HIS AMAZIN’ GRACE
1969 Met hero Cleon Jones still working miracles in his hometown:
Despite leading the Mets to their first World Series with his bat, Cleon Jones is perhaps best remembered from the grainy footage of his most famous play with his glove. Settling in at the warning track at old Shea Stadium, Jones made a textbook, twohanded catch of Davey Johnson’s fly ball in left field. With the ball secure, Jones dropped to one knee and pulled his glove straight down in front of him, pausing a second in prayer, before all hell broke loose in celebration.
The picture of Jones and his glove delivering the last out of the 1969 Series is one of the most famous in franchise history. It’s ironic considering that growing up in Mobile, Alabama, Jones couldn’t even afford a glove.
“It was just my grandmother, my brother and me, we couldn’t afford those things,” Jones says from his hometown. “We relied mostly on our community, the families that had some resources to buy supplies and help develop my skills. I was 13 years old before I got my own first glove.
“The community helped me develop my baseball skills and allowed me to become a major leaguer,” says Jones of the coastal Alabama city that also produced some of the greatest players in baseball history. “I was always associated with this community and they helped me get there.”
Jones will never forget that he got to New York and the big leagues on the shoulders of his community, it’s why he now spends every day of his life giving back. It’s why he and his wife Angela returned 42 years ago with the hopes of building Mobile back into the place it once was, a community with a strong African American community and history.
With the Mets preparing a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of those Amazin’ 1969 Mets, Jones is reluctantly taking time away from his hands-on mission of mowing grass, painting homes, construction work and attending community meetings to try and raise awareness of the work the community is doing to rebuild the place they love, a place called Africatown.
Africatown is a special place in the South, resting at the intersection of American history and baseball. Five Hall of Famers have come from Mobile, from Home Run King Hank Aaron, to Cubs legend Billy Williams, to Giants great Willie McCovey who passed away last month, to Negro League pitching icon Satchel Paige, to backflipping shortstop wizard Ozzie Smith. Cleon Jones and his wife, who is Williams’ cousin, have worked on projects to document the city’s ties to greatness in the sport.
But Africatown is also a testament to black resiliency in America, a rooted piece of American history.
It was founded in 1860 by 32 West Africans, victims of the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States. On July 7, 1860, 52 years after the African slave trade was abolished, a ship named Clotilda sailed into Mobile Bay attempting to smuggle 110 kidnapped Africans into the country. On a bet, the ship’s sponsor, Timothy Meaher, believed it could evade capture. He was wrong.
The Africans were enslaved, however, and worked Meaher’s land until emancipation upon the conclusion of the Civil War.
The town the freed slaves formed three miles north of downtown Mobile on the west bank of the Mobile River is believed to be the first settlement of African-owned land in the country. They built a school and a church and a close-knit community that exists to this day, with descendants of those original 32 Africans among them.
During World War II, it attracted industry and factories, which eventually led to environmental issues along the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. The historic town has been hit with recession and has struggled after compa-
nies began to pull out. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Africatown showed 1,881 residents in the area, 98% of which are black. A Mobile redevelopment plan published in 2010 found "virtually no non-industrial businesses," vacant commercial buildings and many severely dilapidated homes.
But for Cleon and Angela Jones, Africatown is simply home, the place that helped raise them, the place they want to see blossom again. So, every morning, seven days a week, after they finish their morning prayer at their breakfast table, the two head out to work in the community.
The now-76-year-old Cleon Jones has helped rebuild two homes, one for a young woman burnt out of her own, and another for a wheelchair-bound man who didn’t want to leave his hometown. They have renovated rooms in at least 12 more houses. On any given day, Cleon can be found mowing the lawn at the community gardens. And when they’re not working in the community, they’re working the phones, trying to get the necessary resources to help restore the Africatown of their youths.
This past Wednesday, on the day before Thanksgiving, the two were back in the community working on another home.
“We’re just focused on cleaning up the blight,” says Angela. “We’re working with the city, the state and local groups to try and clean up the blight any way we can. Cleon said to me ‘Angela, any day I can get out of bed and help someone, it gives me the strength to keep on going.’ So, he goes out and he mows grass at the community garden, he helps renovate a house, he paints and he does whatever he can to help out.
“Because that is who he is,” Angela continued.
Of course, New York remembers him for a different reason.
Cleon Jones helped the fledgling Mets, a 1969 expansion team that had lost 100 games five times before winning 100 and being crowned champions in 1969, that miracle season. Jones hit .340 that year, including batting .429 in the National League Championship Series sweep of Aaron and the Atlanta Braves to get into the World Series. He is one of the few Mets who can claim to be a two-time pennant winner after hitting .291 in the 1973 run to the World Series.
The Joneses will return to New York in January to help kick off the Mets’ 50th anniversary celebration of the 1969 team along with Ed Kranepool and Ron Swoboda. They are proud of that chapter of their lives, and look forward to reliving some memories throughout the year, but they also see it as an opportunity.
“Cleon is happiest when he is out there helping people, tools in hand, helping rebuild homes or painting,” says Angela. “But I told him that God was going to give him a venue where he can use his background to promote this message.
“And I think this is that venue,” Angela said of the 50th anniversary celebrations, “it’s a chance for him to tell this story.”
Africatown is central to any story that the Joneses tell.
They met there at Central Training school. Cleon, then known as a great football player, caught Angela’s eye as she tried out for the majorettes. It was there where Angela first built up the courage to give Cleon an apple after a football game, which officially began their courtship. Africatown was where they returned after Cleon’s baseball career was over and it was time to raise their children.
And for them, Africatown, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, is where they want the story to continue for the next generation.
Cleon and Angela Jones want to make sure the next great baseball player, or author, or politician can grow up in Africatown. They want to be sure to preserve the history and the community so it will be there to lend a hand — or a baseball glove — when needed.
“I was a young man who was able to develop my Godgiven talents only because this community took an interest in me and helped me,” says Cleon. “A lot of folks helped me and so I always wanted to make a difference like that.. I wanted to put my energy and efforts into making sure that another young man who needs it, has that community available to help him too.”