but as with the experiences of many of the black men honored this spring by baseball, there was still so far to go.

Stubblefield, who played semi-pro ball and later lived in McCook, NE, signed in 1952 with the Mayfield (Ky.) Clothiers, his hometown team. The Pittsburgh Pirates farm team was in last place in the Class D Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee (Kitty) League when he made his debut in June, 1952.

“It was a beautiful town, and I was a happy-go-lucky guy,” Stubblefield said. “I wasn’t trying to fool anyone. I went my way and they went theirs.”

Still, it was a different era. Only five years earlier, Jackie Robinson had broken the major leagues’ color barrier. By 1952, black players were still only gradually getting chances with other organizations.

That season, Stubblefield pitched only in  home games because of the fear of racial tensions on the road.

“It was rough,” Stubblefield said. “But it didn’t bother me, what they said. And I was called everything.”

Stubblefield, 85, and other former Negro League players were honored May 14, 2011 in Atlanta, prior to the Negro Leagues Tribute Game between the Braves and Philadelphia Phillies. This was the fifth annual Civil Rights Game.

Even though he made history in his hometown, Stubblefield traveled the continent in his career. The season that Robinson broke the color line, Stubblefield said, he played for the Omaha Rockets, a barnstorming team.

After teaming up with Satchel Paige, “Cool Papa” Bell and others with the Kansas City Monarchs, Stubblefield played semi-pro ball with the McCook Cats in 1950. He was playing semi-pro ball in Kentucky before signing to pitch in the Kitty League in 1952.

He stayed in the Pirates organization for one more season, pitching for Class C Duluth, MN., in 1953. But by then, he has said, his arm had “given out.”

Stubblefield returned to McCook, played several years for the Cats and made the western Nebraska city his home until 1970.

Nine of his 10 children live in Lincoln, and some of his 22 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren are in the area.

Stubblefield moved from Mayfield to the Atlanta area just last week to live with one of his daughters.

Stubblefield’s baseball travels took him to nearly every state, as well as Canada and Mexico, but there was a comfort level for him in Nebraska.

“In Nebraska, I didn’t know I was black unless I looked in the mirror,” Stubblefield said. “They treated me so well. “I met a lot of wonderful people in McCook.”

Stubblefield was born Wilker Harrison Thelbert Stubblefield. The nickname Mickey stuck when he was young because of his oversized hand-me-down baseball cleats, which looked a little like those of a recently created cartoon mouse named Mickey.

As he matured as a player, Stubblefield played nearly every position, but gained much of his reputation on the mound.

Some accounts refer to Stubblefield as “Little Satchel,” because of his Paige-like repertoire of pitches and deliveries.

In the 2000 book, “The Negro Leagues Revisited,” by Brent Kelley, Stubblefield described his pitching style.

“A lot of junk stuff,” he said. “Curveball. Drop, we called it at the time – overhand drop, sidearm, underhanded. I could curve it either way. We used to throw it sidearm, and we called that an inshoot.”

He reportedly was 13-6 for McCook in 1950. In that era, semi-pro baseball generated significantly more interest and appeal than it does currently.

Hobe Hays, in the 1999 book Take Two and Hit to Right, said Stubblefield joined McCook late in the 1949 season and was among the first black players in the Nebraska Independent League.

Stubblefield, Hays wrote, was “a muscular 5-foot-9 athlete who pitched and could play all the other positions as well.”

Back home in Kentucky in 1952, Stubblefield was playing semi-pro ball when he was signed to help bolster the Kitty League team. He was signed by Pirates scout Frank Rickey (brother of Branch Rickey, the general manager who signed Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers). Reportedly 1,500 people – the second-largest crowd of the season – turned out at War Memorial Park for his debut, a 5-4 complete game victory in which he walked five and struck out six, including the first batter he faced, Russ Davis.

“He’s told me that he was pretty scared that day,” said Dennis Stubblefield ‘74, Mickey’s son and a Lincoln resident. “But he took the risk. He said he wanted to beat them so bad.”

Stubblefield was 7-6 with a 3.70 ERA that season, then was 2-0 with Duluth the following year before eventually returning to McCook.

Sometimes emotional in recalling his experiences, Stubblefield tried to rise above the prejudice. But the underlying scars are still there. “We prayed for people who didn’t understand,” he said.

(Editor’s note: Mickey was the 2011 Grand Marshal during the Heritage Days Parade in McCook with a reception in his honor at the High Plains Museum. His children who attended McCook Public Schools, include: Janice Stubblefield Woody’67, Mickey Jr ’69, Mary Katherine Stubblefield Arvin ’71,  Steve’72, Dennis’74 and Angela Stubblefield Smail ‘76.)

By Rob White WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER