As it turned out, Ash’s collegiate baseball career lasted only slightly longer than his stint with the American Giants. After he moved from his native state of Indiana to New York City in 1926, Ash had one last cup of coffee in the Eastern Colored League. Ed Bolden signed Ash to his Hilldale club,1 but he played in only one league game before being released. He caught on with the Newark Stars in June and played in three games before an unexpected circumstance ended his season and his pursuit of a career as a professional baseball player.

After Ash married in 1927, he found employment off the diamond, although he also played semipro ball for a few more years. In 1942, Ash’s coach at Michigan, Ray Fisher, named him as a member of his all-time Michigan baseball team.2 Fisher had pitched to a career 100-94 record with a 2.82 ERA for the New York Yankees (1910-17) and Cincinnati Reds (1919-20). As of 2021, he was still Michigan’s winningest head coach, having led his teams to a 636-295-9 record and one national championship between 1921 and 1958.3

The fact that Fisher bestowed such high praise on an athlete who had participated in his program for only one year was remarkable, but it also poses the question why Ash did not have a successful professional career. Perhaps Rube Foster, the American Giants’ Hall of Fame owner, was correct when, upon firing drunken former college pitcher Tom Williams in 1918, he asserted that “in all his experience in baseball this sort of players [college players] are the hardest kind to keep straight in the world.”4 Considering why Ash left Michigan, it is entirely possible that Foster’s comment could be applied to him as well.

Ash’s family background and college years are perhaps of more historical interest than his stunted professional baseball career. Regarding his ancestry, he was descended from one of the first Black families to settle in South Bend, Indiana. Ash’s maternal great-grandfather, Pharaoh Powell, was a freed slave from South Carolina who brought his wife, Rebecca, and their children to the Hoosier State circa 1853.5 The fact that Powell settled in Indiana at that time put his family and the residents of South Bend who allowed him to stay there in violation of Article 13 of Indiana’s 1851 state constitution, which read:

“Section 1: No negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.

“Section 2: All contracts made with any Negro or Mulatto coming into the State, contrary to the provisions of the foregoing section, shall be void; and any person who shall employ such Negro or Mulatto, or otherwise encourage him to remain in the State, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.”6

The law also stipulated that all fines collected for violations of Article 13 would be set aside to send the “negro or mulatto” in question to Liberia, if said person(s) were willing to emigrate there.

Despite Indiana’s official hard-line stance against Black settlers, the city of South Bend proved to be a hospitable location, and no one is known to have been fined under Article 13. According to a local historian, “Beginning in 1858, Pharaoh Powell bought several acres of land to the southwest of downtown South Bend, in Union Township, along Main Street and elsewhere in the county.”7 In addition to becoming a prominent family in the area, three of the Powells’ sons enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War.8

Pharaoh and Rebecca’s daughter, Nancy Powell, married William Henderson on August 5, 1879. Henderson was from La Porte County, Indiana, and had also served in the Civil War. At a banquet given in his honor in October 1934, he recollected, “My ancestors were freed slaves. When about 13 years of age, I entered the civil war [sic] near its close as a handy boy to Colonel Milroy, of the Ninth Indiana Infantry. Peace was declared before I saw a battle.”9 William later moved to South Bend, where he met Nancy.

William and Nancy Henderson had one child, a daughter named Cora Bell, who was born on January 8, 1881. On February 21, 1899, Cora Bell Henderson married Thaddeus Ash, who was from Michigan, and the couple resided with the Hendersons. Rudolph Thaddeus Ash, the future baseball player, was born on November 2, 1899, in South Bend.

Although William Henderson provided a roof over his daughter and son-in-law’s heads, he was not so well off that he could support them financially. Henderson worked as a waiter at the Grand Central Hotel while Thaddeus Ash held a job as a porter and Cora found work at the local YMCA. The family’s hardscrabble existence is hinted at by how young Rudolph Ash referred to himself in his 1906 letter to Santa Claus, which was printed in the South Bend Tribune on December 15. Seven-year-old Rudolph wrote (with all misspellings and grammar errors left intact by the newspaper):

“Dear Santa Clause – I want a new suit and a cap and a pair shoes and lagerns. Please send also a large engine with 5 cars and a coal car. I want a Xmas book with nice Xmas pieces in it. I would like to have all these things hung on a tree in my parlor good by Santa Clause please make some little poor boy happy thanks for every thing I am Rudolph Ash 422 S Main St South Bend Ind.”10

His childhood interest in railroads cars must have had a lifelong appeal for Ash, since he eventually found a career with the Pennsylvania Railroad and worked for the company long enough to receive a pension.

Less than a year after Christmas 1906, life became harsher for Ash’s family due to his father’s excessive drinking. On July 11, 1907, Thaddeus Ash pleaded guilty to charges of assault and battery upon his wife and father-in-law. He was ordered to pay $20 (a $5 fine and $15 for court costs) and received a 30-day jail sentence. However, “upon his promise to the court as well as his father-in-law to refrain from drinking in the future, he was released upon suspended sentence by paying the fine and costs.”11

Thaddeus soon reneged on his promise and he and Cora separated on August 9, 1907. Thaddeus moved back to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and young Rudolph continued to live with his mother and his grandparents in South Bend. Thaddeus kept in touch with Rudolph and even listed him as his contact on his World War I draft registration card in 1918. It appears that Cora wanted to give her husband every chance to make good; however, on February 23, 1917, she finally sued for divorce, “making a general charge of cruel and inhuman treatment.”12

According to the US Census, South Bend had seen a 49.1 percent population growth between 1900 and 1910, and the crime that often accompanies such growth affected the Henderson-Ash household in 1911. A thief who had become known as a “gentleman burglar” had been working the neighborhood and continually eluded the police. On October 9 he targeted the Henderson house, but he picked the wrong time as its occupants were still awake. Cora “screamed while her father stood by the rear window with a club in hand to receive the midnight visitor, but he was frightened away.”13

Although Ash and his family had their struggles, he also experienced some benefits of growing up in South Bend. At a time when most schools throughout America were still segregated, Ash was able to attend South Bend High School, the only high school in town, and graduated in 1918.14 In September Ash registered for the draft and indicated that he was working at Notre Dame University and was preparing to attend college.

As the United States continued to ramp up its war efforts since having become involved in World War I the previous year, Ash joined the Student Army Training Corps at Indiana University in Bloomington. The Corps existed on many campuses and had been “created to keep students in college while preparing to fight the war.”15 At Indiana University it “included four companies and well over 1,000 men. Members wore uniforms, were paid $30 a month and lived in barracks that were converted fraternity houses.”16

Ash was one of “only a handful” of Black men at Indiana University, who “drill[ed] with white classmates and liv[ed] separately in Barracks No. 7.”17 All branches of the US military maintained racially segregated units at that time; thus, the separate living quarters at IU were no surprise. However, by drilling with their White classmates, Ash and his Black classmates had become trailblazers. John Summerlot, the director of the university’s Veterans Support Services, asserted, “I would argue the first racially integrated Army unit was the SATC. And it may have been just at IU. I’ve yet to find any other integrated SATC units during World War I.”18

When the 1918 flu pandemic reached Bloomington, Indiana’s State Board of Health closed the IU campus from October 10 until November 4. As a result, “SATC members were confined to their barracks, and other students were sent home. … By the end of December 1918, the SATC members had been discharged from the military.”19 Ash returned home to South Bend in time for Christmas. Before the next academic year, he visited his father in Kalamazoo and then announced that he was going to attend the University of Michigan.20

Surprisingly, since Ash had not spent any time in the limelight, his life had been well documented to this point. South Bend directories and the 1920 US Census list Ash as a university student, presumably at the University of Michigan, although he was not yet a member of the Wolverines’ baseball team. He did, however, have a brief stint with Chicago American Giants in the summer of 1920.

Ash must have played baseball somewhere to be discovered and signed by Foster, but when and where are unknown. Ash was so unfamiliar to the Chicago press that he was listed in box scores as “Rudolph” more often than by his surname, Ash. Professional baseball may have been just a summer diversion for Ash as he received most of his playing time in July. He manned left field in a series against the St. Louis Giants from July 11 to 13 at Schorling Park in Chicago; the American Giants triumphed by scores of 5-2, 4-2, and 7-6. Ash, listed as “Rudolph” for all three contests, contributed two hits in the middle game and scored a run in the July 13 contest.21

On July 19 Ash – now listed in the box score by his surname – played right field in a 3-1 triumph over the Dayton Marcos at Schorling Park.22 He had one hit but did not score a run. Ash participated only in games in Chicago, a city that he and his family often visited. He did not distinguish himself during his brief time with the American Giants; he batted .208 (5-for-24), scored three runs, and had two RBIs in eight NNL games.

In October, it was reported that Ash had “returned to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he [was to] resume his law studies at the University of Michigan.”23 At this point in his life, Ash did not yet combine academic and baseball pursuits. In late May of 1921, after the spring semester ended, it was reported that “Jess Elster and his new gang of Colored Athletics” from Grand Rapids, Michigan, had “obtained Rudolph Ash of Ann Arbor, an infielder, who should be a big attraction during the season.”24 No further mention of Ash is found in articles about the Colored Athletics’ games; he may not have reported to Elster’s team after all.

After a one-year baseball hiatus, Ash popped up again in 1923. The Chicago Defender claimed, “Rudolph Ash of South Bend, Ind., is the first student of Color to ever play on the Michigan university baseball team.”25 Since the Defenderhad not been founded until 1905, perhaps it can be forgiven for its error. However, the fact is that Moses Fleetwood Walker had enrolled at Michigan in 1881 and had become the first Black player on the university’s baseball team in 1882.26 Ash held the distinction of being Michigan’s first Black baseball player in the twentieth century. As such, he was a precursor to Jackie Robinson. In 1946 Robinson – at the outset of his Hall of Fame career – became the first Black player in the International League since Walker in 1889 (Syracuse) and, in 1947, the first Black player in the White major leagues since Walker in 1884 (Toledo).

Ash made the most out of his on-field opportunities for Michigan. On May 5, against Notre Dame – his former employer – Ash “clouted a home run in the tenth after the score stood 10 all in the ninth and won the game.”27 Two days later, in a victory over Iowa, “Ash’s rap sent in two runs in the early part of the game … [and] in the tenth he again aided in pushing his teammate to third from where he scored on the next play.”28

Ash continued to excel as Michigan went 10-0 in Big Ten Conference play in 1923. In a 6-3 win over the University of Illinois on May 12 in Urbana, Illinois, Ash and catcher Jack Blott were “responsible for the Michigan victory” in front of “[a] crowd estimated at 10,000.”29 Ash was 3-for-5 at the plate and scored a run. Against Ohio State on May 28, he hit an RBI triple in the top of the first inning and scored on an error as Michigan prevailed, 5-2. He went 2-for-4, scored two runs, and stole second base in the seventh inning (which led to his second run scored).30

Ash batted .405 for the season for Michigan’s Big Ten championship squad and made a name for himself in baseball circles.31 He spent the summer back home in South Bend, and, in July he agreed to be co-director of a YMCA camp “for the colored boys of the city” that was “the first camp of its kind to be directed in the state of Indiana.”32 Ash was hailed by his hometown press as the “foremost athlete in the city and Michigan university outfielder extraordinary [sic].”33

Ash had certainly turned heads on the baseball diamond for Michigan in 1923. However, he had failed to distinguish himself in the classroom. In a report about how Michigan’s athletes had fared on their June exams, the Grand Rapids Press noted, “Very few athletes met with reverses during the past term although Rudolph Ash, star Negro outfielder and leading hitter on the Michigan baseball team, failed in his studies and it is doubtful if he will return next season.”34

The Press’s prediction was accurate, and Ash’s collegiate baseball career was at an end. More than a year later, in December 1924, it was reported that “Rudolph Ash, who is attending the University of Chicago, is spending his vacation with his mother, Mrs. Cora B. Hill, 428 South Main Street.”35 Six years after her divorce, Cora had married Henry Hill on July 24, 1923.

The cause for Ash’s failure at the University of Michigan is unknown. The stereotype about college students who like to drink and have a good time, rather than to study and earn a degree, is an old one but is right on the mark for some individuals. Rube Foster implied as much about college students’ drinking and behavior in his 1918 comment after he fired Tom Williams. Whether Ash exhibited some of his father’s fondness for alcohol while in college is a matter of speculation, and unsubstantiated conclusions on the matter would wrongfully impugn an otherwise respectable reputation. One thing is certain, however, and that is the fact that Ash never graduated from the University of Chicago either; the 1940 census lists his highest grade completed in school as “College, 3rd year.”

In 1926, sans college diploma, Ash moved to New York City, though he apparently spent some amount of time in Philadelphia as well. Ed Bolden signed him for his Hilldale (Darby, Pennsylvania) Daisies, a member club of the Eastern Colored League, and gave him only the briefest tryout: one game in which he did not even make a plate appearance. Ash then signed with the ECL’s Newark Stars and was in the lineup for both games of a June 20 doubleheader against the New York Lincoln Giants at the Catholic Protectory Oval in the Bronx. Ash manned right field in both contests and was 1-for-4 at the plate in each game as well. He scored one run in Newark’s 7-6 loss in the opener but did not score in the Stars’ 9-2 victory in the nightcap. The Game Two triumph was the first win in nine ECL games for Newark.36

Ash batted .200 (2-for-10) in three games for Newark, but his stint with the team was not cut short due to his performance. On July 10, the New York Age reported, “The Newark Stars, organized at the beginning of this season by Andy Harris, have ‘given up the ghost,’ at least for the remainder of this season. … Lack of money to pay salaries is said to have caused several members of the team to quit even before the project was finally abandoned.”37

After the Newark franchise folded in 1926, Ash turned his attention to Anna Perdita Sanford, his bride-to-be. The couple was married on June 9, 1927, in Brooklyn. Perdita gave birth to their only child, Rudolph Thaddeus Ash Jr., on November 17, 1928. Ash found steady work to support his new family, but he continued to indulge his love for baseball by playing for various semipro squads for a time, including occasional stints with Ed Bolden’s Darby Phantoms.38 However, baseball was now an avocation and, by the time of the 1940 census, Ash’s occupation was listed as “red cap,”39 and on his 1942 World War II draft registration card he listed the Pennsylvania Railroad as his employer. Ash worked for the railroad until his retirement.

Ash’s father, Thaddeus, had died in May 1928, six months before Rudolph Jr.’s birth, and his mother, Cora, died in 1931. His grandfather, William Henderson, long outlived his wife – Nancy Powell Henderson, who had died in 1922 – and was, in 1940, the last family member from Ash’s childhood home to pass away. Rudolph Thaddeus Ash Sr. died on February 16, 1977, in New York City “after a two-week illness” of an unspecified nature.40 Upon Ash’s death, his body was returned to South Bend for burial.

Rudolph Jr. served in the Army during the Korean War and later worked for the General Motors Corporation. He died on September 26, 1980, in the Veterans Administration Hospital in New Rochelle, New York, at the youthful age of 51.41As had been the case with his father, no cause of death was given, and his body was interred in South Bend.

After the deaths of her husband and son, Perdita Ash – who was originally from Macon, Georgia – moved from New York City to South Bend. Members of her husband’s extended family, the Powells from his maternal grandmother’s side, still lived there and she connected with them. Perdita died on February 17, 1985, at the Fountainview Place nursing home in Mishawaka, Indiana, which is a few miles west of South Bend.42

Rudolph Sr., Perdita, and Rudolph Jr. are buried in South Bend’s Highland Cemetery. They were the last of the Ash family in South Bend, but other descendants of Pharoah and Rebecca Powell still live in the city.

Sources

All Negro League player statistics and team records were taken from Seamheads.com, except where otherwise indicated.

Ancestry.com was consulted for US Census information; military records; as well as birth, marriage, and death records.

Notes

1 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing & Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1919-1932 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 146.

2 “Johnny Gee Starts Fast/Long Michigan Pitcher Does Well for Toronto in Opener; Saginaw Honors Top Bowler, Grand Rapids Press, May 20, 1942: 19.

3 “Michigan Baseball Coaching History,” https://mgoblue.com/news/2009/6/5/michigan_baseball_coaching_history.aspx, accessed June 6, 2021.

4 “Rube Fires Tom Williams Outright: Latter Is Accused of Being Under Influence of Liquor on Training Trip,” Chicago Defender, April 6, 1918: 9. Williams had attended Morris Brown College in Atlanta.

5 Jeanne Derbeck, “Plan Powell House Benefit,” South Bend Tribune, February 24, 1975: 17.

6 “Article 13 – Negroes and Mulattoes,” Indiana Constitution of 1851 as originally written, https://www.in.gov/history/about-indiana-history-and-trivia/explore-indiana-history-by-topic/indiana-documents-leading-to-statehood/constitution-of-1851-as-originally-written/article-13-negroes-and-mulattoes/, accessed June 6, 2021.

7 Travis Childs, “Blacks Settled in the Area Around Potato Creek State Park in 1830s, 1840s,” South Bend Tribune, January 29, 2006: B7.

8 Childs.

9 “‘Handy Boy’ in Civil War Dies at South Bend,” Indianapolis Recorder, February 3, 1940: 8.

10 “South Bend, Ind., Dec. 5, 1906,” South Bend Tribune, December 15, 1906: 30.

11 “Promises to Be Good,” South Bend Tribune, July 11, 1907: 5.

12 “Wife Asks Divorce,” South Bend Tribune, February 23, 1917: 9.

13 “Bold Thief Still Defies Detectives,” South Bend Tribune, October 10, 1911: 5.

14 “In Colored Circles,” South Bend News-Times, June 6, 1918: 6.

15 “World War I Transformed Campus, Opened Indiana University to the World,” IU and World War I, https://news.iu.edu/stories/features/world-war-i-anniversary/iu-during-wartime.html, accessed June 7, 2021.

16 “World War I Transformed Campus.”

17 “World War I Transformed Campus.”

18 “World War I Transformed Campus.”

19 “World War I Transformed Campus.”

20 Ellis S. Bell, “South Bend Ind.,” Chicago Whip, October 4, 1919: 9.

21 “Fosters Upset St. Louis Giants,” Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1920: 15; “Foster’s Giants Win Again, 4-2,” Chicago Tribune, July 13, 1920: 13; “Fosters, 7; St. Louis, 6,” Chicago Tribune, July 14, 1920: 15.

22 “American Giants Trim Dayton Nine Again, 3-1,” Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1920: 14.

23 “Society,” South Bend Tribune, October 9, 1920: 5.

24 “Elster and Reuben Will Clash Again on Ramona Field,” Grand Rapids Press, May 25, 1921: 18. Ash normally played the outfield, both in college and as a professional; however, he did play one game at second base for the American Giants in 1920, so he could play certain infield positions as well.

25 “Rudolph Ash Makes Good at Michigan ‘U,’” Chicago Defender, May 12, 1923: 10.

26 “Moses Fleetwood Walker,” Go Blue: Competition, Controversy, and Community in Michigan Athletics, http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/michiganathletics/exhibits/show/key-players/fleetwood-walker, accessed June 7, 2021.

27 “Rudolph Ash Makes Good at Michigan ‘U.’”

28 “Rudolph Ash Makes Good at Michigan ‘U.’”

29 “Michigan in Great Rally Beat Illini,” Rockford (Illinois) Republic, May 14, 1923: 8.

30 “Ohio State Fails to Grasp Chance/Michigan Keeps Its Conference Slate Clean by Defeating Our Boys, 5-2,” Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, May 29, 1923: 14.

31 James Tobin, “The Belford Lawson Mystery: A Family Story and Racism’s Long Shadow, Ann Arbor Observer, https://annarborobserver.com/articles/the_belford_lawson_mystery.html#.YL5NPvlKjIU, accessed June 7, 2021.

32 “Will Open Camp Lincoln,” South Bend Tribune, July 22, 1923: 17.

33 “Will Open Camp Lincoln.”

34 “Michigan Grid Heroes Pass June Exams,” Grand Rapids Press, June 28, 1923: 23.

35 “In Colored Circles,” South Bend Tribune, December 22, 1924: 10.

36 “Newark Stars at Last Win Game in Eastern Colored League Race,” New York Age, June 26, 1926: 6.

37 “Newark Stars Disbanded,” New York Age, July 10, 1926: 6.

38 “Corley Cashes In,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 1, 1929: 23; “Phantoms Win First from Rival Foes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 10, 1929: 18; “Darby Phantoms Win,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 1930: 42. The January 31, 1986, edition of the South Bend Tribune contained a photo of a jersey worn by Ash that had the name Tigers across the front (“Museum Exhibit to Mark Black Experience in Area,” South Bend Tribune, January 31, 1986: 15). Inquiries to the History Museum in South Bend, where the exhibit containing the jersey was housed, yielded no information due to the change of museum personnel in the interval between 1986 and 2021. In a July 13, 2021, email to this author, Negro League researcher Gary Ashwill wrote, “To my knowledge Ash didn’t play for the Philadelphia Tigers, but there were semipro teams in the Philadelphia area in the late 1920s called Tigers – most notably the Main Line Tigers, but also the Norwood Tigers.” No newspaper articles were found to indicate which Tigers team Ash played for, and efforts to locate any surviving members of Ash’s extended family proved unfruitful. Currently, it appears that the year 1930 may have marked Ash’s last attempt to play baseball (whether as a semipro or professional) as the final mention of his name is found in that year’s August 3 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

39 Red caps – so-called because they wore red caps in the early twentieth century – were porters at train stations.

40 “Rudolph T. Ash,” South Bend Tribune, February 20, 1977: 49.

41 “Rudolph T. Ashe,” South Bend Tribune, September 27, 1980: 6. Either Rudolph Jr. added an “e” to his last name, perhaps to distinguish himself from his father, or the Tribune inadvertently added the letter to the name.

42 “Anna Perdita Ash,” South Bend Tribune, February 18, 1985: 20.

On his June 5, 1917, World War I draft registration card, Henderson Edward Boyd listed his date of birth as January 23, 1893,1 and his place of birth as St. Louis. Boyd lived in Kansas City, Missouri, at the time, recorded his marital status as single, and attempted to claim an exemption from the draft by stating that his father and a brother were his dependents.2 The 1920 US Census indicates that Boyd’s mother and father both had been born in Arkansas; however, no further records of the family in Arkansas or Missouri have been discovered, and it is unknown whether his mother was deceased or whether his parents were separated or divorced.

Although Boyd’s exact origins appear to have been lost to history, two events that occurred after he registered for the draft are certainties. The first is that he did not receive an exemption. Instead, he was drafted into the Army and served in Company D of the 806th Pioneer Infantry Regiment. The second is that he married his wife, Lottie, before being drafted since she is listed as his contact person in wartime military records.3

Boyd’s military service began in July 1918; the 806th was organized that month at Camp Funston, Kansas. All branches of the US military were still segregated at this time, and Boyd’s regiment was one of 20 African American regiments, out of a total of 37, in the Pioneer Infantry. After two months of training, Private Henderson E. Boyd and the 806th shipped out from Hoboken, New Jersey, aboard the USS Mercury on September 8, 1918, and arrived in Brest, France, on September 21.

Colonel Joseph L. Gilbreth of the 51st Pioneer Infantry described the Pioneer regiments’ responsibilities for the public in 1919. Regarding the infantry portion of their duties, he wrote that they “are not primarily fighting troops, but are trained as Infantry, simply in so far as to be able to protect their working parties.”4 Their work consisted of “semi-technical” combat engineering that included building “temporary roads, railroads, bridges, trenches and all kinds of shelter both in active operations and in rest areas. They make demolitions and destroy enemy obstacles so as to prepare the ground for the advance of our attacking troops.”5 An unknown Pioneer Infantry officer described their assignment more succinctly, asserting, “They did everything the Infantry was too proud to do, and the Engineers too lazy to do.”6 In sum, these troops had to work with a shovel in one hand, a rifle in the other, and their heads on swivels.

The Pioneer Infantry regiments were “attached to armies or corps on an as-needed basis,”7 but not all of them saw combat. Boyd’s regiment was attached to the US First Army and was involved in combat during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France from October 3 to October 9, 1918. Boyd served honorably and well, as is evidenced by the fact that by the time the 806th returned to the United States in June 1919, he had attained the rank of corporal. Boyd’s regiment was briefly stationed at Camp Upton, New York, and then the troops were discharged from service at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in July.

After his military service, Boyd returned to his wife in Kansas City. In 1920 he was working as a laborer in one of K.C.’s many meat-packing houses. There is little doubt that Boyd played baseball on his company’s team in the city’s Packers’ League because he came to the attention of Detroit Stars owner Tenny Blount. On February 13, 1920, Blount was in Kansas City to attend the meeting at which the first Negro National League was founded. During that time, he also may have scouted players and signed Boyd; the Chicago Defender reported on March 13 that Boyd was to be a member of Detroit’s outfield and, in a March 27 article, indicated that Boyd had come from Kansas City.8 On April 11 the Detroit Free Press noted that Blount “has signed players from as far West as Kansas City and as far South as Texas in an effort to make his 1920 club the best in the land.”9

Although each NNL member franchise signed players for its team, Rube Foster, the league president and the Chicago American Giants owner, wanted competitive balance in the hope that it would ensure the survival of the new league. The Defender asserted, “The wisest move made by Foster was in distributing the stars in various clubs, equalizing the playing strength, and each series will be better attended. … The fans in the cities opposed losing their idols, but as the plan was explained, they warmed up to it.”10 Not only were star players reassigned, but other players who did not make the team for which they tried out were to be “traded to the other clubs in the circuit.”11

Once all team rosters were filled, the best of the rest were assigned to the Winnipeg Giants (sometimes called the Winnipeg Colored Giants). After the Valley City, North Dakota, nine had played its first game against Winnipeg, the local newspaper described the team thusly:

“The Giants are composed of colored ball players, consisting of some of the overflow from the new colored league now in operation in the east. … The Colored Giants are made up of young players that are not quite old enough and well enough seasoned to make these teams so are ‘farmed out’ to this traveling organization where they will finish their base ball education.”12

Although Boyd did not fall into the “not quite old enough” category at 27 years of age, he was assigned to the Winnipeg Giants at the beginning of June.

Before joining the traveling Giants squad, Boyd started in center field for the Stars as the “Detroit ‘Semi-pro’ baseball season was mustered in for 1920 at Mack Park” on Sunday, April 11.13 The Stars “wielded the old willow” well as they clobbered the Denby Motors team, 12-0.14 One week later, on April 18, Boyd – showing the versatility that became his calling card – manned third base as the Stars defeated the Delray All-Stars by a 7-2 score; Boyd had one hit, stole a base, and scored a run in the game.15

Exactly when or why Boyd was transferred from the Stars to the Chicago American Giants is unknown. However, in May he played three games in the outfield for Foster’s team. He was 1-for-4 with one hit, three walks, and three runs scored. His most important contribution to the American Giants’ season took place at Schorling Park in Chicago on May 23. That day, “[m]ore than 7,000 persons witnessed the hand-to-hand battle between the K.C. Monarchs and American Giants.”16 Chicago pitcher Tom Williams, who had relieved starter Dave Brown at the top of the fifth inning, smashed a single to right field in the bottom of the 11th inning that drove home Boyd from second base for a 6-5 victory. The Chicago Whip’s game report indicated that there had been some controversy over Boyd’s winning run, stating that he “was called safe, then out[,] then safe again.”17 However, neither the Whip nor the Defender provided any details about the dispute. As mysterious as the circumstances surrounding Boyd’s game-winning tally is the reason why he was reassigned to the Winnipeg Giants within about a week after this game.

Whatever transpired, on June 1 Boyd started in center field for Winnipeg in a game against Valley City that the Giants won, 6-5. As had been the case in Chicago on May 23, there was excitement at the very end of the game. In the bottom of the ninth, “with three on and none out[,] Valley City was not allowed to score – two men being caught at the plate in two hair raising plays.”18 This likely was Boyd’s first game with Winnipeg, and it was not a memorable affair for him personally. He was hitless and, when he did reach base safely on an error, he was thrown out at second on a steal attempt. Soon, however, Boyd began to flash his versatility and value to the Giants.

Four days later, Boyd started at shortstop in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in a game that Winnipeg lost, 9-6. The local press enthused that “[s]everal sensational catches by the outfielders of both teams added greatly to the interest of the game” and raved that an unassisted double play by Boyd was “nothing short of sensational.”19

The next day, the same two squads clashed again at Grand Forks’ Dacotah Park, and Winnipeg fell by a 6-1 score. It was noted that “[t]he playing field was too heavy to allow any sensational plays because of the heavy rains early Sunday morning.”20 Nonetheless, there was excitement aplenty and Boyd was involved in two key plays for the Giants:

“The visitors’ lone run came in the first frame when Boyd, the lead-off man, singled and stole second. Sacrifice hits by Reed and Singer scored him. The ‘clouds’ nearly scored again in the third when Boyd was up again with two men out. He singled and stole second and third. Two strikes were called on the batter and when Bird started to deliver the ball again[,] Boyd made a pretty steal to home but the umpire called the pitched ball a strike, retiring the side[,] and the run did not count.”21

Boyd had started the game in center field but at some point traded positions with catcher William “Buck” Ewing, who also had played one game with the 1920 Chicago American Giants.

Before the third and final game of the series, there were rumblings about bad blood between the two teams. The local newspaper reported, “The colored warriors are peeved about having their perfect record broken and have been saying terrible things during the day about what they are going to do to the locals tonight.”22 The Daily Herald failed to recount any of the “terrible things” the Giants players were alleged to have said, but it did print Grand Forks manager Fadden’s threat that “there would be dead ‘chocolate drops’ lying around the field tonight after the game.”23

As it turned out, the only violence committed in the June 7 game was by the Grand Forks batters against the baseball. Boyd played the entire game at catcher as the locals “gave the Winnipeg Colored Giants a terrible drubbing” by an 11-1 score.24 Winnipeg manager Sam Gordon tried to smooth over relations between the squads by conceding about the Grand Forks nine, “They are a well organized bunch … and they play ball like big league clubs.”25

After the debacle in Grand Forks, the Giants continued to barnstorm through the Upper Midwest while also venturing into and out of Canada. On September 11 Boyd was the starting pitcher in both games of a doubleheader against an amateur team from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Boyd scored Winnipeg’s first run in the first inning of the opener that became an 8-6 victory; at some point in the game, he ceded the mound to a reliever and moved to center field. In the nightcap, “Boyd, who was on the mound for the descendants of Ham[,] was in fine form and had the better of the pitchers’ argument, striking out four[,] walking one and allowing but five hits” in a complete-game 5-1 triumph.26 At the plate, he was 1-for-4, stole a base, and scored a run.

On October 10, in what was the final game of the season for the DeKalb, Illinois, team – and likely for the Winnipeg Giants as well – Boyd started at shortstop but took the mound in the eighth inning after the locals had scored four runs to take a 10-3 lead. Boyd went hitless in what ended as a 10-5 game, and then he went home for the offseason. The Defender later noted that the Winnipeg Giants had traveled over 22,000 miles in 1920 and made the dubious claim that the team had lost only five games in three months.27

In 1921 Sam Gordon was named manager of the Calgary Black Sox, a team owned by Calgary businessman Charlie Ross that took on the role of the Winnipeg Giants minus the identity as the NNL’s developmental squad. The club was scheduled to “train in Chicago starting after the first of April,”28 and its roster was populated by many of the same players from the 1920 Winnipeg team, including Boyd and Ewing.

Available game recaps show that Boyd played one or the other corner outfield spot in most games. Speed was Boyd’s forte as an outfielder and on the basepaths. In a game against the Appleton, Wisconsin, team on May 8, Boyd registered three hits, reached base once on an error, stole two bases, and scored four runs as Calgary notched a 7-2 victory.29 After the Black Sox vanquished the Minot, North Dakota, team, 7-3, on June 4, the Defender maintained that “[t]he Sox have one of the best teams in the country and up to date have won all their games with the exception of two.”30

Box scores reveal that Boyd was a more consistent player in 1921, likely because he was able to focus on playing in the outfield most of the year and because the Black Sox played some home games in Calgary rather than barnstorming exclusively.31 He became a true batting threat and continued to wreak havoc as a base stealer. Late in the season, Boyd did take the mound as the starting pitcher in the second game of a doubleheader against a team from Red Deer, Alberta. He was 3-for-5 with the bat, stole a base, and scored two runs to support his complete-game pitching effort in a 5-4 win.32 At 28 years of age, Boyd was still in his prime as an athlete, but he never again played for a team of major-league caliber in the Negro Leagues.

In fact, the 1921 season appears to have been Boyd’s final campaign as a professional baseball player at any level; his name is not found in any further articles or box scores. In 1922 the Cream City Giants, a team “made up of many of last year’s Calgary Black Sox,”33 debuted in Milwaukee on May 28. The team received far less coverage than either the Winnipeg Giants or the Calgary Black Sox and did not last long. Boyd’s name was never mentioned in association with the Cream City Giants.

From this point forward, Boyd’s life became like that of most people who are not in the spotlight – anonymous to all but those who knew him. Perhaps his wife, Lottie, had encouraged him to give up the rigors of barnstorming and settle down with her; however, it is not known whether the couple remained married or had any children. Boyd’s choice of a post-baseball career also remains a mystery.

The only certainty about Boyd’s life after the 1921 baseball season – found in the records of the US Veterans Administration – is that he died in Devils Lake, North Dakota, on August 2, 1962.34 Boyd had played in Devils Lake as a member of the Winnipeg and Calgary teams. Whatever his later life’s experiences may have held, perhaps he found contentment by settling in a place he had visited and enjoyed while he was a young baseball player with great potential and a significant amount of time still before him.

Sources

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

Although data specific to Boyd’s military service was gathered from Ancestry.com, the information about the Pioneer Infantry Regiments was taken from the following source:

McMahon, Margaret M., Ph.D. A Guide to the U.S. Pioneer Infantry Regiments in WWI (No city listed: Margaret M. McMahon Teaching & Training Co., LLC, 2018).

Direct quotes taken from McMahon’s book are cited in the endnotes.

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

Notes

1 All military records show January 23, 1893, as Boyd’s date of birth since that is what he wrote on his draft registration card. The 1920 Census – the only census in which Boyd currently can be located – lists his birth year as “abt 1895,” while the Social Security Death Index has the date as January 23, 1889. The conundrum surrounding a player’s exact birthdate is not unique to Boyd, but in this instance, it is impossible to determine which year is correct. Since this is the case, the author has decided to use the year that Boyd provided to the draft board.

2 Boyd did not provide his father’s or brother’s names.

3 The author was unable to locate marriage records for the couple; thus, Lottie Boyd’s maiden name is unknown.

4 McMahon, 5.

5 McMahon, 5.

6 McMahon, 4.

7 McMahon, 4.

8 “Detroit Stars Will Report Last of March,” Chicago Defender, March 13, 1920: 9; “Detroit Stars Are Ordered to Report,” Chicago Defender, March 27, 1920: 11.

9 “Baseball Game Set for Sunday/Detroit Stars and Denby Motors Open Season with Elaborate Ceremony,” Detroit Free Press, April 11, 1920: 24.

10 “‘Rube’ Assigns Players to Giants,” Chicago Defender, March 20, 1920: 9.

11 “Detroit Stars Are Ordered to Report.”

12 “Valley City Fans See Real Base Ball,” Valley City (North Dakota) Weekly Times-Record, June 3, 1920: 5.

13 “Detroit Stars in an Easy Victory/Open Semi-Pro Season Here by Trimming Denby Motors,” Detroit Free Press, April 12, 1920: 14.

14 Detroit Stars Win/Initial Event Is a Walkaway for Blunt’s [sic] Boys,” Chicago Defender, April 17, 1920: 9.

15 “Stars Trim Delrays/Overflow Crowd Sees the Victory of Blount’s Boys,” Chicago Defender, April 24, 1920: 9.

16 Dave Wyatt, “American Giants Win in 11th/Plucky Fight of Visiting Pitcher Goes for Naught When Teammates Falter,” Chicago Defender, May 29, 1920: 9.

17 “Giants Take Two Falls from K.C. Monarchs/Giants [sic] Wins Own Game for Giants in 11th,” Chicago Whip, May 29, 1920: 6. The Whip erroneously named Tom Johnson as Chicago’s pitcher in its game write-up; however, the box score in the Whip as well as the Defender’s game article and box score show that it was Tom Williams.

18 “Valley City Fans See Real Base Ball.”

19 “Grand Forks Won Opener from Giants/Locals Take Slug-fest from Winnipeg Colored Giants Saturday,” Grand Forks Daily Herald, June 6, 1920: 17.

20 “Grand Forks Defeated the Winnipeg Colored Giants in the Second Game of Series,” Grand Forks Daily Herald and the Evening Times, June 7, 1920: 18.

21 “Grand Forks Defeated the Winnipeg Colored Giants in the Second Game of Series.”

22 “Grand Forks Defeated the Winnipeg Colored Giants in the Second Game of Series.”

23 “Grand Forks Defeated the Winnipeg Colored Giants in the Second Game of Series.”

24 “Locals Took Final Game of Series Monday,” Grand Forks Daily Herald, June 8, 1920: 10.

25 “Locals to Play at Devils Lake,” Grand Forks Daily Herald, June 8, 1920: 10.

26 “Local Team Falls Twice on Saturday/Colored Giants Prove Too Much for City League Amateurs,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, September 13, 1920: 7.

27 “Calgary Black Sox Ready for Busy Season,” Chicago Defender, April 9, 1921: 10. The Winnipeg Giants played from at least June into October, which is longer than three months. Additionally, recaps for many of the team’s games are not available; however, the few recaps cited in the present article show the team to have lost four games, so it is doubtful that the Giants suffered only one additional loss in 4½ months of play.

28 “Calgary Black Sox Ready for Busy Season.”

29 “Calgary Black Sox Trim Appleton, Wisconsin, Nine,” Chicago Defender, May 14, 1921: 10.

30 “Calgary Black Sox Beats [sic] Minot (N.D.) 7 to 3,” Chicago Defender, June 11, 1921: 10. In this instance, the Defender’s claim that the Black Sox had lost only two games may have been accurate; the season was still young.

31 See, for instance, “Drumheller Drops Another Game to Black Sox, 4 to 3,” Calgary Herald, August 6, 1921: 22, and “Calgary Black Sox/Take Two Games from Red Deer – First Game 9-0, Second Game 5-4,” Red Deer Advocate, August 19, 1921: 3.

32 “Calgary Black Sox/Take Two Games from Red Deer – First Game 9-0, Second Game 5-4.”

33 “Watching the Scoreboard/Cream City Giants Win,” Chicago Defender, June 3, 1922: 10. See also, “Colored Nine to Play Here,” Milwaukee Journal, May 26, 1922: 45. For an in-depth discussion of the Cream City Giants and Black baseball in Milwaukee, see: Ken Jon-Edward Bartelt, “Brew City Black Ball: Milwaukee as Microcosm of the Early-Twentieth Century Black Baseball Experience” (2020). Theses and Dissertations. 2454. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/2454

34 Efforts to locate an obituary or death certificate that might shed more light on Boyd’s life and the circumstances of his death proved unsuccessful.

Dave Brown, a southpaw flinger, became one of the early pitching stars in the Negro National League with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants. Allegations that he had scrapes with the law in his native Texas before he joined Foster’s squad, or in Chicago shortly thereafter, are part of his story; however, it is highly likely that Foster fabricated the charges in 1923 after Brown jumped his contract with Chicago.

In 1925 Brown became wanted for murder after it was alleged that he shot a man to death in New York City, and he went on the lam. In a time when communication was still limited, Brown was able to elude the police and the FBI, of which famed director J. Edgar Hoover had taken control one year earlier. While on the run, Brown used the alias William “Lefty” Wilson as he pitched for numerous semipro aggregations throughout the Midwest. Brown played under the Wilson alias until 1932, after which time he disappeared. Then, in 1938, a man named Dave Brown was arrested for assault and robbery in Greensboro, North Carolina.

It appeared that Brown’s past had caught up to him by most unusual circumstances before he became a free man and disappeared for all time. At least, that was the story until 2023, but the facts – rather than the legends – are now known and presented here.

Dave K. Brown was born on June 9, 1897, in Marquez, Texas, a small town in Leon County approximately 68 miles southeast of Waco.1 His parents, Silas and Anna (Walton) Brown, were farm laborers, and Dave was their ninth and last child.2 Mystery surrounds the story of Brown’s life from birth. For reasons unknown – though it may have been as simple as the fact that his place of residence changed – Brown filled out two World War I draft registration cards that contained slightly different information. In June 1917 he gave his birthdate as June 9, 1895, and indicated that he was a “Ball Player” in the employ of Enos Whittaker, owner of the Texas Colored League’s Dallas Black Giants team. However, in August 1918, he provided June 9, 1897, as his birthdate and stated that he was a warehouse worker in Dallas; this may have been a second (or offseason) job, since he was still pitching for the Black Giants that year. Documents, including official military service records, show that Dave’s brother Felix was born on January 18, 1895, and the 1900 census listed June 1897 for Dave’s birth; thus, the year 1897 appears to be the correct birth year for Dave.

Nothing is known about Brown’s childhood or how he developed his baseball skills, but his pitching talent garnered him a position on the Dallas team in 1917. On June 6, just three days before his 20th birthday, Brown pitched for the Black Giants in a 5-3 loss to the Hot Springs Bear Cats; his catcher that day was Jim Brown.3 The two Texans gained renown as “the Brown Battery” and soon moved into the next stage of their careers together. Oliver Marcell, who went on to hit .306 over 13 seasons in the Negro major leagues, was also in the Dallas lineup in 1917.

One week after the game against Hot Springs, on June 14, Brown earned what may have been his first professional victory as he pitched all 12 innings in a 4-3 triumph over the same opponent. Hot Springs’ starting pitcher was listed only by the nickname “Nacogdoches” – presumably, a nod to the hurler’s hometown – and the press noted that “[t]he game was witnessed by a good crowd, about half the spectators being white persons.”4

Brown returned to the Black Giants for the 1918 season. On May 24 he struck out 11 batters in a 7-0 whitewashing of an Army team from Camp Travis, Texas, in the first game of a doubleheader.5 Brown had become a local star as was evidenced by the fact that news articles used his name to draw fans to coming games. For an August game against the Fort Worth Wonders, one newspaper noted, “Dave Brown has been nominated to pitch for the Giants” and “[m]usic will be furnished by a brass band.”6

In the spring of 1919, fellow Texan Rube Foster signed the Brown Battery for his Chicago squad, which was in its final season as an independent team. Once again, though, mystery and rumors surround the circumstances by which Brown moved into the next phase of his career. In an April preview article about the American Giants, the Chicago Defender reported, “No one in the world knows better how to pick a player than ‘Rube.’ … Brown and Brown of the Dallas, Tex., Giants are here. They were a whirlwind in Texas.”7 No mention was made of any special circumstances by which Dave Brown was obtained, either at that time or during any other point in Brown’s tenure with the team.

However, in 1923, after Brown had jumped his contract with Foster and joined the New York Lincoln Giants of the Eastern Colored League, Rube related a different tale. Foster may have invented this new narrative out of anger, as no contemporary documentation has yet come to light to corroborate it. He asserted about Brown:

“He did not leave because he was not treated right nor because his salary was not remunerative enough for his services. He simply wished to compensate me for staking the reputation of the American Giants baseball club and my own when convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for highway robbery by going into court and having him paroled to me; this being done by me giving bond for $20,000 for him.

“This was before Dave Brown showed any real pitching ability. It was when he had only pitched two games for me during the season. I promised his mother to take care of him if he came to Chicago and it was this promise that I was carrying out.

“Should I now get down off of that parole, he would have to serve his sentence.”8

Foster asserted that he had dirt on numerous players, in addition to Brown, that “would shock the public beyond measure.”9 There is no question that some ballplayers – no matter the era, their race, or their league – have committed shocking acts, but this screed sounded more like the grievances of a spurned suitor.

Foster’s claim about Brown seems dubious for numerous reasons. First and foremost is the question of whether Foster could finagle such a parole and whether he would have paid the large sum required for the bond.10 Second, the lack of any press coverage during or after the alleged crime is unusual, especially since Brown had become well known for his pitching in the Dallas area. It is noteworthy that, due to the way Foster’s statement was worded, it could be interpreted to mean he was asserting that Brown ran afoul of the law after joining the American Giants; however, no record exists of Brown having been arrested, let alone being tried and imprisoned, in Illinois or the closely neighboring states of Indiana and Michigan. Thus, there is no evidence to corroborate Foster’s claims about Brown’s alleged crime.

Whether or not Foster ever met Brown’s mother so that he could promise her to take care of Dave is also questionable, but it is the one element of the story that might have a grain of truth considering what happened to one of Dave’s older brothers, Webster. According to one news account, Webster Brown, who was six years older than Dave, was “a bad man generally” and was “well-known in police circles in the southwest.”11 On January 31, 1919, Webster led Dallas police on a chase that ended with him being shot and killed. It was reported that the chase “resulted from a theft of clothing that occurred yesterday [January 30] afternoon.”12 Captain J.C. Gunning, chief of detectives, said that Webster “had been in jail several times and was an escaped convict from the county farm.”13 If Foster did meet Anna Brown in 1919, after Webster’s violent death, it is possible that she asked him to look after Dave in the hope that her youngest son would stay out of trouble. It is also quite likely that, in his fit of pique in 1923, Foster attributed Webster’s criminal history to Dave to smear his reputation.

After Brown joined Foster’s squad in 1919, he was used sparingly at first. Officially, he is credited with a 1-2 record and a 4.40 ERA in games pitched against other top-caliber Western Independent Clubs.14 He also pitched against semipro aggregations and notched one of his earliest victories for Chicago against the Nash Motors team of Kenosha, Wisconsin, on May 11. Brown, who was identified in the press as “the new southpaw of the Giants,” pitched Chicago’s third consecutive shutout in a 5-0 complete-game effort; he scattered four hits while walking three batters and striking out three.15 The Chicago American Giants finished the 1919 season with a 27-16 record that was second-best in the West to the 27-14 mark posted by the Detroit Stars. But there was no league and, therefore, no pennant to be won. However, that was no longer to be the case after Foster and his fellow team owners founded the first Negro National League at the Paseo branch of the YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 13, 1920.16

Chicago dominated the early years of the NNL, claiming the first three league championships from 1920 through 1922 with Brown contributing a composite 43-8 record in league play during those seasons. Brown’s first appearance in an official NNL game took place on May 9, 1920, against the similarly named Chicago Giants at Schorling Park, the American Giants’ home field. According to the press account of the game, “while Dave Brown was on the rubber, [the Giants] simply could not see his offerings” as he hurled six shutout innings to earn the win.17 He ceded the mound to Tom Williams with an 8-0 lead in what ended as an 8-3 triumph, but it was an auspicious debut that heralded 1920 as Brown’s breakout season.

As the American Giants rolled to a 43-17-2 record (a .717 winning percentage) in NNL games to claim the pennant by eight games over the Detroit Stars, low-hit, low-run outings became the norm for Brown. In addition to capturing the ERA title with a 1.82 mark – albeit edging out teammate Tom Williams by only 0.01 – Brown paced his team in victories with a 13-3 record that also put him in a tie for fourth in the league – two wins behind Detroit’s Bill Gatewood. Brown also tied for fourth in the league in strikeouts with 101, five behind the league-leading total of Kansas City’s Sam Crawford. Perhaps the most remarkable statistic of all was Brown’s 0.908 WHIP as he allowed only 84 hits and 51 walks in 148⅔ innings pitched.

At the conclusion of the 1920 NNL season, Foster took his squad on a swing through the South in late September and early October. The American Giants emerged victorious against all opponents and repeatedly clubbed the Negro Southern League’s champion, the Knoxville Giants, into submission. Chicago defeated Knoxville at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field on September 21, 22, 23, and 30. The two teams met again in Knoxville on October 2 as Brown opposed Steel Arm Dickey in a classic pitchers’ duel. The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the eighth inning, when Knoxville, which managed only three hits, broke through with the contest’s first tally. Chicago came back with two runs in the top of the ninth, and Brown shut down Knoxville’s lineup in the bottom of the frame to give the American Giants their 14th consecutive victory, a triumph that, according to Negro League historian James A. Riley, “sealed their status as the best black ball club in the country.”18

It certainly seemed that Foster was bent on his team’s laying claim to being the best in the nation as next they traveled northeast to take on the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in a series of games played at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park and Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. This series was to serve as “a dress rehearsal for what Rube envisioned as the black World Series.”19 The Bacharach team proved to be a stiffer challenge than Knoxville had, but Chicago emerged with a 4-3-1 record in the series against the East’s top independent club, and the American Giants reigned supreme in 1920.20

In 1921 Brown and the American Giants picked up where they had left off the previous season. Foster’s team claimed its second straight NNL pennant as its 44-22-2 record resulted in the league’s best winning percentage (.667); the Kansas City Monarchs won more games, posting a 54-41 (.568) league ledger, but finished 4½ games behind Chicago. Brown once again paced the American Giants’ pitching staff and was among the NNL leaders in every major category. He tied for first in wins with 17, though his 17-2 mark was far superior to St. Louis hurler Bill Drake’s 17-11 record; his 2.50 ERA was second only to Bullet Rogan’s 1.72 mark for Kansas City; and his 126 strikeouts were tied for third, 14 behind league leader Bill Holland, a late-season addition to the American Giants who had spent the bulk of the season with Detroit. Brown’s five shutouts put him in a tie for first place with Jim Jeffries of Indianapolis, and 1-0 games proved to be his forte.

On August 14 Brown faced Drake and the St. Louis Giants at Schorling Park in what the Chicago Defender raved was “one of the best games – if not THE best – played at this park this summer and a humdinger of a pitchers’ battle.”21 Neither hurler surrendered a hit until the bottom of the seventh inning, when Bingo DeMoss singled off Drake, and the game remained scoreless until the bottom of the eighth. At that point Cristobal Torriente led off Chicago’s half of the inning with a single, advanced to second on catcher George Dixon’s sacrifice, and then stole third base. Floyd “Jelly” Gardner then beat out a bunt on a squeeze play, and Torriente crossed home plate with the game’s only run. According to the Defender, “Hats were broken and every stunt possible was pulled off by the rabid fans,” who now wanted to see Brown finish his no-hitter.22 However, such history was not in the making that day as St. Louis catcher Sam Bennett led off the ninth with his team’s first safety; Sidney Brooks ran for Bennett and was promptly erased when Drake grounded into a double play. Doc Dudley garnered the second hit against Brown, a single to right field, but the game ended when Dixon threw Dudley out at second base on a steal attempt.

Slightly less than a month later, on September 11 at Schorling Park, Brown engaged in another duel against Steel Arm Dickey and the Negro Southern League’s Montgomery Grey Sox. Although Dickey now plied his trade for a different team, the game was almost an exact replica of the previous year’s matchup between the two aces. There was more traffic on the basepaths on this day, but neither team managed to score for the first eight innings. Prior to the bottom of the ninth, the most exciting event had occurred off-field in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Defender’s Frank Young described the incident in a clipped style:

“Someone over on Wentworth avenue [sic] shoots a gun out of a house window. A hundred fans on top of the house watching the game begin to scatter. Finally[,] a bluecoat goes over and all of a sudden we see the housetop empty. We also see the bluecoat take out a white handkerchief and wave to us. Means all is at peace.”23

Everyone on the field and in the stands managed to calm themselves and the on-field action resumed.

With the game still scoreless, Brown led off the bottom of the ninth with a single but was forced at second on Jimmie Lyons’ fielder’s-choice grounder. Lyons bolted to second on a wild pitch by Dickey. DeMoss attempted a sacrifice bunt and ended up safe at first on a throwing error, with Lyons advancing to third. DeMoss then attempted to steal second, and Lyons scored when the Grey Sox catcher’s wild throw to second rolled into the outfield. Once more, the American Giants had clinched a 1-0 victory in the ninth with Dave Brown emerging as the winning pitcher.

At the conclusion of the NNL season, Foster again took his team east to play two series against the region’s most powerful independent clubs, the Bacharach Giants and the Hilldale Club of Darby, Pennsylvania. As had been the case in 1920, Foster intended these clashes to be “a dry run for the planned future ‘East-West World Series,’” and they were sometimes already billed as championship series in the press.24 However, this time around, Chicago struggled to stay even against both squads, so much so that Foster entered into damage control mode and “reminded everyone that the American Giants had won the NNL pennant.”25

Things went downhill from there for Foster as 1921 neared its end. He was arrested (and quickly bailed out) for alleged fraud in Atlanta, canceled the American Giants’ planned trip to Cuba due to political turmoil on the island nation, and, most tragically, suffered the unexpected death of his 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, on the train ride home to Chicago after an exhibition series in New Orleans. Despite his grief, Foster tended to the business of the NNL and wrote a series of blunt articles for the Defender in which he outlined the challenges for the league; the most controversial piece voiced Foster’s opposition to hiring Black umpires as arbiters for NNL games.

Between Foster’s misfortunes, his controversial columns, and the fact that Dave Brown was the American Giants’ only pitcher to return from the 1921 championship team’s staff, the outlook for the Chicago nine was not as positive as in previous years. The American Giants opened the regular season at Schorling Park in early May with a tough series against the powerful Monarchs, who soon would supplant Chicago as the dominant force in the NNL. The Monarchs captured the first game, 5-1, and Brown made his first start in the second tilt on May 7. The game did not bode well for Chicago’s season.

The Sunday contest featured a matchup between two of Black baseball’s premier pitchers in Dave Brown and Bullet Rogan. So many fans wanted to witness the proceedings that problems began before the game ever started. The Defender described the chaos:

“Early in the afternoon, about two o’clock, the bleacher seat box office was closed. The fans in that section attempted to violate law and decency by jumping over the fence into the higher priced seats. Over 200 followed this course. The crowd surged into fair territory time and again during the game. The play was stopped and Rube Foster with two or three players pleaded with the populace to give the outfielders a chance to play.”26

Initially, the game itself went as expected. While it was noted that “Brown was not in his usual cool form. He walked men and was in many tight holes,” he and Rogan dueled to a 1-1 tie through seven innings.27 The Defender observed, “The sixteen thousand that crowded the park got just what they came out to see,” but the newspaper also had to add, “only they did not see the ending.”28 Kansas City scored to take a 2-1 lead in the top of the eighth inning. When Chicago came back to tie the game in the bottom half of the frame, the crowd went berserk. According to the game account, “The overflow broke loose. On the field they went. … That was all. They just couldn’t play. Folks wouldn’t let them.”29

The crowd became so unruly that play was called off and the game was declared a tie. In response, fans began to throw cushions and pop bottles at one another, and the outmanned police force at the field had trouble bringing the melee under control. The Defender declared that “[t]he most disgraceful scenes were enacted” and that “[i]n all Chicago’s baseball history it cannot be recalled that such actions have ever taken place at any park.”30

The American Giants won the last two games of the opening series, a sign that they would barely hold off the Monarchs and retain the NNL title for one more season. At the end of the 1922 NNL campaign, Chicago won the pennant by virtue of having an almost infinitesimally greater winning percentage than Kansas City: The American Giants’ 37-24-1 record gave them a .607 winning percentage compared with the Monarchs’ 47-31-2, .603 mark.

Brown certainly did not slump in 1922, posting a 13-3 record with 103 strikeouts and a 2.90 ERA in 155 innings pitched in NNL play. As usual, his numbers put him in the top five of most major pitching categories: He finished tied for third in wins (though considerably behind Jim Jeffries’ 21 victories for Indianapolis), fourth in ERA, and fifth in strikeouts. As had also become typical for Brown, he was involved in a stellar 1-0 victory, this time against the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants.

Chicago did not sojourn east in 1922. Instead, the Bacharachs and the Hilldale Club visited Schorling Park for the first time. On August 16, “[a] bit of history was made … when the American Giants were involved in one of the longest games ever in Negro League history[,]” against the Bacharachs.31 Ed “Huck” Rile started the game for Chicago, but Foster pulled him after four scoreless innings and sent Brown to the mound. Brown went 16 innings, an amazing feat but one that paled in comparison to that of his mound opponent, Harold Treadwell, who pitched all 20 frames for Pop Lloyd’s Bacharach squad. Eventually, one of the two hurlers had to tire, and it turned out to be Treadwell in the bottom of the 20th inning. Torriente drew a leadoff walk from the exhausted Treadwell and advanced to second on Bobby Williams’s sacrifice bunt. Dave Malarcher then banged out a single to drive in Torriente with the game’s only run, giving Brown yet another 1-0 victory and allowing Treadwell to ice his rubber arm.32

At the conclusion of the 1922 season, Brown was one of several Negro League players who traveled to Cuba to play winter baseball. His first foray to the island was unremarkable as he played for Santa Clara, which finished in last place with a 14-40 record and withdrew from the league on January 14, 1923.33 Brown distinguished himself via his 4-3 record, which tied teammate Eustaquio Pedroso (also 4-3) for the team lead in victories.34

By the time Brown returned from Cuba, Ed Bolden, owner of the Hilldale Club, had founded the Eastern Colored League to compete with Foster’s Western circuit.35 Soon thereafter, the Defender reported:

“Baseball fans in Chicago were much surprised last week when Dave Brown, first string pitcher for the American Giants, caught a rattler for New York. … It is strongly rumored that Brown will work for the Lincoln Giants this summer, making his exit from organized ball and jumping to the outlaws.”36

Teammate Ed Rile was also heading east, and the Defender alleged, “According to well founded [sic] rumors, Rile has been acting as an agent for the Eastern association in their raid on players belonging to the Negro National league.”37 Foster responded one month later with his story that he was disappointed in Brown’s disloyalty since he had bought him out of prison.38

Brown, who was leaving behind one former Dallas teammate, Jim Brown, was reunited with another old friend from his playing days in Texas, Oliver Marcell. He also appeared simply to shrug off Foster’s allegations, but his first season in New York was not a rousing success. The Lincoln Giants finished in fifth place with a 17-23 league record (18-23 overall). Brown pitched to a 5-6 record with 47 strikeouts and a 3.28 ERA in 74 innings. His totals still placed him in the top 10 – but no longer the top five – of most statistical categories in the ECL, but he was not even the best pitcher on his team. Bill Holland had 48 strikeouts and a 3.13 ERA in 72 innings pitched but was a victim of hard luck as he finished the season at 0-7.

Brown, Marcell, and Holland were three of the numerous Negro League players who joined the Santa Clara squad for the 1923-24 Cuban winter season. The now talent-laden team managed a 180-degree turnaround from the previous season, finishing in first place with a 36-11 record. In fact, this Santa Clara squad came to be “[c]onsidered as the most dominant team ever in the history of Cuban baseball by amassing an 11½ game bulge over their nearest rival.”39 Bill Holland led the team and league in wins with a 10-2 record, Rube Currie contributed an 8-2 mark, and Brown finished with a 7-3 ledger.

The 1923-24 Cuban season was such a popular success that fans clamored for more baseball, and a special season, named Gran Premio, was quickly arranged. Santa Clara finished with a 13-12 record that enabled it to edge out Almendares by a slim half-game margin. Brown (4-2) and Holland (4-3) tied for the team lead in wins in this second season.40

When Brown returned stateside in 1924, he was riding high from his Cuban experience and rejoined the New York Lincoln Giants with an eye toward a better outcome in the ECL’s second season. After Brown won the second game of a doubleheader against the Washington Potomacs, one of the ECL’s two new squads, on May 18, the “rejuvenated Lincoln Giants” had run out to a 7-2 record.41 One week later, the Lincoln Giants ran their win streak to eight by sweeping a doubleheader from the Bacharachs, and they led Hilldale by a half-game in the standings.42

The Lincoln Giants greatly improved their performance in 1924, but they could not sustain their quick start. The team and Brown faded down the stretch, a fact that was clearly in evidence by a late-September sweep suffered at the hands of the Cuban Stars. Brown lost the second game, 7-0, and the press noted that he “put his team at a disadvantage in the very first inning by walking two men and then allowing two hits, causing four runs to be made.”43

Hilldale won the ECL title with a 47-26 record while the Lincoln Giants finished third, seven games back, with a 35-28-1 record. Foster had to be chagrined that two of his Chicago team’s rivals, Bolden’s Hilldale club and the NNL’s Kansas City Monarchs, faced off in the first-ever Negro League World Series. The Monarchs captured the title in 10 games, with one game resulting in a tie.

As for Brown, he returned to the old form he had exhibited with Chicago. He led all ECL pitchers with a 2.00 ERA, and his 13-8 record and 107 strikeouts were second only to Hilldale’s Nip Winters, who finished the year at 20-5 and struck out 114 batters. Brown would have been the darling of the modern sabermetric crowd, however, which would point out that he finished with an ERA+ of 241 compared with Winters’ 142, thus denoting him as the far superior pitcher.

In the winter, Brown returned to Cuba, where he again toiled for Santa Clara. The team’s fortunes went up and down like a yo-yo, and the 1924-25 campaign was a down time. The squad finished in third place with a 20-28 record and “attendance at the games in Santa Clara’s Boulanger Park was so disappointing … that in early January owner Abel Linares moved the franchise to Matanzas.”44 Brown’s performance typified the moribund team’s fortunes: His final foray to the island resulted in a 2-4 record.45 At least he could look forward to competing for the ECL title with the Lincoln Giants in 1925.

Or so Brown and everyone else thought after an Opening Day doubleheader against the Bacharachs on Sunday, April 26, that kicked off the regular season for both teams. Brown, who started the first game, “was the master of the Atlantic City boys throughout the fray, allowing them seven scattered hits and only [being] scored upon once.”46 After winning the first game, 6-1, the New Yorkers also captured the nightcap, which turned into a 10-inning affair, by a 4-3 score. The sweep was a sweet start to the season.

Teammates Brown, Marcell, and Frank Wickware (who had played for the American Giants in 1920) apparently spent two days celebrating their early success. In the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday, April 28 – at 3:25 A.M., to be precise – as the group returned home from a night of carousing, a man named Benjamin Adair was shot in their presence at 69 West 135th Street and was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

(Photo: Courtesy of Larry Lester / NoirTech Research, Inc.)

Published accounts of this watershed event in Brown’s life vary wildly. Negro League historian James A. Riley wrote in 1994, “After killing a man in a barroom fight that year, apparently in an argument involving cocaine, he dropped out of sight to avoid arrest on a murder charge.”47 Subsequently, the assertion that Brown shot Adair has always been taken at face value with some contemporary articles being misread and others ignored entirely. Yet no contemporaneous news accounts reported that the shooting took place in a bar or that a drug transaction was involved.

Additionally, newspaper reports provided contradictory descriptions of the exact events of the incident despite the presence and testimony of several eyewitnesses. The New York Evening Journal reported that Adair “was with several women and three men when the shooting occurred” and “[a]s the party passed No. 69, a man with a revolver ran to the street shouting: ‘Now, I’ve got you.’ When Adair fell to the pavement his companions fled.”48 The New York Evening Post, on the other hand, wrote, “As he was about to enter his home at 61 West 135th street [sic] at 3 A. M. today[,] Benjamin Adair, a negro, twenty-nine, was killed by an unidentified assailant who stepped from a nearby hallway and fired four shots.”49

More confusion is added by the New York Amsterdam News’s assertion that Adair and “four men were quarrelling on the sidewalk, when one of them drew an automatic and fired one shot at him. As he crumpled to the sidewalk[,] the four jumped into a passing cab and drove away. It is said that all four are unknown to the police.”50 On May 2 the Chicago Defender claimed, “Information gathered from eyewitnesses of the shooting discloses the fact that Adair was a marked man and that the murderers planned their deed carefully, although their motive has not yet been discovered.”51 The Defender also wrote that “four men standing in the shadows near [Adair’s] steps drew revolvers and opened fire. Two bullets entered Adair’s body, killing him almost instantly.”52

The Philadelphia Tribune’s May 2 edition stated that Adair was walking “with three friends … when four shots were fired from the dark doorway at No. 69. … His three companions said they saw no one and police could not find the revolver or discover any motive for the shooting.”53 The New York Age was the first newspaper to report, also on May 2, that Brown and his two teammates might have been involved in the incident.54

The eyewitnesses who were questioned by police had taken down the number of the taxi in which the alleged perpetrators had escaped, and police arrested the driver, William Holland (not to be confused with pitcher Bill Holland). Holland stated that “he took the men as he would have taken any other passengers. He denied having seen them before.”55 Upon checking out Holland’s story, the police released him.

The Lincoln Giants canceled practice on April 28 because they were missing three players that day – Brown, Marcell, and Wickware. On May 16 the Baltimore Afro-American ran an article indicating that the “[p]olice of Atlantic City have been unable to locate the whereabouts” of the three ballplayers.56 Furthermore, the Afro-American provided yet another variation on the events of the shooting: “According to witnesses[,] the three ball players and Adair were passing in front of the 135th street [sic] address when a man ran out of the building and shouted, ‘I’ve got you,’ and fired point blank at Adair, who dropped mortally wounded.”57 It is unclear whether the article was stating that Adair and the ballplayers were companions or that they were simply in the same place at the same time. Their disappearance lends credence to the idea that they were Adair’s companions and perhaps feared trouble for themselves if Adair had brought his violent death upon himself by some previous criminal action. In any case, the trio were certainly additional eyewitnesses who cast suspicion upon themselves by leaving the scene of the crime and evading police for a time.

The Lincoln Giants traded Marcell to the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in mid-May58 only to reacquire him one month later. In reporting about Marcell’s return to the Lincoln Giants on June 20, the New York Age noted, “The former Lincoln captain had the misfortune to witness a murder on 135th street [sic] about two months ago and was wanted for a time as a material witness in the case. However, no charge was ever made against him.”59

Wickware also had been cleared of any wrongdoing in mid-May. The Chicago Defender reported on May 23 that he “was freed in the Manhattan homicide court this morning [May 16] of charges in which he was held as a suspect in the killing of Ben Adair. … The move came after the district attorney stated that his office held no evidence against the accused to connect him with the murder.”60

With Marcell and Wickware having been apprehended, questioned, and cleared, it remains unexplained why Brown never turned himself in to the police. It does not appear that any of the ballplayers had a role in the Adair shooting; if so, all three should have been charged with a crime. Perhaps Brown saw himself as a potential scapegoat since he was the only identified witness, or suspect, left. He may also have called to mind the shooting of his brother Webster in Dallas and had a distrust of the police and how he would be handled if he turned himself in. There remains the possibility that Adair was involved in criminal activity, perhaps indeed involving drugs, and Brown was afraid to suffer any consequences due to guilt by association. Nonetheless, after the New York City police made no progress in their investigation for a couple of months, they released the only known wanted poster in history with a photo of the alleged perpetrator wearing a baseball uniform. The poster declared that Dave Brown was wanted for murder.

W. Rollo Wilson of the Pittsburgh Courier had taken the three players to task in his May 9 Pittsburgh Courier column, asserting, “Whatever the outcome of this matter these men must leave the game. The integrity of the pastime demands it.” Of the New York team’s fortunes, Wilson wrote, “The serious trouble in which Dave Brown, Wickware, and Marcelle are involved will just about wreck the Lincoln Giants.”61 That much was certainly true as the team finished the season in last place with a dismal 7-41 record. As for the three players, Marcell played through the 1930 season; the 37-year-old Wickware’s career ended after 1925; and Brown soon reappeared under an alias.

In the summer of 1926, newspapers in the Midwest began to report the exploits of a pitcher named Lefty Wilson, who played for various semipro teams throughout the region. As a member of Gilkerson’s Union Giants, Wilson dominated local competition in Iowa. On June 20 he notched an 11-4 victory over Davenport’s Knights of Columbus team, with the local newspaper noting that he “eased up slightly in the latter innings” to allow the Knights to score.62 Wilson extended no such courtesy against the Spencer team – the state semipro champion – on July 10 in Mason City, Iowa. He struck out 17 batters while allowing only one hit, one walk, and a hit batsman in a 2-0 triumph.63

Shortly thereafter, Wilson pitched for the Pipestone, Minnesota, Black Sox. In a 7-2 victory over a team from LeMars, Iowa, the “well-known negro pitcher twirled for the visitors and held the home club under control at all times.”64 The player wanted for allegedly shooting a man with a real gun now became a figurative hired gun for any semipro team that wanted to pay him, though he played mostly for teams from Iowa and Minnesota.

In 1927 Wilson joined the team in Wanda, Minnesota, and helped lead it to the Tri-County League championship by defeating Comfrey in two games – 8-1 and 2-1 – while striking out 10 and 13 batters respectively. Wanda played the Franklin Creamery team from Minneapolis in the state tournament in St. Paul, but Wilson ended up on the losing end of a 6-0 game.65

Still, Wilson was ready to return to Wanda in 1928, but the Tri-County League had issued an edict aimed directly at him. The league decreed, “The rules under which the circuit operated last year were approved with the exception that the color line was drawn and the status of home players was defined.”66 With that ruling, Lefty Wilson’s time in the Tri-County League came to an end. However, he stayed in Minnesota and played for the team in Bertha, becoming the team’s ace after the departure of Negro League legend John Donaldson.67

In a day when communication was limited, it was easy for Brown to assume his new identity as William (Bill) “Lefty” Wilson in a different part of the country from where the crime for which he was wanted had taken place. The difficult element of evading the police lay in the fact that he was well known from his days with the Chicago American Giants, and many semipro teams played against Negro League teams or fellow semipro squads that hired former Negro League players. On June 14, 1928, it was announced that John Donaldson and Lefty Wilson would be the mound opponents in a game in Bertha, with Wilson pitching for the home team.68 Donaldson had been a member of the Kansas City Monarchs in 1920-21 and no doubt recognized his opponent as being Dave Brown, formerly a member of the Chicago American Giants.

No former teammates or opponents ever revealed that ace semipro pitcher Lefty Wilson was the wanted fugitive Dave Brown. Although the reasons for players’ silence are unknown, it is possible that they either learned of Brown’s innocence from Marcell or Wickware, or that they shared Brown’s distrust of the police due to America’s unfortunate history of racial violence. Various players, including Hall of Fame shortstop Willie Wells and former Colored House of David catcher/teammate L.J. Favors, admitted in later years that they were aware of Wilson’s true identity. Both players claimed that teams that employed Wilson always kept their bags packed in case someone – primarily the police – learned who he was and their team had to depart quickly in the middle of the night to avoid trouble.69

Wilson finished with a 14-8 record for Bertha in 1928, but the team’s attendance was so low that the owner joined a new, small-town league for 1929 that allowed its teams to use only home talent on their rosters. The second loss of employment in Minnesota did not faze Brown, who took his Lefty Wilson act back to the state of Iowa in 1929.70 By this time, obviously emboldened by the fact that no one had turned him over to the law, Brown, although he maintained his alias, did less and less to conceal his past and his identity.

On April 14, 1929, it was reported that Lefty Wilson would take the managerial reins for a Sioux City, Iowa, team sponsored by the Auto Kary-All Manufacturing Company. According to the local press, “‘Lefty’ Wilson, regarded as the greatest negro southpaw hurler in the game and formerly a member of the Chicago negro National league [sic] club, has been signed as manager and has secured a lineup of players from Scott’s Giants, Gilkerson’s Union Giants and negro league clubs.”71 The Chicago American Giants never had a pitcher named Wilson, but apparently Brown wanted to tout his past accomplishments and attributed them to his new alter ego without any concern for blowing his cover. Not only was Brown not lying low from people who might recognize him, he was now audacious enough to recruit players from Negro League teams.

The Kary-All nine did not receive extensive coverage. However, if the team’s May 11 game against the Kari-Keen squad was representative of their efforts, the team and its pitcher-manager did not fare well. In what the press termed a 12-5 “drubbing,” it was stated that “[t]he winners hammered ‘Lefty’ Wilson for 14 hits in six innings and had the game ‘sacked up’ before he was relieved by Truesdale.”72 By August, whether Kary-All’s season had ended or not, Wilson was a member of the Cubans, John Donaldson’s barnstorming team.

On August 29, in a game against the House of David team, “‘Lefty’ Wilson, the colored pitcher who had reached second base, started a chewing match [with the House of David shortstop] that ended in a real fistfight that took several of the players to separate.” Home-plate umpire Bunny Clouton ejected both players, but the House of David shortstop refused to leave the field. Eventually, to get the player to depart, Clouton agreed to be replaced by fellow arbiter Scoop Hunter. The fistfight and dispute over who would umpire the game took so much time that the game had to be called on account of darkness in the seventh inning.73

In 1930 and 1931, Lefty Wilson pitched for the Colored House of David team with varying degrees of success. He had, however, made quite a name for himself in the Midwest. After he pitched the Colored House of David to an 8-6 victory over the Cold Spring, Minnesota, team on June 21, 1930, the press noted, “‘Lefty’ Wilson, well known in this community, did the chucking for the Davids against Cold Spring on Saturday,”74 The following year, Wilson was mentioned as the possible starting pitcher for the Davids, who were “considered one of the outstanding negro teams in the country, in a preview article for a game between the Colored House of David and a team from La Crosse, Wisconsin, that was to take place on August 31, 1931.”75 Perhaps the last report of Lefty Wilson was as a pitcher for the Fineis Colored Giants of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in an August 1932 recap of a doubleheader against the original (White) House of David ballclub.76

Lefty Wilson then faded into history, but Dave Brown resurfaced six years later in North Carolina. That is, on July 15, 1938, “David Brown, 30-year-old negro, was taken into custody by Greensboro police and held for questioning … following an incident in which Jess [sic] Wells, white man, was said to have been pushed from the porch of a residence. … Wells, in an unconscious condition, was taken to Piedmont Memorial hospital around 3 o’clock. It is thought possible that he suffered a fractured skull.”77 Wells regained consciousness that night and identified Brown as his assailant. The next day a warrant was issued against Brown that charged him with robbery with deadly weapons since he also had taken $4 from Wells in the assault.

When this Dave Brown was brought to the police station, he wore a “glossy green shirt” that “gave him an unusual appearance and he was questioned as to athletics.”78 He confessed that he had played baseball at one time but claimed that he had never been a professional ballplayer and that he had never been out of North Carolina. Upon his admission that he had played ball, a detective “recalled the 13-year-old poster with the picture of a man wearing a baseball suit in the center thereof.”79 Police dug out the poster and believed there to be some resemblance between the photo of the ballplayer Brown and the man they had in custody. The suspect was photographed and fingerprinted, and the information was forwarded to the authorities in New York.

On July 22 the Greensboro police received word that their prisoner was the same man on the wanted poster and were asked whether Brown would agree to waive extradition. Brown agreed, and awaited transport to New York, where he was to stand trial for murder. What happened next is best described by a one-word headline in the July 31, 1938, Raleigh News and Observer: “Lucky.” The news article explained:

“Today a telegram came from the New York police saying that all witnesses had disappeared in the intervening 13 years, and that since Brown could not be convicted, the charge would be dropped. When the Greensboro police turned to the local offense, they found that Wells had left Greensboro. There was nothing to do with Brown except turn him loose.”80

The Greensboro police did exactly that and, until 2023, this was believed to have been the last certainty in the life of Dave Brown, Negro League pitching ace of the early 1920s.

In retrospect, a closer examination of some inconsistencies involved in the Greensboro incident points to the likelihood of this event involving a case of mistaken identity. For one thing, Dave Brown the ballplayer was already 41 years old in 1938 while Dave Brown who was in custody was 11 years younger. This means that New York police were matching the photo of a 28-year-old player, taken in 1925, with a photo of a 30-year-old; thus, the photos might have been more of a match than they would have been between individuals aged 30 and 41. Notably, within one day, the Greensboro Daily News went from asserting that the description on the wanted poster “tallied closely”81 with the Dave Brown in custody to stating only that he “answer[ed] somewhat the same description.”82 In modern times, the fingerprints would be irrefutable evidence, but New York police had no fingerprints from Dave Brown to try to match to the Greensboro prints. Even if they had had them, they lacked the modern databases with which to make a certain match.

As it turns out, Dave Brown in Greensboro only shared a name with the famous ballplayer, who already was living in California, the state in which his older brothers, William and Felix, and sister, Eva, had settled after leaving Texas. There are still brief gaps in Brown’s life story, and exactly when he moved to California and adopted the alias Alfred Basil Brown is unknown. He may have traveled west as early as 1932 after the baseball season ended. He certainly already was residing in the Golden State by 1937, when an event occurred that changed numerous lives, including Brown’s.

Since Brown now lived in California and had no connection to North Carolina, it is unlikely that he was the individual who had been arrested in Greensboro. The most compelling argument for the incident having been a case of mistaken identity is the fact that Dave Brown the ballplayer used the new alias and falsified some of his background information. Obviously, he still believed himself to be a fugitive wanted by the law. Had he been the individual in Greensboro, he would have known that he now was a free man and could have dropped all aliases and pretenses.

In 1937, Alfred (Dave) Brown and his wife, Faye L. Charles, were residing in Marysville, California. On February 7, in that city, a man named Valenten Flores shot and killed Adris Carino and his wife, Pastoria Rico Carino, before turning his gun on himself in a double-murder-suicide. Flores had been a boarder in the Carino household but had been evicted after making unwanted advances on Mrs. Carino. To make matters worse, the shootings took place in a poolhall in front of the couple’s young children – a son, Terry, age 3, and a daughter, Frances, 2.83 The children’s maternal uncle, John Rico, gained custody of them.84 Rico was Alfred Brown’s co-worker. He was also single and, apparently, he did not think he could properly care for the children. In stepped Alfred and Faye Brown, who eventually adopted the two youngsters and raised them as their own.85 The irony that a man living under an alias, who was accused – most likely, wrongfully – of murder adopted two children whose parents were murdered is a turn of events that most people expect to encounter only in a mystery novel.

At the time of the 1940 US Census, the Browns were still living in Marysville as were the Rico children, who still resided with their uncle. Alfred’s (Dave’s) occupation was listed as “laborer,” but his class of worker was given as “wage or salary worker in Government work,” as he was employed by the US Post Office for a time. The Census also shows that Dave gave his birth year as 1902 and birth state as Illinois, and he claimed that his parents had both been born in Michigan. In 1942 Dave filled out a World War II draft registration card for which he provided the full name “Alfred Basil Brown.” He claimed his birthdate was June 9, 1901, and that he had been born in Chicago.

Just as Dave Brown had kept part of his past intact in his Lefty Wilson years, namely his tenure as a member of the Chicago American Giants, he now mixed fact with fiction under his new alias. His last name truly was Brown. He had been born on June 9 but in 1897 rather than 1901. And he had achieved baseball stardom in Chicago, though he had not been born there.

By 1948, the Browns had adopted Terry and Frances Rico, and the family had moved to San Francisco, where Faye operated a beauty salon while Alfred worked as a house painter, which remained his occupation until his death. At some point in the 1950s, the family moved to Spokane, Washington, where Alfred and Faye were officially married on July 23, 1956. The Browns had raised their adopted children to adulthood – they never had any biological children of their own – and Dave lived his new life as Alfred, the house painter. After Faye died on November 9, 1981,86 Brown moved back to California, where he settled in Los Angeles. When his sister, Eva, died in Madera (near Fresno) in July 1983,87 he was the only one of his siblings still living.

Alfred Basil Brown, once better known as Negro League star Dave Brown, died on May 24, 1985, in a Los Angeles-area hospital. His death certificate indicates that he had been ill with heart disease for 10 years, and his causes of death were listed as cardiac arrest and acute myocardial infarction. Brown was buried in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Toya Rico, Alfred (Dave) Brown’s granddaughter, wrote of Alfred and Faye, “When they lived in San Francisco, we visited often. When they moved to Spokane, Washington, we visited every summer. They were the most loving and kind grandparents. I only learned that Alfred was in the Negro Leagues in a passing conversation with my father (after Grandpa died) that I thought was an exaggeration, because he was quite the embellisher.”88 Her portrayal of Brown aligns with descriptions Riley gleaned from some of Brown’s teammates, who said he was a “kind, wonderful fellow” and that he was “jolly” and “joking all the time.”89

It seems that history and historians owe Dave Brown an apology. After a closer look at the accusations made by Foster, the varied descriptions and unusual circumstances of the Adair shooting, and the facts of the Greensboro Dave Brown case, it appears unlikely that Dave Brown the ballplayer was guilty of committing any of those crimes. Instead, his reinvention as Alfred Brown provides a true reflection of the nature of the man: someone who took in two traumatized children and raised them as his own and who was, in Toya Rico’s words, “loving and kind.”

Acknowledgments

The true story of Dave Brown’s metamorphosis into Alfred Brown might never have come to light were it not for the curiosity and research acumen of SABR member Richard Bogovich. We had collaborated previously to find the story of Carl Howard, who pitched briefly for the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords, as Richard was writing Howard’s biography for Pride of Smoketown. However, the discovery of Dave Brown’s second life as Alfred Brown generated far more excitement for both of us.

Richard had become intrigued by Brown’s story after reading the initial version of his biography that I had written for The First Negro League Champion: The 1920 Chicago American Giants. The old maxim that “two heads are better than one” was proved to be true as we built upon each other’s research. I had traced Felix Brown’s entire life, thinking that perhaps Dave had moved west after 1938 to be near his brother, but I had not bothered to look up Felix’s obituary. Richard took that extra step and found the name of the nonexistent brother, Alfred, listed as a surviving relative. Richard stated that it did not occur to him to look for a World War II draft registration card for Alfred Brown, but I did so. Upon finding the document, we discovered that the signature for the name “Brown” looked quite similar on Alfred’s WWII registration and Dave’s WWI cards. The fact that Alfred’s birth month and date were identical to Dave’s, though the year was different, aroused additional excitement. Alfred claimed to have been born in Chicago, where Dave found baseball stardom, but no Alfred B. Brown born there in 1901, or 1902, could be found in any records.

Gradually, Richard and I were able to put the pieces together, and we located two of Brown’s grandchildren, whom we then contacted. Brown’s grandson, Andre Rico, sent us a photo that confirmed Alfred to have been Dave – it was a well-known photo of the pitcher in the uniform of the Cuban Winter League’s Santa Clara Leopardes. Alfred Brown’s death certificate still gives the false birth year of 1901 and false birthplace of Chicago, but his parents’ names are the same as Dave’s and their birthplace is correctly listed as Texas. Thus, we are certain that Alfred and Dave were one and the same person.

The complete story of our efforts to solve the long-standing mystery of what happened to Dave Brown, as well as the rehabilitation of his falsely maligned reputation, will be related in detail in a separate article.

This biography was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

Except where otherwise indicated, all player statistics and team records were taken from Seamheads.com.

Ancestry.com was consulted for US Census information, military records, and birth and death records, except for Alfred Brown’s death certificate, which was obtained from the state of California.

Notes

1 Multiple sources list Dave Brown’s place of birth as San Marcos, Texas; however, that was the birthplace of catcher Jim Brown. There is no evidence that the two players were related; even if they were kin, they certainly were not members of the same immediate family.

2 Silas Brown is listed as “Cyrus” in the 1900 census, but this appears to be a census-taker’s error that was typical of that time. Dave gave his father’s name as “Silas” on his 1918 World War I draft registration card, and Felix Brown gave the initials “S.B.” – with “S.” presumably standing for “Silas” – when he provided family information for their brother Webster’s death certificate.

3 “Arkansas Negroes Clean Up on Dallas,” Fort Worth Record, June 7, 1917: 7. Since the two players had the same last name, their positions were sometimes listed incorrectly in newspaper lineups or line scores. The error is readily apparent because while a catcher might pitch in an emergency if he were able to do so, it is extremely doubtful that any team in any era would risk an injury to a star pitcher by having him catch. (As Negro Leagues fans are likely already aware, there was one notable exception to this rule in the person of Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, who earned his nickname by sometimes pitching one game of a doubleheader and then catching the second game.)

4 “Dallas Black Giants Win Game in Twelfth,” Fort Worth Record, June 15, 1917: 11.

5 J. Alba Austin, “Dallas Black Giants Take 2 from Camp Travis Nine,” Chicago Defender (Big Weekend Edition), May 25, 1918: 9.

6 “Plenty of Baseball Provided for Fans of Dallas Today,” Dallas Morning News, August 11, 1918.

7 “American Giants Open Sunday: ‘Rube’ Foster Will Present the Greatest Team of his Career,” Chicago Defender, April 12, 1919: 11.

8 “League Moguls Here This Week; Baseball War Looms,” Chicago Defender, March 17, 1923: 10. Foster’s allegations became rumors that were widespread enough to be included in different works by noted Negro League historians James A. Riley and John B. Holway; however, no evidence has ever been offered to substantiate the story. In fact, Foster’s initial tale took on additional uncertainty, with Riley even stating that the highway robbery incident involving Brown occurred in the year 1917; see James A. Riley, Of Monarchs and Black Barons: Essays on Baseball’s Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012), 71. Riley’s claim contradicts Foster’s assertion that the incident occurred after Brown had first pitched for the Chicago American Giants in 1919 and demonstrates how the story took on a life of its own beyond the initial news article in the Defender.

9 “League Moguls Here This Week; Baseball War Looms.”

10 Foster would not have had to pay $20,000 for the bond; however, even the standard 10 percent of that figure is $2,000, which would have been an exorbitant sum for Foster to pay for a pitcher he claimed had not yet proved himself. Another problem with Foster’s story involves the terminology used. Foster claimed that he paid a bond to have Brown paroled to him; however, these two things do not go together. A bond is paid so that an accused person who is being released from jail will show up in court for his hearing and/or trial, whereas parole is granted to a person who has already been convicted and has been serving time in prison. Thus, if Foster truly paid money to have Brown released from prison – an action that seems highly doubtful – he may have managed to bribe prison officials rather than to follow any legal procedures.

11 “Desperado Is Slain in Fight with Cops,” Tampa Bay Times, March 14, 1919: 3.

12 “Negro Killed after Long Chase by Officers,” Dallas Morning News, February 1, 1919: 5.

13 “Negro Killed after Long Chase by Officers.”

14 The other major independent teams in the West in 1919 were the Detroit Stars, Cuban Stars West, St. Louis Giants, Dayton Marcos, Jewell’s ABCs, and the Chicago Giants.

15 “Foster Giants, With Two Hits, Nip Kenosha, 5-0,” Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1919: 19.

16 Except for the Jewell’s ABCs, all the major Western Independent Clubs from 1919 became members of the NNL in 1920; two additional squads – the Indianapolis ABCs and the Kansas City Monarchs – also were founding members of the circuit.

17 Captain James H. Smith, “Foster’s Crew Puts Kibosh on Chicago Giants,” Chicago Defender, May 15, 1920: 9.

18 “American Giants, 2; Knoxville, 1,” Chicago Defender, October 9, 1920: 6; Riley, Of Monarchs and Black Barons, 74.

19 Paul Debono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007), 80.

20 Chicago’s 4-3-1 record against the Bacharach Giants was derived from the game accounts found in Bill Nowlin’s timeline for the 1920 American Giants in Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin, eds., The First Negro League Champion: The 1920 Chicago American Giants (Phoenix: SABR, 2022).

21 “Pitchers’ Battle Goes to Dave Brown, 1-0,” Chicago Defender, August 20, 1921: 10.

22 “Pitchers’ Battle Goes to Dave Brown, 1-0.”

23 Frank Young, “It’s All in the Game: The Montgomery Grey Sox-American Giants Game,” Chicago Defender, September 17, 1921: 10.

24 Debono, 85; “Chicago American Giants Beat Hilldale Team 5-2,” Wilmington (Delaware) Morning News, October 11, 1921: 7.

25 Debono, 85.

26 “Near-Riot Stops Baseball Game,” Chicago Defender, May 13, 1922: 1.

27 Mister Fan, “American Giants Find K.C. Monarchs a Tough Bunch,” Chicago Defender, May 13, 1922: 10.

28 “American Giants Find K.C. Monarchs a Tough Bunch.”

29 “American Giants Find K.C. Monarchs a Tough Bunch.”

30 “Near-Riot Stops Baseball Game.”

31 Debono, 90.

32 “The Game Play by Play,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1922: 10.

33 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2003), 143.

34 Figueredo, 147.

35 The founding teams of the Eastern Colored League were Hilldale, the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, the Cuban Stars East, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, the New York Lincoln Giants, and the Baltimore Black Sox.

36 “Pitchers Brown and Rile Jump to the Outlaws,” Chicago Defender, February 17, 1923: 10.

37 “Pitchers Brown and Rile Jump to the Outlaws.”

38 “League Moguls Here This Week; Baseball War Looms.”

39 Figueredo, 148.

40 Figueredo, 154.

41 “Lincoln Giants Grab Two Games from Washington,” Chicago Defender, May 24, 1924: 9. The Harrisburg Giants were the other new addition to the ECL in 1924.

42 “Lincoln Giants Outclass Bacharach Giants in Two Games and Lead League,” Chicago Defender, May 31, 1924: 9.

43 “Cubans Win Two Games from the Lincolns,” Chicago Defender, October 4, 1924: 9.

44 Figueredo, 157.

45 Figueredo, 157-58, 160.

46 “Lincolns Win Two from Bacharach Giants,” Delaware County Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), April 28, 1925: 8.

47 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 118. The claim was repeated in Riley, Of Monarchs and Black Barons, 73.

48 “Man Shot Dead by Enemy in Street,” New York Evening Journal, April 28, 1925: 12.

49 “Shot Entering His Home/Man Is Instantly Killed – Assailant Escapes,” New York Evening Post, April 28, 1925: 2.

50 “Extra: Kill Man and Escape in Taxi,” New York Amsterdam News, April 29, 1925: 1.

51 “Gunmen Shoot Down Man at His Doorstep: Cops Comb City for Slayers,” Chicago Defender, May 2, 1925: 4.

52 “Gunmen Shoot Down Man at His Doorstep: Cops Comb City for Slayers.”

53 “Man Shot Down in Street; Dies in Hospital,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 2, 1925: 1.

54 “Local Baseball Players Alleged to Be Mixed in Shooting of Benj. Adair,” New York Age, May 2, 1925: 1.

55 “Taxi Driver Freed in Adair Murder,” New York Amsterdam News, May 6, 1925: 2.

56 “Police Unable to Find Ballplayers,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 16, 1925: 6.

57 “Police Unable to Find Ballplayers.”

58 “Lincoln Giants Get Rid of Marcel [sic] in Trade with Bacharach Giants, Getting Three Hurlers for the ‘Stormy Petrel,’” New York Age, May 16, 1925: 6.

59 “Oliver Marcel [sic] Back with Lincoln Giants,” New York Age, June 20, 1925: 6.

60 “Frank Wickware, Pitcher, Is Freed in Murder Case,” Chicago Defender, May 23, 1925: 9.

61 W. Rollo Wilson, “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 9, 1925: 13.

62 “Colored Boys Run Wild to Win, 11 to 4,” Davenport (Iowa) Daily Times, June 21, 1926: 14.

63 “Union Giants Hurler Whiffs 17 at Spencer,” Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, July 10, 1926: 9.

64 “LeMars Loses to Pipestone by 7-2 Score,” Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, July 31, 1926: 15.

65 Peter W. Gorton, “The Mystery of Lefty Wilson” in Steven R. Hoffbeck, ed., Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005), 108-111.

66 Gorton in Hoffbeck, 110.

67 Gorton in Hoffbeck, 110.

68 “Donaldson and Wilson to Be Opposing Pitchers,” Brainerd (Minnesota) Daily Dispatch, June 14, 1928: 5.

69 Riley, Of Monarchs and Black Barons, 73-74; John Maher, “A Tale of Baseball, Murder, Mystery,” Austin American-Statesman, August 25, 1997: 15, 22.

70 Gorton in Hoffbeck, 110-11.

71 “S.C. Firm Will Back Fast Club,” Sioux City Journal, April 14, 1929: 21.

72 Joe Ryan, “Keri-Keen Wins from Kary-All,” Sioux City Journal, May 12, 1929: 21.

73 “Cubans Drop Final Tilt 5-4,” Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) Star-Phoenix, August 30, 1929: 21.

74 “Colored Davids Down Springers by 8 to 6 Count,” St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, June 23, 1930: 13.

75 “Bewhiskered Colored Team Invades Copeland Today,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, August 30, 1931: 9.

76 “Fineis Giants Split Two with Davidites,” Grand Rapids (Michigan) Press, August 5, 1932: 18.

77 “Jess Wells Injured and Negro Is Held,” Greensboro (North Carolina) Daily News, July 16, 1938: 4. Subsequent articles in both Greensboro newspapers always gave the victim’s first name as Jack, which appears to have been his correct name.

78 “Negro May Be Involved in 13-Year-Old Murder,” Greensboro Record, July 23, 1938: 10. This article erroneously gave Brown’s first name as George.

79 “Negro May Be Involved in 13-Year-Old Murder.”

80 “Lucky,” Raleigh News and Observer, July 31, 1938: 6.

81 “Dave Brown, Charged with Murder, Waives Extradition/Was Arrested Here on Robbery Charge,” Greensboro Daily News, July 24, 1938: 19.

82 “Expect Word Today from New Yorkers About Dave Brown,” Greensboro Daily News, July 25, 1938: 14.

83 “Filipino Trio Dies; Slayer Ends Own Life,” Marysville (California) Appeal-Democrat, February 8, 1937: 1-2.

84 “Echoes of Slaying Heard in Appeal,” Marysville Appeal-Democrat, March 25, 1937: 7.

85 Toya Rico, Terry Rico’s daughter and Alfred/Dave Brown’s granddaughter, provided this information in an April 12, 2023, Instagram correspondence with Richard Bogovich.

86 “Brown, Faye L.,” Spokane Chronicle, November 11, 1981: 27.

87 “Obituaries: Eva L. Sims,” Fresno Bee, July 29, 1983: B3.

88 Toya Rico message to Richard Bogovich via Instagram, April 12, 2023.

89 Riley, Biographical Encyclopedia, 117.

When the name Jim Brown is mentioned, most sports fans call to mind the NFL’s Hall of Fame running back who starred for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. There was, however, an earlier Jim Brown – a catcher, first baseman, and, later, a manager – who played for Chicago American Giants squads that won five Negro National League pennants and two Negro League World Series in the 1920s. The worst thing reported about Brown was that a sheriff remembered him “as having kicked a dog a few years back and [that he] hasn’t any particular love for the guardians of the law.”1 Whether Brown cared for legal authorities or not, he was never reported to have been arrested or accused of any crime. Nonetheless, he has been depicted as a miscreant to the point that a sensationalized story about how he died has become better known than reality.2 The truth about Brown is that he put together a solid career as a player and manager that spanned the years 1914 to 1942, and the only troubles he was reported to have were occasional disciplinary actions due to vehement arguments with umpires.

James Rattles Brown was born on May 16, 1892, in San Marcos, Texas, to John and Emma Brown.3 He was the couple’s second child and had an older sister named Mary. In 1900 John worked as a press feeder at an oil mill and Emma was a laundress. James, or Jim as he was called, attended school, though the highest grade he completed is unknown. Also lost to history is how he attained his baseball skills and what type of work he did prior to becoming a professional ballplayer.

Whatever Brown did in his early years, in 1914, at the age of 22, he first appeared as a catcher for owner Enos Whittaker’s Dallas Black Giants team.4 Brown continued to grow into a top talent with Dallas in 1915 and 1916 as the Black Giants’ everyday backstop and developed the switch-hitting skills that made him a desirable asset. Press coverage of the team was sparse, but one known highlight for Brown was a two-out, 12th-inning home run for a 6-5 victory over the Austin Black Senators in a game on July 3, 1915, at Gardner Park in Dallas.5

In 1917 pitcher Dave Brown (no relation) joined the Dallas team, and the two players became renowned as the “Brown Battery” during their tenure with the Black Giants in 1917 and 1918.6 Rube Foster, owner of the Chicago American Giants, signed both Browns for his team in 1919. The Chicago Defender raved about Jim Brown after his arrival in the Windy City on April 6, declaring, “He has a whip of steel and a clouting eye. … Brown looks like a winning type of ball player and room just had to be made for him.”7

The 1919 season marked the American Giants’ last campaign as an independent ballclub, and the team finished with a 27-16 record against rival Black teams in the West. George Dixon was Chicago’s starting catcher, but Brown made the most of his opportunities and batted .310 with a .394 on-base percentage compared with Dixon’s .261 BA and .344 OBP. The handwriting was on the wall for Dixon and the two catchers reversed roles in 1920.

Prior to the start of the 1920 season, Rube Foster and owners of most of the West’s other major independent Black ballclubs formed the first Negro National League on February 13 at the Paseo Branch of the YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri.8 Foster’s American Giants dominated the league by winning the first three pennants (1920-1922).

Brown was the starting catcher in 1920 as the American Giants romped to a 43-17-2 league record that put them eight games ahead of the second-place Detroit Stars in the final standings. He had impressed Foster enough to become the first-string backstop, but the toll that catching takes on a player’s body was evident when Dixon outperformed him at the plate over the course of the season with a .324 batting average and .391 on-base percentage compared with Brown’s .235 and .330 marks.

Nonetheless, Brown was a key component in the team’s success, and he once again formed the Brown Battery with his former Dallas teammate Dave Brown. On August 22 the Brown Battery worked its magic against the Kansas City Monarchs in a 5-1 victory at Schorling Park in Chicago. Dave hurled a complete game, and Jim scored one of Chicago’s five runs. The American Giants embarrassed the Monarchs’ battery of pitcher Sam Crawford and catcher Vicente Rodriguez by stealing bases at will. Jim Brown joined in the fun by stealing second base in the third inning (and later scoring) and adding a steal of third in the eighth, an inning in which Chicago swiped a total of five bases.9

At the conclusion of the NNL’s inaugural season in 1920, Foster took his squad on a swing through the South in late September and early October. The American Giants defeated the Knoxville Giants for their 14th consecutive victory on October 2 that “sealed their status as the best black ball club in the country.”10 Next, they traveled northeast to take on the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in a series of games played at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park and Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. This series was to serve as “a dress rehearsal for what Rube envisioned as the black World Series.”11 The Bacharachs provided a stiff challenge, but the American Giants emerged with a 4-3-1 record in the series against the East’s top independent club, and Foster’s Chicago squad reigned supreme in 1920.12

In 1921 the American Giants held off the Kansas City Monarchs and St. Louis Giants to win a second consecutive NNL pennant. Dixon and Brown shared the catching duties to such an equitable extent that they appeared in the same number of games (53) and had the exact same number of plate appearances (186). Brown batted .289 and drove in 30 runs while Dixon hit .224 with 33 RBIs.

The following year, Chicago barely held off the Kansas City Monarchs to retain the NNL title. The American Giants won the pennant by virtue of having an almost infinitesimally greater winning percentage than Kansas City: The American Giants’ 37-24-1 record gave them a .607 winning percentage compared with the Monarchs’ 47-31-2, .603 mark. Brown recaptured the lion’s share of the time behind the plate – playing in 62 games to Dixon’s 28 – and batted .268 with 43 RBIs while Dixon hit .250 and drove in 14 runs. Brown also flashed a bit of speed by stealing 12 bases, an impressive number for a catcher.

The 1923 season marked a reversal of fortunes between the American Giants and the Monarchs. Ace pitcher Dave Brown defected to the New York Lincoln Giants of the new Eastern Colored League, which had been founded by Ed Bolden, owner of the Hilldale Club, to compete with the Western teams of the NNL. American Giants pitcher Ed “Huck” Rile was accused of luring players – such as Dave Brown – to teams in the new Eastern circuit and it was thought that he too would defect from Foster’s team.13 Instead, Rile emerged as the American Giants’ new ace, going 15-7 with a 2.53 ERA in NNL play, but it was not enough to keep Chicago atop the league standings as the team finished 3½ games behind first-place Kansas City. Jim Brown was firmly entrenched as Chicago’s starting catcher – Dixon was gone now – and, in 69 league games, he batted .238 with 45 RBIs.

Although the American Giants had finished second in the NNL, they were still a top-flight team, and they scheduled what was initially to be only a two-game series against the American League’s Detroit Tigers at Schorling Park in late October.14 Ty Cobb, the Tigers’ legendary player-manager, did not participate in the series, but the Detroit team – which had also finished in second place in its league – was otherwise at full strength. The Tigers’ roster included future Hall of Fame outfielders Harry Heilmann and Heinie Manush as well as 21-game winner George “Hooks” Dauss.

The first game took place on Saturday, October 20, and ended in a 5-5 tie when darkness forced the game to be halted at the end of the ninth inning.15 Brown committed two costly errors in the game: The first miscue resulted in two Detroit runs that tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the fifth, and the second allowed Detroit to tally three more runs in the top of the sixth and take a 5-4 lead.16 Chicago tied the game in the bottom of the eighth when Oscar Charleston crossed the plate, and the first game remained deadlocked.

The next day, 8,000 fans were in attendance as Detroit dominated the second game and won by a 7-1 score. The Tigers pounced on Rile for one run in the first inning and two more in the second and never looked back. For good measure, Detroit tacked on four more runs against Slim Branham, Chicago’s third pitcher of the day (after Tom Williams), in the top of the ninth inning.17

Since the first game had ended tied, the two teams played again on October 22, and “[t]he American Giants rang the curtain down on their 1923 baseball season by winning an 8 to 6 game from the Detroit Tigers.”18 With the game tied, 3-3, Chicago erupted for five runs against Dauss (who pitched the entire game) in the bottom of the seventh inning and then held on for the victory. Brown went 2-for-3 at the plate and scored two runs in the finale, thus atoning for his gaffes behind the dish in the first game. In finishing the series at 1-1-1, the American Giants had shown themselves to be the equals of their White major-league counterparts.

During the offseason, Brown had another reason to celebrate as he married Hattie Mae Trymise in his hometown of San Marcos.19 The joy, however, may have been short-lived as the couple was divorced by the time of Brown’s death and they did not have any children.

The 1924 NNL season resulted in another second-place finish for Chicago, five games behind the Monarchs. The disappointment was even more palpable as the year 1924 marked the first Negro League World Series between representatives of the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League. Foster had been preparing for such an event via his postseason tours to the East since 1920 and had been a key figure in bringing about this World Series. Now, all he could do was watch as the NNL rival Monarchs defeated Hilldale – owned by ECL founder Ed Bolden – in a 10-game classic (5-4-1).

Prior to the 1925 season, Foster cleaned house and released numerous aging stars in an effort to rebuild his team.20Although Brown turned 33 in May, he remained the American Giants’ starting catcher. In a season preview article, the Pittsburgh Courier extolled Brown as having “[o]ne of the best throwing arms in the game [and being] fleet of foot and a dangerous left-hand batter.”21

The Chicago Defender had high hopes for the American Giants at the 1925 season’s outset after the team beat the city champion Chicago Blues, 5-3, at Schorling Park on Opening Day (Sunday, April 12). Columnist Frank A. Youngdeclared, “With the weather man dishing out sunshine and warmth of a June afternoon, 5,000 fans wended their way to the 39th St. grounds to get a glimpse of Foster’s rejuvenated team, which from the brand of the national pastime they handed the assemblage Sunday, promises to bring to this city the National league championship.”22 By season’s end, however, Chicago finished in third place, a full 10 games behind first-place Kansas City and 6½ games behind the second-place St. Louis Stars. Despite the preseason accolades he had received, Brown’s batting average dropped from .266 in 1924 to .232 in 1925 and reflected his team’s temporary decline.

On top of Chicago’s continued slide in the standings, Foster had almost died of asphyxiation due to a faulty gas heater at the team’s boarding house in Indianapolis on May 26. Foster, who lived life at a frenetic pace, “brushed off the near-death experience and returned to Chicago with Mrs. Foster the next day.”23 Although he had survived the ordeal, Foster’s behavior became more erratic from that time forward.

Nonetheless, Foster’s baseball acumen was intact as the 1926 American Giants soared to new heights. Brown had his finest season for Chicago, batting .309 with a .395 on-base percentage and 46 RBIs in 75 league games. Age and the rigors of catching had begun to take their toll on him, and he played 50 of 74 regular-season games at first base, which helped to reinvigorate his bat. Pythias Russ was the primary catcher, and the two backstops caught a revamped pitching staff that posted a 2.74 team ERA, the best mark since the 1920 staff’s 2.32 ERA. The ace of the 1926 staff was none other than Willie Foster, Rube’s younger brother and a future Hall of Famer, who went 13-4 with a 1.80 ERA in NNL play.

Rube began the 1926 campaign in his familiar position as skipper. Chicago finished the first half of the NNL season with a 27-17-1 record under Foster as Kansas City again captured the title. However, Rube’s behavior had become so bizarre that he was urged to take a two-week vacation to get some much-needed rest. Third baseman Dave Malarcher took over as player-manager in the season’s second half and guided the team to a stellar 30-7-2 record to capture the second-half title. Malarcher’s managerial position became permanent after Foster’s vacation did not help to heal him. Eight days after a violent incident in August, during which he destroyed furniture in his apartment and threatened a friend with an ice pick, Foster “was declared mentally irresponsible and committed to the state hospital in Kankakee, Illinois. The event sent shock waves through the world of black baseball.”24

Foster spent the last four years of his life in the asylum in Kankakee. It was a tragic end to the life and career of a stellar pitcher, manager, and entrepreneur. It also meant that he did not get to see his Chicago American Giants win their first World Series in 1926. First, Chicago defeated the Kansas City Monarchs in a tough nine-game NNL playoff series. In an equally challenging World Series, the American Giants defeated the ECL’s Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in 11 games, with two of the contests ending in ties. Foster’s rebuild had paid off and the American Giants were indisputably Black baseball’s best team for the first time since 1920. Brown, for his part, struggled in the postseason, batting .250 against the Monarchs and only .158 against the Bacharachs while alternating between catcher and first base; however, by this time he had become an indispensable member of the team.

In 1927 the American Giants set to work to retain their status as kings of the baseball hill. Brown was now the longest-tenured player on the team. He again was Chicago’s starting first baseman, although he did spell catcher James Brayoccasionally. Brown’s mid-30s batting renaissance continued apace as he batted .299 with a .360 on-base percentage and 35 RBIs during the NNL season.

John Schorling, Rube Foster’s business partner, seized sole control of the American Giants from Rube’s wife, Sarah Foster, in what can only be termed as a hostile takeover. Schorling retained Malarcher as the manager and held on to most of the players, so the 1927 squad was still equipped to mount a defense of its title. Chicago won the NNL’s first-half championship, but again had to compete in a NNL playoff series when the Birmingham Black Barons captured the second-half flag.

Chicago had a composite 61-32-1 record in the NNL, but the team also excelled against outside competition. Over the Labor Day weekend, “the American Giants just had a gang of fun all to themselves at the expense of the Mills nine from the West side, the Hammond nine, with Buck Weaver, and the Duffy Florals, all white teams.”25 Brown’s bat was quiet on Saturday, September 3, when the American Giants defeated the Mills team, 3-1, but he was the offensive hero of the next two contests. On Sunday the local fans celebrated Buck Weaver Day, and the disgraced former White Sox third baseman “received a warm welcome from the crowd.”26 Brown greeted Weaver’s Hammond team with a 2-for-5 day in which he scored two runs and drove in the deciding run with an eighth-inning double as Chicago won, 5-3. The next day, Brown followed up with a 2-for-4 performance against the Duffy Florals and scored the game’s only run after drawing a one-out walk in the 11th inning.27

On September 19, it was back to business in the NNL as Chicago faced Birmingham in the playoffs. After losing the opener, the American Giants won the next four games to return to the World Series, where they faced a familiar foe. The Atlantic City Bacharach Giants had won both halves of the ECL’s split season and had been able to rest while Chicago battled Birmingham. It did not matter, though, as “[t]he similarities between the World Series of 1926 and that of 1927 [were] startling. The American Giants again won, five games to three, Willie Foster again won the final game against Hubert Lockhart, and an obscure left-handed Atlantic City pitcher [again threw] a no-hitter.”28 The American Giants extended their reign over the Black baseball world, and Brown had been a major contributor on offense this time around, batting .314 and driving in six runs while playing in all nine World Series games (one game had ended in a tie). These were heady days for the American Giants, but all was not well with the franchise or the Negro Leagues.

During the second half of the 1927 season, Schorling had sold the team to William Trimble, a White businessman from Princeton, Illinois. In addition to the American Giants missing Rube Foster, who had been both the team’s and the NNL’s guiding light, the Negro Leagues in general began to wane. In his wisdom, Foster “had always been a stern disciplinarian,” but now, “[w]ithout Foster, player behavior worsened and physical attacks on umpires weren’t uncommon. Scheduling, always an issue, became even tougher, and attendance waned. Black journalists began criticizing Negro League players for lackadaisical play, consuming alcohol during games, and excessive umpire baiting.”29 As his career progressed, Brown had his share of run-ins with umpires on the diamond.

The 1928 season was filled with adversity for Brown and the American Giants. The St. Louis Stars took the first-half title while Chicago coped with injuries. Manager-third baseman Malarcher missed several weeks after breaking a bone in his shoulder, during which time pitcher George Harney skippered the team to an 18-19 record (they were 40-21-1 under Malarcher).

On July 7, the Chicago Defender reported that Brown had undergone “an operation … Wednesday morning” – although the type of surgery was not mentioned – and he was expected to be hospitalized for “about 11 days.”30 Like Malarcher, Brown missed several weeks of playing time. He returned in time to take part in one of the ugly incidents with umpires that were plaguing the Negro Leagues. During an August 25 game against the Detroit Stars in Chicago, American Giants right fielder Walter “Steel Arm” Davis “lost his temper and hit [umpire] Moore in the face,” for which action he was suspended indefinitely by the league.31 Brown and four Chicago teammates were fined $5 each for arguing with the umpire about the call that caused Davis to commit assault on the game’s arbiter.32 It was a nasty confrontation in an abbreviated season for Brown that saw him appear in a mere 37 games during which he batted .264 with only 12 RBIs.

The American Giants mounted one final charge to garner the NNL’s second-half championship and earned the right to face St. Louis in the playoffs. The Stars routed the American Giants, 19-4, on October 4 in St. Louis to tie the series at four games apiece. The next day, the dispirited Chicagoans suffered a 9-2 defeat that put an end to their title hopes. St. Louis had to settle for the NNL championship since the ECL had folded early in the season, putting the Negro League World Series on hiatus for what turned out to be a 14-year period.

Prior to the 1929 season, Malarcher, who was unhappy with Trimble’s ownership style, left the team. As a result, Brown “was appointed the ‘captain,’ and took up the field manager duties.”33 Unfortunately for Brown, numerous other stalwarts from the past two seasons were also displeased with Trimble and defected from the team, leaving him with a depleted roster. Future Hall of Famers Cool Papa Bell, Mule Suttles, and Willie Wells all played for Chicago in 1929 but only for four games. Willie Foster was the only Hall of Famer whom Brown was able to count on all season, and he managed only a 9-7 record due to a lack of run support.

At one point, as the American Giants struggled in NNL play, a known felon thought things were so bad that he might finagle a slot in Chicago’s pitching rotation. Memphis Red Sox pitcher Robert Poindexter, upset over a 14-3 shellacking by the St. Louis Stars, had taken umbrage at teammate J.C. McHaskell’s attempt to cheer him up, pulled a revolver, and shot McHaskell in the foot. After Poindexter was arrested, it was discovered that he was wanted in Atlanta “about a little matter of a violated parole.”34 Inexplicably, Poindexter was able to extricate himself from legal trouble on both counts and went about searching for new employment. After being rebuffed by the Detroit club, “[h]e failed also to convince Jim Brown that he should be hired or come to Chicago via trade.”35 Brown may well have remembered what had happened to his former Brown Battery mate from Texas, Dave Brown, after he left Chicago and decided that on-field success was not worth off-field crimes. Dave Brown was, at that very moment, playing semipro ball in the Midwest under the alias Lefty Wilson while being wanted for murder for an April 28, 1925, shooting in New York City.

In late June, it was reported that Brown and catcher Pythias Russ were facing suspensions for their roles in another dust-up with an umpire during a midmonth series with the Monarchs in Kansas City. According to the Defender, “the [NNL] president’s office [was] simply awaiting a detailed report from the umpires in Kansas City where some serious trouble was narrowly averted.”36

The next time Chicago and Kansas City faced off, in a late-June/early-July series, the two teams split six games, but the Monarchs claimed the NNL’s first-half championship. To add insult to injury, Andy Cooper hurled a 2-0 no-hitter against the American Giants in the third game of the series on July 1 at Schorling Park.37 The Monarchs also claimed the second-half title and were the undisputed champions of the NNL. Chicago finished 51-40 in NNL play, which put the team in third place in the composite standings, 17½ games behind Kansas City. Brown’s first season at the helm was by no means an abject failure – the team finished 62-42 against all competition – but, compared with the three previous campaigns, it was a disappointment. As a player, Brown had inserted himself into the lineup wherever he was needed – infield, outfield, catcher, pinch-hitter – and had batted .248 with 21 RBIs.

Brown’s second season as skipper started off promisingly, with Chicago taking four of five games from the Detroit Stars in their opening series and then splitting a four-game set with the New York Cubans. However, things quickly went downhill and Brown’s frustration with his team began to show. In mid-June, the Defender noted, “He has tried benching Jelly Gardner, Walter Davis, Charlie Williams, Murray and Jeffries, but none of the substitutes he has put in the game have shown any better work.”38 Brown became so distressed by the American Giants’ perceived lack of effort that he resigned as manager on July 1 – but stayed on as a player – and, on July 12, it was reported that Willie Foster would take the reins.39

The St. Louis Stars won the NNL’s first-half title, but Chicago took five games against the Cubans early in the season’s second half as they tried to right their ship. Brown, liberated from the pressures of managing, hit better than he had in some time and was the key player in the sweep. Once again, though, the good feelings did not last long.

In the second game of an August 17 doubleheader against Birmingham at Schorling Park, Satchel Paige threw three consecutive pitches that almost hit Chicago shortstop Eddie Miller. A riled-up Miller “left the box and went to the pitcher’s box to hit Satchel in the head with his (Miller’s) bat. Satchel ran. Miller chased him. Fans began to leave the park. Players intervened and two or three fights were narrowly averted.”40 The Defender blasted both teams and averred, “No such actions would be tolerated in either the [White] American or National league.”41 In the aftermath of this fiasco, Willie Foster decided to clean house. The Defender applauded Foster’s effort to rebuild, stating, “There are many on the Windy City outfit that have been there just too long – have outlived their usefulness, not as ball players, perhaps, but as drawing cards.”42

In the hope of recapturing a dwindling fan base, the American Giants also began to schedule series against top clubs outside of the NNL such as the independent Homestead Grays from Pittsburgh and the Houston Black Buffaloes, champions of the Texas-Louisiana League. Brown sparkled in both series as Chicago lost five of six to Homestead but won four of five against Houston. He had become a beloved elder statesman on the team, who was appreciated for his efforts, and “the folks [were] calling him good old Jim Brown.”43

The Detroit Stars won the NNL’s second-half title but lost the championship series to the St. Louis Stars. The American Giants finished 1930 in fourth place in the composite standings, 20 games behind St. Louis. A revitalized Brown batted .305 with 26 RBIs in 56 games during his last season as a full-time player with the American Giants.

Late in the 1930 season, the Defender had lamented, “The league in its 10th season is in worse shape than in its whole history. The efforts of Rube Foster, who lost his health because of his untiring work to build up the league, seems [sic] to have gone to waste. The league is like a drowning man – someone must save it.”44 Rube Foster died on December 9, 1930. Two months later, on February 7, Chicago found out that Willie Foster was not going to play the role of savior for his older brother’s team or league. Foster announced that he was resigning as manager of the American Giants to focus on his pitching, and then he bolted Chicago to join the Homestead Grays for the 1931 season.45 On top of all that, Trimble had sold ownership of the franchise to Charles Bidwell in the second half of the 1930 season and Bidwell now “treated the American Giants like a pot he lucked upon in a poker game and was at a loss about what to do next.”46

Many players followed in Willie Foster’s footsteps and abandoned the American Giants. Brown and several teammates formed an independent team and went on a barnstorming tour. The Cleveland Cubs, a new entry in the NNL, opened their season on May 23 against Brown and company.47 Meanwhile, Malarcher returned to Chicago and agreed to resume a leadership role as the American Giants were re-formed and renamed the Chicago Columbia Giants; the team remained a member franchise of the NNL. The Columbia Giants opened their season with a two-game sweep of the Nashville Elite Giants over the Decoration Day (Memorial Day) weekend.48 Brown was not yet back in the fold, but he returned in time for the next series against the St. Louis Stars and split his time between catching and first base.49

On July 4 it was reported that the Columbia Giants were departing for a five-game set in St. Louis, after which the team would return to Chicago and play the remainder of the season as an independent ballclub.50 Chicago finished the NNL season with a 6-17-1 record that placed the squad last out of six teams; St. Louis played twice as many league games and won the championship with a 37-10-1 record. Brown, who was now 39 years old, batted .292 but that number was deceptive since he had played in only nine league games.

In late August Brown headed back to his home state of Texas as a member of the barnstorming Charles Wesley Giants. Wesley, who had played for several NNL squads in the 1920s had formed an all-star team and now combined seven members of his squad with eight former American Giants to form a new team.51 After their tour through Texas, the team returned to the Midwest and played anywhere a game could be scheduled until winter arrived.52

Rube Foster’s first iteration of the Negro National League collapsed after the 1931 season. In 1932 the American Giants joined the Negro Southern League while Brown formed a traveling squad named the Rube Foster Memorial Giants. The NSL’s Nashville Elite Giants opened their season against Brown’s team on April 10.53 By the end of the month, it was announced that Brown’s squad would replace the Cleveland Cubs and would become a member of the NSL.54

Although the Defender now used the moniker Jim Brown’s Cleveland Cubs,55 Brown and the team never represented Cleveland because the franchise could not secure a home ballpark. The team finished a brief tour of the South and had an abysmal 1-15 record when its season and existence came to a merciful end. In mid-May, the mighty Monroe Monarchs swept a four-game series from Brown’s squad, including a doubleheader in which Elbert Williams threw a 6-0, one-hit victory that Barney Morris followed with a 4-0 no-hitter.56

Two weeks after the debacle against the Monarchs, Brown signed to take over as the skipper of the NSL’s Louisville Black Caps after that team started the season 0-8 (0-4 in the NSL) under ex-American Giants outfielder Jimmie Lyons.57 The Defender, which never printed a harsh word about Brown, ran the headline “Louisville Eyes Flag” after the Black Caps swept a three-game series from the Montgomery Grey Sox.58 That was wishful thinking, however, as the team disbanded in late July prior to a series against Monroe. It was reported that “[t]he Louisville club gave out no news of its plans to quit until Monroe had arrived on the scene Saturday [July 23] and then the sign was displayed, ‘No game today.’”59 A new semipro squad – the Red Birds, soon renamed the Red Sox – was cobbled together from the remnants of the Black Caps and another local team, and Brown finished the season in the same manager-catcher role that he had played for the Black Caps.60

After his itinerant 1932 season, Brown’s whereabouts for most of 1933 are a mystery. The Defender reported in March that Brown would manage the Nashville team, which now belonged to the second iteration of the Negro National League (as did the Chicago American Giants).61 On March 25 the Defender still claimed, “Dunn, an infielder, and Jim Brown, manager, who is now in Chicago, are expected to be on hand when the train pulls out of here.”62 However, on April 2 the Nashville Banner reported that “Felton] Stratton, a local boy, will be the playing manager.”63 Stratton managed Nashville for the entire 1933 season, and Brown is known to have played in a mere two games at catcher for Chicago.

In 1934 Brown was back on the map and had steady employment throughout the year. He managed the barnstorming Van Dyke House of David team that had been founded by Harry Crump in Des Moines, Iowa.64 The original (White) House of David team had belonged to a religious commune in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and its players were known for their long hair and beards. This was not the first Black team to take the House of David name and to wear fake beards, but rather was one of many such ballclubs. Brown’s squad toured the entire Western half of the United States and even made a foray into Canada. After a grueling tour that lasted from May 18 into early October, the team was scheduled to “head to Omaha, Nebr., where new headquarters will be opened up and then players will depart to Chicago for the winter.”65 The 42-year-old Brown not only managed the Van Dykes but also continued to play and “established quite a reputation as a slugger, pounding the ball at [a] .356 clip.”66

Although Brown had excelled in 1934, the arduous tour had to have taken its toll on him, and in 1935 he returned to the Chicago American Giants. The team was alternately known as the Cole’s American Giants, thus named after new owner Robert Cole, a Black undertaker who had bought the franchise prior to the 1932 season. The Defender hailed Brown’s hire, noting, “[he] will serve as first assistant to [new manager] Larry Brown both in the catching department and running of the team. [Jim] Brown is one of the keenest judges of players and plays ever to don a uniform. He was acting captain of the Giants for years during the old regime.”67

Brown was basically the bench coach for his new catcher-manager Larry Brown (no relation) and appeared in only 11 games as a player in 1935. When he did play, he contributed all he could with a .476 batting average and a .522 on-base percentage. The glory days for Chicago were long gone, however, and the team finished 24-31-1, which was only good enough for sixth place (out of eight teams) in the NNL2’s composite standings.

After the 1935 campaign, Brown temporarily retired from baseball. He did not play or manage in 1936, made one appearance at catcher for the American Giants in 1937, and remained retired through 1939. Brown resided in Chicago and eventually responded to the siren call of baseball in 1940, when he emerged from retirement to manage the Palmer House All-Stars.68 The team was sponsored by Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel and was composed mostly of former Negro League players who worked for the hotel. Brown took over a squad that had “won the Illinois State Semi-pro championship and competed in the national tourney in Wichita” the previous year.69

Although Brown appeared to have enjoyed leading the Palmer House team, he retired again and sat out the 1941 season.70 In 1942, however, he was lured out of retirement a second time to manage the Minneapolis-St. Paul Gophers of the new Negro Major Baseball League.71 The circuit was the brainchild of promoter Abe Saperstein (of Harlem Globetrotters basketball renown), and top personnel were hired to run what was to be a first-rate operation. League President R.R. Jackson of Chicago gave assurances that the league “plans to go its own way on a high-class plane, has no axes to grind and does not contemplate injurious measures in the other circuits of Negro baseball.”72

The Gophers played their home games at St. Paul’s Lexington Park, the home of the American Association’s St. Paul Saints, and were set to open their home slate on June 21 against Brown’s old team, the Chicago American Giants.73However, the honeymoon between the Gophers and the Twin Cities ended quickly.

On Sunday, June 28, the Gophers lost a 1-0 game to the Cincinnati Ethiopian Clowns that was called after six innings due to rain.74 Three days later, the Minneapolis Star printed complaints from a disenchanted fan named Lyle Dowdal:

“In order to keep the gate receipts, says Dowdel [sic], both teams swung at first balls offered them, no matter how bad they were. The players rushed into action as fast as they could UNTIL THE NECESSARY FOUR AND A HALF INNINGS WERE PLAYED AND THE MONEY BELONGED TO THE PROMOTERS. Then they just took things leisurely until the rain stopped proceedings for the afternoon.

‘It was the worst case of cheating the spectators I have seen in baseball in all my life,’ Dowdal relates.”75

The Star contacted Saperstein, whom it named as “the Director, schedule maker, financier and publicity agent” of the league, to solicit his opinion on the matter. Saperstein replied with a written rebuttal in which he denied any wrongdoing on the part of either team or the league. In its July 10 edition, the Star asserted, “We are not backing down one bit on [the accusations], but call it a closed incident by printing the Saperstein rebuttal with the added warning that no one can successfully establish a new promotional enterprise in these parts by making customers mad.”76

After the Gophers and Chicago Brown Bombers became the first Black baseball teams to play a game in Waterloo, Iowa, the local newspaper also was unimpressed. This time, however, the dissatisfaction was with the style of play between the two Negro Major Baseball League teams compared with that of White baseball nines. The Waterloo Courier remarked:

“The Negro boys have their own systems of baseball. It was apparent Wednesday evening. They bunted when orthodox baseball called for a full cut at the ball; they stole bases or attempted it when three runs behind and otherwise performed in a manner that bewildered old baseball heads who are accustomed to seeing Johnny Mostil and White Hawk baseball.

“… It was apparent from the very start that the White Hawks or any other team in the Three-I could handle both teams at one and the same time. A better match would be the East High nine and a combined team from the two Negro clubs which appeared at the Stadium. The score would be close, too.”77

The Courier’s insults – which smacked in part of racism – notwithstanding, it was apparent that the new Negro Major Baseball League did not offer spectators the same quality baseball as the true Negro major leagues did. By early August, Brown’s best players had defected to the New York Lincoln Giants,78 and the only Gophers that the Minneapolis press was covering were the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, who were preparing for the coming football season. It is unclear at what point the league folded, but it appears to have been a well-intentioned yet poorly implemented venture that failed to last an entire season.79

Brown, in poor health and divorced from his wife, Hattie, returned to Texas after the 1942 season and settled in San Antonio, which is close to his hometown of San Marcos. He was not there long before he died on January 21, 1943. Negro League historian James Riley has provided a wild account of Brown’s death that, as of the year 2021, proliferates on the Internet and in print. According to Riley, “Brown enjoyed nightlife and liked to gamble, and it eventually led to his death. In an incident relating to his gambling, he was thrown out of a moving car and died from a broken neck.”80

It is a peculiar tale of a violent death, but there is no truth to it. The Defender, in announcing Brown’s death to its readership, noted that Brown “had been seriously ill since the close of the 1942 baseball season.”81 The doctor who filled out Brown’s death certificate listed Brown’s cause of death as cardiac failure and observed that an enlarged liver and general edema were contributing factors. The secondary causes indicate that Brown likely consumed excessive amounts of alcohol, but he never achieved notoriety in the press for bad behavior that resulted from drunkenness and was not killed after a night of drinking and gambling.

On Sunday, January 24, 1943, Jim Brown was buried in San Marcos-Blanco Cemetery in San Marcos, Texas.82

Sources

All player statistics and team records were taken from Seamheads.com, except where otherwise indicated.

Ancestry.com was consulted for US Census information; military records; and birth, marriage, and death records.

Notes

1 “Lyons, Torrienti [sic] and Jim Brown Sign with Am. Giants,” Chicago Defender, January 13, 1923: 10.

2 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 121.

3 Jim Brown’s death certificate lists his mother’s maiden name as Emma Giles. However, the 1910 census shows that Emma’s widowed mother, Liza Ford, was living with the Brown family at that time and lists Emma Ford as an alternate name for Emma Brown. It is possible that Liza Ford could have been twice widowed, by husbands with the surnames Giles and Ford, or that Jim Brown’s death certificate was in error about the name Giles (as it was about his year of birth, listing 1895 rather than the year 1892 that is corroborated by numerous other official documents).

4 “Negro Baseball,” Shreveport Times, July 6, 1914: 8.

5 “Dallas Black Giants Win,” Dallas Morning News, July 4, 1915: 6.

6 Multiple sources erroneously list Dave Brown as also having been born in San Marcos, Texas; however, Dave Brown was born in Marquez, Texas. There is no evidence that the two players were related; even if they were kin, they certainly were not members of the same immediate family.

7 “American Giants Open Sunday: ‘Rube’ Foster Will Present the Greatest Team of His Career,” Chicago Defender, April 12, 1919: 11.

8 Except for the Jewell’s ABCs, all the major Western Independent Clubs from 1919 became members of the NNL in 1920; two additional squads – the Indianapolis ABCs and the Kansas City Monarchs – also were founding members of the circuit.

9 “American Giants Take Kansas City’s Measure,” Chicago Defender, August 28, 1920: 6.

10 “American Giants, 2; Knoxville, 1,” Chicago Defender, October 9, 1920: 6; James A. Riley, Of Monarchs and Black Barons: Essays on Baseball’s Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012), 74.

11 Paul Debono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007), 80.

12 Chicago’s 4-3-1 record against the Bacharach Giants was derived from the game accounts found in Bill Nowlin’s timeline for the 1920 American Giants in the present volume.

13 “Pitchers Brown and Rile Jump to the Outlaws,” Chicago Defender, February 17, 1923: 10.

14 “Detroit Americans Face Fosters in 2-Game Fight,” Chicago Defender, October 20, 1923: 9.

15 “American Giant Nine Plays 5-5 Tie with Tigers,” Chicago Tribune, October 21, 1923: 2-7.

16 Debono, 96.

17 “American Giants Bow, 7-1, Before Detroit Majors, Chicago Tribune, October 22, 1923: 26.

18 “Rube Foster’s Giants Beat Detroit Tigers,” Chicago Tribune, October 23, 1923: 25.

19 Hattie Mae’s surname may have been “Trymise” or “Trymire” since both variants appear in legal records.

20 “Foster Releases Several Ball Players: Leroy Grant Among Those Unfortunates,” Chicago Defender, March 7, 1925: 12.

21 “Trio of American Giants,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 14, 1925: 7. Since the Courier referred to Brown as a left-handed batter, it is unknown whether Brown had given up on switch-hitting or was simply a better hitter from the left side.

22 Frank A. Young, “American Giants in Tip Top Shape Hand Chicago Blues 5 to 3 Trimming,” Chicago Defender, April 18, 1925: 9.

23 Debono, 105.

24 Debono, 110.

25 “White Teams Fall Before American Giants Attack,” Chicago Defender, September 10, 1927: 9.

26 “White Teams Fall Before American Giants Attack.”

27 “White Teams Fall Before American Giants Attack.”

28 Kyle McNary, Black Baseball: A History of African-Americans & the National Game (New York: PRC Publishing Ltd., 2003), 112. In 1926 Atlantic City’s Claude “Red” Grier threw a no-hitter against Chicago in Game Three of the World Series; it was the high point of Grier’s career as he won only one game in 1927 before his career ended at the age of 23. In the 1927 World Series, Atlantic City’s Luther Farrell pitched a seven-inning no-hitter in Game Five; although the game was called early due to darkness, the victory went in the books. Farrell fared better than Grier after his World Series no-no and won a career-high 16 games during the 1928 ECL season.

29 McNary, 112.

30 “Jim Brown Operated on at Douglass Hospital,” Chicago Defender, July 7, 1928: 8. No primary or secondary sources list the nature of Brown’s surgery. However, a July 14 news article mentioned about the American Giants that “Russ has been moved to the short field and Davis, the right fielder, has been shifted to first since Jim Brown injured his leg.” Thus, it is entirely possible that Brown had surgery on his injured leg. (See “American Giants Play Stars Today,” Detroit Free Press, July 14, 1928: 15.)

31 “Davis Draws Suspension for Fighting,” Chicago Defender, September 1, 1928: 9.

32 “Davis Draws Suspension for Fighting.”

33 Debono, 122.

34 “Shoots First Sacker; Pitcher to Hoosegow,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, June 1, 1929: 8.

35 “Poindexter Claims Shooting Accidental,” Chicago Defender, June 15, 1929: 8. Although Poindexter apparently incurred no legal consequences for the shooting, he was banished by the NNL later in the month of June (see “Jim Brown, Russ Face Suspension, Chicago Defender, June 29, 1929: 8).

36 “Jim Brown, Russ Face Suspension.”

37 “Kansas City Wins First Half of National League 1929 Season/Kansas City Hands American Giants No-Hit, No-Run Game; Lead Series Two Games to One,” Chicago Defender, July 6, 1929: 8.

38 “Kansas City vs. Am. Giants on June 21st,” Chicago Defender, June 21, 1930: 9.

39 “Giants Face Kansas City on July 11th/Willie Foster Succeeds Jim Brown as Giant Pilot,” Chicago Defender, July 12, 1930: 9.

40 “New Faces to Be Seen in American Giants Line-Up as Result of Drastic Shake-Up,” Chicago Defender, August 23, 1930: 8.

41 “New Faces to Be Seen.”

42 “New Faces to Be Seen.”

43 “Houston Nine in Chicago for 1st Time,” Chicago Defender, September 13, 1930: 8. (See also: “Grays Beat Am. Giants; Black Buffs Here/Foster Only Giants Pitcher to Stop Homesteads; Jim Brown and C. White Sparkle,” Chicago Defender, September 13, 1930: 8).

44 “New Faces to Be Seen.”

45 “Foster Resigns Managership of Am. Giants,” Chicago Defender, February 7, 1931: 8.

46 Debono, 129.

47 “Cleveland to Play Team from Chicago,” Chicago Defender, May 23, 1931: 9.

48 Dan Burley, “Nashville Elite Giants Beaten Twice by Columbia Giants at Chicago, 4-1; 5-2,” Chicago Defender, June 6, 1931: 8.

49 “St. Louis Here for 5-Game Series,” Chicago Defender, June 6, 1931: 9.

50 Dan Burley, “Columbia Giants Win Series from Cincinnati; Leave for St. Louis for 5-Game Stand,” Chicago Defender, July 4, 1931: 8.

51 “Giants Off for Games in Texas/Former Giant Players on Tour of Southland/Leaves to Play Ball in Texas,” Chicago Defender, August 22, 1931: 8.

52 “Ex-American Giant Players Win Game,” Chicago Defender, October 3, 1931: 9.

53 “Elites to Play/Local Negro Ball Club Will Meet Chicago Outfit,” Nashville Banner, April 7, 1932: 15. In a distressing display of how quickly even a prominent person can fall from the public consciousness, the Banner printed the following correction in this article: “A story in Wednesday’s paper stated that Rube Foster was managing the Giants. That was incorrect, since Foster is dead. The club is a memorial to Foster.”

54 “Jim Brown’s Team in League: Franchise of Cleveland to Chicagoan’s 9,” Chicago Defender, April 30, 1932: 9.

55 “Cleveland to Welcome Jim Brown’s Team,” Chicago Defender, May 7, 1932: 8.

56 “Monroe Beats Cleveland in Straight Sets,” Chicago Defender, May 14, 1932: 9.

57 “Black Caps Away,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 28, 1932: 12.

58 “Louisville Eyes Flag: Jim Brown’s Gang Cops 3-Game Set,” Chicago Defender, July 16, 1932: 9.

59 “Louisville Quits Southern League,” Chicago Defender, July 30, 1932: 9.

60 “Louisville Quits Southern League”; “Jim Brown’s Team Victor,” Chicago Defender, August 20, 1932: 8.

61 “Leads Mates into Training,” Chicago Defender, March 18, 1933: 8.

62 “Nashville to Start Drills,” Chicago Defender, March 25, 1933: 9.

63 “Elite Giants Train in New Orleans, La.,” Nashville Banner, April 2, 1933: 11.

64 “Jim Brown’s Ball Team Wins a Pair,” Chicago Defender, May 26, 1934: 16.

65 “Jim Brown’s 9 to Tour Coast Starting Soon,” Chicago Defender, July 21, 1934: 17.

66 “Jim Brown Quits House of David to Play with Cole,” Chicago Defender, May 18, 1935: 13.

67 “Jim Brown Quits House of David to Play with Cole.”

68 “Jim Brown to Manage Palmer House Stars,” Chicago Defender, December 2, 1939: 22.

69 “Chicago All-Stars Bring Classy Club Here on Tuesday,” Davenport (Iowa) Daily Times, July 12, 1940: 16.

70 “Palmer House Boys Feted at Boosters Club,” Chicago Defender, December 14, 1940: 20.

71 “Chicago, Detroit, Boston, St. Paul, Baltimore, Minneapolis Form Loop,” Atlanta Daily World, March 25, 1942: 5.

72 “New League Has No Axes to Sharpen,” New York Amsterdam Star-News, April 4, 1942: 13.

73 “St. Paul Gophers Open Season Sunday June 21,” Chicago Defender, June 20, 1942: 20.

74 “City Negro Nine Loses League Game,” Minneapolis Star, June 29, 1942: 19.

75 Charlie Johnson, “Charlie Johnson’s Lowdown on Sports: ‘Cheating’ the Spectators,” Minneapolis Star, July 1, 1942: 28.

76 Charlie Johnson, “Charlie Johnson’s Lowdown on Sports: Saperstein’s Explanation,” Minneapolis Star, July 10, 1942: 20.

77 “Unorthodox and Funny in Spots, Negro Baseball,” Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, July 2, 1942: 9.

78 “Autos Expect Stiff Tussle with Giants,” Saint Joseph (Michigan) Herald-Press, August 18, 1942: 11.

79 “Bury Jim Brown, Famous Am. Giant Catcher, in Texas,” Chicago Defender, February 13, 1943: 21. In this article, the Defender made the claim that Brown ended the 1942 season as the manager of the traveling New York Lincoln Giants team. Although this author was unable to discover any other corroboration for this claim, it is entirely in the realm of possibility and would indicate that the Minneapolis-St. Paul Gophers (and perhaps the entire Negro Major Baseball League) folded in August 1942.

80 Riley, 121.

81 “Bury Jim Brown, Famous Am. Giant Catcher, in Texas.”

82 “Bury Jim Brown, Famous Am. Giant Catcher, in Texas.”

He was, by wide acclaim, one of the finest second basemen to play in the segregated era, as well as before the formal creation of a Negro League. Elwood “Bingo” DeMoss played alongside not only John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, but on various teams whose rosters included a figurative “Who’s-Who” of Black baseball in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

He went on to manage in the cities of Detroit, Akron, Cleveland, and Chicago, and even managed the West All-Stars in the 1936 East-West game. Historian James Riley called DeMoss “…the greatest second baseman in black baseball in the first quarter (of the twentieth) century . . . the consummate ballplayer, excelling at all phases of the game.”1

There are few known, verifiable details about DeMoss’ early life. Based on review of various official United States census documents,2 along with digitized marriage records3 and DeMoss’ draft registration for World War I, Elwood was born on September 5, 1889, in Topeka, Kansas, as the youngest of five children of Mansfield and Alie (Perkins) DeMoss. Mansfield was born in Tennessee in either 1844 or 1845. It is therefore likely that he was born a slave, and liberated by the end of the United States Civil War.

By 1910, Alie (alternatively spelled Eley in some official documents) was a widow, Mansfield having been 15 years her senior.4 She supported her family by working as a housekeeper in the Topeka area. Of note, that 1910 census lists Alie, 20-year-old Elwood, and the other children as able to read and write. Elwood achieved a seventh-grade education,5 which was a particularly impressive achievement, given the humble beginnings of the family and the challenges faced by the newly-liberated, non-White families throughout the nation.

Regardless, Elwood DeMoss was also a talented athlete, and while some accounts state that he began his baseball career in 1905 with the Topeka Giants6, it was more likely 1906.7 His first documented games as a professional came in 1910, for the Oklahoma Monarchs and the Kansas City Giants. The 20-year-old played second base for those teams that season, and displayed such prowess at bunting and defense that he returned to the Giants for the 1911 season, playing for manager “Topeka” Jack Johnson,8 who was also at the helm of the 1906 Topeka Giants. Of note, during his brief time with Oklahoma, DeMoss played alongside a young slugger, Louis Santop, the first of many future Hall-of-Famers with whom he would team.

James Riley, in his encyclopedia, summarized DeMoss’ skill set as follows: “A scientific clutch hitter with superior bat control and exceptional eye-hand coordination, he was a good contact hitter and could place the ball where he wanted. A natural right-field hitter, he was a skilled hit-and-run artist and a superb bunter . . . Jocko Conlon, who before becoming an umpire played exhibitions against the Chicago American Giants, said that DeMoss could drop a bunt on a dime.”9

While there is no definitive account of how DeMoss was anointed “Bingo,” the existing narrative is that it derived from his ability to “place a bunt anywhere he wanted on the field.”10 Kansas City Monarchs catcher Frank Duncan once observed that, “I’ve never seen a man bunt a ball like DeMoss. Looked like when you play pool and draw a ball back. How he did it, I don’t know, but he sure did it.”11

From Kansas, DeMoss joined the French Lick Plutos and then C.I. Taylor’s West Baden Sprudels in 1912. In 1913, 24-year-old DeMoss married Virgil Williams, a woman a year younger than himself. They would have no children, and she passed away in 1935 at the age of 45.

In May of 1915, DeMoss followed manager Taylor to Indianapolis, where he joined C.I.’s brother Ben Taylor, as well as Oscar Charleston and Dizzy Dismukes, in pacing the ABCs to a 37-25 record12 and a first place finish among the Western Independent Clubs. In two particular games against Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants, on June 21 and July 18, DeMoss scored three runs in eight at-bats, despite producing only one hit.13 Foster was later quoted as saying “’Bingo’ is a ballplayer at all times, and from head to foot. However, his big assets are from the shoulders up.”14

In Indianapolis, though, DeMoss ran into a bit of trouble. In one now-notorious incident during the fifth inning of a game between a White All-Star team captained by Donie Bush and Foster’s ABCs, umpire Jimmy Scanlon made a bang-bang call at second base that favored the White base runner. DeMoss, who had made the tag at second base and knew the runner should have been called out, charged the arbiter and punched him in the face.

Before the fight could really get going, right fielder Oscar Charleston raced in and hit Scanlon in the face as well, this time opening a wound and knocking the umpire to the ground. Players from both sides rushed the field, and only immediate police action prevented the potential riot. Charleston and DeMoss were both shuttled off to jail15 so the game could finish, and the maelstrom dissolved. Both players were later released on bail, and DeMoss was eventually fined five dollars after the case was tried the following December.16

Manager C.I. Taylor later said, “I am very grieved over the most unfortunate and degrading affair pulled off by DeMoss and Charleston. Umpire Scanlon was wholly blameless. His decision might have been questionable, but there is not one word that can be said justifying the perpetrators of that unfortunate and untimely happening . . . I believe that if DeMoss had any idea that things would have turned out as they did he would not have raised a hand to push the umpire. Remember we are not trying to shadow him for his actions. He needs no defense—he was wrong. But knowing him as I do, I am fully convinced that his conduct was worse than his heart.”17

Another incident occurred the following spring, in a pool hall owned and operated by DeMoss. In 1916, Judge James Collins, “ . . . of the criminal court, ordered Elwood DeMoss, colored, poolroom keeper and ball player, to the county jail because DeMoss had failed to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs imposed by the court April 7 . . . members of the A.B.C baseball team began wondering where they would get a second-baseman to take DeMoss’ place . . .”. The court refused to release DeMoss early, after his conviction for allowing minors in his establishment, because the player had had the chance to pay his fine but “never set foot in the courtroom.”18

In 1917, DeMoss found himself playing for Foster’s American Giants, the team with which he would serve until 1925.During the offseasons before 1916 and 1917, “Bingo” traveled to Palm Beach, Florida, to play for Foster’s other squad, the Royal Poinciana Hotel team, one of the greatest squads ever cobbled together before the 1920 creation of the Negro National League. In addition to DeMoss at second base, the shortstop was John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, a man whom Babe Ruth called the finest player ever.19 Bruce Petway, possibly a better catcher than even Josh Gibson, was behind the plate, while Oscar Charleston and Pete Hill patrolled the outfield. It was an exhibition team that carried four future Hall of Famers on the roster, and they dominated the rival Breakers Hotel for two seasons. The latter team was no slouch-laden squad, featuring the aforementioned Louis Santop, along with Spottswood Poles, and Cyclone Joe Williams.

DeMoss had registered for the draft, but the Great War (World War I) ended before he was summoned to active duty. He replaced 35-year-old Pete Hill as Chicago’s team captain, and then helped guide the American Giants to the first three Negro National League flags (1920-1922).20

It was during the 1925 season that DeMoss, in an unusual situation, saved the first Negro National League from an even earlier demise. Paul DeBono summarized:

“On the morning of the last of the three-game series in Indianapolis, when the American Giants awoke at the boarding house of Frieda Eubanks on the near west side of Indianapolis, Rube Foster did not get up with the rest of the team. Normally Rube was one of the first ones to greet the dawn, and as the morning wore on, the players became concerned at the absence of their fearless leader and began to search the house. Finally, Bingo DeMoss, aided by some of the other players, broke down the bathroom door where they found Rube Foster passed out, lying against the gas heater, his arm badly burned, the odor of natural gas heavy in the air. Rube was rushed to the hospital. Bingo DeMoss placed a long distance call to Sarah Foster and urged her to “come at once if you want to see Rube alive.”21

Foster survived, but would be institutionalized later that year, and died in a sanitarium in 1930.

Following that incident, though, and before leaving the team for medical reasons, Foster engineered DeMoss’ transfer back to Indianapolis, along with that of George Dixon, in large part to reinforce an ABC squad whose roster had been raided by an array of eastern and southern teams.22 DeMoss left Indianapolis after the 1926 season and joined the Detroit Stars. He not only played for the Stars between 1927 and 1930, but managed the team as well. After the 1930 season, Detroit released DeMoss, who hung up his glove and retired as a player.

There remains a debate on whether “Bingo” DeMoss is worthy of enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. He made the preliminary ballot for consideration by the 2006 Special Committee On The Negro Leagues, a committee that selected only 17 players from a group of 55, but his case has not been reviewed since.

As statistics from the Negro Leagues are considered somewhat less complete than those kept in “organized” (segregated, non-Black) baseball, it is not necessarily useful to rely only on what has been preserved, as that necessarily omits and ignores all that happened that wasn’t recorded. Modern evaluators are left with the observations of those that saw particular players in action. Dave Malarcher, a tremendous player and manager in his own right, noted that DeMoss “had the courage, confidence, and ability written all over his face and posture. He was the smartest, the coolest, the most errorless ball player I’ve ever seen.”23

Chicago Defender columnist Russ Cowans had watched baseball, Black and White, since before the 1920 establishment of the first Negro National League, and in a 1957 column wrote:

“I was talking to Halley Harding . . . the talk turned to DeMoss, and these are his words about Bingo: “He was without doubt the greatest ball player I’ve ever seen. He was playing second base when I joined the Stars, and his keen knowledge of the game made us the best double-play combination in the Negro National League. He also made me a better shortstop.”24

Cowans added, “But best of all, Bingo was always a gentleman.”25

In short, the consensus has been that “Bingo” DeMoss was fast, a brilliant bunter, and a peerless defender at second base. Eight years earlier, Cowans had asked whether or not Jackie Robinson was “the greatest Negro second sacker of all time?”26 In querying several long-time baseball observers, DeMoss was instead chosen for that honor. It was no hometown choice, as the selected team included Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Cristobal Torriente, John Henry Lloyd, Bill Francis, Ben Taylor, and Satchel Paige.27 On that list, only Francis and DeMoss have not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame.

DeMoss took that “keen” knowledge spoken of by Harding and used it in several managing stints. In 1933, the Columbus Blue Birds folded and were replaced in the league by the Cleveland Giants. That club had been put together “with Bingo DeMoss . . . in charge of the team.”28 He worked at various jobs outside baseball for a few years, and in 1935 his wife, Virgil, passed away. In 1936 he accepted the managerial spot on the Chicago American Giants, replacing Dave Malarcher. In 1937, “Candy” Jim Taylor, a younger brother of his early mentor and manager C.I. Taylor, replaced DeMoss at the Chicago helm. That year “Bingo” was accorded the honor of managing the West team, against Oscar Charleston’s East squad, in the East-West All Star game. DeMoss’ team lost, 10-2, but the reward was in being chosen. It provided a defacto credibility on the old infielder’s ability to manage at the highest levels of professional baseball.

There is not much recorded about DeMoss’ employment after he was fired, but in the 1940 U.S. Census, he listed his occupation as “Ticket seller for a Baseball park” at an annual salary of $480.00. He was living with his brother Willis and five lodgers in a home valued at $3,500. Although Virgil had died in 1935, Elwood was listed on the census as “married.”29 DeMoss’ 1965 obituary observes that he was survived by a wife, Maranda, and two daughters, Bessie Dearborn and Norma Jean Jackson.30

In 1942 and 1943, DeMoss returned to the diamond as manager of the semiprofessional Chicago Brown Bombers,31 and in 1944 was hired by Dr. J. B. Martin to again skipper the American Giants when the former could not reach a contractual agreement with Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe.32 This tour of duty lasted a year as well, and DeMoss’ final managerial shot came in 1945 with Branch Rickey’s United States Baseball League, again managing a team called the Chicago Brown Bombers.33

DeMoss walked away from organized baseball in 1946, but stayed in Chicago for the rest of his life. A popular member of the community, he served as treasurer for the “Old Ball Players Club”,34 a group dedicated to helping old, Black ballplayers that had fallen on hard times financially. On Tuesday, January 26, 1965, at the age of 75 and after what was termed a “long illness,” Elwood “Bingo” DeMoss died at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.35 He was interred at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, a final resting place for a number of prominent Black Chicago baseball players, including Jimmie Crutchfield, “Candy” Jim Taylor, Ted Trent, and John Donaldson.

Notes

1 James Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of The Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Pub; 1st edition, April 1, 1994), 228-229.

2 1910 United States Census. Accessed January 30, 2019.

3 Mansfield and Alie DeMoss certificate of marriage. Accessed January 30, 2019.

4 Ancestry.com digitized records. Accessed January 25, 2019.

5 1940 United States Census at Ancestry.com. Accessed February 1, 2019.

6 Justic B. Hill, “Bingo Was His Name,” at MLB.com. Accessed January 30, 2019.

7 There is no evidence that the team existed prior to 1906. An article from the Topeka Daily Capital, dated September 9, 1906, (page 2) discusses how the team wasn’t formed until after 1905.

8 1911 Kansas City Giants team page at Seamheads.com. Accessed January 24, 2019.

9 Riley (1994), 228.

10 2013 Shawnee County Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony — Elwood ‘Bingo’ DeMoss; Online. Accessed: January 31, 2019

11 John B. Holway. Unpublished ms, BINGO, 3; cited in Leslie Heaphy, ed., Black Baseball and Chicago (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland 2006), 64-66.

12 1915 Indianapolis ABCs team page at Seamheads.com.

13 The information is culled from data collected by Larry Lester and accessed on December 28, 2018.

14 A. Monroe, “So They Say: DeMoss, Ballplayers ‘Best’ Choice Dies,” Chicago Defender, February 1, 1965.

15 Indianapolis News, October 25, 1915: 12.

16 “A.B.C. Players Are Fined,” Indianapolis News, December 9, 1915: 2.

17 “Manager Taylor Regrets A.B.C. Trouble,” Chicago Defender, November 6, 1915: 7.

18 Indianapolis News, October 14, 1916: 28.

19 Riley, 489.

20 Negro League Baseball Museum/Kansas State archives, online: Accessed: January 5, 2019.

21 Paul DeBono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2006), 54.

22 NLBM/KSU archives, and also corroborated by data gathered by Larry Lester, accessed December 28, 2019.

23 Larry Lester, S. J. Miller, and D. Clark Black Baseball in Chicago (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2000), 66.

24 Russ Cowans, “Russ’ Corner: Old Ball Players To Have Their Day,” Chicago Defender, January 17, 1957: 24.

25 Cowans, “Russ’ Corner: Old Ball Players To Have Their Day.”

26 Cowans, “Russ’ Corner,” Chicago Defender, July 23, 1949: 15.

27 Cowans, “Russ’ Corner,” 1949.

28 “Columbus Drops Out of the League and Cleveland Gets Its Berth,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1933: 8.

29 1940 United States Census. Online at Ancestry.com, accessed February 1, 2019.

30 “Old Baseball Great ‘Bingo’ DeMoss Dies,’ Chicago Daily Defender, January 27, 1965: 25.

31 “Brown Bombers Leave Today For Training Camp,” Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1942: 27, and “Leading Negro Nines Play 2 Games Today,” Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1943: 35.

32 DeBono, 165.

33 Lester, Miller, and Clark, Black Baseball in Chicago, 66.

34 Cowans. “Old Ball Players To Have Their Day.” 24, as well as uncredited articles “Old Ball Players Set Date for Installation,” Chicago Defender, March 7, 1964: 14; and “Old Ballplayers Honor Williams,” Chicago Defender, January 15, 1966: 17.

35 “Old Baseball Great ‘Bingo’ DeMoss Dies,” Chicago Defender, January 27, 1965.

George Dixon was born on January 4, 1896, in Greenwood, South Carolina, to Chester and Carrie Dixon.1 Chester was a blacksmith by trade, and evidently a successful one as he owned their home. George had a sister, Sarah, two years his senior. Dixon’s 1917 military draft registration card notes that he was “short” with a medium build, that he was unmarried, and that his sole dependent at the time was his unnamed mother. Although little is clear about Dixon’s early life, the Seamheads.com Negro League database notes that he attended Brewer College in Greenwood.2 While such a postsecondary institution has never existed, it is likely that Dixon did attend the Brewer Normal School in his hometown. That school was founded by the American Baptist Association in 1872 “as a school for newly emancipated African Americans.”3 At the time, the school had male and female dormitories and was managed by the Board of Missions of the Congregational Church.4 As the student population was almost exclusively African American, it is reasonable to assume that Dixon was educated there, a Black student in a racially divided community.

Starting with a seven-game stint on the Royal Poinciana Hotel team in Palm Beach, Florida, during the 1916-1917 winter season, Dixon joined the Chicago American Giants on a full-time basis in 1917. A right-handed thrower but left-handed batter with an obvious mind for baseball, he proved to be a natural catcher. In one of his early games in 1917, Dixon caught  Dick “Cannonball” Redding’s 16-strikeout effort against the Roseland Eclipse.5 Later, against the rival ABCs, he contributed one of only three American Giants hits off Indianapolis pitcher William “Dizzy” Dismukes in a 3-1 victory. He added the sole Chicago error as well, but he handled pitcher Tom Johnson well enough that the ABCs scratched out only five hits.6 Sharing starting responsibilities with Bruce Petway, Dixon provided valuable contributions in a series of wins over the New York Cubans.7 Dixon closed out the 1917 season with two hits in a 9-3 American Giants win over a collection of White major-league players.8

Negro League historian James Riley summarized Dixon’s introduction to big-time baseball, writing that “Dixon was considered ‘a real find’ when he arrived with the Chicago American Giants in 1917 along with Rudy Tyree as half of a much-heralded ‘Pony battery.’ Initially the young left-handed hitting backstop started strong but he leveled-off and finished with a .253 batting average. …”9

Dixon returned to Palm Beach and the Royal Poinciana Hotel for the winter season, and then headed north to Chicago for the 1918 campaign. In a late May game against Jose Junco and the Cuban Stars, he had a team-high three hits and paced Chicago to a 7-6 win at Schorling Park.10 In July he helped Chicago to another win over Cristobal Torriente and his Cuban squad.11 Dixon had emerged as a powerful hitter, with a fine throwing arm and innate leadership ability, but whose one notable deficiency was his lack of running speed. He was not among the American Giants called up for military service in World War I, and he continued to play for the American Giants until 1922. His 1920 season, in particular, contributed to Chicago’s inaugural championship, and his .324 batting average and .854 OPS were the best in his Negro National League tenure. His 34 runs batted in also proved to be a career high and placed him third on the team behind Torriente and Bingo DeMoss.

Dixon was involved in some memorable games along the way. In June 1921 he and Jim Brown were the catchers for Chicago pitchers Tom Johnson and Tom Williams in a wild game in Indianapolis, one in which Dixon’s powerful bat was critical. Trailing the ABCs 10-0 after three innings, the American Giants scored nine runs in the eighth inning to put the game back within reach. Indianapolis followed that up with eight more tallies in the bottom of the inning, making the score 18-9, but Chicago added nine in the top of the ninth to knot the game. “The American Giants staged a sixteen-run rally off eleven bunts, six successive squeeze plays, and Dixon and Tonchetti’s (Torriente’s) home runs with the bases full, and held the ABCs to an 18 to 18 tie,” the Chicago Tribune reported.12 In October the American Giants “won the eastern colored baseball championship” by defeating the Bacharach Giants, 5-4.13

In 1922 the 26-year-old appeared in 28 games for the American Giants, batting .250 with two home runs in 28 games. The team used Jim Brown as the primary catcher, and Chicago posted a 37-24-1 record in winning the Negro National League. Overall, the American Giants won 45 games against a slate of opponents that went beyond league members. Dixon teamed with Oscar Charleston and player-manager Dizzy Dismukes on the 1923 Indianapolis ABCs. He performed well, hitting .281 in 61 league games, but played most of the next year, 1924, for the Birmingham Black Barons.14 Back with the American Giants for some exhibitions in October, the 28-year-old finished his last genuinely productive season with a .278 batting average in 54 games.

Dixon returned to the American Giants for 1925, but as historian James Riley chronicles, “Rube Foster did some housecleaning and unconditionally released many veteran players. Dixon was dispatched to the Indianapolis ABCs along with Bingo DeMoss to balance the league, and hit .258 in 1926, his last in Indianapolis.”15 Dixon spent 1926 playing for the Indianapolis ABCs, but that team folded at the end of the season. Riley, in his biographical magnum opus, states that Dixon also played for the Cleveland Elites in 1926. Authoritative databases at Seamheads.com and Baseball-reference.com show only that Dixon played the entire year in Indiana, but it is possible that Dixon caught on with the Elites late in the season. The Elites were a one-year team, becoming the Hornets for 1927, and may have had roster fluidity that was neither captured nor archived. Regardless, Dixon did spend the next season in Cleveland with the Hornets (1927), and the Tigers (1928). After a break, Dixon returned to the Cleveland Cubs in 1931, and played his final big-league game for the 4-24 Cleveland Red Sox in 1934. He was relegated to backup catching responsibilities for those years, and by age 38 he was out of professional baseball entirely.

In a sad but not uncommon (for the time), item, the Chicago Defender on August 17, 1940, reported that “George Dixon, former catcher of the Chicago American Giants … died August 4 in the (Cleveland) city hospital. According to Sport Calhoun who knew Dixon well, the body [was] unclaimed.”16 Per Dixon’s death certificate, he had died due to complications from liver cancer.17

From his birth in 1896 to his passing at age 44, George Dixon’s life was brief and, as of the twenty-first century, relatively anonymous beyond his time in professional baseball. He clearly had a passion for the sport and an uncommon set of skills in most phases of the game, and he played in both versions of the Negro National League alongside and against some of the greatest ever to take the field.

Sources

Statistical data is taken from the website www.seamheads.com, unless otherwise noted.

Notes

1 United States military registration card, dated June 5, 1917, and witnessed by Marcella Reed.

2 George Dixon, George Dixon – Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. Accessed: June 8, 2021.

3 The Brewer School, online: History of our School – Our School – Brewer Middle School (gwd50.org). Accessed June 8, 2021.

4 “Brewer Normal Dormitory Burned on Monday Night,” Greenwood (South Carolina) Evening Index, January 16, 1913: 5.

5 “Army Man Drills Fosters; Blank Roseland, 4 to 0,” Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1917: 20.

6 “Foster’s Men Down Hoosier Team, 3 to 1, and Even Up Series,” Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1917: 11.

7 “American Giants Trim Cubans by Hard Hitting,” Chicago Tribune, August 16, 1917: 11; “Giants Beat Cubans Twice,” Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1917: 16.

8 “Fosters Defeat All Stars, 9 to 3,” Chicago Tribune, October 22, 1917: 15.

9 James Riley, “George Dixon,” in The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002), 268. www.seamheads.com lists Dixon’s batting average for 1917 as .248, not the .253 that Riley cites.

10 “Fosters Divide Holiday Games with Islanders,” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1918: 13.

11 “Fosters Beat Cuban Nine, 8-4,” Chicago Tribune, July 5, 1918: 9.

12 “American Giants in Tie,” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1921: 19.

13 “American Giants Win Ball Title,” Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1921: 18.

14 “Black Barons Drop Opening Battle to Cleveland Outfit,” Birmingham News, August 17, 1924: 66.

15 Riley, 268.

16 “Catcher Dixon Dies; Body Is Unclaimed,” Chicago Defender, August 17, 1940: 24.

17 Certificate of Death: George Dixon. State of Ohio, Department of Health, file number 49044, dated August 28, 1940.

William “Buck” Ewing had the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time at least twice during his otherwise itinerant Negro League career. He found himself on the Chicago American Giants in 1920 at the outset of his career as Rube Foster’s franchise won the inaugural Negro National League title by an eight-game margin over the Detroit Stars. Later, in 1929 and 1930, Ewing played for the Homestead Grays when it was on the cusp of becoming a heavyweight Negro League franchise. However, the rest of Ewing’s career, which involved separate stints in upstate New York – where he married and put down roots – also presents compelling tales. Ewing’s career is emblematic of what Black baseball was for most of its players, a peripatetic journey whose stops were often obscure and which entailed little of the limelight of big-time Negro League play.

William Monroe Ewing was born in Massillon, Ohio, on January 31, 1903. 2 Although he never rose to the heights of fellow Ohioans and Negro League Hall of Famers Sol White (from Bellaire) and Ray Brown (from Ashland Grove), he earned his paycheck for over two decades in the game, launched by his start with Rube Foster.

Much of what is known about Ewing’s early life exists courtesy of an interview he gave to Allen Long when Ewing was in his 70s. According to Long, Ewing’s father “labored as a coremaker in a [Massillon] foundry. His mother passed away during his infancy. His sister, Mary, went nearly the entire way through the public school system. … He also had a pair of older brothers. A first cousin, Wade Johnston, wound up as a starting flychaser for the magnificent Kansas City Monarchs.” 3 According to the Massillon City Directory, his father, Reuben, worked for Massillon Iron and Steel Company. 4

Ewing reminisced that he did not start playing baseball until he was 10, but by the age of 15, he thought he was pretty good. When he stopped growing, Ewing topped out at 6-feet-2 and around 200 pounds. He threw right-handed and batted left-handed and found his niche as a more than serviceable catcher.

When Ewing was 16 or so, a local Baptist minister arranged a tryout for him with the Chicago American Giants. Rube Foster liked Ewing well enough to sign him, but the team was already well stocked with veteran catchers Jim Brown and George Dixon. Instead of a roster spot, Foster “instructed Ewing to spend the summer touring with an inter-racial squad from Winnipeg, Manitoba.” 5 The Winnipeg squad Long referred to was in fact the Winnipeg Colored Giants, which served as a farm team for all Negro National League teams in 1920. A newspaper in Valley City, North Dakota, described the makeup of the Colored Giants when they came to play the Valley City Squad. “The Colored Giants are made up of young players that are not quite old enough and well-seasoned to make [the Negro National League franchises] so are “farmed out” to this traveling organization where they will finish their baseball education.” 6

Ewing appeared on the American Giants roster in 1920, but records show he played sparingly. Foster was known to favor veteran players. However, Foster was an accumulator of talent and wisely signed and allocated players to feeder teams so he could assess their ability and generate revenue from the exhibition games these teams played. It was while playing for the Winnipeg team that Ewing began developing his catching skills. Allen Long notes that in a game against tiny Valley City, quite possibly the aforementioned game, “Ewing actually picked off an enemy runner off third base while nonchalantly glancing in a different direction.” 7 A look at the game summary for that June 1, 1920, contest shows Ewing as catcher retiring a runner on third in the bottom of the ninth for the first out, helping to ensure an eventual 6-5 victory. 8

It was while playing that year that Ewing gained his nickname from the fans for another Ohio native who made it to the major leagues: William B. “Buck” Ewing, the Hall of Fame catcher-manager who played for and managed the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds. 9

Ewing’s time on the American Giants gave him exposure in the newly formed Negro National League and although Foster had no room for him (Dixon and Brown remained entrenched behind the plate and were joined by Poindexter Williams in 1921), Ewing was seen as a promising catcher and was signed by the Columbus Buckeyes in 1921. The Dayton Marcos had been sold to Columbus businessmen Harry St. Clair and Dr. Howard Smith who immediately moved the club to Columbus and renamed them the Buckeyes. Future Hall of Fame shortstop John Henry Lloyd was hired as player-manager and Sol White became a coach and adviser. The Buckeyes failed to excel on the field or at the box office and finished sixth out of eight teams with a 25-38 record. At season’s end the team was dissolved, and Lloyd moved east to manage the Bacharach Giants.

Ewing backed up Mack Eggleston at catcher while with the Buckeyes and played in 17 games, batting .306. Ewing was part of the headlines in the Buckeyes’ league debut against the Chicago Giants on April 30, 1921. He pinch-hit in the top of the ninth with the Buckeyes down 5-1 and two outs:

Eggleston [the starting catcher] was due to bat, but Lloyd sent up 18-year-old William Monroe “Buck” Ewing to pinch-hit. Pregame coverage in the Chicago Whip highlighted Ewing, predicting that the Massillon, Ohio, native would be “a revelation to the baseball devotees all over the circuit.”

On this occasion the hype was justified. Ewing connected for a long opposite-field home run over the right-field wall. The crowd at Neil Park “went dippy for a few minutes,” the Chicago Defender observed. “Ewing emulated another Ewing,” the Columbus Dispatch noted, evoking the name of nineteenth-century star – and Ohio native – Buck Ewing. Chicago’s advantage was down to 5-3.” 10

That was the last of the scoring. Giants starter John Taylor completed the game by striking out Buckeyes right fielder George Brown.

Ewing also played in at least seven games that year for the Cleveland Tate Stars, batting .333. The Tate Stars were an affiliate member of the Negro National League, managed by Candy Jim Taylor and owned by businessman George Tate. Player loans were not uncommon and Ewing’s movement to the Tate Stars that year ensured him playing time that he would not have had with the Buckeyes. With the disbanding of the Buckeyes at the end of the 1921 season, the Tate Stars took Columbus’s place in the Negro National League in 1922. However, saddled with debt due to poor management, the Tates withdrew from the league and became an independent team in 1923.

By 1922, at the age of 19, Ewing had had a taste of the higher echelons of Negro League ball, playing for Foster and serving under renowned managers Lloyd and Taylor. Long notes that Ewing’s next team was the Bachararch Giants and a renewed connection with Lloyd, who moved from Columbus after its demise to manage the Bacharachs, a team he had previously played for. However, Seamheads has no game records with Ewing on the Bacharachs roster. What is known is that Ewing’s 1922/1923 offseason was spent in Tonawanda, New York, where he worked at a steel mill. Looking for a team in 1923, he sought advice through the informal player network. Although they did not know each other that well, fellow catcher Louis Santop, Hilldale’s star player, facilitated Ewing’s next step: a catching gig with Chappie Johnson’s Philadelphia Royal All Stars. 11

George “Chappie” Johnson was born in Bellaire, Ohio, Sol White’s hometown, and was one of the early stars of Black baseball. Johnson was a catcher and had played for the Page Fence Giants in the 1890s and then the Chicago Union Giants, Leland Giants, and Philadelphia Giants. He is given credit for being the first catcher – Black or White – to wear shin guards and other protective equipment. 12

During his playing career, the well-respected Johnson caught Rube Foster, Dizzy Dismukes, and Frank Wickware, among others. Johnson became best known for the semipro teams he later assembled, first out of Philadelphia, and then upstate New York. W. Rollo Wilson captured the nomadic aspect of Black baseball in an August 4, 1923, column in the Pittsburgh Courier, noting that “Chappie Johnson’s Royal Stars have returned from a successful road trip of several weeks. Out of 92 games played, says Chappie, but 18 were lost.” 13 Johnson also fielded teams under the monikers Colored Stars, Wonderers, and Colored Quaker Giants. In 1923 his Philadelphia Royal All Stars applied for membership in the Philadelphia Baseball Association’s colored division alongside Hilldale, the Philadelphia Giants, and Philadelphia Stars. They were that good.

Ewing started showing up in the 1923 box scores with Johnson’s Philadelphia-based team. Presciently, a game Chappie’s team played in Schenectady against the Schenectady Knights of Columbus (the Caseys) became a foreshadowing of sorts for Johnson, who the following year stepped in to fill the void in upstate New York Black baseball. It had been occupied briefly the decade before by the Mohawk Giants, a team for which Johnson himself had played in 1913-1914. However, in mid-1914, the team severed its local connection, as reported by the Berkshire Eagle, “claiming they were not receiving their salaries and could not afford to play ball for the sport.” The article continued: “Rube Foster, who has been identified with colored ball players for years and has managed the Chicago American Giants for several seasons, advanced the players funds with which to leave for Indianapolis and it is understood the team will hereafter represent Louisville, Ky., and French Lick Springs, Ind.” 14 In the years following, several local White athletic clubs filled Schenectady’s semipro baseball void created by the Giants’ demise. The longest lasting of the teams – the Caseys – survived from 1920 until August 1923, when they disbanded.

Area promoter Hank Bozzi played a strong role in rehabilitating the local game and when the opportunity presented itself to ally with Chappie Johnson and provide a Schenectady home for Johnson’s All-Stars in 1924, Bozzi became co-owner with Johnson. Schenectady-based, the All-Stars played most of their games far and wide to take on all comers, often roaming far afield in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. That April, the Glens Falls (New York) Post-Star unveiled Johnson’s inaugural team:

Among Chappie’s stars who have arrived and are ready to start practice session are Bill Ewing, catcher; Babe Hobson, second baseman; Bobby Dean, shortstop; Sam Warmack, left fielder; Lefty Hill, right fielder; Will Raymond, catcher; Don Perry, first baseman; Lewis Mormon, third baseman, and Frank Wickware, Sam Cooper, Nate Pierce, and Ray Haskins, pitchers. 15

In The Mohawk Colored Giants of Schenectady, Frank M. Keetz writes, “[T]he main attraction on the Chappies, other than Chappie himself, was a young catcher from Ohio named William ‘Buck’ Ewing. … Johnson was known as an astute teacher of white as well as black players and Ewing could not have encountered a better manager. Ewing became a fine defensive catcher and emerged in 1924 as a slugging power hitter.” 16

Over the next three years (1924-1926) during Johnson’s time as co-owner, manager, and occasional fill-in player, Ewing anchored the lineup as catcher for Chappie’s All Stars. In fact, a successful debut with them in 1924 attracted national attention to Ewing and, as a result, the New York Lincoln Giants ostensibly signed him for the 1925 season. The January 31, 1925, issue of the New York Age had Ewing penciled in as manager Judy Gans’s catcher. 17 The Pittsburgh Courier subsequently wrote, “Buck Ewing, of the Lincolns, is said by observers to be the brightest prospect coming into the Eastern Loop this year.” 18

However, Ewing opted out of a return to a big-time team, having settled in comfortably in upstate New York. The April 11, 1925, edition of the Pittsburgh Courier revealed how happy Johnson was with his catcher, likely working his magic to retain Ewing’s services, praising him to the hilt, and making him the centerpiece of his All-Stars:

Chappie claims that Buck Ewing is the greatest catcher in baseball and that he will be star of the men in the iron masks for the next decade. He says that he is the catcher who can teach young pitchers how to PITCH and how to THINK. He is the biggest gate attraction on his squad. 19

A year later, Courier columnist William G. Nunn added his own insight, writing, “Ewing, the big catcher, with Chappie Johnson, is one of the best in colored baseball, according to reports from the East.” 20

In 1927 Johnson abruptly severed connections with the team, but Ewing remained and was elevated by Bozzi to manager. The team became Ewing’s All-Stars for both 1927 and 1928. Ewing had found a home.

In the five-year stretch from 1924 to 1928 when Ewing was ensconced in Schenectady, the team played an endless schedule of games in the tri-state area, against semipro teams – Black and White – and the occasional bigger matchup with Negro League heavyweights. Because the Johnson, and then Ewing, All-Stars lived outside of the official Negro Leagues, their statistical records have not been recorded. Further, the box scores of the All-Stars’ games were only intermittently captured in the local papers. Keetz’s history of the Mohawk Colored Giants, assembled from local newspaper stories, offers as good a composite picture as any on Ewing, who was lauded for his power and his presence as a superb catcher.

A typical storyline in Ewing’s early years in Schenectady was epitomized by August 8 and August 10, 1924, games between the All-Stars and semipro teams in Kingston and Glen Falls. Keetz writes:

Chappie’s team downed Kingston 15-5 “before a record crowd” in Amsterdam. … Ewing “hit the longest home run ever seen in Amsterdam.” It went “long and far over the centerfield fence in Jollyland Park. … Two days later, Ewing “hit a ball so far in Glen Falls it was “lost” in the high grass. 21

Ewing’s first years in upstate New York established him as a particularly good ballplayer – a big fish in a small pond. Added to his catching and hitting skills, his assuming the mantle as player-manager for the All-Stars in 1927 helped to complete his game. A contest against the Brooklyn Cuban Giants headlined “Brainiest Baseball of the Season” underscored Ewing’s emergence as a field tactician who kept his team in the game early despite pitcher Rube Wise’s eight walks. Ewing went 2-for-3 with a triple and a stolen base in a 7-3 win. With the game tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the sixth, “Ewing’s club strained ahead with a run in the sixth inning and gradually after that the “home club pulled off into a lead that eventually became safe and secure.” 22

In the summer of 1928, Cumberland Posey enticed Ewing to play for his Homestead Grays in several fall exhibitions in what served as an audition for a full-time place with the Grays in 1929. Given the praise lavished on Ewing by Johnson and the African American newspapers, Posey’s interest was hardly surprising. Posey’s catchers of the mid-1920s were journeymen – George Britt, Charlie Spearman, W.P. Young, and then, in 1928, Benito Calderon and Rags Roberts. Ewing was an upgrade and rather than remain in Schenectady in 1929 for what would have been the third year running of Buck Ewing’s All-Stars, Ewing opted for the limelight on an up-and-coming Grays team.

In 1929 Ewing played in 63 games for the Grays, all but two as the starting catcher (he also played first base and right field). Ewing hit .306 with an on-base percentage of .367 and a slugging percentage of .435 and played alongside Vic Harris, Walter Cannady, and John Beckwith. It was not until the following year that the Grays lineup included Oscar Charleston and Judy Johnson; without them in 1929, the Grays lacked a consistent offense and finished fourth in the American Negro League, with a record that was barely over .500. However, Ewing was the catcher for a decent starting rotation – Smokey Joe Williams (at the age of 43), Lefty Williams, Sam Streeter, and the versatile George Britt.

Ewing’s size featured in one of his more notorious games in 1929, a May 17 contest between the Grays and Hilldale. Posey, manager of the Grays at the time, was known for his umpire-baiting. According to Posey’s biographer James E. Overmyer:

He began riding the home plate umpire as early as the third inning, refusing to leave the field when the ump tossed him out of the game, and was allowed to stay on the bench. With everyone thus set on edge, more fireworks broke out in the ninth inning. The potential tying run for the Grays was called out on a close play by the same ump. Somebody from the Grays pushed the umpire and Homestead Grays catcher Buck Ewing slugged the arbiter. 23

Things got more heated, the benches emptied, and Posey and Ewing were suspended by the league for several games. Posey knew he could count on Ewing and his place on the team seemed secure. The icing on the cake for Ewing that year was his only documented trip to the Caribbean for winter league play in Cuba. Ewing played for Santa Clara alongside Frank Warfield, Mule Suttles, and, in his only foray to Cuba, Satchel Paige. Ewing batted .304 on a team that came in second to Cienfuegos. 24

The American Negro League survived just one year, and in 1930 the Grays played as an independent team. Just as Posey had used the 1928 fall barnstorming swing to audition Ewing, in the autumn of 1929, Posey signed Oscar Charleston, George Scales, Jake Stephens, and Judy Johnson for fall exhibitions and then outspent rival owners to retain them for his 1930 squad.

Ewing began 1930 as Homestead’s starting catcher. And then came a July storyline that lives in Negro League lore. Judy Johnson’s recollections set the stage for the event. On July 25, the Kansas City Monarchs arrived in Pittsburgh to play the Grays at Forbes Field – a midsummer marquee event for the Black community. The Monarchs came with their own lighting system so that the game could be played at night and ensure a larger gate after the end of the workday. Johnson recalled:

We were in the clubhouse trying to discuss signals, because we had never played a night game. Buck Ewing was catching. When Buck got down to give the signal, why [Smokey Joe Williams] couldn’t even see his hand. … Williams misunderstood the signal, and Ewing split his hand right down. My sub-catcher was in right field, he wouldn’t come in to catch, he was afraid. Here we are, Forbes Field is packed. Josh Gibson was sitting in the stands, him and a bunch of boys who played sandlot baseball. I asked if he would catch. “Yes sir, Mr. Johnson!” I had to hold up the game, let him go in the clubhouse and put on a suit. 25

The debut of Josh Gibson was a big deal for the Grays and all of Negro League baseball. Ewing was out of the lineup for a while with a broken hand, but he still played in nearly half of the Grays’ independent schedule that led to a 45-15-1 record. Once Ewing was able to catch again, Posey inserted Gibson in the outfield to keep his bat in the lineup. Negro League historian Mark Ribowsky wrote, “[W]hile Posey was not ready to yank Ewing, he was gradually making room for Josh around the field and inching him higher in the order.” 26

The handwriting was on the wall for Ewing, and Posey did not offer him a contract for 1931. In Ewing’s recollections with Allen Long, the St. Louis Stars “swapped five players, including the fabled Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe to the Grays for Ewing in the spring of 1931. [Ewing] declined to recognize the transaction.” 27 Whether it was the Missouri weather (as noted by Long) or “tough traveling and lower pay during the harsh depression era,” according to Keetz, Ewing instead contacted Bozzi about a return to what was now the Mohawk Giants, a name that Bozzi had resuscitated in 1929 after Ewing left Schenectady to join the Grays. In any event, the March 21, 1931, Pittsburgh Courier noted that the trade had taken place and hyped the important acquisition by the Grays of Radcliffe in particular. However, rather than report to St. Louis, “[Ewing] chose to return to Schenectady and Bozzi’s Mohawk Giants. He never left his adopted town where he eventually died as a respected citizen.” 28

Ewing joined the 1931 Mohawks, managed by Ed Kemp, who had played with Johnson and then Ewing’s All Stars in the mid-1920s. Ewing resumed his player-manager role for Bozzi in 1932. Throughout the 1930s, the Giants played in the Schenectady City Twilight League but traveled farther afield as well. (In 1933, the team purportedly had a record of 72-21-11 against all comers.) Ewing was at the center of all things: “Area fans simply said, ‘Buck is manager.’ Saying the word Ewing was not necessary in Schenectady. It was superfluous. Almost everyone knew who Buck was.” 29 Ewing briefly interrupted his time with the Mohawks in 1936 when he went down the road to Albany to manage and play for the Albany Black Sox, ostensibly for the money.

Ewing returned to the Giants during the 1937 season, and then resumed managerial duties in 1938. 30 He remained on the team as a regular and later as a backup catcher through 1941 when, at the age of 38, he stepped away from the game. The Giants were struggling and Bozzi relinquished control of the team in the spring of 1942, unable to assemble a credible squad because of a manpower shortage in World War II. His successor fared no better and the Giants resurfaced for one more year in 1943, with Bozzi back at the helm and Ewing joining his protégé for one more go-round. 31

The Bennington (Vermont) Evening Banner captured the now 40-year-old Ewing and his legacy well when it wrote on August 31, 1943, regarding a forthcoming game between Bennington and the Mohawks:

Old Buck Ewing is still with the Mohawk Giants. … He and Curley Williams [of Bennington] used to have quite a battle every time they met. … Sometimes the Bennington fireman [Williams] breezed it by but not often. Those aging legs of Buck, however, no longer bend easily at the knee, so Buck is a first baseman now, rather than a catcher. … The popular Buck, who is probably better known to baseball fans of New York State and parts of Vermont than many of the minor league stars, must have passed his 40th birthday. … Buck is the oldest player in point of service with the Giants. He has played with all of Hank Bozzi’s great clubs. They still say John McGraw once tried to pass Buck off as a Cuban [in order to circumvent the color barrier and sign him], but this has never been substantiated. 32

After stepping away from baseball, Ewing took a job with Schenectady-based General Electric for a dozen years, followed by work with Campbell Plastics, another local firm. He also served as a part-time scout for the Cleveland Indians and worked in maintenance jobs until retirement.

Ewing married twice and had a son from his first marriage. He and his second wife were married for more than 30 years. On September 1, 1979, Ewing died at the age of 76. The Schenectady Gazette eulogized him, writing:

Perhaps more important on this sad occasion, however, is that all of us remember Buck Ewing as he had shown himself to be in the half century, he lived in Schenectady … as fine a man as he was a ball player. 33

Fittingly, after his many years in Schenectady, the city renamed the main baseball field in the downtown Central Park the William Buck Ewing Memorial Diamond. Ewing had played many a game at Central Park in the 1930s. Keetz writes, “It was the field where thousands sat in the wooden grandstand and “lined the hillsides beyond the outfield and along the baselines during the throes of the Depression Thirties to watch in particular the Mohawk Giants.” 34

The fact that Ewing had not played continually on the top tier of Negro teams probably obscured how good he really was. George Lippe, an adviser to the Chicago White Sox in the 1950s, observed, “Buck Ewing was simply terrific. Too bad baseball didn’t lift the color line soon enough for that guy. If he had been given a big-league chance, he would have been every bit as good as Roy Campanella. On that, I’d bet my bottom dollar.” 35 More realistically, a Schenectady sportswriter, Hall Buell, opined that Ewing “was a major league talent in a minor league setting.” 36

Last revised: September 10, 2023 (zp)

Sources

Unless otherwise noted, all statistical references are from Seamheads.com.

Notes

1 Quoted in Allen Long, “Historically Speaking: Buck Ewing,” Black Sports, June 1973: 30.

2 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of The Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), 272.

3 Long: 30.

4 Ancestry.com.

5 Long: 30.

6 “Valley City Fans See Real Baseball,” Valley City (North Dakota) Weekly Times Record, June 3, 1920: 4.

7 Long: 30.

8 “Valley City Fans See Real Baseball.”

9 Long: 30.

10 John Fredland, April 30, 1921: Chicago Giants defeat Columbus Buckeyes in Negro National League debut, SABR Games Project. https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/april-30-1921-columbus-buckeyes-defeat-chicago-giants-in-negro-national-league-debut/.

11 Long: 30.

12 Kyle McNary, “Chappie Johnson,” Pitchblack Baseball, https://www.pitchblackbaseball.com/chappie-johnson.

13 W. Rollo Wilson, “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 4, 1923: 6.

14 “Baseball Notes,” Berkshire Record (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), July 16, 1914: 16.

15 “Chappie Johnson and His Dorpian Team Gets Going,” Glens Falls (New York) Post-Star, April 10, 1924: 6.

16 Frank M. Keetz, The Mohawk Colored Giants of Schenectady (Schenectady, New York: Frank M. Keetz, 1999), 32.

17 William E. Clark, “Sports Comment,” New York Age, January 31, 1925: 6.

18 W. Rollo Wilson, “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 14, 1925: 7.

19 W. Rollo Wilson, “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 11, 1925: 13.

20 William G. Nunn, “Diamond Dope,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 28, 1926: 15.

21 Keetz, 33.

22 “Wise Issues Many Passes but Does Well in Trouble,” Glens Falls Post-Star, June 21, 1927: 8.

23 James E. Overmyer, Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2020), 102-103.

24 Jorge, S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2003), 182-184.

25 John B. Holway, Josh and Satch: The Life and Times of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), 23.

26 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness: The Life of Josh Gibson in the Shadows of the Game (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 59.

27 Long: 31.

28 Keetz, 64.

29 Keetz, 77.

30 Keetz, 106, 113.

31 Keetz, 142.

32 “All Set for Gala Game on Labor Day,” Bennington (Vermont) Evening Banner, August 31, 1943: 6.

33 Keetz, 150.

34 Keetz, 150.

35 Long: 30.

36 Keetz, 151.

As a ballplayer, Judy Gans is a bit of an enigma. On the one hand, his official statistics paint him as a good, but not great, player. On the other, acknowledgment of his greatness by newspaper writers and his peers can be found scattered throughout the early pantheon of Black baseball history. Hall of Fame manager Wilbert Robinson referred to Gans as “the colored Ty Cobb.1 Hall of Fame manager Bill McKechnie once claimed that there were at least 25 Black players who could play for any team in the country, and mentioned Gans by name, along with Bullet Rogan, Oscar Charleston, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson.2 While playing for the Paterson Smart Set in 1912, Gans was touted as a rival of Home Run Baker,3 which was high praise for a player whose name has been all but forgotten when the greats of the game are talked about.

Robert Edward Gans was born on July 16, 1886, most likely in Cleveland, Ohio.4 His father was Zechariah Gans and his mother was Sarah. Both are listed as being from Pennsylvania in the 1920 census. His 79-year-old mother and sister, Barbara Newman were living in Cleveland in 1944 when Gans met them for a publicized visit.5 Zechariah’s fate is unknown.

Gans could have just as easily been a football star and his athletic prowess was on display for some of the best professional White teams in Buffalo in 1908, 1909, and 1910. He saw action with the Oakdales and the Black Rock Cycle Club, and played alongside fellow blackball great Pete Hill on a Pittsburgh-based team, the Fighting Tenth.6 Between 1905 and 1910 Gans shuttled back and forth between his two loves, football and baseball. While playing in his hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania, he was later compared favorably to local gridiron star Charlie West, who in 1922 was the first African American to play quarterback in a Rose Bowl.7

Gans also made a name for himself by training White baseball teams in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania during this time. The left-handed Gans pitched batting practice and hit fungoes and was with a ballclub in Canton, Ohio, when he got his big break. In 1907 Bill McKechnie was playing third base for an Ohio-based team and persuaded manager Ed Murphy to give the young trainer a whirl on the mound during an exhibition game with the Nebraska Indians. The first batter doubled, the next walked, and the third was hit by a pitch. It was not the most auspicious start, but Gans quickly settled down and struck out the next 12 hitters. The barnstorming Nebraska Indians were impressed enough to sign him, thus beginning Gans’s long, illustrious baseball career.8

Gans next showed up in the press in 1908 as a starting pitcher for the Cuban Giants in the National Association. In a mid-August game, he went the distance in a 5-1 victory over a team from Atlantic City; he also chipped in with two hits.9 In October, in what must have been a thrill, the 22-year-old Gans signed on with a team calling itself the Brooklyn Royal Giants and steamed to Cuba to play against teams from Habana and Almendares. In 16 games the Giants broke even with an 8-8 record, and Gans fared well on the mound with a 2-2 mark and a 2.73 ERA. One of his victories was a hard-fought 2-1, complete-game masterpiece against the Habana Club. His batting skills had not caught up with his pitching quite yet, and he hit a miserable .095 (2-for-21) on the trip.10 Gans must have taken to Cuba because he next hooked up with a team from Matanzas, losing two games with a respectable 3.00 ERA for the fourth-place squad.

After a final interlude with football, with the Fighting Tenth, Gans began the 1911 season with the Cuban Giants. Soon afterward he settled in with the team that he spent most of his career with, the Harlem-based New York Lincoln Giants. This was a powerhouse team in its inaugural season of 1911, and featured such superstars as Louis Santop, George Wright, John Henry Lloyd, Spottswood Poles, and Dick “Cannonball” Redding. As the starting center fielder, Gans hit .308 and stole five bases in 10 games.11

What was known as the kidnapping of players was a popular pastime for owners of Black ballclubs of the time, and Dick Coogan, White owner of the Paterson Smart Set of New Jersey, was one of the best. In 1912 he managed to “kidnap” Gans and pitcher Danny McClellan from the Lincoln Giants to stock his already formidable club.12 The Smart Set team was a short-lived but highly competitive outfit, and this was the team for which Gans took off as a hitter. In 19 games, against all competition, Gans stroked 23 hits for a .351 average, including 6 triples, 4 home runs, and 23 runs scored. He also played stellar defense in left field with 41 errorless putouts and 8 assists.13

What should have been a highlight of the 1912 Smart Set season was marred by controversy when the team met the major-league New York Giants in a late May contest at Olympic Park in Paterson, New Jersey. With the hard-fought bout tied 3-3 after nine innings, interim Giants manager Wilbert Robinson argued with the umpire about the introduction of new baseballs for the 10th inning. He pulled his players off the field in protest, causing the game to be forfeited in favor of the home team. Regardless, the Smart Set proved they belonged on the same field as the legendary Giants, and Gans was the star of the show for the Paterson team. He knocked out two hits, including a double, and played outstanding defense in left, as he recorded six putouts, including a running one-handed grab of a blast off the bat of Giants shortstop Art Fletcher.14

The Smart Set were a scorching 24-7-2 going into late July when Gans was once again “kidnapped” and returned to the Lincoln Giants.15 The Smart Set struggled the rest of the way, going 12-7-1 without him.16 Coogan attempted to “kidnap” Gans again to begin the 1913 season, but Gans was now a fixture with the mighty Lincoln Giants.17

The 1912 and 1913 Lincoln Giants had stars at every position on the field. Joining the already-stacked 1912 team were first baseman Bill Pettus and Hall of Fame hurlers Cyclone Joe Williams and Ben Taylor to form what could only be called one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled.18 The Giants finished with the best record among all the top Eastern Independent Clubs with Gans acquitting himself nicely by getting on base frequently and showing good speed on the basepaths.

Another trip to Cuba was in the cards for Gans and the Lincoln Giants for the 1912-1913 winter season. Things started off slowly for the team as it played 13 games against Almendares and Habana and struggled to a 5-8 record.19 According to Pop Lloyd, the departure of many of the Lincoln players and the failure of some to show up caused the five Giants – Lloyd, Spottswood Poles, Dick Redding, Cyclone Williams, and light-hitting Bill Francis – to jump to the Fe team for the remainder of the season. With the addition of these players, the Fe squad won the Cuban National League championship.20 Gans was certainly a big reason for its success as he pounded the ball to the tune of a .356 batting average, with 4 three-baggers and 19 stolen bases. The team stole an amazing 136 bases in just 34 games and as it drove the opposition batty with its speed.

A curious side note to the 1913 season had Gans, Cyclone Joe Williams, and Grant “Home Run” Johnson all beginning the year with the Schenectady Mohawk Giants, a first-year and short-lived team that played against Eastern Independent squads such as the Lincoln Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants, and Paterson Smart Set. All three players were back with the Lincoln Giants just a few weeks after the start of the season.21

The Florida Hotel League or Coconut League was a highly competitive rivalry between two hotels in Palm Beach, Florida, that stocked their teams with some of the best players in Black baseball history. Gans’s first appearance in the league was in 1912, and by January of 1914 he was a veteran of the circuit.22 His team, the Breakers Hotel, featured legends Bruce Petway, Pete Hill, John Henry Lloyd, Louis Santop, and Cyclone Joe Williams. Their rivals, the Poinciana Hotel, included Spottswood Poles, Dizzy Dismukes, Bill Pettus, and Frank Wickware.

Gans’s defense stood out in one 1914 contest. According to the Palm Beach Daily News, “Gans, in the left garden, deserves great credit for the showing he made and the four flies he pulled down. He had to show great speed to get under them in the first place and in all but one instance after he got his hands on the ball he landed in a heap. Twice he stumbled over the mounds near the tall coconut trees and the other time he came in from deep left and gathered in a short fly that many thought he did not catch.”23 The Breakers captured the 1914 title, winning nine games and losing six.24

Gans fell in with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants next, after being invited, along with Cyclone Joe Williams and John Henry Lloyd, to join the team on a trip to the Pacific Northwest. All three players took up Foster’s offer and were scheduled to compete against teams in the Pacific Coast League. At the last minute, PCL President Allen Baum objected to Black players playing against PCL teams, which effectively canceled most of their schedule. The Portland Beavers were the only team to go against Baum and play Foster’s team.25

Gans immediately got into hot water with his new boss. He recounted the story thusly:

It was a damp day. Petway was on second and two were down and I was at bat. Rube signals for me to lay one down. Higginbottom, a lefthander, was working for Portland and Rube figured that if he tried to field the ball and turn to throw me out at first Petway could score. Well, Petway started up on the pitch, the ball was in the alley, and I knocked it into the bleachers for a home run. As I reached the plate with the winning score, as it later proved to be, George Moore, the fight manager, handed me a fifty-dollar bill and other fans threw money at me amounting to $87.50 all told. I went on to the bench and Rube drawled, “That was a sweet hit, son.” “Yes, I sure laid into that one,” I said. “Boys told me you could hit,” added Rube. “Got yourself some money too, didn’t you?” “Yes sir,” I answered. “Suppose you wait for me to check up after the game and we’ll go back to the hotel together,” said the boss. I was getting all puffed up and saw myself getting a feed on Rube as we got in a taxi together. He threw his arm back of me and started to talk. “How did you like working for Sol White down east? Do they have any discipline down there?” “Oh, so so,” as I lolled in my seat. “By the way, son, how much money did you collect?” And I told him $87.50. “Well, boy, let papa tell you something. If the Giants had lost that game today, the paper would have been full of what happed to Rube Foster’s team. I am the manager of the club. I told you to lay it down and you hit a home run. Son, that home run is gonna cost you that $87.50 and $25 more. Now, the next time you hit a home run when I tell you to bunt, you’ll remember that, won’t you?” 26

The 1914 Chicago American Giants were a dominant team with a sparkling 43-14 record, and they easily outpaced the second-place Indianapolis ABCs among the top Western Independent Clubs. Gans uncharacteristically struggled, hitting only .243 with one home run in 169 at-bats.

The following season he was back in familiar territory, but with the Lincoln Stars, an offshoot of the Lincoln Giants, formed when the owners of the Giants lost control of the team.27 By the end of August, Gans and Lloyd found their way back to the Chicago American Giants to finish out the 1915 season when the owner of the Stars was unable to pay them after drinking away all of his profits.28 The American Giants also made an appearance in the California Winter League and bested their White competitors, 9 games to 5. It was a historic occasion as it marked the first time an all-Black baseball team had won the California Winter League championship. In spite of his team’s success, Gans struggled again, batting only .158 in 13 games.29

In February 1916 Gans was back in Cuba with San Francisco Park, a team made up of Chicago American Giants players. Gans hit a solid .300 in 15 games, including four multiple-hit games, but the team had a disappointing 5-9-1 record.30 Once the team returned home, it fared much better and again finished with a top mark of 40-26-3. Gans continued his regular-season struggles and lost his starting left-field spot to Pete Hill. He managed to rekindle some of his spark on the mound with a complete-game shutout against the ABCs in June and two complete-game victories in August that included another shutout.31

In 1917 Gans lived a vagabond lifestyle as he jumped from team to team. The season began with a short stint with the Chicago Giants, followed by another with the Indianapolis-based Jewell’s ABCs. In a late July game with the ABCs, Gans was credited with 20 putouts while manning first base.32 The 1917 season ended with Gans once again suiting up for the Lincoln Giants, this time patrolling center field.

The year 1918 started off well enough for Gans as he began to regain his stroke at the plate, but the clouds of war were about to catch up to him and a number of his teammates. Gans was back with the Chicago American Giants when he, Frank Wickware, and first baseman Leroy Grant were drafted and ordered to report between August 1 and August 5.33 An article in the Chicago Defender mentioned Gans’s wife joining him early in the season in anticipation of his enlisting in the US Army.34 She threw a surprise party for her husband on his birthday, attended by many of his teammates and friends, just days before he left for the service.35 It is not known how long Gans and his wife, Emma, had been married at this point, but the 1920 census lists them as living in Chicago with eight other roommates, including fellow baseball star Jose Mendez. Emma, who was from Alabama, was 30 years old at the time. Their union dissolved at some point; the next census indicated that they were divorced and living separately by 1930.

Gans’s stint in the Army lasted less than a year, from July 31, 1918, to May 19, 1919.36 He was a sergeant in the 803rd Pioneer Infantry and received a warm welcome upon his return to the American Giants.37 Gans spent his time during the war in France and told many tales of his experiences overseas, including how the people there were quite familiar with the exploits of the Chicago American Giants.38 Gans was well-known for his ability to spin a yarn, but his gift for gab did not help to keep his team from finishing in second place, nor did it prevent his hitting from declining further as he was able to contribute only an underwhelming .200 average.39 Occasionally he still pitched, and he spun a four-hit shutout against the All Nations Team in late May, shortly after his return from military service.40

The 1920 Chicago American Giants won the inaugural Negro National League championship, easily outdistancing the Detroit Stars and Kansas City Monarchs. The newly minted league was the brainchild of American Giants owner and manager Rube Foster. Gans was the starting left fielder for what many consider to be one of the great Negro League teams of all time, but his play on the field was less than stellar as he hit a meager .208 for the champs. However, Gans occasionally chipped in, as he did on June 19, when he swatted a two-run home run and a double in a 10-5 victory over the Oak Parks.41

Gans was traded to the Detroit Stars for speedster Jimmie Lyons in December of 1920, but does not appear ever to have played for owner Tenny Blount’s team.42 In an attempt to create equity among the NNL’s teams, newspapermen were chosen to select players for the 1921 squads, which took roster-building out of the owners’ hands. As a result, Gans remained with the American Giants and Lyons with the Stars for the time being.43 In a show of how fluid these teams’ rosters often were, Lyons ended up as a member the 1921 American Giants anyway and Gans moved back to the Lincoln Giants, where he finished out the remainder of his career.

The 1921 and 1922 seasons were solid ones for Gans, as he batted .267 and a resurgent .333 respectively. But the team struggled to play .500 ball. Gans now spent more time at the right-field position. His entire 1923 season was lost when on April 22 he broke his right leg with a triple compound fracture. He had fractured his left leg in 1921 and these two injuries effectively ended his ability to be a productive player.44

Gans accepted a new challenge for the 1924 season when he replaced Cyclone Joe Williams as the manager of the Lincoln Giants. Hopes were high for the season after owner James J. Keenan invested heavily in the team by adding new players and turning Protectory Oval, the team’s home ballpark, into a big-league-quality facility.45 The May 31 edition of the New York Age asserted, “The fans now realize that under Judy Gans the team has improved 100 percent.”46 But the team did not quite live up to expectations and finished in third place. The poorer-than-expected performance was due in part to the numerous injuries to the pitching staff, which led to the 37-year-old Gans taking the mound on more than one occasion.47

The Lincoln Giants fell apart in 1925, and Gans lost control of his team. Allegedly, at the start of the season he had advised the owner of the Giants to cut the pay of some players and to release Gerard Williams and Benny Wilson because they wanted more money. This failed to go over well with players in the league and, whether it was true or not, they refused to sign with the Giants.48 As a result, the team’s roster was decimated. Quality pitching was in especially short supply, and the Lincoln Giants’ team ERA ballooned to 8.24. It came as no surprise that the team finished in last place in the Eastern Colored League, with a woebegone 7-41-2 record. In mid-August, with the team sitting at 3-31-2, Gans resigned as manager.49

Gans was unable to stay away from baseball for long, and he took on a variety of projects. In 1927 he managed the Eastern Colored League All-Stars, a formidable independent team; a newspaper referred to him as crafty and jolly.50 He also pitched for Chappie Johnson’s Stars and in 192851 played for Louis Santop’s Broncos, for whom he mashed seven hits in two games.52 It was rumored that Gans would manage the 1928 Cleveland Tigers, but this would never materialize as the Tigers were led by Frank Duncan, Harry Jeffries, and Sam Crawford that season.53

Gans was also at the forefront of a movement to secure more Black umpires for Negro League baseball.54 An editorial in the Philadelphia Tribune in 1927 commented on the problems of White umpires in Black baseball: “Regardless of the reasons for colored ball games having white umpires it is a disgusting and indefensible practice. It will require much thought and perhaps time and money, but the owners of ball clubs owe it to their patrons to discontinue a practice that is a reflection upon themselves, the ballplayers and the Negro race.”55

Gans himself became a trailblazing Negro League umpire and called his first game in a May 2, 1929, matchup; fittingly, the game involved the Lincoln Giants and the Hilldale Club.56 The pressure must have been immense, as indicated in the April 20, 1929, edition of the Pittsburgh Courier. W. Rollo Wilson wrote, “The whole movement depends on Judy Gans. If he proves the point, then other veterans will be drafted into service.”57 Gans performed well at his new job and was still umpiring as late as 1938.58

Gans was married again in 1937, to Elvera C. Gardiner. The couple remained together until his death in 1949, although very little is known about her.59

In 1940 Gans was recognized as a member of the Brotherhood Civic Goodwill Club in Philadelphia, an organization formed in 1884 to spread goodwill and to urge support to Black businesses and labor.60 In 1944 he was still living in Philadelphia, where he was working as an aerial manager for the US Army Signal Corps.61

Judy Gans died on February 13, 1949, at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. His death certificate listed his occupation as bartender. He was buried at the National Cemetery in Beverly, New Jersey.62

Judy Gans’s legacy lived on with Negro League legend and Hall of Famer Judy Johnson who, when elected to the Hall of Fame in 1975, had this to say about his namesake: “One of the old-timers on my first team was named Judy Gans. I resembled him, and my middle name is Julius, so they started calling me Judy too.”63

Dizzy Dismukes – baseball lifer, crafty pitcher, manager, and longtime personnel director for the Kansas City Monarchs – named Gans the seventh-best outfielder in baseball history, ahead of Rap Dixon and Cool Papa Bell, in a 1930 piece he wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier. He insisted that Gans “must be given credit for being one of the game’s greatest fielders.”64 Judy Gans was considered great in his time. He had power, even in the Deadball Era, was known for his speed and exceptional fielding ability, and excelled when called upon to toe the rubber. He played with some of the most iconic teams in Black baseball history, including the 1912 New York Lincoln Giants and the 1920 Chicago American Giants. He was also a pioneering umpire. As with many of the pre-1920 players, his statistics fail to tell the entire story of his career. Judy Gans was a star, and that is how he should be remembered.

Sources

All statistics, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database at seamheads.com.

Notes

1 “Manager Shackelton’s Club Will Play Famous Colored Nine on Sunday Morning,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, July 16, 1914: 3.

2 John B. Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001), 372.

3 Middletown Orange County Times Press, June 28, 1912.

4 Most sources, including Seamheads.com, list Washington, Pennsylvania, as Gans’s birthplace, but his death certificate and Social Security records list Cleveland as his place of birth. “Ohio” is prominently displayed on his tombstone.

5 “Fined $100 For Making the Home Run That Won the Game,” Cleveland Call and Post, November 4, 1944: 6B.

6 “Judy Gans to Manage Lincoln Gts. This Year,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1925: 6.

7 Philadelphia Tribune, September 15, 1927: 10. See also https://www.washjeff.edu/100th-anniversary-of-historic-game-by-dr-charles-f-west-the-first-black-quarterback-to-play-in-rose-bowl-game/. Accessed January 2, 2022.

8 “Judy Gans to Manage Lincoln Gts. This Year,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1925: 6.

9 “Cuban Giants Land,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 19, 1908: 11.

10 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), 78-91.

11 Limited box scores are available from this time period and only games against major-league-caliber teams are included in the Seamheads Negro League database.

12 Lester A. Walton, “In the World of Sport,” New York Age, August 15, 1912: 6.

13 The author’s own research from Paterson Morning Call box scores, 1912. This includes games against all competition, not just the major-league-equivalent teams as determined by Seamheads.com.

14 “Smart Set Team Played New York to a Standstill,” Paterson Morning Call, May 27, 1912: 3, 13.

15 Lester A. Walton, “Kidnapping Players the Latest Game,” New York Age, August 15, 1912: 6.

16 Author’s own research from Paterson Morning Call box scores, 1912.

17 “Baseball Game at Olympic Park,” Paterson Morning Call, April 1, 1913: 3.

18 The 1912 Lincoln Giants featured four Hall of Famers: Louis Santop, John Henry Lloyd, Joe Williams, and Ben Taylor. The team also included likely future Hall of Famers Dick Redding, Spottswood Poles, and Bill Pettus.

19 Severo, Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba, 105.

20 Wes Singletary, The Right Time: John Henry “Pop” Lloyd and Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2011), 52-53.

21 https://agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/2011/04/schenectady-mohawk-giants-1913.html. See also Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), April 22, 1913: 11.

22 William F. McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season: Pay for Play Outside of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2007), 16.

23 McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season, 18.

24 “Baseball Season Ends on Florida Fields,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 18, 1914: 21.

25 Paul Debono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2007), 48.

26 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sport Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 2, 1929: A6.

27 https://thebrooklyntrolleyblogger.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-team-grows-in-harlem-new-york-lincoln.html.

28 Debono, The Chicago American Giants, 57.

29 William F. McNeil, The California Winter League: America’s First Integrated Professional Baseball League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2002), 54-55.

30 Severo, Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba, 206-217.

31 “Gans Scores Shutout,” Chicago Examiner, June 20, 1916; “Baseball,” Chicago Tribune, July 9, 1916: B22; “Amer. Giants, 6; St. Louis, 3,” Chicago Tribune, July 13, 1916: 11.

32 “Hoosier Ball Club Wins Ten Round Go From Fosters, 5 to 4,” Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1917: 11.

33 “Draft Hits Rube Foster’s Club Hard,” Chicago Defender, July 27, 1918: 9.

34 “Williams Is a Find,” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1918: 7.

35 “Judy Gans Surprised,” Chicago Defender, July 27, 1918: 9.

36 Ancestry.com: Military Burial Records.

37 Ancestry.com: Find a Grave.

38 “Giants Recruits Work Hard,” Chicago Defender, April 5, 1919: 11.

39 “Pow Wow Pickups,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 10, 1938: 13.

40 “American Giants Blank All Nations,” Chicago Defender, May 31, 1919: 11.

41 “Oak Parks Lose, 10-3,” Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1920: A3.

42 “Jimmy Lyons Comes to American Giants,” Chicago Defender, December 11, 1920: 6.

43 Larry Lester, Rube Foster in His Time: On the Field and in the Papers with Black Baseball’s Greatest Visionary (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2012), 115.

44 “Judy Gans to Manage Lincoln Gts. This Year,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1925: 6.

45 “Many New Players in Lincoln Giants Line-Up,” Bridgewater (New Jersey) Courier-News, March 14, 1924: 16.

46 “Lincoln Giants Set Pace for Eastern League Flag Race,” New York Age, May 31, 1924: 6.

47 “Giants and Hilldale Divide Doubleheader,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 30, 1924: 13.

48 William E. Clark, “Sport Comment,” New York Age, July 3, 1925: 6.

49 “Judy Gans Resigns as the Manager of the Lincoln Giants,” New York Age, August 22, 1925: 6.

50 “Gans’ Stars Downs Trenton with Hackett on Mound,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 25, 1927: 10,

51 “Hilldale Pries Off Lid with Victory,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, April 15, 1927: 27.

52 “Lou Santop’s Broncos Win from Red Sox,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 14, 1928: 11.

53 “Bingo DeMoss to Manage Detroit; Gans to Tigers,” Baltimore Afro American, March 3, 1928: 1.

54 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sport Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 21, 1928: A4.

55 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing & Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 200.

56 “Hilldale Loses to Lincolns, 4-3, in Opener,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 4, 1929: A5.

57 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sport Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 20, 1929: B5.

58 Chester L. Washington Jr., “‘Sez Ches,’” Pittsburgh Courier, April 23, 1938: 17.

59 Ancestry.com: US Marriage Index.

60 “Brotherhood Holds Its 56th Anniversary,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 17, 1940: 3.

61 “Fined $100 For Making the Home Run That Won the Game,” Cleveland Call and Post, November 4,1944: 6B.

62 Ancestry.com: Certificate of Death.

63 “Johnson Selected to Hall,” Charlotte Observer, February 11, 1975: 23.

64 “Dismukes Names His 9 Best Outfielders,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 8, 1930: 14.

Floyd “Jelly” Gardner was a prototypical leadoff hitter who played 13 seasons in the Negro Leagues, from 1919 to 1931, most notably for Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants. The speedy Gardner stood just 5-feet-6½ and weighed 160 pounds, and his base stealing prowess created constant pressure on opposing defenses. He was a left-handed hitter, threw right-handed, and played all three outfield positions well.

Gardner was born on September 27, 1895, in tiny Russellville, Arkansas.1 His parents were Alec Floyd Gardner and Josie (Smith) Gardner, and he had a younger sister named Annie.2 His father worked as a farm laborer.3 Although Russellville was a segregated rural community of fewer than 4,000 people, Gardner attended the Russellville Public School for eight years.4 He enrolled in high school at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock,5 where he later took college courses for two years as well.6

At Arkansas Baptist, Gardner tried out for the baseball team and made the squad as an infielder.7 He initially batted cross-handed until a coach taught him how to properly grip a bat.8 He may have played professionally as early as 1913 with the Hot Springs Giants or the Missouri Pacifics of Little Rock.9 By 1916, Gardner had joined the independent Longview Giants in Texas during his school’s summer break. He later recalled, “You didn’t get much pay down there, you mostly played for your board and rent.”10

The following year he returned to Texas and played with another club, the Texas All-Stars.11 Gardner was listed as one of the best players on the All-Stars, which reportedly had a record of 66-16-3 when they traveled east to play five games against the Indianapolis ABCs.12 The series did not go well, as the ABCs easily swept the first four games.13 In the third game, Indianapolis won, 11-1, as Jim Jeffries allowed only two hits, one of them to Gardner.14 For Gardner, the trip was not a complete disaster. On July 29, the All-Stars faced the Chicago American Giants. Although Texas lost, 7-5, Gardner had three hits and scored a run, which his future manager, Rube Foster, surely noticed.15

On June 17, 1917, Gardner registered for military service, listing “ball player” as his usual occupation on his registration card. World War I soon interrupted Gardner’s plans to play professional baseball when he was drafted.16 By May 4, 1918, he enlisted in the US Army; on June 10 he sailed on a transport ship, the Agamemnon, from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Brest, France.17

Gardner served as a private in Company F in the 365th Infantry, 92nd Division, which was nicknamed the Buffalo Soldier Division and “was one of only two all-black divisions to fight in the United States Army in World War I.”18 Little has been documented regarding Gardner’s military service, but his division served on the front lines and “saw action primarily in one of the last Allied operations of the war – the Meuse-Argonne Offensive that began in September and ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918.”19 Gardner returned to the United States aboard the Olympic on February 17, 1919.20 He was discharged by the Army on March 19, 1919, just in time for baseball season.21

Gardner initially lived in Chicago and worked various jobs at restaurants and hotels, but he soon joined the Detroit Stars.22 The Stars were the top Western independent club in 1919, finishing with a record of 27-14, which was one game better than the Chicago American Giants.23 In early July, Foster saw his Giants lose three straight to the Stars. Gardner had a hit, scored two runs, and stole a base in the finale, as the Stars won, 11-3.24 The speed game suited Gardner well, as he recalled to baseball historian John Holway:

“I wasn’t a power hitter, I was a punch hitter. Punch it by the first baseman, slow balls to the shortstop, drag it to the second baseman. And I was a fair bunter: If you didn’t bunt too hard you were safe – I mean, I was. Or you’d fake like you were going to bunt, the third baseman would come in, you’d push the ball right by him. I got a double on those lots of times.”25

Despite his success in Detroit, Gardner did not get along with the Stars’ owner, Tenny Blount. He bitterly suggested Blount should not even have owned a team because he also “ran a gambling house.”26 The following year, he joined the Dayton Marcos in the newly formed Negro National League, although details of his signing are lost to history. For the first few months, he played left field for Dayton. His last reported game with the Marcos was on July 19, 1920, as he contributed a hit in a 3-1 loss to the American Giants.27

By the beginning of August, the American Giants had won 15 in a row,28 and Foster acquired the 24-year-old Gardner to become Chicago’s starting right fielder. Foster employed “intimidation, psychology, speed, and the bunt-and-run” as his principal offensive strategies,29 which made Gardner an ideal fit for Chicago. The American Giants featured Bingo DeMoss, George Dixon, Leroy Grant, and Cristóbal Torriente as the primary run producers in the lineup.

Foster recognized Gardner as one of the fastest players in the game, particularly in running down the line to first base.30He immediately made Gardner his leadoff hitter, elevating him from the low place in the batting order he had occupied with Detroit and Dayton.31 Gardner was so fast that, many years later, when Homestead Grays owner and columnist Cum Posey selected him for his all-time, all-American baseball team, he was effusive in his praise of Gardner’s speed, writing:

“I pick Jelly Gardner as the best run-getter and lead-off man I have seen in forty years. No lead-off man in recent years has had the aggressiveness and the ability to reach first base in as many ways as he did. In my opinion he was the only player I ever saw that could steal first base.”32

For his part, Gardner later expressed pride that he “was always the ‘lead-off’ (first-place) hitter in the line-up and was never removed for a pinch hitter.”33 With Gardner at the top of the lineup, the American Giants completed the 1920 campaign as champions of the Negro National League with a 43-17-2 record, which was good for a commanding eight-game lead over second-place Detroit. Chicago won NNL pennants again in 1921 and 1922.

On June 13, 1922, Foster moved Gardner out of his usual leadoff spot and batted him seventh. Gardner responded with three hits in four at-bats, a sacrifice, three runs scored, and a stolen base in a wild 19-16 loss to the St. Louis Stars.34 At season’s end, the American Giants won the NNL again in a close race with the Monarchs.

Baseball historian James Riley observed that Gardner’s “performance [with Chicago] was inversely related to the team’s success. In his first three seasons, he batted only .182, .219, and .236, [but] the American Giants won the Negro National League pennant each year.”35 However, additional box scores from the years 1920-22 have come to light and have helped to determine that his batting average during this time frame was .254 and his on-base percentage was a more respectable .324.36 He also contributed 60 stolen bases during this period,37 leading the NNL in 1922 and finishing third the following year. Gardner later remembered Foster would often use smoke from his pipe to convey signs to him on the basepaths.38

Gardner was one of the speediest players in the game.39 Teammate Dave Malarcher called him “a terror” on the basepaths and “a whiz in the outfield,” as he described Gardner’s aggressive game to John Holway:

“[I]f he’s running and you lay the ball down the least bit to the right side of the pitcher if he’s a right-hander, the third baseman is going to move off the bag – he’s got to move off. I have seen Jelly score from first on balls like that. If the guy makes a not too perfect throw to first base, you just come on home, instead of just going to third. It was really marvelous.

He made one of the two greatest catches I’ve ever seen. It was down in Baltimore, one of those great big parks. They didn’t even have a right field fence, right field was like a pasture. The bases were filled, and Jelly had to run like everything and finally jumped in the air and reached out and caught it with his bare hand. That Gardner was a great little outfielder.”40

By 1923, newspapers began referring to Gardner as “Jelly.”41 According to baseball historian Jim Yeager, because he was “[s]hort, round, and jovial, Gardner was tagged with the nickname ‘Jelly Roll’ by his teammates. Nicknames had a way of catching on in the early days of baseball in America, and Floyd ‘Jelly Roll’ Gardner was never Floyd. He was simply called ‘Jelly.’”42

Despite his affable nickname, Gardner had a reputation for hard-nosed play on the field. He was always willing to argue with umpires and to fight opposing players.43 Off the field, he was known for late nights in speakeasies and shot houses during Prohibition.44 Gardner later recalled that Foster did not care what he did outside the ballpark.45 While his manager overlooked Gardner’s after-hours shenanigans, he expected him to take his job seriously, and he had no tolerance when Gardner failed to follow his orders in a game. As Foster’s son Earl told baseball historian Robert Peterson:

“One time Jelly Gardner was sent up to bunt and he tripled. He came back and sat down on the bench. The old man took that pipe he smoked – he always had it – and he popped him right across the head. And he fined him and told him, ‘As long as I’m paying you, you’ll do as I tell you to do.’”46

Gardner played well in 1923, batting .280 with a .377 on-base percentage, as he led the American Giants in steals (21) and runs (70). However, Chicago had an off-year and finished 3½ games behind the Kansas City Monarchs. It was the first of four straight NNL pennants for the Monarchs from 1923 to 1926, while Chicago slipped to second place three times. For his part, Gardner performed well for the American Giants during this time-frame as he batted .301 and averaged 64 runs scored and 14 stolen bases. He also posted a career-high batting average (.325) and on-base percentage (.432) in 1924, as he paced Chicago in plate appearances, at-bats, hits, and walks. He then spent the winter in Cuba playing for Santa Clara and Matanzas, where he batted .288.47

Before starting the 1925 campaign, the American Giants played an exhibition against the Chicago Blues, regarded as “the strongest white club in the city.”48 Gardner collected three hits including two doubles in the 5-3 win, which left newspapers predicting a pennant for Foster.49

On April 27 the American Giants opened the NNL schedule on the road at Rickwood Field with a four-game series against the Birmingham Black Barons. In front of 10,000 fans, one of the largest crowds ever to see a Negro League game in Birmingham, the American Giants crushed the Black Barons, 15-6. Gardner’s home run keyed a six-run outburst by Chicago in the fifth inning.50 He also made “several spectacular catches” in the outfield.51 The Pittsburgh Courier – perhaps reporting on Gardner’s performance for the entire series – noted that he collected four hits, including a home run and two doubles in the game.52 Chicago then swept the remaining three games from Birmingham.53

Despite the early success, the American Giants soon cooled off and the Monarchs moved into first place by late spring.54 Kansas City won the NNL by 3½ games over the second-place St. Louis Stars.55 Although Chicago finished 57-41-2, it fell to third place, a disappointing 10 games behind the Monarchs.

The 1926 season proved to be transitional for both the American Giants and Gardner, who was now 30. Chicago traded its best player, Cristóbal Torriente, to the rival Monarchs before the season.56 Rube Foster managed the first half for Chicago, but the American Giants sank to fourth in the standings.57 Foster was suffering from a mental illness and took a leave of absence during the second half; he was replaced as manager by third basemen Dave Malarcher.58 The American Giants bounced back to finish 57-24-3. Gardner had an excellent year at the plate, leading the team with a .315 batting average, a .424 on-base percentage, and 57 runs scored.

With Torriente, Kansas City had the best overall record in the NNL once again. However, Chicago managed to win the second-half title and faced the Monarchs in a best-of-nine NNL Championship Series for the right to meet the champion of the Eastern Colored League in the Negro League World Series.59

Unfortunately for the American Giants, the first four games of the series were in Kansas City and the Monarchs won each of the first three games.60 The next day, Chicago managed to eke out a 4-3 win behind the strong pitching of Rube Currie.61 After the series shifted to Chicago, the Monarchs won Game Five, 11-5, to take a commanding four-games-to-one lead, but “[i]n one of the most dramatic comebacks in the history of post season play, the Chicago American Giants won the final four games of the series.”62 For the NNL championship series, Gardner posted a .472 on-base percentage, which was the highest for either club, along with a .752 OPS, which was only second to Torriente’s .783.

After defeating the Monarchs, the American Giants faced the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in the Negro League World Series. Through six games, Chicago repeated its poor start from the NNL series and trailed Atlantic City three games to one (with two games ending in a tie). Even so, Gardner made two key defensive plays, which may have prevented the Bacharach Giants from sweeping the series.

In the sixth inning of Game Two, with the American Giants leading 7-5 and the bases loaded, Ambrose Reid of the Bacharach Giants singled to right, scoring Willie Jones. However, Gardner prevented a run by throwing home to catcher John Hines, which made Chano Garcia scurry back to third. Hines then picked off Hubert Lockhart at second, and shortstop Sanford Jackson threw the ball back to Hines, who tagged Garcia out at the plate to complete the improbable 9-2-6-2 double play, which ended the threat in Chicago’s 7-6 win.

Next, in the sixth inning of Game Four, and with the Bacharach Giants leading 4-3, Garcia hit a triple to start the bottom of the inning.63 Rats Henderson then hit a fly ball to right. This time Garcia did not retreat, but Gardner fired home to Hines to nail him.64 Although the game ended in a 4-4 tie, without Gardner’s throw Chicago would have lost the game and probably the series.

After eight games, the Bacharach Giants led the series four games to two and needed just one more win to become Negro League champion for 1926. Facing elimination in each contest, the American Giants won the last three games of the Series. The final contest was scoreless until the bottom of the ninth as Lockhart battled Chicago’s Willie Foster. Lockhart was nearly untouchable through eight innings, allowing only two hits and one walk, while Foster struggled, as he surrendered 10 hits and three walks after nine frames. Gardner opened the bottom of the inning with a base hit to left field; he moved to second on Malarcher’s sacrifice bunt. Left fielder Sandy Thompson then singled to center to drive Gardner home for the winning run in the 1-0 victory.

Although Gardner batted only .222 in the World Series, he led both teams with 12 walks, scored 8 runs, stole 3 bases, and had an on-base percentage of .417.

By 1927, John Henry “Pop” Lloyd told sportswriter Rollo Wilson that Gardner was already worthy of being considered an all-time great.65 He was one of the heroes of the American Giants’ championship squad but soon got into a contract dispute with owner John Schorling, who was now running the team due to Foster’s mental illness.66 He held out for the spring and into the summer before becoming a free agent and joining Pop Lloyd’s Lincoln Giants of the Eastern Colored League in July.67

Lloyd was delighted with the signing, which he believed gave him the strongest outfield in baseball, and Gardner’s fleet feet and strong throwing arm made an immediate impact. The Pittsburgh Courier reported that “playing against the Camden team here Sunday, July 17, Gardner saved the game for the home team by an accurate throw from centerfield to home plate and also prevented the score from being tied up in the ninth inning by a star one hand catch off the centerfield fence.”68 Sportswriter William G. Nunn gushed over his speed, observing that “Gardner has absorbed the Rube Foster style of play, and he has the speed of a greyhound, both afield and on the bases.”69

Gardner batted .286 for the Lincoln Giants based on limited box scores, which are available for only five of his games in 1927.70 Even with Gardner at the top of the lineup, Lincoln could not catch Atlantic City, which won both halves of the ECL. Lincoln finished with a disappointing 10-15 record and mired in sixth place 12½ games behind the Bacharach Giants. Back in Chicago, Malarcher and his American Giants surely missed Gardner at the top of the order. Despite his absence, they won the NNL pennant and again defeated the Atlantic City in the Negro League World Series, which was the last one played until 1942.

That winter, Chicago and Detroit competed to sign Gardner for the 1928 campaign.71 Although Bingo DeMoss of the Stars insisted he had already inked Gardner to a deal, by the beginning of the season Gardner had returned to the American Giants, albeit only briefly.72 Later that summer, the independent Homestead Grays announced Gardner’s signing. The Pittsburgh Courier vaguely reported that his acquisition came as a surprise because “no advance notice was given of Gardner’s intention of joining the Grays.”73 Baseball historian Paul Debono concluded that Gardner had jumped his contract with Chicago.74 He played well for the Grays, batting .292.

That offseason, Homestead played an eight-game series against a collection of barnstorming players from the American League who included Jimmie Foxx.75 In the first game, Gardner batted leadoff. He went 2-for-4 with a double, stole two bases, and scored three runs as the Grays beat the All-Stars, 8-4.76 He batted a respectable .280 for the series, which the two teams split.

For Gardner, 1929 was nearly a mirror image to the previous year. This time, he was expected to open the season with Homestead.77 However, by Opening Day, sportswriter Rollo Wilson reported that “Jelly Gardner has taken French leave from the Grays and that Cum Posey is searching for another fly-chaser.”78 In fact, he had already returned to Chicago.79 Even with Gardner’s return, the American Giants limped to a 19-24 record and fifth place in the NNL standings in the first half.80 Although they bounced back to finish 51-40, this was only good for third place, a distant 17½ games behind the Monarchs.

Gardner batted .315 with an impressive .419 on-base percentage and was the American Giants’ second-best offensive player behind Pythias Russ.81 He nearly won the league’s stolen-base title as well.82 However, his skills soon began to decline as the new decade got underway.

By 1930, Gardner was 34 years old and was no longer an everyday player in Chicago’s outfield. According to the available statistics, he batted only .232 and stole just a single base in 34 games for the fourth-place American Giants. Late that fall, Rube Foster, the man who had originally signed him for Chicago in 1920, died after a long illness.83

The following year, Gardner signed with the Detroit Stars, the team for which he had plied his trade in 1919 as a young prospect. His offensive abilities continued to decline; he batted only .215. On July 9 he had one final flash of glory as he homered in Detroit’s 10-7 win over the Cleveland Cubs.84 Despite his heroics, Gardner could not help the Stars escape fourth place as they finished with a 25-33 record. After the season the Rube Foster-founded NNL collapsed.

Years after he retired, Gardner told John Holway that he returned to play for the American Giants in 1933, although no contemporaneous news reports confirm this.85 Both his Hall of Fame questionnaire, which he completed in 1972, and his player clip file report he played for Homestead in 1932 and 1933.86 Once again, no newspaper sources confirm this.

After retiring from baseball, Gardner briefly worked for the US Post Office.87 He then worked for many years for the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad as a waiter and Pullman porter.88 He married Dorothy Haynes on November 29, 1950, and the couple had two children, Floyd Alec Gardner, and Judie Marie Gardner.89 On July 29, 1951, he played in his last reported game – a two-inning old-timer’s exhibition contest – to honor Rube Foster at Comiskey Park.90

Gardner died in Chicago on March 28, 1977, at the age of 81.91 He is buried in Saint Mary Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum in Evergreen Park in Cook County, Illinois.92

Based on the currently available statistics for league games, Gardner batted .280 during his career with a solid on-base percentage of .373, an OPS+ of 102, and 146 stolen bases. In 1952 the Pittsburgh Courier selected him as an immortal of the game.93 Throughout his career, he was frequently cited in newspaper accounts as being not only one of the fastest players in the game but also as possessing one of the deadliest arms.94 Rollo Wilson argued that Gardner was good enough to play in the major leagues.95 In his 13 games against big-league clubs, he batted .292 with 5 stolen bases and 10 runs scored.96

Gardner appeared on the preliminary ballot of the 2006 Special Committee on the Negro Leagues Election to the Baseball Hall of Fame but failed to garner enough votes to make the final ballot.97 However, it remains an open question as to whether he is deserving of induction.

For his part, Gardner believed he was a better hitter than Ty Cobb,98 although this claim was certainly an exaggeration, which stands in marked contrast to the available evidence. In 1974 sportswriter Doc Young of the Chicago Defenderinterviewed an anonymous old-time Negro League player who declared that “Jelly Gardner was a better player than Cool Papa Bell,” adding, “I played against Cool Papa Bell and I know he wasn’t an all-around star. He could run fast but he couldn’t throw and he couldn’t hit with power.”99 The player cited an East Coast bias as the reason voters overlooked Gardner and others.100

Dave Malarcher assessed Gardner as “one of the greatest Negro ballplayers we had. … He should be in there in the Hall of Fame, and I happen to know that better than anybody. He wasn’t a great slugging hitter, but he knew how to go everything at bat to get on base. He was fast, he could bunt, he could run, he was daring. And he was a run-maker, because anything you did behind him, he’d score.”101

On December 16, 2020, Major League Baseball announced that seven professional Negro Leagues that operated from 1920 to 1948 had been designated as having “Major League status.”102 Consequently, Gardner has finally been recognized as a major-league player for 12 of his 13 seasons in professional baseball. With his rating as a big leaguer now established, it may be time to reevaluate his Hall of Fame candidacy.

Sources and Acknowledgments

All player statistics and team records were taken from Seamheads.com, except where otherwise indicated.

The author wishes to thank fellow SABR member Joe DeLeonard for reviewing this article and offering helpful suggestions. Cassidy Lent, a reference librarian at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, generously provided Jelly Gardner’s Hall of Fame player clip file and questionnaire, along with John Holway’s excellent article on him.

Notes

1 Jelly Gardner’s National Baseball Hall of Fame questionnaire.

2 Gardner questionnaire; Arkansas. Pope County. 1900 US Census.

3 Arkansas. Pope County. 1900 US Census; Arkansas. Pope County. 1910 US Census; Arkansas. Pope County. 1920 US Census.

4 Jelly Gardner questionnaire.

5 The school provided courses for students in grammar school, high school, and college. “Arkansas Baptist College,” Arkansas Democrat, August 31, 1919: 67.

6 Jelly Gardner questionnaire.

7 John Holway, “Historically Speaking: Jelly Gardner,” Black Sports, September 1974: 60.

8 Holway: 60.

9 Jim Yeager, “Floyd Gardner: They Called Him ‘Jelly,’” January 20, 2020: accessed at https://onlyinark.com/sports/floyd-gardner-they-called-him-jelly/; “‘Jelly’ Gardner and George Johnson Both from ‘Lone Star State’ Scale Heights,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 21, 1925: 6.

10 Holway: 60.

11 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=gardn01jel.

12 “Jeffrey and Johnson Will Do Pitching for Taylor’s A.B.C.s,” Indianapolis Star, July 22, 1917: 45.

13 “Taylor’s Team Twice Trims Texas Team,” Indianapolis News, July 23, 1917: 11; “Jeffries Allows Team Only Two Hits and Taylor A.B.C.s Win,” Indianapolis Star, July 24, 1917: 11; “Taylor’s Squad Wins Again from the Texas All-Stars,” Indianapolis Star, July 25, 1917: 10. According to baseball historian Paul Debono, the game between the All-Stars and the American Giants was played on “Texas Day … in which his home state was honored.” Paul Debono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007), 65.

14 “Jeffries Allows Team Only Two Hits and Taylor A.B.C.s Win,” Indianapolis Star, July 24, 1917: 11.

15 “Fosters Score Five in One Round and Beat Leaguers, 7-5,” Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1917: 11.

16 “‘Jelly’ Gardner and George Johnson Both from ‘Lone Star State’ Scale Heights,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 21, 1925: 6.

17 US Army Transport Service Arriving and Departing Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

18 Ephrem Yared, 92ND INFANTRY DIVISION (1917–1919, 1942–1945), March 9, 2016: accessed at https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/92nd-infantry-division-1917-1919-1942-1945-0/.

19 Yared. According to baseball historian Jim Yeager, Gardner was briefly listed as missing in action in a local newspaper. Jim Yeager, “Floyd Gardner: They Called Him ‘Jelly,’” January 20, 2020: accessed at https://onlyinark.com/sports/floyd-gardner-they-called-him-jelly/

20 US Army Transport Service Arriving and Departing Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

21 US Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010; Gardner questionnaire.

22 Holway: 60; James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994), 306.

23 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1919. All statistics in this biography are from Seamheads or Retrosheet.org.

24 “Detroit Stars Make It Sweep with Chicago,” Detroit Free Press, July 8, 1919: 16.

25 Holway: 60.

26 Holway: 60.

27 “American Giants Trim Dayton Nine Again, 3-1,” Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1920: 14.

28 “Chicago Club Here Tomorrow,” Kansas City Times, July 30, 1920: 12.

29 Tim Odzer, “Rube Foster,” accessed at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/andrew-rube-foster/#_ednref10.

30 William G. Nunn, “Diamond Dope,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 10, 1926: 14.

31 Debono, 77. With the Stars and Marcos, Gardner usually batted at the bottom of the lineup. “Stars Work Hard Scoring Odd Run on Doyle’s Boys,” Detroit Free Press, April 28, 1919: 12 (batted sixth); “Corrigan Field Is Opened with Stars’ Victory,” Detroit Free Press, May 31, 1919: 16 (batted seventh); “Second Contest Is Annexed by Detroit Stars,” Detroit Free Press, June 1, 1919: 26 (batted seventh); “Detroit Stars Again Wallop Pittsburghers,” Detroit Free Press, June 24, 1919: 21 (batted seventh); “Detroit Stars Make It Sweep with Chicago,” Detroit Free Press, July 8, 1919: 16 (batted eighth); “Whitworth Is Master Over Blount’s Cast,” Detroit Free Press, July 28, 1919: 11 (batted seventh); “Stars Pummel Foster’s Club in Third Game,” Detroit Free Press, July 29, 1919: 16 (batted seventh); “Marcos 6; Am. Giants 5,” Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1920: 14 (batted second).

32 Chester Washington, “Sez Ches,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 6, 1943: 18. Posey also selected Buck Leonard (1B), George Scales (2b), George Monroe (3b), Willie Wells (ss), Pete Hill (lf), Oscar Charleston (cf), and Josh Gibson (c) as position players for this team along with pitchers Satchel Paige, Bullet Joe Rogan, Slim Jones, Joe Williams, Rats Henderson, and Willie Foster.

33 Gardner questionnaire.

34 “Battling Bee Won by St. Louis Stars Over Chicago Giants,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 14, 1992: 16.

35 Riley, 305.

36 This includes Gardner’s performance with Dayton in 1920 as those numbers are not separated.

37 This includes Gardner’s performance with Dayton in 1920 as those numbers are not separated.

38 Robert Peterson, Only The Ball Was White (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 109.

39 “Both Clubs Traveling Fast,” Kansas City Times, July 2, 1924: 14.

40 Holway: 58.

41 “Orange Opens Season Sunday,” Bridgewater (New Jersey) Courier-News, April 12, 1923: 12; “Am. Giants, 5; Kansas City, 1,” Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1923: 23.

42 Jim Yeager, “Floyd Gardner: They Called Him ‘Jelly,’” January 20, 2020; accessed at https://onlyinark.com/sports/floyd-gardner-they-called-him-jelly/.

43 Yeager; Riley, 305-06; Posey’s Points, Pittsburgh Courier, April 12, 1941: 16.

44 Riley, 306; Holway: 60.

45 Holway: 60.

46 Peterson, 111.

47 Gardner player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

48 “Am. Giants Play Like Champions and Win 5-3,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 18, 1925: 12.

49 “Am. Giants Play Like Champions and Win 5-3.”

50 “Chicago Takes Opener from Black Barons,” Birmingham News, April 28, 1925: 16.

51 “Am. Giants Take Opener from Barons,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 2, 1925: 13.

52 “Am. Giants Take Opener from Barons.” This is at odds with the box score published in the Birmingham News, which showed that Gardner went 1-for-6 in the first game. “Chicago Takes Opener from Black Barons,” Birmingham News, April 28, 1925: 16. In the second game of the series, Gardner went 2-for-5 with a double and a run scored in the 12-2 win. “Chicago Wins Second Clash from Rushmen,” Birmingham News, April 29, 1925: 16. Only a line score has been located for the third game of the series, which the American Giants won, 12-10. “American Giants Rally to Defeat Birmingham,” Chicago Tribune, April 30, 1925: 15. In the fourth game of the series, Gardner went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored in the 9-8 win. “Black Barons Lose Four in Row to Giants,” Birmingham News, May 1, 1925: 23.

53 “Black Barons Lose Four in Row to Giants,” Birmingham News, May 1, 1925: 23.

54 “Chicago Giants Here Tomorrow,” Kansas City Star, May 27, 1925: 14.

55 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1925&lgID=NNL.

56 Peter C. Bjarkman, “Cristóbal Torriente,” accessed at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/cristobal-torriente/.

57 Debono, 110.

58 Debono, 110.

59 “The Pennant to Chicago,” Kansas City Times, September 13, 1926: 10; “Sports Notes,” Parsons (Kansas) Daily Sun, September 14, 1926: 2.

60 “Kay See Wins Three,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 25, 1926: 14. The first two games were hotly contested with Kansas City claiming one-run wins, 4-3 and 6-5. “Kansas City, 4; Giants, 3,” Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1926: 32; “Monarchs Trim Fosters in Negro Title Game, 6-5,” Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times, September 20, 1926: 10. In Game Three, the Monarchs won easily, 5-0. “Kay See Wins Three.”

61 “Play-Off Championship” Series, Center for Negro League Baseball Research, 3, accessed athttp://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/RL/Negro%20League%20Play-Off%20Series%20(1925-1929).pdf.

62 “Play-Off Championship” Series.

63 Frank A. Young, “Atlantic City Invades West, Leading Chicago 2 to 1 In World’s Series,” Chicago Defender, October 9, 1926: 11.

64 Young: 11.

65 Rollo Wilson, “Sports Hots: Press Box & Ringside,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 2, 1927: 18.

66 “World Champs Open Season Next Sunday,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 16, 1927: 17.

67 Rollo Wilson, “Sports Hots: Press Box & Ringside,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 23, 1927: 16; “‘Jelly’ Gardner Now on Roster of Lincoln Giants,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 23, 1927: 16.

Paul Debono noted that Gardner signed with the Homestead Grays. Debono, 116. However, it was pitcher Ping Gardner who joined Homestead, not Jelly Gardner. “‘Ping Gardner to Twirl for Grays,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 9, 1927: 17.

68 “‘Jelly’ Gardner Now on Roster of Lincoln Giants.”

69 William G. Nunn, “Sport Broadcast Talks,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 6, 1927: 16.

70 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1927&teamID=NLG&LGOrd=3.

71 “Baseball Gossip of the National League,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 17, 1928: 16.

72 “Baseball Gossip of the National League”; Q.J. Gilmore, “Doings of the National League,” California Eagle (Los Angeles), May 25, 1928: 9.

73 “Grays Win Both Games Saturday,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 4, 1928: 16; “Homestead Grays Have Real Collection of Ball Players; Lineup of Team Is Announced,” Warren (Pennsylvania) Tribune, August 22, 1928: 6.

74 Debono, 120.

75 “Grays Set for Big Leaguers,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 6, 1928: 17.

76 “Grays Beat Big Leaguers in First 2 Tilts,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 13, 1928: 16.

77 C.L. Washington, “‘Ches’ Says,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 29, 1929: 17.

78 Rollo Wilson, “Sports Hots: Press Box & Ringside,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 27, 1929: 17.

79 “M’Donald Holds Akron Scoreless; Grays Win Sparkling Opener, 4-0,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 27, 1929: 16; “Can’t Stop the Monarchs,” Kansas City (Missouri) Times, April 30, 1929: 13; Debono, 123.

80 “National League Standings,” Birmingham Reporter, June 29, 1929: 7.

81 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1929&teamID=CAG&LGOrd=1&tab=bat&sort=R_a.

82 “American Giants Open Series Here,” Detroit Free Press, May 17, 1930: 17.

83 “‘Rube’ Foster, Negro Baseball Pitcher, Dies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 10, 1930: 26.

84 “Homers by Gardner, Dean Give Stars Win,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 11, 1931: 14.

85 Holway: 60.

86 Gardner questionnaire; Hall of Fame player file.

87 Holway: 60.

88 Holway: 60.

89 Gardner questionnaire.

90 Russ J. Cowans, “Rube Foster Honored at Chisox Park,” The Sporting News, August 8, 1951: 34.

91 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/224134327/floyd-gardner.

92 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/224134327/floyd-gardner.

93 “Courier Experts’ ‘Roll of Honor,’” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1952: 16.

94 “Both Clubs Traveling Fast,” Kansas City Times, July 2, 1924: 14; “Dismukes’ Diamond Dope,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 15, 1924: 7; “‘Jelly’ Gardner and George Johnson Both from ‘Lone Star State’ Scale Heights,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 21, 1925: 6; William G. Nunn, “Diamond Dope,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 10, 1926: 14; Rollo Wilson, “Sports Hots: Press Box & Ringside,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 18, 1928: 18; Chester Washington, “Sez Ches,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 6, 1943: 18.

95 Rollo Wilson, “Sports Hots: Press Box & Ringside,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 3, 1927: 18.

96 Todd Peterson, ed., The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues: Historians Reappraise Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2020), 233.

97 https://www.baseballreference.com/bullpen/2006_Special_Committee_on_the_Negro_Leagues_Election.

98 “The World Series That Never Was Played,” Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1970: 30.

99 A.S. “Doc” Young, “Good Morning Sports!” Chicago Defender, May 14, 1974: 21.

100 A.S. Young.

101 Holway: 58.

102 https://www.mlb.com/news/negro-leagues-given-major-league-status-for-baseball-records-stats.