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Living HBCU Baseball History with The Legends – Fred Valentine of Tennessee A&I Written by Douglas Malan • July 19, 2019 As a multi-sport athlete growing up in Memphis, Fred Valentine always found a field or court to play on. But while Mr. Valentine, who was born in Mississippi, juggled sports, he paid as much or more attention to his academics. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Mr. Valentine became a twosport star at Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State University), with his quarterback play on the football team earning him more national attention than baseball. He teamed with George Altman on the baseball club before turning pro in the sport. After his seven-year MLB career with the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Senators from 1959 to 1968, Mr. Valentine entered the corporate world and went back to school earn his master’s degree at George Washington University and his law degree from what is now the University of the District of Columbia. Black College Nines feature writer Douglas Malan recently caught up with Mr. Valentine, who makes his home in the Washington, D.C., area. How did you get into sports as a kid? I grew up in Memphis and I really got involved in organized sports in the eighth grade, going into high school. I got on the boxing team and ended up boxing paperweight – that’s what they called it. We weighed 100 pounds. Seemed like at that age the gloves weighed more than the kids! And we had headgear on and everything else. It was a good experience. I ended up boxing in eighth grade and I won my bout in a big auditorium there in Memphis. And they wanted to know if I was still gonna box and I said I don’t know. (laughing) Because after that first fight, I woke up and
my eyes were swollen, I was sore, even though I won. The coaches at the high school wanted to know more about my athletic abilities and I told them I played community baseball, community basketball, touch football, we played everything. We had eight big, strong black high schools in Memphis and a lot of good athletes coming out of there. They encouraged me to come out for the baseball team in high school. And I attempted to go out for the football team, but I was underweight, about 115 or 120 pounds. They told me I better go back and put on some more weight. And sure enough, I went in and got on the baseball team and that was just God’s gift right there. I got on the baseball team as a freshman. Got on the basketball team. Never made the varsity but played junior varsity. Then because of that, I went out to practice with the track team because I was gifted with speed I didn’t even know I had. And sure enough, that worked out fine. So my sophomore year, I put on a few more pounds. The baseball coach happened to be a football coach. And lo and behold, he said, “Why don’t you just come out for the football team?” And I said, “I did! You told me I was too small.” But I had put on a few more pounds and he realized I had a good, strong arm. He encouraged me to go out for quarterback because I could run and I could throw and he thought I could fill in and play on the third team. Sure enough, I tried out and made the practice squad. We were halfway through the season and I was able to run the ball, throw the ball and everything else and the coach could see that. I was ambidextrous and I didn’t even know. They had designed some plays where you flip the ball out with your right hand and your left hand. The other quarterback had a problem doing it, but I didn’t have a problem so I won that part of the competition. I ended up starting my junior year, first-string quarterback. I was still playing baseball. I was still playing football. And I was running track. The amazing thing about the track team, we had two guys and the best runner was named McGee. He was running the 100 in 9.7 and 9.8 and they’d compete with each other. And I was running sometimes a 9.9 and averaged about a 10. And I thought I was slow! (laughing) I was compared to them! And it didn’t bother me. I just thought well, they’re faster than I am. I didn’t realize how much speed I had ‘til I got off to college. You played a lot of baseball growing up and all through high school. When did people outside Memphis start to notice you? My senior year, that’s when the scouts started coming around. I wanted to go to college and I had gotten on a sandlot baseball team there in Memphis. They didn’t have any leagues set up for blacks in Memphis during Continued on the next page
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