Who was this mysterious Blackwell whose given name never appeared in newspaper accounts of his games? There was only one person who lived in Philadelphia who fit Blackwell’s description in terms of age, location, and baseball participation. That person was Bernard Harvey Blackwell. He was born in Philadelphia in 1916. When he pitched for the Stars in 1934, he was 18 years old and fresh out of high school. Blackwell attended a high school in Philadelphia, but the name of the school is unknown. Although one newspaper described him as a “Holmesburg high” student, no such school existed. Holmesburg is a community located approximately 10 miles northeast of Philadelphia, but Blackwell did not live there. He spent nearly his entire life closer to the northeast Philadelphia neighborhood of Frankford, roughly six miles from downtown. Frankford was home to several amateur baseball teams that provided Blackwell with an opportunity to play. Blackwell’s World War II draft card supplies some additional evidence to support the theory that he was the same “Blackwell” who had a fleeting career with the Stars. His draft card described him as nearly 6 feet tall and weighing 150 pounds, a suitable conformation for a pitcher.

After his one-game performance for the Stars, Blackwell’s baseball career continued for two more years. He played for the Frankford Giants, a well-respected local team that shared its name with its neighborhood. Blackwell’s results were mixed. In May 1935 he “twirled for the fast-stepping Frankford Giants” in a 5-3 victory over the Philadelphia Ukrainians.5 A few weeks later, however, he was pummeled by Lou Kirner’s North Phillies, 12-2.6 In the next game, the Frankford Arrows belittled the Giants, 8-3, using Blackwell’s pitches for target practice, a circumstance that resulted in his demotion to relief and utility duties.7 Blackwell’s baseball career ended on a sour note on July 19, 1936, when his Frankford Giants were cut down to size by the Mt. Holly Relief Athletic Association, 16-3.8 After the loss to Mt. Holly, Blackwell’s name did not appear in any additional game reports for the Frankford Giants or any other Philadelphia area team.

After his brief foray into amateur and professional baseball, Blackwell married and served in the US Navy during World War II. He followed in his father’s footsteps as a postal clerk and mail carrier, a similar career path that once was taken by the Philadelphia Stars’ owner, Ed Bolden.9 Bernard Blackwell married Mary E. Ruffin about the time when he played his final games for the Frankford Giants. The Blackwells had no children. Bernard Blackwell died in Philadelphia in 1985 and was buried in the Beverly National Cemetery in Burlington, New Jersey.

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated, all Negro League statistics and records were sourced from Seamheads.com.

Ancestry.com was used to access census, birth, death, marriage, military, immigration, and other genealogical and public records.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 88.

2 “Philly Stars Garner Two During Week,” Baltimore Afro American, July 14, 1934: 19.

3 “Philly Stars Garner Two During Week.”

4 “Philly Stars Garner Two During Week.”

5 “Frankford Giants Win,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 28, 1935: 25.

6 “North Phils Top Frankford Giants,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 16, 1935: 42.

7 “Frankford Arrows Win Series Opener,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 1935: 36; “Beth-Allens to Close Their Season Today,” Allentown(Pennsylvania) Morning Call, September 16, 1936: 16.

8 “Relief A.A. Nine Laces Frankford Giants, 16-3,” Camden (New Jersey) Courier-Post, July 20, 1936: 18.

9 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing & Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 17.

Bolden was a creative marketer, a skilled businessman, and a shrewd baseball scout, assembling several premier teams during his career. He excelled at recognizing talent, whether it was at the local or professional level.

Edward W. Bolden was born in Concordville, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles west of Philadelphia, on January 17, 1881. His baseball career began as a humble volunteer scorekeeper for an amateur team in nearby Darby, Pennsylvania, managed by 19-year-old Austin Thompson. Darby, which lies five miles southwest of Philadelphia, was an African American enclave of 6,300 when Thompson organized the Hilldale club in the spring of 1910. The team played other amateur squads in the Philadelphia area, but it would soon outgrow both its competitive and geographic boundaries. While Thompson started Hilldale on the road to prominence, he was not around to see the club reach it.

At 19, Thompson was barely older than the players on his team. The 28-year-old Bolden was more mature, had more business experience, and, as time would prove, possessed unparalleled marketing skills. The combination of Thompson’s youth and Bolden’s experience led to a change in leadership. By the end of the season Thompson was gone, replaced at the helm by Bolden. Under Bolden’s leadership, Hilldale grew from a local amateur organization to a professional powerhouse, flourishing financially through the 1920s before finally succumbing to the Great Depression. During his two decades in charge, Bolden built some of the best black ballclubs in the east. From 1923 to 1928 he also headed the Eastern Colored League (ECL), of which Hilldale was a charter member. All the while Bolden maintained his full-time position at the post office.

Bolden was a tireless and brash promoter. He heavily marketed the fact that Hilldale was black-owned. It paid off, playing a role in the team’s ability to land top-quality talent and schedule attractive opponents. It also made Bolden a local hero of sorts in Darby. But while he promoted Hilldale as a “race institution,” he was not afraid to do business with white men when he found it profitable. Despite his willingness to deal with businessmen regardless of color, Bolden remained devoted to black business and causes. He was a member of several black organizations, including the Elks, Masons, Shriners, and the Citizens Republican Club. He donated generously to black causes, and regularly took part in benefits and charity events, both individually and through the ballclub.

Bolden earned a reputation as a clean, upstanding owner with little tolerance for rowdiness or umpire-baiting. He advocated “clean ball” and gentlemanly behavior on the field and expected the same from the fans in the stands. Once, during the 1916 season, Bolden even went so far as to press charges against patrons of his own park for rowdy behavior. This incident led to his employment of security guards at home games to ensure the safety and comfort of the players, umpires, and fans.

Bolden was a master at utilizing the press to market his team. Immediately after taking over from Thompson, he began providing regular updates on the team, including box scores, to the local black press. He put up posters, mailed postcards announcing upcoming games, and purchased ads in the Philadelphia Tribune in order to generate publicity for Hilldale.

One of Bolden’s more curious publicity stunts was a fundraising scheme he concocted in 1914. To raise cash for the team, he held a raffle, offering a ton of coal as first prize. The effort succeeded, and the team ended the year with a $225 profit.

Perhaps Bolden’s greatest stroke of marketing genius was the construction in 1914 of Darby Field, also known as Hilldale Park. The location of the ballpark was convenient for his fan base, and easy to reach after Bolden arranged with the local streetcar company to run a line straight to the park and add extra cars on game days. Beginning in 1917, Bolden earned additional income by leasing out the stadium and selling advertising in the park.

As he would continue to do throughout his career, Bolden improved his roster by signing players away from other squads. When Hilldale was an amateur team, he recruited players from other sandlot teams, sometimes advertising in the papers for open tryouts, or placing classified ads seeking specific players. Later on he signed players from other teams, often earning the enmity of other owners as a result. This practice led to his long-running public feud with Rube Foster. The feud had its roots in the organization of the Negro National League (NNL) by Foster in 1920. The league suffered from many problems, ranging from a lack of competitive balance to poor publicity. Foster considered contract jumpers one of the greatest threats to league stability. He was particularly upset with Bolden, whom he accused of stealing three of his players after the 1919 season. In retaliation, Foster pledged his support to the Madison Stars and Bacharach Giants, competing clubs in the East. The Giants joined the NNL and immediately raided the Hilldale roster.

Bolden responded to the raid with a legal challenge, which he ultimately dropped when he couldn’t afford to continue the proceedings. He contended that none of the players he had signed away from Foster’s club had been under contract at the time, nor were they protected by a reserve clause; hence he had not been guilty of enticing anyone to jump his contract. Bolden’s eventual creation of a competitor league to the NNL only further strained the relationship between the two entrepreneurs.

For Hilldale, 1916 proved to be a watershed year. Before the season Bolden implemented several substantial changes. He required players to be present for twice-weekly practices and pregame workouts, banned alcohol, and threatened dismissal for insubordination. The ballpark was upgraded, a grandstand was built, admission was fixed at 20 cents, new uniforms were ordered, and regular weekly meetings were held during the offseason. Most importantly, Hilldale earned a profit for the third consecutive year. The players displayed their appreciation for Bolden after the season by presenting him with a $100 diamond ring, which they purchased out of their share of the profits.

The Hilldale Daisies, as they were commonly referred to in the press, officially incorporated as the Hilldale Baseball and Exhibition Company in January 1917. Bolden was elected president by his co-owners, who referred to themselves as the “old fellows,” since most of them had been with the team since its early amateur days and were too old to play.

The incorporation was the first step to becoming a professional club. Signing Otto Briggs as the club’s first paid player was the second. To cover the costs of running a professional team, admissions went up by a nickel at Hilldale Park beginning in August of 1917.

Bolden had to be innovative to survive. As the president of an independent team, he had to create an entire season schedule and negotiate a payment for each game. Sunday and holiday games could generate big profits with the right competition at the right price, and the loss of even one such lucrative payday could spell the difference between profit and loss for the year. These business decisions were crucial because of the thin margin on which the team operated.

The decision to turn professional was financially risky, but paid off immediately both on the field (23-15-1 record) and off ($2,915 profit for 1917, which was nearly three times as much as the previous three years combined). The bottom line was helped by several postseason exhibitions that Bolden lined up against major leaguers. To beef up the squad for these games he added stars Smokey Joe Williams, Louis Santop, and Dick Lundy to the lineup. Santop remained with Hilldale for several seasons, and was instrumental in leading the team to the Colored World Series in 1924.

Bolden’s success drew the attention of white New York booking agent Nat Strong, who coveted Hilldale for his booking agency. When Bolden rebuffed his advances, Strong threatened to drive him out of business by locating a competing team across the street from Darby Field. Bolden responded promptly and publicly to this threat by taking out an ad in the Philadelphia Tribune to state his case:

“The race people of Philadelphia and vicinity are proud to proclaim Hilldale the biggest thing in the baseball world owned, fostered, and controlled by race men. … We are proud to be in a position to give Darby citizens the most beautiful park in Delaware County, a team that is second to none and playing the best attractions available. To affiliate ourselves with other than race men would be a mark against our name that could never be eradicated.”

Bolden’s public-relations coup and his skills at signing top talent defused Strong’s threat and contributed to the rise of Hilldale to the top of the Eastern colored circuits. His refusal to ally with white baseball men won him praise and admiration. Years later his reversal of this belief would cost him in the court of public opinion.

After World War I, Bolden and other local promoters began to challenge Philadelphia’s blue laws prohibiting commercialized ball on Sunday. They banded together in an organization known as the Allied Athletic Association. Their bid ultimately failed, but it begat another organization, the Philadelphia Baseball Association (PBA), which would provide Bolden with valuable administrative experience, and demonstrate his standing in the local baseball community. The PBA was formally organized in February 1922. Besides campaigning for Sunday ball, it also addressed contract-jumping, umpiring, gambling, and discipline problems. Hilldale was a member of the PBA, and Bolden was the only African American elected to its board of governors.

Besides upgrading his own park on an annual basis, Bolden also secured a lease in 1920 on a park across the river in Camden, New Jersey. He could now expand his market with two ballparks. It also allowed him to schedule lucrative home Sunday games, which Philadelphia’s blue laws prohibited.

Later that year Bolden paid $500 for an associate membership in the National Association of Colored Professional Baseball Clubs (NACPBC). The advantage of joining the league was a regular slate of games and a central authority. But the ability of the league to discipline either the players or the clubs was very limited. Hilldale, like other teams, could, and often did, play any team that would agree with it on price and location, bypassing a scheduled league game if necessary. That year more than two-thirds of Hilldale’s schedule was against nonleague opponents.

In December 1920 Bolden left the NACPBC and for a $1,000 deposit, joined Rube Foster’s Negro National League (NNL) as an associate member. The membership provided him protection from player raids by other league members. The following year Bolden made one of his most lucrative investments, purchasing Judy Johnson from the Madison Stars for $100. Johnson became a fixture in the Hilldale lineup for the next decade, leading the team with a .341 batting average during the 1924 colored World Series and managing the team in 1931 and 1932. In 1975 Johnson was elected to the Hall of Fame.

By 1922 Bolden was no longer satisfied with his membership in the NNL. While he was protected from player raids, he had lost lucrative dates against Eastern clubs on Foster’s outlaw list. Foster forbade NNL members to play outlawed teams in an effort to punish them for their refusal to recognize NNL contracts. He felt that by denying these outlaws lucrative dates against the high-quality teams of the NNL he would punish them at the box office. Unfortunately for Hilldale, the the NNL teams suffered as well.

The travel costs associated with league play were another sore point for Bolden. During the 1921 and 1922 seasons, only four Western teams came to Hilldale for games, and Hilldale’s Western trip in 1922 was a financial loss. The cost of transportation, food, and lodging were more than Hilldale’s share of the gate.

Bolden had sought to withdraw from the league and requested a refund of his deposit, which Foster refused. The two threatened to raid each other’s rosters, but ultimately Hilldale retained its associate membership in the league for a second season in 1922.

Hilldale resigned from the NNL for the second time after the 1922 season. Foster still refused to refund the deposit, citing a recent change in league bylaws preventing it. Bolden struck back by forming a rival league, the Mutual Association of Eastern Colored Baseball Clubs, popularly known as the Eastern Colored League (ECL), to begin play in 1923. Unlike the NNL, which was governed by Foster, the ECL had no president, but was run by a commission composed of one representative from each club. Bolden was elected chairman of the commission.

The formation of the league set off a public-relations war with the NNL, whose chief criticism was that some of the owners of ECL teams were white. Of particular concern to Foster was Bolden’s inclusion of Nat Strong, a white booking agent in New York. From Bolden’s perspective, Strong’s tight control of the New York market made it necessary to do business with him, especially since Sunday ball was still prohibited in Philadelphia, but not New York. Bolden countered that NNL teams were also closely tied to white businessmen, as most of the teams rented parks from white owners. In contrast, several of the ECL parks were controlled by black owners.

In his typical fashion, Bolden strengthened his team by raiding NNL rosters, resulting in Hilldale’s dominating the early years of the league. The team won the first three league titles, in 1923, 1924, and 1925, appeared in the first two Colored World Series, in 1924 and 1925, and won the Series in 1925. Naturally, his signing of NNL players did not enhance Bolden’s popularity with NNL owners.

Bolden had difficulty administering the Eastern Colored League. The commission setup made it hard to govern, because each team had a vote, and all owners were very much interested in promoting their own interests. Thus, they were wont to abandon league games for more lucrative exhibitions, especially if the league games meant a road trip. As a result, it was difficult to enforce fines for rowdy behavior, umpire-baiting, and skipped games.

Foster’s NNL and Bolden’s ECL maintained frosty relations throughout the 1923 season and into 1924. But in September, the two executives met in New York and set their differences aside, agreeing to stage a Colored World Series between the two leagues.

The NNL champion Kansas City Monarchs bested Hilldale in the inaugural World Series, five games to four, with one tie. The Series featured five future Hall of Famers: Judy Johnson, Louis Santop, and Biz Mackey for Hilldale, and Jose Mendez and Bullet Rogan for Kansas City. (J.L. Wilkinson, owner of the Monarchs, also was inducted into the Hall of Fame.)

While the Series was profitable, the player shares were less than they likely would have earned in a barnstorming series against white players. Attendance was disappointing: only 45,857 for the ten-game series, with the weekday contests drawing especially poorly. It didn’t help that only three of the games were actually played at the home field of either team. The series opened with two games in Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl, followed by two games in Baltimore and three in Kansas City before finishing with three games in Chicago. The high travel costs and the large number of games at neutral sites were factors in the relatively low profit for the Series.

Despite the low attendance, Bolden and Foster were happy with the outcome because the Series helped to focus national attention on professional black baseball. Unlike regular-season games, the Series was acknowledged by the white press in many cities.

After the Series Bolden and Foster set about normalizing relations between the NNL and the ECL. In December they signed a National Agreement that divided geographic territory between the two leagues, standardized player contracts, and formally inserted a reserve clause into player contracts. Both Bolden and Foster felt the agreement would provide the stability necessary to ensure the financial success of the two leagues.

In 1925, in an attempt to improve the quality of umpiring in the ECL, Bolden abolished the home-umpire system, in which the home team hired the umpires, in favor of league-hired umpires rotated between cities. Bolden fell out of favor over his rotating umpire plan when he hired a white supervisor of umpires, Bill Dallas. He claimed there were no qualified blacks for the position, which only inflamed criticism from the black community. The system did not solve the umpire problems, and Dallas’s lackadaisical approach to the job was blamed. The system was dropped before the 1926 season.

In 1925 Hilldale won the second Colored World Series, five games to one over Kansas City, but it was a financial disaster. Attendance averaged fewer than 3,000 per game for the six-game Series, and players received less than $100 each. The fortunes of the team sank after its championship. Hillsdale finished third in 1926 and fifth the following year, and lost attendance for three straight years. Bolden tried to resurrect the team with a series of roster moves that proved to be unpopular, and the Darby community turned on him for the first time.

The ECL responded to the numerous critics who pointed out the conflict of interest Bolden faced as commission chair and owner, and before the 1927 season he was replaced with a league president unaffiliated with any team. In September 1927, just before he was to leave for the Colored World Series, Bolden suffered a nervous breakdown. He resigned his position on the ECL commission, stepped down as president of Hilldale in favor of vice president Charles Freeman, and appeared to be out of baseball.

In February of 1928 Bolden began his comeback when he was re-elected secretary-treasurer of the ECL, and the following month regained the presidency of Hilldale. One week later he announced that Hilldale had withdrawn from the ECL. Two other teams withdrew before Opening Day, dealing a mortal blow to the league, which did not finish the season. Hilldale went 15-12 that year as an independent team. Though he had founded the league, by 1928 Bolden no longer found membership profitable, and abandoned it. He estimated that the team lost $18,000 in 1927 and could do better as an independent team.

The black economy had already slipped into a recession well ahead of the general economy. With finances tight, Bolden made more roster adjustments. His first move was to undo the decision by Charles Freeman to hire Bill Francis as a nonplaying manager, reckoning that such a luxury was unaffordable. He released Francis and brought back Otto Briggs as player-manager, saving the team one salary.

Just one year later Bolden changed his mind again about league membership. He assembled five of the six original ECL franchises and formed the American Negro League (ANL) in time for the 1929 season. He learned from some of his past mistakes when constructing the new league. For one thing, the league was more welcoming to the press, which it invited to league meetings, something the ECL never did. It helped that Bolden appointed Rollo Wilson, a respected reporter in the black press, as league secretary. But the league lasted only one season, during which Hilldale compiled a 39-35 record, good for fourth place.

The 1929 club was the highest-salaried club in Hilldale’s history, featuring future Hall of Famers Oscar Charleston, Martin Dihigo, Biz Mackey, and Judy Johnson. Each player earned more than $900 salary for the six-month season and the team as a whole averaged $700. While these salaries may sound low, they were quite good for a black man of the period, especially considering that the average manufacturing wage in the United States that year was $1,500 a year.

Umpiring was once again a problem. This time it focused on race. Bolden was unable to field an all-black umpire roster for home games. That aggravated the local black community, which was hurting economically. Bolden defended his use of white umpires by arguing that there was a shortage of experienced black umpires, and that quality trumped race in his hiring decisions. While it might have been true, it did not soothe the wrath of the black community in which he operated.

For the Hilldale squad, 1929 was the last flush year. Jobs were disappearing and the economy was plunging into what would become the Great Depression, wreaking financial havoc on black baseball. In response to the difficult times faced by the high-salaried Hilldale franchise, Bolden attempted to dissolve the corporation in 1930. He quietly made plans for a new team he planned to organize with the financial backing of white promoter Harry Passon. The rest of Hilldale’s board had other ideas, however. They blocked his attempt and bought him out of the corporation. Ed Bolden was no longer a part of the legacy he had created in Hilldale. John Drew, a black politician who earned his fortune operating a successful bus line in Philadelphia, took over and ran the club until it collapsed midway through the 1932 season.

In August of 1930 Bolden was threatened with a demotion by the post office for falling efficiency ratings, likely a result of his time-consuming involvement with baseball. He appealed on the strength of his past work record and benefited from the support of his congressman, James Wolfenden, in his successful petition to retain his position.

After leaving Hilldale, Bolden remained out of baseball for two years. In 1932 he was made an honorary member of the Darby Phantoms Athletic Club and assumed control of its sports teams, taking particular interest in the talented amateur baseball squad. He signed some professional players in an attempt to beef up the club with the intention of taking it professional, but after two years of only modest success as a travelling squad, he abandoned the effort.

Bolden returned to professional baseball in 1932 with the Philadelphia Stars. His return was controversial because he partnered with white booking agent Eddie Gottlieb, who had the connections and capital necessary to run a baseball team. Gottlieb got a 50 percent share of the team in return for providing most of the financial backing. Bolden continued to handle the bulk of the administrative tasks. So many exhibition games were booked that by midseason 1933 the Stars had played against only two black teams.

It was a logical move for Bolden to partner with Gottlieb, who had a stranglehold on baseball bookings in the Philadelphia area and had strong ties to Nat Strong, who similarly dominated the New York market. While it was a sound financial arrangement on paper, partnering with a white man went against Bolden’s history as a “race man” and risked alienating black fans. Bolden asserted that in the Depression economy it was necessary to trade race for sound finances, which were few and far between in the black community.

After the problems the ECL had surviving in league baseball, which was dependent primarily on black fans, Bolden was reluctant to commit to a league with his Stars team. He preferred a simple working agreement among teams that would honor player contracts but not require a lot of unprofitable league games. Bolden said that the Stars made most of their money on exhibitions against white teams and lost money when they committed to league games. He and Gottlieb attended a meeting of the newly formed Negro National League (formed by Gus Greenlee, this was not the same NNL Rube Foster had formed) in March of 1933, but the Stars did not join the league. Bolden promoted the Stars, who played as an independent team that year, as “Hilldale” and rented Hilldale Park on occasion. Instead of salaries, the players were paid a share of the gate receipts.

The repeal of Pennsylvania’s blue laws in 1933, the greater availability of lights, and the more optimistic economic outlook of 1934 made Bolden reconsider his opposition to joining Gus Greenlee’s NNL. He did, however, have an issue with the franchise security deposit, which was too much for his cash-strapped team to afford. Greenlee wanted Bolden’s Stars in the league to provide a team in the Philadelphia market, and a deal was struck. The Stars rejoined league ball, becoming a member of the NNL for the 1934 season. The team drew well at its new home, Passon Field, especially on weekends, and was among the league leaders in attendance. The Stars captured the second-half title with an 11-4 record, then defeated the first-half champion Chicago American Giants to win the league championship series.

The 1935 season did not go as well for the Stars. The deteriorating financial climate renewed Bolden’s skepticism about league baseball, especially during the depressed economy. The team did not draw as well as it had in 1934 and Bolden questioned remaining with the league, noting the loss of lucrative white exhibition dates to long, unprofitable Western road trips mandated by the league schedule. That attitude changed however, when Gus Greenlee resigned as league president in the spring of 1936 and Bolden was elected to replace him. As president, Bolden felt he could turn the league around by employing the same principles he had used when guiding the ECL a decade earlier.

It was not to be. Bolden’s authority, much like Greenlee’s, was thwarted by uncooperative owners. Unfortunately for Bolden, they followed his earlier lead and eschewed league games for more profitable barnstorming opportunities. Bolden canceled the 1936 championship series after one game when several players from the participating teams, the Elites and the Crawfords, skipped the series to barnstorm. Bolden defended his action by arguing that an unprofitable championship was worse than none at all. This was an unpopular move, however, and his tenure as league president was short. In January of 1937, less than a year after becoming president, he was ousted and Gus Greenlee resumed control.

The end of the Depression did not make life any easier for black baseball owners. The war years posed a different set of obstacles, such as rationing, which curtailed the ability to travel. Bolden continued to innovate in order to balance the budget. He recognized that the attendance of prominent black leaders reinforced baseball’s legitimacy and served as an additional attraction at the ballpark, so he cultivated their patronage and support by providing passes to representatives of all the major local black institutions. He also recruited an outstanding black man or woman to throw out the ceremonial first pitches.

Despite the challenges posed by World War II, black baseball thrived in the 1940s, as crowds grew, salaries rose, and teams more frequently played in major-league parks. One thing that did not improve, though, was the umpiring. Another problem was rowdy players. Even Bolden, who had earned a reputation in his first ownership stint as a “fair dealing and clean playing” man and encouraged his Hilldale players to act like gentlemen, turned a blind toward the antics of two of his managers, Jud Wilson and Goose Curry, whose reputation for umpire-baiting was well known around the league.

After the war integrated baseball took center stage. Despite its obvious threat to the existence of black baseball, Bolden supported integration and pledged to work with his players to gain access if Major League Baseball came calling. He believed that integration would make the black leagues stronger because it would result in better efforts from the players who now saw greater opportunities. History would prove otherwise, but Bolden would not live to see it.

The Philadelphia Stars sold the contract of Roy Partlow to Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey on May 14, 1946, for $1,000. Though a small sum by MLB standards, the sale set an important precedent and was a symbolic victory for black clubs by establishing a precedent for the recognition of their player contracts by major-league clubs. There was no promise that Partlow would be given a legitimate shot at a major-league roster spot, but Bolden was optimistic.

Sadly, the recognition of Negro League contracts by major-league teams would prove to be spotty. Raids by major-league clubs and the drain of young talent to the white minor leagues were major factors leading to the merger of the western Negro American League and the NNL after the 1948 season. Despite the higher travel costs involved with the merger, Bolden was among those who felt it was a necessary step to ensure continued bookings and offer protection from player raids by black and white teams alike. It was, instead, the beginning of the end for the Negro Leagues.

Bolden was not around to witness the twilight of black baseball. He died on September 27, 1950, in Darby after suffering a stroke. He left his share of the Stars to his daughter, Hilda Bolden Shorter, a 46-year-old pediatrician who owned the team until it folded in 1952. Bolden’s death “ended an era in race baseball and the attempt on the part of its pioneers and successors to elevate it to a big time level.”

Sources

Dick Clark and Larry Lester, eds., The Negro Leagues Book (Cleveland: SABR, 1994).

Coley Harvey, “Bolden was a Negro League pioneer,” http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090204&content_id=3797192&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb, accessed February 4, 2009, Ed Bolden file, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library

Michael Haupert, “Ed Bolden: Black Baseball’s Great Modernist,” forthcoming in Black Ball.

Michael Haupert and Ken Winter, “The Old Fellows and the Colonels: Innovation and Survival in Integrated Baseball,” Black Ball, No. 1 (Spring 2008), 79-92.

Lawrence D. Hogan, Shades of Glory (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006; Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994).

Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 1994).

Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

James Overmyer, Queen of the Negro Leagues (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1998).

Alan J. Pollock and James A. Riley, eds., Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006).

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

Sol White, History of Colored Base Ball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, reproduction).

Over the course of his long career, Brooks wore the uniforms of at least 19 semipro and/or Negro League nines including the Chicago Union Giants, Chicago Royal Giants, Chicago American Giants, Texas Colored Giants, Chicago Colored Athletics, Foster’s Cleveland Cubs, Columbus Blue Birds, Homestead Grays, Philadelphia Stars, Cleveland Red Sox, Brooklyn Royal Giants, New York Black Yankees, Cincinnati Ethiopian Clowns, New York Cubans, North All Stars, Jacksonville Eagles, Newark Eagles, Milwaukee Tigers, and the Harlem Globetrotters baseball team. He also played winter league ball in Venezuela and Puerto Rico.5 Of the many teams on his résumé, he was most frequently in the lineups for the New York Black Yankees, Brooklyn Royal Giants, and the New York Cubans. Of these three, he stepped up to the plate most often for the New York Cubans.

Brooks batted left-handed and threw right.  He had early success as a catcher but was just as adept at patrolling the outfield or defending the infield, most frequently at third base. On a few rare occasions, at the beginning and end of his career, he could even be pressed into service on the pitcher’s mound.6 Brooks was known for being fleet of foot as an outfielder and on the basepaths, and for his power at the plate. During his time in the Negro Leagues, Brooks accrued a respectable .259 career batting average and banged out 54 extra-base hits, 14 of which were home runs. And he likely clouted even more extra-base hits in nonleague games.

Ameal Brooks was born on June 3, 1907, in New Orleans.7 His father, Joseph Horace “Joe” Brooks, was born in Mississippi in 1884, and his mother, Sarah Williams Brooks, was from Louisiana. Brooks had six siblings, only two of whom lived to adulthood. Three of his siblings were born in Louisiana. His eldest sibling, John Westley Brooks, was born in 1905 in Wilson, Louisiana. Two other brothers were born in Shreveport, Louisiana; both died in infancy. By 1918, the Brooks family had left Shreveport for Chicago, joining the “Great Migration” of African Americans who moved from the South to Northern cities in the early twentieth century.8 Brooks’s three youngest siblings were born in Chicago, including his only sister, Gladys Irene Brooks, who was born in 1918. In 1923 tragedy struck twice in the Brooks household. Ameal Brooks’s mother, Sarah, gave birth to a stillborn son, and within five months his mother was also dead.

Little is known about the circumstances of Brooks’s childhood, but the available evidence suggests that it was a difficult one. The Brooks family lived in the South Side of Chicago, where his father worked as a hostler at the nearby New York Central Railroad yards. By 1920, Brooks’s parents took two foster children into the family’s home. During that same time, Ameal Brooks was living at the Chicago Parental School, a residential facility for “troubled” and truant children.9 By mid-1923, his father, Joseph, had buried three children and his wife. In 1933 Joseph married Eva Tracy Russell, with whom he had one son, Brooks’s half-brother, Richard Brooks, who was born in Chicago in 1934. Although some genealogical sources and researchers claim that John Christopher Beckwith was Ameal Brooks’s half-brother, no verifiable evidence of such a familial relationship exists.10 When Beckwith was born, in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1900, the Brooks family was living in Louisiana. But by the time his father remarried, Ameal Brooks was long gone from the family household and had embarked on what would become a nearly 25-year-long career in baseball.

Brooks likely began his baseball career in the late 1920s with various iterations of the Chicago Royal Giants, Union Giants, and Chicago American Giants. As early as 1926, a pitcher named Brooks was a member of the barnstorming Chicago Royal Giants.11 Given that he lived in Chicago and played for the Royal Giants in subsequent years, it is reasonable to assume the pitcher was Ameal Brooks. He did not appear in any game reports for the Chicago Royal Giants in 1927, but he resurfaced in the summer of 1928 as a catcher described as a former member of the Chicago Union Giants.12 In the spring of 1929, Brooks made his Negro League debut as a backstop for the Chicago American Giants. Early in the season, he had the distinction of claiming the second-highest batting average in the Negro National League (NNL), a sizzling .667.13 As impressive as that may sound, consider that in 1929, Brooks had just three plate appearances in two games with the Chicago American Giants.

Brooks’s brief tenure with the American Giants ended in early June. Within a few weeks, he was signed as a catcher for the Texas Colored Giants, a barnstorming team composed mainly of players from Chicago and owned by a Canadian promoter, Rod Whitman of Lafleche, Saskatchewan, who lived nowhere near Texas.14 The team was billed as “real ball players” and “natural comedians” who were “recruited from the pick of players in the Chicago colored league.”15 They also made the far-fetched claim that they were the “1928 champions of the Southern States,” but it made for good promotional copy.16 Brooks spent most of the summer of 1929 traveling with the Texas Colored Giants to Canadian cities including Edmonton, Regina, Moose Jaw, and Saskatoon, and gaining valuable experience along the way.17 Brooks, described as the team’s “peppy center fielder and catcher,” was one of the stars of the show and lit up scoreboards by stealing bases and clouting extra-base hits, including some thunderous home runs.18 In a sense, the summer of 1929 was Brooks’s apprenticeship, and it prepared him for what was to become his peripatetic life as a Negro League ballplayer.

The Texas Colored Giants took the road again in 1930 but without Brooks on their roster. Although Brooks and the Texas Colored Giants crossed paths during their travels, during the summer of 1930, he wore the uniform of the Chicago Colored Athletics. The Athletics’ booking agent was Abe Saperstein, who promised potential opponents that “these dusky boys, with their comical ways natural to their race, will provide you with an excellent game of entertainment for your fans.”19 The Athletics toured the Midwest before heading for Canada, following a path blazed for them by the Texas Colored Giants, and staged contests with local nines in Regina, Edmonton, and Calgary, and, on occasion, with the Texas Colored Giants themselves.20 Brooks had a terrific summer with the Athletics – behind and at the plate. In early June, he went on a home-run tear, knocking the horsehide out of the park on a regular basis. On June 9, the Athletics “lost the valuable services of Brooks, their catcher, in the seventh when he caught his foot on the bag at second and sprained his ankle.”21 He was out of the lineup for more than three weeks, but upon his return, Brooks picked up where he left off and hit two home runs in a losing effort against the Texas Colored Giants in Edmonton.22 But Brooks, “who was nursing an injured leg,” was eventually replaced behind the plate by the end of July.23 In late August, after 120 games in less than three months, the Texas Colored Giants headed back to the Midwest for their final games of the season, without Brooks in the lineup.24 He did not appear in another semipro or Negro League game until 1932.

After a year off from baseball, Brooks regained his form. He started the 1932 season with the short-lived barnstorming Rube Foster’s Chicago Memorial Giants, a team that was reconstituted as Foster’s Cleveland Cubs.25 During their tour of the South in the spring of 1932, Brooks was noted as one of Cleveland’s top performers and home-run hitters.26 By early June, he was signed by the Chicago American Giants (also known as “Cole’s American Giants”) as the backup for starting catcher John Hines. Brooks was one of six catchers used by Chicago that year.27 Despite their inability to decide on a starting backstop, the American Giants were the Southern Negro League champions in 1932. Brooks played in at least 11 games for Chicago and batted .281. William “Dizzy” Dismukes, in the Pittsburgh Courier, named Brooks and his Chicago teammate Kermit Dial as hot prospects for 1933, having “flashed signs of becoming stars” during the 1932 season.28 Dismukes’ prediction held somewhat true for Brooks, but not for Dial, who played only two more seasons for Negro League teams. Perhaps Dismukes’ focus on Brooks and Dial in his newspaper column had more to do with self-promotion than for his enthusiasm for specific players. In the spring of 1933, Dismukes became the manager of the Columbus Blue Birds, that featured many former Chicago players, including Brooks and Dial.

Brooks began the 1933 season with the Columbus Blue Birds but finished it with a different team, the Homestead Grays. When he was with the Blue Birds, Brooks was the starting catcher and an occasional outfielder. He was having a good year before Columbus collapsed in late July and was repackaged as the Cleveland Giants and Akron Grays, two independent traveling squads that were thought to be a more lucrative alternative for the teams’ owners.29 In his final game with the Blue Birds, on July 23, 1933, Brooks capped off his tenure with Columbus with a triple and homer in a doubleheader defeat of the Detroit Stars.30 Although the Blue Birds dispersed their flock and flew the Negro National League coop in the summer of 1933, Brooks made the most of his scrambled season in the form of long friendship with teammate Leroy Morney. After the Columbus team folded, Brooks and Morney migrated to the Homestead Grays to finish out the 1933 season, playing three and eight games respectively for the Grays. They later reunited as members of the 1938 New York Black Yankees, and in the summer of 1938 Morney served as one of the witnesses for Brooks’s marriage to Mary Myers.

In the minds of the Homestead Grays’ management, Brooks and Morney were set to return to the club in the spring of 1934. Much to Cum Posey’s consternation, however, the two men, along with the Grays’ outstanding left fielder, Vic Harris, jumped to other teams.31 Brooks signed with the Cleveland Red Sox while Morney and Harris joined up with the Grays’ crosstown rivals, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. It was an interesting season for Brooks. He started the year with a team that finished in last place in the NNL2 and ended it with the Philadelphia Stars, the 1934 Negro League champions. Brooks was Cleveland’s backup catcher to starter Dennis Gilchrist, who played with Brooks on the 1933 Columbus Blue Birds. But the Red Sox, like the Blue Birds, did not last a full season in the NNL2.32 Cleveland’s record of 3-22 in league play placed them deep in the cellar. Brooks had more RBIs (5) than the team had total wins (4) in 1934. And Brooks had an equally abysmal record in Cleveland with a paltry .189 batting average, although three of his seven hits in 12 games he played for Cleveland were for extra bases.

When the Cleveland Red Sox disbanded in July, Brooks was quickly picked up by the league-leading Philadelphia Stars. Brooks was added to catchers on the Stars’ roster who included starter William “Mickey” Casey and future Hall of Famer Biz Mackey. Although Brooks appeared in only 14 games for the Stars and batted .263, six of his 10 hits were for extra bases, including two home runs. Certainly, the highlight of his year and career to date was his appearances in the 1934 NNL2 championship series between the Philadelphia Stars and the Chicago American Giants, albeit with one exception. The Negro League championship was not played in consecutive games and was interrupted by the Stars’ and Giants’ participation in two lucrative four-team exhibitions at Yankee Stadium in September that also involved the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the New York Black Yankees.33 Brooks participated in the first of the exhibitions as a pinch-hitter for Dick Seay and had the ignoble distinction of being dramatically fanned for the last out in the ninth inning by Satchel Paige, an event that was floridly described by New York Age sportswriter Jocko Maxwell and included in his “Sports Biggest Thrill in 1934.”34 Maxwell recounted the event vividly:

“… Brooks batting for the weak hitting Seay. Paige winds up, strike one – called no siree. Brooks swung and how, but he hit that ozone out of the park. Again that dark-skinned sinewy arm takes that cranklike [sic] windup, here she comes, it’s in there! Umpire Forbes hawkes [sic] out strike two and Brooks unwinds himself, he’s swung again, and gotten humiliation as his reward! Boy, oh boy, what is this, can Paige do it again, can he? Brooks calls time out, he talks to himself, no one ever will know the exact words that’s not important. He tightens his belt, he’s ready and so is Satchell [sic] Paige. The wind up, slow, now fast, 30,000 eyes on one man in the dark shadows of Yankee Stadium, that man is Paige! That ball has left his hand, it’s speeding through the ozone. Silence! All eyes are on Brooks’s [sic], there is the swing. HE MISSED IT. Umpire Forbes turns his back – thousands of baseball fans jam the playing field. There is the crowd literally ripping the uniform of Satchell [sic] Paige from his back.”35

No doubt this same moment was not a thrill for Brooks. If he was hoping for redemption in the championship series games, his wish was only partially granted. Brooks had had three hits in nine at-bats for the series and scored at least one run.36 However, the only newspaper column-inches he garnered for his efforts were for an incident during Game Six in which he shoved umpire Johnnie Craig not long after umpire Bert Gholston was on the receiving end of a punch thrown by Brooks’s teammate, future Hall of Famer Jud Wilson.37 Chicago manager Dave Malarcher vehemently protested the game but to no avail.38 Brooks did not appear in the final and deciding Game Eight, in which the Stars defeated the Giants, 2-0, and were crowned the 1934 National Negro League II champions.39 Wilson, who generated so much controversy for his violent outburst in Game Six, was named the series’ Most Valuable Player.40 Wilson returned to the Stars lineup in the spring of 1935. Brooks never wore a Philadelphia Stars uniform again.

As in previous years, Brooks began the 1935 season with one team but finished on the roster of another. In the spring he was with the Brooklyn Royal Giants. He made a few appearances with the New York Black Yankees before hopping aboard the Pennsylvania Red Caps of New York as his last stop for the 1935 season. Brooks, with his defensive versatility and offensive firepower, proved to be an asset for all three teams. He was the Royal Giants’ primary catcher but also saw action at third base, shortstop, and outfield. Brooks was in the Black Yankees’ lineup by late June and quickly demonstrated his aggressive offensive style in one game by scoring two runs and badly spiking the Brooklyn Bushwicks’ shortstop, Dutch Woerner.41 This was the first of five seasons Brooks spent with the Black Yankees, but it also was his briefest tenure with the team.

After a few weeks with the Black Yankees, Brooks jumped to the independent Penn Red Caps. The Red Caps were named for the porters who worked at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, some of whom were African American baseball players who worked for the railroad during the offseason.42 The 1935 edition of the Red Caps was described as being able to “hold their own with the best semi-pro teams in the metropolitan district including … the Bushwicks, Farmers, and Philadelphia teams.”43 By the time Brooks joined the Red Caps, he was known as “one of the hardest hitters in the game,” and that “[if] he gets the range of the right field fence at the stadium the fans are likely to see some home runs.”44 And there was some extra inducement for Brooks to swing for the fences because his manager, George Brooks (no relation), paid his Red Caps players a $2 bonus for every home run they hit.45 Brooks probably did not cash in on that offer too often that season. His extra-base hits were mainly doubles, but he did hit an inside-the-park home run in late August, albeit during one of his dalliances with the New York Black Yankees.46 There was no word on whether or not Black Yankees manager Bob Clarke offered Brooks a $2 bonus.

From the mid- to late 1930s, Brooks played primarily for two teams: the Brooklyn Royal Giants, a well-established independent team, and the New York Black Yankees of the NNL2. In 1937, for the first time in his career, he spent the entire season in the uniform of one team – the Brooklyn Royal Giants. He was the Royal Giants’ go-to outfielder and dependable infielder, stationed mainly at third or second base. Royal Giants’ manager John Beckwith occasionally called upon Brooks for backstop duties, but that responsibility mainly fell to Joe Lewis. Brooks had a good offensive year with the Royal Giants but the team itself was dreadful. Most of its losses were to veteran independent clubs in the Northeast region such as the Bushwicks and Bay Ridge.47 The few wins that Brooklyn enjoyed in 1937 were mainly the results of contests against weaker local nines like the Stroudsburg Poconos.48

Even as the Royal Giants were dethroned by their opponents, more often than not newspaper accounts of their games were peppered with reports of Brooks’s talent for extra-base hits and his RBI production. For example, in his first start for Brooklyn, he hit a triple in a doubleheader loss to Bay Ridge.49 In a late May win over the Belmar Braves, Brooks hit three doubles, and he repeated the feat two days later against the Cuban All-Stars.50 In early July, the Royal Giants fell to the Red Bank Pirates despite Brooks’s grand slam.51 In the first week of August, in a game against the Scarlets of Mount Vernon, New York, Brooks hit another grand slam, described as a, “four-ply wallop [that] cleared the centerfield fence … in one hop, the first time any fence in this field has ever been cleared.”52 Brooks’s exploits with the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1937 did not go unnoticed. In his end-of-the-year column in the Pittsburgh Courier, Cum Posey named Brooks as the Giants’ best outfielder and in the company of those whose defensive and offensive skills represented the elite of Negro League baseball, including Oscar Charleston, Rap Dixon, Vic Harris, and Cool Papa Bell.53

If 1937 was a season of stability for Brooks, 1938 was a year of inconsistency and major life changes. Unlike in the previous year, Brooks played for multiple teams in 1938. He debuted with the New York Black Yankees and ended the regular season with the independent Cuban Stars, after which he sailed off for a brief winter stint with the Indios de Mayagüez of the Puerto Rico Winter League. The 1938 edition of the Black Yankees gave fans little to cheer about and the only team that kept them from the depths of the NNL2 cellar was the even more pitiful Washington Black Senators, who won just two league games in 1938. As the Black Yankees’ losses piled up, Brooks’s bat fell silent. While his defensive skills in the outfield and at third base continued to draw praise, thanks to his speed and “sparkling catches,” he had no homers and just three RBIs.54

But it was the intersections between Brooks’s baseball career and his personal life that took the most unusual turns in 1938. At the end of June, Brooks played his last game of the year with the New York Black Yankees – an 11-6 loss to the Newark Eagles.55 Brooks then left the Black Yankees for the Cuban Stars. He made his first start for the Cuban Stars on July 4 in a doubleheader against his old team, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, in which he made three errors as a second baseman and right fielder; a disappointing performance given his usually sharp defensive skills.56 Perhaps it was an omen. That same day, he married Mary Myers before a judge in Manhattan. One of the witnesses to the ceremony was Brooks’s longtime friend and former teammate, Leroy Morney. Brooks, the groom, was 31 years old. His new bride was 16 years old and more than likely pregnant with their first child. The marriage license listed Brooks’s occupation as a “physical instructor,” but perhaps “professional ballplayer” was not an option on the form. Myers’ occupation was listed as “servant.” The marriage had a similar outcome as the Cubans’ games against the Royal Giants – it was a split decision. By 1940, the couple had at least two children, but Ameal Brooks was not living in the same household and the marriage crumbled.

In the winter of 1938-1939, Brooks left his expectant wife behind and headed to Puerto Rico to participate in a newly formed winter league. He signed with the Indios de Mayagüez, but this partnership also was not destined to last. One of his Indios teammates described him as “an interesting character who spent almost twenty years in the Negro leagues … [but] did not last long with the Indians due to, according to some, an exaggerated fondness for the nightlife of the Sultana club.”57 Brooks’s reputation for drinking and carousing at the expense of his career was well-known among his fellow players and may account for his tendency to switch teams multiple times during a season, his offensive ups and downs, and his failed marriage. Frazier Robinson, who played against Brooks in Negro League games in the 1940s, remembered him as one of the few players who could “go yard” on Satchel Paige but noted that Brooks’s superhero feats were neutralized by his kryptonite – alcohol:

“Another was a boy by the name of Ameal Brooks, who used to catch for the New York Black Yankees and the Brooklyn Royal Giants. Brooks was an alcoholic – he’d drink all the time – but he could hit Satchel. This guy Brooks could even take Satchel over the fence. [Jim] West and Brooks just seemed to know what Satchel was going to throw, and they’d sit on his fastball. Then they wouldn’t take a vicious cut, just swing at it and make contact.”58

In January 1939 Brooks returned from his Puerto Rican misadventures, along with Indios and New York Black Yankees teammate Ralph Burgin, aboard the SS Borinquen. Brooks spent the entire 1939 season with the Black Yankees, playing most of the time in the outfield. He finished the year batting .280 but had just one extra-base hit and a meager eight RBIs. That was less than half of the runs generated by Black Yankees’ third baseman Walter Cannady, who played in the same number of games as Brooks. It was a mediocre year for both Brooks and the Black Yankees. The team finished in third place in the NNL2 with a record of 19-18. Brooks did not appear on their roster again for seven years.

Brooks signed with the Brooklyn Royal Giants for the 1940 and 1941 seasons. It was like déjà vu all over again. The Royal Giants were no better than they had been when Brooks played for them in 1937. In fact, they may have been worse. It was not unusual for Brooklyn to lose by a 10-run margin to seemingly inferior squads, despite Brooks’s doubles and home runs.59 The season ended with a thud in mid-September, when the Royal Giants were embarrassed by a twin-bill sweep at the hands of Queens Club, 13-3, and 10-9.60 In October, with baseball season over, Brooks registered for the US Army draft. He was described on his draft card as 5-feet-8 tall, 165 pounds, and with a scar behind his left ear and a mark near his left eye. Brooks was unemployed and lived in an apartment on West 138th Street in New York City. When asked to name a “person who will always know your address,” he chose his father, Joseph Brooks of Chicago, rather than Mary Brooks, his wife of two years in New York.

Brooks returned to the hapless Brooklyn Royal Giants for the first half of the 1941 season. With the 1940 season and his failed marriage behind him, things were looking up; in fact, 1941 turned out to be a great year for Brooks. His lumber awoke from its slumber, and Brooks once more was described in newspapers as “Home Run Brooks” and as “one of the most feared players” in the league.61 In August he was picked up by the Homestead Grays, who used him mainly in left field and as a catcher, and he lived up to his billing. In September, he went on a home-run tear along with teammate and future Hall of Famer Buck Leonard.62 The highlight of his 1941 season was the role he played in the Grays’ NNL2 championship run. Brooks helped clinch the title by hitting home runs in both games of the doubleheader before a crowd of 12,000 at Yankee Stadium.63 It was a thrill he likely had not experienced since hitting a home run off Satchel Paige in that same ballpark in 1934. It may have also served as his atonement to Cum Posey for jumping from Homestead to Cleveland that same year.

Brooks never replicated the success he enjoyed in 1941. Then again, by the time the 1942 season started, the United States and the much of the world were at war and things would never be the same again. During the World War II years, Brooks experienced more career lows than highs. In 1942 he started the season with the Cincinnati Ethiopian Clowns. The team marketed him as “Wahoo Brooks,” someone “who can play any position, [is] the ‘Babe Ruth’ of colored baseball, [was] last season’s Homestead Gray’s leading hitter, [and] who walloped two long home runs in one afternoon out of the park” at Yankee Stadium.64 The statistics shared by the Clowns with the press included inflated and unreliable promotional claims such as Brooks being the Homestead Grays’ leading home-run hitter in 1942 (that honor went to Buck Leonard), and that as a member of the Cincinnati aggregation, Brooks had hit 14 home runs in the spring alone and had batted .419.65 Both of those achievements are dubious at best, but the Clowns were more interested in generating turnstile clicks than accurate statistics. Brooks’s ride in the Clowns’ car ended in July when he signed with the New York Cubans.

Of the four seasons that Brooks spent with the New York Cubans, 1943 was his best. That year, he hit a career-high number of extra-base hits, including 7 doubles and 4 home runs, and generated 26 RBIs. In 1943 Brooks was 36 years old. He played in at least 33 NNL2 games for the Cubans and batted a respectable .265. The Cubans finished the year in second place behind the champion Homestead Grays. Brooks had two memorable games with the Cubans in 1943, both in late September. First, and most notably, was a game at Yankee Stadium between the Cubans and the Kansas City Monarchs in which, before 20,000 riveted fans, Brooks hit a towering home run off Satchel Paige.66 For that game, “‘Bucket’ Brooks … was the slugging sensation of the day by hitting one of Satchell [sic] Paige’s high fast ones 325 feet into the right field bleachers,” and “sewed things up with his first and longest wallop of the day, a 375-foot drive into Ruthville.”67 It was also noted that these two rockets were among the six home runs that Brooks hit at Yankee Stadium that year, and that Brooks “hit twice as many home runs [there] as any Negro player.”68 Brooks faced Paige once more, at the end of the season, this time in the North-South All-Star Game in New Orleans. Brooks only managed to cop two singles off Paige in the Crescent City as the South All-Stars got the best of the North All-Stars, 5-2.69 Perhaps more important was the fact that the game netted over $100,000 in War Bond sales.70

Brooks reupped with the Cubans for the 1944 season, but it was the beginning of the end for his professional baseball career. As in 1943, the Cubans ended the year as the second-best team in the NNL2 to the champion Homestead Grays. Brooks played in 24  league games but did little to light up the scoreboard. Newspapers described him as “Ameal ‘Home Run’ Brooks,” but that turned out to be mostly false advertising.71 He did manage to hit one home run in an exhibition game in Dayton, Ohio, against the Birmingham Black Barons.72 However, even that highlight was spoiled by Brooks’s instigation of a bench-clearing brawl when he accused the opposing pitcher, John Huber, of “altering the ball in order to better control.”73 He batted a meager .176 in league games with just one extra-base hit, a double, and racked up just four RBIs. His duties were mainly in the outfield, but he sometimes was called upon as a pinch-hitter; more often than not, he was demoted to batting near the bottom of the order.74 Brooks ended his season as a participant in the North-South All Star Game in New Orleans.75 He went hitless in one at-bat in relief of the North’s starting catcher and Brooks’s Cubans teammate, Lou Louden.

After 1944 Brooks played three more years in the NNL2, each year for a different team. In 1945 he had three official appearances with the second-place New York Cubans, but he also played in several games against independent teams, either as a catcher or pinch-hitter.76 He went hitless in all three attempts in NNL2 games for the Cubans, and if started in the field, he was frequently pulled for a pinch-hitter late in the game.77 Brooks spent the first half of the 1946 season in the outfield for his former team, the cellar-dwelling New York Black Yankees, mustering just 4 hits in 20 at-bats. In late June, Brooks jumped to the Jacksonville Eagles, remaining with the Florida-based team through the end of the season.78

In early May of 1947, Brooks made his final appearances in the Negro Leagues when he played in two games for the Newark Eagles. Retrosheet shows that his only hit for the Eagles was a solo home run in a losing effort against the Baltimore Elite Giants.79 By the end of May, Brooks had flown the Eagles’ coop for the barnstorming Milwaukee Tigers, a team whose record would be better suited for a litter box than for the annals of baseball glory. It was initially announced that Brooks would be the team’s manager, but ultimately those duties fell upon Alex Radcliffe, the brother of Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe. The nadir of Brooks’s summer with the Tigers likely came when he found himself playing against such local amateur nines as the Waterloo, Iowa, “Chicken Basket,” or during Milwaukee’s 22-7 loss to the “Clark Tructractors” of Battle Creek, Michigan.80 The Tigers were toothless and an embarrassment. In Battle Creek they were described as “the most miserable conglomeration of misfits ever to get a place on the local schedule,” and the game was considered a “farce.”81 The Tigers were billed as having a record of 27 wins against just 5 losses, a claim that was unsubstantiated by newspaper accounts of their games and was most certainly a fiction conjured up purely to generate ticket sales.82 In the game between the Tigers and the Tructractors, one indignant sportswriter reported that “[u]mpire Bill Price mercifully called time after six and one-half innings of play. To have detained the fans longer under the guise of a baseball game would have been unadulterated mayhem, no less.”83

Things did not improve for Brooks and the Tigers. In a mid-July game against an amateur aggregation from Winona, Minnesota, local fans seeing the Milwaukee squad for the first time, “witnessed a spectacle in which a ‘semi-professional’ baseball team conducted itself like a group of sandlotters.”84 It was a forgettable game for Brooks as well. For the first time in decades, he was tapped as the starting pitcher, and after contesting an umpire’s call, Brooks initially “stalked off the field in a display of childish pouting and gesturing and proceeded to pack up the Tigers’ equipment.”85 Brooks returned to the mound but his “pitches consisted of leisurely tosses, until darkness finally forced the umpires to call the game in the seventh.”86 For the remainder of the summer, Brooks and the Tigers slogged their way from the Midwest to the East Coast, finishing out the year with a game against a local nine in Washington, Pennsylvania. After an abysmal season with the Tigers, Brooks went out on a high note as he belted a three-run homer to decide the game.87

After the demoralizing summer spent with the Milwaukee Tigers in 1947, Brooks appears to have taken a baseball sabbatical in 1948. No records or newspaper accounts of his play have been located for that year. It is possible that he played for a team outside of the United States, but at age 41, and with the demise of Negro League baseball, there were few professional outlets for his diminishing talents. All of that changed for Brooks in 1949 when he was signed by Abe Saperstein to play for the Harlem Globetrotters baseball team.88 Brooks was tapped as a “utility player” and backup catcher for the Trotters’ player-manager Paul Hardy.89 Brooks appeared in a handful of games for the Globetrotters in the summer of 1949, but he did little to garner any headlines and the paucity of box scores for the team’s games makes it difficult to determine his contributions. The following spring, Brooks was named as one of the “topnotch” players on the Globetrotters’ 1950 roster and was described as having “formerly caught for the New York Cuban Giants.”90 However, after this initial announcement in May, Brooks was not mentioned again as a member of the team. In fact, he vanished from the Globetrotters’ lineup after May 14, 1950.91

Brooks’s baseball career came to a grinding halt in 1950. After more than 20 years and untold miles spent traveling with a multitude of teams, Brooks ended his career in the Negro Leagues with a .259 batting average. He had played his best baseball with the New York Black Yankees and New York Cubans, and had been effective with the bat well into his 30s. His personal demons of a quick temper and alcohol abuse likely robbed him of a more notable career. The final two decades of Brooks’s life were filled with as much mystery and uncertainly as were the first few decades of his life. Details of his activities after baseball are scarce and offer few insights into his private life. What is known is that he spent his remaining years in the Bronx, where he died in 1971 at the age of 64. No obituary or record of his death was published, and the location of his final resting place is unknown.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dr. David J. Keeling for providing Spanish-language translation of documents used for this research.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Gary Ashwill.

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated, all Negro League statistics and records were sourced from Seamheads.com.

Ancestry.com was used to access census, birth, death, marriage, military, immigration, and other genealogical and public records.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 112.

2 “Milwaukee Tigers Here for Twilight Battle Wednesday,” Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer, July 6, 1947: 16; “Cuban Star Threat,” Detroit Michigan Chronicle, June 10, 1944: 15; “Powerful New York Cubans to Play Savitt Gems Here Tonight at 8:30,” Hartford Courant, August 30, 1944: 12; “New York Cubans to Meet Memphis Red Sox at Stadium,” Springfield (Ohio) Daily News, June 16, 1943: 11; “League Players and New York Cubans to Tangle,” Sandusky (Ohio) Register, September 7, 1943: 9.

3 “Royal Giants Now Boasting Strong Lineup,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 12, 1935: 6; “Brooklynites to Play Here Tonight,” Ithaca (New York) Journal, August 5, 1937: 12; “New York Cubans Down Lafayette Team in Fine Exhibition Struggle, 11 to 7,” Lafayette (Indiana) Journal and Courier, August 5, 1943: 18; “New York Cubans Have Classy Club,” Dayton (Ohio) Journal Herald, August 8, 1945: 9; “Milwaukee Tigers Play Double Header Sunday,” Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Journal, June 29, 1947: 39; “Manheim Barons Meet New York Black Yankees Tonight,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Intelligencer Journal, June 15, 1939: 13.

4 “Negro National Leaguers Will Play Here Today,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, June 25, 1938: 22; “Negro Leaguers Clash at Hinchliffe Stadium Tonight,” Paterson Morning Call, July 2, 1938: 22; “Satchell [sic] Paige Shut Out by Cubans,” New York Age, September 18, 1943: 11.

5 William F. McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season: Pay for Play Outside of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.), 217.

6 “Chicago Royal Giants Defeat Florence 3 to 2,” Denver Post, September 21, 1926: 24; “Milwaukee Tigers Play Like Sandlotters Against PNA’s,” Winona (Minnesota) Republican-Herald, July 18, 1947: 11.

7 Ameal Brooks’s birth date was determined from his World War II draft card and a 1938 marriage license. Other documents state that Brooks was born in either 1904 or 1906.

8 Brian McCammack, Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017), 159, 250.

9 Cynthia K. Barron, History of the Chicago Parental School, 1902-1975. Dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago (1993).

10 Gary Ashwill, Agate Type: Irvin Brooks, PR Man, March 30, 2009, https://agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/irvin-brooks/, accessed September 1, 2022.

11 “Chicago Royal Giants Defeat Florence 3 to 2,” Denver Post, September 21, 1926: 24; “Wichita Leaguers Tossers Triumph,” Wichita Eagle, October 18, 1926: 10.

12 “Bendix Slate Royal Giants,” South Bend Tribune, August 28, 1928: 16; “Royal Giants to Tackle Bendixers at Playland To-Day,” South Bend Tribune, September 2, 1928: 13.

13 “Batting Average of Natl. Negro League,” Indianapolis Recorder, June 8, 1929: 6.

14 “Texas Colored Giants to Play Here Saturday Afternoon,” Edmonton (Alberta) Journal, June 19, 1929: 9; Western Canada Baseball, Texas Colored Giants, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1929_1g.html, accessed June 30, 2022.

15 “Texas Colored Giants to Play Here Saturday Afternoon”; “Baseball,” Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) Star-Phoenix, July 20, 1929: 15.

16 “Texas Colored Giants to Play Here Saturday Afternoon.”

17 “Colored Giants, Mill City Team Divide Honors,” Regina (Saskatchewan) Leader-Post, July 15, 1929: 10; “Giants Take Final Brace,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, July 22, 1929: 11; “Colored Giants Trim Transcona,” Winnipeg (Manitoba) Tribune, August 28, 1929: 15.

18 “Ruthilda Drops Second Game of Series,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, August 14, 1929: 10.

19 “Bears to Meet Chicago Team on Local Lot,” Davenport (Iowa) Quad-City Times, May 9, 1930: 32.

20 “Moosomin Nine Lose Twice to Chicago Team,” Regina Leader-Post, June 5, 1930: 13; “Texas Giants Win by 16-11 Against Chicago Athletics,” Edmonton Journal, July 14, 1930: 7; “Colored Nines Each Win Game,” Calgary (Alberta) Herald, July 21, 1930: 6.

21 “Dusky Baseballers Defeat Local Select,” Regina Leader-Post, June 10, 1930: 13.

22 “Texas Giants Win by 16-11 Against Chicago Athletics.”

23 Colored Nines Each Win Game.”

24 “Chicago Colored Athletics Will Play Bettendorf,” Davenport (Iowa) Daily Times, September 16, 1930: 12.

25 Paul Debono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2011), 129-130.

26 “Grey Sox Upset by Giants, 8 to 3,” Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser, March 27, 1932: 8; “Memphis Takes 3 Straight from Cleveland,” Chicago Defender, May 21, 1932: 9.

27 Delbono, 132.

28 William Dismukes, “Retrospective and Perspective,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 24, 1932: 15.

29 Riley, 188; “Blue Birds Reorganize,” Columbus (Ohio) Journal Dispatch, July 16, 1933: 37; Russell J. Cowans, “Thru the Sports Mirror, Detroit Tribune, July 29, 1933: 8.

30 “Detroit Stars Drop 2 Games to Blue Birds,” Detroit Tribune, July 29, 1933: 8.

31 Cum Posey, “Pointed Paragraphs,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 22, 1934: 14; James E. Overmeyer, Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2020), 143.

32 Riley, 180.

33 William E. Clark, “30,000 Attend Four-Team Double Header at Yankee Stadium; Black Yanks Lose; Stars-Crawfords Tie,” New York Age, September 15, 1934: 5.

34 Jocko Maxwell, “Sports Biggest Thrill in 1934,” New York Age, December 29, 1934: 7.

35 Maxwell.

36 John Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001), 313.

37 Holway, 312; Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 36, 37.

38 “Chi Manager Protests Game with Philly,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 13, 1934: 14; Debono, 137.

39 Stars Upset Giants Win National Title,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 3, 1934: 22.

40 Holway, 313.

41 “Bushwicks Rout Black Yankees in First Game, Throw Away Second; Bill Woerner Is Badly Spiked,” Brooklyn Citizen, July 1, 1935: 6; “Dutch Woerner Out of Bushwick’s Lineup Due to an Injured Leg,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 1, 1935: 17.

42 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 151; Leslie A. Heaphy, The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. Inc., 2003), 152.

43 “Penn Red Caps to Meet Black Yankees Here Saturday,” Paterson Morning Call, August 1, 1935: 22.

44 “Penn Red Caps Will Face Black Yankees Here Today,” Paterson Morning Call, August 3, 1935: 19.

45 “Penn Red Caps Will Face Black Yankees Here Today.”

46 “Enzmann Hurls Dexters to Victory,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 22, 1935: 20.

47 “Parkways, Bay Ridge in Auspicious Starts with Double Victories,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 26, 1937: 20; “Curvers Clicking, Bushwicks Brace and Win Twin Bill,” Brooklyn Times-Union, May 17, 1937: 12.

48 “Mack Wagner Stars in Relief Role but Poconos Lose to Brooklyn Giants,” Middletown (New York) Times Herald, June 15, 1937: 8.

49 “Parkways, Bay Ridge in Auspicious Starts with Double Victories.”

50 “Brooklyn Giants Take Braves in Opener,” Long Beach (New Jersey) Daily Record, May 29, 1937: 5; “Royal Giants Win Twice,” Brooklyn Times-Union, June 1, 1937: 14.

51 “Pirates Win Ninth; Beat Royal Giants, by 6 to 5,” Long Branch Daily Record, July 7, 1937: 7.

52 “O’Brien Wins Second After Scarlets Lose,” Mamaroneck (New York) Daily Times, August 2, 1937: 7.

53 Cum Posey, “Posey’s Points,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 4, 1937: 16.

54 “12,000 See Black Yankees Take Two Games from Bushwicks, 5-1, 1-0,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 25, 1938: 6.

55 “Newark Eagles Are Victors in National Negro League,” Paterson Morning Call, June 27, 1938: 18

56 “McDuffie Pulls Iron-man Feat,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 5, 1938: 16.

57 Jaime Cordova, Beisbol de Corazon (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Callejón, 2007), 202.

58 Frazier Robinson, Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999), 85.

59 “Double Win Over Brooklyn Royal Giants Entrenches Scarlets in First Place,” Mount Vernon (New York) Argus, June 17, 1940: 12; “Bay Parkways Win Two Games; Gray Stars,” Brooklyn Citizen, July 1, 1940: 6.

60 “Ferrick Now Dexter Top Man,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 16, 1940: 17.

61 “Dahn Sees Club ‘Holding’ Brooklyn Royal Giants,” Poughkeepsie (New York) Eagle-News, July 2, 1941: 10.

62 “Grays Defeat Cubans 11 to 8,” Kane (Pennsylvania) Republican, September 2, 1941: 5; “Homestead Grays Take Decision Over Cubans,” Washington (Pennsylvania) Reporter, September 3, 1941: 10.

63 Buster Miller, “Homestead Grays Win 1941 Negro Nat’l League Pennant,” New York Age, September 27, 1941: 11.

64 “Semi-Pro Champions to Play Here,” Tampa Bay (Florida) Times, April 12, 1942: 25.

65 “Clowns Here for Four-Game Series,” Detroit Tribune, May 30, 1942: 7.

66 “Satchell [sic] Paige Shut Out by Cubans,” New York Age, September 18, 1943: 11.

67 “Satchell Paige Shut Out by Cubans.”

68 “Satchell Paige Shut Out by Cubans.”

69 “18,000 See Satchel Paige Win with South All-Stars,” New Orleans Item, September 27, 1943: 10.

70 “18,000 See Satchel Paige Win with South All-Stars.”

71 “New York Cubans at Park Tonight,” Lafayette (Indiana) Journal and Courier, June 8, 1944: 20.

72 “Black Barons Edge Cubans,” Dayton (Ohio) Journal Herald, September 7, 1944: 6.

73 “Black Barons Edge Cubans.”

74 “Eagles Plan More Contests as They Split,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 5, 1944: 15; “Josh Hits 2 Homers in N.Y.,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 22, 1944: 12; Sam Gunst, “Taylor Pitches Well but Savitt Gems Lose, 6-3,” Hartford Courant, August 31, 1944: 13.

75 “North-South Title Battle Saturday,” Nashville Tennessean, September 18, 1944: 10; “Cubans Will Play Here Tomorrow,” Atlanta Constitution, September 23, 1944: 5.

76 “Moscowitz Too Slick on Hill for N.Y. Cubans,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1945: 16; “Bushwicks Lose 2 After 13 Victories,” New York Daily News, July 30, 1945: 38.

77 “Bushwicks Lose 2 After 13 Victories.”

78 “Jacksonville Noses Out Lloyd in 10th, 5-4,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, June 27, 1946.

79 Retrosheet, “The 1947 Batting Log for Ameal Brooks,” https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1947/Bbrooa1011947.htm, accessed November 1, 2022.

80 “Basket to Meet Milwaukee Negro Nine Friday Night,” Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, June 17, 1947: 13; “Clarkmen Slay Milwaukee Club,” Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer, July 10, 1947: 23.

81 “Clarkmen Slay Milwaukee Club.”

82 “Tructractors Out to Prove Amateur Supremacy Tonight,” Battle Creek Enquirer, July 9, 1947: 18; “Clarkmen Slay Milwaukee Club.”

83 “Clarkmen Slay Milwaukee Club.”

84 “Milwaukee Tigers Play Like Sandlotters Against PNA’s,” Winona (Minnesota) Republican-Herald, July 18, 1947: 11.

85 “Milwaukee Tigers Play Like Sandlotters Against PNA’s.”

86 “Milwaukee Tigers Play Like Sandlotters Against PNA’s.”

87 “Myer Nine Goes Through Tough Weekend,” Washington (Pennsylvania) Reporter, August 18, 1947: 8.

88“Brooklyn Royal Giants to Play Famous ’Trotters Here Monday,” Indianapolis Recorder, May 29, 1949: 11.

89 “Royal Giants and Globetrotters to Play Here Tonight,” Owensboro (Kentucky) Messenger, June 2, 1949: 12; “Trotters, House of David Meet Here Tonight at 8:15,” Pocatello (Idaho) Tribune, June 29, 1949: 7.

90 “Harlem Nine to Play Here Saturday,” Austin (Texas) American, May 9, 1950: 18.

91 “Negro Nines Play Twin-Bill Next Sunday,” Louisville Courier Journal, May 14, 1950: 32.

George Henry Carr was born on September 2, 1893 (or possibly 1894 or 1895) in Atlanta, the son of Stephen and Idella Carr,4 Per the 1910 US Census, Stephen was a janitor and Idella was a dressmaker. The mystery regarding George’s birth year lies in the facts that his headstone states he was born in 1893, while Carr reported his birth year as 1894 in his World War I draft card and 1895 in his World War II draft card. Carr made his way to California at an early age, and attended Pasadena High School.5 However, according to census records, he attended high school for only about a year. On his World War I draft card, he listed himself as a “movie actor” at Universal City, California.6

Carr’s earliest documented baseball experience was in the winter of 1915-1916, when he played for a semipro team, the Los Angeles White Sox, in the winter months. The team occasionally participated in the California Winter League, which allowed African American baseball players the opportunity to compete against White major leaguers. He was recognized for his skill, with the California Eagle describing him as “what we might call an all-star player” and adding, “Carr hits like Tris Speaker, fields like ‘Stuffy’ McInnis, and despite the fact that he tips the beam around the 200-mark, he runs bases like Ty Cobb. Again we say, he’s some player.”7 With the exception of 1918-1919, when they did not play, the White Sox continued to exist as a semipro team over the winters, until they joined the California Winter League as a full professional team in 1920-21. Carr was the team’s manager in 1919-20.

Carr traveled east in the spring of 1920 to suit up for the Kansas City Monarchs of Rube Foster’s newly formed Negro National League. The Monarchs’ first NNL game took place on May 29, 1920. According to the Kansas City Sun, Carr was slated to “probably” start the contest in right field.8 In the next game, on the 31st, his versatility was on display: The Sun reported that “Carr, the Monarchs second baseman, made one of those impossible catches in the sixth inning to the electrification of all fans.”9

For that initial NNL season, Carr served as the Monarchs’ primary first baseman, and he turned in a fine .315/.355/.435 effort with a 132 OPS+, and finished fifth in the circuit with 18 stolen bases. In 1921 he played even better, slashing at .323/.389/.518, improving his OPS+ to 158, and ranking among the league leaders in home runs, RBIs, walks, stolen bases, and OPS. The Monarchs finished in second place behind Foster’s Chicago American Giants in both seasons.

After the 1921 season, Carr took his hot bat back home, batting .336 for the “Colored All Stars” of the California Winter League, a team that also included future Hall of Famers Oscar Charleston, Biz Mackey, and José Méndez

The 1922 NNL season brought a change of position for Carr; he moved off first base to roam the outfield, primarily center field. He struggled at the plate, perhaps due to the greater physical demands of playing the outfield, slumping to .265/.342/.378. His cold bat followed him to California in the winter as he struggled to a .214 average. 

The 1923 season brought a newcomer to the Black baseball scene – the Eastern Colored League. As Foster had done with Midwestern teams, Ed Bolden led the organization of the ECL, which served to bring organized Black baseball to the East Coast and provided a new competitor to the NNL. ECL teams raided NNL teams for star players like Mackey, George Scales, Heavy Johnson, Pop Lloyd, and Charleston.10 Carr joined Bolden’s Hilldale Club, located in Darby, Pennsylvania (in the Philadelphia area), which became one of the great Negro League teams of the 1920s. The “Darby Daisies” took the first three ECL flags and, after losing the inaugural Negro League World Series to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1924, defeated them in 1925 to win the title as champions of all of Black baseball. Carr was back at first base, and was solid in the 1923 and 1924 seasons, posting 109 and 114 OPS+. In 1924 he batted .295 as Hilldale came up short in the first Negro League World Series.

After the 1924 season, Carr again went to California and had perhaps his best winter season, batting .383 with 11 home runs in 32 games.

Carr’s torrid play carried over to the 1925 ECL season. He was arguably the best first baseman in the league, ranking in the top five in slugging percentage, OPS, and offensive WAR while leading the league with 24 stolen bases. The Pittsburgh Courier referred to Carr as “the most improved player of the league” and “without a doubt the sensation of the Eastern circuit this season.”11 His efforts helped Hilldale to the Negro League World Series rematch in which they whipped the Monarchs, winning five of six games. Carr batted .308 with one homer and six RBIs in the World Series. In California in the winter, he claimed another title by leading the Philadelphia Royal Giants to the Winter League championship with a league-leading 8 home runs and a .342 batting average.

Carr was at his peak, both in the ECL and CWL, from 1924 through 1926. In a total of 563 at-bats, he hit .355 with 50 doubles, 15 triples, 30 home runs, and at least 24 stolen bases (though likely more, as stolen-base statistics from the CWL are unavailable).

The Daisies again had the best record in the ECL in 1926, although the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants represented the circuit in the Negro League World Series that year. Carr contributed a .315/.412/.441 slash line and a 132 OPS+ as Hilldale finished 53-33-2 (a .616 winning percentage). In the offseason, he opted for a change of scenery and spent his winter in Cuba. Carr did not play in the Cuban Winter League but in the “independent league known as Triangular – because 3 teams were in competition – [that] conducted its games at the University of Havana Stadium, showcasing the best Cuban and imported players of the time, lured from the official league by higher compensation.”12 Carr batted .416 playing for Alacranes, which finished in first place with a 22-15 record.13

In 1927 Hilldale fell to fifth place in the ECL. Carr held up his end on the field, leading the team with a .323 batting average, but all was not well. He was suspended, along with pitcher Nip Winters and outfielder Namon Washington, “for lack of discipline and indifferent playing.”14 After his rough time with Hilldale that season, Carr returned to California, where he batted .377 for the California Winter League champion Philadelphia Royal Giants.

The next April, Carr was traded to the New York Lincoln Giants with Winters because it was “Hilldale’s policy … to get rid of dissatisfied players, and men who won’t stay in condition.”15 Shortly after the season started, the Giants dropped out of the ECL, and Carr moved on to the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants. The ECL folded in June, but the Giants continued to play an independent schedule.16 In 1929 the American Negro League was formed, with many of the same players and teams from the ECL. Carr stayed on with Atlantic City, batting .370 in limited duty before returning to Hilldale for one game.

After 1929, Carr appears to have dropped out of league ball until 1934. In 1930 he reportedly played for the independent Milwaukee Colored Giants.17 In the summer of 1931, he joined the Royal Giants on a tour of Hawaii. During the winter of 1932-1933, Carr played first base and batted .355 for Lonnie Goodwin’s Philadelphia Royal Giants tour of Hawaii, Japan, China, and the Philippines, during which the team won 50 of the 52 games played.18 Among his teammates on the tour were Hall of Famers Mackey and Andy Cooper.19

In the summer of 1933, Carr caught on with the independent Philadelphia Bacharach Giants. Another trip overseas to the Orient was planned for the next winter, but Carr ended up going to Puerto Rico instead, playing in exhibition games.

Carr’s last season in the Negro major leagues was 1934. He began the season with Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars; he had a longtime connection to Bolden that went back to his days with the Hilldale team. But Carr’s tenure in Philadelphia encompassed only a doubleheader on June 8.20 He played first base in both games and collected three hits. It is not known why he left the team, but about a week later he was playing third base for the independent Washington Pilots.21 The players on the Pilots became the primary participants for the Baltimore Black Sox, who entered the Negro National League II in the second half of the season but shut down after limited action. Carr played three games at third base and wielded a still potent bat even though he was approaching age 40 – 6-for-11 with a home run and two stolen bases. His known playing career concluded with player-manager stints for the independent Philadelphia Black Meteors in 1935 and the Philadelphia Colored Giants in 1941.22

Little is known of Carr’s personal life after baseball. Census records from 1940 indicate that he lived in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah; his son, Ernest; his daughter-in-law, Celia; and two grandsons.23 He was employed as a cook in a café.24

George Carr died suddenly on January 14, 1948, in McPherson, Kansas, of a heart attack while working for the Rock Island Railroad Company.25 He had just recently come into the area for the work.26 He left behind his wife, two children, and four grandchildren.27 Carr was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles. Among the pallbearers at his funeral service were former teammates Mackey, Dobie Moore, Jess Hubbard, and Carlisle Perry.

Despite his showing on the Pittsburgh Courier’s list of all-time Negro League players, Carr has not been mentioned as a Hall of Fame candidate. He was not among those players considered for enshrinement by the 2006 Special Committee on the Negro Leagues. A look at his stats, however, indicates that he may have been worthier of inclusion in Cooperstown than many thought. Carr’s lifetime 129 OPS+ is higher than that of Cool Papa Bell among primarily Negro League players. It’s also higher than the career marks of Hall of Fame first basemen and contemporaries George Sisler and Jim Bottomley. Most winters he traveled home to play in the California Winter League, where he was one of the more accomplished players in the history of the circuit. His .336 lifetime batting average is ninth all-time, and he ranks high on the career lists in doubles, triples, and home runs. Should one downplay the quality of competition in Carr’s Winter League play, it’s important to note that among his contemporaries over 13 seasons were 20 Hall of Famers, both from the Negro Leagues and the White major leagues. If one combines his Negro League and California Winter League appearances, he batted .320 over more than 3,500 plate appearances.

While the numbers demonstrate Carr’s all-around skills, the “intangibles” are a bit mixed. His leadership skills were displayed at a young age when he managed the White Sox in his 20s. He was well liked, and affectionately called “Native Son” in the media and managed local teams after he left league play. His perceived attitude problems at the end of his tenure in Hilldale and rumors of alcoholism and possible effects on play28 may take away from his on-field exploits.

Carr’s ultimate baseball legacy probably lies in the years when he played for Hilldale. He slashed .316/.380/.473 with a 127 OPS+ over his five years with the team, among the greatest of all time. The headliners of those teams were a group of Hall of Famers – shortstop Lloyd, catcher-infielder Mackey, and third baseman Judy Johnson. Like any baseball dynasty, after that first tier of star power, there was another group of very good players who were crucial to their team’s success. Think of players like Bob Meusel with the 1920s Yankees. Charlie Keller with the 1930s Bronx Bombers, and Hank Bauer of Casey Stengel’s 1950s clubs. Carr’s contributions to the Daisies look similar in context to those of these talented players.

The more one digs into Carr’s career, the more one is impressed by his all-around skills. His place on the Courier list is indeed well deserved.
 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and Seamheads.com for player statistics and team records. He also consulted the following:

McNeil, William. The California Winter League: America’s First Integrated Baseball League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2002).

Notes

1 Cum Posey, “Posey’s Points,” Pittsburgh Courier November 27, 1937: 16.

2 Email exchange with Scott Simkus, January 23, 2023.

3 “Power, Speed, Skill Make All-American Team Excel,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1952: 16.

4 George H. Carr in the 1910 United States Federal Census (https://www.ancestry.com).

5 George H. Carr obituary (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/99620094/george-henry-carr).

6 George Henry Carr World War II Draft Registration Card (https://www.ancestry.com). Universal City is an unincorporated enclave within Los Angeles.

7 Hilberte L. Rozier, “Thoughts Wise and Otherwise,” California Eagle, October 14, 1916: 8.

8 “Base Ball,” Kansas City (Missouri) Sun, May 29, 1920: 8.

9 “Monday’s (Decoration Day) Game,” Kansas City Sun, June 5, 1920: 8.

10 Lawrence Hogan, Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African American Baseball (Washington: National Geographic, 2006), 166; John B. Holway, Blackball Stars: Negro League Pioneers (Westport, Connecticut: Meckler Books, 1988), 221, 332.

11 W. Rollo Wilson. “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 12, 1925: 13.

12 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003), 171.

13 Figueredo, 171-72.

14 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 157.

15 “Lincolns and Hilldales in Big Trade: Nip Winters and George Carr Leave the Clan of Darby,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 21, 1928: 17.

16 Center for Negro League Research, www.cnlbr.org.

17 “New Pitcher Added,” California Eagle (Los Angeles), November 21, 1930: 9.

18 Center for Negro League Research.

19 Ancestry.com, accessed January 4, 2023.

20 “Giants Take Twin Bill From Philly: Foster and Trent Hurl Coles to Win,” Chicago Defender, June 9, 1934: 17.

21 “Pilots Beat All-Phillies,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 16, 1934: 15.

22 Center for Negro League Research.

23 Ancestry.com, accessed January 4, 2023.

24 Ancestry.com, accessed January 4, 2023.

25 “Check Death of Negro Man Here,” McPherson (Kansas) Daily Republican, January 15, 1948: 1.

26 “May Hold Autopsy in Negro’s Death,” McPherson Daily Republican, January 16, 1948: 2.

27 George H. Carr obituary (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/99620094/george-henry-carr.

28 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1994), 154.

Paul Carter and his twin, Andrew, were born on May 24, 1900, in Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, to William Daniel Carter and Martha (Washington) Carter.1 The Carters were visited for the 1900 census about three weeks later, at which point they owned their home on East State Street. The couple had been married for eight years, and Martha had given birth to six children by then. The newborns had two brothers and two sisters ranging in age from 2 to 8. William’s occupation was simply entered as laborer.

Kennett Square is called the Mushroom Capital of the World. Its first such business started in 1896, so the Carter children grew alongside that local industry – and at around age 20, Paul was a farm laborer.2 In the Civil War era, Chester County had been important to the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves to freedom because of the two states it bordered in Pennsylvania’s southeastern corner. “Both Delaware and Maryland were slave states, so self-liberators from those states, or from the lower South, needed to keep moving north to reach freedom,” states the Kennett Underground Railroad Center. “This combination of factors – proximity, the presence of a large Quaker population opposed to slavery, organized abolitionist societies, and a relatively large number of free African American communities – made Chester County an important stop on the way north.”3 Still, Kennett Square itself had a population of only 606 in the 1860 census, on the eve of the Civil War.4

Presumably those traits were ingrained enough to make Kennett Square a relatively pleasant place for the Carters to live in. However, when Paul and Andrew were 4 years old, a local Black man named John Taylor lost a pioneering lawsuit against the school board for segregating his four children, and others of their race, from the White pupils. Professor Walter E. Dengler, the principal, said students had been grouped based on the pace at which they completed schoolwork, and mentioned that one Black student was in a classroom with White children. Despite such a rationale, Judge William Butler doubted the practice was legal. Ultimately, though, the jury ruled against Taylor.5 In 1900 one or two of the older Carter children were of school age but weren’t identified as students in that census, so it is unknown whether any of them were classmates of the Taylor children at the time of the jury’s verdict. In any event, the 1940 census indicated that Paul Carter had completed through the sixth grade.

By the 1910 census, the Carter family had moved to Walnut Street. Not only did they own that home as well, but it was free of a mortgage. William worked at a greenhouse, and Martha worked as a laundress out of their residence. The family had grown by two more boys and a girl, and all nine offspring were still living. (And all were members of the household.) The twins and two older siblings had attended school during the previous 12 months.

Quite possibly the first mention in a newspaper of Paul Carter on a baseball team occurred in mid-1917. “Kennett is about to be favored with a new base ball team, under the management of Geo. Harris,” reported the Philadelphia Tribune (today the nation’s oldest continuously published African American newspaper). “It is to be known as the Young Athletes.” Presumably the Paul Carter named among the nine additional men was the future Philadelphia Stars pitcher.6 In mid-1919 there was a Black team called the Kennett Square All-Stars, but the two known box scores did not include any player named Carter.7

When Carter completed a military registration card in 1918, he worked as a hod carrier for Lynch Construction of Wilmington, Delaware, little more than 10 miles from Kennett Square. (That job involved carrying bricks, mortar, and the like at construction sites in a distinct three-sided box.) He was still living at home, at 138 North Walnut in Kennett Square. That was also true at the time of the 1920 census, in which the twin brothers and their father were all identified as farm laborers. The youngest boy and girl in the family had been attending school.

Documenting Paul’s baseball career during the 1920s is complicated by two factors. One is other pitchers named Carter on Black teams in and near eastern Pennsylvania, particularly Cliff Carter (no known relation). It seems a necessity to report regularly on both Carters’ – Paul’s and Cliff’s – whereabouts over that decade. The other factor is the common practice on sports pages then of not using players’ first names. It may be there was no instance before 1926 of any newspaper outside of Chester County using Paul Carter’s first name, or at least a helpful identifier like his hometown. Paul’s earliest season with a top Black team in a Negro major league did not occur until 1931, when he pitched for the independent Hilldale club of Philadelphia and Yeadon, Pennsylvania.

Cliff Carter, who was a little older than Paul, lived roughly halfway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh at least through the 1920 census and had a Negro League career that overlapped with Paul Carter’s in the 1930s. However, it is known where Cliff pitched for almost all seasons from 1923 through 1934. What’s more, after Paul and Cliff were both established professionals, they had at least three teams in common and were even teammates sometimes.

It remains murky whether either, or neither, was the Black pitcher nicknamed Cannonball Carter –  sometimes spelled “Cannon Ball” – who was active in 1921 on a couple of teams in Wilmington.8 As was mentioned previously, that city was a short trip from home for Paul Carter. Of course, it is possible the nickname Cannonball was applied to both Paul and Cliff, and even some other Carter(s) at times. In fact, in mid-1922 a Cannon Ball Carter “jumped the Buffalo Stars” and joined the Harrisburg Giants, and that was very likely Cliff.9

Compounding the confusion is Black pitcher Nick Carter of the 1920s. In 1994 Negro League historian James A. Rileyidentified Nick as Paul Carter’s nickname, and not also one for Cliff; however, Cliff was indeed called Nick as well.10Furthermore, from 1916 through 1920 the National League’s Chicago Cubs had a pitcher named Paul Carter, whose nickname was likewise Nick. It is entirely possible that Cliff and the pair of Paul Carters shared this nickname because of a popular and long-running fictional detective by that name.11

In June of 1920, there was a pitcher named Carter on a team called the Harlan Giants, the “premier colored aggregation” of Wilmington, Delaware.12 That could certainly have been the Cannonball Carter who was active there during 1921. If this Carter was indeed Paul, then one of his early teammates was none other than future Hall of Famer Judy Johnson.13The two were definitely teammates toward the end of Carter’s career, in 1937.

In 1922 there were not many signs of the Carter who had been active on Wilmington teams the two previous years. One exception was the pitcher who teamed with a catcher named Faulkner on the Sun Co. team in July. The chances of that Carter being Paul seem good, partly because there was a Black catcher named Faulkner on Wilmington teams who was also from Kennett Square.14 Additionally, in May of 1922 there was a pitcher named Carter on a Baltimore team called the Pennsylvania Eagles. (Baltimore is about 70 miles from Kennett Square.) That club also had a pitcher by the same name in 1921 and 1925, at a minimum.15 A player named Carter also pitched for the Pittsburgh Keystones on June 10, though nobody with that last name currently is listed as having been on that club’s roster. The Keystones had a pitcher named Carter in at least four games in 1923, but a complete roster for that season’s club was unavailable as of 2023.16

For 1923, Cliff Carter hurled for top clubs like the Baltimore Black Sox and the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, but apparently he was also the Carter on a Philadelphia team called the Madison Stars, from which he moved to the Richmond Giants.17 Meanwhile, Paul Carter might not have played with any prominent team that season. Of course, it is possible that for some or even many seasons from his late teens to age 30. Paul did not play much or any baseball at all.

Cliff Carter pitched in two games for the Bacharachs in 1924; however, in March, he reportedly signed with the Brooklyn Cuban Giants.18 He also spent parts of 1924 with the Baltimore Black Sox, Chappie Johnson’s Colored Stars, Ed Bolden’s Hilldale club, and the Harrisburg Giants. On at least two of those teams, he was sometimes called Nick Carter.19 Beyond that batch of clubs, it remains uncertain whether it was Paul, Cliff, or some other Carter(s) who spent time in 1924 with the Wilmington Black Sox, Newark Black Sox, and Anchor Giants.20

Cliff Carter’s 1925 season has not been documented as well as some of his other campaigns. Shortly before the start of the season he was reported to be with the Harrisburg Giants, and late that year he was with Chappie Johnson’s team.21Unclear is the identity of the pitcher named Carter who played for the Anchor Giants and Pennsylvania Eagles that year.22

In 1926 there was a Carter on the spring-training roster of the Donora Athletics, “one of the leading Negro semi-pro baseball clubs” of Pennsylvania, headquartered in or near Pittsburgh. As they prepared to open their season, it was stated that “Paul Carter, Kennett Square pitcher,” was being considered to start their first game. During the second half of May, he hurled a four-hitter to win a 3-2 game for Donora.23

Paul Carter was almost certainly the leader of “Carter’s A.B.C. Giants, of Kennett Square,” in the summer of 1927. That club had a “Falkner” at shortstop atop one batting order. It is also likely that Paul Carter was part of the battery with Richard Faulkner for Faulkner’s Biltmore Stars a few weeks earlier.24 Cliff Carter played in at least 27 games for the Harrisburg Giants that year, so it is unclear who the Carter was who pitched for a team called the Broncos, led by Hall of Famer Louis Santop.25 Santop’s club had a Carter hurl for it in 1928 as well, and late that year he was called NickCarter, the team’s pitching ace.26

Paul Carter was definitely with the Kennett Square Gray Sox, under the leadership of Richard “Dick” Faulkner, during the early weeks of the 1928 season. However, Carter’s place of residence was identified in one article as Philadelphia rather than Kennett Square itself. A few weeks later, a report implied that Carter had played with teams in Toledo and Cleveland (though searches for any Carter on Black teams in those two Ohio cities earlier that decade turned up no such information).27 At the end of May, Faulkner and Carter were the winning battery in one game. By then, it had been announced that the team was being sponsored by future Hall of Famer Herb Pennock, a Kennett Square native.28

In July of 1929, “Carter, Kennett Square pitching ace,” hurled at least once for the Wilmington Blue Sox, but later that same month, a Carter was again pitching for Kennett Square’s club. Another five weeks later, Carter was back with the Blue Sox, and he remained with the team until at least mid-September.29

In the 1930 census, Paul Carter was living at the same address as in 1918 and 1920. The Carter household was a large one and included sons-in-law and grandchildren. Paul worked as a landscape laborer, and he married Martha Brown in 1931.

During the second half of 1930, both Paul and Cliff Carter apparently had stints with Hilldale, less than a month apart. Cliff had pitched in seven American Negro League (ANL) games for Hilldale in 1929, but his 1930 return engagement encompassed only two games for the team, which now played as an independent franchise. Cliff lost a seven-inning complete game to the Lincoln Giants on July 17. As for Paul Carter, on August 6 “the recently acquired chukker from Kennett Square” won a game easily for Hilldale.30

Before and after Cliff Carter’s complete game for Hilldale, he pitched for a barnstorming team called the Havana Red Sox.31 A second team for Paul Carter in 1930 was reportedly the New York Lincoln Giants. In fact, the day before Cliff and Hilldale lost to the Lincoln Giants, the latter had a pitcher named Carter who started against a Wilmington team.32It is difficult to identify any other teams for whom Paul also pitched during 1930. However, it is possible to rule out his participation on two teams based on identifying details, specifically the Pittsburgh Monarchs and a Baltimore-area team called the Silver Moons.33

As of early 2023, Paul Carter’s first confirmed season with a Negro League team of major-league quality was 1931, with Hilldale, which was again an independent club that year. In eight games, he won five and lost two. However, in May and the first half of June he had been with the Wilmington Hornets.34 It was toward the end of June that he was identified as a new pitcher on Hilldale’s staff. On Labor Day (September 7), he threw a no-hitter against the Baltimore Black Sox in which he allowed one walk and struck out four batters in a 6-0 triumph. However, Pittsburgh Courier columnist W. Rollo Wilson wrote that everyone in the press box had disagreed with official scorer Frank Caulk’s error rulings on two plays in the same inning.35

Given that dissent, Carter’s shutout about a month later may have been almost as significant. He scattered seven hits as Hilldale beat a team of “Major League All-Stars,” 2-0, on October 10. One player he held hitless was Chick Fullis, whose batting average across eight National League seasons was .295.36

In 1932 Paul Carter again spent time with Hilldale, which was a member club of the short-lived East-West League (EWL) that season. He also spent time with another EWL squad, the Baltimore Black Sox. After pitching to a 5-2 record for Hilldale in 1931, he was a combined 2-8 in 1932 (1-7 with Hilldale and 1-1 with the Black Sox). Carter apparently left the Hilldale club by mid-July, at which point he was with Kennett Square’s team in the Chester County League. About a week into August, he was again with the Wilmington Hornets, and by mid-September he was pitching for the Black Sox.37

Meanwhile, Cliff Carter’s pitching line for 1932 shows him to have been a member of the Philadelphia Bacharach Giants and, like Paul, the Hilldale team. At the end of August, the Brooklyn Royal Giants had a pitcher named Carter, but it is uncertain which of the two Carters that was.38 In any case, Cliff’s 1933 season shows that he split time between the Philadelphia Stars and the Bacharach Giants, and he spent time with only the latter team in 1934, which was his final season.

In 1933 Paul Carter played the first of three seasons with the Philadelphia Stars; thus, he and Cliff were teammates for a time in 1933. Philadelphia was an independent club in 1933 but belonged to the Negro National League II in 1934 and 1935. Paul’s record for the Stars in 1933 was 6-1. His subsequent records were also good, 4-2 (including 1-0 in the postseason) in 1934 and 5-2 in 1935, for a composite league record of 15-5. There were indications that Paul Carter spent all of 1933 with the Stars, though in mid-October a paper in Wilmington said he might pitch for the Kennett Square Gray Sox in the deciding game for the championship of the Southern Chester County Twilight League. (But either the paper did not report the outcome or the game was not played.)39

In March of 1934, Paul Carter’s father died. Readers of his obituary learned he was son of a Civil War veteran, Joseph Carter. William D. Carter had lived his entire life in or near Kennett Square.40

On June 28, a preview of a Bacharach Giants game that day said their starting pitcher would be “Paul Carter, righthand ace, who last year performed with Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia All Stars.” Presumably, that was actually Cliff. Two days earlier, the Stars had a pitcher named Carter, presumably Paul, who competed against the Scanlon C.C. nine.41 A little insight into Paul Carter’s time away from the diamond was provided by the Philadelphia Tribune on July 12. On a previous Tuesday evening, either July 3 or 10, he and Stars teammate Phil Cockrell were socializing back in Kennett Square.42

In September the Stars and the Chicago American Giants began a seven-game playoff to determine the NNL champion. By September 29, Chicago led the series, three games to two. That day, at Philadelphia’s Passon Field, Paul Carter drew the starting assignment in front of 3,000 fans. Turkey Stearnes homered off Carter in the third inning, but the Stars soon used six hits to push across pairs of runs in consecutive innings. Chicago threatened in the fifth frame, in part due to a walk by Carter, but the Stars escaped unscathed. “At no other time was Carter in trouble,” the Philadelphia Tribune noted. Carter yielded only four hits that afternoon, and the 4-1 result pushed the series to a decisive seventh game. The Philadelphia Inquirer called Carter’s pitching “brilliant,” and the Tribune called it “effortless.”43 The Stars won the championship at the same park on October 2.44

In the wake of that performance, it was no surprise that Carter was back with the Stars in April of 1935 as they conducted their spring training in Philadelphia. His best game that season was his pitching gem on August 17, as the Stars hosted the Brooklyn Eagles at PRR YMCA Field. It was the second game of a doubleheader and thus was limited to seven innings. Carter’s single in the second inning drove in the game’s first run. On the mound he issued two walks, but no runner reached second base against him that afternoon. He struck out five Eagles on his way to a 4-0 no-hitter. The PhiladelphiaTribune said “he kept the Stars in the race for the second half honors” in the NNL2.45

In April of 1936, Paul Carter was among the pitchers on a team led by Cockrell called the Yeadon Yuccas. In mid-May, he was identified as a starting pitcher in a game for the Brooklyn Royal Giants; he had been formally released by the Philadelphia Stars around that time.46

By early July, Carter was plying his trade with the New York Black Yankees of the NNL2. He pitched in a few nonleague games for them that month.47 Carter threw in just one NNL game in 1936, a start for the Black Yankees in which he pitched into the seventh inning but was neither the winning nor losing pitcher. He gave up six runs, five of which were earned, in that August 4 game against the Pittsburgh Crawfords in Akron, Ohio. A late rally, after Carter had exited the contest, gave the Black Yankees a 9-6 victory.48 Carter won a rematch less than a week later, by a score of 9-3, but the lack of an available box score has kept this game out of his official stat line for the time being.49 Coincidentally, pitching for the Crawfords was “E. Carter,” according to the batteries printed beneath the available line score; this Carter was longtime Negro League pitcher Ernest “Spoon” Carter.50

In April and May of 1937, Paul Carter was said to be on the pitching staff of the Brooklyn Royal Giants,51 but he was also said to be on the Wilmington Red Caps with Judy Johnson, and an R. Faulkner at third base. Carter appeared in multiple box scores with the latter club in May and June.52 In at least two box scores during June, catching for the Red Caps was a J. Carter, and once their pitcher was identified as C. Carter. Nevertheless, two articles shortly thereafter were explicit about Paul Carter being the ace of the Red Caps.53 That appears to have been the extent of Carter playing with any baseball team of note.54

At the time of the 1940 census, Paul and his wife, Martha, were living with her mother, Sallie Brown, in Kennett Square. The only other person in the household was Martha’s brother, Walter. Carter worked for a nursery. When he completed a military registration card two years later, his employer was specified as Longwood Nurseries, owned by Ben J. Myers. Sallie died in 1943, and Martha in 1949.55 A shared gravestone indicates that Carter’s mother died in 1953 and his twin brother in 1958.

In 1955, around Labor Day, the celebration of Kennett Square’s centennial included “two Old Timers’ baseball games,” and “on hand, but not playing will be Paul Carter, one-time pitcher for the famous Hilldale Philadelphia team.” The backgrounds of several White players were described, but none seemed as accomplished as Carter. However, a younger Old Timer was Joe Pennock, quite possibly Herb’s son by that name.56

Paul Carter died almost 20 years later, on May 9, 1975, close to his 75th birthday, after having been hospitalized for a brief illness. He had continued to work for the Myers landscaping and nursery business until his retirement a decade earlier. Carter was survived by three siblings, and he was buried at Kennett Square’s Union Hill Cemetery. His obituary said he had pitched “with the Baltimore Black Sox, Black Yankees, Nashville Giants, Homestead Greys [sic] and Chicago American Giants,” but some of those were presumably incorrect. Conversely, the Philadelphia Stars were omitted.57

Carter was occasionally remembered publicly over the remainder of the century. In a 1982 newspaper article, Webster McDonald took credit for developing him. Carter was also recalled a decade later in a brief history of Kennett Square’s Gray Sox. Before the invention of radar guns, teammate Bob Jackson assumed Carter threw fastballs at 90 miles per hour. In a mid-1998 article, the Gray Sox were cited in passing, and Paul Carter was mentioned foremost among “the local Negro League legends” who had been on that club.58 Not bad for someone who was essentially a rookie at age 31.

Source

The Seamheads.com Negro League Database was consulted for player statistics, rosters, and team records.

Notes

1 The 1900 census page on which the Carter family is listed is dated June 13, and it states that the twins were born in May of that year. The date of the 24th is from https://www.chesco.org/DocumentCenter/View/48797/Birth-Registers-1893-1907-A-I on page 127, while twin brother Andrew is listed on the previous page. In sporting databases, May 10 has been commonly identified as his date of birth, based on his military registrations around the two World Wars. Their father’s middle name was identified on Paul’s military registration card in 1918. Their mother’s maiden name was identified on their sister Hattie’s marriage application in 1929, along with the obituary of “Paul Carter,” Kennett (Square, Pennsylvania) News & Advertiser, May 15, 1975: 3. Special thanks to Debbie Kellar of the Chester County Library System for providing that obituary.

2 Joseph A. Lordi, Kennett Square (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), 8. See also Paul Carter’s occupation in the 1920 federal census.

3 See https://www.kennettundergroundrr.org/kennett-and-the-ugrr.

4 Lordi, 7.

5 “Negro Loses in Suit against School Board,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 21, 1904: 3.

6 “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 2, 1917: 8.

7 “Another for the Giants,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, July 14, 1919: 8. “Wilmington Giants Win,” Every Evening (Wilmington, Delaware), July 28, 1919: 9.

8 For an example of the nickname being spelled “Cannon Ball,” i.e., as two words, see “Flashes of Local Sport,” Wilmington (Delaware) Morning News, July 8, 1921: 7.

9 For much of the 1921 season, Cliff Carter pitched for a team based in Buffalo, New York, called the Pittsburgh Colored Stars, managed by the famous Grant “Home Run” Johnson. For example, see “Semi-Pro Baseball,” Buffalo Enquirer, October 6, 1921: 7. It seems probable that this was the “Buffalo” team mentioned in “This Is the Day Set for Start of Harrisburg Giants’ Series – West End Game,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Telegraph, June 6, 1922: 15.

10 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 156, 158. The Seamheads.com entry for Cliff Carter puts him on the Harrisburg Giants in 1926 and 1927, and that pitcher was called “Nick” at least once each season. See “Hilldale Clubs Three Harrisburg Hurlers for a 12 to 5 Victory,” New York Amsterdam News, August 4, 1926: 12. See also “Bolden Lifts Suspension on Nip Winters and Washington,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 18, 1927: 15.

11 Confirmation of the White Paul Carter’s nickname is provided at https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cartepa01.shtml. Regarding the fictional character who was created in 1886 and whose 12-year radio drama ended in 1955, see https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nick-Carter.

12 “Harlan Giants Drop Twilight Game to Fast St. Mary Crew,” Wilmington Morning News, June 15, 1920: 8.

13 In mid-1920, the Harlan Giants had a “J. Johnson” at shortstop and a Carter sometimes pitching in box scores, such as the one that accompanied “Harlan Giants Battle Nine Innings to Tie With K.F.C.,” Wilmington Morning News, July 20, 1920: 8. The following spring it was specified that their shortstop was Judy Johnson, in “Careful Now, 11th Ward,” Wilmington Evening Journal, May 4, 1921: 11. He grew up in Wilmington, and played his earliest baseball there, according to Thomas Kern, “Judy Johnson,” https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/judy-johnson/.

14 See Note 7 for two 1919 box scores in which the Kennett Square All-Stars had a catcher named Faulkner. The Sun Co. team had a battery of Carter and Faulkner in the box score that accompanied “Overlook Keeps One Run Ahead,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 17, 1922: 11. This team also had a shortstop named Stokes, who was likely the frequent Harlan Giant by that name. In 1928, Richard “Dick” Faulkner’s Biltmore Stars became the Kennett Square Gray Sox, according to “Kennett Gray Sox Seek Ball Games,” Wilmington Evening Journal, April 19, 1928: 20.

15 “Penna Eagles, 5; Lincoln A. C., 4,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 12, 1922: 12. “Eagles Divide with Wilkins A. C.,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 2, 1921: 7. “Eagles To Meet Locust Point Decoration Day,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 30, 1925: 7.

16 “Careys Beat Keystones,” Pittsburgh Press, June 11, 1922: 18. For an example of a Carter pitching for the Keystones the following season, see “Garfield Ahead,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, April 22, 1923: 27.

17 “Logan Opens Season with Big Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 1923: 20. The Madison Colored Stars had absorbed the Richmond Giants, according to “Madison Stars at Doherty Oval,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, May 17, 1923: 16. The Carter on the Baltimore Black Sox, who was Cliff, was a former Richmond Giant, according to “Eastern Colored League Baseball Clubs Staging Pretty Fight for the Pennant,” Richmond (Virginia) Planet, June 30, 1923: 2.

18 “Brooklyn Cuban Giants to Have Fast Club This Season,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 15, 1924: 11. This article noted that Cliff had pitched for the Richmond Giants and Baltimore Black “Socks.” See also “Cuban Giants Invade League to Get Players,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1924: 10.

19 W. Rollo Wilson, “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 9, 1924: 7; Ben Taylor, “Ben Taylor Calls Oscar Charleston Of Harrisburg World’s Greatest Fielder,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 7, 1925: 6.

20 “To Trounce SPHA’s,” Wilmington Evening Journal, June 2, 1924: 14. “Lit Nine Swamps Newark Black Sox,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15, 1924: 23. “Anchor Giants Blanked,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 1, 1924: 20.

21 “Rotating Umpires in Eastern League,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 28, 1925: 8. “Record Crowd Expected for ‘Malin’s Night’,” Glens Falls (New York) Post-Star, September 22, 1925: 6.

22 “Moorlyn’s 3 Runs at Start Enough,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 12, 1925: 22. See also Note 15.

23 “Donora Athletics Drill,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 4, 1926: 28. “Donora Will Open Season on Saturday,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 24, 1926: 14. “Donora Beats Elizabeth, 3-2,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 29, 1926: 15. The Richmond Colored Giants had a player named Carter later that season, but in a June game he only played left field and in a July box score he started at second base before going in to pitch: “Springfield Senators Drop Close Contest,” Brooklyn Standard-Union, June 18, 1926: 11. “Jamaica Cardinals Win Tenth Straight,” Brooklyn Standard-Union, July 7, 1926: 10.

24 “West Chester on Top,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, August 18, 1927: 11; “Colored Nines Clash,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 28, 1927: 17. For a bit more about Faulkner, see also “Colored Teams Battle on Pennsy Ball Field,” Wilmington Morning News, June 30, 1927: 21.

25 “Jacobson-Werner Heavy Artillery for Springfield,” Brooklyn Standard-Union, June 13, 1927: 13. “Montalvo’s 2 Homers Give Lincoln Giants Two Victories Sunday,” New York Age, July 2, 1927: 6.

26 “Santop’s Broncos Are to Play Two Games with Bay Parkways,” Brooklyn Citizen, September 7, 1928: 8.

27 “Kennett Gray Sox Seek Ball Games,” Wilmington Evening Journal, April 19, 1928: 20. “Seek Ball Games,” Wilmington Evening Journal, May 7, 1928. The latter article said Faulkner had spent time with “Memphis and Salem teams,” and identified the manager as C.J. Miles, 221 South Union Street, Kennett Square.

28 “Brownson Divides; Harrington Loses Two to Laurel,” Wilmington News-Journal, May 31, 1928: 15; “Holiday Twin Bill for Pennsy Field,” Wilmington Evening Journal, May 29, 1928: 13.

29 “Monarchs Deliver Lacing to Blue Sox,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 8, 1929: 17; “Kennett Square Halted by Gap in Fast Battle,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Sunday News, July 21, 1929: 9; “Home Helps Sox Trim Hornets, 4-2,” Wilmington Evening Journal, August 24, 1929: 15; “Hornets Play Blue Sox,” Wilmington News-Journal, September 14, 1929: 15.

30 “Clan Returns Home to Trounce Mayfair Team after Upstate Sojourn,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 14, 1930: 10. For a box score, see “Bunker Hill Bows to Hilldale Club,” Shamokin (Pennsylvania) News-Dispatch, August 7, 1930: 8.

31 “East Rockaway Team Beats Havana Sox,” Brooklyn Times Union, June 6, 1930: 9; “Red Sox Play in Canada Sunday,” New York Amsterdam News, July 30, 1930: 13; “Red Sox Score Four Shutouts in 6 Days,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 9, 1930: A14; “Bill Sisler Turns Down Cuban Red Sox,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, September 15, 1930: 19.

32 “Wilmington Chicks Defeat Lincoln Giants at Pennsy Field, 6 to 3,” Wilmington Morning News, July 17, 1930: 8. Paul Carter was identified as having “had a successful season” in 1930 with the Lincoln Giants in “Manlove Will Hurl for Pros,” Wilmington Morning News, May 23, 1931: 10.

33 The pitcher named Carter on the Pittsburgh Monarchs was called “Al” and was from Lawrenceville, according to “Pgh. Monarchs To Be Strong,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 12, 1930: 2. From 1929 through 1932, at a minimum, the Silver Moons had a pitcher named Carter, but one article called him Lefty. Seamheads.com identifies both Paul and Cliff Carter as righties. See “Silver Moons Take Two from Lockes,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 31, 1929: 14. Another Baltimore-area team that had a pitcher named Carter was the Oval Blue Monarchs; see “Home Run Wins Game for Oval Blue Monarchs, 4-3,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 21, 1928: 12.

34 “Wilmington Pros Oppose Hornets,” Wilmington Morning News, May 22, 1931: 10. This article noted that he hailed from Kennett Square and “played with the Hilldale Daisies two years ago.” See also “Pros-Hornets in Second Battle,” Wilmington Morning News, June 6, 1931: 10. The latter article said Paul Carter “had Eastern Colored League experience,” and affirmed that the Lincoln Giants and Hilldale club were previous teams of his.

35 “Bill Robinson’s Stars Again Beaten by Hilldale Club,” New York Age, June 27, 1931: 6; “Black Sox Lose Two Games to Darby Daisies,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 12, 1931: 3; W. Rollo Wilson, “Sport Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 19, 1931: 4. Wilson wrote, “In one inning Lundy ‘dragged’ a ball towards first base. Carter ran over to pick it up but fell, and Lundy was safe and nobody had touched the ball. Then Jackson, following Thomas’ infield out, hit through Dallard to right field. Dallard was given an error on a ball which was hit so hard that Dihigo picked it up in deep right and was able to throw Lundy out at the plate!”

36 “Hilldale Defeats Major Stars Twice,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 11, 1931: Sports, 2. See also https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1931/B10101HIL1931.htm.

37 “Kennett Tackles Colored Davids,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 20, 1932: 14; “Bacharach Giants Lose to Wilmington Hornets,” Wilmington News-Journal, August 9, 1932: 24; “Black Sox Win Series from Black Yankees,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 17, 1932: 22. The latter includes a box score of a game in which Carter was the losing pitcher.

38 “Wings Set to Resume Hit Spree Against Royals Tomorrow,” Bergen Evening Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), August 31, 1932: 16.

39 “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 7, 1933: 13; “Bolden Stars Top Loop Picked Squad,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 13, 1933; “Legion Favors Sewer Project,” Wilmington News-Journal, October 14, 1933: 20.

40 “W. Harry Le Fevre Dies; 74 Years Old,” Wilmington News-Journal, March 7, 1934: 12.

41 “Bacharach Giants Under the Lights at Metuchen,” Daily Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey), June 28, 1934: 20; “Bolden Stars Win,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27, 1934: 19.

42 “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 12, 1934: 15. The two ballplayers were guests at the residence of a Mr. Everett Glasco. Carter had also spent “several days” back home during the second half of June, according to “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 28, 1934: 8.

43 “Stars Jolt Giants and Tie Up Series,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1934: 51; “Stars Tie Series in Stiff Tiff,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 4, 1934: 14. The Inquirer said the Stars scored “in the fifth and sixth frames,” and the Tribune concurred, but both papers’ line scores showed those pairs in the fourth and fifth innings.

44 “Stars Upset Giants[,] Win National Title,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 3, 1934: 22. For insights into the controversy toward the end of the series, see David M. Jordan, “Another Quaker City Champion: The 1934 Philadelphia Stars,” Black Ball, Spring 2012: 30-31.

45 “Bolden’s Stars Won’t Go South; Prep in Philly,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 13, 1935: 17; “No-hit Tilt as Stars Win Two,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 18, 1935: 35; “Stars Lose 1, Win 3 From Brooklyn 9,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 22, 1935: 9. The latter article, which was accompanied by box scores for all four games, noted that Carter was right-handed.

46 “Yeadon Yuccas Open,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, April 10, 1936: 16; Irwin N. Rosee, “Bushwicks, Farmers Win Two – Bay Ridge and Parkways Split Twin Bills,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 18, 1936: 3A; “Giants Not in Association,” Kansas American (Topeka), May 22, 1936: 7.

47 For example, see “Bearded Tossers Lose Two Games,” Brooklyn Times Union, July 5, 1936: 14.

48 “Black Yanks Defeat Crawfords with Eighth Inning Rally, 9-6,” Akron Beacon Journal, August 5, 1936: 15.  Carter’s seamheads.com entry shows him with no decision and having retired one batter in the seventh inning.

49 “Three in One Day for Black Yanks,” Brooklyn Times Union, August 10, 1936: 11.

50 Ernest “Spoon” Carter was presumably the pitcher Carter traded from the Crawfords to the Stars before the 1938 season, giving the latter team its third hurler with that surname in less than a decade. See “NNL Reinstates ‘Jumpers’; New D.C. Club Is Admitted,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 12, 1938: 18.

51 “Bay Parkways Play Royal Giants Twice for Regular Opening,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 24, 1937: 6; “Royal Gts. Vs Carltons,” New York Age, May 1, 1937: 8.

52 “Red Caps Start with Nicetown Giants,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 29, 1937: 12; “Red Caps Open Baseball Season With Nicetown,” Wilmington Morning News, May 13, 1937: 13; “Wilmington Red Caps Beat Coatesville Tossers, 6-3,” Wilmington Morning News, May 17, 1937: 12; “Washington Nine Ekes Out Win Over Red Caps,” Wilmington News-Journal, May 24, 1937: 18. The latter two games were played in Kennett Square.

53 “Pennsy Tossers Score 4-0 Win Over Red Caps Team,” Wilmington Morning News, June 9, 1937: 17; “Red Caps to Play Zulus,” Wilmington News-Journal, June 12, 1937: 17; “Red Caps vs. Elkton Stars,” Wilmington News-Journal, June 19, 1937: 17.

54 Casting just a little doubt on whether Paul Carter’s career ended very close to home is the fact that in the following offseason, a Cannonball Carter was reportedly pitching for the Detroit Colored Giants in the vicinity of Los Angeles. For example, see “Darkness Ends Baseball Clash,” Bakersfield Californian, November 8, 1937: 13.

55 “Mrs. Sallie Brown Dies,” Wilmington News-Journal, September 14, 1943: 19. His wife’s Certificate of Death is accessible online via genealogical websites. In between, those, the death of his brother Joseph, a roofing contractor, received some media attention due to the uncommon cause: “Stung by Hornet, Man Dies on Roof,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 22, 1945: 13.

56 “2 Old-Timers Baseball Games on Kennett Centennial Card,” Wilmington News-Journal, September 3, 1955: 15.

57 “Paul Carter,” Kennett News & Advertiser, May 15, 1975: 3.

58 Gene Seymour, “In a League by Himself,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 23, 1982: 8, 16, 17; Don Beideman, “Teammates Recall Pride and Success of Kennett Gray Sox,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 1, 1992: CC-3, CC-32; “Old-timer’s Statue Sparks New Debate on Race,” Bedford(Pennsylvania) Gazette, July 12, 1998: 4. The latter was about an unsuccessful proposal to erect a statue of Herb Pennock in Kennett Square. Opponents pointed to the hostility to Jackie Robinson in 1947 by the Phillies, for whom Pennock was GM. Pennock biographer Keith Craig has taken issue with such accusations. For example, see Chris Barber, “New Book Asserts Pennock Was No Racist,” West Chester (Pennsylvania) Daily Local News, July 11, 2016, accessible at https://www.dailylocal.com/2016/07/11/new-book-asserts-pennock-was-no-racist-2/.

1 The 1900 census page on which the Carter family is listed is dated June 13, and it states that the twins were born in May of that year. The date of the 24th is from https://www.chesco.org/DocumentCenter/View/48797/Birth-Registers-1893-1907-A-I on page 127, while twin brother Andrew is listed on the previous page. In sporting databases, May 10 has been commonly identified as his date of birth, based on his military registrations around the two World Wars. Their father’s middle name was identified on Paul’s military registration card in 1918. Their mother’s maiden name was identified on their sister Hattie’s marriage application in 1929, along with the obituary of “Paul Carter,” Kennett (Square, Pennsylvania) News & Advertiser, May 15, 1975: 3. Special thanks to Debbie Kellar of the Chester County Library System for providing that obituary.

1 Joseph A. Lordi, Kennett Square (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), 8. See also Paul Carter’s occupation in the 1920 federal census.

1 See https://www.kennettundergroundrr.org/kennett-and-the-ugrr.

1 Lordi, 7.

1 “Negro Loses in Suit against School Board,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 21, 1904: 3.

1 “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 2, 1917: 8.

1 “Another for the Giants,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, July 14, 1919: 8. “Wilmington Giants Win,” Every Evening (Wilmington, Delaware), July 28, 1919: 9.

1 For an example of the nickname being spelled “Cannon Ball,” i.e., as two words, see “Flashes of Local Sport,” Wilmington (Delaware) Morning News, July 8, 1921: 7.

1 For much of the 1921 season, Cliff Carter pitched for a team based in Buffalo, New York, called the Pittsburgh Colored Stars, managed by the famous Grant “Home Run” Johnson. For example, see “Semi-Pro Baseball,” Buffalo Enquirer, October 6, 1921: 7. It seems probable that this was the “Buffalo” team mentioned in “This Is the Day Set for Start of Harrisburg Giants’ Series – West End Game,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Telegraph, June 6, 1922: 15.

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 156, 158. The Seamheads.com entry for Cliff Carter puts him on the Harrisburg Giants in 1926 and 1927, and that pitcher was called “Nick” at least once each season. See “Hilldale Clubs Three Harrisburg Hurlers for a 12 to 5 Victory,” New York Amsterdam News, August 4, 1926: 12. See also “Bolden Lifts Suspension on Nip Winters and Washington,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 18, 1927: 15.

1 Confirmation of the White Paul Carter’s nickname is provided at https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cartepa01.shtml. Regarding the fictional character who was created in 1886 and whose 12-year radio drama ended in 1955, see https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nick-Carter.

1 “Harlan Giants Drop Twilight Game to Fast St. Mary Crew,” Wilmington Morning News, June 15, 1920: 8.

1 In mid-1920, the Harlan Giants had a “J. Johnson” at shortstop and a Carter sometimes pitching in box scores, such as the one that accompanied “Harlan Giants Battle Nine Innings to Tie With K.F.C.,” Wilmington Morning News, July 20, 1920: 8. The following spring it was specified that their shortstop was Judy Johnson, in “Careful Now, 11th Ward,” Wilmington Evening Journal, May 4, 1921: 11. He grew up in Wilmington, and played his earliest baseball there, according to Thomas Kern, “Judy Johnson,” https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/judy-johnson/.

1 See Note 7 for two 1919 box scores in which the Kennett Square All-Stars had a catcher named Faulkner. The Sun Co. team had a battery of Carter and Faulkner in the box score that accompanied “Overlook Keeps One Run Ahead,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 17, 1922: 11. This team also had a shortstop named Stokes, who was likely the frequent Harlan Giant by that name. In 1928, Richard “Dick” Faulkner’s Biltmore Stars became the Kennett Square Gray Sox, according to “Kennett Gray Sox Seek Ball Games,” Wilmington Evening Journal, April 19, 1928: 20.

1 “Penna Eagles, 5; Lincoln A. C., 4,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 12, 1922: 12. “Eagles Divide with Wilkins A. C.,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 2, 1921: 7. “Eagles To Meet Locust Point Decoration Day,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 30, 1925: 7.

1 “Careys Beat Keystones,” Pittsburgh Press, June 11, 1922: 18. For an example of a Carter pitching for the Keystones the following season, see “Garfield Ahead,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, April 22, 1923: 27.

1 “Logan Opens Season with Big Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 1923: 20. The Madison Colored Stars had absorbed the Richmond Giants, according to “Madison Stars at Doherty Oval,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, May 17, 1923: 16. The Carter on the Baltimore Black Sox, who was Cliff, was a former Richmond Giant, according to “Eastern Colored League Baseball Clubs Staging Pretty Fight for the Pennant,” Richmond (Virginia) Planet, June 30, 1923: 2.

1 “Brooklyn Cuban Giants to Have Fast Club This Season,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 15, 1924: 11. This article noted that Cliff had pitched for the Richmond Giants and Baltimore Black “Socks.” See also “Cuban Giants Invade League to Get Players,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1924: 10.

1 W. Rollo Wilson, “Eastern Snapshots,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 9, 1924: 7; Ben Taylor, “Ben Taylor Calls Oscar Charleston Of Harrisburg World’s Greatest Fielder,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 7, 1925: 6.

1 “To Trounce SPHA’s,” Wilmington Evening Journal, June 2, 1924: 14. “Lit Nine Swamps Newark Black Sox,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15, 1924: 23. “Anchor Giants Blanked,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 1, 1924: 20.

1 “Rotating Umpires in Eastern League,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 28, 1925: 8. “Record Crowd Expected for ‘Malin’s Night’,” Glens Falls (New York) Post-Star, September 22, 1925: 6.

1 “Moorlyn’s 3 Runs at Start Enough,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 12, 1925: 22. See also Note 15.

1 “Donora Athletics Drill,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 4, 1926: 28. “Donora Will Open Season on Saturday,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 24, 1926: 14. “Donora Beats Elizabeth, 3-2,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 29, 1926: 15. The Richmond Colored Giants had a player named Carter later that season, but in a June game he only played left field and in a July box score he started at second base before going in to pitch: “Springfield Senators Drop Close Contest,” Brooklyn Standard-Union, June 18, 1926: 11. “Jamaica Cardinals Win Tenth Straight,” Brooklyn Standard-Union, July 7, 1926: 10.

1 “West Chester on Top,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, August 18, 1927: 11; “Colored Nines Clash,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 28, 1927: 17. For a bit more about Faulkner, see also “Colored Teams Battle on Pennsy Ball Field,” Wilmington Morning News, June 30, 1927: 21.

1 “Jacobson-Werner Heavy Artillery for Springfield,” Brooklyn Standard-Union, June 13, 1927: 13. “Montalvo’s 2 Homers Give Lincoln Giants Two Victories Sunday,” New York Age, July 2, 1927: 6.

1 “Santop’s Broncos Are to Play Two Games with Bay Parkways,” Brooklyn Citizen, September 7, 1928: 8.

1 “Kennett Gray Sox Seek Ball Games,” Wilmington Evening Journal, April 19, 1928: 20. “Seek Ball Games,” Wilmington Evening Journal, May 7, 1928. The latter article said Faulkner had spent time with “Memphis and Salem teams,” and identified the manager as C.J. Miles, 221 South Union Street, Kennett Square.

1 “Brownson Divides; Harrington Loses Two to Laurel,” Wilmington News-Journal, May 31, 1928: 15; “Holiday Twin Bill for Pennsy Field,” Wilmington Evening Journal, May 29, 1928: 13.

1 “Monarchs Deliver Lacing to Blue Sox,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 8, 1929: 17; “Kennett Square Halted by Gap in Fast Battle,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Sunday News, July 21, 1929: 9; “Home Helps Sox Trim Hornets, 4-2,” Wilmington Evening Journal, August 24, 1929: 15; “Hornets Play Blue Sox,” Wilmington News-Journal, September 14, 1929: 15.

1 “Clan Returns Home to Trounce Mayfair Team after Upstate Sojourn,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 14, 1930: 10. For a box score, see “Bunker Hill Bows to Hilldale Club,” Shamokin (Pennsylvania) News-Dispatch, August 7, 1930: 8.

1 “East Rockaway Team Beats Havana Sox,” Brooklyn Times Union, June 6, 1930: 9; “Red Sox Play in Canada Sunday,” New York Amsterdam News, July 30, 1930: 13; “Red Sox Score Four Shutouts in 6 Days,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 9, 1930: A14; “Bill Sisler Turns Down Cuban Red Sox,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, September 15, 1930: 19.

1 “Wilmington Chicks Defeat Lincoln Giants at Pennsy Field, 6 to 3,” Wilmington Morning News, July 17, 1930: 8. Paul Carter was identified as having “had a successful season” in 1930 with the Lincoln Giants in “Manlove Will Hurl for Pros,” Wilmington Morning News, May 23, 1931: 10.

1 The pitcher named Carter on the Pittsburgh Monarchs was called “Al” and was from Lawrenceville, according to “Pgh. Monarchs To Be Strong,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 12, 1930: 2. From 1929 through 1932, at a minimum, the Silver Moons had a pitcher named Carter, but one article called him Lefty. Seamheads.com identifies both Paul and Cliff Carter as righties. See “Silver Moons Take Two from Lockes,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 31, 1929: 14. Another Baltimore-area team that had a pitcher named Carter was the Oval Blue Monarchs; see “Home Run Wins Game for Oval Blue Monarchs, 4-3,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 21, 1928: 12.

1 “Wilmington Pros Oppose Hornets,” Wilmington Morning News, May 22, 1931: 10. This article noted that he hailed from Kennett Square and “played with the Hilldale Daisies two years ago.” See also “Pros-Hornets in Second Battle,” Wilmington Morning News, June 6, 1931: 10. The latter article said Paul Carter “had Eastern Colored League experience,” and affirmed that the Lincoln Giants and Hilldale club were previous teams of his.

1 “Bill Robinson’s Stars Again Beaten by Hilldale Club,” New York Age, June 27, 1931: 6; “Black Sox Lose Two Games to Darby Daisies,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 12, 1931: 3; W. Rollo Wilson, “Sport Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 19, 1931: 4. Wilson wrote, “In one inning Lundy ‘dragged’ a ball towards first base. Carter ran over to pick it up but fell, and Lundy was safe and nobody had touched the ball. Then Jackson, following Thomas’ infield out, hit through Dallard to right field. Dallard was given an error on a ball which was hit so hard that Dihigo picked it up in deep right and was able to throw Lundy out at the plate!”

1 “Hilldale Defeats Major Stars Twice,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 11, 1931: Sports, 2. See also https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1931/B10101HIL1931.htm.

1 “Kennett Tackles Colored Davids,” Wilmington Evening Journal, July 20, 1932: 14; “Bacharach Giants Lose to Wilmington Hornets,” WilmingtonNews-Journal, August 9, 1932: 24; “Black Sox Win Series from Black Yankees,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 17, 1932: 22. The latter includes a box score of a game in which Carter was the losing pitcher.

1 “Wings Set to Resume Hit Spree Against Royals Tomorrow,” Bergen Evening Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), August 31, 1932: 16.

1 “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 7, 1933: 13; “Bolden Stars Top Loop Picked Squad,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 13, 1933; “Legion Favors Sewer Project,” Wilmington News-Journal, October 14, 1933: 20.

1 “W. Harry Le Fevre Dies; 74 Years Old,” Wilmington News-Journal, March 7, 1934: 12.

1 “Bacharach Giants Under the Lights at Metuchen,” Daily Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey), June 28, 1934: 20; “Bolden Stars Win,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27, 1934: 19.

1 “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 12, 1934: 15. The two ballplayers were guests at the residence of a Mr. Everett Glasco. Carter had also spent “several days” back home during the second half of June, according to “Kennett Square,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 28, 1934: 8.

1 “Stars Jolt Giants and Tie Up Series,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1934: 51; “Stars Tie Series in Stiff Tiff,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 4, 1934: 14. The Inquirer said the Stars scored “in the fifth and sixth frames,” and the Tribune concurred, but both papers’ line scores showed those pairs in the fourth and fifth innings.

1 “Stars Upset Giants[,] Win National Title,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 3, 1934: 22. For insights into the controversy toward the end of the series, see David M. Jordan, “Another Quaker City Champion: The 1934 Philadelphia Stars,” Black Ball, Spring 2012: 30-31.

1 “Bolden’s Stars Won’t Go South; Prep in Philly,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 13, 1935: 17; “No-hit Tilt as Stars Win Two,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 18, 1935: 35; “Stars Lose 1, Win 3 From Brooklyn 9,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 22, 1935: 9. The latter article, which was accompanied by box scores for all four games, noted that Carter was right-handed.

1 “Yeadon Yuccas Open,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, April 10, 1936: 16; Irwin N. Rosee, “Bushwicks, Farmers Win Two – Bay Ridge and Parkways Split Twin Bills,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 18, 1936: 3A; “Giants Not in Association,” Kansas American (Topeka), May 22, 1936: 7.

1 For example, see “Bearded Tossers Lose Two Games,” Brooklyn Times Union, July 5, 1936: 14.

1 “Black Yanks Defeat Crawfords with Eighth Inning Rally, 9-6,” Akron Beacon Journal, August 5, 1936: 15.  Carter’s seamheads.com entry shows him with no decision and having retired one batter in the seventh inning.

1 “Three in One Day for Black Yanks,” Brooklyn Times Union, August 10, 1936: 11.

1 Ernest “Spoon” Carter was presumably the pitcher Carter traded from the Crawfords to the Stars before the 1938 season, giving the latter team its third hurler with that surname in less than a decade. See “NNL Reinstates ‘Jumpers’; New D.C. Club Is Admitted,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 12, 1938: 18.

1 “Bay Parkways Play Royal Giants Twice for Regular Opening,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 24, 1937: 6; “Royal Gts. Vs Carltons,” New York Age, May 1, 1937: 8.

1 “Red Caps Start with Nicetown Giants,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 29, 1937: 12; “Red Caps Open Baseball Season With Nicetown,” Wilmington Morning News, May 13, 1937: 13; “Wilmington Red Caps Beat Coatesville Tossers, 6-3,” Wilmington Morning News, May 17, 1937: 12; “Washington Nine Ekes Out Win Over Red Caps,” Wilmington News-Journal, May 24, 1937: 18. The latter two games were played in Kennett Square.

1 “Pennsy Tossers Score 4-0 Win Over Red Caps Team,” Wilmington Morning News, June 9, 1937: 17; “Red Caps to Play Zulus,” Wilmington News-Journal, June 12, 1937: 17; “Red Caps vs. Elkton Stars,” Wilmington News-Journal, June 19, 1937: 17.

1 Casting just a little doubt on whether Paul Carter’s career ended very close to home is the fact that in the following offseason, a Cannonball Carter was reportedly pitching for the Detroit Colored Giants in the vicinity of Los Angeles. For example, see “Darkness Ends Baseball Clash,” Bakersfield Californian, November 8, 1937: 13.

1 “Mrs. Sallie Brown Dies,” Wilmington News-Journal, September 14, 1943: 19. His wife’s Certificate of Death is accessible online via genealogical websites. In between, those, the death of his brother Joseph, a roofing contractor, received some media attention due to the uncommon cause: “Stung by Hornet, Man Dies on Roof,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 22, 1945: 13.

1 “2 Old-Timers Baseball Games on Kennett Centennial Card,” Wilmington News-Journal, September 3, 1955: 15.

1 “Paul Carter,” Kennett News & Advertiser, May 15, 1975: 3.

1 Gene Seymour, “In a League by Himself,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 23, 1982: 8, 16, 17; Don Beideman, “Teammates Recall Pride and Success of Kennett Gray Sox,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 1, 1992: CC-3, CC-32; “Old-timer’s Statue Sparks New Debate on Race,” Bedford(Pennsylvania) Gazette, July 12, 1998: 4. The latter was about an unsuccessful proposal to erect a statue of Herb Pennock in Kennett Square. Opponents pointed to the hostility to Jackie Robinson in 1947 by the Phillies, for whom Pennock was GM. Pennock biographer Keith Craig has taken issue with such accusations. For example, see Chris Barber, “New Book Asserts Pennock Was No Racist,” West Chester (Pennsylvania) Daily Local News, July 11, 2016, accessible at https://www.dailylocal.com/2016/07/11/new-book-asserts-pennock-was-no-racist-2/.

Casey played for the Brooklyn Royal Giants, Baltimore Black Sox, Philadelphia Stars, Washington Black Senators, Newark Eagles, Pittsburgh Crawfords, New York Cuban Giants, and Baltimore Elite Giants. Along the way his career intersected with greatness. He was an integral member of the 1934 Negro National League II (NNL2) champion Philadelphia Stars, driving in the series-clinching run, and was teammates with 10 future Hall of Famers: Turkey Stearnes, Monte Irvin, Willie Wells, Roy Campanella, Leon Day, Biz Mackey, Ray Dandridge, Oscar Charleston, Mule Suttles, and Jud Wilson.

William Cofer Casey was born on May 5, 1905, in Newport News, Virginia.3 He was the youngest child and only son of the four known children of William and Eleanor (Roberts) Casey. William had three older sisters: Lattie, Ruth, and Peachy. His father was a laborer in the shipyards of Newport News. His mother, Eleanor, died when William was young.4

Little is known about Mickey Casey’s childhood. He went by his middle name as a child and is listed as “Coffer” [sic] in both the 1910 and 1920 censuses, perhaps to distinguish him from his father. While most sources identify Casey as Black, the 1920 census identified him as a 15-year-old mulatto. His light complexion and a noticeable scar above his left eyebrow later were noted on his World War II draft card. By 1920, he was already working as a laborer and presumably starring on the local sandlots of Newark News.

Casey played baseball at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) in Charlotte, North Carolina.5 His path to JCSU is unclear and like many university athletes at that time, there is no record of Casey having attended classes at JCSU. In addition to Casey, JCSU produced three other Negro League players: “Steel Arm” Johnny Taylor, Burnalle “Bun” Hayes, and William “Red” Lindsay.6 One source indicates Casey finished three years of high school.7

By the age of 21, Casey had two sons, William (b. 1924) and Cofer (b. 1926). While there is no record of Casey being married at this time, the two boys were consistently identified as his children in public records. Cofer, the younger of the two, died of tuberculosis just before his 19th birthday in 1945.

Casey began his professional career in 1930, a season in which he played first for the Brooklyn Royal Giants and later for the Baltimore Black Sox.8 Currently available statistics suggest Casey had a feast-or-famine type of rookie season at the plate in games against other major Eastern Independent clubs. He played in eight games for the Royal Giants, sharing catching duties with Willie Creek, and hit only .037 (1-for-27) with one RBI. By July, Casey had moved to Baltimore and in 12 games with the Black Sox he hit .370 (10-for-27), with 4 RBIs and an .859 OPS. For the year, he batted a cumulative .204 and drove in five runs. He also made his only professional pitching appearance with the Black Sox, throwing one inning and giving up four runs (three earned) on two hits and two walks.

In 1931 Casey returned to the Black Sox, who were still playing as one of the major independent clubs along the Eastern Seaboard. He was primarily used behind the plate, sharing the catching duties with Bob Clarke, but also saw some action in the outfield, and he hit .306 and drove in 15 runs in 36 games against other top Black teams. That year the Pittsburgh Courier identified the chunky catcher and first baseman Dave Thomas as “two of the best youngsters who have broke in around here in many moons.”9

There is some evidence that Casey may have toyed with the idea of playing for the Detroit Wolves in 1932. After Detroit signed Cool Papa Bell and Tom Young, the Pittsburgh Courier assessed the Wolves’ potential catching duo as formidable. Said an article in the Courier: “Young is a great receiver and dependable hitter and teaming with Casey in back of the plate will give the Motor City Club just about the greatest catching staff in the league.”10

Ultimately, Casey continued to play for the Black Sox, now managed by Dick Lundy, after the franchise joined the East-West League (EWL) in 1932. He played a utility role for Baltimore as he appeared in 31 games as a catcher, 17 at third base, 9 at second base, and 4 in the outfield. He batted .258 with one home run, the only known major-league home run he hit, and 16 RBIs. The Black Sox finished in third place behind the runaway champion Detroit Wolves, the team Casey was linked to during the offseason. The East-West League folded in June, but there is no evidence that Casey played elsewhere for the remainder of the season.

Casey moved to Philadelphia in 1933 when he was signed by the independent Philadelphia Stars as a reserve catcher to back up veteran receiver Biz Mackey. W. Rollo Wilson wrote in his season preview of the Stars that “Mackey and Casey left nothing to be desired in the way of catchers,” emphasizing their strong arms and ability to manage the pitching staff.11

Mackey undoubtedly played an integral part in development of Casey and other young catchers. The consensus among Negro Leagues scholars is that Josh Gibson was the better hitter, but that Mackey was by far his defensive superior.12 Negro League historian James A. Riley may have stated it best when he wrote, “Considered the master of defense, (Mackey) possessed all the tools necessary behind the plate. … An expert handler of pitchers, he studied people. … [H]e was a master at … framing and funneling pitches. Pitchers recognized his generalship and liked to pitch” to Mackey.13 His defensive prowess, understanding of people, and level-headedness made him an ideal tutor for Casey.

A personal highlight of Casey’s 1933 season came toward the end of the season. On September 28 the Stars beat the Pittsburgh Crawfords 4-3 in a five-inning rain-shortened affair. Pinch-hitting for pitcher Cliff Carter, Casey drove in the tying and winning runs off Satchel Paige with a single to right-center in the bottom of the fifth.14 For the year, Casey played in 21 games including 11 at catcher, in which he did not commit an error behind the plate, while hitting .222 with 10 RBIs. The Stars finished with a record of 22-13 and had the most victories of all the independent clubs in the East.

The Philadelphia Stars joined the NNL2 in 1934, and Casey became the team’s starting catcher when the aging Mackey went down with an injury. In addition to handling the bulk of the catching duties (52 games), he played third base twice, two games in the outfield, and one game at second base. He batted .250 with 24 RBIs, helping the Stars capture the league’s second-half title, which secured a spot in the NNL2 Championship Series against the first-half-champion Chicago American Giants.

Rollo Wilson, commissioner of the Negro National League, named Gibson and Larry “Iron Man” Brown as the best catchers, but singled out Casey of the Stars as the “hardest-working mask man in the league and deserving honorable mention.”15 The recognition was earned in large part because Mackey had not been able to perform and Casey had been forced to take on extra work without a reliable backup. Casey finished sixth among catchers in fan voting for the East-West All-Star Game, receiving just under 4,000 votes.16

Casey played in six games in the 1934 Negro League Championship series, two behind the plate and three games in left field. Although he hit only a meager 1-for-15 with two walks in 18 plate appearances, his fourth-inning RBI single that plated Mackey in Game Eight proved to be the series-winning RBI as the Stars won the series over the American Giants, 4-3-1.17

Casey returned to a backup role with the Stars in 1935. He played in 31 games, which included 25 appearances behind the plate and two games in left field. He enjoyed his best season offensively, hitting .383 with 23 RBIs and a .932 OPS. The increased offensive production was in part due to a decreased workload behind the plate. Fans continued to take notice of Casey; he finished fourth in the East in fan voting (Mackey was second) with 5,940 votes.18 The Stars finished in fourth place, behind the first-half and eventual league champion Pittsburgh Crawfords, the New York Cubans, and the Columbus Elite Giants. Casey filled a similar role with the Stars in 1936, this time backing up starting catcher Larry Brown. In 30 games he hit .278 with 11 RBIs as the Stars fell to last place in the NNL.

In 1937, his last full season with the Stars, Casey married Ophelia Mack. She was the youngest of the three children of Thomas and Gertrude (Gatling) Mack of Philadelphia. He was 32 years old at the time and Ophelia was 23. The couple eventually had nine children together, five boys (William, Johnny, Michael, Thomas Richard, and James) and four girls (Bonnie, Geneva, Eleanor, and Maureen). Ophelia, commonly known as Mother Casey,19 worked at St. Vincent DePaul Hospital as a nurse.20 At the time of her death in 2005, the family included “27 grandchildren and a host of great-grand and great-great-grandchildren.”21

Casey was steady behind the plate in 1937, but his offensive production dropped off to a .206 batting average, 8 RBIs and a .471 OPS. The Stars did better that year but still finished in third place, behind the league champion Homestead Grays and second-place Newark Eagles.

Casey traveled throughout the Northeast in 1938, playing for four teams, the Philadelphia Stars, Pittsburgh Crawfords, Newark Eagles, and Washington Black Senators. As he probably had trouble remembering his address from one day to the next, he hit a combined .225 (16-for-82 with 9 walks) with only 6 RBIs.

After the collapse of the Black Senators, Casey signed with the New York Cubans for 1939. He appeared in 14 NNL2 games at catcher and enjoyed one of his better seasons at the plate. In 14 games he hit .320. The Cubans finished in last place.

Casey played a second season with the Cubans in 1940, and the now 35-year-old backstop shared the team’s catching duties with his 44-year-old player-manager José María Fernández. Casey slumped to a .192 batting average in 19 league games as the Cubans finished tied for last with the New York Black Yankees. On his World War II draft registration card, dated October 16, 1940, Casey indicated that he had no employer. Wherever he may have found employment in 1941, it was not with a team in professional Black baseball.

In 1942 Casey played one final game in the NNL2 with the Baltimore Elite Giants, which featured a 20-year-old catcher named Roy Campanella. Whether Casey was a player-coach is unclear, but he made just one appearance, as a pinch-hitter, and was hitless.

According to Riley’s The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, Casey’s playing career extended into the 1950s. Casey’s entry in the encyclopedia states:

In 1950, twenty years after he started his professional career, he finally played in organized ball, playing at Eau Claire in the Northern League, where he registered a .282 average. In 1953 the veteran receiver was with Jacksonville in the Sally League, where he hit .253. the next season he split time between Jacksonville and Dallas in the Texas League, hitting an aggregate .184. His last season was split between Charlotte in the South Atlantic League (.214) and Atlanta in the Southern Association (.250), where he was used sparingly.22

However, this is not the same William Casey. Baseball-reference.com identifies the William Casey who played in Eau Claire, Jacksonville, Dallas, Charlotte, and Atlanta as William Carl Casey, born on July 14, 1930, in Parkin, Arkansas, not Mickey Casey. In 1950 Mickey was residing on Saybrook Avenue in an African American community in Philadelphia with Ophelia, six of their children, two nephews, and a niece.

The additional account that Casey took “a turn in the latter stages of his career as a manager”23 is unsubstantiated. While he had a baseball pedigree that suggests he would have had the opportunity to manage, there is no evidence that he managed in the Negro Leagues or any other league in Organized Baseball. Any managerial position he had would have been at the amateur or semipro level.

Casey finished his 12-year Negro League career with a .259 batting average, 1 home run, and 128 RBIs. While his offensive numbers, albeit incomplete, may seem relatively modest, he obviously brought value to the teams he played for, or he would not have had a career of such length.  

Little is known about Casey’s post-baseball life. He and Mother Casey were active in the church and helped others in the local community. Casey died of stomach cancer on January 23, 1968, in Philadelphia. He and Ophelia are buried in Rolling Green Memorial Park in West Goshen, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Baseball-reference.com.

Negro League player statistics, team records, and league standings were taken from Seamheads.com.

The author would like to acknowledge the contributions of Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin, whose research contributed to this piece.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 159.

2 Riley, 159.

3 While there are conflicting dates of his birth, ranging anywhere from 1905-1906, May 5, 1905, is the most commonly cited date and the only date cited more than once.

4 The 1910 US Census lists the 5-year-old boy’s father (William Casey) as a widower.

5 Johnson C. Smith University is a private liberal arts university with proud Historically Black College and University (HBCU) traditions.

6 JCSU was founded as Biddle Memorial Institute in 1867. In 1876 it became Biddle University. Biddle University changed its name to JCSU in 1923. Taylor played there prior to 1923 when it was still Biddle University.

7 Casey’s World War II draft registration card dated October 16, 1940.

8 James Riley’s work states that Casey played for famed Hilldale Daisies of Philadelphia in 1930. However, there are no sources to support that.

9 “Baltimore-Daisy Tilt Saturday Interests,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 2, 1931: 15.

10 Dizzy Dizmukes, “Dizzy’s Dope on Baseball,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 19. 1932: 14.

11 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shots: Bolden’s Philly Stars Have That Thing Called Class,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 13, 1933: 14.

12 Chris Rainey, “Biz Mackey,” SABR BioProject. Retrieved on February 13, 2023 from sabr.org/bioproj/person/biz-mackey/.

13 Riley, 502-03.

14 “Phillies Rally Tops Crawfords,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 30, 1933: 14.

15 W. Rollo Wilson, “Baseball’s Curtain Falling on Season,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 15, 1934: A4.

16 “Voting for East-West Stars,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 25, 1934: 15. Josh Gibson won the fan voting for catcher with 5,496 votes.

17 The two half-season champions of the 1934 NNL were the Philadelphia Stars and the Chicago American Giants, who met in a best-of-seven series, which went eight games because of a Game Seven tie.

18 “The East,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 10, 1935: 15.

19 Perhaps in recognition of how she was commonly referred to, Mickey Casey listed Ophelia as his mother on his 1940 World War II draft registration card. 

20 Ophelia M. Casey obituary. Retrieved from www.terryfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Ophelia-M-Casey?obid+2056973#/celebrationWall.

21 Ophelia M. Casey obituary.

22 Riley, 159.

23 Riley, 159.

Porter began his professional Negro League career with the Daisies in 1927. At 23 years of age, he provided a bright spot in Hilldale’s pitching rotation. The 1927 Hilldale Daisies – also known as Clan Darby (or Darbie) – were managed by Frank Warfield for the first 17 games, and later by Otto Briggs for the final 70 games. The team, owned by Ed Bolden, featured greats Biz Mackey and Judy Johnson. That first season, Charleston, who stood 6-feet-1 and weighed 181 pounds, appeared in four games, completed three, and owned a 1-2 record. His performance earned praise from the press; and he was dubbed the “Swarthmore Rookie,”2 perhaps due to Chester’s proximity to Swarthmore College. From the outset of his playing days, the gaps in Charleston’s life story were acknowledged. One reporter wrote, “The Rookie Twirler of the Clan Darbie, Porter Charleston, seems to know what it is all about. He has pitched several splendid games for Ed Bolden and he looks like a real find. How they caught him, found him, came by him, I know not. And it matters not, if he continues to deliver the goods.”3 The 1927 Daisies finished the Eastern Colored League (ECL) season with a 38-48 record.

The 1928 Daisies fared much better under manager Otto Briggs, and with the addition of 31-year-old center fielder and future Hall of Famer Oscar Charleston. Porter Charleston played in 15 games, pitching to a 4-6 record, with five complete games. The right-handed hurler also hit .222 that year.4

In 1929 Charleston pitched a career-high 120⅓ innings, with 12 games started, and produced a 9-5 record. Managers for the Daisies were Oscar Charleston (0-4) and Phil Cockrell (44-32-4); the team’s overall record was 44-36-4, and in the American Negro League, 43-35-3. The Pittsburgh Courier wrote that Charleston “has been touted as one of the [Daisies’] newest stars.”5 He also was identified that year as a utility player.6 He showed great promise, and it was noted that “Charleston has developed into one of the best hurlers on the strong staff of Clan Darbie and is most effective against tough competition.”7

The 1930 season was unusual in that Charleston received little attention, except for a note by W. Rollo Wilson that identified strengths and weaknesses in his game: “I consider Charleston was [one] of the best pitching prospects in the country, and only his own conduct off the field can keep him from stardom.”8 The “conduct off the field” statement is notable and indicates that Charleston may have run afoul of Bolden, the Hilldale owner, or worse. Charleston does not appear to have pitched for Hilldale that season; if he did, he was not involved in games against any of the other major Black clubs in the East. Hilldale finished with only the fifth-best record among the Eastern Independent clubs under manager Phil Cockrell and had a miserable 8-30-1 record.

In 1931 the 27-year-old Charleston was back with Hilldale and appeared in 11 games, finishing with an 8-2 record and nine complete games. Managed by Judy Johnson, the Hilldale Club – the team’s name that year –finished as the top squad among the East’s Independent Clubs with a 38-14-1 record. Of note is an article that addressed Charleston’s off-the-field reputation: “Porter Charleston is home again. The bad boy of the suburbs is back from the Pacific slope.”9

In 1932, his final year with the Hilldale Club, Charleston delivered a 5-3 record, completing each of the eight games he started. That same year, the Baltimore Black Sox acquired Charleston, who appeared in one game as a relief pitcher. The Baltimore club, managed by Dick Lundy, had a record of 33-33 in the East-West League that year.

Charleston became a Philadelphia Star in 1933. He started four games and compiled a 3-0 record, completing three of the four games. He married Cora Robinson on July 20, 1933.10 They had at least one child, a son named Porter Charleston Jr., who achieved some repute as a boxer.11

The Philadelphia Stars of 1934, managed by Webster McDonald, accumulated an overall record of 49-24-3 and a Negro National League II (NNL2) record of 39-18-2. After winning the NNL2’s second-half title, the Stars captured the league championship by defeating the Chicago American Giants, winners of the first-half title. Charleston’s role on the team is not clear, but his name does appear in some press clippings. In June a columnist reported, “The Boldeners have had a run of hard luck. … Porter Charleston reported with a sore arm and it gets no better right along.”12 Apparently Charleston sat out the year with an injury, but it is possible that he played in exhibition games later in the season.13

Charleston was 31 in 1935, which was his last in the Negro Leagues. But it certainly was not his final year in baseball. Playing for the Philadelphia Stars, he had a record of 2-1 in five league games. The press still praised Charleston as “a great natural pitcher, who may start the [season] opener against the Grays.”14 Indeed, the 1935 season looked bright for him; a newspaper commented, “Local sports fans who looked askance at the weak performance of Porter Charleston during the ’34 season are in for a surprise. Exhibiting a contract from Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars, Charleston, for several years, the ace of the Negro pitchers, is signed for comeback.”15

After his final season with the Stars, Charleston continued to play with semipro teams, including Ed Billstein’s Congoleum Crescents. (Billstein was “one of the prominent members of the Congoleum-Nairn office.”16) Other teams for whom he played were the Chester Elks, the Swarthmore Giants, the Lincoln Giants, and Stan Jackson’s Chester Clippers. (Stan Jackson was a Chester High School baseball and football player.17)

Charleston’s appearance with the Baltimore Black Sox in 1939 was noteworthy. The Delaware County Daily Times reported, “Porter Charleston, famous Negro League pitcher, leads the Baltimore Black Sox into town tonight to battle the Lloyd A.C. Tossers. … Charleston is one of the most popular pitchers ever to appear in Chester and is quite well known around the local diamonds.”18

With World War II raging, Charleston registered for the military draft. His draft card notes his age as 35, but as most records indicate he was born in 1904, he was more likely 36. He listed his wife, Cora Robinson, as his contact person and gave his employer as L.M. Supplee, possibly a hardware supplier. Charleston was not called to service, so he was able to continue to play baseball, and he garnered positive press coverage. In 1941 his name headlined a story: “Charleston Stars as Clippers Win.” In this game, pitching for Stan Jackson’s Chester Clippers, Charleston allowed the Eveready A.C. team, of Leesburg, Virginia, “2hits in the first inning,” then “faced only 25 men in the last eight frames. He had four hits in four times and batted in the only two runs of the game.”19 

In a 1942 reflection on decades of Negro League baseball, sportswriter Randy Dixon included Charleston as one of many Negro Leaguers who had the talent to play in what were then termed the (White) major leagues.20

As the years passed, Charleston received attention for his baseball play and for non-baseball-related events. In 1948 a newspaper reported that “police are investigating the shooting of Porter Charleston,”21 adding, “… According to the story he told police, the shot was fired by William Johnson, his next door neighbor.” Charleston said the Johnsons were in his home that evening, and that Johnson aimed his pistol at Mrs. Johnson. After the gun failed to fire, Johnson fired again and “Mrs. Johnson is said to have ducked. Charleston who was in the line of fire received the bullet.”22

More details came out in December 1948: William Johnson was sent to the county jail for three to 23 months. Porter Charleston testified that “Mrs. Johnson ducked into my room” when she saw her husband coming up the stairs. Johnson fired one shot, the bullet going through Charleston’s right side without damaging any vital organs. …”23 As troubling as this story was, Charleston still garnered attention for his baseball prowess as well. The article stated that “At one time [Charleston] was rated the equal of the famed ‘Satchel’ Paige, according to Arnold (Lefty) Vann, manager of the Lloyd A.C. who has played against both men.”24

Ten years later, Charleston was seriously injured in an automobile accident. According to a newspaper report, “Charleston, 54, of 114 Flower St., considered one of the [greatest] Negro baseball stars of all time, was injured when the car he was driving collided with one operated by Dolores J. Chandler. … He was treated at Chester Hospital for cuts of the arm, face, leg and back. …”25

In another reflective piece that considered Negro League players who could have played major-league baseball, the Delaware County Daily Times asserted, “Porter Charleston, as a pitcher of note, who appeared at Smedley Field to play ball against Chester usually belted the ball out of the park over the centerfield flag pole with plenty to spare.”26

A 1968 article in the Daily Times noted that Charleston was to be included, for the first time, on the Delaware County Hall of Fame ballot and mentioned that he had played winter ball in Arizona and California. The article said, “Porter called himself primarily a fast ball pitcher – but I had a little bit of everything, he adds with a grin.”27 The writer quoted former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh, who said that Charleston “had everything necessary to make it to the big leagues. He just came along a little too soon.”28 Charleston was finally inducted into the Delaware County Hall of Fame in 1970, at which time he was described as “the man called a fit rival for the legendary Satchel Paige.”29

Porter Charleston died at the age of 82 on June 11, 1986, and reportedly was buried at the Haven Memorial Cemetery in Chester, Pennsylvania. The uncertainties of his life remain. He was indeed a very good baseball player – he played in the Negro Leagues from 1927 to 1935, and his baseball talent brought him numerous appearances on semipro teams. In newspaper articles, he was described as a quiet man who worked for the city of Chester. While these reports are incomplete, he is remembered for his baseball play and for the reality that he, among others, did not play in the National or American Leagues simply because he was a Black man.

Sources

Unless otherwise noted, all Negro League statistics and records were taken from Seamheads.com’s Negro League Database.

Notes

1 Mexia, Texas, near the Fort Worth area, featured the Texas Negro League, the Colored Texas League, the South Texas Negro League, and the West Texas Colored League.

2 “Cubans Are Beaten in 2 Contests,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 10, 1927: 18.

3 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 3, 1927: 18.

4 It is not clear whether Porter Charleston batted right or left.

5 “Baltimore Bows Before Grays in 4 Close Tilts; Hilldale Here Friday,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 22, 1929: 16.

6 “Daisies to Show on Forbes Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 22, 1929: 16.

7 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 31, 1929: 5.

8 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1930: 16.

9 “Charl’ton Holds Sox to 3 Hits in Classic,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 9, 1931: 5.

10 Delaware County Records Center, Marriage Records 1885-1950, http://archives.co.delaware.pa.us/Archives/Marriage1885.aspx.

11 Frank Johnson, “Local Boxers Win All Lloyd AC Contests,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), August 3, 1949: 14.

12 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 9, 1934: 14.

13 “Among Our Colored Citizens,” Delaware County Daily Times, August 9, 1934: 18.

14 “Local Sports,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 27, 1935: 16.

15 “Among Our Colored Citizens,” Delaware County Daily Times, February 13, 1935: 7.

16 “Crescents to Meet Boldens,” Delaware County Daily Times, August 4, 1936: 10.

17 Delaware County Daily Times, September 20, 1937: 30.

18 “Charleston to Pitch in Clash at Lloyd Field,” Delaware County Daily Times, August 11, 1939: 12.

19 “Charleston Stars as Clippers Win,” Delaware County Daily Times, July 2, 1941: 20.

20 Randy Dixon, “The Sports Bugle,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 15, 1942: 16.

21 The Editors, “How It Looks to Us,” Delaware County Daily Times, October 23, 1948. 1

22 “Former Negro Baseball Star Shot in Side,” Delaware County Daily Times, October 23, 1948: 1.

23 Chester Youth Pleads Guilty in Assault Case,” Delaware County Daily Times, December 31, 1948. 2.

24 “Former Negro Baseball Star Shot in Side.”

25 “7 Injured in County Accidents,” Delaware County Daily Times, June 16, 1958: 46.

26 “Old Timers Hall of Fame Rapped for Omitting Greats,” Delaware County Daily Times, January 12, 1967: 23.

27 John Plaisant, “Porter Charleston Fired Fast Ball 25 Years Too Soon,” Delaware County Daily Times, January 16, 1968: 32.

28 Plaisant.

29 “Tunnell, Walker Lead Greats into Hall of Fame,” Delaware County Daily Times, January 6, 1970: 15.  

“If you were to ask me who is the smartest hurler in our league, there could be but one answer, and that is ‘

Phil Cockrell’s arrival in the North is one person’s story of the Great Migration, the movement of millions of African Americans from the South as they sought jobs and hoped to avoid inequality in the early 1900s. According to the US National Archives:

The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of people in United States history. Approximately six million Black people moved from the American South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states roughly from the 1910s until the 1970s. The driving force behind the mass movement was to escape racial violence, pursue economic and educational opportunities, and obtain freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow.2

For Cockrell, it was baseball that drew him to upstate New York and then Pennsylvania. And, in so doing, he made a name for himself in the annals of the Negro League game.

Phillip Cockrell Williams was reputedly born in Augusta, Georgia, on June 29, 1895. However, as is the case with many Black ballplayers born before the turn of the twentieth century, records are spotty and not much is known about his origins. A 1900 Census record might be of his family and him as a 5-year-old, residing in the Burke Militia District (30 miles from Augusta) with father Phillips, mother Francis, and three siblings. The 1910 Census records potentially tie then 15-year-old Philip to a Williams family that included 55-year-old father William and three siblings residing in Augusta. His grave records indicate a July 9, 1895, birthdate. Yet Cockrell’s own draft registration card from the early 1940s identifies Philip Cockrew (so spelled even though his own scrawling signature shows Cockrell ending in two l’s, not a w) Williams born in Augusta, Georgia, on June 29, 1898. It must suffice to say that Cockrell was born in the latter half of the final decade of the nineteenth century.

Little is known of Cockrell’s youth except for his Augusta roots, which is where, in his teens, Pop Watkins discovered him. Baseball lifer Watkins occasionally coached Paine College’s baseball team and likely recruited Cockrell or spotted him on the team. In the mid-1920s, once Cockrell reached stardom, the Augusta Chronicle happily laid claim to him, writing “Have you ever heard of Phil Cockrell? Well, he is an Augusta colored professional baseball player who hurls at will a no-hit, no-run game. … Out in the East, Cockrell is good advertising for Augusta.”3 A year later, the Chronicle announced Cockrell’s March appearance in Augusta: “Phil Cockrell is a product of Paine College and will help to work out the team while he is in the city.”4

The man who discovered him, John McCreary “Pop” Watkins, was a Black baseball icon who played most of career with the Cuban Giants. In 1907 Watkins broke his leg in a game, and although he recovered enough to play in the field again, his career took a turn.5 By then in his 40s, Pop shifted his baseball talents toward assembling Black teams in the South that he then took North to compete against amateur, semipro, and other Black and White squads. Born in the South (some records show North Carolina, others Georgia), he gravitated toward Augusta where, according to newspaper accounts of the day, he recruited young ballplayers, aided by his coaching the local Black school team at Paine College, a Historically Black College. Watkins’ business acumen and his skill in finding talented ballplayers came to define his career and offered a proving ground for players like Cockrell to find a place in Black baseball.

Watkins most famously organized and managed the Havana Red Sox, an itinerant team based in Norfolk, Virginia, and Buffalo, New York, prior to its relocation to Watertown, New York. In 1913 the Buffalo Evening News provided one of the first sightings of Watkins’ team noting that “the Havana Red Sox, known the country over as one of the greatest colored baseball teams ever organized, will be seen in Buffalo for the first time next Sunday. … [T]his famous club is under the management of Pop Watkins, who is the oldest player manager today in baseball.”6 No mention was made of Cockrell being in the lineup, and other 1913 articles offer no indication of whether an 18-year-old Cockrell was yet on the team. 

However, over the next four seasons, 1914 to 1917, Cockrell featured prominently for the Havana Red Sox in its Watertown home. One of the first references to Cockrell on the Red Sox appeared when the team played in Kingston, Ontario, in July 1914. “On Monday, at Lake Ontario Park, the fastest ball players that have been in Kingston in a long while will play the winners of the Ponies-Victoria game. These fellows are all students in negro colleges and call themselves the Havana Red Sox. The lineup [includes] Cockrell, from Paine College, Augusta, Ga.”7 An article in the New York Age, an African American newspaper, further substantiated Cockrell’s presence on the Red Sox roster.8 And the Watertown Daily Times regularly reported on games that he pitched or played the outfield in, noting by the end of September that he was “one of Pop’s best.”9

In 1916, a reference to Cockrell’s unique pitching style made the news. In a July 29 game against the Gouverneur Collegians, “Cockrell twirled a splendid [complete] game, striking out eleven of his opponents with the spitter” for a 3-1 win. Also noteworthy was the article’s allusion to what was common practice for many Black teams at the time: “The Watkins club kept the spectators amused throughout the game with the comedy stuff, besides showing some clever fielding.”10

Cockrell began the 1917 season with the Red Sox and on one of Havana’s road trips to New York City apparently drew the attention of the New York Lincoln Giants team that was managed by Smokey Joe Williams. In the autumn of that year, Cockrell made his debut in the top tier of Black baseball.11 The Watertown Daily Times noted his move to New York in an October 1917 article:

Phil Cockrell, who was the star-colored twirler of the Havana Red Sox, the former part of this season, is now doing mound duty for the Lincoln Giants, one of the fastest colored aggregations in New York city. Cockrell played with the Pittsburgh Stars up to two weeks ago when he made a shift to the colored nine of the metropolis. Phil pitched his second game for the Lincoln Giants on Sunday afternoon at the Olympic field in New York city, [winning] 4 to 2.12

His brief stint with the Pittsburgh Stars, before moving to the Giants, was also captured by the Watertown Daily Times:

The Pittsburgh Stars, star colored team of Buffalo captained by Home Run Johnson, a former member of Pop Watkins’ aggregation, is composed mainly Red Sox players who have either been released by the venerable Watkins or have left the team of their own accord. … Phil Cockrell, who left Pop’s crew of colored baseball tossers in August to join the Buffalo aggregation, twirled in [the Sunday, September 23 game against the Buffalo Internationals] and allowed the Bisons but three hits.13

Statistics record one appearance against another major-league-quality Black ballclub in 1917 for the 22-year-old with the Lincoln Giants, a six-hit shutout.14 Managed by Smokey Joe Williams, the Lincoln Giants finished with the best record among the Eastern clubs. Williams led the way with pitching support from Gifford McDonald and Lee Wade. Doc Wiley, Judy Gans, Ted Kimbro, Jules Thomas, and Spottswood Poles featured prominently in the field and at bat.

In the winter of 1917-1918, Cockrell made the first of several appearances in the Florida Hotel League, possibly initiated by his newfound connection to Smokey Joe Williams, who managed the Breakers Hotel team on which Cockrell played. Cockrell made further appearances for the Breakers in 1921, 1925, and 1926.15

Cockrell’s winter ballplaying was not confined to Florida. He was with the Bacharach Giants in 1920-1921, on which team he joined future Hall of Famers Louis Santop and Oscar Charleston, for the squad’s losing tour (4-12) of Cuba against Almendares and Habana.16 Cockrell’s stats show him playing mainly as an outfielder in six games, going hitless, with two innings in relief in one pitching appearance.

Cockrell started the 1918 season with the Lincoln Giants, but it was that year that Ed Bolden, the Hilldale entrepreneur and president, decided to pursue the right-hander,17 most likely based on his pitching performance for his New York team in a May 12 game against the Brooklyn Royal Giants at Olympic Field. The game is worth noting, given its pivotal role in Cockrell’s long-term career with Hilldale and later with Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars.

Tom Williams    and Phil Cockrell, two colored twirlers who have seen service in Watertown with Pop Watkins’ dusky squad, participated in a pitching duel at the Olympic Field in New York city Sunday afternoon. Both twirlers were relieved at the close of the 11th inning with the score two all. Both received rounds of applause from the biggest crowd that has ever been at the park. The Lincoln Giants, of which Cockrell is a twirler, were, however, defeated in the 12th inning by the Royal Giants 4-2. In eleven innings Cockrell struck out eight men, gave two bases on balls and allowed a wild pitch.18

The rise of Hilldale as a national Black baseball power coincided with moves like the signing of Cockrell. Bolden had already brought Otto Briggs and Doc Sykes into the fold in 1917. In 1918, along with Cockrell, Bolden signed Louis Santop, Arthur Dilworth, Tom Williams, Judy Johnson, Dick Lundy, Pearl Webster, and George Johnson to the club for the start of a decade of excellence.19

In the period 1918 to 1920, Hilldale established itself as both a quality team and a sound organization. It was competitive, finishing second, fourth, third, and first among Eastern Independent Clubs from 1918 to 1921. The team foundered somewhat at 20-26 in 1922, eighth among Independent Clubs. Thereafter, Hilldale hit its stride. In the five years of existence of the Eastern Colored League (1923-1927), the team came in second, first, first, first, first, and fifth, appearing in the first two Negro League World Series in 1924 and 1925. Its 53-33 aggregate record against all Negro League teams in 1926 was not enough to surpass the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants in games won within the ECL for a fourth consecutive Eastern title.

By 1921, Cockrell was known well outside Philadelphia. A Chicago paper wrote, “Cockrell is one of the many pitchers who long ago demonstrated the fact that the Southland is full of worthy baseball talent. Phil Cockrell is one of the Hilldales great staff of pitchers and is rated one of the best right handers in the business.”20

In early 1923, Cockrell’s pitching talents were confirmed by Black baseball’s preeminent personage himself, Rube Foster. The Associated Negro Press ran a story in March, stating:

Phil Cockrell, ‘the pitching wonder’ who is wintering in Palm Beach, Florida, received a flattering letter from Rube Foster. The letter is in Edward Bolden’s hands and Phil declares he will stick with the Hilldale team and support his present manager. …21

Cockrell was very much a part of Hilldale’s winning formula. In his 15 years with the franchise, through 1932 when the team collapsed financially, he pitched 202 games, starting 165 and finishing 133 of them. He went 96-67 with a 3.88 ERA. Pitching alongside Nip Winters, Red Ryan, Rube Curry, Script Lee, Bullet Campbell, and later, Darltie Cooper, Oscar Levis, and Webster McDonald, the Hilldale rotation was solid and dependable. As Cockrell aged into his 30s, he no longer figured as the main attraction for Hilldale, but Bolden remained loyal to him.

There was one hiccup, though. Foreshadowing the irony of his post-playing career, Cockrell became embroiled in something more than a dust-up with an umpire: 

On August 8, 1926, at Atlantic City … [he] attacked an umpire for reversing a decision. While many observers were angered by the harsh response of white park security, who hauled Cockrell from the field and struck him with a blackjack, Bolden insisted that Cockrell was at fault for assaulting the umpire. … Cockrell received a five-day suspension and a $100 fine.22

In spite of this unfortunate episode, Cockrell was still known as one of the best and smartest hurlers in Negro League baseball. The Pittsburgh Courier’s W. Rollo Wilson captured Cockrell’s pitching repertoire perfectly:

The sterling pitcher of Clan Darbie is still winning ball games. And how? His head and control. If you were to ask me who is the smartest hurler in our league, there could be but one answer, and that is “Cockrell.” … [He] is a veteran of the game and he knows all the questions and their solutions. He can find the weak spot of a batter more quickly than any moundsman hereabouts. His spitball is more deception than reality, his curve is a curve by courtesy only. He can flash a speed ball on occasion. But his brain works constantly, and his control is good or better most of the time. … Other eastern pitchers have more mechanical ability, but none ties him in brain power.23

Cockrell’s spitball was considered by many to be his signature pitch. The American and National Leagues banned the spitball after 1920 (allowing the 17 pitchers already using it to continue until they were out of the game).24 However, “The Negro Leagues, on the other hand, did no such thing. While Negro League officials claimed that their games adhered to Major League rules, NNL players, managers, and umpires accepted ball doctoring as a part of their sport.”25 This state of play welcomed a range of styles for Negro Leaguers to doctor the ball. For Cockrell, it was a “moist ball” rather than a heavily saliva-covered pitch.26

Teammate Paul “Jake” Stephens had an insider’s view of Cockrell’s spitter:

Phil Cockrell was a great pitcher, but you hated to play behind him because he threw that spitball, and you’d get ahold of the goddamn spit sometimes. You just couldn’t throw true. I never will forget this no-hit no-run game on Sunday against the Paterson Silk Sox in New Jersey. They really had a good ball club. And I made a play out this world. The following week they had a return bout, and we went along about the seventh or eighth inning 0-0, and with two men out and a man on second base, he threw a spitball. I grabbed ahold of the spitty side and threw it into the dugout. The man scored and beat us 1-0. Cockrell wouldn’t talk to me for two weeks.27

Perhaps the most prominent display of Cockrell’s spitter came in the first game of the 1924 Colored World Series between the Kansas City Monarchs and Hilldale on Friday, October 3, in Philadelphia. Bolden elected to start Cockrell rather than Nip Winters, despite the latter’s stellar season. On a 1-and-2 count to the Monarchs’ first batter, Lem Hawkins, Cockrell threw a spitball that led to the home-plate umpire stopping play. The umpire was a White official from the International League who was ready to enforce the ban, but Bolden appealed to Rube Foster, commissioner for the Negro National League, to allow the game to continue without prohibiting the pitch. Foster agreed. Cockrell completed the game but lost to Bullet Joe Rogan, 6-2, giving up five runs in the sixth in large part due to his three errors.28

The 1924 Colored World Series between the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League was the first of two that the Hilldale squad and Cockrell played against the Kansas City Monarchs. Cockrell started two games. In addition to his Game One loss, he started Game Six in Kansas City on October 12, going only two-thirds of an inning and giving up four runs. He did not take the loss, as Hilldale later came back to tie the game before Script Lee, who relieved Cockrell, allowed two more runs in a 6-5 defeat.29 Despite better hitting and a lower ERA, Hilldale eventually dropped the Series 4-5-1.

Redemption was on the way with a 1925 rematch between the two teams. In the second game of the series, Cockrell pitched a complete game in Kansas City on October 2, losing to Nelson Dean 5 5-3. Cockrell gave up 10 hits, struck out four, walked four, and was hurt by two untimely errors. However, on a blustery, freezing October 10 at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, he made up for his earlier loss by defeating William Bell and the Monarchs, 5-2, winning the series 5-1. Over the course of his nine-inning complete game, Cockrell surrendered eight hits, struck out six, and walked four.30

Cockrell’s ascendency to Hilldale also placed him in a postseason barnstorming world in which teams like Bolden’s often participated. In October 1926 Cockrell starred in the first game of a two-game series against Earl Mack’s All-Stars. “On October 1, Phil Cockrell, a tiny right-handed spitballer, edged the Macks 3-2 on John Beckwith’s long two-run homer in the eighth.”31 Records do not identify Cockrell’s mound opponent, but the following day Hilldale again defeated the Mack team and its pitcher, a young Lefty Grove.

After the 1927 season, Ed Bolden pulled Hilldale from the struggling Eastern Colored League that eventually collapsed in June 1928. Hilldale played an independent schedule for the remainder of 1927 and, in 1928, loosely affiliated with other Eastern teams including the Homestead Grays, New York Lincoln Giants, and Baltimore Black Sox.

Throughout all of the upheaval in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Cockrell remained loyal to Bolden and the city of Philadelphia. The 1928 Hilldale team finished first among Eastern Independent clubs and included such stalwarts as Biz Mackey, Judy Johnson, Oscar Charleston, Frank Warfield, Clint Thomas, Darltie Cooper, and Walter Cannady.

In 1929 Hilldale joined the American Negro League that Bolden himself helped to organize. It was made up of many of the core Eastern teams that had formed the Eastern Colored League.  By that time, Cockrell was past his prime. He appeared on an independent team led by Danny McClellan in addition to being on the Hilldale roster. Early in the season, he replaced Oscar Charleston as Hilldale’s manager. The team struggled, primarily due to Bolden’s conflict with other officials in the ANL; public-relations issues, such as his insistence on using White umpires, that aggravated the Black community; and, ultimately, the economy. Prior to the 1930 season, Bolden was forced to relinquish ownership of the team to Lloyd Thomson, who ran the team for one year before the franchise was bought and overseen by John Drew until its demise in mid-1932.

During the unstable 1929 ANL season with Hilldale, Cockrell tied for the second-most wins, and the third-highest innings pitched for a squad that, while finishing over .500, was 11 games back of the pennant-winning Baltimore Black Sox. Cockrell managed Hilldale again in 1930 and, for a time, in 1932. After Hilldale folded in midseason, he jumped to the Bacharach Giants, now located in Philadelphia under the ownership of Harry Passon. In addition to the Bacharachs, he played for some other teams in 1933.32

That same year, Bolden resurfaced on the scene, launching the Philadelphia Stars, an independent team that played mostly a local schedule. In 1934, the Stars joined the year-old Negro National League II and, in February of that year, Bolden signed Cockrell once more.33

Cockrell appeared in seven league games for the Stars, starting four and winning one. At 39, he did not have much left in the tank. His season stats for Philadelphia showed him starting the fewest number of games of the Stars starters, behind 20-game winner Slim Jones, player-manager Webster McDonald, Rocky Ellis, Lefty Holmes, and Paul Carter. McDonald managed the team to its only NNL2 pennant during its 15 years in the league. (The team ceased play at the conclusion of the 1948 season.)

Cockrell did not rejoin the Stars in 1935. Instead, he moved to the Bacharach Giants as manager and sometimes pitched or played the outfield. The May 3, 1935, Delaware County Daily Times announced that the “Bacharach Giants will introduce their new team under the management of Phil Cockrell, former member of Bolden’s Stars. Phil will most likely pitch in Sunday’s game.”34 Box scores from the season recorded his occasional appearances in the field.

In 1936 Cockrell organized his own squad. A news article explained, “Phil Cockrell, veteran spitball pitcher, has made arrangements with John M. Drew, owner of Hilldale Park, whereby he will place a club in the field the coming season.”35 For better or worse, he named the team after himself: the Cockrells.36

Eventually, after his playing career was over, he became an umpire. According to Negro League historian James Riley:

Cockrell began a second baseball career, as an umpire in the Negro National League that lasted through the 1946 season. Umpiring in the Negro Leagues could be hazardous, and Cockrell once made a call on a close play that infuriated Jud Wilson. In the locker room after the game, the enraged Wilson grabbed him by the skin of his chest and lifted him off the floor. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and Cockrell was rescued.37

Fortunately for Cockrell, he is far better remembered for his pitching acumen than for his run-ins with his former peers as a Negro League umpire. In fact, one of the more impressive aspects of his career is that it was punctuated by six no-hitters. Chronologically, they were against the All Nationals of New York (1919), the Detroit Stars (1921), Chicago American Giants and Patterson Silk Sox (1922), the South Phillies (six innings, 1923), and Cape May (1930).38 The home game against the Stars on Labor Day exhibited Cockrell in his prime: no hits, 6 strikeouts and 16 infield outs, suggestive of a masterful spitball that Detroit batters could not command.39

Cockrell’s other no-hitter against a Negro League side was equally compelling. Hilldale traveled to Chicago at the end of the Eastern season for a five-game series with the American Giants. Despite Cockrell’s herculean efforts – he won two of the games himself – Hilldale lost the series three games to two. The hometown Chicago Defender wrote of Cockrell’s Game One no-hitter: “Spitballer Phil Cockrell … [tossed] a no-hitter while walking only three batters during the Easterners’ 5-0 triumph [in Game One].40 The Chicago Tribune cited his seven strikeouts and mentioned that “not a local man reached third.”41 The American Giants won the next two contests before Cockrell’s four-hit, three-strikeout game bested Chicago 5-3 in Game Four. Cockrell helped his own cause with two hits and a run scored.”42 However, the American Giants won Game Five and the series, 7-6 in 12 innings.43

The no-hitter against the Silk Sox that same year showed Cockrell to be firing on all cylinders:

Hilldale defeated the fast Paterson Silk Sox here [Clifton, New Jersey] in a red-hot game. Score, 1 to 0. Phil Cockrell, Manager Bolden’s ace, pitched the greatest game of his career, having a no-hit, no-run game to his credit. … Cockrell also had a perfect day at bat, with two singles and a sacrifice. The winning run was scored in the third on Downs’ single, Cockrell’s sacrifice, Briggs’ out and Francis’ pop fly to right. Three thousand fans saw the game.44

After so much success on the playing field, the last inning of Cockrell’s life turned out to be a tragic one. He settled in Philadelphia after his long career and lived at 322 North 55th Street. Cockrell worked as a bartender at a taproom at 55th and Summer Streets, just blocks from his home. He was stabbed to death early Saturday morning, March 31, apparently the victim of a robbery, according to his obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer.45 The online notation from Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, where he was buried, stated “he was shot by a jealous husband in a case of mistaken identity.”46

Phil Cockrell’s career statistics show a durable, dependable pitcher: 10th in complete games, 14th in games started, 19th in wins, 24th in shutouts, and 27th in strikeouts. In 1952 the Pittsburgh Courier polled the “top baseball men” in the country to choose the All Time, All America [Black] Baseball Team from ballplayers between 1910 and 1952. Although not on the first or second team, Phil Cockrell made the “Roll of Honor” and was called the “greatest spit-ball pitcher of all time.”47

Sources

Unless otherwise noted, all cited statistics are from Seamheads.com.

Notes

1 “Sports Shots,” W. Rollo Wilson, Pittsburgh Courier, August 27, 1927: 16.

2 https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration. Accessed October 12, 2022.

3 “Notes Among the Colored People,” Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, September 20, 1925: 3.

4 “Famous Negro League Pitcher,” J.C. Mardenborough, Augusta Chronicle, March 18, 1926: 11.

5 “Pop Watkins’ 45th Year in Baseball: Red Sox Pilot 12 Years,” Watertown (New York) Daily Times, July 30, 1919: 8.

6 “Havana Red Sox Here Next Sunday,” Buffalo Evening News, June 5, 1913: 18.

7 “The Havana Red Sox,” Kingston (New York) Whig-Standard, July 21, 1914: 3.

8 “The Havana Red Sox,” New York Age, August 27, 1914: 6.

9 “Utica Leaguers Here for Games,” Watertown Daily Times, September 26, 1914: 8.

10 “Errors Lose Game for Gouverneur: Red Sox Score Three Runs in First Inning,” Watertown Daily Times, July 29, 1916: 8.

11 Even after Cockrell’s ascendency to the top tier, he did not sever his Havana Red Sox connection. The Watertown Daily Times carried sightings of him with the Red Sox. This movement was not uncommon and was likely done with the understanding of Cockrell’s managers. “Prospects Play Red Sox Sunday,” Watertown Daily Times, July 28, 1919: 8.

12 “Phil Cockrell with the Lincoln Giants: Former Havana Red Sox Twirler Has Shifted to the Metropolis,” Watertown Daily Times, October 10, 1917: 11.

13 “Sox Players with Pittsburgh Stars: Cockrell the Star Hurler,“ Watertown Daily Times, September 9, 1917: 8.

14 Box scores are not available (or have not yet been discovered) for many games. The stats that Seamheads has for Cockrell for that year are against other Eastern Independent teams.

15 William F. McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season: Pay for Play Outside the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2007), 23.

16 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2003), 137, 139.

17 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 52.

18 “Colored Hurlers in Pitching Duel: Former Red Sox Slabsters Twirl Eleven Innings to a Tie in New York,” Watertown Daily Times, May 15, 1918: 6.

19 Courtney Michelle Smith, Ed Bolden and Black Baseball in Philadelphia (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co.,  2017), 19.

20 “An Eastern Cracker,” Chicago Whip, July 23, 1921: 8.

21 “Philadelphia the Birthplace of Colored Eastern Organized Baseball,” Richmond (Virginia) Planet, March 7, 1923: 3.

22 Lanctot, 145-6.

23 W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 27, 1927: 19.

24 https://sabr.org/research/article/the-spitball-and-the-end-of-the-deadball-era/.

25 https://www.downthedrive.com/2020/8/22/21396997/pitching-from-the-shoulders-up-spitball-pitching-in-the-negro-leagues.

26 Chicago Defender, August 20, 1927: 10.

27 John B. Holway, Black Diamonds: Life in the Negro Leagues from the Men Who Lived It (New York: Stadium Books, 1991), 9.

28 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series: The 1924 Meeting of the Hilldale Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2006), 107.

29 Lester, 148-152.

30 “World Series Play by Play,” Chicago Defender, October 17, 1925: 8.

31 McNeil, 92.

32 Newspaper references also place Cockrell with the Gouldtown Frogs in southern New Jersey: Bridgetown Evening News, August 17, 1933: 5, and August 31, 1933: 8.

33 W. Ardee, “Phil Cockrell to Twirl for Phila. Stars,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 22, 1934.

34 “Chester Team Plays Tomorrow: Meets Charlotte Hornets at A.A. Field; Bacharach Sunday,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), May 3, 1935: 17.

35 “Cockrell Returns to Darby,” Delaware County Daily Times, February 3, 1936: 12.

36 “Phil Cockrell’s Baseball Club to Be Tough,” Kansas City (Kansas) Plain Dealer, March 6, 1936: 3.

37 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994), 182-3.

38 Lanctot, 147.

39 https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-5-1921-hilldales-phil-cockrell-tosses-no-hitter-against-detroit-stars/#:~:text=Phil%20Cockrell%2C%20raved%20the%20Philadelphia%20Inquirer%2C%20%E2%80%9Cdrew%20transportation,career%20as%20pitcher%20has%20been%20largely%20overlooked.%202.

40 “Phil Cockrell Throws a Mean-Mean Baseball: Pitches No-Hit, No-Run Game Against American Giants for Hilldale Team,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1922: 10.

41 “Hilldale Lad Pitched No-Hit, No-Run Victory,” Chicago Defender, August 20, 1922: 8.

42 “American Giants Beaten,” Chicago Tribune, August 23, 1922: 15.

43 ”Rube Foster Takes Final of Series,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 24, 1922: 17.

44 “Additional Sports News: Cockrell Enters ‘Hall of Fame,’” Cleveland Gazette, July 1, 1922: 2.

45 “Baseball Hurler Stabbed to Death,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 1, 1951: 48. The Arizona Sun and other papers carried a slightly longer obituary from the NNPA Black Press of America elaborating on his career. “Former Pitcher Stabbed to Death,” Arizona Sun, April 13, 1951: 5.

46 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/98761973/phillip-cockrell. Newspapers stated that Cockrell was stabbed, conflicting with the Cemetery notation.

47 “Power, Speed, Skill, Make All-America Team Excel,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1952: 14, 16.

Coleman was born in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, on November 30, 1906. He was one of six children born to Charles and Minnie Davis Coleman. His father was a crane operator at a Phoenixville steel foundry and his mother was a music teacher. Around 1920, Coleman’s family left Phoenixville and moved about 50 miles southeast to Darby, five miles west of South Philadelphia. By 1924, Coleman was a student at the Ridge Avenue Junior High in Darby and was active in extracurricular sports activities; a renaissance man of sorts, he also co-authored a class play.2 Among his classmates were brothers Raymond and Thomas Macey, with whom Coleman played high-school baseball, and later all three were teammates with the Darby Phantoms.3

After his prep career ended in 1928, Coleman made his debut in amateur baseball in 1929 with the Darby Phantoms, an African American team in the mixed-race Interurban League in suburban Philadelphia.4 The Phantoms were managed by Lloyd P. Thompson, who began his long association with baseball in 1910 as a player for the Hilldale club along with Ed Bolden.5 Thompson later served as an executive in the Hilldale organization and as a press agent for the Eastern Colored League.6 Thompson’s Darby Phantoms, which had the unfortunate nickname of “the Spooks,” were one of the Interurban League’s top teams, and Coleman and the Macey brothers were among the squad’s best players.7 Coleman was fortunate to make his amateur debut with the league-leading Phantoms.8 Thanks to his “brilliant pitching,” young “Lefty Coleman” helped the Phantoms earn the first of three Interurban League titles.9 Coleman, who was touted as the “former ace left-hander of Darby High School,” also saw action in the Phantoms’ outfield along with John Coleman, who was not a member of Fred Coleman’s immediate family.10

Fred Coleman returned to the Darby Phantoms for the 1930 season but was used primarily as an outfielder rather than as a pitcher.11 That season, the Phantoms claimed the Interurban League crown for a second time and the future looked bright for the Delaware County aggregation.12 The 1931 season saw the return of Thompson as the manager of the Phantoms. He was assisted by player-manager John Burgin, former player Raymond Macey as the team’s business manager, and by Coleman’s brother, Burgess A. Coleman, who was the president of the executive committee.13 As in 1930, Coleman proved to be a versatile player, taking the mound as their “invincible” southpaw, and tending to Darby’s outer garden as needed.14 The 1931 season ended as it had for the previous two years – another Interurban League championship season for Coleman and the Phantoms.15 What Coleman did not know at the time was that 1931 would mark the last hurrah for the Phantoms.

Prior to the start of Interurban League play in 1932, the Darby Phantoms announced a change in management. Lloyd Thompson was out, and Ed Bolden was “at the helm.”16 But some things remained the same. Coleman’s brother Burgess A. Coleman remained as a member of the “board of athletic directors,” and Raymond Macey continued as the business manager.17 Bolden’s attempt to turn the Phantoms into a revenue-generating enterprise was a disaster. After three straight championship seasons, the Bolden’s Phantoms left the Interurban League to become a traveling team.18Despite Bolden’s marketing efforts, the Darby club was “consistently overmatched” by their opponents and posted a lackluster record.19

In 1933 Bolden abruptly abandoned the Phantoms and shifted his attention to the Philadelphia Stars.20 The blame for Darby’s implosion was placed squarely on Bolden by the Phantoms’ business manager, Raymond Macey. Macey was especially bitter and enraged by “Bolden’s abrupt withdrawal” from the Phantoms.21 He accused Bolden of using “flowery words” on a group of “young amateurs” and leading them into “a premature and near fatal leap into professionalism.”22 Macey’s sharp criticisms of Bolden were echoed by the local press. The Chester Times noted that the Phantoms’ attempt to “break into ‘fast company’ under the leadership of Ed [Bolden], former Hilldale pilot,” was a misstep, and that it failed because the team “tired of independent competition.”23

In 1934 the Darby Phantoms and Coleman hit the reset button. They rejoined the Interurban League and were “back to prove to the fans of Delaware County and surrounding territory that they still retain mastery” over the local nines.24 The Phantoms named Bob Clark as their manager and went to work reestablishing their dominance over the other six league teams.25 The Phantoms were one of four “Negro clubs” in the loop along with three White teams.26 But Coleman did not play for the Phantoms in 1934  because they became literal apparitions and vanished without playing a single league game. He signed with a different Interurban team, the Darby Cubs, who were Interurban League contenders at the beginning of the season.27 Coleman, along with his former Phantoms bullpen mate Tom Macey, helped the Cubs remain in the championship hunt for much of the first half of the season, second only to Clearview, the eventual league champion.28 By the end of the 1934, however, Coleman and the Cubs found themselves hibernating near the bottom of the standings and out of the playoffs.29 Coleman’s tenure with the Darby Cubs lasted just one year. The Cubs jumped to the Suburban Colored League in 1935 but folded before the season ended.30

Coleman’s 1934 season with the one-and-done Darby Cubs was punctuated by one high note – his only known appearance with a professional baseball team. On July 2, 1934, Coleman was tapped as the starting pitcher in one game for Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars.31 Bolden knew Coleman from his days with the Darby Phantoms and was likely the one who gave the southpaw a shot at the big time. The game was staged in Philadelphia before 3,500 fans and pitted the Stars against the semipro Bartram nine of the Philadelphia League.32 It was a rough initiation for Coleman. The Stars fell to Bartram 11-10, in an eight-inning affair.33 Coleman was roughed up by Bartram and was eventually relieved of his mound duties by the Stars’ regular pitchers, Paul Carter and Stewart “Slim” Jones.34 It may have been a memorable experience for Coleman, but it was not exactly a command performance. A star was not born that day, and he was not invited back for an encore.

In 1935 Coleman played for at least two Suburban Colored League teams; Paschall A.C. and the Morton Republican Club.35 He spent the bulk of the year with the Morton Republican Club as a pitcher, outfielder, and pinch-hitter.36The Morton Republican Club of Delaware County sponsored a baseball team as early as 1912, when it was known as the Morton Colored Republican Club.37 Coleman had some sparkling moments with Morton. He swatted a game-winning triple to topple the league-leading Oakeola nine and tossed a three-hitter against the Swarthmore Hornets.38 In what was likely his final appearance for Morton, Coleman was on the losing end of a “heart-breaking mound duel” against Oakeola, by a score of 4-3.39 The Morton Republicans were mediocre and were never a threat to take the league title. By the close of the 1935 season, the Suburban Colored League bureaucracy was falling apart, the Morton team disbanded, and Fred Coleman’s baseball career was over.40

In December 1935, after his retirement from baseball, Coleman married Sylvia G. Rue in Darby. By 1940, he was the father of three children and working as a gardener for a private estate in suburban Philadelphia. In the 1940s he followed in his father’s footsteps and went to work at a steel mill in Darby. By the 1950s, the Coleman family expanded to include six children. Although he was no longer involved in baseball, Coleman participated in local African American community organizations in Chester County. He served as a district lecturer and member of the Rose of Sharon Masonic Lodge.41In 1955 he was a guest at a speech given by Thurgood Marshall on the topic of Jim Crow and housing segregation.42 He was also an outspoken supporter of programs that addressed local poverty and housing issues.43

Frederick D. Coleman died in Chester County on September 30, 1986. He was buried in Eden Cemetery, a historic African American cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania. It is the same cemetery where Ed Bolden was laid to rest in 1950.

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated, all Negro League statistics and records were sourced from Seamheads.com.

Ancestry.com was used to access census, birth, death, marriage, military, immigration, and other genealogical and public records.

Notes

1 “Bartram Topples Philadelphia Stars,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 3, 1934: 16.

2 “Darby,” Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, June 18, 1924: 4.

3 “Darby Defeats Media in Tenth,” Chester Times, May 23, 1928: 15; “Darby High Defeats Ridley Park in Tenth Inning, Score 3-2,” Chester Times, June 6, 1928: 11.

4 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing & Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 203; “Twelve Teams Proposed for New League,” Chester Times, March 29, 1929: 26; “Phantoms Win First from Rival Foes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 10, 1929: 18.

5 Lanctot, 17.

6 Lanctot, 205.

7 “Phantoms Win Interurban Title,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 20, 1929: 18.

8 “Darby Phantoms Win Over Colwyn Team,” Chester Times, July 17, 1929: 14.

9 “Phantoms Win First from Rival Foes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 10, 1929: 18.

10 “Phantoms Capture Interurban Title,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 1929: 18.

11 “Darby Phantoms Win from Colored Elks,” Chester Times, August 4, 1930: 13; “Lester Wins Another Game,” Chester Times, September 9, 1930: 13.

12 “Darby Phantoms Win Interurban Title,” Chester Times, September 22, 1930: 12.

13 “Darby Phantoms Elect,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 14, 1931: 15.

14 “Interurban League,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 5, 1931: 16; “Game Ends in Tie,” Chester Times, August 20, 1931: 15; “Darby Phantoms Win League Title,” Chester Times, August 29, 1931: 11.

15 “Another Title for the Darby Phantoms,” Chester Times, September 23, 1931: 12.

16 “Darby Clubs Names Aides for Bolden,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 27, 1932: 14.

17 “Darby Clubs Names Aides for Bolden.”

18 “Interurban Title Series to Start,” Chester Times, September 1, 1933: 13.

19 Lanctot, 222.

20 Lanctot, 222.

21 Lanctot, 222.

22 Lanctot, 222.

23 “Phantoms Return to the Interurban,” Chester Times, March 22, 1934: 19.

24 “Phantoms Return to the Interurban.”

25 “Phantoms in PA. League,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 31, 1931: 17.

26 “Amateur Baseball,” Chester Times, April 24, 1934: 12.

27 “Interurban League,” Chester Times, June 1, 1934: 17.

28 “Clearview Nears First Half Crown,” Chester Times, June 27, 1934: 15; “Delco Teams Play,” Chester Times, June 30, 1934: 11; “Clearview Takes Interurban Title,” Chester Times, September 24, 1934: 10.

29 “Southwest Phils Lead League,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 8, 1934: 15.

30 “County Leagues Ready for Grind,” Chester Times, April 13, 1935: 12.

31 “Bartram Topples Philadelphia Stars.”

32 “Bartram Topples Philadelphia Stars.”

33 “Bartram Topples Philadelphia Stars.”

34 “Bartram Topples Philadelphia Stars.”

35 “Paschall Nips Columbia,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 1935: 20; “A Hectic Duel,” Chester Times, July 31, 1935: 10.

36 “Paschall Nips Columbia”; “A Hectic Duel”; “Morton Captures Pair Over Week-End,” Chester Times, August 5, 1935: 11.

37 “Stars Are Dimmed,” Chester Times, July 6, 1912: 3; Kristi Nelson, “End May Be Near for GOP Club,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 6, 1995: W1.

38 “Morton Blanks Oakeola Champs,” Chester Times, August 9, 1935: 14; “Morton Defeats Swarthmore, 4-2,” Chester Times, August 10, 1935: 12.

39 “Paschall Nears Lead in S.C. Loop,” Chester Times, August 14, 1935: 12.

40 “Sports Shorts,” Chester Times, May 28, 1936: 22.

41 “Rochester is Re-Elected Masonic District Chairman,” Chester Times, January 14, 1955: 12.

42 “Anti-Segregationists Point Efforts at Bans in Housing,” Chester Times, March 5, 1955: 2.

43 Frederick D. Coleman, “People Are Skeptical,” Delaware County Daily Times (Norristown, Pennsylvania), May 22, 1969: 6.

Creacy played in the original Negro National League from 1924 to 1931 with the St. Louis Stars, and then after two years (1932 and 1933) when there was not a solid league established, he played for a few other clubs. From 1934 onward, he played his final five seasons with the Philadelphia Stars.

In his 20s, he had hit for higher batting averages and hit for more power than he did in his 30s, wrapping up his career when he was near 40. Over the course of the 983 games for which statistics are currently available, he hit for a .291 batting average with a .355 on-base percentage.1

There are some uncertainties regarding Creacy’s upbringing. He first shows up in the 1910 US census, at which time he was part of a large household on South Austin Street in Dallas. The head of the household was 50-year-old Mary Lewis, a native of Tennessee who worked from her home as a laundress. She lived with two sons (George Stone, 34, a teamster involved in excavating, and Eugene Page, 28, a laborer in an automobile factory) and a daughter (Lissie Goldwaite, 32, who also worked as a laundress from home). One can’t help but note that all three of her children had different surnames, and none of them were Lewis; She also had suffered the loss of another child. Two nieces of Lewis lived in the household – Mamie Winfrey, 23, and Emile Winfrey, 21 – who both also worked as laundresses at home. The census reflects that Mary Lewis was widowed, as were both her sons and Emile Winfrey. There is an “S” next to Lessie Goldwaite’s name, suggesting she was single.2 Rounding out the large, extended family were three granddaughters – Exaline Benjamin (13 years old), Ida Creasy (7), and Irene Page (5), and two grandsons – Dewey Creasy (9) and Thomas Creasy (5).3

All sources seem to agree that Dewey was born Albert Dewey Creacy on April 13. His draft cards for World War I and World War II both say he was born on April 13, 1900, in Dallas.4 On his death certificate, his mother’s maiden name was given as “Golothwaite,” which is more likely than not the Lessie (or Lissie) Goldwaite from the 1910 census. However, matters are further confused by the fact that both his World War II draft card and that of Thomas Creacy provide their mother’s name as Alberta Duncan of Dallas. 

Further genealogy

Looking at Mary Lewis more thoroughly, the 1900 census shows her as married to day laborer Rip Lewis. They had two sons – George Stone and Eugene Page – and a daughter, Milissie, who was born in 1878 and was doing washing for a living. Her given name may have been Melissa and her surname Goldthwaite, with her father having the name Tommy Creasy, as indicated by daughter Ida’s 1975 Texas death certificate. She was Ida C. Bacon at the time.

The 1910 census, conducted on April 15, 1910, says Dewey was 9 – indicating a 1901 birth. A Missouri marriage certificate from December 1923 – a few months before he began playing for the St. Louis Stars – says he was 23 when he married Mary Simpson. The 1930 census lists him as a ballplayer named Cresy in St Louis; he was shown as age 30 on April 11 that year (which would mean he had been born in 1899). He was living in a hotel with 64 others, one of whom was also listed as a ballplayer – Henry Williams, a catcher on the St. Louis Stars.

The World War I draft card shows him as married to Ophelia Creacy and living in Dallas. He was working at the time as a laborer for Shipper’s Compress Co. of Dallas. A 1933 death certificate from Texas shows the death at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, of a 16-year-old boy Albert McCoy Creacy, born to Ophelia Walton and Dewey Creacy. Born in July 1917, he died of meningitis. 

Ophelia and Albert Creacy are found in the 1921 Dallas city directory. The 1922 directory has Dewey living with Thomas, a shine boy, and Ollie Creacy, a bootblack. In 1923 it was only Dewey and Thomas. No occupation is shown for Dewey in any of the years, and only those three years are currently to be found online. Thomas (born in 1904) died the year before Dewey, in Los Angeles on July 22, 1983. The spelling “Creacy” will be used throughout this biography.

Creacy’s baseball days

Following Creacy’s baseball career is much easier. Standing 5-feet-10 and listed at 171 pounds, he was right-handed. He first turns up in 1924 – age 24 or 25 – with the St. Louis Stars, managed by Candy Jim Taylor. Negro Leagues researcher James A. Riley reports, “Before joining the Monarchs in 1924, he had served in the 25th Infantry.”5 Creacy had reported to spring training with the Kansas City Monarchs, but by the time the regular season began he was with the Stars.6 

Creacy’s debut was at second base on May 13, but it was not until late May that he cracked the starting lineup. The 40-year-old Taylor played third base in the beginning of the season, but beginning on July 7, he played Creacy at third.7 Creacy played 55 of 84 known games, 41 of them at third base. Taylor himself played most of the other games at third. Among his teammates were future Hall of Famers Willie Wells at shortstop and Cool Papa Bell in center field. Creacy hit .254 (the team average was .277) with a .304 on-base percentage. He hit one home run and drove in 24 runs, and he fielded his position at a .950 clip. The team’s record was 43-41, which put it in fourth place in the nine-team Negro National League.

After the season, the Stars went west to California and played as the St. Louis All-Stars in the California Winter League. An October 31 story in the St. Louis Argus noted that “Creacy at third has the best arm in the eastern league.”8 In a game against Glendale, Creacy drove in five runs in a 10-run second inning of a 13-7 win.9 More frequently billed as the St. Louis Giants, the team played in November, December, and all the way into mid-March 1925, closing things out with a five-game series in Sacramento. A November 14 article by umpire Billy Donaldson, previewing the Stars’ 1925 season, said, “One thing that I noted carefully was when Jim Taylor pulled himself out of the lineup and placed Creacy at third base, the infield became faster and the club had more defense at the hot corner. … Creacy is not a flashy player, but … he is a much better player than the fans think he is. If played all through next season he will be able to show his ware as a third baseman.”10 In the December 26 Argus, reviewing season-end statistics of the All-Stars, it was noted, “Third baseman Creacy is also a long distance hitter. Six of his fourteen safeties have been for extra bases, four being triples and two doubles.” He was reported as having batted .269; for context, teammates Cool Papa Bell hit .377 and catcher Mitchell Murray .375.11

In 1925, after some local exhibition games in April, and still playing their home games at Stars Park in St. Louis, the 59-30 team won the second-half title. The first-half champions were the Kansas City Monarchs. Creacy played in almost every game and had a .323 batting average with 14 homers and 73 RBIs in 83 games. He stole 17 bases, though in no other year did he steal as many as half that number. There was a “little World Series” between the two teams, the Monarchs winning four games to three. Creacy was 6-for-23 (.261), with one homer and three RBIs. 

The 1926 season saw the Stars finish in third place behind the Monarchs and the second-half and league champion Chicago American Giants. The Stars had three successive managers during the course of the season: Branch Russell, Dizzy Dismukes, and John Reese. Even with a .340 batting average, Creacy only finished in fourth place on the team. Future Hall of Famer Mule Suttles joined the Stars and led with .425, 32 homers, and 130 runs batted in. Creacy homered 23 times and drove in 107 runs in the 92 games he played – along with his batting average, he achieved career highs in all three categories.

Candy Jim Taylor took over again as manager in 1927 and specialized in pinch-hitting, batting .420 in 50 at-bats. The Stars (62-37) finished second in the league in winning percentage but won neither the first-half nor second-half title, and were thus left out at playoff time. Creacy had another good year, batting .316 with 13 homers and 84 RBIs, second only to Willie Wells on the Stars.

The 63-26 St. Louis Stars dominated in 1928, winning the first half and then the league championship over the Chicago American Giants, five games to four. Creacy was .329/10/54 in the regular season games. He helped the Stars even things up at three games apiece, going 2-for-3 with a home run in Game Six at Stars Park in St. Louis on September 30, a 12-7 win.

The 1929 Stars were second only to the Monarchs, but since the Monarchs won both the first half and second half, there was no championship series. Creacy had an off year, batting only .258. He drove in 60 runs, ranking fifth on the team.

The 1930 Stars played 94 games for new manager John Reese, who had taken over from Taylor. They put up a record of 69-25-1 and were the first-half champions, playing the Detroit Stars in the championship series, Creacy rebounded, hitting .301 and knocking in 73 runs. They beat Bingo DeMoss’s Detroit team, four games to three in the championship series. In California that winter, he played third base for the Nashville Elite Colored Giants.

The first, Rube Foster-founded incarnation of the Negro National League played its final season in 1931. It was Creacy’s eighth year with St. Louis. In 35 games, he hit .303, without a homer, and drove in 19 runs. The Stars finished well ahead of the other teams – down to just six from the nine the league had fielded the year before. In the overall standings, they had been 13½ games ahead of second-place Kansas City in 1930. They finished 13 games ahead of the second-place Cleveland Cubs in 1931, league champions for the second year in a row. With the 1928 season included, Creacy was a three-time champion.

Immediately after the regular season, the Stars played against a team that featured a number of major leaguers, including Lloyd and Paul Waner, Babe Herman, Bill Terry, and others, beating them 18-1.12 Creacy returned to California with a team billed as the Philadelphia Colored Giants, with Satchel Paige, Bill Foster, Biz Mackey, Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, and others.13

Creacy played for two different teams in 1932. He initially played 29 games for the first-place (28-9) Detroit Wolves of the East-West League (EWL), managed by Dizzy Dismukes and featuring five future Hall of Famers, for whom he hit .255 with only 10 RBIs. In mid-June, the Wolves merged with the Homestead Grays, but Creacy was among those who were not included on the Grays.14 He then signed with the EWL’s Washington Pilots and played 34 games for the 17-30 sixth-place squad under Frank Warfield and then Webster McDonald. Creacy batted .310 with 25 RBIs for the Pilots.

His 1933 season saw Creacy with two teams again; this time they were member franchises of the second iteration of the Negro National League (NNL2). He got into 27 games for the Columbus Blue Birds (16-28 on the season), hitting just .236 with 6 RBIs. Later in the season, he hit .250 (hitting a double in four at-bats) for the Cleveland Giants, who finished the season with a record of 0-1.

Creacy had led Cleveland ownership to believe that he was going to become their manager in 1934. However, as the season approached, he signed a contract with the Philadelphia Stars. Resolution of the conflict between the two franchises required a ruling from the new Negro National League’s commissioner, W. Rollo Wilson. He placed Creacy with the Stars but wrote, “The player deserves nothing but centure [sic] for his double dealings with the Cleveland club, and is warned that any similar conduct in the future will result in his suspension from organized baseball.”15 

Creacy became a champion again with the 1934 Philadelphia Stars, but his .217 batting average was second-lowest among the starting position players. Still, manager Webster McDonald played Creacy in 68 games, a fact that is rather surprising since it was far from his best fielding season either, with Creacy posting a .923 fielding percentage, the worst of any year to date in which he had played 25 or more games. The Stars, though, were 39-18, second-half champions and ultimately league champions after beating the Chicago American Giants, four games to three, in Creacy’s first of five years with Philadelphia.

The team played fewer games in 1935, and Creacy appeared in 57 of them, batting .298 and driving in 27 runs. The Stars were 37-31-4 and finished in fourth place. The “snappy Philly third baseman” was expected to work the hot corner for the East team in the 1935 East-West All-Star Game but ended up not appearing in the game.16

After the season, he joined a team that Frank Duncan put together to play winter ball in Puerto Rico.

The Philadelphia Stars sank to last pace in a seven-team league in 1936, with their first losing record. Creacy held his own, batting .301, but drove in only 29 runs – though there were only three players on the team who drove in more.

The Homestead Grays dominated the NNL2 in 1937, and the Stars – now piloted by Jud Wilson – again lost more games than they won. Creacy played in only 22 games and hit only .261 while driving in 12 runs. Remarkably, only one player on the team drove in more than 15: Curtis Harris, who led the Stars with 18.

Creacy appeared in 46 games in 1938. His .213 average was the lowest among regular position players, more than 30 points below the next man. The Stars, however, finished in second place, in Creacy’s final year of NNL2 play.

Still playing third base, Creacy joined Dave “Showboat” Thomas and the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1938, 1939, 1940, and 1941. There had been rumors in early 1940 that Creacy was going to become manager of the Philadelphia Stars.17 That did not come to pass, and he played out the season with the Royal Giants and at least into the first part of the 1941 season.

Subsequent to the end of Creacy’s professional baseball career, almost nothing can be found about him for the last 43 years of his life.

After baseball, per his World War II draft card (dated April 15, 1942), he was living in New York City and working at 2424 Seventh Avenue for Daniel Woods. The address is in Harlem, between 141st and 142nd Streets. The nature of the work is not indicated.

Dewey Creacy appears to have lived his later years in California, and he died on November 17, 1984, in Los Angeles. Interestingly, he turned up in 1956 on a list of supporters of US presidential candidate Estes Kefauver.18

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author made extensive use of Seamheads.com and Ancestry.com. Thanks to Clem Hamilton for supplying much of the information regarding Creacy’s time with the St. Louis Stars.

Notes

1 For summary statistics, this biography relies on Seamheads.com. Data presented is as of August 2021.

2 The 1908 Dallas City Directory lists her alone, with the differing spelling of her first name.  

3 We will use the more frequent “Creacy” as the spelling of Creacy’s last name.

4 There is a death certificate, from Los Angeles, saying that he was born Albert Dewey Creacy on April 13, 1901, with his birthplace noted only as “Texas,” but the preponderance of evidence from when he was alive indicates that he was born in 1900.

5 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), 198.

6 “Monarchs to Start Training,” Kansas City Times, April 2, 1924: 14.

7 “St. Louis Stars Capture Final with Memphis, 8-2,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 8, 1924: 18.

8 “St. Louis Stars Now in Their Winter Home,” St. Louis Argus, October 31, 1924: 7.

9 “St. Louis Knocks Sox Off of White Socks,” California Eagle, November 14, 2021: 7. Creacy followed a bases-clearing triple with a two-run single. 

10 “Donaldson Says Stars Can Win Pennant,” St. Louis Argus, November 14, 1924: 7.

11 “J. Bell Leading Hitter on St. Louis All-Stars,” St. Louis Argus, December 26, 1924: 7.

12 “Stars Slam Walker and Trim Careyites,” St, Louis Globe-Democrat, October 3, 1931: 7.

13 See, for instance, a game against the White Kings that the Giants won, 8-4, in Los Angeles. James Newton, “Homers Win for Giants,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 12, 1931: 16.

14 “Greys, Detroit to Merge; League Shifts Loom,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 11, 1932: 15. See also Lewis Dial, “The Sport Dial,” New York Age, June 18, 1932: 6. On his signing with the Pilots, see “Pilots Get a Clouter,” Washington Evening Star, June 9, 1932: 43.

15 “Creacy Awarded to Philadelphia Stars by Judge Wilson,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 24, 1934: 14. Creacy was also required to settle any financial obligations due Cleveland.

16 The phrase came from Chester L. Washington, “East, West Cross Bats,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 10, 1935: A4. In 1933 Creacy had led in the voting for the West team right up until near the end, but did not appear in that game, either. In 1935 Creacy was listed as the likely starter in the August 10 editions of both the Courier and the Chicago Defender. On the morning of the game, the August 11 Chicago Tribune had Ray Dandridge listed to start at third base. In the actual game, Jud Wilson played third, rather than at first base, where he had been the leading vote-getter, while the Brooklyn Eagles’ George Giles played first. Why Creacy did not play is unclear.

17 Randy Dixon, “The Sports Bugle,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 20, 1940: 17.

18 See advertisement on page 12 of the May 31, 1956, California Eagle.