Allen’s temper was so notorious that even his 1959 obituary was somewhat unflattering. In it, an Associated Press writer recounted an unpleasant incident that followed a frustrating loss to the Red Sox. Allen had exchanged angry words with opposing pitcher Wes Ferrell during the game, and, unable to contain his fury upon returning to the team’s hotel, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the corridor. That was after upending stools in the hotel bar and kicking over an ashtray full of sand. While Allen’s intensity gave him an edge over batters, it also interfered with his prosperity at various points during his thirteen-year career.

Allen was born on September 30, 1904 — a native of Lenoir, North Carolina, and the son of a police chief. When his father tragically died of appendicitis, his mother, Almyra, couldn’t provide for Johnny and his three siblings. She sent three of them (Johnny, Rita, and Austin) to the Thomasville Baptist Orphanage, where Johnny learned to play baseball. After attending Thomasville High School, Johnny landed a job in a Sanford, North Carolina hotel. He met Yankee scout Paul Krichell while working there. Krichell was a former major league catcher who had a keen eye for talent. In nearly forty years of scouting the majors, he signed a slew of Cooperstown greats, among them Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri. Allen told Krichell he was a pitcher, and a tryout was arranged. Krichell was impressed with the right-hander’s talents and offered him a minor league contract.

Allen’s professional career began in 1928. He quickly moved his way up through the ranks in the Piedmont, East Carolina, and Georgia-Alabama circuits. In 1931, he posted a 21-9 record for Toronto and Jersey City of the International League. He earned a roster spot in the Bronx the following year.

In his auspicious major league debut season in 1932, Allen assembled a remarkable 17-4 record and a 3.70 earned run average. With six Hall of Famers in the Yankee batting order (Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig among them), the Bombers had plenty of punch to back him all year, including Game 4 of the 1932 World Series, when he staked the Cubs to a 4-1 first-inning lead. Allen retired just two batters that afternoon, but the New Yorkers came back, tagging five Chicago hurlers for 13 runs on 19 hits, completing an efficient Series sweep.

Allen had a lively fastball and elusive curve. He threw from various arm angles. Frequent batterymate Bill Dickey was most impressed with Allen’s sidearm heater, describing it as “the meanest delivery in the league for a right-handed hitter. You simply cannot get hold of it. He’ll buzz it over the bat handle before you can see it.”1 Allen’s nasty fastball complemented his on-field persona.

Yankee trainer Earle “Doc” Painter took Allen under his wing, serving as an amateur psychologist of sorts. Explaining Allen’s unpredictable temperament to a writer, Painter commented: “He expects to win every time he pitches, and if he doesn’t win, he may turn on anybody.”2 The moody hurler disliked the way manager Joe McCarthy handled his pitching corps. McCarthy favored right-hander Johnny Broaca as a complement to the one-two punch of Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez. Allen wanted more playing time and boasted to the press one day: “If I’m not a better pitcher than Broaca, I’ll eat his shirt.”3 Allen never reached the 200-inning threshold in New York. The Yankees grew tired of his frequent holdouts and sour attitude, shipping him off to Cleveland in December 1935 for pitchers Monte Pearson and Steve Sundra.

Allen notched 20 wins during the ’36 slate, also dropping a career-high 10 decisions in 243 innings pitched. While Allen was facing the Browns early in the season, opposing manager Rogers Hornsby noted that Allen tended to lose focus in response to heckling. The secret quickly got out, as other teams began turning their bench jockeys loose on him. Relentlessly razzed by the Tigers one day, the tempestuous moundsman had to be restrained by umpires when he rushed angrily at Detroit coach Del Baker. Trying to ward off a major problem, the Indians petitioned American League president William Harridge to protect Allen from verbal harassment.

Allen had his finest campaign in 1937, jumping out to a 15-0 record despite being sidelined with appendicitis for several weeks. On the last day of the season, he had a chance to tie the AL record for consecutive wins held by Walter Johnson. He might have accomplished the feat if not for a miscue by third baseman Odell Hale. The play in question happened in the first inning after Allen had surrendered a double to Pete Fox. Hank Greenberg hit a grounder to Hale, who allowed the ball to pass through his legs, scoring Fox. It would prove to be Allen’s undoing, as southpaw Jake Wade held the Indians to just one hit. Allen, of course, blamed Hale for the 1-0 loss and went ballistic after the game. Manager Steve O’Neill had to restrain Allen twice when he tried to assault the error-prone third-sacker.

The following year, Allen was involved in one of the most renowned wardrobe controversies of all time. The ill-tempered twirler had cut the sleeves of one of his sweatshirts and worn it under his jersey during several of his starts in ’38. He claimed that the purpose of the alteration was to let more air in, but the fluttering fabric served to distract hitters. When umpire Bill McGowan ordered him to either remove the sweatshirt or clip the tattered strips off his sleeves during a game at Fenway Park in Boston, he refused and stormed off the field. In blatant defiance of manager Ossie Vitt, he declined to finish the game. The frayed sweatshirt was displayed in a Cleveland department store (with the proceeds of its sale going to Allen) and later found its way into the museum at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

During the ’38 All-Star break, Allen suffered an injury of questionable origin. Accounts differ as to what exactly happened. Many sources agree that something snapped in his shoulder during his All-Star appearance, but it has also been alleged that he slipped on a bar of soap in the shower. Either way, he was never the same pitcher afterward. Off to a 12-1 start, he accrued a 2-7 record with a 6.29 ERA in the second half.

One thing that remained unchanged was Allen’s penchant for causing trouble. In 1940, he took part in a plot to have manager Vitt removed from his post. The Indians were in contention all season, but hit a brief rough patch in June. Notoriously critical of his players, Vitt openly denigrated staff ace Bob Feller after a rough outing against the Red Sox. The following day, he pulled right-hander Mel Harder off the mound. Before taking the ball, he made a snotty remark about the hurler’s salary. Allen and Harder conspired to petition owner Alva Bradley for Vitt’s dismissal along with several teammates. Their ruse failed to produce results, and when details of the scandal broke, the entire team was referred to as “Vitt’s Crybabies.”

The Browns purchased Allen’s contract for $20,000 before the ’41 campaign, but waived him in July. The rapidly fading hurler spent portions of three seasons in Brooklyn, causing numerous headaches for management. In March 1942, he was ordered out of uniform by club president Larry MacPhail for breaking training rules in Havana, Cuba. He was reinstated after manager Leo Durocher and chief scout Ted McGrew put in a good word for him. The following year, he completely lost his composure in a May 27 contest at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Called upon in relief of Rube Melton, he failed to retire any of the four batters he faced. When umpire George Barr called a balk on him, Allen rushed at the arbiter like a wild man. It took several players to restrain him. An article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette stated that the Brooklyn Press Corps admitted to never having seen “such an all-out physical attack by a player against an umpire.”4 Allen was suspended for 30 days and fined.

Unable to deal with Allen’s unstable temper, the Dodgers shipped him to the Giants along with aging slugger Dolph Camilli in return for three players of little note. The Giants released him in April 1945. He played in nine minor league games that year, racking up a 4-0 record and an impressive 1.31 ERA in the Carolina League. He was finished as a professional player after that.

Despite his numerous run-ins with officials over the years, Allen got to see what the game was like from the other side, serving as a minor league umpire.

“[I]t will be interesting to see what happens to the first manager who comes out of the dugout to protest a decision,” reported the Milwaukee Journal when was hired. “The betting in most quarters is that he will be met by a left hook to the jaw.”5

A few years later, Allen the umpire would tell writer Fred Lieb that although he had his share of disputes with managers and players, they were “mostly minor ones.”

“Of course, I still have that old Allen chin, and if they go too far, I still know how to be tough,” he said. “However, I believe a long previous career in the majors also gets you some respect in minor league ball. They figure you’ve been through the mill, and know your way around.”6

Allen eventually rose to umpire-in-chief in the Carolina League, retiring in 1953. After leaving baseball behind, he entered the real estate business in St. Petersburg, Florida. He left behind a wife (the former Mary Leta Shields, whom he married in 1931) and son (John, Jr.) when he died from a heart ailment at the age of 54 on March 29, 1959.

A slightly different version of this biography appeared in the author’s book, “Baseball’s Most Notorious Personalities: A Gallery of Rogues,” available through Scarecrow Press.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Retrosheet.org

TheDeadballera.com

Bill Johnson. “Hal Trosky,” SABR’s Baseball Biography Project, http://sabr.org/bioproject.

“Allen, Former Major League Pitcher Dies.” United Press International, Mar. 30, 1959.

“Johnny Allen Finally Loses The Big Game.” Associated Press, Mar. 29, 1959.

Goldman, Steve, “You Could Look it Up: Gamesmanship, Dammit,” Baseballprospectus.com, June 2, 2004.

Cleveland Club Asks Protection For Allen” Associated Press, May 13, 1936.

Popelka, Greg. “Tribe Game Vault 6/7/38: The Great Johnny Allen Torn Shirt.” Theclevelandfan.com, June 20, 2012.

Notes

Second baseman Newt Allen’s Kansas City Monarchs teammates gave him the nickname “Colt” in 1922 because he was the youngest member of the team.1 Over the course of a 23-plus-year career in the Negro Leagues that also included stints in other countries, Allen proved to be one of the best players ever to man the keystone sack. During his tenure with the Monarchs, Allen contributed sterling defense and a potent bat to 11 championship squads.2

At the conclusion of his second full season with Kansas City, he played in the first Negro League World Series, in which the Monarchs defeated the Hilldale Club of the Eastern Colored League. Eighteen years later, now a seasoned veteran, he helped the Monarchs triumph over the Negro National League’s Homestead Grays in the first Negro League World Series between those two circuits. During the intervening years, Colt Allen had galloped over all competition so soundly that in 2006 he was on the final ballot of the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues for induction into the Hall of Fame, though he ultimately fell short of enshrinement.

Newton Henry Allen was born on May 19, 1901, in Austin, Texas, to Newton H. and Rose (Baker) Allen. The elder Newton and Rose had married in 1897 and led a hardscrabble existence as they raised a family in Texas’s capital city. Newton Allen was a laborer who worked whatever odd jobs he could find while Rose worked as a laundress. Young Newt had an older sister, Dora, and was joined later by another sister, Eva Mae, and a brother, Lawrence; two other siblings, including a sister named Mary who was born in 1903, died in childhood prior to 1910.

Newt’s father succumbed to tuberculosis on July 21, 1910, forcing Rose and the four children to fend for themselves. This new circumstance contributed, in a roundabout way, to Newt’s arrival in Kansas City, Missouri. Rose briefly took the children to Cincinnati – presumably she had family there – and, shortly thereafter, Newt accompanied her to Missouri to visit an aunt whose young son had recently died. As Allen later recalled:

“I went to live with my auntie, Ophelia Henderson, in Kansas City. She had a boy and he and I were the same age. And he passed. And when she lost him, then she took me.

I lived at 17th Street, about 17th and Woodland. Just across the street from where I lived was a ballpark by one of them playgrounds. I was out there all the time. That was Parade Park.”3

Such were the unusual circumstances by which Newt grew up in Kansas City while his siblings were raised by their mother, first in Austin and later in Cincinnati.4

Allen attended Bruce Elementary School and Lincoln High School and became close friends with Frank Duncan, a future Monarchs teammate and manager. According to Allen, another future Monarchs star, pitcher Rube Curry, was also part of their circle of friends who played sandlot ball together.5 As Allen and his friends advanced from sandlot to semipro ball, he started to chase after balls from the minor-league Kansas City Blues’ games, saying, “[I would] come back with the ball and sell it or keep it. That’s the way our ballteam [sic], which was a semipro team, always had balls to play with when we would go out to play.”6 Allen also started to work at the Monarchs’ ballpark at 20th Street and Prospect where, he said, “I pulled the canvas and filled the water jug for them, things like that.”7 Allen and Duncan played for the semipro Kansas City Tigers, but Newt spent a lot of time on the bench and soon joined the Paseo Rats as well as playing for Swift’s in a packinghouse league.8

Duncan began his professional career with the Chicago Giants in 1920 – the same year that Curry debuted with the Monarchs – and joined Kansas City early in the 1921 season, but Allen had to take a longer road to join his longtime friends on their hometown team. First, he ventured to Nebraska, where he honed his skills playing for the Omaha Federals in 19ry21. Monarchs’ co-owner J.L. Wilkinson had resurrected his barnstorming All-Nations team – so called because it was integrated and employed players of different races and ethnicities – and based it in Omaha. He soon took notice of Allen and gave him a tryout in 1922, after which he assigned Allen to the All-Nations team, placing him under the tutelage of the diverse squad’s manager, already-legendary pitcher John Donaldson.

Allen toiled for the All-Nations team, which also served as a farm club for the Monarchs, for most of the season before being called up to the Monarchs in October for a six-game “City Championship” series against the Double-A Kansas City Blues.9 The Monarchs won five of the six games against their White counterparts to claim the title as champions of Kansas City. Allen fared poorly at the plate, going 1-for-14 for an .071 batting average in five games, but he nonetheless had learned well in 1922 and was able to break spring training with the Monarchs the next season.

Perhaps the reason for Allen’s poor performance in the City Championship series was that he was distracted by his early-October marriage to 17-year-old Mary Edwards and the impending arrival of their first child, Newton Henry Allen Jr., who was born on November 27, 1922. Newt Jr. eventually graduated from Western Baptist Bible College, the same institution his father had attended for two years before pursuing his baseball career, and he founded Kansas City’s Mount Joy Missionary Baptist Church.10 Newt Sr. and Mary had a second son and a daughter, but their marriage did not endure. Allen recalled, “After my wife and I separated, [teammate Newt Joseph] and I lived together here in Kansas City for about five years. The two Newts.”11

The difficulty in Allen’s marriage was representative of the problems that have shaken many ballplayers’ marriages in all eras. According to one historian, “[M]arried players always spoke of the ‘understanding’ a man and his wife had to have.”12 Allen said, “It’s a hard life. There has to be an understanding between you and your wife – a good understanding.”13 Whether that understanding entailed the expectation of marital fidelity or the acceptance of infidelity may have varied from marriage to marriage. Allen was known to revel in his celebrity as a ballplayer and confessed, “The women, they were lovely everywhere we went. If they didn’t recognize me in my regular clothes, then I’d go up to them and tell them who I was. But sometimes they could be a worrisome deal.”14

One concern that Allen hoped would no longer be worrisome was his status with the Monarchs, a member team of the Rube Foster-founded Negro National League. He began the 1923 season at third base with Kansas City and batted .304 in 33 league games but was returned to the All-Nations team in June and spent the summer barnstorming throughout the Midwest again.15 The Monarchs finished with a 54-32 league record (61-37 overall) and wrested the NNL championship away from Foster’s Chicago American Giants, the team that had claimed the first three league pennants. Although Allen had not spent the entire season with Kansas City, he still had been a major contributor to the first of the 11 Monarchs championship squads on which he played.

Finally, in 1924, Allen took over at second base for Kansas City for the long term. He gained his older teammates’ acceptance through hard play and by taking their pranks in a good-natured way. Allen noted, “The players would ride you to see if you can take it,” and recalled that one time some of the Monarchs veterans “told the hotel where we ate not to give me no meat because I’d have fits. I ate breakfast without meat and lunch without meat. So I asked them what was going on and they told me the players told them if they gave me meat, I’d have fits.”16 His first full season with the Monarchs involved a learning curve on the baseball diamond as his batting average fell to .258 and he committed 33 errors in the field in 73 league games; his .918 fielding percentage was slightly below the league average of .925.

In time, Allen remedied all shortcomings. He was not a big man – standing 5-feet-9 and weighing 165 pounds – so he learned how to become an ideal number-two hitter in the Monarchs lineup. Later in life, when asked what he considered to be his outstanding achievement in baseball, Allen answered that he “learned how to play second base, bunt and hit behind the runner, and think while playing.”17 That Allen was a fast learner was evidenced by the improvements in his performance at the plate and in the field as the Monarchs faced the Hilldale Club in the first Negro League World Series that October.

That first World Series provided as much excitement as any fan could desire. The Monarchs prevailed 5-4-1 over Hilldale. The tie occurred in Game Three, which had to be called due to darkness with the scored knotted, 6-6, after 13 innings. Allen improved his batting average to .282 with 11 hits (seven doubles) and 8 runs scored and his fielding percentage rose to .968. However, one of the two errors he committed proved costly.

In Game Four, which was played on October 6 at Maryland Baseball Park in Baltimore, the teams were tied, 3-3, when Hilldale loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth. Hilldale catcher Louis Santop hit “a routine grounder to Newt Allen at second and Allen [threw] wildly to catcher Duncan, allowing Judy Johnson to score the ugly, but winning run.”18 Hilldale’s winning pitcher was Allen’s childhood friend Rube Currie, and the Philadelphia-area club took a 2-to-1 Series lead.

Allen was able to redeem himself in Game 10, which took place on October 20 at Schorling Park in Chicago. Hilldale’s Script Lee and Jose “The Black Diamond” Mendez, the Monarchs’ Cuban hurler, engaged in an epic pitchers’ duel that remained scoreless until the bottom of the eighth inning. In that fateful frame, the Monarchs offense exploded for five runs. Allen drove in the second and third runs with a single to right field and put the exclamation point on Kansas City’s rally by scoring the fifth and final run on Dink Mothell’s double. Mendez finished the shutout, and the Monarchs were the champions of Black baseball.

On the heels of Kansas City’s championship, Allen and Monarchs teammate Wilbur “Bullet” Rogan traveled to Cuba to play for the Almendares Alacranes (Scorpions) during the 1924-25 Winter League season. Almendares fielded four future Hall of Famers in Rogan, Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, and Oscar Charleston and was the dominant squad on the island. In fact, “Almendares reclaimed the title by such ample margin that the league, as was customary in those days, stopped the activities to prevent financial harm to the different clubs.”19 Allen contributed a .313 batting average in 48 at-bats while splitting the third-base duties with Cuban Jose Gutierrez.20 With the regular season cut short, it was decided that a special eight-game series would be held between “All Cubans” and “All Yankees” teams. The All Yankees, composed exclusively of Negro League players, finished with a 5-2-1 record in the series, and Allen went 8-for-30 for a .267 average while playing third base in all eight games.21 He returned to Cuba only once, in 1938-39, and split the season between Almendares and Habana. He hit .269 combined between the two squads but fell short of a championship as the Santa Clara team won the title that season.22

In April 1925 the Chicago Defender noted that the Monarchs would field an all-veteran starting lineup to begin the season.23 Kansas City’s talent and experience led them to the NNL’s first-half title, but the St. Louis Stars captured the second-half flag, and it took a hard-fought seven-game series for the Monarchs to retain the NNL championship. Allen once again handled the second-base chores, batted .289 in 80 regular-season games, and raised his level of play and batting average to .370 in the NNL championship series against the Stars. The Monarchs’ reward was a rematch against Hilldale in the 1925 World Series. Between their exhausting series against St. Louis and an injury to pitching ace Bullet Rogan, who “was hurt in a freak accident at home and spent the entire series on the bench,” the Monarchs were no competition for Hilldale this second time around.24 Hilldale’s pitchers quieted Kansas City’s bats and captured the championship in six games. The Monarchs likely wished that Rube Curry had still been on their side, as their former righty, who had gone 1-1 with a 0.55 ERA in the 1924 World Series, posted two victories in the rematch. Curry threw a 12-inning complete-game victory in Game One and hurled another complete game in Hilldale’s 2-1 triumph in Game Five. Meanwhile, Allen slumped to .259 and only one Monarchs hitter – Dobie Moore – managed to bat over .300 for the Series.

Rogan recovered in time to play in the California Winter League’s 1925-26 season and Allen accompanied him west. The two played for the Philadelphia Royal Giants in what was at that time the only integrated professional baseball league in the United States. Allen scuffled to a .254 batting average in 29 games, but Rogan posted a 14-2 record to help the Royal Giants run away with the league title. Allen returned to California for the next five Winter League seasons, playing for the Philadelphia Royal Giants in 1926-27, 1929-30, and 1930-31 and for the Cleveland Giants in 1927-28 and 1928-29. During his six winters in the Golden State, Allen compiled a career .324 batting average, and his teams captured the league title every year except in 1927-28.

Allen’s career settled into a winning pattern in both California winters and Kansas City summers. However, as successful as the Monarchs were, they were unable to return to the World Series in 1926, losing a nine-game playoff series to the archrival Chicago American Giants. There had long been bad blood between the Monarchs and the Giants, and it brought out one of Allen’s less desirable traits: his temper. Chicago’s Dave Malarcher had once spiked Allen as he slid into second, opening a gash that required 18 stitches. Allen held a long grudge, recollecting, “It took me three years to repay him, but they say vengeance is sweet. One day we were leading by two runs, he was on first, and I took the throw at second for a double play. Well, instead of throwing to first, I threw straight at Malarcher charging into second. I hit him right in the forehead. … Hurt him pretty bad. He was out of the ball game for three days.”25

Malarcher was one of many players with whom Allen had run-ins during his long career in the rough-and-tumble Negro Leagues. In looking back, Allen admitted:

“A lot of times I had a nasty feeling within myself, not against a ballplayer. I was pretty bad playing ball, yes, I was pretty bad – run over a man, throw at him. I did a lot of wrong things. But I got results out of it, because they were leery of what I was going to do, and I’d get by with it. …

We used every trick in the book to win a ball game. All kinds of good tricks and nasty ones. In fact, there were more nasty ones than there were good. Caused many a ballplayer to get hurt.”26

Although Allen put fear into some opponents via the use of his “tricks,” he also gained the respect of his peers as one of the best second sackers to play the game. Pitcher Chet Brewer, who joined the Monarchs in 1925 and was a longtime teammate, raved, “Newt was a real slick second baseman, he could catch the ball and throw it without looking. Newt used to catch the ball, throw it up under his left arm; it was just a strike to first base. He was something! Got that ball out of his glove quicker than anybody you ever saw.”27 Buck O’Neil, who came to Kansas City in 1938 and who had an eye for talent as good as (or better than) Wilkinson’s observed, “When I got there, Newt was in his mid-thirties, but even after sixteen years he was an excellent second baseman, and he had six more good years left in him. He could make all the plays around the bag, and I’ve never seen a second baseman with as good an arm.”28 Even White baseball took notice, as New York Giants manager John McGraw asserted, “Allen is one of the finest infielders, white or colored, in organized baseball.”29

While their second baseman made a name for himself, the Monarchs franchise was about to embark on a new phase of its existence. Allen batted .332 for the 1929 squad as Kansas City won its final NNL championship by virtue of capturing the league title in both halves of the season, finishing with a 63-17 record in league play (66-17 overall). The Great Depression was taking its toll on NNL teams, and the league folded after the 1931 season. Wilkinson had seen the handwriting on the wall and withdrew the Monarchs from the league after the 1930 season, turning the franchise into a barnstorming team. Wilkinson figured that he could turn a profit via his innovative portable lighting system that had introduced night baseball to America in 1930. Thus, the Monarchs became an independent barnstorming team from 1931 to 1936. Although Allen spent the entirety of his career with the Monarchs, circumstances now forced him to seek employment with other teams for brief periods of time. Prior to the Monarchs beginning their barnstorming season, he played for the St. Louis Stars in 1931 and the Homestead Grays in 1932.

Additionally, while Allen had already been to Cuba, he soon got to see other parts of the world as well. On December 12, 1931, the Chicago Defender reported, “The Kansas City Monarchs left Tuesday morning for Mexico City to play a series of games. This trip is being made under the supervision of the Mexican government. The club will travel in a special Pullman and will be quartered in one of the best hotels in the southern republic.”30 The Mexico City Aztecas provided the primary opponent over the course of the 30-day tour, and newspaper accounts showed the Monarchs to have a 19-2 record.31

Two years later, during the winter of 1933-34, Allen and five Monarchs teammates – including his winter traveling companion Bullet Rogan – were members of a 12-player all-star team that toured China, Japan, and the Philippines. The three-month exhibition tour was organized by Lonnie Goodwin, the manager of the California Winter League’s Philadelphia Royal Giants, and the all-stars competed against Army teams and clubs from sugar plantations.32 On the return trip, the team played additional games in Hawaii. According to Allen:

“A man named Yamashiro, a superintendent down at Dole Pineapple Company, offered Rogan and me a salary and the only thing we’d have to do was check crates of pineapples and play ball two days a week, Saturdays and Sundays. At the end of the ball season, the team split all the money. The factory just furnished us the suits and the name. But we decided to come on back home and play.”33

Having returned stateside, Allen and Rogan, as members of the Monarchs, integrated the prestigious Denver Post Tournament in 1934 as they vied for the $5,000 purse that was to be awarded to the winners. The House of David team responded to the powerful Monarchs entry by hiring Satchel Paige (who later became more closely associated with the Monarchs than any other team he had played for) and catcher Cy Perkins of the Pittsburgh Crawfords as mercenaries to play for their otherwise all-White squad. Paige outdueled Chet Brewer, 2-1, in a semifinal game. The Monarchs made it to the championship game but again succumbed to the House of David, 2-0, as Brewer lost another duel, this time against Spike Hunter. Allen ended up being the tournament’s leading basestealer, but that was of no consolation to him or the rest of the Monarchs.

The Monarchs, along with Paige and Perkins, as the first Black players to participate in the tournament, had to deal with a great deal of discrimination in the press. The Post ran numerous insulting articles; in one item, “[a]cting as if Paige’s nickname of ‘Satchel’ wasn’t good enough, the newspaper invented a new one – ‘The Chocolate Whizbang.’”34 Like most Black players, the members of the Monarchs had long ago become inured to the prejudice they encountered in the age of Jim Crow, but sometimes they could be pushed over the limit. Allen recalled one incident when, after a Michigan restaurant owner told them they could not eat inside his establishment, “We just all walked out – we left them with fifty some hamburgers on the grill. It was one of those times when you even the score.”35

Although some White players also lacked racial tolerance, it was much rarer for the Monarchs to experience discrimination from the White players on local teams or major-league all-star teams that they played against. Allen explained, “Ball players – white and black – have a lot of respect for each other. They know they can play ball, and they know they’re going to play with them or against them. You hear a lot of harsh words from the grandstand, but very seldom find prejudiced ball players.”36

The Monarchs were also the only Negro League team under White ownership, and Wilkinson and his players gave mutual respect. Wilkinson was so proud of his players’ success in exhibition games against major-league teams that he once boasted “his team could compete with the New York Giants or Yankees, the two teams in the 1937 white major leagues’ World Series.”37 However, pride in their abilities alone would have meant little to the Monarchs players. They respected Wilkinson because of the way he treated them. Allen stated, “He was a considerate man; he understood; he knew people. Your face could be as black as tar; he treated everyone alike. He traveled right along with us.”38

In 1937 Wilkinson decided that the Monarchs would rejoin a league. The franchise became one of the charter members of the Negro American League rather than enlisting with the second iteration of the Negro National League that had been established in 1933. The Monarchs dominated their new competitors, claiming the NAL championship in five of the league’s first six seasons. They defeated two former NNL rivals now in the NAL, the Chicago American Giants and St. Louis Stars, in 1937 and 1939 respectively to win the pennant in those two seasons. From 1940 to 1942, Kansas City was declared the NAL champion by virtue of finishing with the league’s best record. Even when the title eluded the Monarchs in 1938, the team still owned the NAL’s best overall record; however, it failed to win either the first- or second-half league title.39

Allen batted .314 in 51 league games and continued to man second base for Kansas City as the franchise embarked upon its first NAL title run in 1937. However, over the next three seasons his batting acumen and defensive range began an inevitable decline. In 1941 the now 40-year-old Allen was moved to third base; he also took the managerial reins and guided the Monarchs to a 25-11 league record (34-13 overall) in his lone season as the team’s skipper. Despite the falloff in Allen’s overall play, he was a well-established, popular star and was elected to play in four East-West All-Star Games (1936-38, 1941).40 The fact that Allen went 0-for-15 with the bat in the four all-star contests, however, was one indicator that his best playing days were behind him.

Nevertheless, in 1942 Allen managed one last hurrah as he manned third base in 24 of the Monarchs’ 39 league games and batted .304. Kansas City won the NAL with a 27-12 record in league play (35-17) overall and earned the right to face the NNL’s Homestead Grays in the first World Series between the two rival leagues. Thus, almost two full decades after participating in the first-ever Negro League World Series, Allen now took part in another landmark event. The Grays ruled the NNL in the same manner as the Monarchs reigned over the NAL, so it was expected that this Series might be every bit as dramatic as its predecessor had been in 1924. The Monarchs had other ideas, however, and swept the Grays in four games. As a 23-year-old youngster, Allen had batted .282 against Hilldale in 1924. Now, at the venerable age of 41, he played in three of the four games and hit .286 against Homestead as he won the final championship of his long career.

After two subpar seasons, in which he batted .239 and .236, Allen voluntarily retired after the 1944 season. However, in March 1945 he was around in spring training to evaluate a new player for Wilkinson, a former college athlete fresh out of the Army by the name of Jackie Robinson. Allen’s assessment was, “He’s a very smart ball player, but he can’t play shortstop – he can’t throw from the hole. Try him at second base.”41 Although Allen identified the position with which Robinson would become most associated after breaking the White major leagues’ color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Robinson won the Monarchs’ shortstop job by default in 1945 when starter Jesse Williams suffered an arm injury. Later in life, Allen continued to extol Robinson’s baseball acumen, saying, “Jackie was smart, he was an awful smart ballplayer. He didn’t have the ability at first, but he had the brains. … Jackie had one-third ability and two-thirds brains, and that made him a great ballplayer.”42

Allen had been a great ballplayer for a long time as well, and as is often the case with such individuals, he could not resist one final attempt at playing the game he loved. In April 1947 the Chicago Defender listed Allen on the roster of the NAL’s Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns, who now had future Hall of Fame shortstop Willie Wells Sr. as manager.43 Allen and Wells had formed the keystone combo for the St. Louis Stars in the first half of the 1931 season, prior to Allen’s rejoining the Monarchs for their barnstorming schedule. In his limited playing time with the Clowns, Allen turned back the clock at the plate, batting .314 in 13 league games, before hanging up his spikes for good. Wells did not have the same success as manager that he had enjoyed as a player and was replaced by Jesse “Hoss” Walker after the Clowns started the season 14-29. The Clowns finished fifth in the NAL with a 31-52-1 record, while Allen’s hometown franchise, the Monarchs, finished second at 52-32.

Once Allen’s baseball career was at an end, he settled in Kansas City, where he became involved in Democratic Party politics and worked as a foreman in the county courthouse. In the mid-1960s, Allen enjoyed attending yearly player reunions that were usually held in nearby Kansas City, Kansas. In 1971 he stated, “[T]he last five years we’ve had a reunion every year, all the ballplayers, white and colored [from the area’s former semipro and professional teams].”44 He also kidded, “You talk about hearing some baseball – everybody’s talking, and among the habitual drinkers, that’s when the truth comes out and there are some tall tales told. One guy says that’s the only time he ever hits .300, when he remembers the old days at those parties.”45

Eventually, Allen moved back to Cincinnati to be closer to family members who lived in the area. By the time the Kansas City Star interviewed him for a profile article in 1985, he was already residing in an assisted-care facility. In January 1986 Allen’s eldest son, Newt Jr., died. The Rev. Allen’s obituary listed as survivors his wife, Bertha; his father, Mr. Newton H. Allen Sr., of Cincinnati; as well as his mother, Mrs. Mary E. Allen, and a sister, Mrs. Myrtle Vanoy, both of Kansas City.46 No mention was made of Allen’s other son, who had made a career out of the Army and may also have preceded his father in death.47

Newt Allen Sr. died of a heart attack on June 9, 1988, at Cincinnati’s Golden Age Nursing Home. No obituaries were published in Cincinnati or Kansas City newspapers; only the Kansas City Times ran a short blurb about Allen’s death. In the Times’s brief write-up, Buck O’Neil was quoted as saying, “He was one of the best I’ve ever seen. I’d compare him with [longtime Kansas City Royal] Frank White, except Newt’s arm might have been a little stronger. He had soft hands and great range. The three best players I saw at the position were Newt, Frank and Bill Mazeroski.”48

Considering such accolades, it is even more distressing that Allen lies buried in an unmarked grave in Cincinnati’s Union Baptist Cemetery, a historical Black graveyard. In 2020 Negro League researcher/author Paul Debono and Cincinnati-area historian Chris Hanlin were able to identify Allen’s final resting place among other members of his family. Efforts began to enlist the aid of the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project and other entities to place a headstone at the site to commemorate the life of Newt Allen, one of the stars of the old Negro Leagues.

Sources

Ancestry.com was consulted for public records including census information; birth, marriage, and death records; military draft registration cards; and ships’ passenger logs.

California Winter League statistics and records were taken from: McNeil, William F., The California Winter League: America’s First Integrated Professional Baseball League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002).

Negro League player statistics and manager/team records were taken from Seamheads.com, unless otherwise indicated.

Sanford, Jay. The Denver Post Tournament (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2003).

Notes

1 “Teammates’ Tests Put Allen on Way to Long Career,” Kansas City Star, July 23, 1985.

2 This number includes first-half and second-half league titles, composite-standing league titles, and World Series championships. It is not to be understood as an assertion that the Monarchs won 11 World Series titles.

3 “Teammates’ Tests Put Allen on Way to Long Career.” Although Allen was raised in Kansas City from about the age of 9 years, the identity of his aunt is a mystery. Allen gave her name as Ophelia Henderson in the 1985 interview with the Star, but the only person by that name that this author could identify was younger than Allen; therefore, this Ophelia Henderson could not have been the woman who raised him. Allen may have mixed up names, especially as this interview was given late in his life. It also would not have been the first time he had told part of his life story inaccurately: In a 1971 interview with historian John Holway, Allen claimed to have been born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1902 (see John Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 91). Regarding Parade Park, it may be of interest to note that it is now the home of the Kansas City MLB Urban Youth Academy (see https://kcparks.org/places/the-parade-park/).

4 The 1920 US census shows that Rose Allen was still living in Austin; however, by the time of the 1930 census she had moved her family to Cincinnati permanently. Although Newton H. Allen had died in 1910, four children – two daughters and two sons – were added to the immediate family after his death; as there is no evidence that Rose ever remarried and all four had the surname Allen, it is possible that she adopted the children, perhaps from one or more relatives (as she had allowed her own son, Newt, to be taken in by a relative). Rose Allen died in Cincinnati in 1957 at the age of 81 or 82. (She was born in 1875, but her exact date of birth is unknown.)

5 Holway, 91. Rube Currie’s last name was also spelled “Curry” at times; see http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=curry01reu.

6 “Teammates’ Tests Put Allen on Way to Long Career.”

7 “Teammates’ Tests Put Allen on Way to Long Career.”

8 Phil S. Dixon, Wilber “Bullet” Rogan and the Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010), 75.

9 Dr. Layton Revel and Luis Munoz, “Forgotten Heroes: Newton ‘Newt’ Allen,” http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Hero/Newton-Newt-Allen.pdf, accessed December 29, 2020.

10 “The Rev. Newton H. Allen Jr.” (obituary), Kansas City Times, January 8, 1986, 39.

11 Holway, 93. Although Newt and Mary separated, this author uncovered no divorce records; thus, the couple may have remained married even though they ceased to live together.

12 Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985), 43.

13 Bruce, 43.

14 Dixon, 76.

15 Revel and Munoz, 3.

16 “Teammates’ Tests Put Allen on Way to Long Career.”

17 “Newt Allen Questionnaire for Normal ‘Tweed’ Webb’s Record Book.” Thanks go out to SABR Negro League Research Committee Chair Larry Lester for providing a copy of Allen’s questionnaire.

18 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series: The 1924 Meeting of the Hilldale Giants and Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006), 134.

19 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2003), 157.

20 Figueredo, 159.

21 Severo Nieto, Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba: Box Scores, Rosters and Statistics from the Files of Cuba’s Foremost Baseball Researcher (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008), 161.

22 Figueredo, 222.

23 “World Champion Monarchs Start Spring Training with All Veterans in the Lineup,” Chicago Defender, April 4, 1925: 10.

24 Kyle McNary, Black Baseball: A History of African Americans & the National Game (New York: PRC Publishing Ltd., 2003), 110.

25 Holway, 94.

26 Holway, 95.

27 Lester, 48.

28 Buck O’Neil with Steve Wulf and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time: My Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 79-80.

29 Lester, 49.

30 “Monarchs to Play Series with Mexico,” Chicago Defender, December 12, 1931: 8.

31 Revel and Munoz, 10.

32 Bruce, 86-87.

33 Holway, 102.

34 Dixon, 144.

35 Bruce, 61.

36 Bruce, 80.

37 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016), 101.

38 Bruce, 19.

39 The Memphis Red Sox won the first-half championship, and the Atlanta Black Crackers clinched the second-half title in the 1938 NAL season.

40 The inaugural East-West game was played in 1933 while the Monarchs were an independent barnstorming team. Although Kansas City was still an independent team in 1936, the franchise’s players were eligible to be voted onto the West team for that season’s all-star game.

41 Bruce, 106.

42 Holway, 103.

43 “Red Sox to Play Three with Clowns” Chicago Defender, April 12, 1947: 23.

44 Holway, 104-5.

45 Holway, 105.

46 “The Rev. Newton H. Allen Jr.” (obituary).

47 Holway, 104. In this 1971 interview, Allen mentioned that his younger son was making a career out of the Army and was stationed in Europe at that time.

48 “Ex-Monarch Second Baseman Dies,” Kansas City Times, June 14, 1988: 30.

At a time when America, along with the rest of the world, was struggling to cope with the worst depression in its history and the ominous rise of fascism in Europe, baseball provided some diversion from dark times. Appling started his major league career in 1930, just about the beginning of the Depression. The best word to describe Luke Appling is durability, a quality he showed throughout his baseball career and his life. He was emblematic of an America struggling through the Depression and digging into their psyches (perhaps unknowingly) to prepare for another world war. Appling endured and so did America.

“Old Aches and Pains,” as Appling was called, was arguably the greatest hypochondriac to ever play the game. Backaches, headaches, bad knees, eye problems would torment him-and then he’d go out and get three hits.

Lucious Benjamin Appling, born in High Point, North Carolina, on April 2, 1907, was clearly no slouch when he took the field. All of his medical complaints disappeared when game time came. He was so infirm that he managed to collect only 2,749 hits in a career that spanned twenty years, all with the Chicago White Sox. Appling never let a backache or headache get in the way of playing shortstop and getting in his licks as a hitter. He even complained about field conditions at Comiskey Park. “I swear that park must have been built on a junkyard,” he exclaimed. It turned out later he was right.

Appling attended Fulton High School in Atlanta and spent two years at Oglethorpe College. In 1930, when he was a sophomore at Oglethorpe, he signed with the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association. He hit the ball solidly for the Crackers, but his fielding at shortstop left something to be desired, as he committed 42 errors.

Late in the 1930 season the Atlanta Crackers were sold to the Chicago Cubs. But due to the intervention of Milt Stock, Appling joined the White Sox in a cash transaction that also involved an outfielder named Doug Taitt. Despite his fielding woes the White Sox bought his contract for $20,000. Appling made his debut for the White Sox at the end of the 1930 season. Appearing in six games, he committed four errors but also collected eight hits. He had a strong arm, but many of his throws ended up in the stands, sending fans scurrying out of the way.

The 1931 season was less than stellar for Appling. His fielding troubles still plagued him, and his hitting fell off. The White Sox tried to trade him, but there were no takers. White Sox manager Jimmy Dykes took Appling in hand and with great patience helped Appling polish his fielding skills and had him stop swinging for the fences.

Appling married Faye Dodd in 1932. They had two daughters (Linda and Carol) and one son (Luke III).

In 1932 the Pale Hose finished in seventh place behind the lowly St. Louis Browns. Appling batted .274 with ten triples and 63 runs batted in. He still was swinging for the fences and got himself out innumerable times through his lack of patience at the plate.

It all came together for Luke Appling in 1933, when he stopped trying to hit home runs, learned to use the entire field, and batted .328 for the season. Eight more years of .300 or better followed, and he improved enough to become an adequate fielder. He showed great range in the field, leading the American League in assists seven times. On the minus side he led the league in errors five times.

The apex of his career came in 1936. He won the American League batting title with a .388 batting average, the highest in the twentieth century by a shortstop. Luke also had a 27-game hitting streak that year. After winning the batting title, Appling was promised a $5,000 bonus, but General Manager Harry Grabiner reneged. In disgust Appling tore up his 1937 contract. Lou Comiskey, the owner, withstood Appling’s protests, and when Appling cooled down and was ready to play gave him a new contract. Unfortunately, it was for $2,500 less than he had wanted. In 1940 Appling, Rip Radcliff of the St. Louis Browns and Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees battled each other for the batting title with DiMaggio winning out.

The White Sox contended only once during Appling’s tenure at short. They lacked power, so Appling, a natural leadoff hitter, batted third in the lineup. Never a slugger, he did manage to drive in 1,117 runs during his career. Appling remembered that his teammates were not great baserunners. Player-manager Jimmy Dykes instituted an automatic fine for any baserunning blunders. The very next day Dykes was on second base when he became lost in thoughts about his managerial duties. He wandered off second base, wondering whether he should hit for the pitcher, and in a flash he was picked off. The players on the bench howled with delight and had some uncomplimentary words about the gaffe. When Dykes sheepishly returned to the bench he said, “All right say it, come on, I’ve got it coming,” but no one said a word. Later he asked Appling why they didn’t say anything. Appling replied, “They already said it before you got back to the dugout.”

Championships eluded the White Sox and the Cubs year after year. Ironically, the two greatest players in Chicago, Luke Appling and Ernie Banks, both shortstops, never played in a World Series.

Appling was a pitcher’s nightmare. He could and would foul off pitch after pitch until he got the one he wanted. Pitchers would get so frustrated they’d almost dare him to hit the blasted thing. Appling struck out only 528 times in his career and coaxed out 1,302 walks.

As one story goes, Appling once asked the tight-fisted business manager of the Sox for several balls to sign for friends. The business manager refused, citing the Depression and that each ball cost $2.75. Appling turned and walked out without a word. That afternoon in his first at bat he fouled off ten consecutive pitches into the stands. Turning to the club official in the owner’s box, he said, “That’s $27.50 and I’m just getting started.”

In 1938 the Sox had a chance to beat out the Yanks for the pennant. However, Appling suffered the only major injury of his career when he fractured his ankle, thereby hampering the chances of the club.

DiMaggio got a break during his 56-game hitting streak in 1941 when he hit a slow roller that bounced up on Luke. Joe was given a hit on the play to keep his streak going at 30 games.

Bill James in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract named Luke Appling the best player of the 1943 season as Appling won his second batting title with a .328 average. Of course, 1943 was a war year and most of the stars were in the service.

Teammate Ted Lyons recalled Appling’s ability to foul off pitches until he got the one he wanted. Red Ruffing was pitching for the Yankees against the Sox on a miserably hot, humid day in Comiskey Park. Appling came up with two men on base and worked the count to 3-2. He then proceeded to foul off 12 pitches in a row. The profusely sweating Ruffing finally walked Appling and gave up a grand-slam homer to the next batter. Ruffing was in a cool shower immediately after. Pitchers considered themselves lucky if Appling got a hit early in the count.

Despite all his alleged ailments Appling was a good-natured person and popular with his teammates. The only White Sox player to win a batting championship until Frank Thomas, he was also voted the greatest White Sox living player by Chicago writers in 1969.

Appling entered the service in 1944 and returned to baseball late in 1945. At the time Appling entered the service his wife said, “The war will be over soon. Luke has never held a job for more than two weeks outside of baseball.” His hitting did not suffer when he returned in 1945. He batted .368 in his shortened season.

Appling was still playing ball at age 41, having been moved to third base from his shortstop position. Before a doubleheader in 1948 he complained of not being able to get his throwing arm loose. In the first game he lashed out three hits and with a supposedly crippled arm set an American League record with 10 assists. Before the nightcap he complained of severe pains in his legs and went out and did a sterling job.

In 1949 he batted .301 at the age of 42, but “Trader” Frank Lane, general manager of the White Sox, was committed to a youth movement, and Chico Carrasquel took over at shortstop. Appling helped Carrasquel adapt to the big leagues and at playing shortstop. Appling was asked to play first base, but after a few lackluster attempts he gave it up and filled in as a utility infielder. He played in 50 more games for the White Sox in 1950 and then retired. At the time of his retirement he held the American League records for most games played, assists, putouts and chances accepted by a shortstop. Appling also eclipsed the major league record for most games played at shortstop previously held by Rabbit Maranville. Maranville had played 2,153 games at short, and Appling exceeded that with 2,198. Luis Aparicio later eclipsed most of these records. Appling is still the club leader in runs, games played, hits, doubles, total bases, runs batted in, walks, and at bats; he’s also third in triples. In 1951 Appling was asked to manage the Memphis Chicks and surprised everyone including himself when he accepted.

The quality that emerges from Appling’s career and character is his durability. Maybe his ailment complaints were his way of exorcising the demons that baseball players (probably the most superstitious athletes to play sports) exhibited. Whatever his secret, his major league career spanned twenty years. Long after his retirement he showed he could still hit when in an appearance in a Cracker-Jack All-Star Old-Timers game in Washington, D.C., at the age of 75 he hit a homer off Warren Spahn. He said, “It was a good pitch and I just swung away.” The ball traveled only 250 feet as the fences were moved in for the old-timers game, but it’s still a good distance for a 75-year-old.

Appling managed in the minors for quite a few years, winning pennants for Memphis in the Southern Association and Indianapolis of the American Association. Named Minor League Manager of the Year in 1952, he still had only one chance managing in the majors, at Kansas City replacing Alvin Dark. He was not very successful as his team went 10-30 during his tenure. He also managed at Richmond and coached in the majors at Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Kansas City. He served as batting instructor for the Braves until 1990.

Appling died suddenly from an abdominal aneurysm on January 3, 1991, in Cumming, Georgia. His wife Fay; a brother Clyde; sisters Dela Campbell, Inez Jones, and Marie Shelton; his three children; and six grandchildren survived him. Appling is buried in Sawnee View Memorial Gardens, Mausoleum Chapel West in Cumming.

Luke Appling was in the mold of most Depression ballplayers-tough, somewhat hard-bitten, often with lean faces that showed the rugged times all Americans were enduring. Happy to be playing ball when so many others were standing on street corners selling apples or standing in line for soup, they brought some relief to a nation back on its heels. Appling along with others helped take people’s minds off the Depression if only for a few hours and made life a bit more bearable. It was the endurance of players like Luke Appling who carried baseball through these troubled times and sparkled even in a time of misery and foreboding as the sound of cleats on the dugout steps would soon be muffled by the hobnailed boots of oppressors.

Photo credit

Luke Appling takes batting practice before a game at Comiskey Park in 1940. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Sources

Cataneo, David. Peanuts and Crackerjack. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991

Creamer, Robert W. Baseball In 1941. New York: Penguin, 1991.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Baseball Historical Abstract. New York: The Free Press, 2001.

Luke Appling File at National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Nemec, David, and Saul Wisnea. Baseball: More Than One Hundred Fifty Years. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications International, 1997.

Morris Arnovich was born in Superior, Wisconsin, on November 16, 1910. The son of Orthodox Jewish parents Charles Arnovich and Rosy Arnovich (nee Dorf), Morrie kept Kosher all his life. He had one brother and two sisters. One of his sisters attained a master’s degree. His father owned a chain of gasoline stations. Arnovich enrolled at Superior State Teachers College but left before he graduated, to play professional baseball. He was a good athlete at Superior, starring in basketball and baseball. At the school he earned the nickname of “Snooker” due to his proficiency at the British style of pocket billiards.

Although his parents wanted him to become a rabbi, Morrie desired a professional baseball career. Charles Arnovich nevertheless took pride in his son’s baseball accomplishments. Playing in the Northern League with his hometown team of Superior in 1933 and 1934, he batted .331 and .374, slamming 20 homers in 1934. One hot day in Superior, Morrie banged out three consecutive homers. Morrie counted that thrill as his best. The Phillies beckoned in 1935 and sent him to Hazleton of the New York-Penn League, where he batted .305, and his hustling spirit attracted notice. Morrie’s last season in the minors was solid, as he led the New York-Penn League in total bases and tied for the lead with 19 home runs.

Philadelphia brought Morrie up to the parent club at the end of the 1936 season. He went to bat 48 times and batted .313. The Phillies were at that time the worst team in the National League, finishing last almost every year and barely drawing enough fans to stay ahead of the bill collectors. They were the doormats of the league. But Morrie was in the Major Leagues, and he hustled in spring training in 1937, winning a starting job in the outfield. On opening day in Boston against the Braves he hit a homer that won the game for the Phils, 2-1. At a later point in the season Morrie had seven straight hits. Arnovich hustled in the outfield and wound up the season with a .290 average. Unheralded and unknown, Arnovich was making a name for himself in baseball.

In 1938, Morrie slumped a bit but still managed 138 hits and drove in 72 runs. Then in 1939, Morrie had his best year. Through June of the 1939 season he was hitting National League pitching at a .400 clip. When asked about his rise from an average hitter to a .400 one, he gave credit to an altered stance and a special bat as well as hard work. On July 19, 1939, the Philadelphia fans honored Morrie for his good work. At one point Gerry Nugent, president of the Phils, tagged Arnovich as an untouchable should any trade talk concerning Morrie arise. The dog days of August caught up with Arnovich and he finished with a batting average of .324. He was originally left off the All-Star team that year, and fans all across the nation complained bitterly about his exclusion. He was finally put on the All-Star roster, one of three Jewish players on the rosters of that All-Star game. Hank Greenberg represented the American League and Morrie Arnovich and Harry Danning the National League. Arnovich was not used in any capacity during the game, prompting the residents of Superior, Wisconsin, to vent their spleens by demanding to know why he was not used. The excuse offered was that Morrie was a right-handed hitter and that there had not been any left-handed pitching to face.

The city of Superior took pride in their local son and the local papers followed Arnovich. A banquet was held in Morrie’s honor in 1940 and the locals packed the town’s fanciest hotel. Dave Bancroft of Phillies fame was there and many dignitaries gave long speeches in praise of Morrie. Morrie was presented the usual luggage that went along with such affairs, and the entire proceedings were broadcast live over local radio. Dave Bancroft, a star shortstop with the Phillies and Giants, had noted Arnovich’s ability while Morrie was in high school and encouraged him to keep on improving. He also urged Morrie to go to the outfield rather than play shortstop.

The 1940 season was a poor one for Arnovich. He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds early in the season. Morrie batted .250 but with his hustle helped the Reds win the National League pennant and the World Series over the Detroit Tigers. Arnovich appeared in 62 games for the champion Reds, batting .284 with 21 runs batted in and no homers. Though Arnovich was not a major player in the Reds’ World Series victory (batting just once), his hustle and presence in the clubhouse made him an asset. He was a team player and accepted his role with no reservations. At the end of the 1940 season Morrie was sold to the New York Giants for $25,000. He batted .280 in 1941. The Giants, however, were not sufficiently impressed and Morrie was sent to Indianapolis. It did not matter much, for in 1942 along with his brother Hyman, Morrie enlisted in the Army, and for the next four years he served in World War II. Morrie managed and played for a service team.

A bit of controversy had occurred in 1941 as to Morrie’s draft status. He denied that he had obtained 1B-deferred status through an appeal he had made at his local draft board. It turned out that the doctor who had examined him at the draft board had noted that Morrie was short one pair of occluding molars and should be classified as 1B. Morrie admitted to having upper and lower partial dental plates due to many of his teeth having been knocked out during basketball games. Unhappy about being considered a draft dodger, Morrie was vindicated when he produced the letter about his missing occluding molars from the doctor. It all blew over when he enlisted in 1942 and was accepted by the army. While in the army Morrie managed and played for the Fort Lewis team in Tacoma, Washington. Later in the war Morrie was an army postal clerk in New Guinea.

Arnovich returned to baseball after the war, but after playing minor league ball in 1947 and 1948 he retired from baseball as an active player. Morrie stayed in baseball as a manager in the Cubs farm system with stints in Selma, Alabama, Hutchinson, Kansas, and Decatur, Illinois. After that he returned to his hometown in Superior, Wisconsin.

Arnovich’s lifetime batting average was .287, with 577 hits and 22 homers. He had a fielding average of .981. The war undoubtedly ate into Morrie’s baseball career. Arnovich had only five full years as a major leaguer. Four years of springtime hitting he spent with the army.

Morrie married Bertha Aserson on July 10, 1956. Arnovich ran a successful sporting goods and jewelry store. He was the basketball coach at a local Catholic high school. Morris Arnovich died on July 20, 1959, at his home in Superior of a coronary occlusion. He was 49 years old. His wife Bertha survived him. There were no children. Arnovich is buried in the Hebrew Cemetery in Superior, Wisconsin.

Morris Arnovich was a small man when giants like Greenberg, DiMaggio and Williams roamed the baseball world. His intelligence, amiability and hustle, and all-round love of the game did not take second place to the greats with whom he played. No titan of baseball, Arnovich still earned respect in the game.

Sources

Horvitz, Peter S., and Joachim Horvitz. The Big Book of Jewish Baseball. New York: SPI Books, 2001.

National Baseball Hall of Fame Files. Cooperstown, New York.

New York Times, Obituary , July 21, 1959.

Ribalow, Harold U., and Meir Z. Ribalow. Jewish Baseball Stars. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984.

Wisconsin State Board of Health Certificate of Death. Filed August 7, 1959.

The last baseball on the wall displayed the number 3, which belonged to Cleveland outfielder Earl Averill. He was likely the least recognizable of the quartet. His years (1929-1939) in Cleveland were not punctuated with a pennant. The team finished no higher than third place and no lower than fifth in the American League standings during Averill’s tenure. Cleveland had competitive teams with good players; however, during the decade of the 1930s, when Averill was with the Indians, they could not put it all together for one season. New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington all won pennants during those years, while Cleveland was left looking forward to next season.  

Despite the club’s lackluster performance, Averill’s offensive impact could not be overlooked. When he was traded to Detroit in 1939, he was the Indians’ team leader in seven offensive categories. In 2024 Averill remained the franchise leader in runs (1,154), RBIs (1,084), triples (121), total bases (3,200), and extra-base hits (724). Averill is also in the top five in five other offensive categories.1

Averill finally reached the World Series with the Detroit Tigers in 1940. Although he was a backup outfielder at this point of his career, Averill proved how valuable he could be, batting .308 as a pinch-hitter.

In 1975 the Veterans Committee elected Averill to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Finally, 34 years after he played his last professional season, he took his rightful place with the game’s greatest players.

Howard Earl Averill was born on May 21, 1902, in Snohomish, Washington. He was the youngest of three children (brother Forrest and sister Valera) born to Jotham and Anna (Maddox) Averill. Jotham Averill died in 1904 and Anna had to take on work in a shingle factory to support her family.  

Averill dropped out of high school his freshman year. He worked in lumber mills and on road crews. He was not a big man (5-feet-9½, 160 pounds), but the hard labor resulted in brawn and muscle in his upper body. Averill played baseball on the Snohomish town team, battling neighboring cities after work and on the weekends. Although the players did not receive a salary, fans often took up a collection for the player who distinguished himself the most in the game. Averill was often the recipient of this largesse, one time receiving a pot of $80.

On May 15, 1922, Averill married Gladys Loette Hyatt in Mount Vernon, Washington.2 Earl and Loette were married 61 years and had four sons: Howard, Bernard, Earl, and Lester.3 

In 1924 citizens of Snohomish raised money to send Averill to Seattle to try out for the Seattle Indians of the Pacific Coast League. However, manager Red Killefer was not as impressed with his abilities and sent Averill home.

The Averill family grew to four when Bernard was born in 1925. Averill played two days a week for Bellingham (Washington), earning $15 a game. He also worked for the county painting bridges and picked up other jobs to support his growing family. After a few weeks in Bellingham, he moved on to Anaconda (Montana), where the baseball team paid $250 a month.4 Averill batted .430 at Anaconda, drawing interest from the San Francisco Seals of the PCL.

Averill won a spot on the Seals’ roster during spring training in 1926. Before long he was slashing line drives all over Recreation Park in San Francisco as well as the other venues in the league. In his three years with Seals, Averill averaged 250 hits and 50 doubles, 26 home runs, and a .342 batting average.5  

What was the secret to Averill’s hitting success? Why, it was sauerkraut juice. When Averill mentioned to Seals manager Nick Williams that he might give up the bitter elixir in favor of milk, Williams balked. “If you do, I’ll run you clean out of the joint,” threatened Williams. “If there are base hits in sauerkraut juice, as I suspect, you are going to drink lots of it and what is more, I think I’ll drink some myself and hit in a pinch.”6 

In 1928 Cleveland general manager Billy Evans had a pocket full of cash as he headed to the West Coast to sign players. The first player on his list was Seals outfielder Roy Johnson. But Detroit beat Evans to the punch and signed Johnson. Next was another outfielder, Smead Jolley. Seals pitchers Duster Mails and Dutch Ruether interceded, sending Evans in a different direction. “Forget Jolley. Forget Johnson, too. Buy that Averill,” they told Evans.7    

Evans took their advice, plunking down $45,000 to acquire Averill. “The Snohomish slugger came fast last season,” wrote the San Francisco Examiner. “He was always a good hitter, but last season he polished up his play in the outfield; learned how to play for batters and once he learned the lesson, did not forget it.”8

When Indians owner Alva Bradley first saw Averill, he said to Evans, “You paid all that money for a midget.”9 Bradley and the rest of the Indians would soon learn that Averill packed plenty of power in his compact body.

In 1929 Roger Peckinpaugh was in his second season as the Cleveland skipper. The year before, the team finished the season with a 62-92 record. Averill and fellow rookie outfielder Dick Porter garnered many of the headlines during the ’29 spring training. However, Irving Vaughan, beat writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, doused any hope that Cleveland fans might have for their team, writing, “There may be some improvement if a rookie comes through, but while these happenings are always looked for, they occur only about as often as Halley’s comet whistles through the heavens.”10

Maybe he wasn’t a comet, but Averill quickly became a star. Cleveland opened the 1929 season on April 16 against Detroit at League Park. Averill, playing center field and batting third in the lineup, came to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Detroit starter Earl Whitehill threw the rookie a fastball on a 0-and-2 count. The left-handed-hitting Averill sent a towering drive over the 45-foot right-field fence. The blast warmed the chilled crowd as Averill became the second American League player to homer in his first big-league at-bat.11

Later in the game, in the top of the sixth, the Tigers had a baserunner on first when Averill lunged forward and caught a sinking line drive off the bat of Detroit’s Marty McManus. Both plays contributed to the Cleveland 5-4 win. “Whitehill apparently thought he could slip a fast one by me,” said Averill. “I was all set, took a healthy swing and as the ball hit the bat, I knew it was going somewhere.”12 

Decimating minor-league pitching on the West Coast was one thing, but hitting against major-league talent was another. Averill batted .332 his rookie season and set a team record for home runs in a season at 18. As a team, the Indians finished in third place.

Averill also demonstrated a keen batting eye. While some home-run hitters tend to be free swingers and would rack up the whiffs, Averill did not. In the first 11 seasons of his career, he totaled more walks than strikeouts. He was the perfect hitter who combined hitting for power and average. 

Despite his size, Averill wielded one of the heaviest bats in the league. His bat was 36 inches long and weighed 42 ounces. Averill would also swing a 44-ounce bat from time to time.13

While many batters stand toward the back of the batter’s box to better pick up a pitch, Averill had a different philosophy. “I virtually straddled the plate,” he said. “The farther you stand in front, the smaller the break on the ball when you meet it. “I kept two things in mind at the plate. One was that I was up there to swing; the other was to keep my eye on my target. That was the pitcher’s cap. I always aimed for that, tried to go to the middle. But, if the ball was outside, I’d hit to left.”14 

One of Averill’s signature games occurred on September 17, 1930, at League Park. In a doubleheader against Washington, he smashed three home runs in the opener and drove in eight runs to set a team record in Cleveland’s 13-7 victory. In the second game, Averill came to the plate in the first inning with two runners aboard and smacked a drive to deep center field. He raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, his fourth home run and 11th RBI for the day.        

Averill was not the only formidable batsman in the Cleveland lineup. In 1930 the Indians hit .304 as a team. Besides Averill, who hit .339, their lineup consisted of Porter (.350), Johnny Hodapp (.354), Eddie Morgan (.349), Charlie Jamieson (.301), and Joe Sewell (.289). But opposing teams batted .305 against the Indians pitching staff. The result was an 81-73 record, earning the club a fourth-place finish, 21 games behind first-place Philadelphia.

Peckinpaugh was replaced as manager by Walter Johnson on June 9, 1933. Peckinpaugh was a players’ manager and Averill was sorry to see him go. “He knew more baseball than the rest of them put together,” Averill said, comparing Peckinpaugh to his other managers.15 Johnson had recent success as a field manager, guiding the Senators to 92 and 93 wins in 1931 and 1932. However, he had been replaced by Joe Cronin, who led the Senators to the AL pennant in 1933.      

The 1933 season was a historic one for major-league baseball. The year marked the first-ever All-Star Game, pitting the best players of the NL against the AL. Billed as “The Game of the Century,” the game was played on July 6, 1933, at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. Cleveland pitchers Oral Hildebrand and Wes Ferrell joined Averill as members of the American League squad. Averill was the only one of the trio to see action, pinch-hitting for Washington pitcher Alvin Crowder in the bottom of the sixth inning. Averill singled sharply to center field to drive Cronin in from second base, giving the AL a 4-2 lead that ended up being the final score.

Hal Trosky moved into the Cleveland lineup as the starting first baseman in 1934. Averill and the young Iowa slugger each played in all 154 games. They combined for 66 home runs and 255 RBIs. Trosky became another solid player in the lineup, one who could hit for power and average.

After the season, Averill joined a traveling all-star team that went to Japan. Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Gomez, Lou Gehrig, Lefty O’Doul, and manager Connie Mack were among the party who made the trip.

Averill was awarded a Japanese sword for being the first American player to hit a home run against the All-Nippon Stars. He treasured the gift for years.16 “The Earl of Snohomish has been doing some long-distance clouting on his own hook in the land of cherry blossoms,” wrote Ed Bang of the Cleveland News. “Truth be, he has experienced no trouble in holding to the pace of the other sluggers. It so happens that Averill is the smallest member of the ‘Big Four’ home run manufacturers and that being the case, he should inspire the Japanese players far more than those Goliaths – Ruth, Gehrig and Foxx.17 

“The Japanese are small in size, and their main drawback is our national pastime, which they appear to have adopted as their own, has been their inability to pack enough force to drive the ball for the well-known bacon-getting route. However, since they have not seen Averill, who, while small, still is well-muscled and has perfect timing at the plate, they have evidently concluded they, too, can develop the well-known punch at bat.”18 

On June 28, 1935, the Indians had a day off and were enjoying a team picnic. “Earl threw a firecracker that didn’t go off,” said Mel Harder. “When he picked it up, it exploded. Joe Vosmik and I put him in a car and took him to St. Luke’s Hospital. It looked bad. There was a lot of blood.”19 This incident resulted Averill getting his nickname, Rock.20  

Averill missed three weeks as his right hand healed from the burns and scars caused by the firecracker. Vosmik replaced Averill for the All-Star Game, which in 1935 was played at Cleveland Stadium.

There had been weeks of speculation, especially in the Cleveland media, about the security of Walter Johnson’s job as manager. He dismissed popular players Willie Kamm and Glenn Myatt from the team because he felt that they were no longer useful. The Indians (37-26-1) were 2½ games behind New York (40-24) on June 30. They went 2-13-1 from July 1 to July 18. Obviously, Averill’s injury did not help the situation. “I’m 100 percent for Walter and I think the whole team is for him,” said Averill, “The boys have found Walter is on the level and has plenty of guts.”21  

Despite Averill’s stance, Johnson was fired on August 5 and replaced by Steve O’Neill, a former Indians catcher and a coach on Johnson’s staff.

In 1935 Averill did not bat over .300 for the first time in his career. He rebounded the next season in a big way, posting a .451 batting average in the month of July. His season average was .374 and climbed to over .380 in August. Averill was leading the AL in hitting going into September, but Chicago’s Luke Appling batted .477 in September to surpass Averill, .388 to .378, for the season. Averill led the league in hits with 232.

While Averill was hitting line drives around AL ballparks, a teenager from Van Meter, Iowa, joined the Indians. Bob Feller was 17 years old when he started his first game for Cleveland, against the St. Louis Browns on August 23, 1936. The right-handed fireballer threw a complete-game six-hitter against the Browns. He struck out 15 in the 4-1 win. Feller became, and still is, the face of the Cleveland franchise. 

Another game Averill is known for, perhaps infamously, is the All-Star Game on July 7, 1937, at Washington’s Griffith Stadium. The American League had taken a 2-0 lead on Lou Gehrig’s two-run home run off Dizzy Dean. Averill stepped to the plate and sent a liner back to the mound. “Diz threw that big curve,” said Averill. “The last thing I remember is seeing it break toward the outside of the plate. I was already into my swing. I connected and saw the ball hit him in the toe and bounced right into the second baseman’s glove. 

“That was the third out. Not many people remember that. We passed as Diz was on his way to the dugout. He said, ‘Hey, you didn’t have to hit me with it.’ I laughed. Heck, I wasn’t trying to pull the ball at him, I was just trying to hit the thing.”22 

Dean’s left toe was broken, his plant foot when he pitched. He was not the same pitcher for the rest of his career.

Off the field, a highlight of 1937 was when Averill appeared on the cover of Wheaties cereal boxes. There was a tradition by General Mills to choose an athlete, either national or regional, to be in the advertisement on a box of the popular cereal. In Averill’s case, he often started his day with a bowl of Wheaties.23     

Cleveland manager O’Neill failed to move the needle in a positive direction and was fired after the 1937 season. He was replaced by Oscar Vitt. They were like night and day: O’Neill was a friendly, outgoing sort while Vitt was a taciturn, disciplinary type of manager. Club owner Bradley also gave Vitt the power to make trades, undermining general manager Cy Slapnicka and causing tension between the two. Vitt also didn’t make many friends when he stated that he “had only two major leaguers, Feller and Harder.”24  

Averill began the 1938 season on a hot streak. After his average climbed to .397 on May 5, he began to have back pain in Philadelphia. He played through the pain. However, his average started to drop. A groin injury in early September kept him on the bench. Averill hit .330 in 1938, which for most players would have been a very successful season.

Cleveland dealt Averill to the Detroit Tigers on June 14, 1939, for left-handed pitcher Harry Eisenstat and cash. Averill was inserted as the Tigers’ starting left fielder. He batted a career-low with the Tigers, hitting .262 with 10 home runs and 58 RBIs. Detroit finished in fifth place with an 81-73 record, 26½ games behind the red-hot Yankees with a record of 106-45, who went on to sweep the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

The 1940 AL pennant race came down to Detroit and Cleveland. The Tigers held a two-game lead over the Indians heading into the season’s final three games at Cleveland Stadium. The Tigers won the first game, clinching the pennant.

Cincinnati defeated Detroit in the World Series in seven games. Averill went 0-for-3 in three pinch-hitting appearances. He made the final out of the Series, a 2-1 Reds win.

Averill was released by Detroit and signed with the Boston Braves for the 1941 season. With just two singles in 17 at-bats, he was released after eight games. Averill then returned to the Pacific Coast League, joining the Seattle Rainiers. Also on the Rainiers was Earl Torgeson, also of Snohomish. After the season, Averill retired from professional baseball. In his 13-year career, he hit 238 home runs, 401 doubles, and 128 triples. Averill batted .318 (2,019-for-6,353) and drove in 1,l64 runs.

In retirement, Averill worked in a greenhouse he owned with his brother, Forest. For 20 years, he also owned and operated the Averill Motel in Snohomish. Averill spent time keeping tabs on his son, Earl Douglas Averill, too. Sometimes mistakenly referred to as Earl Jr., the younger Earl carved out a modest baseball career for himself. Primarily a catcher, with some time in the outfield, Earl Douglas played seven seasons with Cleveland (1956, 1958), the Chicago Cubs (1959-1960), the Chicago White Sox (1960), the Los Angeles Angels (1961-1962), and the Philadelphia Phillies (1963). He had a lifetime batting average of .242 with 44 home runs and 159 RBIs.

On February 3, 1975, the elder Earl Averill was elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously by the Veterans Committee. Also elected were Billy Herman, Bucky Harris, Judy Johnson, and Ralph Kiner. Averill was outspoken about how long it took for his election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was also candid about players who he believed merited inclusion but had not been elected, urging that the voting rules be changed.25

“It’s been a long time coming, but better late than never,” said Averill. “It is wonderful to make it while you are still alive. I’m going on 73. In fact, I told my sons that if I didn’t make it while I was still alive, that they turn it down if I made it afterward.”26

“My ambition is reached. I really longed for this. And, you know, a lot of good ballplayers never make it. I understand that it was a unanimous vote. That kind of makes up for the long wait.”27

Not everyone agreed with the election of Averill. Jack Lang of the New York Daily News wrote, “The moment he’s inducted, Averill pops off that it took baseball too long. Funny thing, but all the while he was waiting to get in, he expressed no resentment. If we are going to have these old geezers popping off after they’ve received the tributes, maybe they don’t deserve them to begin with.”28 

On June 8, 1975, the Cleveland Indians retired Averill’s uniform number 3, joining Feller (19) and Boudreau (5).

In 1983 the All-Star Game was held at Comiskey Park to commemorate its 50th anniversary. The living All-Stars who played in the first game in 1933 were invited to Chicago to take part in the festivities.

About six weeks later, on August 16, Averill died from respiratory problems brought on by pneumonia. He was survived by his wife, Gladys Loette; four sons; numerous grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. “He had a real good time in Chicago, but when he got back he was really down,” said his son Earl. “Of the 33 All-Stars in 1933, only 13 were left. Now with Dad’s death, there are only 12.”29      

Center fielder Doc Cramer, a contemporary of Averill’s , said “Earl Averill was a great hitter and a fine outfielder all around. … Whatever you write about Earl won’t be enough.”30   

Photo credit

Earl Averill, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes          

1 Cleveland Guardians 2024 Media Guide, 272. 

2 Ancestry.com marriage records, Howard Earl Averill, accessed June 8, 2024.

3 A.C. De Cola, “Earl Is Pal to His Sons,” Cleveland Press, July 2, 1936: 21.

4 Vince O’Keefe, “‘Hard Rock’ Earl Averill dies,” Seattle Times, August 17, 1983: E1.

5 It must be noted that the Pacific Coast League played 190-game schedules. 

6 Abe Kemp, “Earl Averill’s Bat Impresses Pirate Leader,” San Francisco Examiner, March 23, 1928: 1.

7 Gordon Cobbledick, “Hometown Fans’ Cash Started Averill on Career to Fame,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 26, 1936: 4.

8 Abe Kemp, “Young Star Outfielder Will Go Up to Big Top,” San Francisco Examiner, November 20, 1928: P-3.

9 Bob Dolgan, “A Man of Talent, Consistency, Class,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 7, 1996: D-6.

10 Irving Vaughan, “Vaughan Sees Tribe Improved This Year,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 19, 1929: 26.

11 Luke Stuart of the St. Louis Browns hit an inside-the-park home run at Washington’s Griffith Stadium on August 8, 1921.

12 Earl Averill, “The Biggest Thrill of My Career,” Cleveland News, undated, 1930. Player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.

13 Hy Zimmerman, “Gab Session With the Earl of Snohomish,” The Sporting News, December 25, 1965: 5.

14 “Gab Session With the Earl of Snohomish.”

15 Doug Simpson, “The Earl of Snohomish,” Baseball Research Journal,1982. https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-earl-of-snohomish/. Accessed June 15, 2024.

16 Penny Sopris-Kegerreis, “Cast a Vote for the ‘Rock’ of Snohomish,” Monroe (Washington) Monitor and Valley News, January 27, 1999: 8. 

17 Ed Bang, “Scribbled by Scribes,” The Sporting News, December 6, 1934: 4.

18 “Scribbled by Scribes.”

19 “A Man of Talent, Consistency, Class,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 7, 1996: D-1.

20 Bob Broeg, “Averill Shy, Except at the Plate,” The Sporting News, March 8, 1975: 8.

21 Henry W. Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train (Washington DC: Phenom Press, 1995), 326.

22 Don Duncan, “Earl Averill Recalls Infamous ’37 Game,” Seattle Times, July 15, 1979: J3.

23 “Cast a Vote for the ‘Rock’ of Snohomish.”

24 William H. Johnson, Hal Trosky: A Baseball Biography (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2017), 80.

25 Transcript of Earl Averill Hall of Fame Induction Speech, Cooperstown, New York, August 18, 1975, in player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.  

26 Hy Zimmerman, “The Earl of Snohomish Feels Like a King,” Seattle Times, February 3, 1975: B1. 

27 “The Earl of Snohomish Feels Like a King.”

28 Jack Lang, “Reds Respectful of Mets Pitching,” player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.

29 “His Son Recalls Earl Averill,” player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.

30 Simpson, “The Earl of Snohomish.”

Samuel Howard Bankhead was most likely born on September 18, 1910, in Sulligent, Alabama.4 His father, Garnett Bankhead Sr., labored in the coal mines and played first base in the Cotton Belt League, while his mother, Arie Armstrong, gave birth to five boys and two girls. Sam worked alongside his father loading coal until baseball led him to a better life.

All four of Bankhead’s younger brothers played in the Negro Leagues. Fred was a slick-fielding second baseman from 1936 to 1948, making an All-Star appearance in 1942. Garnett played for three seasons from 1947 to 1949, including a short stint on the 1948 champion Homestead Grays with his brother Sam as manager. Joe had the shortest career, taking the mound a few times with the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, and Dan became the first Black pitcher in major-league history when he took the mound on August 26, 1947. for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dan also hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat, but his success was short-lived; he was out of the majors by 1951.

Sam Bankhead punched his ticket out of the coal mines and into his Negro League career in 1929 with the Birmingham Black Barons, but he did not get much playing time as an 18-year-old rookie. From 1930 to 1932 he bounced around with Birmingham and the Louisville Black Caps until he finally found a home and a starting position with the Nashville Elite Giants.

In 1933 Negro League baseball introduced its inaugural East-West All-Star Game, which has been called “the pinnacle of any Negro League season,” and described as “an All-Star game and a World Series all wrapped in one spectacle.”5 The annual games were so popular and star-studded that many observers, including Negro League historian Larry Lester, have credited them with helping to integrate Organized Baseball. Bankhead, as he often did in high-pressure situations, shined in these contests. A nine-time all-star at five different positions, Sam had 12 hits in 31 at-bats with 7 runs, 4 RBIs, and 2 stolen bases. He is also credited with scoring the first run in an East-West All-Star Game. Coincidentally, the National and American Leagues also debuted the major-league All-Star Game in 1933, but by the early 1940s it was often being outdrawn by its Negro League counterpart.6

After a solid season in 1934, his last with the Nashville Elite Giants, Bankhead moved on to one of the greatest teams in Negro League history, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The 1935 Crawfords squad included future Hall of Famers Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Judy Johnson, and Cool Papa Bell. Mark Koenig, shortstop for the 1927 New York Yankees, compared the ’35 Crawfords favorably to his legendary World Series-winning team.7 Bankhead made a seamless transition into this team of superstars, hitting .298 and playing a starring role as one of the Raindrop Rangers, a trio of speedy outfielders with Sam playing alongside Bell and Jimmie Crutchfield. Fanciful legend had it that the three players were so fast that they could keep a field dry by catching the raindrops before they hit the ground.8 The Crawfords capped off their magical season with a hard-fought seven-game victory over the New York Cubans in the Negro League World Series. Bankhead had a solid Series with seven hits, including a clutch single, stolen base, and run scored that gave Pittsburgh the lead in the seventh inning of the seventh game.9

The Crawfords began a steady decline in 1936. Bankhead had an off-year, hitting just .204. Though the Crawfords still ended up winning the Negro National League championship, no agreement could be reached with the Negro American League to play a World Series that year. After the season Gus Greenlee, owner of the Crawfords and creator of the East-West All-Star Game, was forced to cut payroll and players due to his involvement in racketeering. The Crawfords hung on through the 1938 season, but they were a mere shell of the team that dominated Negro League baseball from 1932 to 1936.

In 1937 Greenlee’s misfortunes turned into a boon for Crawfords players Bankhead, Bell, Gibson, and Satchel Paige, as they were all recruited to play in the Dominican Republic for dictator Rafael Trujillo’s Dragones team. Trujillo, a corrupt and violent leader, paid exorbitant salaries to these players in order to field a winning team to gain favor in the coming election. His two political opponents also fielded highly competitive teams made up largely of players raided from Negro League squads. The pressure on the Trujillo players was such that they felt that winning the championship was a life-or-death endeavor. The team would often be locked up at night to ensure that they would be in tip-top shape for the next day’s game.10

Bankhead posted a .309 batting average with 21 hits in 68 at-bats, but it was Gibson’s .453 average and Paige’s 8-2 record that led the Dragones to the championship game against San Pedro de Macoris. In that game Bankhead had the most dramatic at-bat of his career. The Dragones were trailing 5-4 in the seventh inning against Negro League All-Star pitcher Chet Brewer when Bankhead strode to the plate with Bell on first base. Bell recalled:

“Brewer knew Bankhead was a great clutch hitter and tried to be careful with him. Too careful. The count went to three and one. Brewer came in with some smoke, but he got it high. I thought Bankhead would drive the pitch, but he had a big cut and fouled it back. Then he connected on the three-two pitch. He was a line-drive hitter, and this one went way over the left field fence. We were pretty happy.”11

Paige retired the final six batters, five on strikeouts, to ensure the victory. “I guess we helped Trujillo stay in office,” claimed Bell,12 but the players could not get out of the Dominican Republic fast enough.

Bankhead, like many other Negro League players, treated baseball like a year-round job, and the winter of 1937 found him playing for the Santa Clara Leopards in Cuba. This turned out to be one of his finest seasons as he led the league in several categories, including a .366 batting average, 89 hits, 5 triples, and 47 runs scored.13 The Leopards finished with a 44-18 record and stood in first place in the final league standings.14

The year 1937 proved to be a busy one for Bankhead as he also married Helen M. Hall on February 25. The two had a daughter, Brenda, in 1939, and a son, Anthony, in 1941. Anthony was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1970 and died at the age of 29. Brenda’s fate is unknown, and Helen died on October 10, 1985 in Pittsburgh.

Bankhead was known as Hall of Famer Josh Gibson’s best friend and confidant.15 Josh Gibson Jr. had this to say about their friendship: “I know that as far back as I can remember, Sammy was a constant. I don’t think they were inseparable, ’cause my father didn’t get that close to nobody. But they clicked out of mutual respect.”16 Unfortunately the two were also known for their legendary drinking prowess. Stories of drinking contests that lasted long into the night, drinking on buses, between doubleheaders, and sometimes even during games, can be found in every Gibson biography and article where Bankhead is mentioned. In 1947 Bankhead was managing in Caracas, Venezuela, when he received a telegram announcing Gibson’s death. All-Star catcher, Bill “Ready” Cash was there and had this to say: “Bankhead went out that night, got drunk, came in and tore up everything in his room. They had to send him home.”17

Bankhead mended fences with Gus Greenlee in time to join the Pittsburgh Crawfords for the 1938 season. Greenlee had been upset that many of his star players had been lured to the Dominican Republic and had chosen money over loyalty. The Crawfords lacked star power that year as Gibson headed to the Homestead Grays while Bell and Paige played in the Mexican League. The Crawfords finished in fourth place with a 24-16 league record that placed them 4½ games behind Gibson’s first-place Grays.

The year 1939 marked the end of the great Pittsburgh Crawfords franchise, as Greenlee Field was demolished and replaced with housing projects.18 Bankhead started the season with the relocated but short-lived Toledo Crawfords; however, he quickly jumped to the Homestead Grays to play second base with his old friend Josh Gibson. Bankhead hit a solid .292, as the Grays won the Negro National League pennant, but lost the Negro League World Series to future Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella and his Baltimore Elite Giants. Bankhead went 7-for-23 in the series for a .304 batting average.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the integration of Black players into Organized Baseball was a hot topic for both Black and White sportswriters. Bankhead’s name often came up in such discussions. In 1936 William G. Nunn, city editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, wrote, “We don’t believe the majors can produce three outfielders with the all-around ability of ‘Cool Papa,’ Bill Wright or Bankhead.”19 Two years later White sportswriter Jimmy Powers of the New York Daily News wrote about seven Negro League players who would guarantee the New York Giants a pennant and included Bankhead as his starting center fielder.20 Even White superstar players like Honus Wagner, Dizzy Dean, and Paul Waner went to bat for integration, but their cries fell on the deaf ears of antiquated thinkers like Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith, Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.21 Sadly, the window of time closed on Negro baseball legends like Gibson, (Buck) Leonard, Bell, Bankhead, and many others.

In the decade preceding Jackie Robinson’s arrival in the major leagues, more than 100 players from the Negro Leagues played in Mexico.22 Mexican business mogul and multimillionaire Jorge Pasquel was a big reason why. Pasquel, a strong and fearless leader,23 wanted to turn the Mexican League into baseball’s third major league. He lured dozens of Black players south of the border by offering them salaries that were two to four times greater than what they were making in the States.

In 1940 Bankhead signed with the Monterrey Carta Blanco, playing shortstop and leading the league in stolen bases with 32. He had 122 hits in 384 at-bats for a .315 average, but his team finished the year nine games behind Pasquel’s championship club, the Vera Cruz Azules.24 The Azules fielded one of the most impressive lineups in baseball history with Bell, Gibson, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Martin Dihigo, and Willie Wells, each of whom eventually received enshrinement in Cooperstown.

Bankhead signed with Monterrey again in 1941, which turned out to be career year for him as he tore up the league with 142 hits in 405 at-bats for a stellar .351 average. He hit 8 home runs, scored 74 times, stole 19 bases, and drove home 85 runs.25 In spite of Bankhead’s batting prowess, the Monterrey team finished in last place with a 43-59 record, 24 games behind the repeating champion Azules.26

At the conclusion of the 1941 Mexican League season, All-Star catcher Quincy Trouppe formed a barnstorming team that played throughout the United States. The team was called the Mexican League All Stars and included the familiar names of Bell, Dandridge, Wells, Gibson, and Bankhead. The team won all 10 of its games before disbanding for lack of financial support.27 The well-traveled Bankhead then finished off the year by playing for the Ponce Leones in Puerto Rico.

Bankhead returned to the Negro Leagues with the Homestead Grays in 1942. Garnett Blair, pitcher for the Grays, said:

“Sam Bankhead to me was an outstanding player. He played shortstop and he would go behind third to get it and throw you out waist high across the diamond. He could not only play short, he could play second, third, he could play outfield, he could pitch, and he could catch. He was all around, so anytime I was pitching I said if that ball goes to Sam Bankhead, fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, let it go there because if he got his glove on it, he was going to throw you out.”28

Bankhead batted .283 while playing shortstop for the first-place Grays. On July 21, 1942, the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal credited the Grays with a 79-4 record that included exhibition games.29 The team reached the Negro League World Series but was quickly dismantled by Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs in five games.30

All the stars aligned for the Homestead Grays and Sam Bankhead in 1943, as the Grays finished the year with a 44-15 league record. Bankhead was second in the batting title race with an otherworldly .483 average.31 The Grays won a hard-fought eight-game Negro League World Series against the Birmingham Black Barons.32 With the Grays trailing 4-2 and two outs in the eighth inning, Bankhead delivered a clutch single to drive in what turned out to be the Series-winning runs.33

In what must have seemed like a foregone conclusion to the rest of the league, the Homestead Grays easily finished in first place in 1944 and 1945. Bankhead hit .345 in 1944 but slumped to .262 in 1945. The 1944 team once again met the Black Barons in the World Series and easily dispatched them in five games this time. Bankhead went 7-for-18 (.388) in the Series. The 1945 Series was a different story for the Grays as they were swept by future major leaguer Sam Jethroe and the Cleveland Buckeyes. In keeping with his subpar 1945 season, Bankhead had an uncharacteristically bad Series: 1-for-16 (.063).

The 1946 and 1947 seasons were both disappointments for the proud Homestead Grays. The 1946 team fell to third place with a losing record of 27-28, with Bankhead hitting .265. The 1947 squad finished in second place with a more respectable 38-27 record but Bankhead’s average dipped to an anemic .246. A Grays team composed of aging veterans, Jackie Robinson’s integration of major-league baseball, and the tragic death of Josh Gibson on January 20, 1947, seemed to spell the beginning of the end for the Homestead Grays.

The 1948 season turned out to be a last hurrah for both the Homestead Grays and the NNL. The press was paying far less attention to the Negro Leagues by this point, but it is known that the Grays defeated the Baltimore Elite Giants in the NNL playoffs and met the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro League World Series for the third time in six years. The Black Barons had knocked off a strong Kansas City Monarchs team in the NAL playoffs and featured a 17-year-old legend in the making, Willie Mays.

Bankhead helped lead the Grays to a five-game championship victory. After the series ended, the NNL disbanded, which meant that the 1948 Negro League World Series had been the last of its kind.

The Homestead Grays still fielded teams for the 1949 and 1950 seasons, with Bankhead staying on as player-manager. By all accounts these teams were highly competitive, with newspapers reporting records of 97-15 and 64-8 for the 1949 and 1950 seasons respectively.34 In 11 box scores found from the 1950 season, an aging Bankhead banged out 18 hits in 45 at-bats.35 The decline of the Negro Leagues continued apace, however, and the Grays folded after the 1950 season.

After Josh Gibson’s death in 1947, Sam became a surrogate father for 16-year-old Josh Gibson Jr., who played second base and third base for Bankhead’s 1949 and 1950 Grays teams; however, Josh Jr. could not escape his father’s enormous shadow. In 1951 Sam took Josh Jr. with him north of the border to play in the Class-C Canadian Provincial League for the Pittsburgh Pirates-affiliated Farnham Pirates. Canada was where Bankhead attained one of baseball’s most underappreciated milestones by becoming the first black manager for a mostly White professional baseball team. Josh Jr. did not fare as well: While playing for Farnham, he broke his ankle sliding into second base, effectively ending his baseball career.

After spending the 1951 season in Canada, Sam and Josh Jr. returned home to the Hill District in Pittsburgh and took jobs working side by side for the Pittsburgh Sanitation Department. Josh Jr. had this to say about their experience together: “I worked with him. I listened to him still, like playin’ baseball. He was one of the smartest guys ’cause he read all the time.”36

Bankhead’s post-baseball life has led to speculation, most notably by Negro League historian John Holway,37 that the character Troy Maxson, from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences was based on Sam. Like Bankhead, Maxson was a bitter ex-Negro League star who worked on a garbage truck in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Bankhead was bitter that he never got the chance to play in baseball’s major leagues,38 and he refused to go to baseball games in his later years, even missing the chance to see his younger brother, Dan, pitch for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In a 1971 interview, Bankhead had this to say about major-league baseball: “After I quit, I never went to see a game again. I am not jealous, but I cannot be a fan.”39 Sam preferred to stay close to home, playing cards with his buddies, endlessly talking about the old days, and – most of all – drinking. Bankhead’s brother Fred died in 1972, and his youngest brother, Dan, died in 1976, events that made Sam lean on the bottle even more heavily than before. While the exact circumstances of Sam Bankhead’s death are not known, it is known that he was shot in the head and killed on the night of July 24, 1976.40 Whether he was shot by a friend after an argument in a downtown hotel, or shot in self-defense by a co-worker at the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, one thing is certain: Negro League legend Sam Bankhead’s life came to an unceremonious end at the age of 65.

In 2005 the Washington Post honored Negro League legend Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe upon the occasion of his 102nd birthday and asked him, “What player do you think of when you think of the Negro Leagues?” Radcliffe responded, “Bankhead. He was a great player.”41 Indeed, Bankhead had been picked as the first-team utility player as early as 1952 in a Pittsburgh Courier poll that named the all-time Negro League All-Stars.42 He was universally respected as a player and manager and continually rose to the occasion when playing with and against the greatest players in Negro League history.

Bankhead would have made a tremendous major-leaguer. By all accounts he was an exceptional fielder, a speed demon on the basepaths, and a skilled batsman, as his lifetime .289 batting average attests.43 If nonleague statistics are included, then his average shoots up to well above .300. Bankhead is also credited with a .301 average against White major leaguers in barnstorming games.44

As of 2025, there have been 351 people elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. Negro Leaguers have been grossly underrepresented, with only 44 players or executives honored with plaques thus far. When examining the scope of his entire career, it is not hard to envision a place for Sam Bankhead in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

Sources

All statistics, unless otherwise noted, are from:

Holway, John B. The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001).

Notes

1 John B. Holway, Black Giants (Springfield, Virginia: Lord Fairfax Press, 2010), 92.

2 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

3 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

4 Conflicting sources have Bankhead being born on September 18, 1905, in Empire, Alabama, but the 1910 birthdate shows up on both the US Social Security Death Index and on his gravestone in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania.

5 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 1.

6 Lester, 1.

7 Jim Bankes, The Pittsburgh Crawfords (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2001), 148.

8 Lester, 88.

9 John B. Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001), 321.

10 John B. Holway, Josh and Satch: The Life and Times of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige (New York: Meckler Publishing, 1991), 90.

11 Bankes, 110.

12 Bankes, 110.

13 Dr. Layton Revel and Luis Munoz, Forgotten Heroes: Samuel “Sam” Bankhead (Carrollton, Texas: Center for Negro League Research, 2011), 23.

14 Revel and Munoz, 23.

15 Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 171, 274.

16 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness: The Life of Josh Gibson in the Shadows of the Game (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 164.

17 Brent Kelley, Voices From the Negro Leagues: Conversations With 52 Baseball Standouts (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1998), 145.

18 Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, 356.

19 Lester, 89.

20 Lester, 109-110.

21 Holway, Josh and Satch, 151-155.

22 John Virtue, South of the Color Barrier (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008), 11.

23 Virtue, 12.

24 Virtue, 85.

25 Revel and Munoz, 11.

26 Revel and Munoz, 11.

27 Revel and Munoz, 12.

28 Larry Lester and Sammy J. Miller, Black Baseball in Pittsburgh (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2001), 75.

29 Revel and Munoz, 12.

30 Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, 398-399.

31 Tetelo Vargas of the New York Cubans hit .484.

32 Game Two ended in a tie.

33 Holway, Josh and Satch, 171.

34 Revel and Munoz,19.

35 Revel and Munoz,19.

36 Brent Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations With 66 More Baseball Heroes (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2000), 258.

37 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

38 August Wilson, Fences (New York: Plume, 1986).

39 Holway, Black Giants, 97.

40 Holway, Black Giants, 97.

41 “Ex-Washington Player Goes Back a Few Years,” Washington Post, April 12, 2005. washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/2005/04/12/ex-washington-player-goes-back-a-few-years/4a2faf00-9223-4718-b46c-e1b8e0213a6b/?utm_term=.66be349249e0. Accessed December 31, 2016.

42 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graff Publishers, Inc., 1994), 52.

43 Holway, Black Giants, 99.

44 Holway, Black Giants, 101.

Richard William “Dick” Bartell was born in Chicago on November 22, 1907, to Harry and Emma (Greakel) Bartell. Harry Bartell worked variously as an accountant, real estate agent, and county supervisor. He was a semipro infielder whose claim to athletic fame occurred when he made an unassisted triple play. The Bartells moved to Alameda, California, when Dick was an infant.

Young Dick played sandlot ball in Alameda as soon as he was able to swing a bat. He was the varsity second baseman during his four years at Alameda High School. While in school, Dick played second base for the Yellow Checker Cab Company for $10 a game. After he graduated in 1926, the Pittsburgh Pirates (without signing him to avoid using an option) persuaded him to play semipro ball for a mining company in Butte, Montana. He signed with the Pirates after the season and joined the Pirates at spring training in Paso Robles, California, in 1927.

Bartell had impressed the Pirates as an agile shortstop with baseball smarts, a strong arm, and hitting potential. But that spring he faced stiff competition from such talented infielders as Pie Traynor, Glenn Wright, George Grantham, and young Joe Cronin. Bartell was farmed out to New Haven in the Eastern League. When an injured regular came back, New Haven sent him to Bridgeport in the same league. There, he hit .280 and the Pirates called him up at the end of the season. He made his major-league debut on October 2, the last game of the season, and drew a walk in his first at-bat as the pennant-winning Pirate regulars prepared for the World Series against the powerful Yankees.

Bartell impressed manager Donie Bush with his potential, hustle, and aggressiveness, and he remained with the Pirates through the 1928 season. He was the Pirates’ starting shortstop in the second half of the season, replacing the well-established regular Glenn Wright, who was sidelined with a serious arm injury. Dick proved he could handle the position as a regular, hitting .305 and fielding proficiently. Then he had a breakthrough season in 1929, hitting .302 with 184 hits and 40 doubles.

Bartell had serious difficulties with the Pirates front office, especially club owner Barney Dreyfuss. He wrote in Rowdy Richard, his reminiscence, “(Dreyfuss’) office was upstairs over the clubhouse. He’d send a message down for some player to come up to his office. It was not a pleasant experience. He was always looking for a chance to tell you why you weren’t as good as you thought you were. To keep the payroll down. We all dreaded those summonses.”

Bartell’s problems with Dreyfuss became even more serious before the 1930 season. He held out for a month before reporting. Then he had a fine year statistically, leading all National League shortstops in total chances per game and hitting .320 (in a year that produced an overall .303 National League batting average). But he feuded with the difficult Dreyfuss all season. It was no surprise when he was traded to the Phillies after the season.

The Phils had been the League doormat for years. They were a perennially underfinanced ballclub and stayed financially alive during the Depression years only by peddling their few stars for cash. They played in the Baker Bowl, the smallest park in the National League. It is remembered by baseball historians for its short right-field fence and the inflated offensive statistics that it produced. In August 1930, the Phils had two players, Lefty O’Doul and Chuck Klein, hitting over .400 (both ended the season in the .380s), but a group of ineffective pitchers and poor fielders. Bartell played his usual proficient game in 1931, hitting .289 and fielding well, one of the main reasons why the Phillies finished in sixth place after finishing last in 1930. The derisive term Philadelphia Ballplayer came into use as Phillies players compiled hefty hitting statistics, aided by Baker Bowl’s friendly confines, but were unable to duplicate their performances when they moved to other clubs.

Bartell did benefit from the trade in one way; he had good relations with Phillies president Gerry Nugent and Burt Shotton, who managed the Phillies in Bartell’s first three years with the club. They respected Dick for his aggressiveness and constructive impact upon his teammates. The Phils’ modest improvement continued over the next three seasons when the club avoided a last-place finish, a source of minor satisfaction to Bartell. When Nugent regretfully traded him to the New York Giants after the 1934 season, he was established as a top National League shortstop.

Bartell’s four seasons with the Phils were remembered for his competent play and his instilling badly needed life into the club, but mostly for his super-aggressive play on the bases. He was chosen to play in the first All-Star Game, in 1933, a reflection of his status as one of the best National League shortstops. But he was hated in Brooklyn. In the opening series that season he spiked Brooklyn first baseman Joe Judge as he ran out a groundball. Judge told Brooklyn writers that he had been spiked intentionally, a charge that Bartell denied. Then, later in the season, Dodgers pitchers knocked him down with four straight pitches and he retaliated by spiking Dodgers shortstop Lonny Frey. Both Judge and Frey were out for several games and Dick was hated even more by Brooklyn fans.

Bartell was a good fit for the Giants. Their first baseman-manager, Bill Terry, needed a replacement for the Giants’ longtime shortstop, Travis Jackson, and he was pleased to obtain Bartell. The very businesslike Terry also coveted Bartell to add spice to the longstanding Giants-Dodgers feud. New York writer Stanley Frank wrote in the New York Post: “Belligerent Bartell is probably the most hated Giant in the National League. Boys don’t like his flip tongue, his overweening arrogance, or the manner in which he throws his spikes into people’s faces while sliding into bases or charging across second on double plays. . . . Terry has had occasional tastes of Bartell’s hardbitten baseball, but now that the pepperpot is one of his own gang, he’s all in favor of it.”

Bartell had an uncertain start with Giants despite the feeling among Giants fans that, as Bartell put it, “I was supposed to be carrying the pennant in my back pocket.” He went into a slump early in the season and Bill Terry benched him for several games. And then, back in the lineup, Bartell made the mistake of laying down a sacrifice bunt without a signal from Terry, who scolded him after the game. Terry said, “You bunted to try to beat it out for a hit, but knowing that if you didn’t beat it out, it would be counted as a sacrifice, no time at bat for you. . . . Not without permission, I wouldn’t have bunted in that situation.” Coming from the freewheeling, self-concerned Phillies to the disciplined Giants, Bartell never tried that gambit again under Terry.

The Giants played well with the peppery Bartell breathing life into an aging infield, which also included Terry, second baseman Hughie Critz, and third baseman Travis Jackson. The Giants were in second place through Labor Day before falling into third place as the Cubs took the 1935 pennant with a 21-game winning streak. Bartell had an adequate season, although his batting average dipped to .262. He looked forward to the 1936 season as Terry traded with the Cardinals for second baseman Burgess Whitehead. Bartell felt that the agile Whitehead would be the perfect double-play partner he had lacked.

The Giants opened the season with Bartell in a typical role. In the first series of the year, Dodgers right-hander Van Lingle Mungo knocked him down with a pitch and Dick tried to retaliate by bunting toward first base hoping that Mungo would be within reach. The first baseman made the out unassisted, but Mungo came over and threw a hip into the much lighter Bartell. He appeared to fly through the air and came down on his back. He bounced up and both men swatted each other. During the brawl, Bartell accidentally hit peacemaker Bill Terry in the eye. Both Bartell and Mungo were ejected, but the old Giant-Dodger feud had been rekindled.

By midseason, the Giants were in fifth place and presumably were not contending for the pennant. But Bartell and Whitehead proved to be the best second base-shortstop combination the Giants had had in many years. The Giants bounced back and won the pennant. Carl Hubbell had a magnificent 26-6 pitching record with 16 consecutive wins as the regular season ended. Mel Ott led the offense with a fine offensive year. And the Bartell-Whitehead combination tightened the defense immeasurably and Bartell hit .298. In the World Series, the Giants did well to win two games against the overpowering Yankees, led by Lou Gehrig and rookie sensation Joe DiMaggio. Bartell personally had an excellent Series, leading the Giants with three doubles, a homer, and a .381 average.

Giants prospects were high as the club opened spring training in 1937. Terry and Travis Jackson had retired, but Hubbell and Hal Schumacher were in top form and promising left-hander Cliff Melton had been purchased from Baltimore. Bartell, Whitehead, Ott, left fielder Joe Moore, and catchers Gus Mancuso and Harry Danning were in their prime years. As they had for several years, the Giants barnstormed north with the Cleveland Indians in preparing to start the regular season. Teenaged flame-thrower Bob Feller, a sensation since joining the Indians during the 1936 season, was the big attraction. Bartell alone was unimpressed after Feller’s first outing, with the comment, “Heck, Van Mungo’s definitely quicker and we’ve got several other guys in our league who can throw as fast.” By the time the barnstorming trip ended, Feller had fanned Dick 13 times in 18 at-bats. Bartell had become a believer and, as a New York writer wrote, “Bartell had to go all the way from Vicksburg to Charlotte before he got so much as a loud foul against the kid.”

The Giants opened the 1937 season in Brooklyn in familiar fashion. Bartell led off in the first inning, taking the first pitch from Van Mungo for a strike. As he turned around to protest the call, he was hit squarely in the chest by an overripe tomato thrown by a fan in the stands behind first base. A few days later at the Polo Grounds, Bartell tagged Dodgers infielder Jimmy Bucher with more vigor than Bucher considered necessary and both men squared off. The players were separated and the game continued. But Bartell had managed again to keep alive his feud with the Brooklyn players and fans.

The Giants won their first three games in the season and they were tied with the Cubs for the league lead at midseason. These were the happiest days of Bartell’s time with the Giants. He led the Giants’ offense as Mel Ott battled a lengthy early-season hitting slump. The Bartell-Whitehead duo was at its best, and Bartell was rewarded with his second selection to the All-Star Game. Dick and his fully uniformed young son, Skip, were playful figures on the field before Polo Grounds games. On June 30, Bartell was given a “day,” and was presented with a silver statuette and other gifts.

Bartell proved that he had not lost his knack for becoming involved in fistfights on the field. This time his opponent was Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges. In the first game of a doubleheader in Chicago, Jurges tagged Bartell out roughly during a rundown play. In the second game, Bartell responded with an equally rough tag on Jurges as he slid into second base. Both men came up trading punches, and both were ejected from the game.

After the All-Star Game, the Giants slumped badly, and they were seven games off the pace by early August. Terry shook up the lineup to stimulate the lagging offense. His most significant move was to bench weak-hitting third baseman Lou Chiozza and replace him with Mel Ott, the best right fielder in the league. The Giants responded with an excellent homestand and they retained the resulting league lead for the remainder of the season. As in 1936, Hubbell and Ott led the Giants to the pennant. Hubbell led the league again in wins with a 22-8 record and Ott’s 31 homers tied for the league lead. And Bartell, who was selected to his second All-Star Game and again teamed beautifully with Burgess Whitehead, had a fine year, hitting .306.

The Giants faced the still-powerful Yankees in a virtual replay of the previous World Series. This time they were limited to only one victory, pitched by Hubbell. Bartell had a mediocre Series, hitting .238 and committing three of the nine Giants errors. Nevertheless, overall Bartell had an excellent season, and, still only 30 years old, he looked forward to several more good years with the Giants.

Giants prospects were high when the club began 1938 spring training in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Bartell had one major concern: The very competent Burgess Whitehead had an appendectomy in the spring and the physical and mental after-effects kept him out for the entire season. But regardless, the Giants had their best start in years. Favored to win again, they started off by winning 18 of their first 21 games to take a five-game lead over the second-place Chicago Cubs. Even without Whitehead and with several injuries, the Giants remained in first place through the midseason break.

The Giants slipped badly after the All-Star Game, and their play deteriorated at several positions. Most crippling, both Hubbell and Schumacher developed bone chips in their pitching arms and were lost for the season. Considering their injuries, the Giants did well to finish in third place. But Bartell had a mediocre season; he hit hitting .262, and his fielding slipped with the absence of Whitehead.

Changes on the Giants were inevitable as the season ended. The most important change involved Bartell. He, catcher Gus Mancuso and outfielder Hank Leiber were traded to the Cubs for their opposite numbers: shortstop Billy Jurges, catcher Ken O’Dea, and outfielder Frank Demaree. Bartell wrote in Rowdy Richard, “I was shocked. … I’d had an off year, but I was only 31. . . . Maybe the fact that … I was traded for Billy Jurges rankled me. I outhit him and was his equal in the field.” Bartell also wrote that Bill Terry later admitted he was sorry that he had traded Bartell for Jurges.

Hampered by back and leg problems, Bartell had a poor year with the Cubs in 1939, hitting a mere .238 and playing in only 105 games. He described the year as his career worst and he was glad to be traded to the Tigers after the season for another veteran shortstop, Billy Rogell. Bartell was especially gratified at the opportunity to team up with the Tigers’ Charley Gehringer, in Bartell’s view, the best second baseman ever.

Bartell’s statistics for 1940 are unimposing—a .233 batting average and a mediocre fielding average. But they do not indicate that Bartell once again was the spark plug he had been in his prime with the Giants. Tigers manager Del Baker encouraged Bartell to play his natural role as a catalyst and Dick complied. The 1940 Tigers — Hank Greenberg, Gehringer, et al. — were a relatively undemonstrative group and they needed a firebrand like Bartell to provide the liveliness they badly needed.

In a tight race, the Tigers caught up with the Cleveland Indians in early September and traded leads with them before pulling ahead to stay by winning two games of three as the season ended. Bartell figured importantly as the Tigers lost the seventh game of the World Series to the Reds. Dick was the goat in the last game when he failed to cut down a Reds run. As Charley Gehringer recalled the controversial play:

“We were leading 1-0 late in the game when (Reds first baseman) Frank McCormick led off with a double. The next guy up (Jimmy Ripple) hit a ball over Bruce Campbell’s head in right field. Campbell picked it up right away and threw it in to Bartell. Bartell thought, ‘Gee, with that double McCormick must’ve scored,’ but McCormick had waited to see whether it was going to be caught. So McCormick, who was no speed demon, was just rounding third when Bartell got the ball. I kept yelling, ‘Home, home, home.’ Gee whiz, with Bartell’s arm, he’s a dead pigeon. But he never did throw the ball. Even after he looked and still had a chance, he didn’t throw. And to this day, I don’t know why.” In his Rowdy Richard, Bartell wrote that he assumed McCormick had scored and added that because of the deafening crowd noise, he was unable to hear his teammates’ shouts for him to throw home.

In spring training in 1941 Bartell knew that his time with the Tigers was essentially over. He played in only five games before the club released him in early May. Shortly after, the Giants picked him up and he became Bill Terry’s third baseman with Billy Jurges, his old basepaths foe, the regular shortstop. Bartell hit a creditable .303 and played third base adequately. He began spring training with the Giants in 1942 full of pep and enthusiasm under Mel Ott, who had succeeded Bill Terry. Two of Dick’s erstwhile enemies, Van Lingle Mungo and Jurges, were now his teammates and several of his old Giants teammates who had been traded away rejoined him on the Giants. But Bartell played in only 90 games while hitting .244 and shifting between and third base and shortstop. As the impact of World War II on baseball deepened in 1943, Bartell performed similarly while raising his batting average to .270. He picked up his last major-league hit on September 7, then his season ended when the Dodgers’ wild-throwing rookie Rex Barney broke his wrist with an inside pitch.

Bartell, 36 years old, was drafted into the Army after the 1943 season. He spent the next two seasons coaching an Army baseball team. After his discharge, he returned to the Giants in 1946 as a third-base coach and part-time player. He played in only five games and his playing career was over.

With the Giants finishing in last place in ’46, there were rumors that manager Ott would be replaced and Bartell was included among the rumored possible applicants. But Ott was retained and Bartell left the Giants with hard feelings toward the Giants’ front office.

Bartell was hired to manage Sacramento in the Pacific Coast League in 1947. He lasted only the one year as the independent club was sold after the PCL season. Bartell hooked on in 1948 as manager of the New York Yankees’ American Association team in Kansas City. The Yankees cut loose their ties with Kansas City after the season and in 1949 Bartell returned to the majors as the third-base coach for the Detroit Tigers, with whom he remained through the 1952 season. He was inactive the following year but he was the third-base coach of the Cincinnati Reds in 1954-55. In 1956, in his last job in Organized Baseball, he managed the Montgomery, Alabama, club in the South Atlantic League.

Bartell’s 18-season career statistics include a .284 batting average, 2,165 hits, and a .952 fielding average. They do not adequate reflect his value as a dependable shortstop and his spirited, if occasionally unnecessarily combative, play. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract summed up Bartell: “Bartell didn’t drink a lot; he didn’t carouse a lot. But he had a big mouth, and he took pride in not backing away from people. Although he was an outstanding player, he bounced from the Pirates to the Phillies to the Giants to the Cubs to the Tigers and back to the Giants. The second half of his career he was a player … who was routinely booed in almost every city.”

Bartell married Olive Loretta Jensen on October 24, 1928, and the couple had two children. Olive died in 1977. Bartell worked in a variety of jobs in the Alameda area for several years after he left baseball. He suffered from Alzheimer’s disease over his last few years before his death at 87 on August 4, 1995, in Alameda. He was survived by his second wife, Anise Walton.

Sources

Books:

Dick Bartell and Norman Macht. Rowdy Richard. North Atlantic Books, 1987

Bill James. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. The Free Press, 2001

Fred Stein. Mel Ott–The Little Giant of Baseball. McFarland & Company Publishers, 1999

Fred Stein. Under Coogan’s Bluff. Chapter and Cask, 1979

Total Baseball Seventh Edition, Total Sports Publishing, 2001

Peter Williams. When the Giants Were Giants. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1994

Although Bassett used the gimmick that gave him his nickname throughout his playing days, he was far more than a mere sideshow: he was a premier backstop who was voted into eight East-West All-Star Games in seven different seasons (he played in both games in 1939) over the course of his career. In his memoirs, Motley extolled the catcher’s abilities:

“A switch-hitting slugger, Bassett had an arm like a rifle and would sometimes mow down base stealers while sitting at the edge of the rocker. Most times, however, he would leap up from the chair and fire a bullet down to second, or pick off a runner loafing at first. If there was going to be a play at the plate, Bassett would kick that rocker out the way so fast you’d think he was kicking shit off his shoes. He’d quickly position himself to make the play. … Bassett was really an outstanding catcher, truly one of the best in the league. If times had been different, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have found his way up to the majors.”3

The paradox that the Negro Leagues had to exist due to segregation but were nonetheless often popular even with racially unenlightened white fans is perhaps best summed up in the words of one white Texan who asserted about Bassett, “I didn’t care if I was the only white man in the stands. I was gonna see that nigger in the rocking chair.”4 Bassett’s prime years were behind him by the time integration of Organized Baseball began, and he never did make it to the major leagues.

Lloyd Pepper Bassett was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on August 5, 1910, to Cortez Bassett and Lillie Hatter.5 No information about his parents is available, but it appears to have been important to them for their son to get an education as Bassett attended Reddy Street Elementary School and later graduated from McKinley High School.6 Along the way, however, baseball got in young Bassett’s blood and, as was the case with so many youths in his time, he honed his skills by playing ball on the local sandlots after school. The details of Bassett’s early life have been lost to history, but he became a professional ballplayer at the age of 23 when he joined the New Orleans Crescent Stars in 1934.

After his debut with New Orleans and his travels through Texas with the Black Senators, the burly Bassett – he stood 6-feet-3 and weighed 220 pounds – caught on with the Homestead Grays in 1936. Playing time was sparse for Bassett that season, but he made the most of his opportunities by going 7-for-22 at the plate for a .318 batting average.7 The press was complimentary, with one article asserting, “Pepper Bassett is the big league sensation behind the plate. … [H]e has become one of the best catchers in the game today.”8

In March 1937 Bassett was one piece of a major trade between the Grays and their crosstown rivals, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Gus Greenlee, the Crawfords owner, who had funded his team via his numbers lottery and had barely avoided a conviction in 1934, was running low on money. Greenlee was unable to pay his stable full of star players any longer, and he began to unload them to other teams. This circumstance led to Greenlee’s trading future Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and William “Judy” Johnson to the Grays in exchange for Bassett, Henry “Little Splo” Spearman, and $2,500, which was “reportedly the largest sum involved in a player deal in black baseball to date.”9

Bassett never attained Gibson’s level as a player, but he was an adequate replacement for the legend in 1937, batting .377 over the course of 18 Negro National League games for the Crawfords.10 His performance was good enough to win him a starting spot in that year’s East-West All-Star Game, and he was the leading vote-getter among catchers with a total of 41,463.11 In the game, which was played before 25,000 fans at Chicago’s Comiskey Park on August 8, Bassett went 0-for-3 with the bat. Perhaps to make up for this shortcoming, the Pittsburgh Courier was effusive about his defensive performance, stating, “Practically sitting  on his heels, he swayed as he snatched the fast and slow ones as they came skipping across the plate, and then tossed ’em back without shifting his position.”12

Bassett returned to the Crawfords in 1938, but his batting average dipped precipitously to .250 in 17 league games.13 Greenlee attempted to turn Bassett into his main attraction and “had a multicolored rocker built” for Bassett to use in “selected nonleague games,” from which he swore the catcher could “knock a gnat off a dwarf’s ear at a hundred yards.”14 Greenlee’s efforts were not enough to save the franchise. At the end of the season, his financial situation compelled him to disband the team, and he sent Bassett a letter to inform him that he was now a free agent; these “new circumstances left (Bassett) unable even to cash his final $53 check from the Crawfords.”15

Bassett joined the Negro American League’s Chicago American Giants for the 1939 season, where his batting average plummeted to .202 as he went only 21-for-113 in 30 league games.16 His defensive prowess was such, however, that he was still selected to the West team for that year’s two East-West All-Star Games. As he done in 1937, Bassett led all catchers with a total of 502,394 votes, which was second among all players to first baseman Ted Strong’s tally of 508,327.17 In the first game, played at Comiskey Park on August 6, Bassett caught the first four innings and took part in a double play behind the plate while going 0-for-2 with the bat. He repeated his 0-for-2 batting performance in the second All-Star Game, which was played at Yankee Stadium on August 27.

In 1940 Bassett became one of the many Negro Leaguers who jumped to the Mexican League, where he played for the Nuevo Laredo Tecolotes and batted .230 with eight home runs.18 After his foray into Mexico, Bassett returned to the Chicago American Giants for the 1941 season. In spite of an abysmal .174 average in only eight league games, his popularity was such that he was once again the starting catcher for the West team in the July 21 All-Star Game at Comiskey Park. Once again the honor of playing in the game had to suffice as Bassett went 0-for-1 at the plate and allowed the East’s second run of the game to score when he was charged with a passed ball in the first inning of the West’s 8-3 loss.

In 1943 Bassett joined the barnstorming Ethiopian Clowns, a team with a name and a show-business flair that seemed suited to his rocking-chair routine. He continued to play for the team after it was relocated to Cincinnati in 1944 and became a member franchise of the Negro American League. Statistics for Bassett’s two seasons with the Clowns are unavailable, but he added new forms of showmanship to his game that he continued to use throughout his career. Fellow catcher James Dudley, who played for the Baltimore Elite Giants, later remembered, “That guy [Bassett] lay down in the dirt like a little child playing. He’d tell the pitcher, ‘Throw hard ‘cause you can’t throw bad.’ It didn’t make no difference where the ball went in that dirt, he got it.”19

Dudley’s reminiscence about Bassett’s catching acumen was an example of how well the rocking-chair catcher had developed that aspect of his game. In fact, Bassett’s focus on defense led to his contribution to the history of baseball equipment. According to Negro League historian Donn Rogosin:

“[Bassett] found that the 1930-style catcher’s mitt with its pillow-like design was unsatisfactory, particularly when a quick release was needed to get the runner stealing second. Experimenting, he gradually removed more and more of the padding, toughening up his hand in the process. Unknown to history, he helped create the ‘squeezer’ style of catcher’s mitt.”20

In light of Bassett’s serious effort to be a first-rate backstop, it made sense for him to leave the Clowns, which he did when he signed with the NAL’s Birmingham Black Barons in 1944. As a part-time starter, Bassett batted .212 for the powerful Birmingham squad, which won the NAL title and faced the Homestead Grays, one of his former teams, in the Negro League World Series that year. As fate would have it, however, Bassett and at least three other Black Barons – including Tommy Sampson, John Britton, and Leandy Young – were involved in a car accident in which a drunk driver hit their vehicle head-on. Sampson, who had been driving and who had suffered the worst injuries, recalled:

“I got hurt the week before the [1944] World Series. I think we had played in Louisville, I believe, and we were on our way to Birmingham when we had the accident. I was out ’til that next spring. I was in the hospital, I think, almost 13 weeks. I had a broken leg, head busted, and everything.”21

Though Bassett’s injuries were minor compared to Sampson’s, he also missed out on playing in the World Series, which Birmingham lost to Homestead in five games.

Bassett settled into his role as a platoon catcher with the Black Barons and stayed with the team through the 1950 season; after a year in Canada, he rejoined Birmingham for the 1952 season, his last with that franchise. Statistics are scarce for the 1945-47 seasons with Birmingham, but Bassett did make it to his first East-West All-Star Game with the Black Barons in 1947. He played in the second of the two All-Star Games, which was held on July 29 at the Polo Grounds in New York, and registered his first-ever hit in such a game as he went 1-for-2 with the bat. In the offseason after 1946 and 1947, Bassett also plied his trade – by all accounts sans rocking chair – in the Cuban Winter League.

In 1948 Bassett had his finest season with the Black Barons as he went 43-for-123 to post a .350 batting average. Once again he played in the second of that season’s East-West Games on August 24 at Yankee Stadium; this time, he reverted to a 0-for-2 batting line in the contest.

At 38 years of age and with 14 years of professional experience, Bassett had also attained the status of grizzled veteran. Birmingham’s youngest player, 17-year-old Hall of Fame-bound Willie Mays, learned a hard lesson from Bassett about the pecking order among players on one particular bus ride. According to Mays’ biographer James S. Hirsch:

“One night, over a long, bumpy road, (Mays) was jounced so badly that he moved to the front of the bus to sit with Bassett. … Willie tried to get him to move, but he wouldn’t. So Willie asked [manager Piper] Davis, sleeping nearby, for assistance, but Bassett opened his eyes and growled, ‘You better get away from me.’ He took a swing, missed, and hit an overhead rack. Willie retreated.”22

Team chemistry was normally better, though some of the other veterans also were initially resentful of the youthful Mays, and the team won the NAL pennant. After defeating the Kansas City Monarchs in the NAL playoffs, they once again faced the Homestead Grays in what became the last Negro League World Series. This time around, Bassett got to play in the Series, though his fortunes were much the same as in the majority of his All-Star Game appearances: In Game One he was thrown out at the plate in the eighth inning of a game that the Black Barons lost, 3-2.23 Birmingham again lost to Homestead in five games, just as it had in 1944; it was their third loss to the Pittsburgh-area squad in three World Series; they had also fallen in seven games in 1943.

The halcyon days of the Negro Leagues were past after 1948, due almost exclusively to the integration of Organized Baseball. Bassett was too old to merit consideration by either a minor-league or major-league team, so he remained with the Black Barons; he batted .295 in 1949 and .271 in 1950.24 On August 20, 1950, at Comiskey Park, Bassett went 1-for-1 with a double in his final East-West All-Star Game as a Black Baron.. During his lengthy stint with Birmingham, Bassett was known for “a propensity for fancy clothes and fine ladies that matched his hitting prowess.”25 He also had become a fan favorite who, according to sportswriter Ellis Jones, was “one of the most popular players ever to wear the livery of the Black Barons.”26

In spite of his popularity in Birmingham, the 1951 season found Bassett playing in his third different foreign country when he went north to join the Brandon Greys of Canada’s ManDak (Manitoba-Dakota) League. Bassett may have been struck by the irony of playing for a team whose name, though spelled differently, was the same as that of the nemesis that had prevented him from being part of two Negro League championships, but it would become a sweet irony by the end of the season.

On June 28 Bassett won a game against the Elmwood team in dramatic but unusual fashion. Brandon trailed 6-5 in the bottom of the ninth inning and had two men on base when Bassett came to bat and belted what appeared to be a game-winning home run. The ball was “clearly heading out of the park, [but it] hit a guy wire and fell back onto the playing field. He was awarded a triple.”27 The hit still resulted in two RBIs that gave the Greys a 7-6 come-from-behind victory. For the season, Bassett batted .251 with 2 homers and 23 RBIs for Brandon.28

Bassett played a key role in Brandon’s playoff fortunes as he doubled and scored the winning run in the 10th inning of a 2-1 victory over Carman on September 4. Ten days later he was behind the plate as Brandon defeated the Winnipeg Buffaloes, 5-3, to win the ManDak League’s title. 29 After losing twice to the Negro League’s Homestead Grays, Bassett finally had become a champion with the Brandon Greys.

In 1952 Bassett returned to the warmer climes of Birmingham, where he now split the catching duties with Otha Bailey. The rigors of catching were getting to be too much for Bassett’s now 42-year-old body, and Bailey recalled, “He’d catch four and I’d catch five, but then if the game get real tight, I would come in as a defensive catcher ’cause I could move faster and get a lotta balls that he don’t get ‘cause he’s big and kinda old, too. … Later on, I was the startin’ catcher.”30

Clearly, Bassett’s career was nearing its end. He began 1953 with the Philadelphia Stars but spent most of the season with the Memphis Red Sox. He had one last hurrah as a player when he took part in his eighth All-Star Game as the starting catcher for the West team. In the game, which was played at Comiskey Park on August 16, Bassett went 0-for-3 in the West’s 5-1 triumph over the East. Bassett’s final season was spent with the Detroit Stars in 1954.

Though Bassett’s career has been documented fairly well, not much is known about his personal life. He did marry Exidena Johnson in April 1941, but the couple never had any children. When Bassett’s playing career ended after the 1954 season, they ended up in California, where he worked as a janitor until he died of bone cancer on December 28, 1980, in Los Angeles.31 Even his death remains shrouded in mystery, as former pitcher Bill Beverly once told an interviewer, “He’s [Bassett] passed. There’s two conflicting stories. One said he was killed in California with marked cards and another one said that he just passed.”32 Though Bassett is gone, the Rocking-Chair Catcher lives on in baseball lore.

This biography appears in “Bittersweet Goodbye: The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series” (SABR, 2017), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.

Notes

1 Donn Rogosin, Invisible Men: Life in Baseball’s Negro Leagues (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 143.

2 Bob Motley with Byron Motley, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars (New York: Sports Publishing, 2012), 121.

3 Ibid.

4 Rogosin, 143.

5 Some well-known sources, including James A. Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues and The Negro Leagues Book by Dick Clark and Larry Lester, give the year 1919 for Bassett’s birth. However, Bassett’s 1940 World War II draft registration form lists his birth year as 1910. Bassett also gave his full name as Lloyd Pepper Bassett, indicating that Pepper was his middle name rather than a nickname.

6 Lloyd Pepper Bassett file, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York. Thanks to Negro League historian Leslie Heaphy for providing information from Bassett’s HOF file.

7 baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=basset000llo, accessed February 3, 2017.

8 “Colored Teams to Appear at Riverside Park,” Portsmouth (Ohio) Times, September 16, 1936: 8.

9 Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 61. The Grays got the short end of this trade as Johnson retired before playing a single game for the team and Gibson jumped the team during the 1937 season to play for the barnstorming Trujillo’s All-Stars with Satchel Paige; see James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 314, 445.

10 seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=basse01pep, accessed February 3, 2017.

11 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933-1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 106.

12 Lester, 104.

13 Seamheads.com.

14 Mark Ribowsky, Josh Gibson: The Power and the Darkness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 166.

15 Riley, 65.

16 Seamheads.com.

17 Lester, 139.

18 Riley, 66.

19 Brent Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations With 66 More Baseball Heroes (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2000), 56.

20 Rogosin, 73.

21 Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited, 127. Accounts of this accident vary greatly among several different sources, and Sampson did not go into detail about the accident in his interview with Kelley. One discrepancy involves how many players were riding in Sampson’s car. No one disputes that the four players named here were in the vehicle, but some accounts claim that Artie Wilson also was involved in the accident and that he suffered a sprained wrist: however, Wilson played in the World Series and batted .271. In an April 13, 2017 phone conversation with the author, Artie Wilson, Jr. confirmed that his father had not been involved in the accident. The second discrepancy involves the extent of Bassett’s injuries, with some sources stating that he incurred only minor cuts and bruises while other sources claim that he suffered two broken ribs; since Bassett did not play in any of the five World Series games, the latter accounts appear more likely to be accurate. All sources agree that Britton suffered a thumb injury and Young a hip injury.

22 James S. Hirsch, Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend (New York: Scribner, 2010), 50-51.

23 “Grays Score First Win in World Series,” Afro-American, October 2, 1948: 9.

24 negrosouthernleaguemuseumresearchcenter.org/Portals/0/Birmingham%20Black%20Barons/Statistics%20-%20Birmingham%20Black%20Barons.pdf, accessed February 3, 2017.

25 Tim Cary, “Slidin’ and Ridin’: At Home and on the Road with the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons,” Alabama Heritage, Fall 1986: 26.

26 Ibid.

27 Barry Swanton and Jay-Dell Mah, Black Baseball Players in Canada: A Biographical Dictionary, 1881-1960 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009), 26.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Brent Kelley, Voices From the Negro Leagues: Conversations With 52 Baseball Standouts (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1998), 280.

31 Lloyd Pepper Bassett file. As is the case with Bassett’s birth year, a different death year is found in some sources. Baseball-Reference.com is one source that lists Bassett’s death date as February 27, 1981; however, the state of California’s Death Index shows that Bassett died on December 28, 1980.

32 Kelley, Voices From the Negro Leagues, 284.

“He had time for everybody. Never hurried. Signed autographs, talked to the people, gave advice on baseball, anything they wanted. All the time showing his big beautiful smile. He was so kind. If everybody was like Cool, this would be a better world.” – Judy Johnson (Hall of Fame third baseman)2

He was often described as regal, noble, gentle, and soft-spoken, and a person would be hard pressed to find an ill word uttered about Negro League legend Cool Papa Bell. Just the mention of his name conjures up a seemingly endless line of mythical stories, some true and some no doubt exaggerated. Bell played for three of the greatest teams in Negro League history, the St. Louis Stars of 1928-1931, the Pittsburgh Crawfords of 1932-1936, and the Homestead Grays of 1943-1945. He played in eight East-West All-Star games, was enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 1974, and is often mentioned as the fastest baseball player ever to lace up a pair of spikes.

James Thomas Nichols was born just outside of Starkville, Mississippi, on May 17, 1903. His mother, Mary Nichols, was widowed before his birth when Samuel Nichols died just a month after they were married. Bell had six brothers and two sisters.3 He claimed that his grandfather was three-quarters Indian and his great-grandfather was full-blooded Indian, although he didn’t know which tribe they were from.4 Mary was remarried some time after James was born to a man named Jonas Bell. James didn’t take on his stepfather’s name until he was forced to do so after his move to St. Louis in 1920. As he recalled, “They said you got to have your father’s name. Just changed my name to Bell.”5

James spent the majority of his childhood helping out on his grandfather’s farm, on which the family raised cotton, corn, fruit, vegetables, and just about anything else that people had a use for.6 He also began to play baseball on those hot summer days in rural Mississippi and later recalled playing ball at the age of 10 as one of his fondest memories:

“I was just a little boy, but I could throw hard. One day there was a picnic in a little town called Blackjack. After we ate under the cool shade trees, they asked me to pitch in the men’s game. I was scared, but I went out and did my best. I pitched three innings and struck out eight of the nine men I faced. The only guy who hit the ball was Joe Minor. He was the best hitter around, a big guy with thick wrists and real strong forearms. But all he could do was hit a little grounder back to me.

“When it was my turn to hit, a big woman came running to the plate, picked me up, and put me on her shoulder. She yelled at the pitcher, ‘You’re throwing too fast, and this little boy’s going to get hurt.’ But they convinced her to let me bat, and, on the first pitch, I hit a line drive into the outfield for a single. I stole second base and wound up scoring the winning run in the game. Was I happy!

“After I left the field the girls came running up to me and gave me a big piece of chocolate cake. I remember that game better than any I played as a professional.”7

Bell moved north to St. Louis at the age of 17 to live with his brothers and (perhaps) stepbrothers, Robert, Fred, L.Q., and Sammy.8 It is not known which siblings were fathered by Samuel Nichols and which by Jonas Bell, although James claimed that he was raised without a father. He got a job at a packing house and had hoped to go to night school, but the lure of baseball was just too strong.9 He started playing sandlot ball on the weekends with the Compton Hill Cubs. Bell’s first known appearance in a game was mentioned in a short write-up in the October 15, 1920, edition of the St. Louis Argus. The game took place on October 10, against the East St. Louis Cubs, and Bell was listed as the pitcher — with his older brother Robert catching — in a 15-4 victory for the Cubs.10

In the spring of 1922 those same East St. Louis Cubs were looking for a pitcher to go up against the Negro National League’s St. Louis Stars. Bell jumped at the chance. Although he lost that contest, 9-1, on Sunday, April 30, he struck out eight and impressed the Stars so much that they immediately signed the 19-year-old for $90 a month and headed out on a long road trip with Bell in tow.11

Bell’s first Negro League appearance most likely took place on May 9, 1922, against the Indianapolis ABCs as a lanky knuckleball pitcher.12 In regard to his pitching, Bell said, “I used to throw the knuckle ball. If I got two strikes on you, I could throw my knuckle ball and it would just do this dart-down. I bet you I could strike anybody out with that knuckle ball. My brother couldn’t catch me. But you know who could catch me with that knuckle ball? My sister.”13

It was around this time that Bell received his legendary moniker. Big Bill Gatewood, manager of the Stars in 1922, who had twirled the Negro Leagues’ first no-hitter during the previous season, is most often credited with bestowing the fabled “Cool Papa” nickname upon Bell.14 Supposedly, Bell fanned Oscar Charleston during a tight spot in an early-season game and Gatewood commented about how cool under pressure he was. Papa was added later to make it sound better.15 Gatewood’s influence on Cool Papa’s career didn’t stop there. He also had the foresight to move Bell to the outfield to get his bat in the lineup more often, and persuaded him to bat left-handed to take advantage of his speed heading to first.16 Bell switch-hit for the remainder of his career.

Negro Leagues pioneer Rube Foster was so impressed with Bell’s speed that he issued him a challenge. Wanting to see how fast Cool Papa truly was, he pitted Bell against Jimmy Lyon, the league’s fastest player at the time. Bell won the race easily. Afterward, Foster remarked on Bell’s cheap shoes:

“ ‘If you can run that well in those shoes, just think what you might do in a good pair. Tell you what, go down to the Spalding Sporting Goods Store here in Chicago and tell the man you want the best pair of spikes he has in stock. Charge them to me.’ I thanked him and told him I’d get the shoes, but I was going to pay him back. I was raised to pay my debts. The man at the store gave me a pair of kangaroo-hide shoes. They cost $21, but by the end of the season, I had saved enough to pay Mr. Foster back.”17

Bell continued to pitch for the Stars in 1922 and posted a 7-7 record as he completed nine of his 12 starts and spun one shutout. He fared better in 1923, going 11-7 and completing nine of 14 games started in a total of 25 appearances. However, the team ranked near the bottom of the league in both seasons.18

The California Winter League was the first professional circuit to pit Negro League teams against squads of white professionals. The league began play at the turn of the twentieth century and its season ran between October and February until the league disbanded after the 1947 campaign. Cool Papa was a fixture in the league and played 12 seasons out West. His first go-around in California came after his rookie season with the Stars in 1922-1923. According to Bell:

“I went to California that winter on the pitching staff to play in the winter league. We got rooms in a little hotel down by the station, a big room, had two beds. My brother Fred Bell and I slept in one. Turkey Stearnes slept in the other. … (Stearnes) went to Cuba and they needed an outfielder, so they put me out there. One Saturday we were playing in Pasadena and a lot of balls were hit over the center fielder’s head. I’d run over behind him and catch them. So from then on I played center field. I wasn’t a pitcher anymore.”19

Bell split his time between playing center field and pitching for the Stars in 1924. He batted .289 in 246 at-bats and went 3-1 on the mound, but Bell and the St. Louis Stars did not really hit their stride until 1925.20

Between 1925 and 1927 Bell’s batting average never dipped below .316, including a stellar 1925 campaign in which he batted .342 in 409 at-bats with 99 runs scored. Of course, these are only the partial numbers that historians have been able to unearth so far; his actual statistics were likely much higher. The St. Louis Stars were 180-103 during this period for a .636 winning percentage, and, with the addition of Hall of Famer and powerhouse slugger Mule Suttles in 1927, the best was yet to come.

Bell met his wife, Clara, at some point in the late 1920s, but there initially was a slight roadblock to their union. Bell’s best friend and roommate, future Hall of Fame shortstop Willie Wells, was courting Clara at the time, but Wells’s mother disapproved of the relationship, which gave Bell the opportunity to swoop in. This turn of events did not affect the two players’ friendship; Bell and Wells remained close for the remainder of their lives.21 Willie Wells summed up the situation and their relationship when he said:

“Cool Papa Bell was my best friend in St. Louis. He was the most beautiful ballplayer and a great base runner. And Bell was a clean liver, he wouldn’t dissipate at all. He was like me. We’d sit in the room and play cards, he and I. We were roommates. He married a girl who was my sweetheart. But he and I were just like this-friends-you know? It never came between us. A good relationship. A wonderful fellow. Bell, he was a beaut.”22

Cool Papa and Clara were married in 1928 and they went on their honeymoon to Cuba, where Bell got his first taste of life and baseball in Latin America.23

Bell enjoyed tremendous success in the Cuban Winter League. In the 1928-29 season he led the league with 44 runs scored, 5 home runs, and 17 stolen bases. He hit a robust .325 while playing for the Cienfuegos Elefantes.24 The following season saw more of the same as Bell once again led the league with 52 runs and became the first player in Cuban League history to hit three home runs in game when he stroked three inside-the-park four-baggers in a game played on New Year’s Day in 1929.25

The St. Louis Stars started firing on all cylinders in 1928 as Bell, along with Mule Suttles and Willie Wells, led their team to a 65-26 record and a nine-game championship series victory over the Chicago American Giants, including wins in Games Eight and Nine as they faced elimination. Bell hit a solid .336 during the season and turned it up a notch for the championship series, in which he rapped out 11 hits in 27 at-bats (.407).26

The Stars continued their successful run into the early 1930s. The team captured the Negro National League championship in 1930, with a seven-game win over Turkey Stearnes and his Detroit Stars, and repeated as uncontested champions in 1931, a season in which the squad won both the first- and second-half NNL titles. Bell was outstanding during the 1930 campaign: He hit .350 and scored 109 runs in only 366 at-bats and led his team to a sparkling 73-28 record, 13½ games ahead of the second-place Kansas City Monarchs.

The Negro National League fell victim to the Great Depression and disbanded after the 1931 season. The demise of the first NNL also marked the downfall of one of the greatest teams in Negro League history, the St. Louis Stars. Bell spent 1932 bouncing around between the Independent League Kansas City Monarchs and the Detroit Wolves and Homestead Grays of the East-West League before finally settling in with the storied Pittsburgh Crawfords amid the return of the Negro National League in 1933.27

Bell was often called the black Ty Cobb and was also compared to other players, like Wee Willie Keeler, who chopped down at the ball and relied on their speed to beat opponents. Bell said as much as he explained, “I’d stand back from the plate and chop down on the ball. That’s something I learned from the old players. By the time the ball comes down, they can’t throw me out. They’d bring in their infield, as if there was a man on third and no out; they couldn’t get me if they played back in their normal position. I’d just hit the ball to short, and if he has to move over for it, he can’t throw me out.”28 Hall of Fame third baseman Judy Johnson put it this way: “He was so fast, that if he hit a ground ball to the left side of the infield that took more than one hop, you just couldn’t throw him out. Might just as well hold the ball.”29

Gus Greenlee, racketeer and owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, began to load up on talent for the 1933 season. He had already signed Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, the best hitter and pitcher available, and soon set his sights on Cool Papa Bell, the fastest player in the Negro Leagues. “Greenlee told me that I had the chance to be part of the best team in the history of black baseball and that I was the key,” Bell remembered.30 Greenlee’s boast may not have been exaggeration as the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords featured five future Hall of Famers in Bell, Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Paige, and Judy Johnson. Bell appreciated what Greenlee was trying to do with the Crawfords: “Gus really did his best to run a class organization. We had a fine bus, nice uniforms, good equipment, everything.”31

One of Bell’s signature achievements is said to have taken place during the 1933 season. Although the claim cannot be supported by currently available statistics, it is something that Bell consistently claimed to be true throughout his lifetime. He asserted, “The best year I ever had on the bases was 1933. I stole one hundred and seventy-five in about one hundred and eighty to two hundred ball games, all of them against other Negro League teams.”32 Bell also kept track of Gibson’s mammoth blasts during his stint with the Crawfords: “People ask me how many homers Josh Gibson hit and I can’t tell them for sure. I did count 72 in 1933. Josh and I played on the Crawfords from 1933 to 1936, and I can tell you that during those seasons he never hit less than 60 home runs and maybe as many as 80 or 85.”33 Such assertions may appear to be tall tales, but, unlike Satchel Paige’s legendary hyperbole, Bell was a thoughtful, straightforward man, whose intelligence and honesty make these legends more likely.

The East-West All-Star Game, which became the centerpiece of every Negro League season, took place for the first time in 1933. The creation of sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and Bill Nunn of the Pittsburgh Courier, they took their idea for the game to the man who could make it happen: Gus Greenlee. This annual contest was even more popular than the Negro League World Series and was an event the players excitedly looked forward to each year.34 Players were selected by the fans through the prominent black newspapers of the day. Bell had already logged 11 seasons before the inaugural game was played, but he still managed to play in eight East-West games. While he did not have much success in these contests, with only six hits in 30 at-bats, he produced a defining moment in the 1934 game.35 Bell walked in the eighth, stole second, and then scored the only run of the game when he sprinted home from second on a bloop single to give the East a 1-0 victory.36

The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords were a juggernaut, and the team is often compared to the 1927 New York Yankees. The Crawfords were a force of nature and rank among the greatest teams to ever take the field.37 Sporting a 50-23-3 record, the Crawfords ran away with the first half of the Negro National League season and featured a star player at almost every position. In 49 recorded games, Bell scored an amazing 68 runs and batted .345 in the process. The Crawfords faced Hall of Famer Martin Dihigo and his New York Cubans in the NNL Championship Series in which Bell celebrated another career-defining moment. A back-and-forth series led to a Game Seven that the Cubans led 8-5 in the eighth inning. The Craws mounted a comeback against Luis Tiant Sr. as homers by Gibson and Charleston tied it up before Bell worked his magic. He singled off Dihigo, who had replaced Tiant on the mound, stole second, and then raced home with the winning run on a bobbled infield grounder.38 For the second time in three years — the team had also won the title in 1933 — the Pittsburgh Crawfords were champions of the Negro National League.

The Crawfords remained a formidable team in 1936 and again captured the NNL championship, but cracks were beginning to show. By the spring of 1937, Gibson had been traded to the Homestead Grays and Bell, Paige, and Sam Bankhead had all left to play in the Dominican Republic and had cited low pay in the Negro Leagues as the reason for jumping their contracts.39 The mighty Pittsburgh Crawfords hung it up for good after the 1938 season, with the remnants of the team moving to Toledo in 1939 and then Indianapolis in 1940 before finally disbanding. A wistful Cool Papa Bell looked back on his four years with the team. “We had such a great team, a team that could win in every way possible. I was sorry I had to leave the Crawfords.”40

Instead of playing in the Negro Leagues in 1937, many Negro League stars made the jump to the Dominican Republic in search of a better payday. Satchel Paige helped lure teammates Bell, Josh Gibson, Sam Bankhead, and Chester Williams south of the border to play for dictator Rafael Trujillo’s team in Ciudad Trujillo to help boost his chance for re-election.41 The players quickly realized the predicament they’d gotten themselves into. Bell asked a local resident, “They don’t kill people over baseball, do they?” The man responded. “Down here they do.”42 Luckily for Bell and company, they won the championship game, albeit under very tense circumstances. In the bottom of the seventh, with his team trailing 3-2 and two out, Bell singled and Sam Bankhead homered to give Trujillo a 4-3 lead. Paige retired the final six batters in a row and they escaped with the win. They couldn’t get out of town fast enough.43

The most improbable of the Cool Papa Bell yarns turns out to be the one that’s verifiably true. For over 40 years, Satchel Paige claimed that “Bell was so fast he could flip the switch and then jump in bed before the light went out.”44 At a 1981 Negro League reunion in Ashland, Kentucky, Bell came clean about this story:

“During one winter season in the late 1930’s, Satchel and I roomed together out in California. One night, before he got back, I turned off the light, but it didn’t go out right away. There was a delay of about three seconds between the time I flipped the switch and the time the light went out. There must have been a short or something. I thought to myself, here’s a chance to fool ol’ Satch. He was always playing tricks on everybody else, you know. Anyway, when he came back, I said, ‘Hey, Satch, I’m pretty fast, right?’ ‘You’re the fastest,’ he said. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you haven’t seen anything yet. Why, I’m so fast, I can turn out the light and be in bed before the room gets dark.’ ‘Sure, Cool. Sure you can,’ he said. I told him to sit down and watch. I turned off the light, jumped in bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. Then the lights went out. I howled and Satchel was speechless for once. Anyway, he’s been telling the truth all these years.”45

Barnstorming against teams made up of white major leaguers was common during the offseason, and Bell was a staple in these contests as well. He is credited with a .311 lifetime batting average in 52 of these exhibitions, with 57 hits and 21 stolen bases, and, like the teams he played for, often dominated squads made up of his white counterparts.46 In a 1931 game in St. Louis, against a team that included future Hall of Famers Max Carey, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner, and Charlie Gehringer, the Negro Leaguers embarrassed the white team, 18-3. Bell ran wild in the game as he bunted for a hit his first time up, then stole second, third, and home against New York Giants pitcher Bill Walker. The display of daring and speed prompted Detroit Tigers great Charlie Gehringer to remark, “I saw Ty Cobb many times, even as a young man before I joined the Tigers. But I never saw him do anything like Bell did in St. Louis that night.”47

The Negro League players played a different style of baseball than the white major leaguers of the time, which is what often gave them the advantage. Bell called it tricky baseball and explained:

“When I came up, we didn’t play baseball like they play in the major leagues. We played tricky baseball. When we played the big leaguers after the regular season, our pitchers would curve the ball on 3-2. They’d say, what, are you trying to make us look bad? We’d bunt and run and they’d say, why are you trying to do that in the first inning? When we were supposed to bunt, they’d come in and we’d hit away. We’d go into third standing up so the third baseman couldn’t see the throw coming and it might go through him. The major leaguers would play for one big inning. I think we had a better system than the majors. Whatever it takes to win, we did.”48

In addition to the offseason barnstorming tours, Bell continued to play ball in the Latin winter leagues. Bell and many other Negro League players loved life so much in Latin America that they did not want to leave. Bell said of his time in Latin America, “Everybody was the same down there. We could go in any restaurant, stay in hotels, and oh, the fans? They loved us.”49 Life in Latin America provided a stark contrast to the way Negro League players were treated under Jim Crow laws in the States. Bell played exclusively in the Mexican League from 1938 to 1941, and put his Negro Leagues career on hiatus.

As a former knuckleball pitcher, Bell was able to help his good friend Satchel Paige learn a new pitch while the two were in Mexico. Bell recounted, “In 1938 his arm got sore and I told him, see Satchel, you’ve got to learn to pitch. I showed him how to throw the knuckle ball, and he was throwing it better than I was. That’s what I liked about him, he didn’t want anybody to beat him doing anything.”50

Bell was a superstar in the Mexican League, where he had some of his finest seasons. Perhaps no season was finer than his 1940 campaign with Vera Cruz during which he captured the league’s triple crown and led the team to a championship. Bell hit an astounding .437 with 12 home runs and 79 RBIs in 89 games. He also showed off his speed with 15 triples and a remarkable 119 runs scored. Bell’s four years in Mexico saw him hit .367 overall, and he scored 310 runs in 287 games.51

Bell is obviously most famous for his speed. When Negro League legend, manager, and historian Buck O’Neil was asked, “Just how fast was Cool Papa Bell?,” he would always answer the same. “Faster than that.”52 One of Bell’s most famous quotes about circling the bases in 12 seconds flat cannot be verified, but a recorded time of 13.60 was reported by the Los Angeles Times in 1933, and Bell claims he did it on a wet field. A time of 13.60 puts him slightly behind Maury Wills and ahead of Ty Cobb in recorded times circling the bases.53 Jesse Owens famously dodged Bell when Owens traveled with different teams and took on all comers.54 In 1933 Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Pirate great Paul Waner complimented Bell: “The fastest man I have ever seen on the baseball diamond was Cool Papa.”55

Former Negro League and major-league star and Hall of Famer Monte Irvin also extolled Bell’s ability:

“He might’ve been the fastest baseball player who ever lived. They used to tell stories about Bell’s running. He was known to score from second base on a bunt. That’s right. Now, suppose he’d played under good conditions, you know, get a massage after every game, not have to drive five hundred miles to play a doubleheader, this kind of thing. There’s no telling how many bases he would’ve stolen. It’s just a shame that more people didn’t get to see him. The only comparison I can give is, suppose Willie Mays had never had a chance to play big league. Then I were to come to you and try to tell you about Willie Mays. Now this is the way it is with Cool Papa Bell.” 56

Although Bell is best known for his feats on the basepaths, he was no slouch in the field, a fact to which Satchel Paige attested in his autobiography: “Why, he was the best fielder you ever saw. He could grab that ball no matter where it was hit. He was just like a suction cup.”57 Paul Waner agreed when he called Bell “the smoothest center fielder I’ve seen.”58 Trailblazing owner Bill Veeck compared him to center fielders Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, and Tris Speaker and called Bell “one of the most magical players I’ve ever seen.” And Hall of Famer Pie Traynor once remarked, “It doesn’t matter where he plays. He can go a country mile for a ball.”59

Bell returned from Mexico to the Negro Leagues for a short stint with the Chicago American Giants in 1942 before he signed on with the Homestead Grays the following year. Bell had a knack for playing on great teams, and the 1943 Grays were an overwhelming force that finished the year with a 78-23-1 record and captured their fourth straight NNL title. The 40-year-old Bell led off, played left field, and had a hand in helping the Grays win their first Negro League World Series title by beating the Birmingham Black Barons in a nailbiter, four games to three.60 Bell hit a game-winning single in the bottom of the 11th inning to take Game Three, 4-3, and had a solid Series in which he went 8-for-26 for a .308 average.61

Bell found a kindred spirit on the Grays for the 1944 season in aging veteran and fellow Hall of Famer Buck Leonard. The two intelligent, soft-spoken men were perfect roommates, who both preferred to forgo the nightlife and retire early every evening; however, they were not above taking a couple swigs of gin before bedtime to help with their arthritis. Pittsburgh Courier columnist Wendell Smith said of the duo, “These men weren’t big drinkers; they were aging ballplayers trying to stall Father Time.”62

The Homestead Grays once again met the Birmingham Black Barons in the 1944 Negro League World Series and this time dismantled them, four games to one. The 41-year-old Bell stroked .322 for the season and chipped in with a respectable .260 in the Series.

The 1944-1945 offseason marked Bell’s last campaign in the California Winter League. His success in this league rivaled that of his Mexican League accomplishments as he finished with a .368 batting average in 159 games, including 219 hits in 596 at-bats, with 16 homers, 12 triples, and 31 doubles in 12 years of action. He won two batting titles and his teams consistently dominated the league in each season that he played.63

Bell began to feel all of his 42 years in 1945 with the Homestead Grays. He recalled, “In ’45 I was sick. I had arthritis, I was stiff, I couldn’t run.”64 He still managed to hit .299 and helped the Grays to a 47-25-3 record and yet another NNL title, their sixth in a row. The Grays ran into a buzz saw in the World Series, though, and were swept by the Sam Jethroe-led Cleveland Buckeyes in four games. The aging Grays managed only three runs in the Series and hit a paltry .165.

The 1946 Homestead Grays failed to win the title, but Bell amazed everyone by leading the batting race near the end of the season. Soon, he performed one of his most selfless acts as he ceded the title to Monte Irvin. Bell explained his motives thusly: “For the first time the Major Leagues were serious about taking in blacks. I was too old, but Monte was young and had a chance for a future. It was important he be noticed, important he get that chance.” Bell removed himself from the lineup and ended up not having enough at-bats to qualify for the title.65 He still ended up hitting .393 in his final season in the Negro Leagues.

Soon after Bell’s retirement, he signed on to manage the Monarch Travelers, an independent team that played west of Kansas City in search of major-league talent. Bell managed this team through 1949 and turned out to be adept at recognizing future stars.66 He is credited with first spotting Cubs Hall of Fame shortstop Ernie Banks and recommending him to Buck O’Neil and the Kansas City Monarchs.67

With major-league integration just around the corner, it was difficult for players like Bell not to wonder what might have been. Had integration come sooner, fans could have witnessed the greatness of players like Bell, Gibson, Charleston, Leonard, Johnson, and Suttles in their primes. They would be household names like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ty Cobb. For more than a decade before Jackie Robinson was signed, the hope that the color barrier might be broken seemed tantalizingly close. Bell had the final word on this false hope: “They used to say, if we find a good black player, we’ll sign him. They was lying.”68

Cool Papa Bell played a role in Jackie Robinson’s success at integrating the major leagues. News that Robinson was about to sign with the Dodgers had many veterans worried that he might not make it. Bell told of the players’ outlook and his role:

“All us old fellas didn’t think he could make it at short. He couldn’t go to his right too good. We was worried. He miss this chance, and who knows when we’d get another chance. So I made up my mind to show him he should try for another spot in the infield. One night I must’ve knocked a couple hundred ground balls to his right, and I beat the throw to first every time. Jackie smiled. He got the message. He played a lot of games in the majors, only one of ’em at short.”69

Bell produced another highlight in 1948 when Satchel Paige got him to suit up against a team led by future Hall of Famer Bob Lemon and, ironically, Jackie Robinson. 70

Bell also described his iconic moment:

“So this time I was hitting eighth and I got on base, and Satchel came up and sacrificed me to second. Well, Bob Lemon came off the mound to field it and I saw that third base was open, because the third baseman had also charged in to field it. Roy Partee, the catcher, saw me going to third, so he went down the line to cover third and I just came on home past him. Partee called ‘Time, time!’ But the umpire said, ‘I can’t call time, the ball’s still in play,’ so I scored.”71

Cool Papa Bell finally hung up his spikes for good in 1950 and moved back to St. Louis with his wife, Clara, where he took a job working for the city, first as a custodian and later as a night watchman.72 Bell sometimes took in Cardinals games and on a couple of occasions shared his wisdom and experience with the stars of the day. The Dodgers asked him to help out young speedster Maury Wills. Bell did, and advised Wills, “When you’re on base get those hitters of yours to stand deep in the box. That way the catcher, he got to back up. That way you goin’ to get an extra step all the time.”73 Wills went on to steal 104 bases not long after that. Cardinals speed demon Lou Brock also listened and learned when Bell was around. Brock recalled, “He was a nice man, a good teacher, and he just instinctively knew more about stealing a base than anyone else I’ve ever met.”74

St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck made an attempt to sign both Bell and Buck Leonard in 1951, but both players were well past their primes. A 48-year-old Bell explained his decision not to play: “People told me I should have tried for the job just for the money, but I couldn’t do it just for a paycheck. I never had any money, so I never worried about it. I just didn’t want fans to boo me, and if I had played at that age they sure would have. Sometimes pride is more important than money.”75

Bell and Clara continued to live in their small St. Louis apartment, which was surrounded by abandoned stores and vacant lots. Bell worked for nine years as a city hall custodian and spent another 13 years as the night watchman on the midnight-to-8 shift. His 22 years with the city earned him a paltry $130-a-month pension.76

In the meantime, Bell had to wait until 1974 to finally get the call every ballplayer dreams of. Cool Papa Bell was unanimously voted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and was inducted on August 12, 1974. He was the fifth Negro Leaguer to be elected and joined Paige, Leonard, Gibson, and Irvin in baseball’s hallowed shrine. Bell remained cool when he was given the news. He said, “It’s the highest honor, but I don’t jump up and down and holler and rush to the telephone to call my friends. They’ll learn about it sometime.”77 Ed Stack, former president of the Hall of Fame, said of Bell in 1991, “Cool Papa was the dean of the living Hall of Famers. What he said had a tremendous amount of meaning. It was the sermon of the evening, the inspiration and mood-setting for the whole weekend.”78

Bell made the trip from St. Louis to Cooperstown every year until his health finally prevented him from traveling toward the end of his life. He signed autographs, took pictures, and talked with fans for hours until no one remained. When asked about the dangers of the long journey at his advancing age he responded, “So what if I died on the way to Cooperstown. Besides Clara, baseball has been my whole life.”79

Cool Papa Bell’s beloved wife of 62 years, Clara, died on January 20, 1991. Bell suffered a heart attack shortly thereafter, on February 27, and died at St. Louis University Hospital on March 7.80 The couple was survived by their only daughter, Connie Brooks. Lou Brock was one of Bell’s pallbearers and had this to say after the funeral: “To his grave goes a whole chapter in the black history of baseball, in black history, period. His dream got deferred. I just hope somewhere in history that his performance gets accurately recorded.”81

Bell wasn’t bitter about his exclusion from the major leagues. In 1988, at his home in St. Louis, he reflected on his life.82 In summary of all he had experienced, he said, “Because of baseball, I smelled the rose of life. I wanted to meet interesting people, to travel, and to have nice clothes. Baseball allowed me to do all those things, and most important … it allowed me to become a member of a brotherhood of friendship which will last forever.”83

Sources

All statistics, unless otherwise noted, are from seamheads.com or baseballreference.com.

Notes

1 Jim Bankes, The Pittsburgh Crawfords (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2001), 84.

2 Bankes, 43.

3 Rod Roberts, Cool Papa Bell interview, September 26, 1981, 1. Hall of Fame archives.

4 John Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues (New York: First Da Capo Press Inc., 1992), 112.

5 Rod Roberts interview, 2.

6 Rod Roberts interview, 4.

7 Bankes, 45.

8 Without access to more information, it proved very difficult to determine all family relationships.

9 Mississippi History Now online publication, 1-2008. mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/articles/277/cool-papa-bell.

10 Gary Ashwill, “Cool Papa’s Rookie Season,” Agate Type, July 15, 2016. agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/cool-papa-bell/.

11 Gary Ashwill, “Cool Papa’s Rookie Season.”

12 Gary Ashwill, “How Cool Papa Got His Name,” Agate Type, July 27, 2006. agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/2006/07/how_cool_papa_g.html.

13 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 113.

14 Leslie A. Heaphy, Black Baseball and Chicago (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2006), 79.

15 Gary Ashwill, “How Cool Papa Got His Name.”

16 Heaphy, Black Baseball and Chicago, 79.

17 Bankes, 47.

18 Seamheads.com seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=bell-01coo.

19 William F. McNeil, The California Winter League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2002), 88.

20 Seamheads.com. seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=bell-01coo. All statistics are from Seamheads unless otherwise noted.

21 James A. Riley, Dandy, Day, and the Devil (Cocoa, Florida: TK Publishers, 1987), 121.

22 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 225.

23 Phil Dixon and Patrick J. Hannigan, The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History (Mattituck, New York: Amereon House, 1992), 125.

24 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2003), 348.

25 William F. McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season: Pay for Play Outside of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2007), 42.

26 John Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001), 237.

27 Baseballreference.com, baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=bell–001coo.

28 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 118.

29 Bankes, 44.

30 Mark Whitaker, The Untold Story of Smoketown: The Other Great Black Renaissance (New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 2018), 109.

31 Larry Lester and Sammy J. Miller, Black Baseball in Pittsburgh (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2001), 35.

32 John Holway, “How to Score from First on a Sacrifice,” American Heritage, August 1970. americanheritage.com/how-score-first-sacrifice.

33 Bankes, 42.

34 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933-1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 21-22.

35 Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase, 412-413.

36 Whitaker, The Untold Story of Smoketown, 115.

37 Bankes, 148.

38 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1996), 148.

39 Averell “Ace” Smith, The Pitcher and the Dictator (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 62.

40 Bankes, 51.

41 Anthony J. Connor, Baseball for the Love of It: Hall of Famers Tell It Like It Was (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1982), 240-241.

42 McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season, 144.

43 William F. McNeil, Baseball’s Other All-Stars (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2000), 172.

44 Bankes, 43.

45 Bankes, 43-44.

46 Todd Peterson, The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues: Historians Reappraise Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2020), 228.

47 Bankes, 47-48.

48 McNeil, The California Winter League, 111.

49 Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick McKissack Jr., Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Scholastic Inc., 1994), 110.

50 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 132.

51 Pedro Treto Cisneros, The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics, 1937-2001 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2002), 93.

52 “No. 99: Cool Papa Bell,” Medium.com, medium.com/joeblogs/99-cool-papa-bell-ef4d0c4d8bf5.

53 Scott Simkus, Outsider Baseball: The Weird World of Hardball on the Fringe, 1876-1950 (Chicago: Chicago Review Press Inc., 2014), 232-234.

54 Dixon and Hannigan, 214.

55 Dixon and Hannigan, 160.

56 Connor, Baseball for the Love of It, 212.

57 Leroy “Satchel” Paige and David Lipman, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever (South Orange, New Jersey: Summer Game Books, 2018), 38.

58 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc.,2016), 167.

59 Mark Kram, “No Place in the Shade,” Sports Illustrated, June 20, 1994: 66.

60 Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 162.

61 Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, 410-411.

62 Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, 212.

63 McNeil, The California Winter League, 250.

64 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 127.

65 Bill Kirwin, Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2005), 31.

66 Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 1985); 120.

67 Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs, 178.

68 Connor, Baseball for the Love of It, 210.

69 Kram.

70 Timothy M. Gay, Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2010), 272.

71 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 109.

72 Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 130.

73 Kram.

74 “No. 99: Cool Papa Bell.”

75 Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, 292.

76 William Brashler, Josh Gibson: A Life in the Negro Leagues (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), 158. See also “Cool Papa Steams Up for Hall of Fame Induction,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 9, 1974.

77 “Cool Papa Bell in Hall of Fame,” New York Post, February 13, 1974: 76.

78 “Belated Respect,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 17, 1991.

79 Bankes, 139-140.

80 “Cool Papa Dies After Brief Illness,” Sports Collectors Digest, March 29, 1991.

81 “Belated Respect.”

82 Bankes, 83.

83 Shaun McCormack, Cool Papa Bell: Baseball Hall of Famers of the Negro Leagues (New York: Rosen Publishing Group Inc., 2002), 87.

The righthand-hitting “lanky, raw-boned, blond giant” (six-foot-two, 198 pounds), as Harold Kaese characterized Berger in The Boston Braves, was a fixture in early All-Star Games. He played all nine innings for the losing National League squad in the inaugural 1933 game, was a National League starter again in 1934, and was selected for the National League team in 1935 and 1936, when he didn’t get into the game. His stature as an “all-time Brave” despite toiling for the club during seven-plus seasons when fourth place was the best National League finish they could muster, is evident in his selection as an outfielder on several All-Century Team rosters for the combined Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta franchises and by Bill James as the best centerfielder ever to play for Hall of Fame manager Bill McKechnie, his only skipper in Boston (1930-37). Berger hit the most home runs (105) in Braves Field by any player in history, and the 190 home runs he hit as a Brave are a Boston NL franchise record.

Wally Berger was born in Chicago to Anton and Hedwig (“Hattie”) Steinke Berger, German immigrants, on October 10, 1905. He was the oldest of three children, with a brother and a sister.

Fred Berger, his brother, three years younger than Wally, was good enough in his own right to play six seasons (1930-35) in the Pacific Coast League before finishing his career with three years in the American Association. Fred, also an outfielder, hit 23 home runs and drove in 137 runs, both career highs, for the Mission club (San Francisco) in 1935. The Mission home games were played in Seals Stadium, considered a pitcher’s park. Despite a solid career at the highest levels of the minors, Fred Berger never had an opportunity to play in the majors. (Beverage)

Anton Berger ran a Chicago saloon where young Wally heard stories of the old-time White Sox. After the family moved to the Mission District of San Francisco in 1910, Berger played sandlot baseball and made the 1920 Mission High School team as a third baseman, causing a teammate, future Hall of Famer Joe Cronin, to move to shortstop and second base. In 1921, after his junior year, Berger dropped out of school. “I was out of school but still very much interested in baseball,” he recalled in Freshly Remember’d, his posthumously published 1993 memoir with George Morris Snyder. “I decided I wanted to be a ball player, but I also believed I should go to work to help out with my family. I was reading about all those sixteen-and seventeen-year-old kids signing up.”

The teenaged Berger prepared himself with five years of semipro baseball in the San Francisco area before he was offered his first professional contract. He played for the San Carlos Athletic Club, Modern Woodmen of America, and Bertillion Hatters, generally for five dollars a game. At various times during his semipro career he worked as a carpenter’s helper, cargo stenciler at Pier 42 on the San Francisco waterfront, truck driver, and as a glass door glazer for the Nicolai Door Company. At Nicolai he turned down a promotion to shipping clerk which would have paid $45 dollars a week, choosing instead to report to his first professional baseball spring training with the San Francisco Seals in February, 1926. (Berger/Snyder)

In the summer of 1925, the 19-year-old Berger had signed with Charlie Graham, general manager of the Pacific Coast League Seals, to report for 1926 spring training. His contract was for $250 a month, but he was one of 80 players signed to similar contracts. He recalled in Freshly Remember’d, “It wasn’t going to hurt them any. They took eighty of us to spring training. After one week they dumped forty of them. It was a big wholesale thing-what could they lose? A little bit of room and board for a week or two.” The Seals trained in Boyles Hot Springs, California, near Sonoma. Berger had hurt his back just before leaving for camp. After he was examined by the team trainer, Berger was one of those released. He sought help from a chiropractor, went back to work at Nicolai Door Company, gradually got into workouts, recovered to play for the Bertillion Hatters again for part of the 1926 season, and was re-signed by the Seals for 1927.

“This time I lasted two weeks,” Berger recalled in Freshly Remember’d. He played and hit well, but after those two weeks manager Nick Williams cut him. Williams told Berger there was no roster space and suggested he go back to San Francisco, wait until the Seals broke camp, and check with him then, as he would try to find a place for him to play for the 1927 season. Nick Williams ultimately offered to place Berger with a semipro team in Emmett, Idaho. Berger declined and was about to apply for his old job with Nicolai Door when he received an offer from the Anaconda Copper Company in Butte, Montana, arranged by a high school friend, Harry Meyerson. Berger accepted, agreeing to $275 a month to work for the company and play shortstop for the Anaconda semipro team. Enroute from San Francisco, Berger’s train stopped in Pocatello, Idaho, where two of his friends, Jimmy O’Connell and Harry Benjamin, were playing with the local team in the Utah-Idaho League. He visited them during his stop and told them about his job in Butte. Within two weeks O’Connell and Benjamin wired Berger about signing with Pocatello. He quit his Anaconda job and signed an organized baseball contract with Pocatello for $200 a month. It was less then he was being paid with Anaconda, but “I had finally made it into organized baseball and was playing in the outfield, which had always been my preference.” (Berger/Snyder)

Berger played some right field and mainly center field with the 1927 Pocatello Bannocks of the Class C Utah-Idaho League under player-manager Ivan “Ivy” Olson, a veteran of the Dodgers’ 1920 World Series team. Although he got a late start at Pocatello and his contract was acquired for $700 (Kaese) by the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League late in the season, he set a Utah-Idaho League record with 24 home runs and tied for the league batting title at .385. His reliable outfield play produced eleven putouts in the Bannocks’ August 9 game.

Finishing the 1927 season with a .365 average at Los Angeles, Berger battled illness and injury in his 1928 and 1929 seasons as he remained with the Chicago Cubs’ top (then Class AA) minor league conduit. In 1928 he was hitting .327 through 138 games of a 200-plus game season when he contracted intestinal flu and had to return home to San Francisco for recovery. In 1929 he hurt himself sliding, but still got into 193 games and hit 40 home runs.

When the 1929 season ended, Berger was nearly 24 years old and, as an Angel, under the control of the Chicago Cubs. Along with reports that he would be promoted to Chicago for the 1930 season, the press also noted rumors that Pittsburgh, the Philadelphia Athletics, the Boston Braves, the New York Giants, and Cleveland were also interested in the emerging slugger. Berger recalled in Freshly Remember’d: “What the manager probably had in mind was keeping me back with  Wes Schulmerich. My feeling was that I had put in the years and I wanted to get going. I wanted to hit that big league before I got too old. To get to the big leagues is tough-I figured that if you don’t make the jump after four years in the minors, if you don’t develop it in four years, you shouldn’t fool with baseball.”

Learning that the Boston Braves had purchased his contract for two players and a reported $40,000 to $50,000 (Berger/Snyder; www.baseballlibrary.com) for the 1930 season, and that he was on his way to the major leagues, Berger first displayed the inclination to negotiate what he saw as fair compensation for his services. This would last through most of his tenure in the majors. He asked Boots Weber, Angels club secretary, for a $5,000 share of the contract price, pointing out that he had just been married (on October 29, 1929, to the former Bertha Harriett Wilson (Wally Berger Player Information Questionnaire, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library). He was rebuffed with the observation that his contract was now the property of the Boston Braves. With no major league games to his credit and as a rookie under the reserve clause, Berger had little bargaining power then, but the seed was planted for the future. Berger, who took a pay cut in 1927 to get his first organized baseball opportunity at Pocatello, had established himself as a legitimate major league prospect and let the Braves management know it.

The Braves sent Berger a $4,500 contract for 1930. “I held out immediately. They said we’re giving you the standard increase over your minor league salary. You come up and show us what you can do and then we’ll talk about what you can get the second year. I finally agreed. They said I’d have to prove myself, so with that thought in mind, I went to spring training.” (Berger/Snyder)

The Braves trained in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1930. Berger knew that he would be in a battle with other outfielders, and reported in good shape, aiming for a good first impression. His press reputation preceded him because of his success in the Pacific Coast League, and the sportswriters already had a nickname for him, “Biff,” which Berger recalled disappeared fairly early in his rookie year. (Beverage) Berger hit his first spring training home run against the Yankees on March 22 and found in McKechnie, the first-year Boston manager, somebody he saw as a leader, liked, and respected.

Rookie of the Year awards didn’t exist before 1947, but Berger’s 1930 season could be used as a standard. He immediately gained McKechnie’s confidence, playing 145 game in left field, and hitting .310 in 555 at-bats. Even in a hitters’ year, Berger’s rookie slugging and dramatic home runs stood out. He homered for the first time on May 1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh (www.baseballlibrary.com) and hit 38 round-trippers, the most ever by a major league rookie and a Boston National League franchise record. His 119 runs batted in were another National League rookie record. Berger hit two balls out of Braves Field and onto the Boston & Albany Railroad tracks (Kaese). His timely hitting beat the third-place Giants by one-run margins five times over the course of the season. (Kaese) The 38-homer major league rookie mark, tied by Frank Robinson (Cincinnati, NL) in 1956, stood for fifty-seven years until Mark McGwire (Oakland, AL) hit 49 in 1987. Albert Pujols (St. Louis) drove in 130 runs in 2001 to break Berger’s 71-year-old National League rookie RBI record. Through the 2002 season, Berger and Robinson still shared the NL rookie home run mark.  But the homer-happy 2010s have taken their toll: Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers upped the rookie mark to 39 in 2017; The Mets’ Pete Alonso boosted it all the way to 53 in 2019.

Berger’s rookie production and McKechnie’s experienced managing lifted the Braves to a sixth-place finish in 1930 after owner-manager Judge Emil Fuchs had brought them home eighth in 1929. The team slipped to seventh in 1931 when Berger was reunited with his Los Angeles teammate, Schulmerich, a five-foot-eleven, 210-pounder dubbed “Big Wes,” who the Braves thought might duplicate Berger’s rookie heroics. He didn’t. Schulmerich hit over .300 but with little power. Berger failed to match his 1930 home run total but achieved career highs in games played (156), at-bats (617), and batting average (.323). He showed his speed with 13 of his 36 career stolen bases and on May 30, 1931, became one of only five players ever to hit a ball out of Baker Bowl to left field. (Bogart)

Schulmerich, a former all-conference fullback at Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State, became an immediate fan favorite but was gone 29 games into the 1933 season. He and Berger were among 17 players of German heritage the Braves brought to spring training in 1931. (Kaese)

The 1932 Braves improved to fifth place at 77-77, but Berger slipped to 17 home runs and 73 batted in although he hit .307. He rebounded to lead the 1933 Braves to an 83-71 fourth-place finish, their first appearance in the National League’s first division since 1921. Berger’s grand slam on September 30 against the Phillies in Boston clinched the elevated finish. The team had been in the pennant race with New York until earlier in September, and a then-franchise record 517,803 Depression-era fans, 150,000 of them for a crucial late-season series with the Giants, spun the turnstiles at Braves Field (Kaese). Berger hit 27 of the team’s 54 home runs in 1933 and drove in 106 of 511, as the fans voted him the National League’s starting center fielder in the inaugural All-Star Game in Chicago.

The 1934 Braves clung to fourth place. Berger’s power continued (34 home runs, 121 RBI), and he was again an All-Star Game starter, but he failed to hit .300 for the first time in his career, finishing at .298.

The league-leading power potential Berger had shown over the first five years of his career was realized in 1935. He again hit 34 home runs (Babe Ruth was next for the Braves, with six, in his curtain-call part-season with the club), this time enough to lead the National League. He also claimed the NL runs batted in title with 130 and was selected to the National League All-Star team for the third consecutive year. Berger’s efforts failed to lift the Braves, however, as the club lost 115 games and sagged to eighth place, 61 1/2 games behind the pennant-winning Cubs, and 26 behind the seventh-place Phillies. Only 232,754 saw the Braves play at home. Off the field, the club’s financial woes drove Fuchs to resign as president. He was replaced by Bob Quinn, business manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and a former co-owner and president of the Red Sox from 1923 to 1932. Quinn sought to generate fan interest by dropping the name “Braves” for a new name for the 1936 team to be selected by Boston baseball writers from fans’ nominations. “The judges, solicitous of the headline writers, picked the short but singularly vapid title of Bees.” (Kaese)

As a Bee, Berger was selected as an All-Star again in 1936, but to the dismay of his Boston fans didn’t get into the game, played at Braves Field. Now age 30, he suffered a shoulder and hand injury that limited him to 138 games and 534 at-bats and started the decline in his productivity that would end his major-league career four seasons later. Berger, the Braves’ durable mainstay in center field since his 1930 rookie season, missed an entire week in mid-May of the 1936 season except for limited pinch-hitting duty and missed the final nine games in 1936, making his last appearance in the second game of a doubleheader on September 20. (Wally Berger 1936 Game-By-Game Record, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) He still hit 25 home runs and drove in 91.

That 1936 season marked Berger’s last full one as a Brave/Bee, although Quinn’s new name lasted through the 1940 season. On June 15, 1937, after appearing in only 30 games Berger was traded to the New York Giants for pitcher Frank Gabler and $25,000. (Kaese) With the Giants, manager Bill Terry used Berger as a platoon outfielder in left, center, and right and a pinch hitter. (Berger/Snyder) Berger appeared in a combined 89 games with Boston and New York, batted 312 times, and hit 17 home runs, 12 of them as a Giant. His hitting helped the Giants win the pennant and Berger got into three 1937 World Series games as the Giants lost to the Yankees in five. He was voted a full World Series share and as a Giant, could avoid his nemesis, Carl Hubbell, the New York ace. Berger could never hit Hubbell hit with any consistency. (Berger/Snyder; Kaese) “Hubbell could put you in a slump if you tried to adjust your swing to his screwball. You were better off to take your outs and get ready for the next game.” (Murray)

The now-32-year-old Berger’s role was even further diminished with the Giants in 1938. “I rode the bench most of the time,” he recalled in Freshly Remember’d. On June 6, after batting 32 times in 16 games, Berger was traded again within the National League, going to Cincinnati, where he was reunited with McKechnie, then in his first year as the Reds’ manager after his tenure in Boston. McKechnie had been closely monitoring the recovering strength in Berger’s shoulder and arm and installed his former old reliable as a regular. Berger responded with 16 home runs, 56 RBI, and a steady .307 average in 99 games (407 at-bats) for the fourth-place Reds. (Berger/Snyder)

Those 1938 Reds were forming the nucleus of a team that would win National League pennants in 1939 and 1940. Berger hit .258 in 97 games, but contributed 14 of the Reds’ 98 home runs, some of them of the tape-measure variety (newspaper accounts cited in Berger/Snyder) as the club fought off the Cardinals to win by 4 1/2 games in 1939. Neither Berger nor the Reds fared well in the Series against the Yankees. Berger was hitless in 15 at-bats. The Reds were swept, 4-0.

Berger’s departure from the major leagues in 1940 was not pleasant for the player who had been the toast of Boston for seven-plus seasons, then a vital part of two other teams’ pennant-winning seasons. After negotiating bitterly with the Reds over his 1940 salary which was settled at $7,500 after an initial offer of $5,500 (Berger/Snyder), he was not used in spring training games, batted only two times as a pinch hitter in the first month of the season, and was released by the Reds on May 10. Berger recalled in Freshly Remember’d that for the first time, he was disappointed in his old friend McKechnie for never letting Berger know of plans for his release and not discussing the release with him when it came.

The Philadelphia Phillies, destined to finish eighth in the 1940 National League as the Reds won another pennant and the World Series, signed Berger after his release. “None of their outfielders were hitting, but they didn’t play me. I wondered why they brought me over there. Finally, I got to play, but by this time I’m out of rhythm.” (Berger/Snyder) He hit .302 in 22 games and his final major-league home run for Philadelphia, but by July he was disenchanted, told the Phillies so, and was given his release.

Berger, now 34 and with a damaged shoulder, then signed with Indianapolis of the American Association, but injured his hand and didn’t finish the 1940 season. He played for his former Pacific Coast League team, the Los Angeles Angels, for part of the 1941 season. “My heart wasn’t in it anymore after being in the big leagues. Going up was fine, but going down, no.” (Berger/Snyder)

As he had shown from the beginning of his major league career, Berger was a tenacious salary negotiator. He held out well into spring training twice with Boston under Judge Fuchs, hammering out $10,000 for 1932 and $12,000 for 1934, both in the depth of the Depression, when even Babe Ruth accepted a salary cut. (Alexander) His top salaries were in 1936 and 1937, at $12,500 each, negotiated with Bob Quinn. His most productive financial year in baseball was 1937, with the $12,500 salary and a Giants’ World Series share of $4,489.96. (Berger/Snyder; Reach Official American League Baseball Guide, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Berger joined the Navy in February 1942, and served until October 1945, as a baseball coach at the Naval Air Training Station in San Diego. After discharge from the Navy, he scouted for the Giants in 1947 and 1948. He also scouted for the Yankees and managed their Manchester, New Hampshire, team in the New England League in 1949.

He left baseball at age 45 in 1950. Berger, divorced from his first wife in the 1930s, had married the former Martha Anna Sobzhak on April 19, 1942, and they returned to Manhattan Beach, California, in the Los Angeles County South Bay area. Neither the first marriage nor Berger’s 46-year marriage to Martha produced any children. (Beverage)

Berger worked for the Norair Division of Northrop Corporation handling disposition of aircraft parts and as a staff member of the Aviation Technician’s School at Northrop Institute of Technology in Inglewood, California, until retirement in 1970 at age 65. He then devoted his time to speaking engagements and baseball ceremonials. (Berger/Snyder)

Berger’s 1930-40 major league career (1,350 games, an even .300 batting average, 242 home runs, 898 RBI, and .522 slugging average; seven World Series games; four consecutive All-Star Game selections), shortened by the age at which he reached the majors and by his shoulder injury, garnered him three Baseball Writers Of America votes for induction to the Hall of Fame, one in 1956, two in 1958.

In his introduction to Freshly Remember’d, George Morris Snyder summed up a solid, workmanlike career: “Berger was modest, quiet, hard-working, conscientious, and disciplined. He didn’t kick dirt on umpires, become engaged in scandal, or engage in wacky behavior. He didn’t make good copy for the boys in the press box. In his prime he played in a ‘pitchers park’ with a team that never came close to winning all the marbles. It was a club out of the mainstream. It was inadequately financed, poorly administered, and usually overmatched on the field. Despite all this, the Braves were always an interesting team, a team that had its great moments. They were led by the best manager of the times and supported by devoted and hopeful fans. And for seven seasons their most brilliant, courageous, and persevering player was Walter Anton Berger.”

Wally Berger died November 30, 1988, in Redondo Beach, California. He was 83 and had been hospitalized after a stroke. He is buried in Inglewood Park (California) Cemetery, with a simple joint marker inscribed “Walter A. Berger, Beloved Husband, 1905 – 1988 [and] Martha A. Berger, Beloved Wife.” Martha Berger died in 1996.

Last revised: October 18, 2021 (zp)

Sources

Berger, Walter Anton and George Morris Snyder, Freshly Remember’d, Schneider/McGuirk Press, Redondo Beach, California, 1993.

James, Bill, The Bill James Guide To Baseball Managers From 1870 To Today, Simon & Schuster, Inc. (Scribner), New York, 1997.

Kaese, Harold, The Boston Braves, Van Rees Press, New York, 1948.

Neft, David S. and Richard M. Cohen, The Sports Encyclopedia – Baseball, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1993 edition.

Pietrusza, David and Matthew Silverman and Michael Gershman, Michael, editors, Baseball – The Biographical Encyclopedia, Total/Sports Illustrated, Kingston, New York, 2000.

Thorn, John and Pete Palmer and Michael Gershman, et al., editors, Total Baseball, 7th Edition, Total Sports Publishing, Kingston, New York, 2001 edition.

Associated Press, account of 1933 All-Star Game, July 6, 1933.

Murray, Jim, column in Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1988.

United Press, account of Pocatello Bannocks game, August 9, 1927.

The Boston Globe, Obituary, December 1, 1988.

The Daily Breeze (Torrance, California), Obituary, December 2, 1988.

The New York Times, Obituary, December 3, 1988.

The Sporting News, Obituary, December 12, 1988.

www.baseballhistorian.com.

www.baseballlibrary.com.

www.baseballreference.com.

www.cbssportsline.com.

www.geocities.com (Mike McCann’s Minor League Baseball Page, Complete List of Minor Leagues).

www.retrosheet.org.

www.thedeadballera.crosswinds.net.

Los Angeles County, California, Register-Recorder, Certificate of Death of Walter Anton Berger, issued December 2, 1988.

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York – Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide, Wally Berger 1936 Game-By-Game Record, Wally Berger Personal Information Questionnaire.

Acknowledgments

Charles Alexander (SABR), Athens, Ohio (General discussion of Depression salaries in Breaking the Slump – Baseball In The Depression Era, Columbia University Press, New York, 2002).

Dick Beverage (SABR), Placentia, California.

Bob Bogart (SABR), Glen Rock, Pennsylvania (Baker Bowl history from The New Phillies Encyclopedia, Rich Westcott, Temple University Press, 1993)

Ira Siegel (SABR), Redondo Beach, California.

Stew Thornley (SABR), Roseville, Minnesota (Photo of Walter/Martha Berger grave marker).