Leslie Harvey Fleming (August 7, 1915 – March 5, 1980) was an American Major League Baseball first baseman who played for seven seasons. He played for the Detroit Tigers in 1939, the Cleveland Indians from 1941 to 1942 and from 1945 to 1947, and the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1949.
As a member of the Indians during the 1947 season, Fleming became a teammate of Larry Doby when Doby broke the color barrier in the American League on July 5, 1947. On that same day the Indians were in Chicago preparing for a match-up against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park. Fleming was one of the Indians who turned his back to Doby when player-manager Lou Boudreau introduced Doby to his new Indians teammates in the clubhouse before the game.
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“The deer and the dachshund are one.
Well, the gods grow out of the weather.
The people grow out of the weather;
The gods grow out of the people.
Encore, encore, encore les dieux . . .”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“You watched and you saw what happened and in the accumulation of episodes you saw the pattern: Daddy ruled the roost, called the shots, made the money, made the decisions, so you signed up on his side, and fifteen years later when the women’s movement came along with its incendiary manifestos telling you to avoid marriage and motherhood, it was as if somebody put a match to a pile of dry kindling.”
—Anne Taylor Fleming (20th century)