In a Special League : Volunteers: Despite blindness, ex-catcher Sammie Haynes is the driving force behind a grass-roots group that helps former athletes.

By GARY LIBMAN

April 3, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

William (Sack) Morgan once threw fastballs that made batters fearful. But a few years ago, the former Negro League pitcher, suffering from diabetes, had to have his legs amputated and was paralyzed after a stroke. He later lost his ability to speak.

The wheelchair-bound Morgan moved to a convalescent home in Atlanta. “He was almost totally helpless,” says another former player.

With such heavy medical needs, Morgan and his wife worried about bills. Monthly Social Security checks, supplemented by Medicare, provided their only income.

But help was on the way.

The International Society of Athletes sent about $1,000 to help pay medical bills, and another $4,000 to cover funeral expenses after Morgan died in 1990 at age 70.

The society, a grass-roots group that tries to aid needy ex-athletes, is the brainchild of Sammie Haynes, 71, a former Negro League catcher from Los Angeles.

Founded in 1986, the group has about 400 members, mostly current and former athletes and fans. It raises money through initiation fees, dues and occasional fund-raisers. Lifetime memberships cost from $250 to $500.

Because funding is tight, Haynes says he and all other workers volunteer their time, and he invested some of the proceeds from the recent sale of his house in the group. With a modest annual budget of $33,000, the society cannot hit any home runs financially, Haynes says. It typically offers athletes $50 to $100 at a time, although it paid funeral expenses for six people in the last two years.

Nonetheless, for the often impoverished or forgotten players he works with--some of whom don’t qualify for aid from other groups--any help is appreciated.

Haynes says he wants to help athletes of all races because of his experience in the Negro Leagues, which flourished before Jackie Robinson integrated modern major league baseball in 1947.

“I have been through a segregated experience,” says Haynes, who played for the Atlanta Black Crackers from 1938-1942 and the Kansas City Monarchs from 1943-45. “We are all in the same world. We must live together. I defy any kind of segregation.”

The society also “is about getting people to recognize the old Negro Leagues and what sports does for the world,” says Haynes.

“Athletes, whether amateur or professional, have done so much for this country that when a guy is injured or sick, we want to help.”

On a warm, cloudless day, sunlight streams through the windows of a modest office on Vermont Avenue near 80th Street. The walls are almost bare. A sculpture of praying hands, a brand-new baseball and a nameplate are on the desk.

Haynes, a burly 6-foot-1, relaxes in a swivel chair. He’s wearing a blue pin-striped suit, a red tie and dark glasses (he lost his sight to glaucoma 25 years ago).

This is where Haynes and a handful of volunteers do the society’s work. They track down and keep records on needy athletes around the country, depending mostly on word of mouth.

The office has helped about 50 people, Haynes says, including a former Ram lineman with a serious illness and a former Cleveland Indian who “just didn’t have any money.”

In addition to aiding former players, Haynes encourages students to stay in school. He and a volunteer recently showed a video about the Negro Leagues to children at Jefferson Elementary School in Lennox.

He told them that you need to follow rules, cooperate with teammates and be a good sport to get along in life as well as in athletics.

“He spoke for about an hour . . . and they were right there with him and focused on every word,” says vice principal Darian Austin.

The society also tries to tell young people about the Negro Leagues by selling trading cards of players like Jackie Robinson and home-run hitter Josh Gibson.

Haynes’ baseball career began when he quit school at 15 to work in an Atlanta pencil factory and play on its semipro team.

A short time later, he joined the Atlanta Black Crackers in the Southern League, a step below the Negro major leagues. After five years, the Kansas City Monarchs invited him to spring training. That was the happiest day of his life, Haynes says.

“If Jesus Christ had said, ‘Do you want to go to Kansas City or to heaven?’ I would have said ‘Kansas City,’ ” Haynes says. “That’s right, Jesus. I’ll see you later.”

During his three years with the Monarchs, Haynes’ teammates included Robinson, who later joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, and legendary pitcher Leroy (Satchel) Paige.

Haynes became the starting catcher, but his career ended prematurely. Toward the end of the 1945 season he had problems finding balls on the ground in front of him. Glasses didn’t help.

After the season, surgeons operated on his right eye and told him he had glaucoma and would lose his sight.

“My sight was already 90% gone in my left eye,” he says. “I didn’t even know.”

He managed the Atlanta Black Crackers in ’46 and ‘47, then moved to Los Angeles, taking a job as a furniture salesman. In four years, he earned enough to buy the store, he says, in part because of what he learned playing ball.

“As a catcher you run the team on defense,” Haynes says. “You have to talk the pitchers and infielders into doing things. You are selling ideas. People have to like you and have confidence in you to follow your ideas and direction. I never had problems meeting people and talking to them.”

In 1955, doctors removed his painful left eye and relieved pressure on the right one.

“I sold the furniture company because most of the selling was at night,” he says. “The glare from lights began to bother me. The only time I was comfortable was during cloudy days.”

He took a job using the telephone to locate delinquent debtors and in 1964 opened a school to train bill collectors. Six months later he lost his sight completely.

“When you don’t see, half the things you do are from memory,” he says. “So when my sight left me, I was familiar with everything. I could clean the building, change the light bulbs, instruct all the classes. I taught most of them myself.”

In 1980, he closed down his operation, which had grown to three schools. Enrollment had fallen after the government cut tuition aid.

He dabbled in other businesses before starting the society in 1986.

Haynes and Madeline, his wife of 31 years, receive Social Security and have some money from the sale of their house. They live in a small two-bedroom home near the society office.

Some people praise Haynes’ efforts as a reminder of what Negro League players accomplished.

“A lot of black players have no idea . . . how it started and could care less about the debt that had to be paid to make it possible for them to do what they’re doing today,” says Don Newcombe, community relations director for the Dodgers. He played in both the majors and the Negro Leagues.

“The things Sammie is doing bring to the forefront what I’m talking about.”

Not everyone agrees. Haynes will dilute the limited funding available to groups that help needy players, says Joe Black, 67, a former pitcher for the Negro League and the Dodgers. He is a vice president of the Baseball Assistance Team, which operates out of the baseball commissioner’s office in New York and aids former players, managers, umpires and scouts associated with professional baseball, including the Negro Leagues.

“BAT is primarily for major league players,” Haynes says, “but our guys from the Negro League are at the bottom of the barrel. I’m not in competition with them . . . but they help very few. And our organization is for all athletes, not just baseball.”

Haynes hopes his society “will be there forever,” even after he is gone. He also wants to build a sports hall of history for the records of amateur, semipro and professional athletes.

“People in the halls of fame of the different sports have their records there for everybody to see, but the guys who never made it, their records are not there.

“We want recognition (for them and) for all athletes, regardless of race or gender.”