Playing Hardball

Later that year, the league awarded Houston the franchise with the stipulation that it be integrated. When Hofheinz returned to Houston, triumphant, he phoned Mease and asked about the letter: Had it really been necessary?

The judge laughed. "Well, Quentin," he said, "you don't take a chance on anything, do you?"

About a year later, Smith called Mease at the Y. The county commissioners were about to break ground for the stadium, the oilman said. Could Mease represent the black community?

Mease was having breakfast at the Y's snack bar, along with James Brooks of the state YMCA, and A.E. Warner, a car dealer. Mease asked the pair to go with him.

The new baseball team was then called the Colt .45s. Mease, Brooks and Warner watched as county commissioners broke ground by firing real Colt .45s into the dirt.

If you've lived in Houston long, you've probably seen the photo of those first shots. The county commissioners, a bunch of fat white guys, mostly in hats, look like the embodiment of Texas power.

That other photo, the one with the three black men, came later. While the white power brokers were still on stage, Mease, Brooks and Warner were directed to join them. The public relations director explained that when he dropped his arm, they, too, should fire into the dirt.

The three men held the pistols and watched the PR man.

He dropped his arm.

They pulled the triggers.

And… nothing happened. The guns didn't fire.

It's not what you think.

When Mease reached that point in the story, I was outraged. We were talking about the '60s, after all, and about Houston. What white power brokers would have handed black men loaded guns? And besides, wouldn't Hofheinz and Smith have enjoyed taking a small symbolic revenge on Mease? Wasn't this one more sorry humiliation that whites had forced onto blacks?

I was wrong. The story turned out to be the kind that Quentin Mease often tells: a complicated one, more about communication than anger.

Behind Mease, on the stage, Bob Smith started laughing. "Quen," he said, "you and your friends -- you're tenderfeet! Don't you know that's a revolver, not a pistol? You have to cock it."

Embarrassed, the three men pulled back the guns' hammers. Once again, on the PR man's cue, they pulled the triggers.

This time, the guns fired.

For once, Quentin Mease made a violent noise in a public place.

Quentin Mease's memoir, No Color Is My Kind, with an introduction by historian Thomas Cole, was published this spring by Eakins Press. You can order the book at www.eakinspress.com.