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[00:00:05] Interviewer: July 12, 2004, personal interview with Mr. William Miles. Mr. Miles, tell me a little bit about your background, please? [00:00:14][9.3]

[00:00:15] William T. Miles: Okay, I was born in Princess Anne, Maryland, 1933. I am 70 years old. My parents are from the area. They were born and raised in Somerset County. My father passed away in '99. My mother is 88 years old and she is doing better than all of us. I am the oldest of 11 brothers and sisters, 7 boys and 4 girls. I have a master's in math education from Atlanta University. I did my undergraduate work at North Carolina A&T. [00:01:07][52.0]

[00:01:09] Interviewer: When did you graduate from A&P? [00:01:10][1.1]

[00:01:10] William T. Miles: I graduated from A& P in 1956. [00:01:12][1.5]

[00:01:16] Interviewer: Six years in relation to the sit-ins? [00:01:23][6.9]

[00:01:25] William T. Miles: Oh yes, yes, there were rumblings at that time, and there was rumbling from various students, there was rumblings from various factions there, students had platforms that Christine was on integration when they were running for different offices living around the school there. I remember the yowl and night. The guy that became Miss A&T there, her platform was we were going to integrate all of the facilities there. It did not come about during the time I was at A&T, but I can identify with it. I am a father of three children. My wife passed away in 2009. One after 42 years marriage. He was in education school. He was an education student. That CPA had taught at New University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. She had taught in Clark University in Atlanta. She had talked at Mark State University. And she ended up having her own CPA business in England today. She had to give that up because of her... My hobbies and leisure activities have been tied to sports. I have always wanted to be involved in sports. I wanted to coach. Now that I have no skills that will allow me to play professionally, then I wanted coach. Isn't that the end? Did that disappoint you? No, not having the skills, there was nothing that I could do about that. I milked my skills for everything that I could. With the little bit of skills that I had, I was able to get a scholarship in baseball. I was a able to play baseball in the army, and I had a lifetime of playing baseball. You know, one of the things I have in the... [00:04:07][162.6]

[00:04:07] Interviewer: One of the serious questions I have on that chief that you're following is that on the Eastern Shore, was baseball one? Was that the big game? [00:04:17][9.5]

[00:04:18] William T. Miles: When I was growing up, it was the big game, primarily because it was easy to get into. Every community had a baseball team when I was going up. There were white baseball teams, there were black baseball teams. Every village, every community had baseball teams When I was growing up, in my community, it was the Oakdale Eagles and the Princess Anne was the Princess Anne Hawks. You had teams in Deals Island, you had a team in Benton, you had teams at Pocomoke, you have teams here in Salisbury, Fulton. You have two teams here at Salisbury. They're all the way up there. We would have a schedule of and we would play all the way until it got cold in October and of course our games were tied to the weekend, we played Saturday, Sunday and holidays. As a matter of fact, I got married on Saturday, September the 5th, which was Saturday before Labor Day. We had a double hitter that Saturday. I missed the first game to get married, but I played the second game, much to the chagrin of my wife. We had double hitters that Sunday, and we had a double hiter that Monday, and I went to work that Tuesday. Playing or coaching? I was playing at that time. I did not miss playing professionally. I chickened out on coaching because when I thought about going into coaching full time seriously, I had to go to my time to coach, integration had started. Coming in to play, and the big white schools were siphoning off all of the good black schools. We could see that coming when I was a senior at A&T. It was becoming more difficult for the coaches to get the ball players that they used to have in the back pocket. [00:06:39][141.3]

[00:06:39] Interviewer: Them interject. I started seeing that I remember reading something about Paul Bryant. They said when they opened up Alabama and he got these good ball players there. [00:06:55][15.4]

[00:06:56] William T. Miles: That was normally going to Florida A&M. You see in Florida A&M? Grand Lane or some of those schools. Exactly, those schools there. Florida A&M could sue out 100 ball players. When they came to A&T, they had 100 ballplayers that were all first string in many colleges there. Because they were all going to the black schools at that time. When it was time for me to step on the coaching team, then I did not have the foresight to see the opportunities that are available now when I see things opening up for life coaching at the major league level, coaching at the big schools and this kind of thing, and I just sort of shudder sometimes and say, hey, look, I should have stayed with you. But I don't have any regrets. [00:07:47][51.1]

[00:07:48] Interviewer: You're, you're, yeah, you left, and you were talking, you were my vice principal for 10 years, and, uh, you retired in 2000, and your, can you tell me just a little bit about what you're doing in retirement? Okay. [00:08:00][12.8]

[00:08:01] William T. Miles: I retired in 2000 after 14 years in education, having taught at the college level, at the high school level. I went into ministry. Uh in 99 and continued in ministry to the present day and started my sixth year in ministry on a ruled charge in Marion Station Maryland there uh it was a natural step for me in that I've always liked working with people. I've also always considered myself a servant to the people. I thought that being in ministry was an opportunity to give back to the community because I had taken so much out of the community before. I have found it to be very, very challenging and very rewarding. [00:09:10][69.5]

[00:09:12] Interviewer: I was sitting there listening to you talk, and I was thinking people first, and then them. But I think, I think when we're teachers too, I'll give it to the community. [00:09:22][9.7]

[00:09:22] William T. Miles: But giving to the community, yes. So it's sort of just like a natural transition. It was a natural transition there, yes, and of course, in the rural areas, in many instances, they cannot afford to hire pastors who come out of seminary with families who need an income beyond the minimum income there. But with my retirement and everything, to supplement, they come. The money that I receive is secondary. I think I give back a whole lot more than I receive monetarily. [00:10:05][42.4]

[00:10:09] Interviewer: But to me, it's... Money is all what the job's all about and we both left it because knowing you, you enjoyed it for 42 years or you wouldn't be doing it and again that's what we enjoyed. As I stated on my interview sheet, the purpose of our interview is our commonality and our friendship over the years in baseball. Could you give me a little bit of background about you and baseball? We sort of jump around and talk about sports. But, you know, background brought up, you know, today we have a lot of training and camps, you know, that I've done some things like that. But I don't think we ever had that back in... [00:10:52][43.0]

[00:10:53] William T. Miles: Okay, you must realize that when I grew up in the '40s and '50s there, everything was in this area. When I say this area, I'm talking about Maryland, the Asian Shore of Maryland in particular, there was a second gate that was a very little formal recreation in terms of participating in your Little League and your Baby League and the American Legion and all of these kinds of things that have come up now and the kids can participate there. Each community As I have said, the division which I did, that was a ball club, it was supported by the community. They would take up a collection in the church. To buy these balls, to buy bats, and everything. And if you broke a bat, you'd nail it together and wrap it with tape, and it kept on going. You see the movement of the natural, the little boy going up there? You're picking out one, kid. Yes, but we grew up looking forward to playing on the community team, and we worshiped the guys who were playing. They were our heroes. They were the guys that we looked up to. We respected them in the same manner that kids now respect major league ball players. We probably had a higher regard for them because of the close relationship that we saw them, but we knew that they were human beings who could touch them. And when they stood up and hit our home run 400 feet, the challenge was to run and get the ball and play like that guy. So in each community, you had guys looking forward to playing on the community team. The high schools did not have a baseball team. Um... [00:12:55][122.3]

[00:12:57] Interviewer: When I was going... What kind of sports teams did they have? Did they have anything? [00:13:02][5.0]

[00:13:02] William T. Miles: The high school in which I graduated from had basketball, and they had soccer. Soccer in the spring, in the fall, and then basketball in the winter, and the had track. There, because it was a money man there. It did not take a whole lot to have a basketball team, get a few uniforms and a basketball, and you could have a baseball program. The same thing with soccer, you know, you get a couple of balls, and you can get out on the field and you put on a play there. A couple of the schools around Salisbury, high school had football, and Akamak High School, Mary Ann Smith, the head football and head baseball, you see. I started baseball after coming out of college in the uh, I think someone said junior senior high school. Yeah, I started that way back in 1915. I started back at Somerset in 1958-59, and during the spring of 1959, we started baseball at Somerset Junction High School, which was an integrated Junction high school. [00:14:20][77.4]

[00:14:21] Interviewer: To what you were okay one question when yes like Sidney being from Montgomery County when did they integrate the schools here you said [00:14:30][9.0]

[00:14:31] William T. Miles: '59 was not segregated. It would have had to have been After '64, I don't know the exact date, but not in, you know, it wasn't that it was after that time. It was after '64, because I was at General Somerset Junior Senior High School from '68 to '62. And then, I left. It would have been like, I'd say, almost '66, '67. Yeah. I won't say that that's for sure, but the schools were integrated sometime during that time. Yeah. But when I grew up, it was... Segregated, the system was not bad on the eastern shore of Maryland as it was anywhere in the country. And that includes any place that you had named. [00:15:47][75.7]

[00:15:48] Interviewer: Did you guys ever play each other? [00:15:54][5.5]

[00:15:55] William T. Miles: Only, there was an All-Star game that was born, once a year, at the old memorial stadium where the Civic Center is now, they had a memorial stadium, they have lights, and They played an all-star game with the all-stars from all of the black teams around. They played against all the all stars from all over the nation. And that was a really big thing for us. He was naturally number one, playing under the light. And there was only two places on the shore where we could play on the light, and on the right, that Pocomoke had about a half a dozen flashlights up on his hose. That we could go out and play. He chased a many a count of flies, many a bird, thinking it was a ball. And down in Atomac, Virginia, there's a little place called Kenzie Seaside. Kenzie had our light. Now, in Delaware... Up around Milford there and Wilmington. Now they had very good facilities. Milford had excellent facilities. They had lights and everything there and we used to like to go and play them. The team called the Milford Yanks. They were probably just a step Under the Negro League, the teams that played in the Negro Leagues, they were very challenging for us. And we measured how well we could play by what we did against them in their very, very, very, [00:17:55][119.8]

[00:17:57] Interviewer: Three years ago I helped a guy over in Milton and I was just amazed at the fields that they did. They make our fields look like cow fields. They were manicured, the guys out there cut grass every day, grass in the fields, fences and signs and everything. I mean, to me, you know, people claim to be based on people, but those people... [00:18:23][26.2]

[00:18:24] William T. Miles: Milford when I was there. They didn't just start and they played a very good brand of baseball. You ever heard me use the term hardball? We played for the most part hardball and when we went to places like the Milford Yanks and they have another team called the Sussex Chicks out there, a couple other teams, we learned what baseball was all about and we'd come back and try to do some of the that we saw, but as far as formal training camps and that kind of thing We played hardball, really, rather than a good brand of baseball. We just played on natural talent. Guys could throw the ball, throw a brick wall, play with the pitchers, you know. [00:19:10][46.8]

[00:19:10] Interviewer: And I'm out of the other things. It's kind of like, I need to say it, but today there's so many of these camps and things like that. Growing up, when I grew up, we went out and played baseball every day. We went out to go on basketball season, came around and played football. And now everybody has a computer or they get the Xbox or things of that sort, PlayStation. What about successes playing and coaching? [00:19:39][28.9]

[00:19:42] William T. Miles: Well, the biggest thing in growing up, as I said, was playing on the All-Star teams there. The other thing was making the college team, the little country boy there, from the community teams going to a place like North Carolina A&T there, going out for the ball club when they had guys that were regularly drafted into the program. When I went there, they had just given the guy $100,000 to sign. There were other guys on the team that were looking for contracts there, and they had catchers that signed contracts. After I closed my mouth from being in awe of these guys, and settled down and found out that it was hitting the ball when it's thrown to you, catching it when it is thrown to ya, that kind of thing. To make that ball club, that was really one of the highlights, one of best things that ever happened to me as far as baseball was concerned. There, and then to have faith for years at A&T. And that was the highlight there. And of course, when I saw the talent and everything, I thought that there was still eagles. Had guys that could play ball, you know, like Sam Doane and William Stewart as a pitcher. There had some of the other guys there. One guy that probably should have been the Hall of Fame there that didn't do it. His name was Charles Stewart. Yeah, he wasn't, but he had what probably would now be labeled as bursitis. Yeah, chips and something, but only, it's maybe once a month, if he pitched a ball game, he would have to give his arm complete rest. Yeah, if it's for us, say on the 4th of July, He was probably one of the best pitchers that we've faced, but then when I went to A&T there, and I saw guys 17, 18, 19 years old, going almost twice as fast, with curve balls, breaking, you know. Much better than he did. I said, wow. And I soon realized that it was a tremendous step from where I stood to playing any kind of professional ball. [00:22:18][156.0]

[00:22:19] Interviewer: It seems like over the years, some of the guys that I've coached since I didn't play college ball, they were the first to come back and I said, Coach, the pitchers aren't different. They get better control and they're a little faster. He said, but they throw that slider at about 85 miles an hour. You never see that in Facebook. That slider is the difference because that thing has that sharp grip. How about, I guess the Seaford Hawks and the Oakville Eagles, those are local teams, right? You know, they had, you know, put some pictures on the wall over there at the Purdue Stadium, and uh... [00:23:02][42.7]

[00:23:02] William T. Miles: They'll say those was a local team. It was probably as good a local team as there was around here. We always thought that we played at least a ball. I mean some of our guys probably would have been successful and double a ball there. But we always prided ourselves as being good enough to hold our own and a ball there. There's one picture there. [00:23:28][26.6]

[00:23:28] Interviewer: There with George and Jesse Lucas and George Stewart and yourself. Was that a championship team that there was a picture of? Sam Donne donated that picture. There's a picture there. [00:23:43][14.9]

[00:23:45] William T. Miles: I would have to see that picture to know. I could have brought you a picture of some of the guys there. But towards, I guess what, '70, in the '70s, we formed a league. I was trying to think of the name of it, but we formed a league there, and we won that league every year. It was still segregated, and I don't know that there was any integration until recently, maybe in the '80s, while the team was playing together there. I think maybe Kirkland Hall was probably, and he was an old guy then, Um... Playing with one of the teams there, after all of our guys got to go over baseball and playing softball. But the teams played in segregated systems throughout the, until probably the 1940s, '70s, '80s. But by that time, community ball clubs were drying up. Guys who could play and hold on teams were moving out of the area following the jobs and everything. A lot of them were going to college and everything and they were not hanging around and the team started closing up. It became difficult to find teams to play. The O.C.L.S. Was one of the last teams to fall. [00:25:25][100.5]

[00:25:25] Interviewer: When I came to Salisbury in '76. All I heard about was the fast pitch softball, and of course, you know the old story about me. I got stuck coaching tennis teams, didn't have a court. And the other thing I heard when I came to Salisbury was about the fast-pitch softball with Joe Powell and Chubby Jones and Gladden and people like that. And if you ever get involved in basketball, it sort of seems like us old baseball players go into... [00:26:07][41.4]

[00:26:09] William T. Miles: Softball. Well, we did not go into fast pitch softball primarily because we did not have a pitcher. We went into a more modified softball because we could compete. And of course, you know, we were very very very careful not to get into anything in which we could not compete especially after things were integrated you see there might have been integrations but our minds were not integrated our minds or still such that we wanted to prove that we should have been integrated long time ago that we were just as good so if we felt that we could Not compete then we didn't get into it and fast pitching, you know, softball is what, ninety, ninety-five percent pitching. We would rather play snow picks and that didn't appeal to us at all, you see there, but the modified we could compete and so I played modified in some form because I was 16 years old. [00:27:16][67.5]

[00:27:18] Interviewer: Great care. [00:27:18][0.0] [1594.5]