How Negro Leagues star Mahlon Duckett's legacy is being kept alive on Pennsylvania Turnpike

Drivers might not realize it while heading down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but local Black history and sports history are being celebrated just off the highway, with the tip of an unusual baseball hat.

In an unassuming building by the Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls in Bensalem, Bucks County, 33-year Turnpike Commission veteran Eric Paul settles in every day with that hat on display over his shoulder.

"I have to keep it close," said Paul, the commission's regional facilities operations manager.

Meanwhile, at the commission offices in King of Prussia, Montgomery County, retired coworker, 73-year-old Ronald Duckett, pored over memories of his late dad.

"Pictures in here that I love," Duckett said. "It's a legacy."

Paul and Duckett bonded over their work for the turnpike and that same hat. The white letter G on the red cap stands for Grays, as in the Homestead Grays Negro Leagues baseball team out of Pittsburgh. Paul sees it to remember Duckett's father, Mahlon Duckett.

Ronald Duckett said the hat speaks to the team where his dad ended his career after starting with the Philadelphia Stars in 1940.

"He played for the Stars," Ronald Duckett said. "He actually played for 10 years in the league, and he played for nine years with the Stars. His last year was with the Grays."

After Ronald Duckett shared memories of his father, Paul said he rushed to get the hat.

"I went instantaneously online and purchased it," Paul said.

What did Paul learn about the player? Thanks to a documentary by the Philadelphia Phillies, fans could hear from Mahlon Duckett himself.

"My father was for it, but my mother wasn't," Mahlon Duckett said in an interview for the documentary titled "They Said We Couldn't Play." "Because at that time in 1940, we had a lot of problems in the South. She knew a lot of the games would be played there."

But the second baseman bravely played for the Stars despite fears he would be assaulted when Negro League teams sometimes played White teams.

"They would sharpen their spikes," Mahlon said. "You had to know how to get that ball and make the double play and get out of the way. Like I said, I have a couple scars on my knee now."

Rob Holiday, director of amateur scouting administration for the Phillies, which held a ceremonious Negro Leagues draft in 2008, said Mahlon Duckett's famous speed would have made the player a perfect fit in today's major league team.

"I could see him being a good utility infielder playing all around the infield and coming in and steal a base at the end of the game and helping the Phillies win," Holiday said.

Playing through it all is what inspired Paul to tell anyone who would listen about Mahlon Duckett, even after the player died in 2015 at 92 years old.

"Just bring notice to them that because of those men that did sacrifice, I am where I am now," Paul said.

And to think, this story lives on with the passing on of this baseball cap.