Bill “Ready” Cash traveled far and wide during a baseball career that included stops at baseball diamonds all over North and South America and the Caribbean. But he called Southwest Philly home.
Cash’s career, which included a lengthy stint with the Negro National League’s Philadelphia Stars (another West Philly institution), is chronicled by Cash himself along with West Philly journalist and baseball fan Al Hunter Jr. in the book Thou Shalt Not Steal: The Baseball Life and Times of a Rifle-Armed Negro League Catcher. Hunter will discuss Cash’s life and read from the book at Bindlestiff Books (4530 Baltimore Ave.) on Thursday, July 19 at 8 p.m. (after the Dollar Stroll).
Hunter, who spent 17 years at the Philadelphia Daily News writing about music and later as a member of the editorial board, spent hours interviewing Cash for the book.
Cash reportedly got his nickname after being benched during a game when he told his manager, “When I put on the uniform, I’m ready to play.” His career took him all over the United States, to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. At the age of 33 he signed with the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball in 1952, but he never made it to the major league roster. Cash believed that he may have been blackballed after he accidentally clipped a white umpire during the 1946 season. Like many black ball players of his generation, baseball historians say Cash would likely have been a star in the majors had he gotten the chance earlier in his career.
Cash, who attended Overbrook High School, died last September at the age of 92.
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