An Irishman’s Tribute to the Negro Leagues is the first in a trilogy of "Irishman’s Tributes" by Thomas Porky McDonald. In it, the long ago world of Negro League Baseball is celebrated on factual, fictional and emotional platforms. Profiles of over fifty former Negro Leaguers pay homage to the wondrous game they played. Two handfuls of Tallman Tales, McDonald’s unique short stories, use the days of all-black baseball as a backdrop for some heartfelt characters that desperately seek entrance to a legendary Era otherwise lost in time. Interspersed within the profiles and tales is a small collection of McDonald’s trademark baseball poetry, pieces that will doubtless make you think, hopefully make you feel, and often entertain you.

In attempting to re-create the feelings of joy and pride that all the participants in the Negro Leagues experienced, despite the constant travails they encountered in pursuit of their livelihood, McDonald, as the "Irishman", deftly doffs his cap in obvious appreciation for an enlightening time of dogged and determined magic.

An Irishman’s Tribute to the Negro Leagues precedes Over the Shoulder and Plant on One: An Irishman’s Tribute to Willie Mays and Hit Sign, Win Suit: An Irishman’s Tribute to Ebbets Field, two future volumes that celebrate McDonald’s own childhood and the days of Major League baseball in Brooklyn, which, like the Negro Leagues, are long gone in a concrete sense, but not in a spiritual one.

Thomas Porky McDonald was raised and still lives in Astoria, Queens, just a few miles from Shea Stadium and a few more from the former site of Ebbets Field. A lifelong fan of the New York Mets, he began writing in earnest soon after arriving in Brooklyn to work for New York City Transit in 1985. An Irish storyteller and poet at heart, he’s written over a thousand poems and more than fifty short stories to date, as well as a few narrative volumes on baseball, the meaning of life and poetic process. McDonald often uses the ballpark as a venue and ballplayers as subjects in his diverse scrawlings, though he stresses that his stories and poems are "about people, with baseball merely a setting I’m most comfortable with." He still works in Brooklyn, which he considers an electric breeding ground for significant writing of all types.

Lazarus Williams was tired. As he washed his face methodically in the shoebox bathroom at the rear of his Foley, Alabama, hardware store, he knew one thing: he was tired. Tired as any 75 year old man with a biting case of arthritis (which made the wash cloth hard to grasp with any real force) would be. Tired as the hot August evening that awaited him outside. Tired as all the dreams of all men who once could have been but never were should be.

Out front, in the battered old hardware store, stood all the reasons in the world for a man like Lazarus Williams to be tired. They lay there, not in the nails, screws, hammers and ratchet sets that lined the shelves, but in pictures. Pictures of hope and pictures of joy. Pictures of dreams unfulfilled and visions of a time that Lazarus Williams wanted to return to for one brief moment, for one more try. In fact, the store (which he’d run for the past 35 years) was really just a front for the museum-like photo gallery that lined the walls.

The pictures were all photos from the long departed Negro Leagues. Pictures of Rube Foster, Smokey Joe Williams, John Henry Lloyd and other early century stars. Team pictures, from Foster’s original Chicago American Giant team right on through to the 1952 Indianapolis Clowns, featuring a young Hank Aaron. There were so many pictures, hundreds of them, that the shelf space for the actual merchandise had slowly dwindled over the years, as Lazarus put up more and more photos.

His right arm hung straight down at his side like a salami in an Italian deli, the result of the defining moment in his life thus far; an incident which had shown his true character, while at the same time had left him wondering if he should have just turned away. Of course, it was his strong moral character that had compelled him to jump in between a knife wielding mugger and his young female prey. A number of others had ignored the cries of the 20 year old (later revealed to be a prostitute) who was being attacked on the platform of the old rail yard on the edge of town. The train that happened to be pulling through at the time was a convenient way out for some of the assorted vagrants and passengers that were present on the platform. But not Lazarus Williams. The 21 year old pitcher, who was heading up to Kansas City for a tryout with the legendary Monarchs, reacted naturally (for him). He instantly intervened and wrestled the man valiantly across the platform for about half a minute, or 30 seconds that changed a life.

The thief was subdued after a vicious struggle, but not without a cost. He had slashed Lazarus once in the stomach and three times in his right arm, his throwing arm. The lacerations were so deep that the muscles and tendons were torn up and down, and were strung out in clusters, like spaghetti. From that day on, though he didn’t lose the arm to amputation, he did lose it to baseball, and so he felt, to life. At the time, he could at least console himself with the fact that he had saved the woman’s life. This thought sustained him during those first two days in the hospital, and kept him from agonizing over his suddenly lost limb. On the third day, however, a nurse came in and informed him that the woman had died of stab wounds to her stomach and chest. It was then that he was told that the girl was a streetwalker, though it didn’t matter much at all to him. He only knew her as a person in trouble. Still, from the moment he learned of the woman’s passing, Lazarus Williams could only long for the time when he had fallen a half minute from heaven.