<p>When a man has spent years of his life performing hard labor with his hands, the battle scars are usually evident.</p>
<p>Several of the fingers on Ira McKnightâs large hands remain swollen or contorted, part of the price paid for hundreds of baseball games spent crouched behind home plate in the 1950s and 1960s.</p>
<p>Though McKnight never quite made it to the major leagues, he was an All-Star for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro American League, where he had a chance to catch some of the great pitchers of his era â including Hall of Famer Satchel Paige.</p>
<p>Now 82, McKnight is currently residing at the Greenwood Healthcare Center, where heâs been undergoing rehabilitation from a recent surgery. Today, the staff there is hosting a celebration for McKnight, where he will be autographing baseball cards for residents and staff members.</p>
<p>If theyâre interested in hearing a story or two, McKnight has plenty of interesting ones to tell.</p>
<p>Born in Trenton, Tennessee, he spent much of his childhood in South Bend before returning to the Volunteer State to complete his high school education. While there, McKnight spent the 1952 season playing for the Memphis Red Sox â where he was teammates with future country music star Charley Pride.</p>
<p>After high school, McKnight came back to South Bend, where he spent time with the local minor league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox in 1955.</p>
<p>At a tryout in Chicago the following year, he earned a spot with the Kansas City Monarchs, where he played for most of the next seven years. He batted .407 during the 1959 season.</p>
<p>McKnightâs best and last chance to reach the major leagues came during that period of time â he played briefly for the Auburn Yankees of the New York-Penn League in 1958, going 8 for 26 (.307), but he was released by the Yankees anyway â at least in part, McKnight believes, because he had been trying to play with a hand that was injured in spring training and hadnât yet fully healed.</p>
<p>âI was playing myself back into shape,â he said. âI shouldâve stayed (out after the injury) maybe a week, two weeks longer, but I was scared they wouldnât have no place for me.â</p>
<p>He returned to the Monarchs, where he had an opportunity to catch the legendary Paige in the early 1960s. A 55-year-old Paige tossed the first three innings of a combined no-hitter in 1961 with McKnight behind the plate.</p>
<p>When the Negro American League shut down in 1961, Paige formed a traveling all-star team that McKnight played for through the 1963 season. After that, the veteran backstop spent the twilight of his career playing for various teams in Canada.</p>
<p>During his playing days, there were no million-dollar salaries or first-class flights â McKnight says that Kansas City paid him roughly $200 a month plus $3 a day in meal money. Since a meal could be had for 75 cents at that time, he says, âit wasnât too bad.â</p>
<p>Travel, though, sometimes was. The Monarchs would play primarily local competition during the week, but weekend road trips were often all-night excursions.</p>
<p>âSometimes weâd leave someplace Friday night and drive 500 miles,â McKnight recalled.</p>
<p>Though heâs about half a century removed from it all, McKnight still remembers many details from those years clearly.</p>
<p>He speaks of playing games in all sorts of extreme weather across the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains â once, McKnight says, he saw a lightning strike take the metal toe plate off a pitcherâs cleats during a storm in Kansas.</p>
<p>âSatchel was pitching one of those games,â he said. âHe said, âIâve got to get the heck off this mound.â He couldnât see the mound!â</p>
<p>When describing himself as a player, McKnight says he was somewhat similar to recent Hall of Fame inductee Ivan âPudgeâ Rodriguez.</p>
<p>âI was someone who could catch like him,â he said, âhit to right field, center field, pull the ball a lot.â</p>
<p>Though he never got to play at the highest level, McKnight has no regrets about a career that allowed him to see almost every part of North America. One of the last living icons from the Negro Leagues, he has made numerous appearances signing autographs since moving to the Indianapolis area in 2010.</p>
<p>He wonât even have to leave the building for todayâs.</p>
