Turn a page of small-town North Georgia history, there he is. The Big Cat. The Demorest Destroyer. Big Jawn.

In our latest documentary, we go behind the scenes to see what North Georgia author Jerry Grillo discovered about Hall of Famer Johnny Mize while writing his 2024 biography (https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235442/big-cat/). 

Over the course of Grillo's 20-year writing journey, he learned something about Mize that few people, even his stepson, didn’t know much about. 

Mize grew up in the racist Jim Crow South. But unlike his cousin, the famously intolerant Ty Cobb, he played in the off-season with and against some of the greatest Black athletes and Negro Leaguers of the day. He took the field alongside Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, but when asked to name the greatest player he ever saw, Mize named the Cuban-born Martín Dihigo who he played with in the early 1930s.

Hearing this led us to bring another 1930s-era, Georgia-born all-star first baseman into the story: James “Red” Moore of the Atlanta Black Crackers. 

We meet Greg White of Decatur, a former recreation center director, who helped Red Moore, from the little community of Bush Mountain in West Atlanta, achieve his dream of being an ambassador for Negro League baseball before he died in 2016 at the age of 99.

We think there might be lessons to be learned from Mize and Moore, Grillo and White.

But our main goal is to just tell a good story.