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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13 Bruce, 43.

14 Dixon, 76.

15 Revel and Munoz, 3.

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

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

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

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

20 Figueredo, 159.

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

22 Figueredo, 222.

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

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

25 Holway, 94.

26 Holway, 95.

27 Lester, 48.

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

29 Lester, 49.

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

31 Revel and Munoz, 10.

32 Bruce, 86-87.

33 Holway, 102.

34 Dixon, 144.

35 Bruce, 61.

36 Bruce, 80.

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

38 Bruce, 19.

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

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

41 Bruce, 106.

42 Holway, 103.

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

44 Holway, 104-5.

45 Holway, 105.

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

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

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

Thomas Younger Baird was born January 27, 1885, in Madison County, Arkansas. His father was Hampton “Noah” Baird, a plumber who ran his own business and, in 1902, moved the family to the Armourdale section of Kansas City, Kansas. Thomas’s mother was Harriette “Hattie” (Duncan) Baird, and her side of the family presents an interesting backstory to his life. She was the daughter of Sally (Younger) Duncan, and Harriet’s maiden name was given to Thomas for his middle name. Sally had 13 siblings in all, including brothers Bob, Jim, John, and Cole, who were members of the famous James-Younger outlaw gang, led by Frank and Jesse James. The Younger name became associated with robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches throughout the Midwest. Their careers ended in 1876 when three of the remaining brothers were arrested. Only Jim and Cole lived to see the twentieth century when they were paroled in 1901. A year later Jim put a bullet in his head, but Cole lived a few more years doing Wild West shows. Due to the notoriety of the Younger name, Thomas never used it, and was known as “T.Y.” He likely did not take kindly to anyone asking him about his uncle Cole.

Tom also had younger brothers William and Floyd and a sister, Bertha. At the 1910 census a boarder named William Arnold also lived with the family at 1213 Kansas Ave. Tom worked as a cutter for the Peet Brothers Soap company. On January 22, 1912, Baird married Frances E. Stuart, also of Kansas City, Kansas. By the 1915 Kansas state census, Tom was working for the Rock Island Railroad Company in White City, Kansas.

Baird formed T.Y. Baird’s Baseball Club, which became one of the best semipro baseball teams in Kansas City, Kansas. The club leased Billion Bubble Park, an amusement park on Mill Street and Scott Avenue that was run by the Peet Brothers. The team was often nicknamed the Soapmakers. Baird also purchased a set of uniforms left from the Federal League’s Kansas City Packers, and his team – hand-me-down outfits and all – was the semipro champion of the city in 1916 and 1917.1 Around 1917 Baird also opened a pool hall at 1139 Kansas Ave. An advertisement boasted that a person could play pool and get candy, soda pop, cigars, and tobacco at the shop. Baird opened several pool halls and bowling alleys throughout the area.2

In May of 1918, Baird became wedged between two sets of train cars while setting a brake and suffered a broken leg. He was laid up in the hospital for months and sued the company for $30,000.3 The news about Baird, who was well-known by the community, was devastating. “Mr. Baird has done more than any other man the last few years to give the public a decent brand of the national pastime,” wrote The Press in Kansas City, Kansas.4 Although physically unable to play again, Baird managed his own team as well as a second team organized by the Peet Brothers.5

By the 1920 census, the Baird family lived at 413 N. 18th St. and included daughters Harriet and Ellen with a boarder couple named Bauer. The family moved to a new five-bedroom house at 1818 Grandview Boulevard, on the corner of North 19th St. Baird’s move was reported in the newspaper, showing how well-known he already was throughout the city.6 Baird was also a member of the Kansas Billiard Men’s organization.7

Just as Baird had a history in baseball prior to the Monarchs, so did his future longtime business partner, J.L. Wilkinson. “Wilkie,” also white, was one day recognized for his contributions to the Negro Leagues with a plaque at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1908 he formed a traveling all-female team. Women’s teams had been popular since the nineteenth century and Wilkinson established his own “Bloomer” team, as they were called after the clothing they wore. In 1912 he formed the All-Nations club, made up of players of every imaginable nationality. This team barnstormed the country over the next several years. Traveling by Pullman car, Wilkinson even dabbled in a primitive, yet effective, portable lighting system so games could be played at night. Some players Wilkinson either hired or observed would become key members of those early Monarchs teams, including African Americans John Donaldson and Bullet Joe Rogan and Cuban José Méndez .

Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants team was the best independent Black club while Wilkinson’s melting-pot team toured the country. Foster sought to organize an all-Black league, something that had been unsuccessfully attempted by others in the past. In February 1920, Foster realized his dream and the Negro National League was founded at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. Wilkinson was one of the original founders of the league.

What role Baird played in those earliest days and how he met Wilkinson is not entirely known. Baird is not mentioned by name in the early reports, although later accounts describe him as being there with Wilkinson from the very beginning. Both men were well-known and likely their paths had crossed. Wilkinson was always the public face of the Monarchs and Baird worked behind the scenes. Wilkinson was a player’s owner, known for his friendly demeanor, while Baird was tall and lean and more standoffish. Some players interviewed decades later did not even know Baird had been a part-owner of the club. Whatever the exact role Baird played, his partnership with Wilkinson lasted nearly 30 years.

The Monarchs rented Association Park from the white Kansas City Blues of the American Association. The two clubs often played a postseason series for bragging rights in the city. Babe Ruth also appeared with his traveling all-stars on a postseason barnstorming tour.8

Foster’s Giants dominated the Negro National League for the first three years, but the Monarchs had winning clubs. The Monarchs won the pennant in 1923, the first of many during Baird’s tenure, and now established themselves as a premier club. In 1923 the Monarchs also moved into the Blues’ new ballpark, Muehlebach Field.

The Monarchs won the 1924 NNL pennant behind the solid pitching of Bullet Joe Rogan and the powerful lineup of Hurley McNair, Dobie Moore, Newt Joseph, and Heavy Johnson. They played Hilldale of the new Eastern Colored League in the first Negro League World Series, which was then called the Colored World Series. It was a hard-fought best-of-nine series that went the distance in a deciding 10th game (one game finished tied) before a small and bundled crowd on a cold day in Chicago on October 20. In heroic fashion, José Méndez, recovering from surgery, took the mound against doctor’s orders and shut out Hilldale, 5-0.

The Monarchs dominated the start of the 1925 season and stormed into the new NNL playoff system, in which the winners of each half-season faced each other to determine who played the Eastern Colored League champion. The Monarchs defeated St. Louis but lost the World Series to Hilldale. A new acquisition by Wilkinson and Baird in 1926 was Cuban legend Cristóbal Torriente, once an All-Nations standout, who led the team in batting. The Monarchs dropped the NNL playoffs to Chicago.

With the demise of the Eastern Colored League, no World Series was played for a decade. The Monarchs won the 1929 pennant but became an independent barnstorming club in 1931 as the Great Depression made playing in large stadiums impractical. The NNL itself folded after the 1931 season, leaving no professional Black baseball league. The Monarchs still found a way to be profitable through barnstorming small towns and capitalizing on Wilkinson’s portable lights.

Baird is credited with providing the finances needed ($100,000 by some accounts) for this new lighting system.9 With the loss of a league schedule, the main booking responsibility fell to Baird. He also booked games for the House of David, the independent barnstorming club from the religious commune in Michigan noted for men following scriptural commands by not shaving. The new lighting system helped both clubs survive during the Depression. During the first half of the summer, the Monarchs leased its lights to the House of David team, allowing it to play more contests. Once Wilkinson and Baird saved enough money through the rentals, they began the Monarchs’ season. Sometimes that season did not begin until August, but they still earned enough funds to be profitable. With other teams winding down, star players left their clubs, such as legendary greats Cool Papa Bell and Willie Wells. The night games drew large crowds and huge paychecks, irritating other club owners.10

One example of Baird’s brilliant booking was the exhibition games against barnstorming white major leaguers. In the fall of 1933, Dizzy Dean and Pepper Martin of the St. Louis Cardinals Gas House Gang brought a team to Muehlebach Field. Negro League baseball had also returned; the Negro National League had been resurrected under the leadership of Cumberland Posey and Gus Greenlee. The league that year held its first East-West Game, the equivalent to the white major leagues’ inaugural All-Star Game. The Monarchs continued as an independent club and barnstormed their way to the Denver Post tournament in 1934; the Monarchs were the first Black team to be invited to the tournament. Chet Brewer dominated most opponents, but he ran into pitcher Satchel Paige, who won three games in leading the House of David to the championship. Later that fall, after leading St. Louis to a World Series championship, Dizzy Dean, his brother Paul, and others promoted a “Dizzy and Daffy Tour.” The Deans and Monarchs played to huge crowds and profits, although Monarchs players received considerably less money than their white counterparts.11

The Monarchs continued as a hot attraction in 1935 as they barnstormed with the House of David and also an integrated club from Bismarck, North Dakota, which included Paige. Bismarck won the National Baseball Congress semipro tournament in August. In September, Paige pitched for the Monarchs in the stretch run and against another Dizzy Dean postseason barnstorming team.12 A decade later, Baird showed appreciation to Paige and gifted him with a two-seater airplane.13 Baird also had a strong relationship with Syd Pollock, the owner of the Indianapolis Clowns, and the two franchises held barnstorming tours.

In June of 1935, Babe Ruth quit the Boston Braves, ending his legendary major-league career. Sensing opportunity, Baird wired Ruth an offer for $20,000 to play for the House of David club. Baird told Ruth he would not even have to have whiskers. Ruth refused.14 In 1940 Baird became the head booker for the Negro National League, replacing Abe Saperstein.15

The Monarchs returned to league play when the Negro American League was formed in 1937, and won the inaugural season’s pennant. Their pitching stars were Hilton Smith and Andy Cooper, while Willard Brown was the top hitter. The Monarchs won four straight NAL pennants (1939-1942). Buck O’Neil began his long tenure with the team at first base, and a rejuvenated Paige dominated on the mound. In 1942 the Negro League World Series returned and the Monarchs swept the Homestead Grays, 4-0. “I do believe we could have given the New York Yankees a run for their money that year,” O’Neil remembered.16

Baird operated a pool hall and recreation center at Tenth Street and Minnesota Avenue and later at 1401 Minnesota Ave. with a partner, Ollie S. Stratton. Stratton was a former semipro player and had been a boxing manager for several years. Stratton sold his shares to Baird in 1945.17 Baird had plenty of other businesses to attend to, including his bowling alleys and rental properties. He also collected rent from a flower shop, tavern, and hotel. In addition to all of those ventures, Baird owned property in Kansas that he researched for drilling oil, but that endeavor failed.18 As the war years of the 1940s rolled on, Baird began taking over responsibilities from Wilkinson, including promotion of the team.19

The 1945 season was notable for Baird and Wilkinson signing UCLA athletic star Jackie Robinson to a baseball contract. The Kansas City Call, the local Black newspaper, hailed Robinson as the “prize freshman” on the 1945 Monarchs.20 Robinson destroyed Negro League pitching and batted anywhere from .345 to .414.21 No matter the statistic, Robinson was a true baseball star, and the time for integration had arrived. While the integration of the national pastime had been a longtime dream, the sustainability of the Negro Leagues was an uncomfortable subject. Wilkinson and Baird provided an alternative perspective from those who were dependent on the Negro Leagues for survival.

Clyde Sukeforth was a career baseball man and now chief scout for President Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1945 Sukeforth’s main job was to scout the Negro Leagues for Rickey’s Brooklyn Brown Dodgers Black minor-league club in the new United States League.22 Sukeforth, however, met Robinson and informed him of Rickey’s interest in putting him on the major-league Dodgers. Rickey signed Robinson and sent him to the Dodgers’ minor-league affiliate in Montreal in 1946. Robinson returned briefly to the Monarchs to finish the 1945 season. “I went to the management of the Kansas City club to get permission to play up until September 21 in exhibition games and then go home, as I was tired,” Robinson remembered. “I was told I would have to play all the games or none. I was left with no other alternative than to leave the ball club.”23

Robinson didn’t have a contract with the Monarchs for 1946, but Baird considered it common courtesy to give the Monarchs the first chance to sign him. From Baird’s perspective, Rickey’s signing of Robinson with no compensation for the Monarchs was unjustifiable. Baird and Wilkinson wanted to appeal to Commissioner Happy Chandler and ask him to bar Robinson from leaving the Monarchs. There was support among other Negro League club owners who saw a grim future of major-league owners raiding their talent. But the Monarchs owners soon decided otherwise. “For many years we have urged organized baseball to accept Negro players,” Wilkinson said. “Whether we get any recompense in return for Robinson may be considered beside the point – we want Jackie to have a chance.”24

Hard feelings still festered with Baird. Rickey “stooped to unethical methods,” he said. “Rickey didn’t pay us one cent for Jackie Robinson. He sneaked around and signed Robinson. His actions hurt us at the box office. But Rickey never even so much as thanked us for Robinson. We wrote him several months ago. He never even had the common courtesy to answer our letter. We’re glad to see any of our boys get a chance. Robinson has helped the Negro race a great deal. But we hate to have our property just taken away from us. We’ve sold players to other teams – they dealt with us in an honorable way.”25 Baird even wrote that Rickey’s tactics were like “Hitler’s march through Hungary.”26

Robinson responded to Baird’s claims that he was “stolen” from the Monarchs. “I was left with no other alternative than to leave the club,” he said. “The owner’s (Wilkinson) son gave me a lecture and assured me that if I left the club I was through, that I could play no place outside the Negro National League. The ‘cooperation’ I received that afternoon made me glad I no longer had to play with the Monarchs.”27

The Monarchs achieved one last Negro World Series appearance in 1946, losing to the Newark Eagles in seven games. After Robinson and other players left the Negro Leagues, attendance declined. Complicating matters, Wilkinson was involved in a car accident and lost sight in one eye, and was unable to read or drive. The task of the ownership duo was now in discovering talent, developing it as a minor-league team would, then selling the player for a top price to a major-league club. Hank Thompson and Willard Brown were players involved in two such deals.

The 1948 season was the last for the Negro League World Series and Wilkinson sold his ownership shares in the team to Baird for $27,000, ending their nearly three-decade partnership. Buck O’Neil was named the new Monarchs manager.28 Baird was involved in a more “honorable” transaction than the way Robinson had been dealt with. He sold Satchel Paige to the Cleveland Indians, who won the American League pennant. Baird received $20,000 and Paige received a $16,000 salary from the Indians.29

Baird thought business maneuvers like this would help the Negro Leagues survive. “Negro baseball is like any other business,” he said. “[A]s times get tougher it will be the survival of the fittest.” A.S. “Doc” Young of the Chicago Defender described the different approaches club owners in the Negro Leagues were taking to stave off extinction. The Monarchs, he wrote, were a “prize franchise.” One club owner said, “The Monarchs are drawing top crowds. That’s because Tom Baird is in there working hard.” “Did Baird sit back and let his franchise, which he rates as Triple-A caliber, go to pot?” wrote Young. “Nope! He went out and corralled more good players with the result that fans are behind him.” In addition to Paige, Thompson, and Brown, Baird sold off Booker T. McDaniels and Ford Smith.30 In 1950, Baird made $25,000 by selling Elston Howard and Frank Barnes to the New York Yankees.31

The Negro American League created Eastern and Western divisions in 1949 in order to carry out a postseason series in the absence of the National League. Baird withdrew the Monarchs from a postseason series as players were injured or jumping to the majors. Baird dabbled in football in 1950 when he staged a preseason game in Kansas City between the New York Yanks and Washington Redskins of the NFL. The contest attracted a little over 13,000 patrons, but Baird lost money.32

In 1952 Baird was presented a plaque by Ray “Hap” Dumont of the National Baseball Congress, which hosted a semipro tournament every year in Wichita, Kansas. The plaque honored Baird for sparking interest in baseball among the small towns in America. Baird received praise for “his work in helping to improve relations between the races.”33 It was in 1923 that Baird had convinced Dumont, then a high-school student, to sponsor a Monarchs game.

Also in 1952, one of Baird’s pool halls was raided by the police because of a dominoes game being conducted there. The suspicion was that illegal gambling was happening at the business, which Baird denied. “If there was no gambling going on,” the head of the vice squad said, “why did those who escaped feel they had to run?”34

It was a better story for Baird on the field as the Monarchs won yet another pennant during his era, winning both halves of the 1953 Negro American League season. The Monarchs were powered by the young phenom Ernie Banks, who was sold to the Chicago Cubs at the end of the season. The Monarchs had winning streaks of 14 and 17 games during the season.35 The success could not be sustained into 1954, however, despite signing female player Toni Stone. The team bus also burned during a pit stop.

The biggest threat came after the season when the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City and the Monarchs had to compete for attendance against a major-league club. Baird remained positive, at least publicly. “It will only serve to spur us on to greater achievements,” he said.36 But the Monarchs were able to play only two home games in Kansas City because of declining fan interest and the increased rent for their home ballpark, now remodeled to fit major-league standards and renamed Municipal Stadium.

In 1955 only the Monarchs, Birmingham, Detroit, and Memphis remained in the Negro American League. Baird reacquired Paige for $40,000.37 It was Paige’s last run with the Monarchs, for whom he pitched on and off from 1935 to 1955. It was also the last season for player-manager Buck O’Neil, who became a Chicago Cubs scout. The Monarchs won the pennant in the last hurrah for these legends, but by that time the league was so disorganized that no one was exactly sure who the champion was. The Monarchs won 14 pennants and two postseason titles during Baird’s tenure.

“I am not an alarmist,” Baird wrote to NAL President J.B. Martin, “but facts are facts and I know all owners are losing plenty. I have been in baseball long enough to see what might happen to us.”38 The writing was on the wall. In January 1956 Baird sold 12 players to major- or minor-league clubs. “It looks like I sold everybody but the bus driver,” he said, still finding a sense of humor. “But I’m happy to see these players get their chance in organized baseball.”39 This all but signified the end of the Kansas City Monarchs franchise he had been with since the beginning. “I haven’t made a definite decision yet,” Baird said in response to whether the Monarchs would even field a team in 1956. “I’ve been in baseball more than thirty-six years and will not decide until later on.” A report at the time stated that in the previous 10 years Baird had sold 29 players to major-league teams and another nine to the minor leagues.40 It was a final parting gift to his players and cemented his legacy of running what was unofficially an African American minor-league development system.

Less than a month later, Baird decided it was time to go and accepted a position as a scout with the Kansas City A’s. “I’m happy to be with the Athletics,” Baird said, “and I hope I can be of assistance to them in their building program.”41 Baird concentrated on finding and developing African American talent. It seemed to spell the complete dissolution of the Monarchs, but Baird was determined to put the club in good hands. He sold the Monarchs to Ted Rasberry, who also owned the Detroit Stars. One meager report said Rasberry bought the entire franchise for $3,500.42 Rasberry kept the club in operation through 1962, keeping the Kansas City Monarchs name but running the club out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Baird became the business manager of the Harlem All-Stars in 1957, a barnstorming Black basketball team. He also opened a $400,000 16-lane bowling alley in Kansas City, Kansas.43

In 2007 historian Tim Rives wrote that his research revealed Baird to have been a member of the Wyandotte County, Kansas, Ku Klux Klan. (Kansas City is the dominant community in the county.) The Klan did occupy a certain space in some areas which, though exclusionary in its membership, may not always have been violent toward others. Had Tom Baird been a member of the Klan in 1922? We don’t know. See the sidebar for further discussion on this subject.

We are left with many questions about Tom Baird that can only be answered through further research. What we do know is that Baird worked tirelessly for the Monarchs for over 35 years and much of his skill in the later years was found in developing and promoting players so they could move on to better opportunities in the major leagues. He was highly respected among players, other club owners in both the white and Black major leagues, and fans.

Tom Baird died in his sleep on July 2, 1962, in Kansas City, Kansas, at the age of 77.

Sources

In addition to the sources in the Notes, the author was assisted by the following:

Lent, Cassidy, A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center, Cooperstown, New York, who provided a copy of Baird’s file.

Faber,Charles F., and William A. Young. “J.L. Wilkinson,” SABR BioProject.

Familyseach.org

Findagrave.com

“KC Monarchs to Travel in New Bus,” Atlanta Daily World, May 7, 1954: 7.

“Major Duncan Answers Last Call on Memorial Day,” Kansas City Globe, May 31, 1911: 1.

“Negro American League Standings (1937-1962),” Center for Negro League Baseball Research. cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Standings/Negro%20American%20League%20(1937-1962)%202016-08.pdf. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

“Negro National league Standings (1920-1948),” Center for Negro League Baseball Research. cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Standings/Negro%20National%20League%20(1920-1948)%202016-08.pdf. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

Dixon, Phil S. The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour: Race, Media, and America’s National Pastime (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), 93-95.

“Semi-Pro Clubs to be United in West,” Jefferson City (Missouri) Post-Tribune, February 3, 1937: 6.

“Ted Raspberry Buys Monarchs,” Chicago Defender, February 25, 1956: 17.

“Topics in Chronicling America.” Library of Congress. loc.gov/rr/news/topics/jessejames.html. Retrieved April 25, 2020.

“Younger Brothers,” Encyclopedia Britannica. britannica.com/topic/Younger-brothers. Retrieved April 25, 2020.

Notes

1 “This Is a Sure Sign of Spring,” Kansas City Kansan, March 17, 1917: 1; “Sportlets,” The Press (Kansas City, Kansas), October 12, 1917: 8.

2 The Press, August 31, 1917: 7; C.E. McBride, “A Sports Cocktail,” Kansas City (Missouri) Times, October 28, 1952: 17.

3 “T.Y. Baird’s Leg Broken,” The Press, May 10, 1918: 10; “T.Y. Baird Asks $30,000,” The Press, August 23, 1918: 1.

4 “Sportlets,” The Press, June 14, 1918: 1.

5 “Gossip of the Semi-Pros,” Kansas City (Kansas) Kansan, April 30, 1919: 1.

6 Kansas City Kansan, April 14, 1921: 3.

7 “Billiard Men Organize,” Kansas City Kansan, December 2, 1921: 16.

8 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2016), 39.

9 Young, 71; Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1985), 70.

10 Bruce, 72-73.

11 Young, 92.

12 Young, 95.

13 “The Famous Mr. Paige Becomes Air-Minded,” Chicago Defender, July 6, 1946: 11.

14 “House of David Wires Ruth $20,000 Offer,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 6, 1935: 12.

15 “Wilson Retains NNL Post,” Afro-American, March 2, 1940: 19.

16 Buck O’Neil with Steve Wulf and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 119.

17 “Ollie S. Stratton,” Kansas City Times, October 13, 1952: 14.

18 Young, 169.

19 Young, 157.

20 “Monarchs Ready for Training,” Kansas City Call, March 16, 1945.

21 Seamheads lists Robinson batting .384 with the Monarchs, while Baseball-Reference credits him at .414. The Center for Negro League Baseball Research records him batting .345 in 41 games.

22 Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 57.

23 Robinson, “What’s Wrong with Negro Baseball?” Ebony magazine, June 1948: 22.

24 “Monarch Owners Won’t Block Move,” St. Louis Star & Times, October 25, 1945: 25.

25 United Press, “Kansas City Owner Raps Dodger Prexy,” Honolulu Advertiser, February 21, 1948: 11.

26 A.S. Young, “Tom Baird Resents Rickey’s Contract Methods,” Cleveland Call and Post, February 28, 1948: 6B.

27 “Jackie Robinson Rebukes Unruly Fans; Hits Baird,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 8, 1948: 6B.

28 Associated Press, “Gets Monarch Control,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 13, 1948: 16; Associated Negro Press, “John O’Neil, New Manager K.C. Monarchs,” Atlanta Daily World, January 8, 1948: 5; Young, 166-167.

29 “Indians Sign Satchel Paige,” New York Amsterdam News, July 10, 1948: 24; “National Baseball Congress to Honor Owner of K.C. Monarchs,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 28, 1952: 10.

30 A.S. “Doc” Young, “Sportivanting,” Chicago Defender, July 9, 1949: 16.

31 William A. Young, 171.

32 “Negro World Series Open Friday: Baltimore to Host 2 Games,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 13, 1949: 11; “Skins in Upset,” Kansas City Times, September 8, 1950: 22.

33 Leslie A. Heaphy, The Negro Leagues 1869-1960 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003), 216-217; “NBA [sic] Cites Tom Baird of K.C. Monarch Club,” Atlanta Daily World, May 2, 1952: 7.

34 “Last Domino by Police,” Kansas City Times, March 11, 1952: 3.

35 “K.C. Has Top Season’s Mark,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 12, 1953: 14; “Good Year Coming to End for KC,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 5, 1953: 27.

36 “Coming of Major League Baseball to Kansas City Will Help – Baird,” Chicago Defender, January 15, 1955: 10.

37 “Satchel Paige Rejoins the Monarchs,” Chicago Defender, June 11, 1955: 10.

38 William A. Young, 180.

39 “Tom Baird Quits Baseball,” Chicago Defender, February 4, 1956: 18.

40 Paul O’Boynick, “Monarchs Sell 12 Players,” Kansas City Times, January 27, 1956: 38.

41 Joe McGuff, “Baird Joins A’s,” Kansas City Times, February 10, 1956: 34.

42 William A. Young, 181.

43 William A. Young, 182.

This biography appears in When the Monarchs Reigned: Kansas City’s 1942 Negro League Champions (SABR, 2021), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin. Get your free e– book edition or save 50% off the paperback at SABR.org/ebooks.

Although a profile of Bradley published late in his life says Bradley’s baseball career began in 1935,4 the first newspaper mention of him is in 1936 with the Benton Eagles. “Most of us went to school together when we were kids,” he told a reporter years later. “We just got together after work. We played in the park. Sometimes we played in oil fields.”5

By the next year, Bradley had joined the Shreveport Giants. He was an immediate standout with the team, striking out 14 in a 9-1 win over the Clintonville Merchants in the summer of 1937.6 Only two days later, he was described as the “speed ball king par excellence” and the “no. 1 man in the invaders’ hurling corps” before a game with the Studebaker Athletics.7

But Bradley was not long for Louisiana baseball. He told the story of his discovery by scout Winfield Welch: “I was chopping cotton. The man said he was looking for Dick Bradley to play baseball. I dropped that hoe 50 feet and started running.”8 Welch was a scout for the Kansas City Monarchs. Bradley was going to the big time.

Bradley made his Monarchs debut that summer against South Bend. He was nervous early in the game and was having trouble getting his fastball over the plate.9 Satchel Paige walked out to the mound and explained to Bradley that if he would just settle down and throw his fastball over the plate, nobody was going to get near it. “I struck out the next nine batters,” Bradley recalled.10 Bradley ultimately finished up with 17 strikeouts in the game.11 A few days later, Bradley and Floyd Kranson threw a combined five-hitter against Indianapolis.12 Bradley’s next start did not go as well, as the Beatrice Blues beat Kansas City 13-10. Bradley started the game but was yanked during Beatrice’s six-run second and took the loss.13

A few days later, Bradley started the second game of a doubleheader at Kansas City’s Muehlebach Field against the Cincinnati Tigers. The Monarchs won the game, 7-1, “behind the brilliant mound work of Rookie Bradley, 20 years old [sic]. It was the youngster’s first appearance at Muehlebach Field, and he celebrated by holding the Tigers to five hits. More than 3,200 fans attended the games.”14

By the beginning of the 1938 season, the newspapers were touting Bradley as one of the major stars of the Monarchs pitching staff. Before an April 1938 game against the Hutchinson Larks, the Hutchinson News wrote that “Frank Bradley, a big right-hander who is expected to be another Satchel Paige, has already uncovered one of the fastest balls of any pitcher to ever wear a Monarch uniform.”15 The Springfield papers joined in the hype the following day: “The Kansas City Monarchs, who play our Cardinals here Saturday, have a pitcher they claim is faster than Bob Feller. He’s 18-year-old Frank Bradley. The Monarchs have battled Feller four times in exhibition games, so they should know how fast he is.”16

Bradley pitched a gem five weeks later against the Chicago American Giants, holding the Giants to only two hits. Only two months into his first full season, “Kid Bradley” was already drawing comparisons to two future Hall of Famers: “[T]he youngster is rated as the best rookie hurler the Monarchs have ever had. He has a great fast ball and is rated as speedy as ‘Satchel’ Paige or ‘Bullet’ Rogan, speed ball pitchers deluxe.”17

Bradley continued to pile up the strikeouts as the Monarchs’ year continued. The Monarchs had a laugher at the end of June, whipping the Studebaker Athletics, 15-1. Bradley threw three innings, struck out six, and surrendered two hits and one run.18 A week later, Bradley showed off his stamina, pitching the final three innings of the first game of a doubleheader against the Memphis Red Sox and then starting the second.19

Bradley was clearly a gate draw in the Negro League fan community by midsummer of that year. The press raved: “Bradley, a fireball pitcher who has become the newest sensation of Negro baseball with his amazing victory record, is only 19 years old. … [H]e is expected to start tomorrow night’s game for the Monarchs.”20 Perhaps the highlight of Bradley’s summer was when he pitched a six-inning no-hitter against the Birmingham Black Barons on July 14 in Oklahoma City; the game was called after 5½ innings because of rain, but Bradley had pitched the Monarchs to a 3-0 victory.21

Shortly thereafter, the Monarchs were in Saskatchewan and, in a promotional article headlined “The Monarchs Are Coming!” a local paper called Bradley “the ‘Bob Feller of the Negro league.’”22 Bradley relieved Floyd Kranson in the sixth inning of the next day’s game, ultimately losing on a two-run rally in the bottom of the ninth that was capped off by a double by the opposing pitcher.23

Two weeks later, the Monarchs were in Davenport, Iowa, playing the Illinois-Iowa League All-Stars. Thanks to a four-run first, the Monarchs defeated the All-Stars, 6-1. According to the local paper, Kansas City pitchers Big Train Jackson, Johnny Marcum, and Bradley “displayed plenty of class, keeping the All-Stars under control the entire contest.”24

The Monarchs staged a festive doubleheader against the Memphis Red Sox to open their 1939 season. Pregame ceremonies included a flag-raising and a stadium parade with the Elks band and drill team, the Negro American Legion drum and bugle corps, the Junior Negro Scouts drum and bugle corps and the Kansas City Negro jazz and swing orchestra. The Monarchs came into the season hot, having won 10 of 15 preseason games.25 According to the Kansas City Star, “Manager Andy] Cooper will pitch ‘Kid’ Bradley, 20-year-old speedball star, and Hilton Smith, who led the Monarch staff, with twenty-six victories and six losses, against the Memphis invaders.”26 Cooper expected Bradley to “have a big year,” wrote a reporter.27

Bradley seemed to heat up as summer began. He beat Decatur, 7-2, on the last day of June, striking out six in six innings and adding a double from the plate. While other reporters emphasized Bradley’s fastball, the Decatur paper praised his “fast breaking curve ball” as well.28

A few days later Bradley came in from the bullpen, relieving Monel “Lefty” Moses after he gave up four hits to the Chicago American Giants in the first inning. Bradley shut Chicago down, scattering five hits in the last eight innings.29 One week later, Bradley was back on the mound for an important league game against the Chicago American Giants in which he tossed a five-hitter to beat the Giants, 14-1.30

Bradley made several relief appearances in the second half of July 1939. He got what would today be called a save in a game against Winnipeg, entering the game during a ninth-inning rally and ending the threat.31 At the end of the month, he starred from both the mound and the plate in a league game against the American Giants. Bradley relieved Willie Jackson in the second and pitched into the sixth, when an 11-run outburst from the Monarchs decided the game. Bradley allowed only one run in his stint and hit a double while notching the win.32

Bradley had a hard-luck start in late August against the Muncie Citizens. Despite giving up only six hits in 8⅓ innings (with eight strikeouts), he did not get his accustomed run support and wound up losing 3-2.33

A week later, Bradley got a chance to take on the legendary barnstorming team, the House of David. Satchel Paige started, working the first three innings, and Bradley went the rest of the way as the Monarchs triumphed, 10-5.34

In late September after the Monarchs had wrapped up another championship, Bradley got a chance to wear a different uniform, joining the barnstorming Satchel Paige’s All-Stars – an indication of just how high Paige’s respect for the young pitcher was. The All-Stars played a doubleheader against the Monarchs, but Paige’s start in game one was a disaster. The Monarchs beat the All-Stars 11-0, with most of the runs coming off their moonlighting teammate’s pitching. The second game was a different story, but ultimately the same result, as the Monarchs completed the doubleheader sweep, 1-0. Johnny Marcum started for the All-Stars, giving up the only run in the fifth on Ted Strong’s home run, and Bradley shut out his Monarchs teammates the rest of the way.35

As the 1940 season opened, Bradley was still a frequent starter for the Monarchs who also came out of the bullpen. He lost an early April game as the starter against the Tyler Black Trojans,36 but only a week later, he was the Monarchs’ third pitcher of a game with the Toledo Crawfords that had gotten away early on the Crawfords’ five-run first. Bradley managed to tame the Crawfords’ bats, coming in for the late innings, but it was far too late to salvage a win.37

On a chilly night in early June, “Frank (Fireball) Bradley” was the starter for the Monarchs in an important Negro American League game against the Chicago American Giants. According to the press account of the game, Bradley had everything working that day: “Fogging the third strike past the waving bats of 10 rivals, the Kansas City star blanked his foes in six innings, while his mates mauled Wadel Miller, losing pitcher, for 12 hits, two of them for homers and a pair of doubles.”38 In fact, one of those home runs was by Bradley himself; for the game, he was 2-for-4 from the plate.39

Later that month, Bradley was coming out of the bullpen again, replacing Allen Bryant on the mound in a game against the Belmar Braves. Bradley managed to hold the line, striking out six and scattering five hits over the last five innings of the game. The Monarchs game became exciting at the end as “Kansas City staged a two-run rally in the ninth, and Bradley himself started it with one out. After fouling off five straight pitches and flopping all over the plate on every swing, he caught hold of one of Sahlin’s good pitches and belted it over the right field fence for a double.”40 Although the Monarchs lost the game, 5-4, “Bradley … stole the show. He went thru more antics than were necessary, both at the plate and on the mound, but the crowd loved it.”41

A couple of weeks later, against the Stillwater Boomers, Bradley took a no-hitter into the bottom of the eighth, ultimately striking out 13 in eight innings of work. The Boomers closed the margin in the bottom of the ninth, scoring four off the Monarchs’ bullpen, but the Monarchs won the game, 12-6.42

Bradley was nearly as good later that month against an all-star team from the Worthington Cardinal and Sioux Falls Canaries of the Western League. On this occasion, “So effective was Bradley’s ‘swift’ that through the first eight stanzas the All-Stars could boast of but two hits – both of which were over second base but did not reach the outfield. … During this time Bradley had whiffed ten of the leaguers. … In one stretch during the fourth, fifth and sixth cantos seven of the honor team were strikeout victims in succession. Bradley ended the game with 12 strikeouts.”43 A few days later, Bradley and Hilton Smith combined on a three-hitter as the Monarchs whipped Richland Center, 10-0.44

In late August, Bradley pitched twice against the Ethiopian Clowns within a few days. In the first game, a 4-3 Kansas City victory, Bradley and Hilton Smith handled the pitching duties and “showed speed and jug-handle curveballs in abundance.”45 Bradley struck out the side in the first and second and ended with 10 strikeouts in five innings of work.46 “Speed Bradley” threw a gem against the Clowns in the second game but wound up being let down by his bullpen. Bradley gave up only a single scratch hit across the first seven innings and struck out 18 in his nine-inning stint. The Monarchs eventually lost the game in the 11th.47

Bradley’s final recorded start for 1940 was in mid-September against the Local 210 Oilers. He entered the game in the second and pitched the final seven innings, limiting the Oilers to five hits and striking out 12.48

By the beginning of the 1941 season, Frank Bradley was routinely being called one of the veterans of the Monarchs’ pitching staff.49 He dominated in a 9-1 triumph over the La Crosse Blackhawks in June, striking out nine while going 3-for-5 from the plate.50 A week later, he lost a heartbreaker against the New York Black Yankees, a league opponent, for which he had only himself to blame. Bradley had pitched well, holding New York to only two hits and striking out six while going 2-for-4 from the plate, but he ended up losing, 3-2, when he balked in the winning run for New York in the top of the eighth.51

In mid-July Bradley was the Monarchs’ third pitcher in a three-way 3-0 shutout of the Belmar Braves, giving up three hits in the final three innings and striking out two.52 The shutout lengthened Belmar’s scoreless drought against the Monarchs to 29 consecutive innings.53 Bradley threw a complete game in his next start but lost to the Brooklyn Bushwicks, 3-1, though he struck out seven, walked only two, and managed a 1-for-3 day from the plate.54 Bradley pitched well again in an early August start against the Studebaker Athletics, but it must be conceded that the Athletics gave him a lot of help. The Monarchs won the game, 11-0, but the 11 errors the Athletics rang up probably had something to do with that. Five of those 11 errors were recorded by a single player, Athletics shortstop Stanley Wrobel, who also got the only extra-base hit among the Athletics’ five hits for the day.55

As the 1941 season wound down, the Monarchs lost to the Birmingham Black Barons, 5-0. Bradley wasn’t sharp, giving up nine hits and four runs in his seven innings of work, with only four strikeouts.56 His final two appearances for the season were both in exhibition games. In early October the Monarchs took on Bob Feller’s All-Stars, one of the series of games Negro League teams played against barnstorming White major leaguers over the years. Bradley did not pitch, but he did pinch-hit for fellow pitcher Hilton Smith in a 4-1 loss.57 The next day the Monarchs defeated Frigidaire, 5-2. Satchel Paige started and hurled the first three frames. Bradley took the mound in the fourth and pitched five strong innings, striking out nine, walking only one, and scattering four hits. He was 2-for-2 at the plate.58

Bradley was eager to get started as the 1942 season approached, arriving early at the Monarchs’ spring-training camp in Monroe, Louisiana.59 The Monarchs started Bradley in the opening game of an early-season doubleheader against the Birmingham Black Barons, which the team lost by a 2-1 score. The Monarchs took the second game, 8-6, thanks to Barney “Bonnie” Serrell’s circus catch of what would have been a three-run homer for the future Harlem Globetrotter Reece “Goose” Tatum.60

Although reports of Bradley starts are scarce for 1942, he was routinely referred to as part of the Monarchs’ sterling pitching staff.61 The Harrisburg Evening News was effusive in August: “Two other hurlers on the Monarchs who have exceptionally fine records and who have the throwing arms to back up arguments in their favor are Hilton Smith and Frank Bradley.”62 Although he was not used during the World Series, the newspapers took notice of Bradley as an important part of the Monarchs’ pitching staff before Game One against the Homestead Grays.63

In 1943 several newspapers continued to list Bradley as a member of the Monarchs’ pitching staff.64 However, by this time he was in the Army and played for the 915th Squadron at Dover Air Force Base. One game account noted, “PFC Frank Bradley, formerly with the Kansas City Monarchs, drove in four runs. His homer in the third with a mate aboard accounted for two and his fifth-inning single drove in two more.”65 Bradley remained in the Army for the remainder of World War II, with the duration of his service spanning October 5, 1942 to December 8, 1945.

Tragically, due to a wound in the bend of his arm, Bradley’s career ended with his Army service. He returned to his hometown of Benton and bagged groceries for a living. On the positive side, with his baseball barnstorming days and military service both at an end, he married his longtime love, Maurine Moore, on June 22, 1946.66

Decades later, Bradley’s friends remembered his talent and what might have been. His childhood friend Riley Stewart, who knew both Bradley and Satchel Paige well, said, “Satchel said the hardest thrower, without a doubt, was Dick Bradley. Dick was a strong power pitcher with a curveball. Dick was in that class with (Nolan) Ryan.”67 “[Satchel] said [Bradley] could throw that ball and make it look like an aspirin tablet,” Stewart remarked, and then added, “Dick Bradley could throw the ball as hard as any human being could in those days.”68

Bradley attended a Monarchs reunion in 1995. “It’s a really good feeling,” he said. “I’m glad to go. Imagine I’ll see some old friends I haven’t seen in more than 50 years because I saw a lot of old teammates in Cooperstown. I’m really looking forward to seeing that old ballpark again.”69

Several of the best stories about Bradley’s career appeared after his playing time was over. Among these were the facts that “[h]e pitched a no-hitter against the Memphis Red Sox and came out on the short end of a 1-0 pitching duel with Bossier City’s Riley Stewart before a four-year stint in the army beginning in 1943.”70 Like Satchel Paige, “When he had his good stuff, Bradley would call in the outfielders and infielders and strike out the side.”71

Bradley recalled late in his life that he would frequently finish up for Paige – Satchel for the first six innings and Bradley finishing up the game. “I’d say the toughest hitter I ever faced was Josh Gibson,” he said. “I think I probably faced him about 20 times.”72 Bradley admitted to having added one homer to Gibson’s prodigious career total.73

Fifty years after he retired from the game, Bradley still remembered those days: “He [said] traveling and playing the game [were] his best memories. ‘I miss the game, I miss the friendships. … I dream about baseball all the time.’”74

In his later years, Bradley became known for his career with the Monarchs throughout his home parish in Louisiana. On August 11, 2001, the Shreveport Swamp Dragons honored the 83-year-old hurler, and he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the team’s game against the Wichita Wranglers.75

After his death on December 2, 2002, in Benton, hometown newspaper columnist Bradley Hudson wrote an elegiac tribute to the deceased Negro League star. The writer remembered Bradley walking past his house every morning and evening going back and forth to work at the local creosote plant, “carrying his lunch in a greasy brown paper bag. He was friendly, polite and a very nice man who took time occasionally to tell us to do our best in school. He would even take our baseballs and show us how to throw a curveball or a fastball. … Little did we know that this same man once had a fastball that even Satchel Paige envied.” The columnist wrote, “Bradley never seemed bitter about his fate. I never once detected a trace of anger in him. He realized that it was just the times in which he grew up. … Major League baseball has attempted to make amends by honoring Negro League stars. They earned it. … I’ll always treasure having known him.”76

Frank Bradley is buried in the Benton Community Cemetery, on Highway 162 just east of the hometown where he lived most of his life.

Sources

Ancestry.com was consulted for public records, including census information, marriage and death records, and Frank and June Bradley’s World War II draft registration cards.

Notes

1 Census records for the family for the years 1920, 1930, and 1940 have been reviewed via Ancestry.com, with no additional children listed.

2 See World War II draft registration cards for June Bradley and Frank Bradley, Ancestry.com.

3 For a brief history of the Rough and Ready Plantation, see the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, http://bossier.pastperfectonline.com/photo/67D885DF-1394-4E78-9C89-473991522949.

4 “Negro Leagues Saw Great Baseball,” The Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), July 24, 1991: 83.

5 Victoria L. Coman, “‘I Miss the Game; I miss the friendships,’” The Times, November 20, 1996: 41.

6 “Colored Team Wins Against Merchants,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, August 20, 1937: 14.

7 “Colored Nines Are Booked by Manager,” South Bend Tribune, August 22, 1937: 11.

8 “Negro Leagues Saw Great Baseball.”

9 Late in Bradley’s life, a newspaper retrospective of his baseball career reported that his fastball was “99 miles-per-hour.” Jerry Byrd, “Former Pitcher Is Grand Marshall [sic] in Benton Parade,” Bossier (Louisiana) Press Tribune, December 11, 1997: 16. It is unclear whether Bradley himself made this claim, or one of his former teammates did. Since Bradley’s career was before the era of even the most primitive speed guns, we will never know how seriously to take the claim.

10 “Former Pitcher Is Grand Marshall.”

11 Clint Land, “Baseball Pitching Legend Honored,” Bossier Press Tribune, August 13, 2001: 7.

12 “Monarchs Have Easy Victory,” Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury, August 28, 1937: 6.

13 “Pociask Lets Barnstormers Down Rudely,” Beatrice (Nebraska) Daily Sun, September 2, 1937: 6.

14 “The Monarchs Take Two,” Kansas City Times, September 7, 1937: 13.

15 “New Players with Monarchs,” Hutchinson (Kansas) News, April 28, 1938: 2.

16 John Snow, “Press Box Gossip,” Springfield (Missouri) Leader and Press, April 29, 1938: 2.

17 Hank Casserly, “Invaders Have Great Record in Past Week,” Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), June 1, 1938: 13.

18 Bob Overaker, “Monarchs Rout Studebakers,” South Bend Tribune, June 28, 1938: 10.

19 “Hold Monarchs Even,” Kansas City Times, July 4, 1938: 6.

20 “Negro Bob Feller,” Minneapolis Star, July 11, 1938: 11.

21 Christopher Hauser, The Negro Leagues Chronology: Events in Organized Black Baseball, 1920-1948 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006), 104.

22 “The Monarchs Are Coming!” Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan), July 21, 1938: 13.

23 “Pitcher Wins for Giants,” Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan), July 23, 1938, 12.

24 “Colored Nine Gets 4 Runs in First Frame,” Daily Times (Davenport, Iowa), August 2, 1938: 12.

25 “Monarchs Play Today,” Kansas City Star, May 14, 1939: 9.

26 “Monarchs Play Today.”

27 “Al Krueger Will Oppose K.C. Ball Club,” Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), May 23, 1939: 21.

28 Howard V. Millard, “Bloomers Open Here Tonight; Ladies Guests,” Decatur (Illinois) Daily Review, July 1, 1939: 5.

29 Hank Casserly, “Former Red Hurler Will Aid Locals,” Capital Times, July 5, 1939: 13.

30 “K.C. Monarchs Defeat Giants,” Minneapolis Star, July 12, 1939: 18.

31 “Monarchs Capture Twin Bill,” Winnipeg Tribune, July 18, 1939: 13.

32 “Kansas City’s Negro Team Beats Chicago,” Des Moines Register, July 29, 1939: 9.

33 Evan Owens, “Citizens Play at Lafayette,” Muncie (Indiana) Evening Press, August 25, 1939: 16.

34 “Colts Defeat Davids at Storm Lake, 10-5,” Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, September 6, 1939: 12.

35 “No Run for All-Stars,” Kansas City Times, October 2, 1939: 11; “Paige to Face Monarchs,” Kansas City Star, October 1, 1939: 20.

36 “Black Trojans Outhit K.C. Nine but Lose, 2 to 7,” Tyler (Texas) Morning Telegraph, April 8, 1940: 2.

37 “Toledo Negro Team Wins; Owens Sprints,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 17, 1940: 19.

38 Brad Wilson, “Monarchs Beat Giants, 7 to 3,” Des Moines Register, June 11, 1940: 14.

39 Wilson.

40 “Belmar Nine Conquers Kansas City Monarchs,” Asbury Park Press, June 22, 1940: 8.

41 “Belmar Nine Conquers Kansas City Monarchs.”

42 “Kansas City Monarchs Trounce Boomers, 12-6,” Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), July 9, 1940: 11.

43 “Monarchs Win Here 7-4; Cards Beat Canaries 5-4,” Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), July 22, 1940: 8.

44 “Monarchs Whitewash Richland Center, 10-0,” Wisconsin State Journal, July 26, 1940: 10; “K.C. Monarchs Wallop Richland Center, 10-0,” Capital Times, July 26, 1940: 16.

45 “Negro Nines Shine,” Winnipeg Tribune, August 23, 1940: 12.

46 “Negro Nines Shine.”

47“Winners Pair Single, Double in 11th Frame,” Daily Times, August 28, 1940: 11.

48 “Paige Works 2 Heats; Gets 6 on Strikes,” The Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), September 18, 1940: 22.

49 “Negro Baseball Champs to Play,” Monroe (Louisiana) Morning World, May 4, 1941: 11; “Kansas City Outfit Meets Black Barons Sunday in Twin Bill,” Birmingham News, May 9, 1941: 17.

50 Earl H. Voss, “Third Place Club Only Single Game Behind La Crosse,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, June 24, 1941: 8.

51 “Monarchs Lose on a Balk,” Kansas City Times, July 1, 1941: 12.

52 “Monarchs Trip Braves, 3 to 0,” Daily Record (Morris County, New Jersey), July 19, 1941: 4.

53 “Brave String of Scoreless Innings Is 29,” Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press, July 19, 1941: 9.

54 “Bushwick Club Downs Monarchs,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 24, 1941: 15; “Bushwicks Win, 3-1,” New York Daily News, July 24, 1941: 540.

55 “Monarchs Win 11-0,” South Bend Tribune, August 7, 1941: 11-12.

56 “Black Barons Win by 5 to 0 Score from Monarchs,” Oshkosh Northwestern, September 12, 1941: 17.

57 “Feller and Paige Good, but Others Look Better,” St. Louis Globe Democrat, October 6, 1941: 13.

58 “Monarchs in 5-2 Win Over Frigidaire,” Journal Herald (Dayton, Ohio), October 7, 1941: 9.

59 “K.C. Monarchs Head South for Spring Training Siege,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 28, 1942: 16.

60 R.S. Simmons, “Speaking in General,” Weekly Review (Birmingham, Alabama), April 24, 1942: 7.

61 “Black Barons Play Jacksonville in Opener, Sunday,” Weekly Review, May 8, 1942: 7; “League Twin Bill Here,” Kansas City Times, May 30, 1942: 7; “E.C. Giants Tangle with Kansas City,” The Times, June 26, 1942: 47; “Monarchs Play Here Thursday,” St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette, July 15, 1942: 5; “‘Satchel’ Paige and Kansas City Monarchs in Yankee Stadium’s Biggest Attraction Sunday, Aug. 2,” New York Age, August 1, 1942: 11.

62 “Stars of Negro Loop Play Here,” Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), August 11, 1942: 6.

63 “Satchel Paige Faces Grays Here Tonight,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 29, 1942: 26.

64 “Monarchs Here Sunday,” Kansas City Star, May 9, 1943: 24; “Kansas City Monarchs Believe They’ll Win Fifth Championship,” New York Age, July 24, 1943: 11.

65 “915th Squadron Blanks Fort Miles Hilltoppers,” News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware), July 15, 1943: 25.

66 Her name was sometimes spelled alternately as “Maurine” or “Maureen” in various sources.

67 “Negro Leagues Saw Great Baseball,” The Times, July 24, 1991: 83.

68 “’I Miss the Game; I Miss the Friendships,’” The Times, November 20, 1996: 41.

69 “Ex-Players Set for Historical Fete,” The Times, October 24, 1995: 17.

70 “Former Pitcher Is Grand Marshall in Benton Parade,” Bossier Press Tribune, December 11, 1997: 16.

71 “Former Pitcher Is Grand Marshall in Benton Parade.”

72 “Former Pitcher Is Grand Marshall in Benton Parade.”

73 “Former Pitcher Is Grand Marshall in Benton Parade.”

74 “’I Miss the Game; I Miss the Friendships,’” The Times, November 20, 1996: 41.

75 Charlie Cavell, “Swamp Dragons Blow Three-Run Lead in Loss,” The Times, August 11, 2001: 17.

76 Bradley Hudson, “Bradley a Silent Hero,” The Times, December 15, 2002: 100.

Ese Hombre — That Man — was Willard Brown’s nickname in Puerto Rico. The outfielder was one of the most feared hitters in the Negro Leagues, but he was an absolute wrecking ball in the Puerto Rican Winter League. He won the Triple Crown twice there, in 1947-48 and 1949-50. Unfortunately, he played just 21 games in what was known as the major leagues, all during the span of a month in 1947. He had problems with racism and the poor quality of his club, the St. Louis Browns. In 2006, however, Brown’s greatness was recognized as a special committee selected him to enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Willard Jessie Brown was born on June 26, 1915, in Shreveport, Louisiana. Some sources have cited 1911 as his year of birth, but Brown’s birth certificate, Social Security application, and census research have confirmed the 1915 date. It’s interesting to note that when he came up to the majors, some stories billed Brown as being born in 1921.1 In later decades, though, he took to saying that he was too old when he got his chance, and so dates such as 1911 and 1913 entered circulation.

Willard’s father, Manuel Brown, was born in Texas. Manuel’s wife, Allie (who died at age 100 in 1986) came from Marthaville, Louisiana.2 As of the 1920 census, the Brown family was living in Natchitoches, about 75 miles southeast of Shreveport. Manuel’s occupation was listed as mill laborer; Willard’s name was recorded as “Bud.” No other siblings are visible, though two cousins were in the house, including a girl named Cleo whom Willard viewed as a sister.3 By 1930, the family had returned to Shreveport, and Manuel had his own cabinetmaking shop. The only other member of the household listed then was Allie’s father, Louis Phillips.

Young Willard grew up around baseball. Among other things, he served as a batboy in spring training for his future team, the Kansas City Monarchs. In the 1920s, Shreveport was one of the places they liked to use to prepare for the long season.4 In 1934, Brown turned pro, since he had left school and thought baseball offered his best earning potential. He joined the Monroe Monarchs of the Negro Southern League. This club, based in another northern Louisiana city about 100 miles east of Shreveport, was owned by a wealthy local businessman named Fred Stovall. Brown signed for just $8 a week as a shortstop and pitcher, but as Louisiana sportswriter Paul Letlow observed on his blog in June 2009, the players also got room and board on Stovall’s plantation.5 “I thought that was big money,” said Brown with a chuckle in a 1983 interview.6

After one season with Monroe, Brown joined the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the premier franchises in the Negro Leagues. Owner J.L. Wilkinson spotted Buck O’Neil and Brown while Kansas City was barnstorming against the Shreveport Acme Giants in spring training.7 Wilkinson gave his recruit a $250 bonus, a salary of $125 per month, and $1 per diem meal money.8 Brown made the East-West All-Star game in 1936. It was the first of eight times for him in Black baseball’s showcase. In 1937, though, he shifted from short to the outfield, which remained his primary position for the rest of his career. He played a good deal of center field but was also a corner outfielder much of the time.

During the winter of 1937-38, Brown got his first experience of baseball in a Spanish-speaking land as he played in Cuba for Marianao. The player-manager was the great Martín Dihigo. Brown got just eight hits in 55 at-bats over the 53-game season. He did not return to Cuba after that.

The Kansas City Monarchs were highly successful in the decade from 1937 to 1946, winning six Negro American League championships. They also won the Colored World Series (as it was known at the time) in 1942. There was a tremendous amount of talent on the team, including the brilliant pitchers Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith, plus slick second baseman Newt Allen, steady first baseman Buck O’Neil, and 6-foot-6 outfielder Ted Strong. Their leading offensive weapon, though, was Brown. No less a figure than Josh Gibson called him “Home Run” Brown.

Negro League historians Larry Lester and Sammy Miller recorded the story of another of Brown’s nicknames, one that was less flattering. “Brown is what we called a Sunday player,” claimed former teammate Sammy Haynes. “Willard liked to play on Sundays when we had a full house. If the stands were full you couldn’t get him out. He could play baseball as good as he wanted to. If the stands were half empty, you might find Brown loafing that day. In fact, he didn’t play on rainy or cloudy days. That’s why we called him Sonny. He loved to play on sunny days and before big crowds. And he was a real crowd pleaser.”9

In his 1999 book about his life in the Negro Leagues, another old teammate, catcher Frazier “Slow” Robinson, echoed Haynes. “The only thing about Brown was that he never did get serious about baseball. . .he could have let the fans know he was hustling at all times.” Robinson acknowledged Brown’s power and speed, and that he was at his best in big games. Still, he rated Brown a cut below Josh Gibson in terms of consistency and all-around play. He also questioned his throwing arm, which is at odds with other descriptions.10

In this vein, many stories describe how Brown often had his nose in a copy of Reader’s Digest while stationed in the outfield. Plenty of days, he would also seemingly be in a rush to get the game over with, and would swing at anything in sight. Once he homered on a pitch that came in on a bounce. Catcher Quincy Trouppe said, “Who knows? Brown may have been as great, or greater, than Gibson, if he had been a little more patient and waited for strikes.”11 Yet there was still something endearing about Brown, as author Joe Posnanski pointed when he skillfully retold these anecdotes. Mainly, it was how good he was when he was on.12 As various people have observed, including Buck O’Neil, Brown also made things look easy.

Brown’s career with the Monarchs was interrupted in 1940, when he went to play in Mexico. Author John Virtue described how it came about. That year, “two competing six-team leagues were formed [in Mexico], creating the need for twice as many players, so the Negro Leagues were raided as never before. During the season, 63 African American ballplayers played in Mexico, four times the number that had played in 1939. They represented about 20 percent of the rosters of the Negro American League and Negro National League teams — and they were among the best players.” The new league was formed by magnate Jorge Pasquel, who six years later tried to raid the major leagues.13 The money was good: Brown got $1,000 per month. He also developed his grasp of Spanish.

Business acquaintances of Pasquel in Nuevo Laredo formed the team that Brown joined. In 294 at-bats with the Tecolotes (Owls), Brown hit .354 with eight homers and 61 RBIs. To underscore the type of hitter he was, he drew just 10 walks but struck out only 15 times. According to Virtue, Brown decided to stay in Mexico at the beginning of 1941, declining an olive branch that the Negro Leagues owners extended to jumpers.14 Other sources indicate that Brown did not play south of the border that year, and that 1941 Mexican batting statistics with his name are actually those of pitcher Barney Brown.

In the winter of 1941-42, with numerous other Negro Leaguers on the scene, Brown’s Puerto Rican career began with Humacao. He played second base and batted .409 (50 for 122) with four homers and 26 RBIs. Despite this auspicious season, though, he would not return to the island for another five years. For at least one stretch, in 1943-44, he played in the California Winter League for the Kansas City Royals, a team that featured Satchel Paige among others.15

Brown entered the U.S. Army in 1944, serving in Europe at the height of World War II. “In the Army, Brown was among those in the five thousand ships that crossed the English Channel during the Normandy invasion. A member of the Quartermaster Corps, he was not in combat but was engaged in hauling ammunition and guarding prisoners.”16 He then transferred to Special Services. In France, former Phillies pitcher Sam Nahem got him to play for the OISE All-Stars, who represented Com-Z (Communications Zone) in the 1945 ETO World Series. This integrated team boasted another Negro League star and future Hall of Famer in Leon Day. They beat the 71st Division Red Circlers, which featured several major-leaguers, including Harry Walker and Ewell “The Whip” Blackwell.17

Returning to Kansas City in 1946, Brown had what some observers believe was his best season with the Monarchs. Although the patchy data make it difficult to underpin this idea, newspaper accounts give the impression that he was the top home run hitter in the NAL that year. He added three more homers in six games during the Colored World Series (yet the Newark Eagles won after Satchel Paige and Ted Strong jumped the team with two games remaining). Brown followed up with the first of his three Puerto Rican batting titles in 1946-47, joining the club where he would play his best, the Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers).

In July 1947, Brown got his shot at the majors, as the St. Louis Browns signed him and infielder Hank Thompson from the Monarchs for a reported $5,000 apiece.18 The Associated Press reported, “Owner Richard Muckerman of the Browns said the two players were signed ‘to help lift the Browns out of the American League cellar.’” The Brownies also had an option on another fine Negro Leaguer, Lorenzo “Piper” Davis. The AP article added that of all the African American players signed in the year of integration, including Jackie Robinson, “Outfielder Brown was considered to be the prize package of the lot, with only his age against him.”19

Janet Bruce’s book on the Monarchs noted that Brown was unhappy. “The first time they told me I was going to the Browns — I didn’t want to go to the Browns in the first place! I said, ‘No! I wasn’t going. But [the other players] just kept on, ‘Why don’t you go on, show them what you can do.’”20

Without any time at all to acclimate in the minors, however, Brown never really got on track in St. Louis (despite displaying his enormous power in batting practice). As has often been chronicled, the atmosphere around him was charged with racism. Alabaman outfielder Paul Lehner was the unfriendliest teammate; Philadelphia A’s coach Al Simmons reportedly was one of those riding Brown hard.21

Brown’s best game in the majors was his fifth, at Yankee Stadium on July 23. He went 4-for-5 and drove in three runs as the Browns won 8-2.

On August 13, Brown hit his only homer in the majors, and the first in the American League by a Black player. It was an inside-the-parker in the eighth inning off Detroit’s Hal Newhouser; the pinch-hit blow helped the Browns rally after losing a lead in the top of the inning. The aftermath of that homer has become more memorable. Brown had used a bat belonging to outfielder Jeff Heath, but upon Brown’s return to the dugout, Heath smashed the bat against the wall rather than allow Brown to use it again.

This has often been cited as a prime example of the racial animus that Brown (and Thompson) faced in St. Louis. No doubt the perception was awful, but it is notable that in 1965, Hank Thompson mentioned Heath as one of five Browns who “went out of their way to make life easier for me and Brown.”22 In addition, Heath had given a positive report on Brown’s ability because he had faced him as Bob Feller’s All-Stars faced Satchel Paige’s barnstorming squad in the fall of 1946.23 There is also an alternate explanation for Heath’s behavior. In his biography of Heath for the SABR BioProject, C. Paul Rogers III noted that Heath was a quirky, superstitious player who “was very particular about his bats and would not allow teammates to borrow them.” Further support for the absence of a racial motive came from Browns road secretary Charlie DeWitt after that season. DeWitt said, “He said he would not have minded if Brown got a single, but he had used up one of the bat’s home runs.”24 The oddity here was that Heath — who was also widely known for his hot temper — had discarded the bat because it had lost its knob. Brown liked it because it was the heaviest he could find — he favored 40-ounce clubs.

On August 23, Browns manager Muddy Ruel released both Brown and Hank Thompson (they rejoined the Monarchs, where the money was actually better). Ruel had told Baltimore Afro-American sportswriter Sam Lacy on August 6 that “a fair trial” — which even Ruel admitted he couldn’t truly define — was still in progress.25 According to owner Muckerman, he, general manager Bill DeWitt, and Ruel had held several conferences and concluded that Brown and Thompson lacked major-league talent.26

In Brown’s 1983 account, he said that he and Thompson, although they were dissatisfied, had a choice about whether to stay or go. He said he might have stayed if the club had given him what he asked for, such as bats he could swing with. Overall, he took a dim view of the club he had left. “The Browns couldn’t beat the Monarchs no kind of way, only if we was all asleep. That’s the truth. They didn’t have nothing. I said, ‘Major league team?’ They got to be kidding.”27

St. Louis had also harbored a vain hope that the Black players might spur attendance.28 Kansas City teammate Buck O’Neil further alleged in his book, “Another real problem was that the Browns were going to have to pay the Monarchs some more money if those two guys lasted out the season, so they just released them before the season ended. Willard was bitter, you can believe that. He knew that at twenty-eight [sic] he’d never get another crack at the big leagues.”29

During the winter of 1947-48, Brown felt that he had something to prove, and had a simply monstrous Triple Crown season. It may have been at this time that sportswriter Rafael Pont Flores coined the nickname Ese Hombre. Brown hit .432, the fourth-highest single-season mark in Puerto Rican Winter League history. His 27 homers remain far and away the most in one PRWL season; the runner-up is Reggie Jackson, who hit 20 in 1970-71. Finally, his 86 RBIs rank third on the single-season list — the best total being his own 97, set two winters later. Bear in mind that the PRWL schedule was just 60 games long and the caliber of competition was high.

Author Thomas Van Hyning, who chronicled the league and the Crabbers in two books, said that pitcher Rubén Gómez called Brown “the most dominant player he had ever played with, except for Willie Mays.” Van Hyning added the view of Poto Paniagua, who took over ownership of the Santurce club in the 1970s. Paniagua “affirmed that Willard Brown was the most productive import the Puerto Rico Winter League ever had. [He] told me that Brown would have been a big league superstar had he (Brown) been given a chance at a much younger age.”30

Brown returned to the Monarchs in 1948, pulling down a monthly salary of $600.31 About the following summer in Kansas City, Buck O’Neil later said, “The best club I ever managed was the 1949 team.” The team photo showed little Willard Jr. — the only child Ese Hombre had with his wife, Dorothy — posing in front of his father.32 Unfortunately, further details about this woman are presently unavailable. As Willard Jr.’s wife Mary recalled in 2010, Dorothy was some years older than Willard Sr. The marriage broke up when the boy was about nine years old.

The winter of 1949-50 saw Brown win his second Triple Crown in Puerto Rico, earning $200 in bonus money ($100 for the batting title and $50 apiece for the other two legs). He edged his teammate Bob Thurman, another powerful Negro Leaguer, for the batting title, .354 to .353. Brown and Thurman (known as El Múcaro, or The Owl, in Puerto Rico) formed “the most feared tandem in league history.”33

In February 1950, Brown batted .348 in the second Caribbean Series as a reinforcement for the PRWL champs, the Caguas Criollos. An article from early April showed that Brown had not reported to the Monarchs’ training camp in San Antonio, Texas. Instead, he was said to have signed to play in Venezuela.34 He joined the club Orange Victoria, a newly assembled squad taking part in the fifth season of pro baseball in Maracaibo in the state of Zulia. It included other prominent Negro Leaguers such as Ray Brown, Howard Easterling, and Wilmer Fields.35

After a couple of months or so, Willard Brown then returned to Kansas City.36 The Monarchs also featured 21-year-old Elston Howard.37 That July, Yankees scout Tom Greenwade came to check out Brown. Instead, Buck O’Neil said, “Willard’s a fine player. . .but Elston Howard is the player you’re looking for.”38 Brown’s reaction is not known and there are no available records of any action with the Monarchs that summer.

The following month, the Ottawa Nationals of the Border League (Class C) persuaded Brown to join them, although reportedly he was reluctant to travel that far north.39 The Montreal Gazette praised his play, saying, “Willard Brown. . .whom the Nationals secured from the Kansas City Monarchs last month, proved a big factor in Ottawa’s drive to the pennant. He hit at a .400 clip and saved several games through sensational fielding.”40 Including playoff action (the Nats lost the final in six games), Brown wound up hitting .352 in 128 at-bats across 30 games.

In February 1951, Santurce won the PRWL title and then went on to take the third annual Caribbean Series in Venezuela. Right around that time, a newspaper in Guadalajara, Mexico, El Informador, had a big headline announcing that Brown had accepted a contract with the local team, the Jalisco Charros. The manager was Quincy Trouppe.41 As late as April, a photo with fellow Negro Leaguers Max Manning, Bill Greason, and Trouppe indicated that Willard would be a Charro.42 Instead, after 11 years away, he returned briefly to Nuevo Laredo that month.43 He soon came back to Kansas City, however, winning the Negro American League batting title in 1951 with a .417 average, though by that point the level of play had dropped off sharply.

Ese Hombre also spent some time in the Dominican Republic in the summers of 1951 and 1952. Pro baseball had resumed there in 1951, but the league would not switch to the winter until 1955. With the Escogido Leones, Brown hit .253 with 17 RBIs in 1951, lifting those numbers to .301 and 28 the following year. One source says that Willard played for Cervecería Caracas in Venezuela in the winter of 1951-52.44 This does not appear to be the case, though, because The Sporting News showed him in Santurce at the beginning and end of the season, noting that he had been sidelined for a month with an ailing knee.45

The Crabbers won the PRWL title again in 1952-53 and thus went on to another Caribbean Series. They won their second double winter championship, going 6-0 thanks to MVP Brown’s four home runs and 13 RBIs. In three Caribbean Series overall, he hit .343 with five homers and 19 RBIs.46

Brown returned to the U.S. for the summers of 1953 through 1956, playing for various teams in the Texas League, plus a little bit in the Western League. Although the Texas League was only Double-A ball, he was still a potent hitter. His best output during this period came in 1954, when he had 35 homers and 120 RBIs while batting .314. In both 1953 (Dallas) and 1954 (Houston, where he played 36 games after 108 with Dallas), Brown’s clubs won the league championship.

Turning back to winter ball in Santurce, Brown’s last full season there was 1953-54, but he made a brief return in 1956-57, going 6 for 23. Ese Hombre finished his Puerto Rican career with a .350 batting average, the best in league history. His 101 home runs rank fourth all time behind Bob Thurman, José Cruz, and Elrod Hendricks; his 473 RBIs rank seventh. When the Puerto Rican Baseball Hall of Fame inducted its first class in October 1991, Brown was among the elite group of 10 players.

In the twilight of his career, Brown played in 1957 with the Minot Mallards of the Manitoba-Dakota (ManDak) League, which featured many old Negro Leaguers: He hit .307 with nine homers and 29 RBIs in 150 at-bats. Brown’s plaque in Cooperstown indicates that he played in the Negro Leagues in 1958. Indeed, an article in the Schenectady Gazette from July 1958 billed him as “the star of the Monarchs” once more as the “Kansas City” club (by then based in Grand Rapids, Michigan) visited Hawkins Stadium in Albany, New York.47 By this stage, though, the Negro American League was a lower-echelon barnstorming attraction.

After he finally retired from baseball, Brown made his home in Houston. Little information is available about his last three-plus decades. Although James Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues notes briefly that Brown worked in the steel industry, there is not much more to go on. Interviews with and about him during this period focused on the past rather than the present.

In mid-December 1979, Brown returned to Puerto Rico for an Old-Timer’s Day. He told local baseball man Luis Rodríguez Mayoral that the island “was where I was treated best.”48 Said Pedrín Zorrilla, who owned the Santurce Crabbers in Brown’s greatest days, “it was the man. . .the artist. . .it was those things [about him] that they cheered. He didn’t have to be Puerto Rican. The Puerto Ricans love baseball, and Willie Brown could play it, and by that very fact he became a brother to us.”49 Thomas Van Hyning offered still more detail about the deep affection that Brown and the boricua people shared.50

Willard Brown passed away on August 4, 1996, in Houston. He was 81, had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease since 1989, and had entered a Veteran’s Administration hospital in the early ’90s. A sketch about Brown in Volume 36 of Contemporary Black Biography said that he had previously slipped into poverty. His son Willard Jr. had died two years previously.

In his New Historical Baseball Abstract (2001), analyst Bill James likened Brown to one Hall of Famer, one who would go in later, and two other very potent sluggers. He said, “Maybe comparable to José Canseco, Juan González, André Dawson or Frank Robinson.”51 In February 2006, a voting committee of 12 historians specializing in Negro League and pre-Negro League baseball convened under former Commissioner Fay Vincent. They elected 17 candidates to Cooperstown, including 12 players and five executives. Among them was Willard Brown.

In 2007, Louisiana sportswriter Ted Lewis offered two quotes that summed up the choice well. “‘I don’t think he would have been surprised by being elected,’ said Mary Brown, who represented her late father-in-law in Cooperstown last summer.” Lewis also spoke to Dick Clark, co-chairman of SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee and a member of the Hall of Fame selection committee. “Brown’s credentials made his election an easy one. . . ‘Willard Brown was the preeminent right-handed slugger for the Negro American League throughout the ’40s,’ Clark said.”52

Acknowledgments

Continued thanks to Eric Costello for his additional research. Thanks also to Mrs. Mary Brown and SABR member Dwayne Isgrig. A question from SABR member Alan Cohen about Brown’s action in 1950 prompted an update to this biography in January 2024.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted:

1920 and 1930 census records, courtesy of www.ancestry.com

Interview with Willard Brown for the University of Kentucky Libraries A.B. Chandler Oral History Project. Conducted by William J. Marshall in South Point, Ohio, on June 22, 1983.

Negro Leagues Baseball e-Museum profile of Willard Brown (http://coe.ksu.edu/nlbemuseum/history/players/brownw.html)

Crescioni Benítez, José A. El Béisbol Profesional Boricua. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Aurora Comunicación Integral, Inc. (1997).

Bjarkman, Peter C. Diamonds Around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press (2005).

Treto Cisneros, Pedro, editor, Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano. Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V. (1998).

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

Cruz, Héctor J. El Béisbol Dominicano. Accessible online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/25085233/EL-BEISBOL-DOMINICANO-2

Sketch on Willard Brown with compilation of statistics from across his career, Western Canada Baseball website (http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/majorleaguers.html)

Willard Brown discussion on Baseball Think Factory website (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/willard_brown)

Swanton, Barry. The ManDak League. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (2006).

Henderson, Ashyia, editor. Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 36. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Group (2002).

Notes

1 Frederick G. Lieb, “Gates Rusting, Browns Rush in 2 Negro Players,” The Sporting News, July 23, 1947: 8.

2 Allie Brown obituary, Orlando Sentinel, July 14, 1986.

3 Interview with Willard Brown for the University of Kentucky Libraries A.B. Chandler Oral History Project. The interview (hereafter Marshall-Brown interview) was conducted by William J. Marshall in South Point, Ohio, on June 22, 1983.Allie Brown’s obituary also refers to Cleo as a daughter.

4 Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas (1985):, 27.

5 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers (1994). Paul Letlow, “The Monroe Monarchs.” Paul Letlow’s Louisiana Sports Shorts (http://louisianasportsshorts.blogspot.com/2009/06/monroe-monarchs.html), June 29, 2009.

6 Marshall-Brown interview.

7 Bruce: 26.

8 Riley.

9 Larry Lester and Sammy Miller, Black Baseball in Kansas City, Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing (2000):, 65.

10 Frazier Robinson with Paul Bauer, Catching Dreams, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press (1999): 54-55.

11 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, New York: Simon & Schuster (2001): 191.

12 Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball, New York: HarperCollins Publishers (2007): 107-108.

13 John Virtue, South of the Color Barrier, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (2008): 74, 76.

14 Virtue: 94.

15 William McNeil, The California Winter League, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., (2002): 213-214.

16 Riley.

17 Profile of Willard Brown, Baseball in Wartime, (http://www.baseballinwartime.com/player_biographies/brown_willard.htm)

18 Lieb.

19 “Browns Sign Two Negroes; Buy Option on Another,” Associated Press, July 18, 1947.

20 Bruce: 115.

21 “Lehner Kills AWOL Rumor, Was Only Visiting Doctor,” The Sporting News, July 30, 1947: 11. Rick Swaine, The Integration of Major League Baseball, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (2009):, 122.

22 Hank Thompson with Arnold Hano, “How I Wrecked My Life — How I Hope to Save It,” Sport, December 1965.

23 “Prospectus Q&A: Chris Wertz.” Baseball Prospectus, (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=11462), July 14, 2010. “Feller’s All-Stars Attract 148,200 in 15 Exhibitions,” The Sporting News, October 16, 1946: 23.

24 Gordon Cobbledick, “Premature Shower in Final Game of ’47 Proved Washout for Heath as a Brownie,” The Sporting News, December 17, 1947: 7.

25 Sam Lacy, “Looking ’em Over,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 6, 1947. Reprinted in Black Writers/Black Baseball, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company (2007): 22.

26 Ray Nelson, “More Negroes May Be Signed in Future,” Says Muckerman,” St. Louis Star & Times, August 25, 1947: 17.

27 Originally published in the Kansas City Star, unknown date, 1985.

28 Lieb.

29 Buck O’Neil with Steve Wulf and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time, New York: Simon & Schuster (1996): 183.

30 Thomas Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company (1999): 28.

31 Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press (2004): 463.

32 Lester and Miller: 52.

33 Van Hyning: 25, 32, 144. The “Owl” nickname referred to Thurman’s pitching performance in night games in 1947-48.

34 “Monarchs Start Drills at San Antonio; Willard Brown, Lefty LaMarque Absent,” Kansas City Call, April 7, 1950: 8.

35 Javier González and Carlos Figueroa Ruiz, El Vuelo de Las Águilas, Caracas, Venezuela: Banesco Banco Universal (2021): 101.

36 “Willard Brown Wins Friends in Ottawa,” ,” Kansas City Call, September 29, 1950: 8.

37 “Kaysee Monarchs to Launch Training Drills on April 1,” Washington Afro-American, March 21, 1950: 19.

38 Arlene Howard with Ralph Wimbish, Elston and Me, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press (2001): 22.

39 “Nats Using New Pitcher; Brown Due?” Ottawa Citizen, August 11, 1950: 14.

40 “Ottawa Nationals Win Border Title.” Montreal Gazette, September 9, 1950: 8.

41 “Willard ‘Home Run’ Brown Ha Sido Contratado por Jalisco,” El Informador (Guadalajara, Mexico), February 21, 1951: 1.

42 El Informador, April 11, 1951: 1.

43 El Informador, April 20, 1951: 6. Jorge Alarcón, “Crespo Wins 4 Straight in Mexican Loop,” The Sporting News, April 25, 1951: 32.

44 William F. McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (2007): 179. Note also that Brown is not listed in Venezuelan statistics.

45 Santiago Llorens, “Brown Goes on Hit Streak for Santurce,” The Sporting News, February 20, 1952: 27.

46 Thomas Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (1995): 142.

47 “Negro Teams in Hawkins Over Weekend,” Schenectady Gazette, July 5, 1958.

48 Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: 134.

49 Samuel Regalado, Viva Baseball!, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press (1998): 70.

50 Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League: 142.

51 James.

52 Ted Lewis, “Willard Brown’s Legacy Remains As Prominent Slugger.” Original publication may have been in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where Lewis was employed as sportswriter. Reposted on the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. blog, June 15, 2007. (http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2007/06/legend-of-willard-brown-forgotten.html)

Johnnie Dawson was born on November 8, 1915, to John and Lucy (Carter) Dawson in Flournoy, Louisiana, a small farming community in Caddo Parish, about 12 miles west of downtown Shreveport. Today, Flournoy is little more than a forlorn interchange on Interstate 20, but it was once part of the sprawling 950-acre Flournoy Plantation, established in 1836 by Tennessee-born Dr. Alfred Flournoy.1 Dawson’s paternal grandfather, Ned Dawson, a mulatto born into slavery in Georgia in 1856, was living in Flournoy as early as 1870, if not before. Ned Dawson was a farmer and landowner. He and his wife, Kitty (Jones) Dawson, had at least 13 children, one of whom was John Dawson, born in Flournoy in 1878. In 1899 John Dawson married Johnnie’s mother, Lucy Carter. During the 1920s, the Dawson and Carter families of Caddo Parrish were active in local and state-level agricultural activities including winning prizes for their crops (Bermuda grass hay, cowpea hay, peanut hay, and squash) and farm products (hams) at the Louisiana State Fair.2 When the oil boom hit northwestern Louisiana in the early 1900s, some of Ned Dawson’s land was leased to drillers.3

None of these accomplishments, however, translated into a stable home life for young Johnnie Dawson. From the start, his family was fractured and scattered. After his parents married in 1899, the family nearly vanished from the record: It was missing from the 1900, 1910, and 1920 Censuses. The only evidence that the family still existed lies in the records of three of their children, all born in Flournoy: Tom Edward Dawson, 1905; Kemp Dawson, 1914; and Johnnie Dawson, born in 1915; these identities have been extracted from marriage and military records. There are no US Census records to indicate that all three siblings ever lived together in the same household.

What happened to Johnnie Dawson’s parents between 1899 and his birth in 1915 is a mystery. The difficulty in researching Dawson’s early years is due to the lack of reliable records and newspaper articles. The overt racial bias of Shreveport-area newspapers resulted in a paucity of items related to African American life. For example, the Caucasian, a Shreveport newspaper founded after the Civil War, had an editorial policy that supported disenfranchisement of Blacks and promoted White supremacy.4 When an article about Caddo Parish’s Black population did appear in print, it usually related to criminal or other unsavory allegations. The Caucasian set the tone for journalism in Caddo Parish for decades to come. During Johnnie Dawson’s years in baseball, Shreveport newspapers largely ignored his accomplishments, as well as those of other African Americans, on and off the playing field.

Shortly after Johnnie Dawson’s birth in 1915, his parents parted company. In 1917 his mother married Franklin “Frank” Niles, a widower with at least two children. Frank and Lucy Niles expanded the household with three children (Johnnie Dawson’s half-siblings): Benjamin “Bennie” Niles, Andrew Niles, and Mattie M. Niles. Frank Niles died on June 10, 1922, at age 38, leaving the widowed Lucy Carter Dawson Niles to raise many dependents on her own. The complexities and uncertainties in his mother’s life and household may explain why Johnnie Dawson and his two brothers spent their childhoods living on farms with various uncles, aunts, and cousins in rural Caddo Parish. By the early 1930s, however, Johnnie and Kemp Dawson were spending more time in Shreveport. The brothers had a little too much time on their hands as evidenced by their arrests as alleged “dangerous and suspicious character[s],” for which they were fined $5 apiece.5

Dawson’s move from rural Caddo Parish to the city of Shreveport set the stage for the start of his baseball career. When Dawson took up the game, African American baseball teams had been playing in Shreveport for nearly 40 years. The first mention of such contests appeared in an article about a tilt between “two colored teams” from Shreveport in 1898, but it is likely that other games took place prior to that date.6 Probably the first Negro organized baseball team in Shreveport was the 1923 Black Gassers of the Negro Texas League, whose games were played at Gasser Park.7

Between 1934 and 1938, Dawson played on at least four teams including the Shreveport All-Stars, Shreveport Tigers (also known as the West End Tigers and Colored Tigers), Shreveport Colored Giants (also known as the Negro Giants), and the Shreveport Black Sports. Based on newspaper accounts of his early career in Shreveport, Dawson was a catcher from day one of his career.

The earliest record of Dawson’s baseball career came at the end of the 1934 season when he played for the Shreveport All-Stars in a series with the Monroe Monarchs for the “state championship.”8 The outcome of the series did not appear in either the Shreveport or Monroe newspapers. It is worth noting that Winfield “Gus” Welch, a mediocre player who hit his stride as a manager, skippered the All-Stars.9 Between 1941 and 1948, he managed the Birmingham Black Barons, the West All Stars, and the New York Cubans. Dawson started and ended his career as a professional baseball player with Welch in Shreveport and ended his career with Welch in Birmingham. Welch had an eye for talent and recruited future Kansas City Monarch Frank “Dick” Bradley out of a Bossier Parish cotton patch in 1935.10 At least one of Dawson’s teammates on the 1934 Shreveport All-Stars also had a professional baseball career: John Matthew “Johnny” Markham, who pitched nine seasons in the Negro Leagues between 1930 and 1945, including hitches with the Kansas City Monarchs, Monroe Monarchs, and the Black Barons.

Dawson’s career began in earnest in 1935 when he took the field as a catcher for the Shreveport Tigers.11 He spent three seasons with the Tigers, also known as the Queensboro Tigers and West End Tigers.12 Dawson’s Tigers had a successful season and the reputation as the champion Negro team in Shreveport and of “the Ark-La-Tex.”13 As the season ended in September, the Tigers’ record was 35 wins against five losses.14 In their last series of the year, they faced a familiar opponent, the barnstorming Shreveport Acme Giants, with manager Winfield Welch and Johnny Markham on the mound. The 1935 series ended in a tie and the rivalry continued into the spring of 1936 when the Giants claimed the city crown by nipping Dawson and his Shreveport Tigers, 7-6.15 One of Dawson’s future Monarchs teammates played for the Acme Giants when they did battle against the Shreveport Tigers in 1935 and 1936 – Hall of Famer Buck O’Neil.

The 1936 season ended for Dawson and the Shreveport Tigers as it did in 1935, with a game against Welch’s Acme Giants. The only difference was that in 1936 the final tilt was rained out rather than ending in a tie. Dawson had a good year in 1936, hitting game-winning home runs in games against the Black Mule Riders of Magnolia, Louisiana, in June, generating pivotal RBIs, and catching a no-hitter for the Tigers.16 His “heavy hitting pulled the locals out of a tight spot” against the Little Rock Black Tigers in August.17 The Tigers claimed the 1936 “Ark-La-Tex crown for colored teams” and the gate receipts with a win over the Black Tigers at Dixie Park in Shreveport.18

Dawson’s best year in baseball was 1937. He started the season with the Shreveport Tigers of the Negro Texas League, but finished with the barnstorming Shreveport Colored Giants (formerly the Acme Giants), a “farm team” for the Kansas City Monarchs.19 Coming off a 51-win 1936 season, the Tigers opened the 1937 season in April with an exhibition game at Dixie Park against the Kansas City Monarchs. The Monarchs were no strangers to Shreveport fans. They had played exhibition games against the Black Sports, a Shreveport nine, as early as 1929.20 The Monarchs, who used Shreveport as a pit stop before heading to Texas and Mexico, defeated the Tigers by a 12-4 score.21

While Dawson was enjoying his best year in baseball, his family life was less settled. His two brothers, Tom and Kemp, left Shreveport for the West Coast and settled in Los Angeles. They were just two of the thousands of African Americans who left Louisiana during the 1930s and 1940s as part of the Great Migration that bypassed industrial cities of the North for sunnier climes in California.22 In fact, Dawson’s mother and nearly all of his extended family left Shreveport for Los Angeles before 1945. Kemp Dawson, like his younger brother, was also an athlete, but he chose boxing over baseball. That may have been a practical matter of form following function. Unlike Johnnie, Kemp Dawson’s massive physique was more suited for combat than catching; according to his World War II draft card from 1940, he was 6-feet tall and weighed 281 pounds. Kemp Dawson’s portly profile earned him the nickname The Blimp in Los Angeles-area amateur boxing circles, and his pugilistic career was not one for the record books.23 In one of his early bouts in 1937, “it wasn’t 30 seconds before tubby Dawson had been deposited on the canvas.”24 One of Kemp’s final appearances in the ring was a cruelly “laughable heavyweight bout” during which his boxing trunks “split in the fore” and “Dawson was led from the ring with a towel draped midship.”25

Meanwhile, back in Shreveport, Johnnie Dawson was enjoying more success behind the plate than his brother experienced between the ropes. All that Johnnie needed now was a change of uniform. In March the Tigers announced that Dawson would return to his backstopping duties for the 1937 season.26 Dawson’s tenure with the Tigers was brief. It ended with an exhibition game against the Kansas City Monarchs at Dixie Park in Shreveport on April 11, 1937.27 As of May 1937, the Shreveport Tigers became the Shreveport Negro Giants or Colored Giants, a traveling team managed by Sam Crawford that played most of its games on the road in the Midwest and the West.28 For one such game, the Colored Giants crossed bats with the Giant Collegians of Piney Woods, Mississippi, on a diamond in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, that was billed as an exhibition by “two darkie ball clubs.”29 Shreveport was touted as a “farm team of the Kansas City Monarchs,” with a lineup that included Johnnie Dawson “behind the plate … hitting well over .300.”30

Dawson continued to display his power at the plate as the Shreveport Colored Giants traveled westward to Montana, Washington, and British Columbia. In British Columbia he hammered a homer while going 3-for-5 in a losing effort against the Chilliwack Cherries.31 In Lewiston, Washington, one young fan who came to see the Colored Giants play was so enthused by the experience that he “insisted on blacking his face when he went in the box to pitch for his sandlot team.”32 The press remarked, “But the weather in Lewiston has been a bit hot, he perspired freely, and before the game had gone far it was difficult to determine whether he was Johnson of the Colored Giants or Walter Johnson the Great.”33 If Dawson and his teammates expected less racism in the North, they were mistaken. The following week when they played a game in Laurel, Montana, a local newspaper referred to the Colored Giants as “big [n-word] … mowing everything before them.”34 In Billings, the locals invited Dawson and his Shreveport teammates to a “Dutch lunch” but with the expectation that they would perform for their meal including “entertainment with song and dance novelties.”35

It is likely that Dawson did not enjoy his “Dutch lunch.” By the time he left Montana in late July, he was on the disabled list. When the Shreveport Colored Giants arrived in Wisconsin for a tilt with New London’s Knapstein Brews, the local newspaper touted Dawson as “a hustler,” but the injured Dawson was not in the lineup.36 His next appearance came on August 21, when he played left field during a Shreveport’s 4-2 victory over the Cambridge Danes in Cambridge, Wisconsin.37 Although the nature of Dawson’s injury is unknown, whatever was ailing him took a toll on his power. During the game against the Danes, Dawson went hitless in four at-bats.38 He returned to his catching duties by early September when Shreveport played in a series of games in Iowa to cap off the 1937 season. With Dawson behind the plate, the Colored Giants defeated local nines in Storm Lake and Cedar Rapids. Shreveport’s final road game of the year resulted in a win over the Muscatine Indees “on a diamond in Conesville, Iowa, by a score of 5 to 3.”39 The Muscatine newspaper erroneously referred to the Shreveport squad as the Acme Colored Giants.40 The contest in Conesville was the featured event for the community’s annual Watermelon Day.41

Although 1937 started with a bang and was Dawson’s most productive year, it ended with a whimper. The injury he suffered in Montana in July neutralized his prowess at the plate and, for a time, sidelined him defensively as well Although the precise nature of his injury is unknown, it hindered his effectiveness. Dawson’s 1940 US Army draft card provides some possible insights. According to the document, Dawson’s distinguishing physical characteristics included a “scar on the left side of the forehead,” and a broken “right forefinger.” In any event, the cumulative effects from his injuries contributed to his decline. James A. Riley’s assessment of Dawson as having “an average arm but below average in other phases of the game” was true as far as Dawson’s Negro League career was concerned.42 His best days on the diamond were already mostly behind him by the time he signed with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1938.

Dawson returned to the Shreveport Colored Giants in the spring of 1938 and was off to a good start. In the first game of the year, he banged out a double as Shreveport defeated the reigning Negro National League champions, the Homestead Grays, 6-2.43 The victory was bittersweet as it was the swan song for the Shreveport Colored Giants. Within a week, they disbanded and reconstituted themselves as the Shreveport Black Sports, members of the Negro Texas League.44 The “Sports” moniker was a clever play on a common abbreviation for Shreveport – “S’port.” The Black Sports dubbed Dawson as their starting receiver.45 However, just as he was set to take up his mitt with the Sports, the Monarchs came calling.

Dawson made his debut in the major Negro Leagues with the Monarchs as he joined the Monarchs’ cadre of catchers that included starters Harry Else and Frank Duncan. Dawson’s first game with the Monarchs took place in Chicago on July 31, 1938, when he replaced Else in the lineup during a 7-2 loss to the Chicago American Giants.46 The next day the Monarchs traveled to Davenport, Iowa, for an exhibition tilt against the Illinois and Iowa All Stars before a crowd of about 800.47 The Monarchs dethroned the All Stars, 6-1, giving Dawson his first taste of victory in a Monarchs uniform, albeit in a nonleague game.48 It was not a sterling debut for Dawson given that he went 1-for-4 at the plate and was charged with two passed balls behind it.49 Dawson had two more appearances as a Monarch in 1938, but neither effort did much to merit promotion to starting catcher. He replaced Else in the top of the ninth during the second game of a doubleheader against the Indianapolis ABCs.50 The Monarchs won both games and Dawson’s only “contribution” was one passed ball in one half-inning of work.51 His final appearance was a rare starting role with the Monarchs in a 12-9 victory over the Birmingham Black Barons.52 For this, the final league game of the Monarchs’ season, Dawson reunited with his former batterymate from the Shreveport All Stars, Johnny Markham, who relieved starter John “Big Train” Jackson.53 After the game, the Monarchs left Alabama without Dawson as they headed out on a barnstorming tour.54

Out of a job with the Monarchs and back home in Shreveport, Dawson landed right back where he had started the year – catching for the Shreveport Black Sports. Returning with him were three fellow former Monarchs and Louisiana natives: pitcher Frank Bradley, outfielder Willie “Bill” Simms, and second baseman Willie Horne.55 The reunion lasted just one game, a season-ending contest against the Galveston Bucs, the outcome of which did not appear in the Shreveport newspapers.

Dawson did not play for a Negro League team in 1939. He spent the bulk of the baseball season with the traveling edition of the New Orleans Crescent Stars, former members of the defunct first edition of the Negro Southern League. Once more Dawson found himself managed by Winfield Welch. In late April, the Crescent Stars kicked off their 1939 campaign by barnstorming with Satchel Paige’s All-Stars through towns in east Texas, all within a hundred miles of Shreveport.56 The Crescent Stars’ Texas campaign concluded in city of Tyler, hometown of Negro League catcher and 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Louis Santop.57

After parting company with Paige’s All-Stars in June, Welch, Dawson, and the Crescent Stars headed to Canada for a tour with “Ham Olive’s Bearded House of Davidites.”58 The two teams spent most of the summer of 1939 in Canada and the Northern US. For Dawson, the higher latitudes did much to improve his baseball attitudes, and he was lauded as “one of the smartest catchers seen here in many a day.”59 In the Crescent Stars’ 7-3 victory over the Davidites in Calgary, Dawson “made several almost impossible catches and time and again drew the applause of fans.”60 He rediscovered his batting prowess of early 1937 and produced a .315 batting average with 10 home runs.61 Perhaps Dawson’s return to form was inspired by the company of two very different individuals with whom he shared the summer of 1939. The first was the Crescent Stars’ pitcher, Johnny Blackwell, a student-athlete at Fisk University and likely the first collegian Dawson encountered as a teammate.62 The second was Helen Stephens, who toured with the Davidites as the “famous Missouri girl athlete” and the holder of 14 “world, Olympic and Canadian records.”63 Stephens was more than just a sideshow act; during her remarkable life, she broke sporting records and societal barriers for women. Among her many accomplishments were earning a Gold Medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, playing professional women’s basketball, joining the US Marine Corps just after World War II, and charting a career for herself with the Defense Mapping Agency in St. Louis.64 That summer, Stephens, who was White, also performed track event exhibitions with Jesse Owens and the House of David aggregation as well as other Negro League teams such as the Pittsburgh Crawfords.65

Dawson capped off his 1939 season as a member of the South All-Stars in the Negro North-South game, held in early October at Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, though he did not play in the game.66 The South’s skipper, Winfield Welch, chose Larry “Iron Man” Brown of the Memphis Red Sox over Dawson to work behind the plate.67 Welch’s choice of catcher for the all-star tilt was of little significance, however, as the North All-Stars demolished the South All-Stars, 10-1.68 The following year, Dawson revisited this also-ran relationship when he crouched in Brown’s shadow for nearly the entire 1940 season with Memphis.

Although Dawson saw no action in the major Negro Leagues in 1939, he made up for it in 1940 when he played for two teams, the Chicago American Giants and the Memphis Red Sox. Something else that Dawson did twice in 1940 was to appear in census enumerations in two different cities. In April, a census taker counted Dawson as part of his mother’s household on Abbie Street in Shreveport. Two months later he was counted again, this time in Memphis, where he roomed with manager Ruben Jones and six of his Red Sox teammates, in a boarding house on Florida Street, just about a mile from Martin Park, the club’s home field. Dawson stated his occupation as a professional ball player on both occasions.

Dawson made his first appearance as a catcher for the Chicago American Giants during an exhibition junket through Arkansas and Tennessee.69 He jumped from the American Giants to the Memphis Red Sox by mid-May and remained with Memphis for the balance of the season. Dawson played in four league games for the Red Sox in place of starter Larry Brown, but he generated only a paltry .125 batting average. Conversely, Brown had a stellar year in 1940, with Cum Posey dubbing him as an “All American” catcher in the Pittsburgh Courier.70 Dawson did accomplish something of note that year; he earned his first nickname. In August, during a swing through the East Coast, a Red Bank, New Jersey, sportswriter tagged Dawson with the moniker Pepper Pot Dawson.71 The reporter gave no justification for naming Dawson after a type of an African-style soup that was popular in the Philadelphia area.72 Although baseball scribes assigned the nickname to describe the “peppery” play and banter of St. Louis Cardinal Johnny “Pepper” Martin, the name did not stick to Dawson.73 He finished the rest of his career without a catchy nickname, an unusual occurrence, especially in the Negro Leagues. One other thing that did not stick around was Dawson himself. Pepper Pot Dawson found himself in the soup about a week later when Memphis dropped him from its roster just before the team headed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in September to face the Homestead Grays for the deceptively billed “Negro World Series.”74

In October 1940, Dawson registered for the US Army with his local draft board. He was unemployed, living with his mother, and described as standing 6-feet-1 and weighing 176 pounds, with a scar on his forehead and a broken finger. Sometime later, Dawson’s home address on his Army document was edited to read “920 E. Ninth Street Kansas City,” Missouri.

Despite Dawson’s inclusion in a photograph of the 1941 Memphis Red Sox, he did not play for Memphis in 1941.75 When he first donned his catcher’s mask that year, it was as a member of Satchel Paige’s traveling all-stars. In June Dawson caught both games of a doubleheader for Paige’s amalgamation in Cincinnati against the Ethiopian Clowns, reported to have been Paige’s first-ever appearance in the Queen City.76 After splitting the twin bill with the Clowns at Crosley Field, Dawson and Paige’s All-Stars headed to South Bend, Indiana, where they edged the local Studebaker Athletics, 1-0.77 Paige tossed his usual three innings of work and Dawson went hitless in three plate appearances.78 Dawson and Paige’s nine returned to Cincinnati for another go at the Clowns with similar results – another split decision.79

After his stint with Paige’s traveling show, Dawson was signed by the Monarchs once again, though he did not appear in any official league games that season. Joe Greene was crowned as the Monarchs’ starting catcher and Dawson was shunted off to the Monarchs’ B-team barnstorming franchise. He spent most of the summer of 1941 bouncing around the backroads of Oregon and Montana with the House of David nine, under the tutelage of player-manager Walter “Newt” Joseph.80 It was a long and grueling slog. After a 14-0 massacre of the Eugene Athletics in July, a local sportswriter noted, “The tiring [Monarchs], who traveled over 400 miles by car in Oregon’s worst heat wave in years,” still managed to pound out 18 hits, one of which was an RBI contributed by Johnnie Dawson.81 By the end of July, his road trip was over. Dawson had managed a few bright moments at bat – a double here, and a homer there – but it was becoming clear that the sun was setting on his career as a professional baseball player.

In the spring of 1942, the Unites States was at war when Dawson left his mother’s house in Shreveport to return to Kansas City for his final season in Negro League basebal1. Dawson wore number 14 on his uniform that year and was one of four catchers on the Monarchs roster. He was the third-string catcher behind starters Joe Greene and Frank Duncan.82 Dawson appeared in nine league games with the Monarchs in 1942, and his abysmal .100 batting average kept him in a supporting role. A rare highlight for Dawson occurred in April, during an extra-inning game against the Homestead Grays at Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, when he hit a walk-off single that sent Monarchs center fielder Willard Brown across the plate in the bottom of the 10th to clinch the game for Kansas City, 5-4.83 Such moments were rare for Dawson, and overall it was a season to forget. In a battle against the Birmingham Black Barons in June, his frustrations boiled over and resulted in his ejection from the game for cursing the umpire.84 As the summer of 1942 progressed, Dawson wearily barnstormed across the Eastern US – including tilts against the Green Sox of Fremont, Ohio, and the Quakers of Scranton, Pennsylvania – the former described as a “listless battle” with the locals highly critical of his batterymate Satchel Paige’s “lackluster play.”85

Dawson’s final appearance in a league game for the Monarchs came on July 26, 1942, “Satchel Paige Day,” when he donned his mitt in relief of Duncan in a losing effort in the first half of a doubleheader against the Memphis Red Sox at Wrigley Field.86 Paige won the nightcap against Memphis, but Dawson was not in the lineup.87 His backstop work with Paige in Scranton a few days later was likely Dawson’s final appearance wearing number 14 for the Monarchs. He was listed as a possible starter for a Monarchs exhibition game against the Philadelphia Stars at Island Park Field in Harrisburg on August 12, but the weather intervened.88 In mid-August Monarchs manager Frank Duncan released Dawson from the Monarchs, thus denying him an opportunity to appear with the team in the 1942 Negro League World Series.89 Duncan made the move to make room for a new catcher, Frazier “Pep” Robinson, previously with the Baltimore Elite Giants, to replace Dawson as the backup to injured starting catcher, Joe Greene.90 Pep Robinson’s nickname had more to do with sarcasm than with the spiciness of a pepper pot. Robinson generally lacked pep and was also known as “Slow,” a nickname given to him by Paige.91 This was the “only lineup change that Duncan deemed necessary to get the Monarchs to another league and negro [sic] world championship.”92 As it turned out, Robinson did not add any more pep to the Monarchs than Dawson, and he saw little action after Greene returned to the lineup.93

After his mid-August release from the Monarchs, Dawson signed with the Black Barons. It is possible that Birmingham made the move because they were without the services of their regular catcher, Paul James Hardy, who was in Chicago to play in the East West All Star Game.94 Dawson’s old friend and mentor, Black Barons manager Winfield Welch, may have also facilitated Dawson’s merger after Birmingham lost eight players to military service.95 Dawson debuted with his new team on August 15, 1942, as the starting catcher in the first game of a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Buckeyes, which featured a “Jitterbug Contest.”96 Perhaps it was Dawson who was doing the jittering as another backup backstop for the Black Barons, Harry Barnes, relieved him of his duties.97 For Dawson, his stint with the Black Barons was like déjà vu all over again; once more, he found himself as the understudy to Paul Hardy.

Dawson’s tenure with the Black Barons was brief and unremarkable. Out of World Series contention, Birmingham spent the bulk of August and September barnstorming in the Midwest to capture as many gate receipts as possible. Box scores for such games were rare, making it difficult to determine Dawson’s contributions. In the waning days of the summer of 1942, Dawson was the starting catcher in a just a handful of games and saw some action in right field and at third base.98

In mid-September the Black Barons toured through Missouri and Indiana with the Ethiopian Clowns. Dawson was the starting catcher when the Clowns swept a doubleheader at Victory Field in Indianapolis, 3-1 and 7-4.99 His name last appeared in a line score as part of the battery for the Barons in an embarrassing 6-5 loss to the Clowns in Springfield, Illinois.100 The Barons and Clowns shared 10 errors and a meager payday from the gate receipts from the 300 fans who braved the bitterly cold weather.101 On September 22, 1942, they played the two final games of their road trip at City Stadium in St. Joseph, Missouri.102 It was a bizarre doubleheader in which the winner of the opener earned the right to play the nightcap against the Monarchs, who the night before had engaged in a controversial World Series game in which the Homestead Grays used ineligible players to defeat Kansas City, 4-1.103 The Black Barons earned the right to play the Monarchs after dispatching the Clowns, 7-2, and then vanquished Kansas City, the soon-to-be Negro League world champions, by a score of 5-0.104 With no box score to rely on, it is unclear if Dawson took the field for the Black Barons’ victory that night. The line score indicates that he was not the catcher for either contest, but, given the team’s bare-bones roster, it is possible that he took the field in some capacity. For Dawson, there may have been some element of satisfaction in defeating the Monarchs since they had released him right before their World Series run. However, there was little pride to be felt given that 10 errors were racked up and both teams’ lineups were so threadbare that the Black Barons’ 42-year old skipper, Winfield Welch, pitched the first game while the Monarchs manager, Frank Duncan, stepped in as Kansas City’s catcher for the nightcap.105 One local sportswriter was so appalled by the lack of effort that he claimed that the “Clowns were quite frank about not wanting to play the second game,” and that the “Barons were not carrying their advertised stars.”106 He accused the Clowns and Black Barons of being “interested only in grabbing their share of the gate and getting out of town.”107

By late September it was clear that Dawson and his Black Barons were running on fumes, due to players leaving the team to serve in the military. Even Birmingham’s bus went missing after an accident on an Indiana highway that totaled the vehicle and left the players no choice but to take a train back to Birmingham for their final homestand.108 Dawson and his teammates escaped the calamity uninjured.

The last game of the Black Barons’ 1942 season was against the Negro American League All-Stars. It was also the swan song for Dawson’s career in Negro League baseball. The game took place at Rickwood Field on Sunday, October 4, 1942, and the Black Barons defeated the All-Stars by a 6-3 score.109 Black Barons owner Tom Hayes promised the players a “generous portion of the gate receipts” that would serve as a year-end bonus.110 For some Birmingham baseball fans, however, the victory brought no joy to the Magic City. The criticisms voiced in St. Joseph, Missouri, regarding lackluster play followed the Black Barons to Birmingham. The event at Rickwood was dismissed by one columnist who reported that fans complained that the “teams were badly jumbled as far as the lineups were concerned, and it seemed as though it was just something thrown together to get the fans’ oney.”111

After this final debacle, Dawson and his Birmingham teammates “packed their respective grips and departed for their respective homes.”112 For Dawson, that meant using his bonus money for bus fare to return to his mother’s house on Abbie Street in Shreveport. Dawson had little downtime after arriving home. On January 24, 1943, he reported to his local Caddo Parish draft board. On February 3, 1943, Dawson enlisted as a private in the Army, and, according to his enlistment documents, he was 6-feet tall, weighed 173 pounds, and possessed a ninth-grade education. His occupation category was “Athletes, sports instructors, and sports officials”; however, after he joined the Army in 1943, Dawson would never again claim the title of “professional baseball player.”

During World War II, Dawson was stationed in Southern California, where he reunited with his brothers Tom and Kemp, who were living in Los Angeles. Tom and Kemp Dawson boarded in the household of another family from Shreveport. In fact, during the 1930s and 1940s, Los Angeles was such a popular destination for migrants from Caddo Parish that one neighborhood earned the name “Little Shreveport.”113 Dawson’s family contributed to this migration pattern. His mother, two brothers, and other close relatives left Shreveport during this era and settled mainly in South Central Los Angeles, in Little Shreveport. After his discharge from the Army on March 28, 1946, Dawson returned to civilian life, earning a living as a barber and, once again, playing baseball.114

Within 10 days of his discharge, Dawson was the new catcher and occasional outfielder for the Pacific Pipe Lines, also known as the Pacific Pipe Line Colored Stars.115 The team boasted a lineup consisting of players with “professional experience with strong Negro teams.”116 One of his new teammates was a familiar face – center fielder and fellow Shreveport native Willie “Bill” Simms, who played with Dawson and the Monarchs in 1942.117 The Pipes were not exactly smoking up the semipro leagues. In his debut with his new team in early April, Dawson went 2-for-4 at the plate, but his efforts were for naught as the Rosabell Plumbers drained the Pipes, 11-2.118 Dawson continued to play for the Pipes through June, when they lost to the San Pedro Merchants in a twin bill described as being “of the nightmarish type with errors, wild pitches, bases on balls and mental lapses occurring as frequently as clowns at a three ring circus.”119 Despite the Pipes’ poor performance, Dawson enjoyed a bit of a personal revival. He was a regular in the lineup and swatted a respectable .286.120 By the end of June, however, the Pipes disbanded. A few months later, Dawson joined the Al-Leaverenz All Stars, a semipro team in the newly formed Orange Belt Winter Baseball League.121 The A.L. Leaverenz Paving Company of Monrovia, California, sponsored the team; its name also appeared as Leverenz or Al-Leverenz.122

Dawson was a catcher and occasional outfielder for the Al-Leaverenz All Stars for two seasons. Many of his teammates were Negro League veterans including his manager, Nathaniel “Nate” Moreland, a former pitcher for the Monarchs and the Baltimore Elite Giants.123 But the sun was setting on Dawson’s baseball days. After the 1947 season ended for the All Stars, he married Lottie Mae Abner, a waitress, in Los Angeles, on October 15, 1947. The union did not last, and the couple had no children together.

Dawson’s career in semipro baseball effectively ended with his marriage. The Al-Leaverenz team folded before the 1948 season started and Dawson did not appear on the roster for other teams in the Orange Belt League. The only “Johnnie Dawson“ who continued to appear in the sports pages after 1947 was another Californian, Johnny Dawson, a notable amateur golf champion and professional golf-course designer.124

Little is known about Dawson’s personal life after this point, other than that he continued to live in the Los Angeles area until his death at the age of 69 on August 6, 1984. No death notices or obituaries appeared in any Los Angeles or Shreveport newspapers to mark his passing or the deaths of any of his immediate family members. Dawson died almost a year to the day after his brother Kemp Dawson died in San Francisco. His brother Tom died in 1976, one year after the death of their mother, Lucy Carter Dawson Niles. Johnnie Dawson is buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California, in a section devoted to military veterans. He is not the only member of the 1942 Kansas City Monarchs interred there. Monarchs third baseman Herb Souell, who died on July 12, 1978, rests with Dawson in the cemetery.

Sources

All Negro League statistics and records were taken from Seamheads.com unless otherwise indicated.

Ancestry.com was consulted for census, birth, death, marriage, military, and other public records.

Notes

1 “Old Homes of Greenwood Tell Story of Caddo Pioneers,” Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), December 13, 1925: 27.

2 “North and South Louisiana Share Awards to Negroes,” Shreveport Journal, October 25, 1923: 12; “Award Prizes to Negro Boys, Shreveport Times, November 7, 1926: 3; “Caddo Negroes Given Agricultural Awards,” Shreveport Journal, November 16, 1926: 16.

3 “Leasing Near Gulf Test Recorded,” Shreveport Times, September 24, 1936: 16; Henry Wiencek, “Bloody Caddo: Economic Change and Racial Continuity During Louisiana’s Oil Boom: 1896-1922,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association,” 60 (2019): 199-224.

4 Library of Congress, “About The Caucasian,” https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88064469/.

5 “3 Negroes Fined $100 for Having Untaxed Whiskey,” Shreveport Journal, January 15, 1935: 1.

6 Shreveport Journal, April 18, 1898: 4.

7 “Beaumont Blacks Open Season with Local Negro Club,” Shreveport Times, May 10, 1923: 8.

8 “Negro Teams in Baseball Game This Afternoon,” Shreveport Times, October 7, 1934: 16.

9 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), 825.

10 “Hall of Fame to Honor Two Local Negro League Stars,” Shreveport Times, July 24, 1991: 3B.

11 “Shreveport Negro Baseball Team in 22d Straight Win,” Shreveport Journal, July 22, 1935: 10.

12 “Negro Girl May Pitch in Contest Against Tigers,” Shreveport Times, July 10, 1935: 11; “Tigers to Play Indians of Hope, Arkansas Sunday,” Shreveport Times, July 18, 1935: 10.

13 “Acme Giants Won 107 Contests on Tour This Season,” Shreveport Times, September 28, 1935: 14.

14 “Acme Giants Won 107 Contests on Tour This Season.”

15 “One Bad Inning Costs Tigers Game with Acme Giants,” Shreveport Times, April 6, 1936: 9.

16 “Monroe Monarchs Play Tigers Twin Bill Here Sunday,” Shreveport Times, June 20, 1936: 15; “No-Hit Contest Features Twin Win by Tigers,” Shreveport Times, July 13, 1936: 12.

17 “Shreveport Negro Team Wins Two,” Shreveport Journal, August 17, 1936: 8.

18 “Local Negro Nine Wins Ark-La-Tex Baseball Laurels,” Shreveport Times, September 21, 1936: 9.

19 “Colored Teams to Clash Here Tonight,” Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin), June 5, 1937: 5.

20 “Black Sports Will Play Kansas City,” Shreveport Journal, March 29, 1929: 21.

21 “Monarchs Defeat Shreveport Nine Before Big Crowd,” Shreveport Times, April 12, 1937: 9.

22 Douglas Flamming, Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 48.

23 “Ralph Ring, Farrell Rematched [sic],” Progress Bulletin (Pomona, California), May 15, 1940: 10.

24 Eddie West, “Rattled Referee Gives Nod to Mendez, Wrong Fighter,” Santa Ana (California) Register, April 17, 1937: 6.

25 “Rematches Top Amateur Card,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1937: 28.

26 “Tigers to Usher in Season Today Against Houston,” Shreveport Times, March 28, 1937: 19.

27 “Leading Negro Teams to Meet at Dixie Park,” Shreveport Times, April 11, 1937: 24.

28 “A’s Defeated in Opener, 2-1,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, May 26, 1937: 21; “Albion Tigers Win in 10th on Squeeze Play,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), June 1, 1937: 14.

29 “Colored Teams to Clash Here Tonight,” Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, June 5, 1937: 5.

30 “Colored Teams to Clash Here Tonight.”

31 “Dark Boys Win and Lose to Cherries,” Chilliwack (British Columbia) Progress, July 7, 1937: 10.

32 “Sport Shots,” Chilliwack Progress, July 14, 1937: 10.

33 “Sport Shots.”

34 “Colored Giants to Play Laurel Team Thursday Evening,” Laurel (Montana) Lookout, July 28, 1937: 4.

35 “Gun Club Has Party,” Billings (Montana) Gazette, July 31, 1937: 10.

36 “Brews Will Meet Shreveport Team,” Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin), August 16, 1937: 16.

37 “Shreveport Tips Cambridge, 4-2,” Wisconsin State Journal, August 22, 1937: 9.

38 “Shreveport Tips Cambridge, 4-2.”

39 “Indies Win Two, Lose One Game Over Weekend,” Muscatine (Iowa) Journal, September 13, 1937: 6.

40 “Indies Win Two, Lose One Game Over Weekend.”

41 “Baseball,” Muscatine Journal, September 10, 1937: 10.

42 Riley, 222.

43 “Local Negro Nine Defeats Colored Big Loop Champs,” Shreveport Times, April 6, 1938: 12.

44 “Negroes to Open Season at League Park Here Sunday,” Shreveport Times, April 14, 1938: 13.

45 “Local Negro Club Will Put Spring Team in League,” Shreveport Times, April 15, 1938: 19.

46 “Giants Monarchs Split,” Chicago Tribune, August 1, 1938: 23.

47 “Colored Nine Gets 4 Runs in 1st Frame,” Daily Times (Davenport, Iowa), August 2, 1938: 12.

48 “Colored Nine Gets 4 Runs in 1st Frame.”

49 “Monarchs Win 6 to 1 Battle from All-Stars,” Quad City Times (Davenport, Iowa), August 2, 1938: 11.

50 “Two for the Monarchs,” Kansas City (Missouri) Times, August 15, 1938: 10

51 “Two for the Monarchs.”

52 “Second Half of League Race Ends in Dispute,” Chicago Defender, September 10, 1938: 8.

53 “Second Half of League Race Ends in Dispute.”

54 “Provide Fitting Setting for End of Ball Season in Lincoln, Nebr.,” Omaha Guide, September 24, 1938: 7; Riley, 255.

55 “Negro Teams Play for Southwest Baseball Title,” Shreveport Times, September 9, 1938: 14; “Galveston Negro Team Will Play Here Sunday,” Shreveport Times, September 16, 1938: 16.

56 “Famous Negro Baseball Team Be Here Soon,” Kilgore (Texas) News, April 30, 1939: 5; “Satchel Paige Brings All-Star Negro Nine Here,” Courier-Times (Tyler, Texas), April 30, 1939: 13; “Second Big-Time Negro Baseball Game Tuesday, News Messenger (Marshall, Texas), April 30, 1939: 5.

57 “Santop Honored in Cooperstown,” Morning Telegraph (Tyler, Texas), July 31, 2006: 23.

58 “Road Clubs in Action,” Star-Phoenix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), June 23, 1939: 15.

59 “Davidites Take Beating from Orleans Stars,” Calgary Herald, July 8, 1939: 7.

60 “Davidites Take Beating from Orleans Stars.”

61 “South Team for All-Star Negro Game Announced,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 28, 1939: 14.

62 “Road Clubs in Action,” Star-Phoenix, June 23, 1939: 15.

63 “Road Clubs in Action.”

64 Harry Levins, “Helen Stephens Dies at 75,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 18, 1994: 11-12.

65 “Jesse Owens to Compete Against Helen Stephens,” Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, August 17, 1939: 11: “Famous Girl Sprinter Billed at Parkway,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 31, 1939: 16.

66 “South Team for All-Star Negro Game Announced,” Times-Picayune, September 28, 1939: 14.

67 “South Team for All-Star Negro Game Announced.”

68 “North Swamps South in Negro Ball Game,” New Orleans States, October 2, 1939: 10.

69 “Chicago Has Big Inning,” Chicago Defender, May 11, 1940: 22; “Chicago, Memphis Divide,” Chicago Defender, May 11, 1940.

70 Cum Posey, “National Leaguers Dominate All-American,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 2, 1940: 17.

71 “Pirates Meet ’39 Negro Champs Tonight,” Red Bank (New Jersey) Daily Standard, August 6, 1940: 15.

72 Ron Avery, “A Soup Salutes Innard [sic] City,” Philadelphia Daily News, November 18, 1991: 6

73 “Pepper Martin May Be Traded, Hot Stovers Say,” Journal Times (Racine, Wisconsin), January 7, 1940: 7.

74 “Negro World Series Here,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Telegraph, September 11, 1940: 17.

75 “1941 Edition of the Memphis Red Sox,” Chicago Defender, June 7, 1941: 23.

76 “Negro Nines Divide Double Bill,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 9, 1941: 18.

77 Bob Overtaker, “Stars Defeat Studebakers by 1-0 Score,” South Bend Tribune, June 13, 1941: 1, 2.

78 Overtaker.

79 “Satch’s Team Splits with Clown Nine,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 21, 1941: 16.

80 “Ray T. Rocene, “Sports Jabs,” Missoulan (Missoula, Montana), June 22, 1941: 7; “Davids Annex First Game,” Billings Gazette, June 27, 1941: 10; “Davids Rally by Monarchs for Great Crowd,” Montana Standard (Butte), June 27, 1941: 10.

81 “Kansas City Monarchs Whitewash Eugene Athletics, 14-0,” Eugene (Oregon) Guard, July 15, 1941: 6.

82 Frank A. Young, “Bob Feller Joins Dean Game Against Paige,” Chicago Defender, May 23, 1942: 19.

83 “Kansas City Splits Even with Grays,” Chicago Defender, May 9, 1942: 21.

84 “Black Barons Split Double-Header with Kansas City Monarchs 12-2 and 5-4,” Weekly Review (Birmingham, Alabama), June 13, 1942: 7.

85 “Eighth Inning Miscue Gives Monarchs Unearned 7 to 5 Win,” Fremont (Ohio) News-Messenger, July 24, 1942: 9; “Monarchs Down Quaker Squad in Listless Battle,” Scranton Times-Tribune, August 1, 1942: 10.

86 “A Day for Satchel Paige,” Kansas City Star, July 27, 1942: 8.

87 “A Day for Satchel Paige.”

88 “Negro Tossers Play Here Tonight,” Harrisburg Evening News, August 12, 1942: 18; “Games Held Up,” Evening News, August 13, 1942: 18.

89 “New Catcher Will Show for Monarchs Tomorrow,” News-Press (St. Joseph, Missouri), August 23, 1942: 11; “Monarchs to Tangle with Loop Rivals Here Tonight,” St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette, August 24, 1942: 7.

90 “New Catcher Will Show for Monarchs Tomorrow”; Riley, 671.

91 Riley, 671, 672; “Paige’s Catcher Robinson Is Full of Stories of his Place in History,” Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen-Times, July 5, 1996: 38.

92 “New Catcher Will Show for Monarchs Tomorrow.”

93 Riley, 671.

94 “Black Barons Clash with Cincinnati Club in Sunday Twin Bill,” Birmingham News, August 14, 1942: 20.

95 “Black Barons Ready for Season’s Final Tilt with All-Stars,” Birmingham News, October 4, 1942: 45.

96 “Black Barons vs. Cincinnati Buckeyes,” Weekly Review (Birmingham, Alabama), August 15, 1942: 7.

97 “Birmingham Black Barons Trip Cincinnati 5-2, 3-0,” Jackson (Mississippi) Advocate, August 22, 1942: 8.

98 “Autos Humble Birmingham Black Barons by 8-2 Last Night,” News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan), August 27, 1942: 12.

99 “Ethiopian Clowns Trim Black Barons Twice,” Indianapolis Star, September 21, 1942: 18.

100 “Clowns Nose Out Back Barons, 6-5,” Illinois State Journal and Register (Springfield, Illinois), September 22, 1942: 10.

101 “Clowns Nose Out Back Barons, 6-5.”

102 Monarchs Lose,” St. Joseph Gazette, September 21, 1942: 5.

103 “Monarchs Lose.”

104 “Barons Defeat Two Opponents,” St. Joseph Gazette, September 23, 1942: 5.

105 Barons Defeat Two Opponents.”

106 Gene Sullivan, “Wise Owl,” St. Joseph News-Press, September 24, 1942: 15.

107 Sullivan.

108 “Barons Now Travel by Train as Bus Is Wrecked,” Birmingham News, September 26: 9.

109 “Black Barons Beat Major Leaguers, 6-3,” Birmingham News, October 5, 1942: 14.

110 “Negro American Loop All-Stars to Battle Black Barons Sunday,” Birmingham News, October 2, 1942: 28.

111 Jay Sims, “Round the Blocks,” Weekly Review (Birmingham), October 10, 1942: 7.

112 “Black Barons Beat Major Leaguers, 6-3.”

113 Douglas Flamming, Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 48.

114 State of California, Department of Public Health, Certificate of Registry of Marriage, October 16, 1947.

115 “Merchants Down Pacific Pipe 21-1,” News-Pilot (San Pedro, California), April 29, 1946: 10.

116 “Merchants to Face Strong Negro Nine,” News-Pilot, March 23, 1946: 8.

117 “Merchants Down Pacific Pipe 21-1.”

118 “Rosabell Wallops Pacific Pipe Line,” News-Star (Pasadena, California), April 7, 1946: 16.

119 “Merchants Triumph Twice, 11-10, 17-7,” News-Pilot, June 17, 1946: 5.

120 “Merchants to Face Soldiers, Negroes,” News-Pilot, May 29, 1946: 4.

121 “Merchants Enter Organ Belt Loop,” News-Pilot, October 11, 1946: 6.

122 “Monrovia Semipros Outhit Foe but Lose 4th Loop Tilt,” News-Post (Monrovia, California), December 23, 1946: 2.

123 Riley, 567.

124 Shav Glick, “Golfer and Course Builder Johnny Dawson Dies,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1986: 38.

William Dismukes was born on March 13, 1890, in Birmingham, Alabama.3 His father was likely Isaac Dismukes,4 a laborer, and his mother Sally, a laundress.5 According to the 1910 US Census, after the young pitcher had already left home, Isaac was working as a soft-drink retailer, and the children still at home were James, Vashti, and Lucille.6

Evidently the Dismukes family valued education, so William often stated he attended Talladega College in Alabama before taking up professional baseball.7 He actually dropped out of high school and attended Talladega for one-half a semester as a junior prep student. It is not clear whether he graduated from any college, but as he demonstrated throughout his life, he developed the gift of clear, cogent prose along the way. In 1908, though, at 17 years of age, William began his baseball career as a right-handed submarine pitcher for the East St. Louis Imperials.8

His baseball skill and mercenary approach took him to the Kentucky Unions in 1909,9 and briefly to the Indianapolis ABCs, for whom he pitched against C.I. Taylor’s Birmingham Giants in a late July barnstorming series in Indiana. Dismukes lost his game, 17-2, but he likely caught the eye of the Giants’ manager. The next year, the 20-year-old pitched briefly with the Minnesota Keystones and manager Irving Williams.10 That team, though largely overshadowed by the nearby and much more prestigious St. Paul Gophers, still had players like Topeka Jack Johnson, and the 1910 version featured future star pitcher Hurley McNair, as well as an aging outfielder named Bill Binga. Fourteen years earlier, Binga had been a starter for the legendary Adrian Page Fence Giants.

Later that year, Dismukes joined the powerful West Baden (Indiana) Sprudels, a resort team then led by newly relocated manager Charles Isham Taylor. While he worked during the day as a resort hotel waiter, it was with the Sprudels that the pitcher tossed what proved to be one of the most notable games of his career, the four-hitter in an exhibition against the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 10, 1911. In that game, played in West Baden, the Pirates were not at full strength. The team had arrived that morning after an all-night train ride from St. Louis, where they had lost a tough Sunday afternoon game to the Cardinals, 7-6. In West Baden the next day, Pirates manager Fred Clarke sat Honus Wagner, Chief Wilson, George Gibson, and pitcher Howie Kamnitz due to injuries, but players like Bill McKechnie and future Federal Leaguer Vin Campbell were in the losing team’s lineup. Infielder Bill Keen, from Oglethorpe, Georgia, managed the Bucs that afternoon, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted that he failed “to see anything humorous in defeat at the hands of a colored team.”11 In other words, while the Pirates may not have been at full strength, they were highly motivated to defeat their hosts, making Dismukes’ effort all the more impressive.

While Dismukes ultimately returned to Taylor’s teams, he hit the road and spent parts of 1912 with the St. Louis Giants, joined the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1913 and 1914, and played for the New York Lincoln Stars in 1914-1915.12 It was with the latter team that Dismukes enjoyed suiting up with the likes of Louis Santop and Spottswood Poles, and toured Cuba for Dismukes’ first trip out of the country.13 In 1915 he also made four appearances with Fé of the Cuban League.14 Some sources list a brief stint with the Philadelphia Giants (1913) in Dismukes’ vitae, but the statistics for his time there are not available.15

Dismukes returned to the C.I. Taylor-led ABCs in April 1915. In his nonbarnstorming appearances, he is credited with a 14-5 record in 188⅔ innings pitched.16 In his second start with Indianapolis, he threw a no-hitter against Rube Foster’s powerful Chicago Union Giants on May 9. In that game, Oscar Charleston homered and Bingo DeMoss singled and stole a base in Indianapolis’s 7-0 win.17 The following winter, Dismukes returned to Cuba, this time with San Francisco Park, but started only one game and made the rest of his appearances in relief.

In January 1916 Dismukes rejoined the ABCs in Palm Beach, Florida, where manager Taylor had taken them to represent the Royal Poinciana Hotel.18 Upon return to Indianapolis, Dismukes resumed his role as staff ace, posting a 2.73 earned-run average against a competitive slate of Western independent clubs that included the Chicago American Giants, the Cuban Stars West, Kansas City All Nations, and the St. Louis Giants. Dismukes routinely faced gifted hitters of the caliber of Cristobal Torriente, Pete Hill, Pop Lloyd and Bingo DeMoss, and he acquitted himself well throughout the season.

The real fireworks began after the end of the regular season. Rube Foster had been quick to tout his American Giants as the true champions of the world to any reporter who would listen, but Taylor’s ABC squad had defeated them often enough over the season that a “Colored Championship of the West” series between the two was necessary to crown the true champion.

After the ABCs dropped Game One to Chicago, C.I. Taylor started Dismukes in Game Two against Frank Wickware. It was, in short, a masterpiece. Wickware allowed only six hits and no earned runs, while Dismukes gave up only three hits and no runs at all. The ABCs won, 1-0, because of a rare error by shortstop John Henry “Pop” Lloyd. Indianapolis won Game Three, 9-0, and then Dismukes returned to the mound against Game One winner Tom Johnson. This time the ABCs prevailed, 8-2, as Dismukes scattered seven hits.19

After an offday for the teams, Dismukes was back on the hill and took the ball for Game Five. Fatigued after only one day of rest, he allowed two runs to cross in the first inning and gave up another run in the second, then settled in to allow only one more hit through the next seven frames. After he had left the game, Indianapolis exploded for seven runs on seven hits in the sixth and held on for a 12-8 win. The Indianapolis Freeman headline proclaimed: “A.B.C.’s WIN WORLD SERIES.”20

The 1917 season marked some regression for both Indianapolis and Dismukes, the latter managing a meager 2-5 record. The team suffered several key injuries, and even lost an exhibition to the Indianapolis Indians (of the organized American Association). After the season, the ABCs played a three-game set against white touring teams and took two of three against those squads. The next year Dismukes accepted an offer from the Dayton Marcos to be their player-manager, but the team managed only a 1-6 record under their novice skipper before Dismukes’ season ended early due to World War I.

Dismukes was assigned to the Army’s 809th Pioneer Infantry, almost immediately headed off to France, and ultimately was promoted to sergeant.21 The unit was not permitted into combat, as the Army was still feeling its collective way regarding units manned exclusively by black soldiers, but according to diaries of several participating soldiers, it was demanding duty. According to various accounts:

“The Negro Service of Supply men acquired a great reputation in the various activities to which they were assigned, especially for efficiency and celerity in unloading ships and supplies of every sort at the base ports. They were a marvel to the French and astonished not a few of the officers of our own army.”22

“During the 14-day voyage aboard the troop ship President Grant, about half of the 5000 men on board fell ill with ‘Spanish flu.’ They were from many regiments being posted to Europe. So many men died enroute that their bodies had to be buried at sea.”23

After surviving such a horrifying year, Dismukes returned to Dayton in a pitcher-only role for 1919. At some point in his career, Dismukes was tagged with the nickname “Dizzy.” It was certainly an ironic moniker, as he was regarded as one of the more cerebral and calm players of the time: “A college man, he was a smart, studious player with a wonderful memory and was a strategist. He knew a batter’s tendencies and would almost unerringly position his infielders where the batter would hit according to the pitches he was throwing. He had a variety of breaking pitches and was considered by some to be a ‘trick pitcher’ because of the way his breaking balls moved.”24 Dismukes was valuable enough, nickname notwithstanding, to return to Indianapolis for the 1920 season.

Turning 30 years old in 1920, Dismukes logged 187 innings in the new Negro National League, and the team enjoyed a winning record. Near the end of the 1921 season, he moved to the Pittsburgh Keystones as player-manager. The 1922 season in Pittsburgh proved important in Dismukes’ career and life: He was invited to contribute the occasional baseball column to the Pittsburgh Courier. Teaming with Homestead Grays owner Cumberland “Cum” Posey, Dismukes would opine on the state of the game and the level of play, and generally bridge the gap between newspaper-reading fans and the players on the field. In a 1930 example of his direct prose style and candor, Dismukes wrote:

“The crop of young catchers breaking into the game in the past ten years have been so poor that I can only find three, namely: Frank Duncan of the Kansas City Monarchs, Raleigh Mackey of Hillsdale, and Larry Brown of Memphis Red Sox showing enough skill to qualify in my selection of nine best catchers. Topping the list is none other than Bruce Petway. …”25

Dismukes continued to write his columns for many years, finally giving up the typewriter in order to work as a front-office executive for the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1940s.

He returned to the ABCs in as player-manager in 1923, following the sudden death of mentor C.I. Taylor. After leading the team to a 51-33 record in 1923, but only a 5-21 mark in 1924, Dismukes left in midseason to manage the Birmingham Black Barons. After a reported disagreement with Black Barons owner Joe Rush, Dismukes left again and finished the year with the Homestead Grays.26

Playing the role of a baseball nomad, Dismukes spent 1925 pitching for and managing the Memphis Red Sox, and spent 1926-27 at the helm of the St. Louis Stars. While there is no existing statistical record of Dismukes’ baseball life between 1928 and 1931, it is likely that he remained with St. Louis through 1929, then took over the Chicago American Giants after Rube Foster’s mental breakdown and death.27 He may have been out of baseball in 1931, or he may have managed the American Giants, but he definitely returned to the diamond as manager of the Detroit Wolves of the East-West League in 1932. He spent 1933 and 1934 managing the Columbus Blue Birds of the new Negro National League, returned to the American Giants in 1935, and to St. Louis for 1936 and 1937.

After a brief encore as the Birmingham Black Barons’ manager in 1938, the Atlanta Black Crackers in 1939, and the Homestead Grays in 1940, Dismukes was named to his final, interim managerial job with Kansas City after Newt Allen’s surprise resignation in 1942. He moved into the role of traveling secretary when Frank Duncan took over as player-manager during that memorable campaign.28 According to Monarchs legend Buck O’Neil, Dismukes was known for “his arbitration abilities with ball players and upper management, and had tremendous influence with his mannerisms on and off the field.”29  In 1944 he and Monarchs co-owner Tom Baird represented the team at a league meeting intended to name a new, joint Negro National and American League commissioner.30

Dismukes remained with the Monarchs’ front office as traveling secretary until 1951,31 but he had begun to work as a bird-dog scout for the New York Yankees starting in 1949.32  In 1953 the Yankees offered him a full-time job as a scout, focusing his search on the array of untapped talent that still existed in the Negro American League.33 Dismukes told Wendell Smith, his old friend and Pittsburgh Courier columnist, “It’s a good job, but not an easy one. You are constantly on the go, riding trains, planes, and even buses. There is plenty of competition, too. Every big league club has a squad of scouts. Sometimes you think you have a kid in the bag, ready for delivery. … Only to discover that one of the other fellows has snatched him from under your nose.”34

The move was significant, in that the Yankees still had not fielded a black player eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line for the crosstown rival Brooklyn Dodgers. Every move the Yankees made drew the attention of the writers, and they were beginning to wonder aloud when the club might add a Black player to their roster. Dismukes was brought in as an experienced former player and manager and judge of talent, but also as an educated man with a communications pedigree that included his national column with the Courier. Dismukes defended the team:

“The general public,” he said, “feels that the Yankees are against Negro players, and that makes it tough for me. Just recently I had a good Negro prospect lined up but lost him. A scout from another team came along and signed the boy after his father told him that the Yankees didn’t really want Negro players. … The people who have been critical of the Yankees have been most unfair. Just because they didn’t keep (Vic) Power and sent Howard to Toronto does not mean they are anti-Negro. I know that they are not adverse [sic] to Negro players. All they are looking for is the Yankee type of player, race or color does not matter.”35

The scouting job also proved to be the most lucrative in Dismukes’ career. He had never married, so the arduous road-wearying lifestyle was fine with him, and the $10,000 per year that he earned certainly made the effort worthwhile.36 Once the Yankees introduced Elston Howard as their first Black big leaguer in 1955, and began to populate their minor-league system with talented minority players at all levels, Dismukes moved on. He did some scouting for the Chicago White Sox,37 and returned to the field that same year,38 replacing Jelly Taylor as manager of the Kansas City Monarchs.39 After the 1958 season, Dizzy Dismukes hung up his spikes for good.

Over the next few years, Dismukes’ health began to falter, and in 1961 he moved in with his sister, Vashti Owens, at her home in Campbell, Ohio. He died on June 30, 1961. After an autopsy, the cause of death was listed as hardening of the arteries.40 He is buried at the Mount Hope Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Campbell, Ohio.

Last revised: September 10, 2023 (zp)

Sources

This biography relied on information culled from various archives of the Center for Negro League Baseball Research, Seamheads.com, and the Pittsburgh Courier, as well as several books on this era of the Negro Leagues (as identified in the notes). Jorge Figueredo’s summary Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 was the primary source for Dismukes’ time in Cuba.

Notes

1 Center for Negro League Baseball Research: cnlbr.org/Portals/0/RL/Negro%20League%20No-Hitters%202019-10.pdf Accessed July 11, 2020.

2 From the Pittsburgh Courier, cited on johndonaldson.bravehost.com/a.html, accessed July 10, 2020.

3 This date differs among Internet sources, some of which list his date of birth as March 15, 1890. Both Dismukes’ World War II draft registration card and his posthumous application for a veteran’s headstone, however, state that he was born on March 13, 1890.

4 There is no primary-source documentation linking Isaac and William, but the latter’s sister, Vashti, was the applicant for Dismukes’ veteran’s headstone. The only Vashti Dismukes in Birmingham, Alabama, between 1893 and 1920 was the daughter of Isaac Dismukes, so it is likely that Isaac was also Dizzy’s father.

5 1920 US Federal Census, Birmingham, Alabama. Accessed July 11, 2020.

6 1910 US Federal Census, Birmingham, Alabama. Accessed July 10, 2020.

7 Russ Cowan, “Teams Went ‘Pow, Pow, Pow,’ Until Ku Klux Klan Invaded Diamond,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 5, 1961: 37.

8 “Dizzy Started Back in 1908, Beat Pirates, 2-1, in 1911,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 5, 1961: 37.

9 From the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum biography of Dizzy Dizmukes. nlbemuseum.com/nlbemuseum/history/players/dismukes.html. Accessed July 12, 2020. It is possible that the Kentucky Unions were formed after the collapse of the more prominent Louisville Unions in 1908, but beyond the archives at the Kansas State University College of Education and James Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), there is little primary source material corroborating the team’s existence or roster.

10 Todd Peterson, Early Black Baseball in Minnesota (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2010), 145.

11 C.B. Power, “Pirates Beaten, 2 to 1, by Colored Sprudels,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 1911: 9.

12 Unless otherwise noted, the statistical references in this essay are all drawn from Seamheads.com, seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=dismu01diz. Accessed most recently July 17, 2020. 

13 Eduardo Servero Nieto Misas, Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2008), 116.

14 Jorge Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003), 114.

15 Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) biography of Dizzy Dizmukes. nlbemuseum.com/nlbemuseum/history/players/dismukes.html. Accessed July 12, 2020. 

16 seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=dismu01diz.

17 “Dismukes Hurls No-Hit Shutout,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 15, 1915.

18 According to the Center for Negro League Baseball Research, “The Florida Hotel League, or the Coconut League as it was sometimes called, was a two-team league in Florida that was comprised of all-Black baseball teams representing the Breakers Hotel and the Royal Poinciana. … During the winter Black ball players would travel to Florida and take jobs as bellmen, porters, cooks, dishwashers and wait staff personnel in the restaurants of the big resort hotels. … Management … would form baseball teams and games would be scheduled for the entertainment of the hotel guests.” From Layton Revel and Luis Munoz’s monograph Forgotten Heroes: Charles Isham “C.I.” Taylor, 1916. nlbemuseum.com/nlbemuseum/history/players/taylorc.html.

19 Revel and Munoz, 17-18.

20 “A.B.C.s Win World Series,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1916, also cited by Paul Debono in his book The Indianapolis ABCs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 1997), 69.

21 It is often cited that he served in the 803rd Pioneer Infantry during the war. According to his application for a federal headstone or grave marker (DD Form 1330, submitted and verified July 2, 1961, he enlisted on August 22, 1918, and was discharged on August 2, 1919. He served in Company A, 809th Pioneer Infantry.

22 W. Allison Sweeney, History of the American Negro in the Great World War. gutenberg.org/files/16598/16598-h/16598-h.htm. Accessed July 13, 2020.

23 Global Security archives. globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/ap.htm. Accessed June 12, 2020.

24 NLBM biography: Dizzy Dizmukes.

25 “Dizzy” Dismukes, “Petway Rated Greatest Thrower and Johnson Best Receiver by Dismukes,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 1, 1930: 14.

26 “Dismukes Leaves Black Barons; May Hook Up with Grays,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 23, 1924: 12.

27 NLBM biography: Dizzy Dizmukes.

28 “Newt Allen Quits KayCee,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 4, 1942: 17; Dick Clark and Larry Lester The Negro Leagues Book (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 1994), 133; Wendell Smith, “Smitty’s Sports-Spurts,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 10, 1942: 17.

29 Larry Lester, The Negro Leagues Book, Volume 2 (Kansas City, Missouri: Noir-Tech Research, Inc., 2020), 172.

30 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2016), 136.

31 Buck O’Neil, I Was Right on Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 181-184.

32 Young, 174.

33 Wendell Smith, “Wendell Smith’s Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 4, 1954: 22.

34 Smith, September 4, 1954.

35 Smith, September 4, 1954.

36 “Dismukes Was the Original ‘Dizzy’ of Baseball,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 15, 1961: 56.

37 NLBM biography: Dizzy Dizmukes.

38 Young, 181.

39 Kansas City Times, July 25, 1957: 18.

40 “Dizzy Dismukes, ABC Pitcher, Dies,” Indianapolis Recorder, July 1, 1961: 11; “William Dismukes,” findagrave.com/memorial/96698303/william-dismukes. Accessed June 12, 2020.

“When I lost Frank I lost one of my best friends. Baseball lost one of its best managers. He was one of the best catchers we ever saw.” — Buck O’Neil1

Frank Duncan’s legendary Negro League career lasted 27 years and his unquenchable zest for life was etched across each and every one of them. A consummate winner, Duncan captured titles all over the world as a dominant defensive force behind the plate and later as a well-respected manager. Monarchs star pitcher William Bell said of his well-traveled teammate: “Dunk was an excellent catcher. Every owner wanted him. He played in nearly as many places as Hamlet: The Philippines, Japan, Hawaii, Cuba, South America and North America.”2 It’s true Frank Duncan never shied away from a challenge, but wherever his travels took him, all roads eventually led back to his hometown, Kansas City, and his beloved Monarchs. 

Frank Lee Duncan Jr. was born on February 14, 1901, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was the only child of Frank Duncan Sr. and Elizabeth Hansberg.3 Duncan Sr. was born on June 3, 1872, in Warrensburg, Missouri, seven years after the end of the Civil War.4 He was well known as a coal and block-ice salesman and the 1940 census lists his occupation as peddler.5 Elizabeth was born in Virginia in 1865 and referred to herself as a homemaker in the 1930 census. They were married until 1941, when Elizabeth, sometimes referred to as Lizzie, died. Duncan Sr. died on May 26, 1954, at the age of 81.

Duncan grew up in Kansas City playing sandlot baseball with childhood friends and fellow future Negro League standouts, Newt Allen and Rube Curry. Newt talked about their early days together: “Frank Duncan and I were boys together on the Paseo at 17th St. We were in the same school together, lived in the same neighborhood for years, and we were friends throughout our childhood days. Another fellow with us was Rube Curry. He and Frank Duncan lived almost next door to one another. We used to play sandlot ball in school. We’d put in 20 cents apiece and the winner take the pot.”6

Duncan and his buddies went to Lincoln High School, an exemplary African American school that fought hard to give its students an education that produced more than just trade laborers. Roy Wilkins, a reporter for the Kansas City Call, explained, “The black schools in Kansas City were much better than they had any right to be, partly because they were full of talented teachers who would have been teaching in college had they been white, and partly because Negro parents and children simply refused to be licked by segregation.”7

It was at Lincoln High School that Duncan met his first wife, Julia Lee.8 Julia’s older brother, George E. Lee, fronted one of the most popular jazz bands in Kansas City in the 1920s and early ’30s, George E. Lee’s Novelty Singing Orchestra. Duncan occasionally drove the bus for a rival Kansas City jazz band, the Bennie Moten Orchestra.9 Julia soon followed in her brother’s footsteps by becoming one of the most popular jazz and blues vocalists of the time. She was a true pioneer and the first Kansas City jazz artist to record. She was known as the “Princess of the Boogie Woogie” and her hits included “Come On Over to My House Baby,” “Snatch and Grab It,” and, “Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got.”10 Frank carried an empty instrument case, sat in the orchestra pit, and pretended to be a musician in order to watch her perform at the all-White music halls.11 Seventeen-year-old Julia and 18-year-old Frank were married on September 27, 1919.12 Less than a year later, on June 1, 1920, Frank III, their only son, was born.

It was about this time that Duncan hooked up with a local team known as Floyd “Baby” Webb’s teenage Kansas City Tigers.13 The Tigers traveled around Kansas City and the Midwest and featured five players besides Duncan who made it to the Negro Leagues: Henry “Dimp” Miller, Herlen Ragland, Eddie “Pee Wee” Dwight, Roosevelt “Chappie” Gray, and Duncan’s childhood pal, Rube Curry.14

Duncan was playing for the Swift Packing House in St. Joseph, Missouri, when he received his big break. As he recalled, “[It was] Easter Sunday 1920, the snow was that deep. Joe Greene’s Chicago Giants sent me $20 for a ticket to Chicago, so I jumped on the freight train and came on to Chicago, and I felt just like I was gong to the New York Yankees.”15 Duncan had the chance to catch thanks to slugger John Beckwith’s move to shortstop.16 He appeared in 20 games but started off slowly, hitting just .161 in 62 at-bats.

At some point after his arrival in Chicago, Duncan ran into the father of the Negro National League, Rube Foster. Duncan recalled their conversation. “He said, ‘You a ball player?’ I said, Yeah, I think so. I can catch. He said, ‘You think you can catch like Petway?’ I said, Not now, but one of these days I will. Later on I reminded him of what I said. He said, ‘You stuck to your word.’”17

After another slow start for the 1921 Giants, Duncan was traded to his hometown Kansas City Monarchs. Owner J.L. Wilkinson was looking for a catcher, and although Duncan wasn’t hitting much, he was gaining a reputation for his abilities behind the plate. Wilkinson sent first baseman Lemuel “Hawk” Hawkins, catcher Jay Bird Ray, and $1,000 to the Chicago Giants for Duncan.18 By June, Duncan was being hailed as the find of the 1921 season by the Kansas City Star.19 Duncan was home, and he spent the bulk of his lengthy career with the mighty Kansas City Monarchs.

Duncan settled in nicely with his new team to close out the 1921 season, hitting .281 and solidifying the catcher position for the steadily improving Monarchs. The team finished second to Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants and featured future Hall of Famers Bullet Joe Rogan and José Mendéz. This was the beginning of one of the most successful batteries in baseball history as Duncan and Rogan worked together for more than 200 wins.20 Duncan often spoke of Rogan’s fastball: “I’ll tell you how fast Rogan was. I used to buy two steaks before the game when he was going to pitch. You could buy a steak in those days for 10 cents. I’d start the game catching Joe in the first inning with that steak next to my gloved hand. After five innings the steak would be beaten to shreds. So I’d replace it with a second steak.”21 New York Giants manager John McGraw is said to have made this remark about the duo: “I would have given almost any sum if it were possible for the battery of Rogan and Duncan to perform in the major leagues and it’s likely they have gone down in baseball history as one of the finest.”22

The 1922 season brought the Monarchs even closer to their top rival and the class of the league, the Chicago American Giants. The Giants won the first three titles in the newly formed Negro National League, but Kansas City was closing ground, edged out by percentage points, .607 to .603. The Monarchs shared a ballpark with the local White minor-league team, the Kansas City Blues, in those days and played their games there when the Blues were on the road. The Blues were led by star shortstop Glenn Wright and had one of the best teams in the American Association, winning the league championship the very next year in 1923. The battle for Kansas City took place in early October of 1922 and the Monarchs thoroughly dismantled their White rivals, five games to one. The Kansas City Star crowned the Monarchs “The New City Champions.”23 Duncan caught all six games and hit a robust .346 in 26 at-bats. The Monarchs certainly proved they belonged on the field with their White counterparts, so much so that the commissioner of the American Association banned its teams from playing against Negro League squads after this thrashing.24 Wright later became a scout for the Boston Red Sox and must have recalled Duncan’s exploits when he on one occasion proclaimed, “I wish I could find a catcher like Frank Duncan.”25

In February of 1923 the Monarchs traveled to Hot Springs, Arkansas, a popular spring-training destination for ballclubs, to train with White major leaguers. Quincy Gilmore, secretary for the Monarchs, told the Kansas City Call, “Oh boy, what a time there will be in that burg when Babe Ruth, Frank Duncan, Carl Mays, Bob Meusel, Bullet Rogan, Waite Hoyt, Bill Gisentaner, Heinie Groh, Tris Speaker, Dobie Moore, Grover Alexander, Hurley McNair, and a few more of the countries’ great stars meet and talk over the great pastime.”26 This was just the beginning of a very eventful year for Duncan.

It is not known exactly when Duncan and Julia Lee were divorced, but it was probably around this time. Duncan had a daughter named Armeda who was born in 1923 in Illinois and the mother was listed as being from Texas, which ruled out Julia as the mother. Duncan was listed as single and living in Kansas City with his parents and Armeda, then 7, in the 1930 census, and Julia had remarried in 1927.27 Duncan and Julia remained friends until her death in 1958.28

Newt Allen was now a full-time member of the Monarchs, joining Rube Curry and Duncan in a reunion that would have been hard for them to imagine as children playing on the sandlots of Kansas City. At the end of Duncan’s career, he reminisced about sharing a field with his friend: “I have watched Newt play for over 20 years and I still get a thrill when I know he’s going to put on that uniform.”29 In addition to the hometown trio, the team featured a who’s who of Negro League greats including Hurley McNair, Heavy Johnson, Bullet Rogan, José Mendéz, and William Bell. It was no surprise that they finally outplayed the Chicago American Giants and captured the Negro National League championship by 3½ games in 1923.

After a train ride to Key West, Florida, and a 90-mile boat trip to Havana, Duncan found himself in Cuba for the first time, playing for the Santa Clara Leopardos during the 1923-24 winter season.30 Many Cubans consider this Santa Clara squad to be the greatest team in the island’s history and they won the pennant by 11½ games. Duncan was joined by Monarchs teammates Curry and Mendéz, and the team was bolstered by superstars Oscar Charleston and Oliver “Ghost” Marcelle.31 Duncan hit .331 in 133 at-bats while the team as a whole hit .329 in winning 36 out of 47 games. After the regular winter season, the Leopardos entered the highly competitive Grand Winter Championship in Cuba and barely edged out the team from Habana by a half-game to win a second title.

The Monarchs kept rolling in 1924 with an imposing 57-22 record that enabled them to finish five games clear of the always competitive Chicago American Giants. Duncan was now a star; the Chicago Defender noted: “A tall, thin kid full of pep, [he is] the greatest catcher in the game.”32 The accolades did not stop there as teammates and opponents chimed in. Chicago Americans Giant Saul Davis proclaimed Duncan “a hard worker behind the plate, the best catcher I ever seen. A sweetheart of a catcher. He had better catching skills than the great Josh Gibson.”33 Cool Papa Bell said, “To this day Frank was one of the greatest catchers ever. He could throw. You had to get a better lead on the pitcher with Frank behind the plate. If you didn’t, you might as well turn right around and go back to first. Nobody could hardly beat him at throwing.”34 Duncan had this to say about his own defensive prowess. “I didn’t let them other fellows catch. They could outhit me, but they couldn’t outcatch me, none of them. I’m not bragging, it’s just facts. I don’t remember dropping five popups in 20 years.”35

The first Negro League World Series was organized and played in 1924, and the Monarchs earned a spot with their first-place finish in the Negro National League. Their opponent was the Hilldale Club, champion of the Eastern Colored League. These were two evenly matched teams at the height of their powers and it took 10 games to decide a champion.

Things looked bleak for the Monarchs when they were down three games to one after five games (Game Three was called because of darkness after 13 innings with the score tied.) Kansas City roared back to win Games Six and Seven, evening the series at three games apiece. This set up a pivotal Game Eight and set the stage for one of Duncan’s early career highlights. He was having a disappointing series so far, with three hits in 29 at-bats, and he came up in the bottom of the ninth with his team trailing, 2-1, with two outs and the bases loaded. Manager José Mendéz considered pinch-hitting for the struggling catcher but decided to leave him in to face his childhood pal, Rube Curry. Curry had jumped ship the previous season and was having a fine series for Hilldale.36 Duncan described what happened next: “I swung and the ball went straight up in the air over catcher Santop’s head. It was an easy out. I was disgusted as I watched him maneuver around rather steadily as the high foul started earthward. He dropped it! I had another chance. Fully confident, I got set up again and up came one to my liking and out went a sharp single to left center scoring the tying and winning run.”37 The crowd poured onto the field and hoisted Duncan onto their shoulders in celebration.38 The 35-year-old Louis Santop faded dramatically after this miscue, playing two more seasons as a backup for Hilldale before closing the book on his illustrious career.

The Monarchs cut their celebration short since they still had to win one more contest. Game Nine was won by Hilldale with a masterful pitching performance turned in by ace lefty Nip Winters; it was his third win of the series. After all the previous drama, the 10th and final game was a bit anticlimatic. Manager Mendéz took the ball himself and shut out Hilldale, 5-0, for the series win.39 Frank Duncan and the Kansas City Monarchs had won the first Negro League World Series.

In what was almost a carbon copy of the previous regular season, the Monarchs and Hilldale finished the 1925 regular season atop their respective divisions. Before the two clubs could meet in the second World Series, the Monarchs had to get past Cool Papa Bell and the St. Louis Stars. It was a tight seven-game series, and thanks to three complete-game victories by Bullet Joe Rogan, the Monarchs came out on top to set up a World Series rematch. This matchup lacked the suspense of the previous years, as Kansas City was steamrolled by the Hilldale Club, five games to one. Duncan toiled, going 3-for-21 at the plate, and the team hit only .216 in the six contests. Duncan’s old buddy, Rube Curry, came back to bite them, going 2-0 with two complete games and a 1.29 ERA for the champions.

Duncan’s competitive nature occasionally got him into scraps, and none was bigger than the infamous brawl that took place in Chicago on May 10, 1925, against their bitter rivals, the Chicago American Giants. Duncan’s teammate Dink Mothell described the melee:

“We had a big fight in Chicago. Frank Duncan slid into John Hines, and I think he tore his chest protector off. Bingo DeMoss was manager of Chicago. Bingo grabbed Duncan, and Duncan grabbed Bingo. Bingo says, ‘You turn me loose!’ Dunk said, ‘You turn me loose!’ Well they kept rasslin’ around there, and four or five policemen came out on the field. Naturally each ball club was trying to give its player protection. I believe they were colored police, some in uniform, some with plain clothes. This policeman walked up behind Duncan and hit him in the head with the butt of his pistol or a black jack, and knocked him out. Then Jelly Gardner kicked him in the mouth with his spikes. Well, that started everybody swinging at one another.40

“Duncan would do anything to win and Buck O’Neil probably described it best when he said that Duncan was: ‘Mean on the field and sweet off it.’”41

Winning had become commonplace for the Monarchs and 1926 was no different as they finished the year with a 60-22 record. Although they had the better overall record, the Monarchs were forced to play the Chicago American Giants in the Negro National League Championship Series to determine which team would advance to the World Series. The Monarchs had won the first half of the season, but the American Giants edged them out in the second half to set up this playoff. Duncan managed only three hits in 18 at-bats, but he walked seven times for a respectable .400 on-base-percentage. It was not enough, however, as Kansas City dropped the series, five games to four. The Chicago American Giants went on to capture their first World Series title with a five games to four victory over the Eastern Colored League champion Atlantic City Bacharach Giants.

In October of 1926 Duncan joined an all-star squad of players calling themselves the Philadelphia Royal Giants and competed in the California Winter League. His teammates included Turkey Stearnes, Willie Wells, Joe Rogan, Rap Dixon, Newt Allen, and Willie Foster. They made quick work of the league and took the title with a 26-11-1 record. Duncan played well, hitting .276 in 24 games.42 It marked a triumphant winter, but the next move that the team made jeopardized their careers as Negro League players.

In Duncan’s own words:

“In the spring of 1927, I joined the Japan tour team and went to Japan, and we boarded the big Japanese steamship from San Pedro, California, and headed to Yokohama. It took us 19 days. The people were the most wonderful people I ever came in contact with. I loved them, I hated to see them go to war. We played all over, Osaka, Kobe, on into Nagasaki. They had some pretty nice teams, they weren’t strong hitters but pretty good fielders and base runners, and they had some pretty nice looking pitchers. But we didn’t lose any games.”43

The Giants quickly gained the respect of the Japanese players and fans and were referred to as the gentle black giants. Their skills were far superior to those of their opponents, but they never showboated or ran up scores. Duncan and fellow catcher Biz Mackey happily coached the Japanese players on the finer points of the game.44 Duncan played first base and led off; as a 26-year-old, before years of catching took his knees, he was timed circling the bases in 15 seconds flat.45

This goodwill tour was perhaps the inspiration for the inception of professional baseball in Japan, not the 1934 major-league tour as is often given credit. Unlike the Giants, the White major leaguers often disrespected and insulted their Japanese opponents. Babe Ruth took to the field holding an umbrella in a game played in the rain while Lou Gehrig played left field in rubber boots as Al Simmons sprawled on the field during play.46 An article about the Royal Giants in the June 1927 issue of Baseball World said: “The voices they use with each other are calm, and hardly audible. You would hardly know of their existence. When there is no game, they enjoy billiards, or walking in the neighborhood. They show a great love for children and play with them happily.”47 They were greeted by dignitaries and given an escort to the palace of the emperor and generally given the respect and dignity often missing back in the United States.48

Duncan, Lefty Cooper, Biz Mackey, and Rap Dixon were all suspended for 30 days and fined $200 upon their return for not reporting to their respective squads for the start of the 1927 Negro League season. A five-year ban had originally been threatened by the league.49 J.L. Wilkinson of the Monarchs was the only owner to follow through with the league’s punishment, and Duncan missed a large portion of the 1927 season.50 He didn’t see action until early August, and in his first game back he showed the Monarchs what they had been missing by going 3-for-4 with a triple and a double in a 10-3 victory over the Memphis Red Sox.51 It was too little and too late, and Duncan’s absence may have been a factor in the Monarchs finishing behind both the St. Louis Stars and the Chicago American Giants.

At some point in 1927, Duncan’s third child, Sidney Duncan, was born. In the 1940 census, Sidney and another son, Clarence, who was born in 1935, are listed as living with Duncan’s parents, Frank and Lizzie. Sidney certainly tried to emulate his father; he is mentioned as managing the Junior Monarchs, a 17-and-under team in Kansas City’s Jackie Robinson Baseball League and playing catcher for the Minneapolis Clowns in 1950 with aspirations to play in the major leagues.52 Very little is known about Sidney’s life or fate and even less is known about Clarence. Duncan also had a second wife, Bertha Lewis, but the exact date of their marriage is unknown. Bertha remained with Duncan until his death; she died in 1985 after having lived in Kansas City for 75 years.53

The 1928 Monarchs were no match for Candy Jim Taylor’s St. Louis Stars and they finished eight games behind the champions of the NNL. For the 1929 season, Duncan platooned at catcher with pull-hitting T.J. Young, and the occasional rest must have done wonders for the hard-working catcher: He batted .350 in 45 games. The Monarchs had a tremendous season, tearing up the league with a 63-17 record, winning both the first and second halves of the season. The Monarchs were declared the champions of the NNL, but no World Series was played in 1929; in fact, there would not be another Negro League World Series until 1942, when the Monarchs faced the Homestead Grays.

At the conclusion of the season, Duncan made the journey back to Cuba, where he had enjoyed so much success in the winter of 1923-24. He suited up for Cienfuegos, hitting .265 and getting what was possibly his first taste of managing as the team struggled to a fourth-place finish.54 The following winter proved much more fruitful for Cienfuegos as the team took the Cuban Winter League championship.55 Duncan recalled his experience at leading the team: “Molina was managing the team, used to bring the Cuban Stars here. He got in a little something over there with the people in his hometown and gave me the ball club. We won the championship by 10-11 games, ran away from Rube Foster and all of them.”56 It took more than a decade before Duncan got his chance to manage in the Negro Leagues.

The year 1930 turned out to be the final season for the Kansas City Monarchs in the NNL. The league itself survived only one more year and disbanded after 1931 under the financial strains of the Great Depression, though a second incarnation of the league came into being in 1933. Duncan was moved to right field for the 1930 campaign and once again tore the cover off the ball to the tune of a .360 average. The team failed to follow his lead and fell to 42-38, a distant second to the champion St. Louis Stars.

Duncan’s defensive abilities were so spectacular that his hitting was often overlooked. He could not compete with the likes of Josh Gibson and Biz Mackey with the lumber, but he certainly was no slouch. Monarchs teammate and future Hall of Famer Willard “Home Run” Brown put it this way: “You couldn’t fool around with him none with men on base, because he’d choke up and be right on that plate. He was a good clutch hitter. He was a line-drive hitter, and when he went up there with men on bases, he hit a whole lot of doubles.”57

Between 1931 and 1936 the Monarchs were an independent team that barnstormed against a combination of league, independent, pro, and semipro teams.58 One of their top competitors was the bearded House of David team, made up of an Israelite community that stressed physical and spiritual discipline. Ringers like Satchel Paige, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, and Grover Cleveland Alexander were known to have played for the team, sometimes even sporting fake beards.59 Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson had just introduced his new system of lights enabling him to play more games and attract more fans with the novelty of a night game.60 This was the most nomadic portion of Duncan’s Negro League career as he began the 1931 season with the New York Harlem Stars but later jumped back to the independent Monarchs to finish out the season.

Duncan began 1932 with another independent club, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The team was overloaded with catchers with Duncan, Bill Perkins, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, and budding superstar Josh Gibson on the team. Perkins and Duncan left the Crawfords in midseason.61 Duncan also played six games for the Homestead Grays in the East-West League, a league that was created by Grays owner Cum Posey but that did not even last one entire season. Duncan, along with Grays Cool Papa Bell, Newt Allen, Willie Wells, and others, left the team after not having been paid by Posey in over a month.62 Duncan once again finished out the year with the Monarchs.

At season’s end, on October 20, the Monarchs met for a series of games in Mexico City against the Mexico City Aztecs, Mexico’s top baseball team.63 Duncan, Cool Papa Bell, Newt Allen, Willie Wells, George Giles, Turkey Stearnes, Chet Brewer, and Bullet Joe Rogan all made the trip, and the Monarchs team left with a 14-2 record. Longtime traveling secretary and promotional wizard, Quincy Gilmore reported to the Kansas City Call: “Just as soon as we crossed the border, we were treated as real men.” Gilmore also wrote: “We have been told that the Monarchs are the best behaved baseball club that has ever visited the Republic of Mexico.”64 It’s no wonder that star players like Bell and Josh Gibson were so often lured by the respect offered them to play south of the border.

Very few statistics exist for Duncan and the Monarchs for the 1933 and 1934 seasons. In an effort to keep turning a profit, Wilkinson continued his brutal barnstorming tours. From Texas to Seattle to Denver and Winnipeg, the Monarchs traveled to all points north, south, east, and west in search of a game.65 In 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee resurrected the Negro National League. However, when the Monarchs were asked to join, Wilkinson turned the new league down. The 1933 season also witnessed the first Negro League East-West All-Star Game; the independent Monarchs were not represented.

Perhaps the greatest barnstorming tour of all time took place at the conclusion of the 1934 season. Fresh off a World Series victory against the Detroit Tigers, Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul of the St. Louis Cardinals agreed to a series of games against Negro League teams.  Duncan, Newt Allen, George Giles, Dink Mothell, John Donaldson, and Steel Arm Davis all suited up for manager Bullet Joe Rogan’s Kansas City Monarchs to play the first six games of the schedule.66 The Monarchs got off to a slow start as they lost the first two games in Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas. They came back to shut out the Deans in games three and four in Kansas City and Des Moines respectively. The Monarchs were blown out in game five in Chicago, setting up a sixth and final game in Milwaukee. Duncan had his best showing in this final contest, blasting a three-run triple in the top of the ninth and giving his team a 7-5 lead. The Monarchs could not hold the lead and the game was called because of darkness with the score tied, 8-8.67 The tour continued with the Deans facing the Philadelphia Stars, New York Black Yankees, and the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The Negro League teams finished with an 8-5-1 record that included a three-game sweep by Satchel Paige and the Crawfords to close out the tour.68

Dizzy Dean and Frank Duncan had an obvious fondness for each other as evidenced by a story Duncan told to Negro League historian John Holway:

“I caught Dizzy in 1934, right after he beat the Detroit Tigers in that World Series. They took a plane, we got on a bus, we went to Oklahoma City to meet Dizzy Dean and all his stars, him and Pepper Martin, Paul Dean, Curt Davis from the Brooklyn Dodgers, Walker Cooper was catching, and they used quite a few of those boys out of the Texas League in Tulsa and Oklahoma. They didn’t want me to catch him on account of that time they didn’t allow the white and the colored players like they are now on the same team in the south. But Dizzy went down town to the Chamber of Commerce, got me out of the pool hall, said, “Now if you want me to play, if I’m good enough to pitch, he’s good enough to catch me.” He said, “Now that’s the way it’s going to be.” I just kept my Monarch uniform on and I caught Dizzy.”69

Dizzy had this to say about his batterymate: “I can’t say enough about him. I sure got a kick out of Duncan. One time when Duncan catches me, he has a glove that makes the ball pop, and it makes my pitch sound like a rifle shot and Duncan keeps telling them hitters, ‘boy, don’t get near that plate. Don’t let that ball hit you or it’ll kill you.’”70 Dizzy’s fondness and respect for Duncan didn’t stop there. “That fellow Duncan which catches for Kansas City is almost as good a catcher as Gabby Hartnett, and I can’t say no more than that about a catcher.”71

The 34-year-old Duncan jumped to the New York Cubans for the 1935 season and once again found himself fighting for a championship. The Cubans won the second half of the Negro National League season and faced the legendary first-half champion Pittsburgh Crawfords in the championship series. The Crawfords were a juggernaut and featured four future Hall of Famers on their squad. They had finished the league season with a 51-27-3 record that far surpassed the 31-25-5 mark of the Cubans. The Crawfords were a heavy favorite, but the Cubans fought hard and took them to a deciding seventh game. At one point the Cubans led the series three games to two, but the potent Crawfords, led by manager Oscar Charleston, took the next two games to take the series and the championship.72

In the autumn of 1935, Duncan formed an all-star team that played visiting teams from Mexico and Cuba in the Puerto Rican Winter League.73 In early March of the following year, the All-Stars trounced the Cincinnati Reds, who were training in Puerto Rico, three games to one. Duncan and Buck Leonard, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Vic Harris, and Ray Brown all played for the victorious All-Stars.74 Duncan said, “The Cincinnati Reds came down there training. Chuck Dressen was managing, Chuck and I used to play ball in Cuba against each other. They had Bucky Walters, Ival Goodman playing right, McQuinn first base, a Greek playing second, I forgot his name,75 Ernie Lombardi catching. We hung Cincinnati. Shoot, we hung ’em. Couldn’t win a game. Nope.”76

Duncan remained with the New York Cubans for the 1936 campaign, but the team struggled, plummeting to the bottom of the standings. He rejoined the Monarchs in 1937, and the team went 52-19-1 to capture the Negro American League title. Duncan didn’t see the finish as he was traded to the Chicago American Giants before the season ended.77

Duncan backed up catcher Subby Byas for the 1938 American Giants and turned in one of his best seasons, hitting .368 and appearing in his only East-West All-Star Game. Duncan received 72,122 votes, more than any other player for the 1938 contest, hitting seventh and going 0-for-1 with a walk for the victorious West team.78

Although Duncan participated in only one East-West game as a player, he was no stranger to the annual jewel of the Negro Leagues. It is a bit of a mystery as to why he did not appear in more all-star games as a player. He was third in the voting at catcher in 1934 and fourth in 1937, when he was listed as a member of the West team.79 Duncan did manage or coach in the game from 1943 through 1947, and he listed this five-year stretch as his most outstanding achievement in baseball in a 1972 questionnaire filled out for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Duncan was on the winning side in all five of these games.80

Duncan did not play in the Negro Leagues in 1939, instead opting to play for the Palmer House Hotel Team, a semipro team playing out of Chicago that featured a lineup made up almost exclusively of former Chicago American Giants.81 Teammate Maurice Wiggins described a beaning that Duncan took while playing for Palmer House: “Duncan dropped like a rock and had to spend three days in the hospital.”82

It was back to Mexico in 1940, where Duncan played for what was undeniably the worst team of his career. The Gallos de Santa Rosa finished 14-67 and in last place, 42 games out of first. Duncan fared no better than most of his teammates; he batted .238 (10-for-42) in 12 games.83 He also played in at least one game for the Chicago American Giants, but otherwise seems to have had a rather uneventful year.

One of Duncan’s proudest moments took place in 1941 when he caught his son, Frank III, in a game for the Monarchs, becoming the first and only father-son battery in professional baseball history. Duncan’s son was a promising pitcher who spent some time with the Baltimore Elite Giants and played for the San Angelo team in the Texas League. Frank III injured his arm and his career never came to fulfillment.84

As Duncan’s own playing career began to wind down, he again latched on to his hometown team, the Kansas City Monarchs, and never played or managed for another Negro League franchise. In a prelude to the great teams to come, the 1941 Monarchs finished atop the NAL with a 25-11 record. A 40-year-old Duncan backed up Joe Greene and got into 11 games, hitting .212. No World Series was played, but in an interview with John Holway, Duncan mentioned a matchup with the NNL champion Homestead Grays at season’s end. “The Monarchs won the pennant in our league in ’41 and played the Washington Homestead Grays a series of games. It wasn’t exactly a world series, more like a series of games.” Duncan did not mention the outcome of these contests.85    

Submariner Dizzy Dismukes took over the reins as manager of the Monarchs to begin the 1942 season after star second baseman Newt Allen stepped down.86 In the June 5 issue of the Kansas City Call, Duncan is mentioned as taking over managerial duties as Dismukes switched to being the team’s business manager. The 41-year-old Duncan rarely penciled himself into the lineup, though he occasionally spelled Joe Greene at catcher, and he began a very successful run as the Monarchs’ skipper.

Buck O’Neil often exclaimed, “The ’42 Monarchs club was one of blackball’s most luminous.”87 He called them the best team he ever played for and the equal of the New York Yankees of the time.88 In Duncan’s first season at the helm, he led the Monarchs to a 27-12 record and a four-game sweep over Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and the heavily favored Homestead Grays. In 1924, the young receiver had played a vital role in helping the Monarchs to win the very first Negro League World Series and now, 18 years later, Duncan was back on top as the leader of the 1942 World Series champion Kansas City Monarchs.

Soon after the 1942 season, Duncan was drafted into the US Army, which was a bit of a surprise for the 41-year-old player-manager. J.L. Wilkinson explained Duncan’s circumstance in the March 3, 1943, edition of the Kansas City Star: “Duncan is past 41 but that early draft caught him before the 38-year-old ruling became effective.” As it turned out, Duncan was honorably discharged five months and 16 days later. He explained, “I was just getting ready to go off to Officer Candidate School for second lieutenant, I was top sergeant, see when they let me out. I was over 38, over the age limit. I came out in ’43.”89 Duncan set a marksmanship record during his short stint in the Army when he hit 31 out of 32 bull’s eyes from 200 yards.”90

Duncan led Kansas City’s 1943 squad to a respectable 43-27 record, but the Monarchs fell short, losing out to the first- and second-half winners Birmingham Black Barons and Chicago American Giants respectively, despite having a better overall record than both teams. The following season, decimated by player losses due to the war, the team fell to fourth place with a 30-38 mark; amazingly, it was the only losing season in Duncan’s 23 years with the Kansas City club.

Duncan’s managerial duties went well beyond the scope of field manager, and he often drove the team bus. As Buck O’Neil explained, “Most of your bus conversation would be with the person that sat beside you. I did a lot of talking with Frank Duncan. I set right up in front of the bus and Frank would drive a lot.”91 O’Neil also had this to say about his friend and manager: “In our baseball, our manager had to be the one to go in and see if we could eat. He also went in to see if we could sleep. Frank could talk-that-talk and he had to be able to. Because if Frank didn’t, we were not going to get in and out of some of the spots we were in.”92 Duncan was considered an authority on navigating highways and finding hotels and places to eat.93 Teammate George Giles recognized his manager’s special abilities: “He knew the white farmers on the back roads.”94 Duncan was also known for his show-stopping skills with a fungo bat and his ability as a gymnastics instructor during spring training.95

Manager Frank Duncan was feeling optimistic heading into the 1945 season, especially with a new addition to the team. Duncan pronounced, “With Jackie Robinson, the crack Pacific Coast athlete, now playing short, that he has a championship team.”96 Duncan was so impressed with his trailblazing shortstop that he recommended him for the annual East-West All-Star Game.97 Robinson pounded the ball at a .375 clip that season, but it was not enough as the Monarchs finished in third place with a 43-32-3 record. Although the season was not the success for which he had hoped, Duncan could take pride in the fact that he was Jackie Robinson’s first professional manager.

A 45-year-old Duncan finally put away his shinguards in 1946 and concentrated exclusively on managing the club. This was to be the iconic Monarchs’ last hurrah. They ran away with both the first- and second-half titles with a blistering 50-16-2 record and lined up to face Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, and the Negro National League champion Newark Eagles in the Negro League World Series. The back-and-forth series took the full seven games to decide. Eventually, due in part to a Satchel Paige no-show in the pivotal seventh game, the Monarchs dropped Game Seven, 3-2, and Newark claimed the championship of Black baseball.98

The 1947 season was Duncan’s last as the skipper of the fabled Monarchs, and the team finished second with a respectable 52-32 record. In his six years (1942-47) at the helm, he led the team to a 288-216-7 record, including two NAL titles and one World Series title with the storied 1942 team. Sportswriter Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier wrote of Duncan’s managerial skills: “Although he is regarded as a taskmaster and a tough hombre by ball players, his record establishes him as one of the game’s shrewdest managers.”99 Dick Wilkinson, owner J.L. Wilkinson’s son, frustrated after a late-season loss to the lowly Indianapolis Clowns, tried to fire Duncan by taking his bus keys away and giving them to Buck O’Neil. O’Neil refused them and the proud manager was able to finish out the season.100 O’Neil took the reins the next season and Duncan called it quits on his remarkable 27-year career, 23 of which had been spent with the Monarchs.

Duncan did not stay out of baseball for long. Beginning in 1948 he hooked up with former batterymate Bullet Joe Rogan to umpire in the Negro American League. Duncan quickly rose to the rank of chief umpire of the NAL and was responsible for giving pioneering umpire Bob Motley his first job.101 Motley loved to talk about his outgoing mentor, saying, “Duncan was without a doubt the most personable of the crew. A very gregarious person, he always had something to say, which meant there was barely a quiet moment in the dressing room. Sometimes when he started to ramble on too much, Rogan would call him ‘motor mouth.’ But that wouldn’t stop Duncan. He’d chuckle and keep right on blabbing.”102 Motley likened them to a Black version of Laurel and Hardy and thoroughly enjoyed the laughter and banter that came with these two baseball legends. Motley recalled, “Their faces would light up as they reminisced about their playing days.”103

Duncan’s knees finally let him down at the end of the 1949 season and he was unable to crouch any longer. Motley sadly witnessed the end of Duncan’s distinguished career and declared, “I would have gladly carried Duncan on my back if necessary just for the joy of sharing the diamond with him.”104 Duncan and Rogan hung on until the midpoint of the 1950 season before finally retiring. The old friends frequently visited the park as spectators and Duncan often had a kind word for his protégé, Bob Motley.105

Duncan also had planned for his post-baseball future, as his many side businesses attest. In 1946 he owned some tiny kitchenette apartments on Prospect Avenue in Kansas City. Newlyweds Buck and Ora O’Neil spent their first year of marriage in one.106 After retiring from baseball, Duncan owned a taxi stand called the Paseo Taxi Company, with former teammate Newt Joseph at the popular Kansas City crossroads of 18th and Vine, a place where jazz and baseball came together.107 He also owned a popular tavern, the Lone Star Tavern, and placed an ad in the December 25, 1957, issue of the Kansas City Star that wished everyone “joy on Christmas, happiness throughout the year.”108 Later, the always-busy Duncan worked as a bail bondsman for the Passantio Bonding Company.109

Duncan never received the attention he deserved, during or after his playing days, but his contemporaries recognized his greatness. A player with his résumé between the lines, and as a manager and umpire, should have a plaque reserved for him in Cooperstown. Satchel Paige certainly thought so. After being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Satch had this to say about his friend and teammate: “Frank was one we were kickin’ on to get in the Hall of Fame. Campanella got a break, I got a break, but nobody was a better catcher than Frank outside of Josh. It was like clockwork pitchin’ to that man. I guess I could throw harder than anybody. I musta thrown hard because no one ever hit me hard. But Frank was the man who kept me going when I wanted to quit in 1938 (bad arm), Frank kept tellin’ me, keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. If it hadn’t been for him, I never would have gone to Cleveland.”110

In 1950 Monarchs owners, J.L. Wilkinson and Tom Baird, along with a group of fans, chose Duncan as the catcher for the all-time Kansas City Monarchs team.111 He also received strong support in the 1952 Pittsburgh Courier poll that selected the greatest Negro League players to ever put on a uniform.112

In retirement, Duncan still enjoyed taking in the occasional ballgame, and he listed Stan Musial as the greatest hitter in baseball after attending the 1950 All-Star Game in Chicago.113 He also spoke about Willie Mays and expressed displeasure about his being traded from the San Francisco Giants to the New York Mets. According to Duncan, “Mays is the greatest ballplayer that ever lived and he deserved better than to be traded.”114

Buck O’Neil remained close to Duncan and his family and often spoke about his teammate and close friend. As O’Neil remembered, “Frank could catch and throw, a shotgun arm and a great memory. Before Frank died he would talk about a ball game, he would tell you the inning, the pitch the guy hit and how the score ended. He had a wonderful memory.”115

In 1965 Duncan was one of the few Negro Leaguers to pay his respects to Branch Rickey when he attended Rickey’s funeral. Cool Papa Bell expressed disappointment when speaking of the turnout, noting, “Besides Jackie and myself, Frank Duncan, the old Kansas City Monarchs catcher, was the only other black player there. We should have given Mr. Rickey more respect, but I guess some of our people just didn’t want to make the effort.”116 On a lighter note, Duncan made an appearance with his old batterymate, Satchel Paige on the TV show This Is Your Life, on January 26, 1972.117

In his final years, Duncan did not speak much about his playing days. Instead, he was often overcome with tears of joy while watching his grandchildren, Julian and Frank IV, play.118 Frank Duncan died on December 4, 1973, at the age of 72 after a bout with colon cancer. He was survived by his wife, Bertha, his son, Frank III, his daughter, Armeda Walker, stepson George Solomon, stepdaughter Bertha Thatcher, and two grandsons, Julian and Frank IV.119 Sidney and Clarence were not mentioned in the obituary, adding to the mystery of their relationship with their father. Duncan — who was an Army veteran, a Mason, and a Shriner — was buried next to his mother at Highland Cemetery in Kansas City.

Duncan was an entrepreneur, a devoted family man, and he obviously had a love for his hometown of Kansas City. He was also one of the giants of baseball history, whose accomplishments were wide and varied. Once, when talking about the game he loved, he asserted, “We went into every town with two ideas. We would give the people our very best and we wanted to be their friends. We played in all the great cities of the Orient: Tokyo, Yokohama, Manila. We played in Rio, New York, everywhere. But we liked playing in our own little American towns best. We loved the kids and we liked the folks. Those were great and wonderful days.”120

Duncan summed up his life and career in baseball by saying, “I have a good reputation, a good name. I’m proud of that, to be one of them. So I have nothing to regret. Lived a great life, thankful still to be living. Now you see the boys getting the breaks, holding on and playing good ball up there. We were among the pioneers that paved the way for them.”121

Sources

Special thanks to Julian Duncan, Frank Duncan’s grandson, for our many conversations about his grandfather, grandmother, and father. His openness and dedication to keeping their legacies alive is truly inspiring.

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

Notes

1 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series: The 1924 Meeting of the Hilldale Giants and Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006), 62.

2 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 63.

3 Conversations with grandson, Julian Duncan, October 23, 2020.

4 1940 US census.

5 Phil S. Dixon, John “Buck” O’Neil: The Rookie, the Man, the Legacy 1938 (Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2009), 118.

6 John Holway, Voices From the Great Black Baseball Leagues (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1992), 91.

7 Megan Dennis, “‘The Castle on the Hill’: Lincoln High, Racial Uplift, and Community Development During Segregation,” Kansas City Public Library,

 https://pendergastkc.org/article/castle-hill-lincoln-high-racial-uplift-and-community-development-during-segregation.

8 Larry Lester and Sammy J. Miller, Black Baseball in Kansas City (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2000), 120.

9 Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 86.

10 Lester and Miller, Black Baseball in Kansas City, 120.

11 Phil Dixon and Patrick J. Hannigan, The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History (Mattituck, New York: Amereon Ltd., 1992), 105.

12 Lester and Miller, Black Baseball in Kansas City, 120.

13 Phil S. Dixon, The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour: Race, Media, and America’s National Pastime (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), 73.

14 Phil S. Dixon, The Monarchs 1920-1938: Featuring Wilber “Bullet” Rogan the Greatest Ballplayer in Cooperstown (Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Mariah Press, 2002), 41. 

15 Dixon, The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour, 75.

16 John Holway interview of Frank Duncan, National Baseball Hall of Fame archives, 4.

17 Holway interview of Duncan, 3.

18 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs: Trailblazers in Black Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2016), 34.

19 Kansas City Star, June 11, 1921: 12.

20 Dixon, The Monarchs 1920-1938, 133.

21 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 91.

22 Kansas City Star, May 28, 1946: 14.

23 Jason Roe, “Monarchs Defeat the Blues, “https://pendergastkc.org/article/events/monarchs-defeat-blues.

24 https://pendergastkc.org/article/events/monarchs-defeat-blues.

25 Kansas City Star, September 27, 1971: 14.

26 Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs, 41.

27 Marv Goldberg, “Julia Lee,” uncamarvy.com, 2020. http://www.uncamarvy.com/JuliaLee/julialee.html.

28 Conversations with Julian Duncan.

29 Dixon and Hannigan, 226.

30 John B. Holway, Black Diamonds: Life in the Negro Leagues from the Men Who Lived It (New York: Stadium Books, 1991), 64.

31 https://cubanbeisbol.com/post/18640671597/santa-clara-leopardos-1923-24.

32 Holway, Black Ball Tales: Rollicking, All New, True Adventures of the Negro Leagues by the Men Who Lived and Loved Them (Springfield, Virginia: Scorpio Books, 2008), 69.

33 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 62.

34  Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 62.

35 Holway, Black Ball Tales, 71.

36 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 185.

37 Pittsburgh Courier, July 17, 1943: 19.

38 Young, 52.

39 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 178.

40 Holway, Black Ball Tales, 63.

41 Young, 103.

42 William F. McNeil, The California Winter League: America’s First Integrated Professional Baseball League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2002), 120-121.

43 Kazuo Sayama and Bill Staples Jr., Gentle Black Giants: A History of Negro League Baseball in Japan (Fresno, California: Nisei Baseball Research Project Press, 2019), 94.

44 Rich Westcott, Biz Mackey: A Giant Behind the Plate (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018), 107.

45 Sayama and Staples, 17.

46 Sayama and Staples, 16-17.

47 Sayama and  Staples, 14.

48 Sayama and Staples, 201.

49 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing & Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 155.

50 Sayama and Staples, 258.

51 Kansas City Times, August 9, 1927: 10.

52 Janet Bruce, 120; Alliance (Nebraska) Times-Herald, July 4, 1950: 13.

53 Kansas City Times, March 19, 1985: 16.

54 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2003), 351.

55 Dixon and Hannigan, 150.

56 Holway interview of Frank Duncan.

57 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 61.

58 Young, 69.

59 https://baseballhall.org/house-of-david-donation.

60 Young, 68-69.

61 Kyle P. McNary, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe: 36 Years of Pitching & Catching in Baseball’s Negro Leagues (St. Louis Park, Minnesota: McNary Publishing, 1994), 69.

62 Phil S. Dixon, The Monarchs 1920-1938, 161.

63 http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Hero/Chet-Brewer.pdf, 13.

64 Young, 86.

65 Young, 88.

66 Dixon, The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour, 33.

67 The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour, 102.

68 Dixon, The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour, 23, 208.

69 Holway interview of Frank Duncan.

70 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 61.

71 Dixon and Hannigan, 246.

72 Mark Whitaker, The Untold Story of Smoketown: The Other Great Black Renaissance (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 294.

73 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game 1933-1962, Expanded Version (Kansas City, Missouri: NoirTech Research Inc., 2020), 64.

74 William F. McNeil, Black Baseball Out of Season: Pay for Play Outside of the Negro Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2007), 115-117.

75 It was Alex Kampouris.

76 Holway interview of Frank Duncan, 14.

77 Paul Debono, The Chicago American Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2007), 146.

78 Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase, 110, 113.

79  Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase, 60, 97; Young, 100.

80 Frank Duncan questionnaire returned to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, May 1972. 

81 Debono, 151.

82 Dixon and Hannigan, 124.

83 Pedro Treto Cisneros, The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics, 1937-2001 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002), 289.

84 Brent Kelley, Voices from the Negro Leagues: Conversations with 52 Baseball Standouts (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 1998), 99, 101.

85 Holway interview of Frank Duncan, 14.

86 Chicago Defender, April 4, 1942: 19.

87 Timothy M. Gay, Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 4.

88 Young, 125.

89 Pittsburgh Courier, July 17, 1943; Holway interview of Frank Duncan, 17.

90 https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Frank_Duncan.

91 Dixon, John “Buck” O’Neil, 159.

92 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 62.

93 Kansas City Star, August 14, 1950: 12.

94 Dixon, The Dizzy and Daffy Dean Barnstorming Tour, 44.

95 Holway, Voices From the Great Black Baseball Leagues, 340; Kansas City Star, May 28, 1946: 14.

96 Leslie A. Heaphy, 158.

97 Dixon and Hannigan, 255.

98 https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1946_Negro_World_Series.

99 Pittsburgh Courier, July 26, 1947: 14.

100 Young, 169.

101 Bob Motley and Byron Motley, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: True Tales of Breaking Barriers, Umpiring Baseball Legends, and Wild Adventures in the Negro Leagues (New York: Sports Publishing, 2012), 67.

102 Motley and Motley, 68, 69.

103 Motley and Motley, 71.

104 Motley and Motley, 72

105 Motley and Motley, 74.

106 Buck O’Neil, with Steve Wulf, and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time: My Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 172-173.

107 Motley and Motley, B159.

108 Kansas City Star, December 25, 1957: 17.

109 Kansas City Star, December 6, 1973: 29.

110 Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 62.

111 William H. Young and Nathan B. Young Jr., Your Kansas City and Mine (Kansas City, Missouri: Midwest Afro-American Genealogy Interest Coalition, 1997), 127.

112 Steven R. Greenes, Negro Leaguers and the Hall of Fame: The Case for Inducting 24 Overlooked Ballplayers (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2020), 235.

113 Kansas City Star. August 14, 1950: 12.

114 Kansas City Star, July 16, 1972: 192.

115 Dixon, The Monarchs 1920-1938, 40.

116 Jim Bankes, The Pittsburgh Crawfords (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2001), 123-124.

117 Heaphy, 11.

118 Conversation with Julian Duncan.

119 Kansas City Star, December 6, 1973: 29.

120 Kansas City Times, March 10, 1967: 21.

121 Holway interview of Frank Duncan, 19.

James Elbert Greene, who went by the first name Joe, was one of the iconic catchers of the Negro Leagues. Greene was born on October 17, 1911, in Stone Mountain, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound Greene was a durable and solid receiver who caught Satchel Paige and the balance of the elite pitching staff of the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1940s. Behind the plate, he had a strong throwing arm and a quick release that he utilized effectively to cut down runners attempting to steal. At bat, he was a right-handed pull hitter with excellent power who hit for high average in his prime. His principal drawback as a player was his lack of speed on the basepaths.1

While little is known about Greene’s early life, his mother, Emma Green, appears to have been working as a washerwoman at the time of his birth. By 1920, Emma Green was the head of her household and was employed as a cook for a private family.2 Greene also had a brother, Henry, who was two years his senior. Joe attended school only through the fifth grade, and then likely already began to work to help his mother and brother pay for their family’s expenses.

Historian Phil Dixon asserts that Greene broke into semipro ball with the Macon Georgia Peaches.3 In 1932, at 21 years old, he made his debut in professional baseball, with the Atlanta Black Crackers of the Negro Southern League; it was the only year the Southern League was regarded as a Negro major league. The young and solid Greene was quickly nicknamed “Pig” for the quantity of food he consumed.4 He began as a first baseman, but manager Nish Williams suggested, “You’re big, got good weight on you, but you throw like a catcher. Can you catch?” As Greene told the story, “I said, ‘I’m not scared to get back there, but I don’t know how to catch. If you teach me how to catch, I’ll catch.’ … I figured right quick if he was managing the ball club and if he was an ex-catcher, I’d have a better chance than anybody on that team of getting all the information I wanted. … And I went up as a catcher because I always studied.”5

Although like most Negro Leaguers he occasionally filled in at other positions,6 it was as a catcher that Greene spent the bulk of his career and made his mark. He was with the Atlanta Black Crackers from 1932 through 1938. The Black Crackers sometimes played after 1932 as a member of the Negro National League, often as an independent barnstorming unit, and later as a member of the Negro American League. Because of the scanty offensive records available for this era, statistics have been uncovered for only 49 league games played by Greene with the Black Crackers, in which he hit .236 with 14 RBIs. Among the pitchers he caught early in his career was Roy Welmaker, who went on to star for the Homestead Grays.7 Black Crackers shortstop Pee Wee Butts regarded Greene as one of the outstanding defensive stalwarts on the team: “Big [Joe] Greene … had a good arm, could throw, could get the ball to you on time so the runner wouldn’t have a chance to go through his act and spike you or something like that.”8

In 1938 Atlanta joined the NAL and Greene’s batting provided the charge needed to win the second-half title.9  Greene batted .280 with a .782 OPS. Negro League historian James Riley has deemed Greene the NAL Rookie of the Year for his 1938 campaign.10 Greene also played in the 1938 NAL Championship Series against the Memphis Red Sox. Over the course of the two-game series, which was swept by Memphis, Greene went 0-for-6 at the plate but maintained a perfect fielding percentage.

In 1939 the Black Crackers disbanded, and Greene was picked up by the Homestead Grays, where he roomed with future Hall of Famer Buck Leonard, who became his mentor. According to Leonard, “Greene was big, strong, had a great arm. He couldn’t hit a curve ball, but he could hit a fast ball for miles. So we bought him an extra-long bat, a thirty-seven-inch bat. Then he could just get a piece of that curve ball.”11 When Josh Gibson joined the Grays as a catcher later in 1939, Greene got his big break as he was traded to the Kansas City Monarchs, where he remained through 1947.

In the early 1940s the Monarchs were the top squad for backstops to be on. They featured a stellar starting pitching lineup that included future Hall of Famers Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith, and Connie Johnson. When Johnson pitched to Greene, they were called the Stone Mountain Battery since Johnson was also from Stone Mountain.12 According to Hilton Smith, Greene, who had turned himself into a strong curveball hitter, was an important catalyst for the Monarchs dynasty of that era: “We picked Joe Greene up as catcher in ’39 and about the middle of the season he was really hitting that ball. In ’40 he really whipped that ball.”13 Greene became the principal catcher for the great Monarchs franchise, which won league titles every year Greene was on the team between 1939 and 1946.14 He also was part of a self-described “syndicate” of Monarchs players who demanded disciplined behavior and winning ways. They weeded out players who did not share those values.15 

Hilton Smith once recalled: “I was telling a fellow today about Greene when he used play Cleveland when Sam Jethroe was there. [Jethroe was reputedly the fastest man in black ball at that time.] They told Greene, ‘Well we’re going to steal on you today. We’re going to beat you, we’re going to bunt and get on, then we’re going to steal second, we’re going to steal third, we’re going to bunt in runs. … I was pitching and only six men got on [base] that day. … [S]ix of them tried to steal and he threw out five of six. … They’d get on, they’d try to go down, that’s as far as they’d get. That guy could sure throw.”16 According to Greene, he carefully studied runners on the bases and coordinated closely with pitchers to catch players attempting to steal. He was so obsessed that he even dreamed at night about players trying to steal on him.17

Once he had become an established veteran, Greene’s nickname morphed into “Pea” in tribute to the fact that he threw “peas” to second base.18 Hilton Smith continued, “In ’41, that’s when Greene really came into his own. That year and the next year, ’41 and’42, you can believe it or not, that guy in my opinion was the best catcher in baseball. In ’42. … [T]hat man hit that ball that year. And threw out everybody. He was a great catcher those two years.”19

Records bear out Smith’s words. Usually batting fifth for the Monarchs behind Hall of Famer Willard Brown,20 Greene led the Negro American League against all levels of competition in 1940 with 33 home runs.21 In 1941 Greene’s batting average against all competition was .313 as the Monarchs took the NAL pennant.22

Historian John Holway credits Greene with a .366 batting average in 1942, a year for which Holway has awarded Greene his Fleet Walker Award as the MVP of the NAL. In 1942 he again led the league with 38 home runs against all competition.23 Dixon states that Greene joined an elite club in 1942 by hitting four home runs in one game, and that he drove in 15 runs in six consecutive games.24 Buck Leonard later acknowledged that the Homestead Grays made a big mistake by giving up on Greene too early because “he turned out to be a great ballplayer.”25

The power-hitting Greene always claimed that the Ted Williams shift was developed for him in the Negro Leagues by manager Candy Jim Taylor and then adopted by the major leagues after they saw it used against him.26 Like Ted Williams, Greene was an extreme pull hitter who ignored the shift and just hit over it: “I hit the ball too hard for them. … In Kansas City, center field was 400-something feet. Oh, my God, you’ve got to drive a ball almost 500 feet to get it out of center field over that wall. I hit over the scoreboard in left-center field. I’ve hit lots of long home runs in Chicago’s Comiskey Park way up in the stands. I hit a couple long ones in Yankee Stadium. … Josh Gibson and I were the two most powerful hitters as catchers.” 27

In the 1942 Negro League World Series, Greene’s Kansas City Monarchs opposed Josh Gibson’s Homestead Grays. Greene regarded himself as Gibson’s equal and asserted, “Well, you’ve been talking ’bout the great Josh. I’m gonna let you know who’s the great one.”28 Greene hit .500 with a home run to lead his team’s offense to a four-game sweep of the Series. Gibson batted .077 with no home runs. Greene was Satchel Paige’s catcher in the Series’ classic confrontation between Paige on the mound and Gibson at the plate. In one at-bat, Paige, always the showman, announced to the crowd in advance the type of each pitch he would throw Gibson, and then struck Gibson out on three straight pitches, marking one of the legendary moments in Negro League history.29

Greene was named to three East-West All-Star Classics between 1940 and 1942, by which time he had become regarded as the best catcher in the Negro American League.30 Seamheads.com, which has designated the single best catcher for each Negro League season based upon WAR,31 has named Greene the NAL All-Star catcher in 1940, 1941, and 1942.

Greene capped 1942 by going 2-for-4, including a game-winning double, to lead his team to a 2-1 win over a team of Dizzy Dean-led white big leaguers in the armed forces before 29,000 fans in Wrigley Field.32 Greene claimed his trick for hitting white major-league pitchers was that they often pitched low and he was a good low-ball hitter. According to Greene himself, “Sometimes they’d say, ‘Joe Greene, you were on your knees when you hit that.’ Sometimes I would go almost down on my right knee. But I’d hit it in the stands.”33

In 1943, when he was at his peak ability as a player, Greene was inducted into the US Army and served three years during World War II. He was assigned to the all-black 92nd Infantry Division, the “Buffalo Soldiers,” whose motto was “Deeds Not Words.” As a member of the only African American division that saw combat action in Europe or North Africa during World War II, Greene fought in Oran, Algiers, and Italy. He was on the front lines for eight months. Greene was in a 57mm antitank company that opened up the third front in Italy. His harrowing job consisted of close-range combat against German tanks. Wounded by a shrapnel blast in Italy, he returned to combat after three weeks in the hospital and was awarded two battle stars. As his division drove into Milan, it was his military unit that discovered and cut down the bodies of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress following their deaths at the hands of partisans.34

Yet his war experience left time for baseball after hostilities ended. Greene headed the 92nd Division team as it won the baseball championship of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. Greene’s team then played in the G.I. World Series in Marseilles where, combined with another African American division containing Willard Brown and Leon Day, the team, sparked by home runs by Greene and Brown, crushed Third Army squad, 8-0.35

In 1946 Greene went back to catching for the Monarchs as they again won the pennant. Holway has deemed him the 1946 All-Star catcher for the NAL.36 According to James Riley, Greene was able to record batting averages of .300, .324, and .257 against all competition from 1946 to 1948.37 In 1947 he blasted 16 home runs in 49 games.38 The New York Yankees scouted Greene in the 1940s but nothing came of it.39 The Yankees’ first African American player was Elston Howard in 1955. Buck O’Neil, who discovered Howard, once observed that Greene, when he first came up in 1938, was a superior catcher to the young Howard.40

The following year featured one of Greene’s career highlights when, at the age of 35, he hit a long home run off Bob Feller in an exhibition game in Los Angeles on November 2, 1947 (a nine-inning duel in which Satchel Paige bested Feller with a shutout).41 The Los Angeles Times called Greene’s blow a “resounding homer.”42

But the hard truth is that Greene never really regained his prewar form.43 In 1948 he was traded to the Cleveland Buckeyes, where he ended his Negro League career with only a .143 batting average in NAL games. He accumulated no WAR in official league games from 1946 through 1948 and his lifetime batting average fell to .242. All that was left was his power as his 1948 home-run percentage in limited plate appearances was a remarkably high 7.1 percent.

As the Negro Leagues went into a death spin after Jackie Robinson entered the major leagues, Greene followed other players to Canada. He finished his playing days at the age of 39 with one season in the independent ManDak League, hitting .301 with 16 RBIs in 1951 for the Elmwood Giants.44

After he retired as a player, Greene and his wife settled in Stone Mountain, where he worked for years at Sears Roebuck.45 He was active in his community as a member of the local African American men’s club.46 Greene died in Stone Mountain on July 19, 1989, at the age of 77. He was survived by his wife, Emma S. Greene; the couple had no children. The funeral service was held at the Bethsaida Baptist Church in Stone Mountain and Greene was buried in Stone Mountain City Cemetery.47

As a player, Joe Greene’s importance should not be understated. He was an MVP, two-time home-run champion, Negro League World Series champion, and repeated All-Star who was responsible for handling Satchel Paige and the remarkable Kansas City Monarchs pitching staff during their multiple pennant runs in the 1940s. Even though he lost three years of his prime career to World War II, his OPS+ of 120 (many statisticians believe OPS+, which combines on-base-percentage plus slugging adjusted by ballpark and era, is the best overall measure of offensive performance)48 stands as the fifth highest among catchers in American Negro League history. Greene’s OPS+ rating for catchers in Negro League play is exceeded only by the four Negro League catchers inducted into the Hall of Fame (Josh Gibson, Louis Santop, Roy Campanella, and Biz Mackey).

Greene’s WAR per 162 games of 3.3, established over the 12 years he played league ball, is the seventh highest established by any  catcher in Negro League history. Bill James ranks Greene as the eighth best catcher of the Negro leagues.49 Pitcher Jim “Fireball” Cohen, a Negro League All-Star who played at the tail end of the Josh Gibson era, chose Joe Greene as the number-one catcher on his all-time team.50 

Ultimately, Greene’s legacy is far larger than his on-field performance. He was a decorated war hero in a segregated army who fought alongside white soldiers. Since he also played against white major leaguers, he had a solid perspective from which to assess the overall quality of baseball at the highest levels. Greene become an advocate for Black ball and an outspoken spokesman for the quality of the Negro League game. In the 1940s Greene convinced leading sportswriter Fay Young of the Chicago Defender that the tryouts given to African American players prior to Jackie Robinson were a sham.51 He forcefully declared that he and his African American brethren, not just Jackie Robinson, were the true pioneers who had paved the way for integration. He noted in a matter-of-fact manner that Robinson was not the best player the Negro Leagues produced, but simply representative of the excellence of Black ball.52 According to Joe Greene, who played against them all, the Negro Leagues were “the real Major Leagues.”53

Sources

Ancestry.com was consulted for census, military service, and death information.

Seamheads.com is the leading source for official Negro League game statistics. Other major historians, such as John Holway and James Riley, include all statistics against all opposition, including exhibition games, games against semipro teams and teams from other Negro Leagues, etc. John Holway believes that, as the majority of games played in Black ball were outside of the official league games, his approach is more indicative of the full Black baseball world. While there can be major discrepancies between the data gathered using these different approaches, both methods have value. In this article, completed early in 2021, Seamheads is the basis for player and team statistics cited in this article, except where otherwise indicated.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 337.

2 His father may have been a Charlie Green, who is listed in the 1910 census has having been married to an Emma Green in Thomasville, Georgia; the name and birth year for Emma fit with Joe’s mother, but that alone is not enough to positively state that this Charlie and Emma Green were his parents. In the 1940 census, Emma Green was listed as a widow. If Charlie Green was Joe’s father, he may have died or abandoned the family at some point since he was not listed as part of the family unit in the 1920 census. It should also be noted that census takers consistently misspelled Joe Greene’s family name as “Green.”

3 Phil S. Dixon with Patrick J. Hannigan. The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History (Mattituck, New York: Amereon, 1992), 225.

4 Riley, 337.

5 John Holway, Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, Rev Ed., (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2010), 302-303.

6 In the seventh game of the 1946 Negro League World Series, Greene was pressed into serviced as a right fielder when outfielders Willard Brown and Ted Strong failed to show up until the game was almost over because they were busy negotiating winter contracts. Satchel Paige, who was scheduled to start the game, did not bother to show up at all. See Buck O’Neil, with Steve Wulf and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 177.

7 Dixon with Hannigan, 225.

8 Holway, Voices, 331.

9 Riley, 337-338.

10 Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, eds., The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2006), 1649.

11 Holway, Voices, 299.

12 Frazier Robinson, Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 59.

13 Holway, Voices, 300.

14 Aside from 1943 when Greene played in only two league games before he was called into the military. The team, denuded of much of its talent by the war, did not win the pennant that year.

15 Holway, Voices, 304-305.

16 Holway, Voices, 300.

17 Holway, Voices, 303-304.

18 Buck O’Neil, 119-120.

19 Holway, Voices, 300.

20 Riley, 337.

21 Riley, 337.

22 John B. Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House, 2001), 383.

23 Riley, 337.

24 Phil S. Dixon, 1987 Negro League Baseball Card Set, card #8.

25 Holway, Voices, 299.

26 Holway, Voices, 301.

27 Holway, Voices, 301.

28 Holway, Voices, 300.

29 O’Neil, 133-135.

30 Riley, 337.

31 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is a measure of a player’s value based upon all facets of his performance and measures how many wins the player is worth versus an average replacement.

32 Holway, Complete Book, 401.

33 Holway, Voices, 304.

34 Timothy M. Gay, Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert, The Wild Sage of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 192-193.

35 Gay, 191-192.

36 Holway, Complete Book, 434.

37 Riley, 337;

38 Holway, Voices, Appendix.

39 Holway, Voices, 307; Gay, 252.

40 O’Neil, 189.

41 Gay, 258; Holway, Complete Book, 452.

42 Holway, Voices, 300.

43 Holway, Voices, 300.

44 Barry Swanton, The Mandak League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2006), 108.

45 Holway, Voices, 309-10.

46 Dixon and Hannigan, 179.

47 Atlanta Constitution, July 23, 1989: 40.

48 OPS+ (On-Base Plus Slugging Plus) is a version of On-Base Percentage Plus Slugging, normalized by accounting for external factors such as ballpark and era. See Anthony Castrovince, A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2020), 56-60, 76-81.

49 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 181.

50 Larry Lester. Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933-1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 481.

51 Holway, Voices, 307.

52 Holway, Voices, 312.

53 Holway, Voices, 310.

Paul Hardy was a defensive-minded catcher who played in the Negro leagues for nearly three decades, from 1931 to 1959. He stood 5-feet-10 and weighed just 162 pounds — a slight build for a backstop — but he developed a reputation for durability and regularly caught both ends of doubleheaders during his career. Nicknamed “Piccolo,” “Pickemup,”1 and “Greyhound,”2 the right-hander was a smart player and a leader who frequently served as a player-manager.

Paul James Hardy was born on September 17, 1910, in Meridian, Mississippi. A 1920 Census record from that city notes that his mother was a single woman named Abbie Hardy, who laundered clothes in their home for work. Paul had seven siblings: Jennie, Della, Tom, Helena, Ellen, Beatrice, and Danella.3 Little is known about Hardy’s upbringing and education. However, by 1930 he was employed as a waiter in a boarding house in Meridian, Mississippi,4 and he reportedly attended Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in Lorman, Mississippi.5 

In 1931 Hardy signed with the Montgomery Grey Sox of the newly reorganized Negro Southern League.6 The 20-year-old made his professional debut on May 9 as the Grey Sox defeated the Chattanooga Black Lookouts, 6-1.7 Later that month, his offensive skills powered the Grey Sox as he had three hits in an 8-7 loss to the Nashville Elite Giants.8 He suffered an undisclosed injury during a game against the Birmingham Black Barons in June and had to be taken out of the game.9 The injury had no lasting effect as his name again appeared in line scores within a week.10 Hardy’s rookie campaign launched his reputation as a durable receiver: He caught both games in doubleheaders on at least 11 occasions, according to the available box and line scores.11 Even with rosters capped at 13, this was an achievement in endurance.12 

Montgomery finished the first half of the NSL in fifth place with a 14-22 record.13 According to NSL historian William J. Plott, the Grey Sox won the second-half title and faced the Memphis Red Sox in the playoffs. The series was tied after six games and was canceled for no apparent reason.14   

Hardy returned to the Grey Sox in 1932 and had six straight hits in two games against Atlanta in early May.15 The NSL was elevated to “Negro major league status by baseball historians because it survived while all others fell by the wayside during the worst of the Great Depression.”16 Montgomery had a winning record in the first half at 22-17 but finished in fourth place.17 The results of the second half were clouded in uncertainty as the Grey Sox had a record of 1-6 in the last published standings.18 Hardy was again the catcher of record in most of Montgomery’s twin bills, which exposed his talents to owners in faraway cities.19

Hardy’s play got the attention of Candy Jim Taylor and he joined the Indianapolis ABCs although details of his signing are lost to history.20 The club soon moved to Detroit and was rebranded as the Stars in the reorganized Negro National League.21 Taylor occasionally rested Hardy by penciling him into the lineup as a first baseman after he caught the first game of a doubleheader.22 In August Hardy returned to Montgomery to face his old team; the Grey Sox took two of three games in the series.23 The Stars finished in sixth place in the NNL with a record of 19-30.24

Over the next four years, Hardy continued to switch leagues and teams. In 1934 he returned to Alabama and played for the Birmingham Giants of the NSL, who newspapers sometimes called the Black Barons.25 As usual, he rarely got a day off from behind the plate; in August, while catching both games of a doubleheader against the Brooklyn Bushwicks, he went 3-for-7 and stole a base.26 In 1935 he played for the Columbus/Nashville Elite Giants.27 The following year he may have returned to the Montgomery Grey Sox as a player-manager.28 With Hardy at the helm and behind the plate, the Grey Sox dedicated a new ballpark, Brown’s Park,29 but had an otherwise disastrous season, finishing in last place in the NSL.30 Finally, in 1937, Hardy joined Candy Jim Taylor’s Chicago American Giants of the Negro American League for the next two years.31 However, life in the Negro leagues was always hard, even if a player found stability in one city, as Hardy recalled years later to Wendell Smith:

Paul Hardy, a catcher for the old American Giants … remembers the time his team arrived in Odessa, Tex., after a drive by car from Chicago.

“We arrived in the middle of the night,” Hardy recalled. “We couldn’t find a place to sleep, so we drove directly to the ball park. About an hour later the promoter of the game showed up. He was tall, white and spoke with a heavy Texas drawl. He said: ‘Don’t you all worry about a place to stay — because we ain’t got no place for you to stay.’”

“So we slept in two cars,” said Paul Hardy.32

With Chicago, Hardy enjoyed personal success and attention as newspapers “rated [him as] a fine hitter and an excellent receiver.”33 According to the Center for Negro League Baseball Research, “[T] Kansas City Monarchs won both halves of the [1937] season … [and] [t]hen beat the Chicago American Giants in a special post-season Play-Off Series when the American Giants disputed the Monarchs being awarded the Negro American League title.”34 Complete statistics for Hardy are unavailable for 1937, but he played well enough to be selected to represent the North in the NAL’s All-Star game, which was played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, on August 22, 1937.35 Hardy went 1-for-4, also reached base when he was hit by a pitch, and made an error behind the plate. He scored a run in the North’s 13-5 win over the South.36

The next season, 1938, the American Giants finished 40-39, which was good for third place in the NAL.37 Hardy remained with Chicago, and his name regularly appeared in box scores38 as he reportedly hit .332.39 However, he was demoted to a reserve role behind starter Richard “Subby” Byas.40

Whether it was due to reduced playing time in Chicago, or some other reason, Hardy joined the rival Kansas City Monarchs in 1939. The Monarchs had posted the best NAL record the previous two seasons and did so again in 1939 with a record of 42-22.41 Kansas City won the first half of the NAL and then defeated the second-half champion, the St. Louis Stars, four games to one in a playoff series.42 Hardy hit .324 with an on-base percentage of .410.43 In May, he homered in a 15-8 victory over Memphis and followed that up with a key pinch hit in a win over the Paris Tigers.44 Nevertheless, Hardy spent his second year as a backup catcher, this time behind Joe “Pea” Greene.

Birmingham had not fielded a Negro league team in 1939.45 In 1940 the Black Barons returned to the NAL and hired Candy Jim Taylor as their manager. To improve Birmingham’s catching and leadership, Taylor purchased Hardy’s contract from Kansas City.46 The Birmingham News applauded the acquisition, writing:

Hardy is recognized as one of the best handlers of pitchers in Negro baseball, and he will arrive in town in time to catch the Sunday double-header. Hardy is known as such a good field general that he may be appointed captain of the Black Barons for the season of 1940.47

With the Black Barons, Hardy returned to the starting lineup, although he suffered a split finger in the spring, which sidelined him briefly.48 Not only was Hardy a starter behind the plate, once again he caught both ends of doubleheaders with regularity.49 But Birmingham finished a lackluster campaign in sixth place, with a record of 11-21.50

That fall, Hardy appeared for Taylor’s NAL All-Stars and faced Birmingham’s Industrial League All-Stars at Rickwood Field. Future Black Barons Piper Davis, Artie Wilson, Bill Powell, and Ed Steele of the American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO) played for the Industrial Leaguers.51

Winfield Welch became manager of the Black Barons in 1941 and retained Hardy as his catcher.52 In a feature article about the club, Hardy was credited as being “a hard worker, [who] handles pitchers well, and is a good director behind the bat.”53 In late April he caught both halves of a twin bill and socked a bases-clearing triple in the second game as the Black Barons earned a split with the New York Black Yankees.54 He caught both ends of doubleheaders at least 10 times.55 His sturdy presence behind the plate did not escape the notice of fans or sportswriters:

Paul Hardy, selected by a vote of the fans as the most valuable Baron for the ’41 season, and presented with a U.S. defense bond by President Tom Hayes, Jr., at last Sunday’s double-header, will catch both Sunday games. Hardy, with a hitting average of .302, has caught most of the double-headers.56

The Black Barons improved to an overall record of 28-20 and finished in second place in the NAL behind Kansas City.57 In a five-game exhibition series against local all-stars, Hardy went 3-for-4 in the deciding fifth game as the Black Barons won, 5-4.58

In the spring of 1942, newspapers hailed Hardy, now 31, as “one of the craftiest catchers in all of Negro baseball,” “a steadying influence with pitchers,” “the veteran catcher who meant so much to the Black Barons last season,” and “one of the hardest workers in the league.”59 Hardy played well in 1942 and was voted onto the West roster for the annual East-West All-Star Game in Chicago.60 All available box and line scores and game accounts indicate Hardy played the entire 1942 campaign for the Black Barons, who finished in third place in the NAL with a record of 27-22.61 However, he may also have appeared in at least one game for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1942.

In The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball, historian Janet Bruce cites Hardy as a catcher on the roster of the Monarchs in 1942.62 Concerning the rosters from 1920 to 1955, Bruce noted, “Because players frequently jumped their contracts in midseason, rosters changed over the course of the summer … all players who were on the payroll for some part of the season are included.”63 Other sources, including William A. Young’s J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs, James A. Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, and The Negro Leagues Book, edited by Dick Clark and Larry Lester, list Hardy on the roster of the Monarchs in 1942, the latter identifying him as both a catcher and right fielder.64

Johnnie Dawson and Gready McKinnis were also members of the Black Barons in 1942.65 According to Seamheads.com, both appeared in games with the Monarchs that season: McKinniss played in one game, while Dawson appeared in nine.66 However, Seamheads.com does not include Hardy on the Monarchs roster.67 Hardy himself later recalled playing “several seasons” for the Monarchs,68 though most sources identify him on the roster only in 1939.

Hardy may have been loaned to the Monarchs for a single game, either when the Black Barons were not playing, or when the teams played one another and Kansas City could not field a full squad. Such an occurrence was not uncommon in the Negro leagues and may have been exacerbated because of the outbreak of World War II, which depleted rosters. The Black Barons lost seven players to military service during 1942 alone.69 Loaning players was sometimes necessary to avoid losing gate revenue if a game had to be canceled. Such a practice was not without its critics, however. In 1944 the Monarchs objected when the Chicago American Giants allegedly used borrowed players to defeat Satchel Paige.70 Columnist Wendall Smith loathed the practice, writing:

Chicago contended that both players were originally members of its squad, but had been loaned out early in the season, subject to recall. Now we all know, of course, that such “deals” are in direct opposition to the rules and regulations of organized baseball.

If such “deals” were permissible, it would enable any team in the league to “stack up” with the star players of a club that lacked a mathematical chance of winning a pennant. It would enable one club to build up for one particular series, or mean that all the players in one league could be switched around at the will of the owners.

There is no such thing in baseball as a loaned player. A player is traded or sold to another club. He cannot be put on wheels and shoved back and forth, from one club to another, as has been the case of Willie] Wells and Alex] Radcliffe. And even then, there is a time limit on the trading and selling of players. Certainly such deals cannot be made in the middle of the season without the approval of the other clubs in the league.71

Whether Hardy appeared in a game for the Monarchs in 1942 will remain a mystery unless a box score or additional evidence is located.

The following year, 1943, marked the rise of the Birmingham Black Barons as one of the best franchises in the Negro leagues. Birmingham finished 46-35 and won the first-half title in the NAL.72 For most of the summer, Hardy was the starting catcher, but his name last appeared in a box score on September 3.73

As the Black Barons prepared to face the second-half champion Chicago American Giants in the playoffs, newspapers listed Hardy on Birmingham’s roster.74 However, the US Army had already drafted him,75 and Herman Bell replaced Hardy on the Black Barons.76 Bell himself was then injured against Chicago and could not play in the Negro League World Series.77 The Homestead Grays agreed to allow the Black Barons to use Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, player-manager of the American Giants, as their catcher.78 The Grays won an exciting seven-game series over the Black Barons. Wendell Smith complained that Radcliffe’s addition to Birmingham’s roster, notwithstanding Homestead’s approval, made the series appear “slip-shod” and called for a league commissioner.79

Hardy was assigned to the Army’s 868th Company at Camp Knight in Oakland, California. He played baseball at Camp Knight and captained the football team while stationed at Camp Plauche, near New Orleans. During his hitch, Hardy achieved the rank of sergeant and was discharged on September 28, 1945.80 He rejoined the Black Barons, who were on a barnstorming tour of the West Coast.81 However, Hardy’s time with Birmingham was soon over and he remained in the West the following year.

Abe Saperstein had been the business manager of the Black Barons for several years in the 1940s. In 1946 Saperstein owned a barnstorming team, the Cincinnati Crescents. He merged the Crescents with the roster of his Harlem Globetrotters baseball club to form the Seattle Steelheads; the Steelheads joined the newly formed West Coast Negro Baseball League.82 He hired Paul Hardy, now 35, as his player-manager and rented Sick’s Stadium in Seattle for most home games.83 The new league collapsed after just two months.84 Hardy and his players then went back to barnstorming. Later that fall, Saperstein organized a 14-game all-star trip to Hawaii where Hardy was joined by former Black Barons Piper Davis, Artie Wilson, and Ed Steele, as well as Luke Easter and Cool Papa Bell.85

In February 1947 the Pittsburgh Courier reported that Hardy was expected to join the Memphis Red Sox for spring training.86 However, Saperstein had other plans. He hired Hardy to manage and catch for the Harlem Globetrotters, whom Saperstein reorganized through a merger of the rosters of the Crescents and Steelheads.87 Like their basketball cousins, the Globetrotters traveled the country playing local teams, Negro league teams, all-star squads, or other barnstorming outfits, such as the House of David.88 Globetrotters games featured shadowball performances along with appearances by baseball clown Eddie Hamman to entertain fans.89 Hardy remained as the player-manager of the Globetrotters from 1947 to 1950.

Before arriving in a particular city, the Globetrotters would issue advertisements disguised as news stories to drum up interest in their coming appearance. Hardy was often described as being “rated as one of the greatest catchers in Negro League baseball” and “one of the best-liked fellows in Negro baseball and certain to go far as a manager.”90 One such example of the effusive praise for Hardy appeared in a 1949 article:

If Paul Hardy wasn’t happily situated as manager of the crack Harlem Globetrotters — which is scheduled at Affleck park against the House of David July 8 — he’d certainly be among the first Negro stars summoned into the major league.

Hardy, a youthful veteran, is equipped with everything to make the grade — ability, hustle, brains, a great competitive spirit and a deep love for the game. He long has rated among the greatest sepia catching stars, and he has been back of the plate and managing the Globetrotter nine since its inception.91

Under Hardy’s leadership, the Globetrotters reportedly had a record of 500-125 (.800),92 though newspapers seldom published game accounts or line scores. In a rare report on a contest between the Globetrotters and the House of David, Hardy’s pickoff throw to first nailed a runner to end the game.93

Besides his baseball duties, Hardy often drove the bus for the basketball Globetrotters during the winter.94 However, by 1951, the Globetrotters ceased baseball operations.95

Winfield Welch had taken over the struggling Chicago American Giants. Thanks to Saperstein, many of the Globetrotters ended up on his roster, including Hardy.96 Hardy was the starting catcher and shared managing duties with Welch.97 His defensive prowess was on display in a barnstorming victory over the South Bend Indians in May as “Hardy won a round of applause after a long run, climaxed by a one-hand catch of Scott’s foul in the seventh.”98 Buoyed by former Globetrotters, the American Giants improved on their 1950 record (15-31 and last place in their division) to finish 34-24 and claim second place in the NAL West in 1951.99 Later that fall, Hardy played catcher and shortstop on Roy Campanella’s All-Stars, along with Piper Davis, Larry Doby, Luke Easter, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Verdell Mathis, Hank Thompson, Joe Black, Don Newcombe, and Jimmie Newberry, among others.100

In 1952 the Chicago American Giants finished 32-31 for a third-place finish in the team’s coda in the NAL. The reliable Hardy returned as player-manager until the end amid dubious reports that the 41-year-old catcher had “refused numerous major league offers to remain as manager of the Giants on a year-round basis.”101 Hardy again barnstormed with the Roy Campanella All-Stars after the season. In one of his final games, the All-Stars faced the Birmingham Black Barons before a crowd of 2,227 at Rickwood Field. Hardy singled to drive in Willie Mays for the final run in the All-Stars’ 5-3 win.102

After his apparent retirement from baseball, Hardy continued driving the bus for the Globetrotters basketball squad for several years.103 However, in 1959 he may have returned to the NAL to play for the Birmingham Black Barons. From June 19 to July 20, the name “Hardy” appeared in the line score as a catcher four times during the Black Barons’ NAL championship season.104 The question is whether it was Paul Hardy.

In Appendix B to Black Baseball’s Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons, 1919-1962, William J. Plott concluded that the catcher was indeed Paul Hardy.”105 His inclusion, even as a 48-year-old catcher on the Black Barons, would have made some sense. Piper Davis was the manager and considered the team to be an “exhibition outfit by then.”106 He and Hardy had been teammates on the Black Barons in 1943 and 1945. Also, both had regularly driven the Globetrotters’ bus during offseasons; Davis had done so during the winters of 1958 and 1959.107

The Globetrotters employed Hardy for 37 years.108 By 1964, he estimated he had already “driven more than 1.7 million miles in the United States and other parts of the world minus a single accident,” a distance he figured as second only to Abe Saperstein.109 In the same feature story, he described his greatest baseball moment for columnist Al Warden: “This happened in Merrill, Wisconsin. Our rivals had the bases loaded and the batter put on the squeeze play and I was the starter of a sensational triple play. This was my biggest baseball thrill.”

Hardy died on August 28, 1979, at the Lakeside Veterans Hospital in Chicago.110 He left behind his wife, Ruthe Hardy, and three daughters, Vivona Summers, Peggy Love, and Emily Norris.11

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank fellow SABR researchers Bill Young, Chris Hicks, Alan Cohen, Donna Halper, Tim Tassler, and Bill Plott, who took time to answer emails about whether Paul Hardy played for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1942. In addition, Janet Bruce Vaughn, Gary Ashwill, and Larry Lester were generous with their time and helpful in responding to questions about Hardy. Finally, the author is grateful to Cassidy Lent, a reference librarian at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, who provided him with Paul Hardy’s obituary.

Notes

1 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=hardy01pau.

2 William J. Plott, Black Baseball’s Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons, 1919-1962 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 2015), 248.

3 Mississippi. Lauderdale County. 1920 US Census.

4 Mississippi. Lauderdale County. 1930 US Census.

5 “Grey Sox Divide Tilts With ’Nooga; Hit Road Till June,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 12, 1931: 10. It is possible, the reference to Paul Hardy attending Alcorn may have been mistaken as Grey Sox pitcher Wheeler Hardy also attended the school. William J. Plott, The Negro Southern League: A Baseball History, 1920-1951 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 2014), 83. The author was unable to confirm whether Paul Hardy played baseball at Alcorn because the school does not have records from the 1930s. Robbie Kleinmuntz, assistant athletic director for sports information at Alcorn State University, email correspondence with author, September 23, 2020. Assuming Hardy attended Alcorn, he apparently did not mention this to Al Warden when he was featured in his column in 1964. Al Warden, “The Sports Highway,” Odgen (Utah) Standard-Examiner, February 10, 1964: 6. Also, Hardy’s obituary made no mention of his education. “Obituaries: Paul Hardy,” Chicago Tribune, August 30, 1979: 49.

6 “Negro Southern League Organized,” Nashville Banner, March 15, 1931: 28; “Grey Sox Divide Tilts With ’Nooga; Hit Road Till June.”

7 “Grey Trounce Chattanooga,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 10, 1931: 9.

8 “Elites Subdue Grey Sox, 8-7,” Nashville Banner, May 24, 1931: 28.

9 “Black Barons Bow to Grey Sox, 7 to 5,” Montgomery Advertiser, June 7, 1931: 7.

10 “Grey Sox Beaten By Atlanta, 11-1,” Montgomery Advertiser, June 12, 1931: 10.

11 “Grey Sox Divide Tilts With ’Nooga; Hit Road Till June”; “Barons Lose Night Games to Grey Sox,” Birmingham Reporter, June 27, 1931: 7; “Grey Sox Split With Memphis,” Montgomery Advertiser, June 29, 1931: 7; “Grey Sox Beat Knoxville Nine,” Montgomery Advertiser, July 6, 1931: 10; “Grey Sox Capture Double Bill, 6-1 — 3-0,” Montgomery Advertiser, July 20, 1931: 6; “Mobile Loses Three Straights to Sox,” Montgomery Advertiser, July 25, 1931: 7; “Grey Sox Split With Giant Foe,” Montgomery Advertiser, August 3, 1931: 12; “Grey Sox Romp on Jacksonville ‘Stingerees,’” Birmingham Reporter, August 8, 1931: 7; “Sox Defeat Giants in a Twin Bill,” Birmingham Reporter, August 22, 1931: 3; “Sox and Barons Split Twin Bill,” Birmingham Reporter, August 29, 1931: 3; “White Sox Win, Lose,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 31, 1931: 7.

12 Plott, The Negro Southern League, 82.

13 “Elites Lead Dixie League,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 18, 1931: 14.

14 Plott, The Negro Southern League, 88. Adding to the confusion, newspapers cited the Nashville Elite Giants as being champions of the Negro Southern League in advertisements for the Negro Dixie Series against the Negro Texas-Louisiana League champions, the Monroe Monarchs. “Negro Dixie Series,” Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), September 5, 1931: 11.

15 “Grey Sox Open Season With Atlanta Team Here Today,” Montgomery Advertiser, July 20, 1931: 6; Plott, The Negro Southern League, 95.

16 Plott, The Negro Southern League: 91.

17 “Monarchs Triumph in Colored League,” Monroe (Louisiana) News-Star, July 6, 1932: 6.

18 Plott, The Negro Southern League, 100.

19 “Grey Sox Take Two from Crax,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 25, 1932: 5; “Barons Win Four, Lose One,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 21, 1932: 4; “Grey Sox Lose to Louisianans,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 30, 1932: 6; “Little Rock Loses Twice to Grey Sox,” Montgomery Advertiser, June 6, 1932: 6; “Black Caps Take Two from Montgomery Sox,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 11, 1932: 5; “Grey Sox Grab Two Games from Louisville In 2nd Place Fight,” Montgomery Advertiser, July 25, 1932: 6.

20 “Lincoln Giants Defeat Indianapolis Team, 9-7,” Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana), April 7, 1933: 12.

21 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-indianapolis-abcs-1907-1942/.

22 “Nashville Takes Lead from Giants in Negro National,” Birmingham News, August 7, 1933: 7.

23 “Detroit Team Plays Here Against Locals Tonight,” Montgomery Advertiser, August 11, 1933: 3; “Grey Sox Capture Abbreviated Game,” Montgomery Advertiser, August 12, 1933: 6; “Grey Sox, Detroit Divide Twin Bill,” Montgomery Advertiser, August 14, 1933: 6.

24 http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Standings/Negro%20National%20League%20(1920-1948)-2020.pdf.

25 “Negro Teams Play Sunday at ‘Wood,’” Birmingham News, May 13, 1934: 16; “Cincy Takes Double Bill From Barons,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 16, 1934: 15. According to Plott, “The Birmingham News referred to the ball club as ‘Birmingham Giants, alias the Black Barons.’” Plott, The Negro Southern League, 117.

26 “Chambers and Grampp Defeat Black Barons; Farmers Win Twin Bill,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 20, 1934: 8.

27 “Elite Giants Make Debut Here Sunday,” Tennessean (Nashville), April 4, 1935: 15; “Black Eagles Gain Split With Elites,” Times Union (Brooklyn), June 24, 1935: 11; “Grays Divide with Columbus,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 30, 1935: 42; “Eagles Defeated by Strong Rivals,” Times Union, July 22, 1935: 11; “Dukes Beaten by Elite Nine in Thrillers,” Times Union, September 16, 1935: 13.

28 No other “Paul Hardy” has been identified as playing in the Negro Leagues in 1936. Newspapers referred to the Grey Sox player-manager only as “Hardy.” Adding to the confusion, a 1937 article stated, “Hardy worked for Manager Taylor at Washington.” Hank Casserly, “Chicago Club Faces Locals Wednesday and Thursday,” Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), May 25, 1937: 17. This reference was likely to the 1936 season when the Elite Giants played in Washington. However, given Hardy’s prior connection with the Montgomery club and his position as a catcher (which was the same as Montgomery’s player-manager named “Hardy”), the author assumes the Montgomery references to “Hardy” were to Paul Hardy. His association with Candy Jim Taylor was probably during the 1935 season when Hardy played with the Columbus/Nashville Elite Giants before the club played in Washington. “Columbus Giants to Play Grey Sox in New Ball Park,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 12, 1936: 23; “Grey Sox to Play Chicago Negro Ball Club Today,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 26, 1936: 6; “Tigers Stage Rally,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 18, 1936: 18.

29 “Grey Sox Host In Twin Bill Today to Atlanta All-Star,” Montgomery Advertiser, July 19, 1936: 22.

30 Plott, The Negro Southern League, 140; http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Standings/Negro%20Southern%20League%20%20(1920-1951)-2020.pdf.

31 “Black Barons and Chicago Club to Open 1937 Season,” Birmingham News, April 24, 1937: 8; Hank Casserly, “Chicago Club Faces Locals Wednesday and Thursday,” Capital Times, May 25, 1937: 17.

32 Wendell Smith, “Baseball Pays Bill to Satchel,” Boston Globe, February 10, 1971: 39.

33 Casserly, “Chicago Club Faces Locals Wednesday and Thursday.”

34 http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Standings/Negro%20American%20League%20(1937-1962)-2020.pdf.

35 “Negro Teams Set for Battle Here,” Birmingham News, August 22, 1937: 20.

36 “Northern Negro All-Stars Down Southern Team,” Birmingham News, August 23, 1937: 8.

37 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1938&teamID=CAG&LGOrd=2.

38 “Black Barons Go Down in Defeat in Pair of Battles,” Birmingham News, May 2, 1938: 13; “Locals Error in Fifth to Help Visitors,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, May 28, 1938: 8; “Colored Team Boasts Great Hurling Staff,” Sheboygan (Wisconsin) Press, August 9, 1938: 10.

39 Ray T. Rocene, “Sports Jabs,” Missoulian (Missoula, Montana), June 22, 1939: 6.

40 Hank Casserly, “Great Negro Club Here Wednesday and Thursday,” Capital Times, June 7, 1938: 13.

41 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1939&lgID=All&tab=standings. 

42 “Kansas City Monarchs Win American League Pennant by Beating St. Louis Three Straight,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 9, 1939: 16.

43 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=hardy01pau.

44 “Monarchs Win,” St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette, May 19, 1939: 6; “Monarchs Rally to Beat Paris,” Paris (Texas) News, May 21, 1939: 9.

45 Plott, Black Baseball’s Last Team Standing, 121.

46 “Black Barons Clash with Baltimore Club in Twin Bill Sunday,” Birmingham News, April 20, 1940: 8.

47  “Black Barons Clash with Baltimore Club in Twin Bill Sunday.”

48 “Black Barons to Have Their Full Forces for St. Louis Sunday,” Birmingham News, May 8, 1940: 8.

49 “American Giants Win Twice from Birmingham Nine,” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1940: 20; “First Game Goes 14 Innings,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 8, 1940: 17; “Black Barons Divide Double-Header Here With Cleveland Team,” Birmingham News, June 24, 1940: 11; “Black Barons Defeat Chicago Team Twice by Scores of 4-2, 3-2,” Birmingham News, August 19, 1940: 13; “Bushwicks Cash In Twice Behind Effective Hurling,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 26, 1940: 15; “Black Barons to Play Baltimore Team Here in Twin Bill Sunday,” Birmingham News, September 21, 1940: 10.

50 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1940&lgID=NAL.

51 “Jim Taylor to Send His All-Star Squad Against Local Team,” Birmingham News, October 6, 1940: 29.

52 “Black Barons Open Season Here April 20 Against New Yorkers,” Birmingham News, April 13, 1941: 21.

53 “Black Barons Headed for Home; ‘Welch Day’ Here to Be Season’s Big Attraction,” Weekly Review (Birmingham, Alabama),  August 15, 1941: 7.

54 “Black Barons Divide Pair With Yankees; Gone for Two Weeks,” Birmingham News, April 21, 1941: 12.

55 “Black Barons Divide Pair With Yankees; Gone for Two Weeks”; “Black Barons Defeat Eagles in Nightcap After Losing Opener,” Birmingham News, May 5, 1941: 14; “Black Barons Split Memphis Twin Bill,” Birmingham News, June 2, 1941: 14; “Black Barons Victors in Opener, but Lose Nightcap To Memphis,” Birmingham News, June 9, 1941: 14; “Black Barons Capture First Game, 4 to 3, but Lose Second, 4-0,” Birmingham News, June 30, 1941: 16; “Black Barons Defeat Red Caps in First Game but Lose Second,” Birmingham News, July 5, 1941: 10; “Black Barons Divide Twin Bill With Caps; Both Are Close Tilts,” Birmingham News, July 7, 1941: 13; “Black Barons, Red Sox Split Two in Memphis; Welch Day Here Aug. 27th,” Weekly Review (Birmingham, Alabama), August 8, 1941; H.J. Williams, “Barons Win Double Bill,” Weekly Review, August 29, 1941: 7; “Black Barons Close Out Successful Year Against New Yorkers,” Birmingham News, September 28, 1941: 20.

56 “Diamond Strategist of Negro Champions to Play With Team,” Birmingham News, September 14, 1941: 14.

57 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1941&lgID=NAL&tab=standings.

58 “Black Barons Victors Over All-Stars,” Birmingham News, October 5, 1941: 22.

59 “Black Barons Will Open Season Against Kansas City Outfit,” Birmingham News, April 17, 1942: 31; “Black Barons, Monarchs Will Initiate Season,” Birmingham News, April 19, 1942: 23; “Black Barons to Show Classy Outfit Here Monday Night,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 16, 1942: 7.

60 “Ethiopian Clowns Bring Pranks for Black Baron Frays,” Birmingham News, August 23, 1942: 11D.

61 http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1942&lgID=NAL.

62 Janet Bruce, The Kansas City Monarchs: Champions of Black Baseball (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 139. Ms. Bruce, who is now Janet Vaughan, no longer has her research on the rosters. Email from Janet Vaughan, October 25, 2020.

63 Bruce, 133.

64 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016), 202; James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 355; Dick Clark and Larry Lester, eds., The Negro Leagues Book, (Cleveland: SABR, 1994), 131. Bill Young was kind enough to check his notes from the 1942 Kansas City Call but found no references to Hardy on the Monarchs roster. Email from Bill Young, December 5, 2020. Likewise, Larry Lester confirmed that Paul Hardy was not included in any of Kansas City’s team photographs in 1942; and the sources listing him on the Monarchs’ roster are wrong. Email from Larry Lester, April 24, 2020.

65 http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1942&teamID=BBB&LGOrd=2.

66 https://seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1942&teamID=KCM.

67 Seamheads.com’s Gary Ashwill has not located any box scores with Hardy included on the club. Nevertheless, he has not ruled out the possibility that Hardy played for the club briefly. Facebook message from Gary Ashwill, October 12, 2020.

68 Al Warden, “The Sports Highway,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, February 10, 1964: 6. Hardy may have played for the Monarchs on June 7. The Black Barons and Monarchs played a doubleheader before 7,000 fans at Rickwood Field. Double Duty Radcliffe caught both games for the Black Barons “during the absence of Captain Hardy,” which the article did not explain. Monarchs catcher Johnnie Dawson was thrown out of the second game for cursing at an umpire, which created the need for a replacement. However, the article did not mention who took over behind the plate and the line scores did not list the batteries. “Barons Put On Hitting Spree to Win 12-2, but Lose Heart Breaker 5-4,” Weekly Review, June 13, 1942: 7. However, a box score in another newspaper lists both Frank Duncan and Joe Greene as appearing at catcher after Dawson’s ejection. “Black Barons Divide Couple With Monarchs,” Birmingham News, June 8, 1942: 17.

69 “Black Barons Meet New York Cubans in Double Bill Sunday,” Birmingham News, September 14, 1942.

70 “‘Loaned’ Players Beat Paige, Kansas City Protest,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 15, 1944: 12.

71 “‘Smitty’s’ Sports Spurts,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 15, 1944: 12.

72 http://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/year.php?yearID=1943&lgID=NAL&tab=standings.

73 “Fore River Battles Barons to 2-2 Tie,” Boston Globe, September 3, 1943: 26.

74 “Negro Giants, Barons Start Series Today,” Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1943: 38.

75 “Sox Park Is Site of Negro Game Today,” Chicago Tribune, September 26, 1943: 34.

76 “Black Barons Drop Opener to Giants,” Birmingham News, September 14, 1943: 17; “Black Barons Trip Chicago in Bowl, 4-1,” Montgomery Advertiser, September 18, 1943; “Black Barons Clinch Negro American League Flag; Whip Giants, 1-0,” Birmingham News, September 20, 1943: 17.

77 “Black Meet Homestead Grays at Rickwood Sunday,” Birmingham News, September 29, 1943: 19.

78 “Sox Park Is Site of Negro Game Today,” Chicago Tribune, September 26, 1943: 34.

79 “‘Smitty’s’ Sports Spurts,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 2, 1943: 16.

80 “Harlem Baseball Team to Play at East Helena,” Independent-Record (Helena, Montana), June 19, 1947: 9; “Hardy Leads Globetrotters,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 20, 1948: 17.

81 “First Loss for Barons,” San Francisco Examiner, October 22, 1945: 17; “Meusel All Stars Defeated by Barons,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, October 27, 1945: 8.

82 Norm King, “Abe Saperstein,” accessed at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/abe-saperstein/; http://sportspressnw.com/2145947/2013/wayback-machine-seattle-steelheads-short-life.

83 Lee Dunbar, “On the Level,” Oakland Tribune, May 3, 1946: 20; “Negro Teams in League Contest,” San Bernardino County Sun, May 17, 1946: 19; David Eskenazi, “Wayback Machine: A legacy of black baseball,” May 5, 2015: accessed at http://sportspressnw.com/2203231/2015/wayback-machine-a-legacy-of-black-baseball.

84 Eskenazi.

85 Don Watson, “Speaking of Sports,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, July 27, 1946: 17; Al Warden, “Patrolling the Sport Highway,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, September 26, 1946: 8.

86 “Memphis Reds Bolster Team,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 22, 1947: 17.

87 “Harlem Team to Train In South,” Weekly Review, April 5, 1947: 7; “Globetrotters Doing well,” Weekly Review, April 12, 1947: 7.

88 “’Trotters Will Play Detroit,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 12, 1947: 15; “Harlem Baseball Team to Play at East Helena”; “Davids Lose 2 to 0 as Ball Season Ends,” Herald-Press (Saint Joseph, Michigan), September 13, 1947: 5.

89 “Trotters in Game Here,” Kansas City Times, August 23, 1948: 12; “City League All-Stars Play Harlem Globetrotters June 17,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, June 11, 1950: 29.

90 “Globetrotters Boast Best Negro Catcher; Test Hawaii Stars Here Today,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 22, 1948: 23; “Hardy Leads Globetrotters,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 20, 1948: 17.

91 “Trotters Have Great Star in Paul Hardy,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 30, 1949: 21.

92 “Everett to Be Scene of Negro League Contest,” Cumberland (Maryland) Evening Times, August 13, 1951: 7; “League Game Set at Everett by Negro Loop,” Bedford (Pennsylvania) Gazette, August 10, 1951: 3.

93 “Davids Lose 2 to 0 As Ball Season Ends.”

94 “Trotter Boss Dies at 47,” St. Joseph News-Press, January 15, 1951: 8.

95 “Indians and Giants Play at Lippincott,” South Bend Tribune, May 29, 1951: 13.

96 “Indians and Giants Play at Lippincott.”

97 “Black Barons Open Spring Training Drills Sunday at State College,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 8, 1951: 22 (Hardy identified as manager); “Sea Gulls Meet Chicago Giants,” Pensacola News Journal, April 15, 1951: 17 (Welch identified as manager); “Chicago Giants Invade City Monday to Face Black Barons,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 22, 1951: 23 (Hardy identified as manager); “Negro Big League Clubs Play Here,” Monroe Morning World, May 13, 1951: 10 (Welch identified as manager); “League Game Set at Everett by Negro Loop,” Cumberland Evening Times, August 13, 1951: 7 (Welch identified as manager).

98 “Bob Towner, Indians Lose Home Opener by 4-2 Score,” South Bend Tribune, May 30, 1951: 16.

99  http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Standings/Negro%20American%20League%20(1937-1962)-2020.pdf.

100  http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Rosters/Rosters%20-%20Barnstorming%20Teams%20(1946-1988).pdf.

101 “Takes Charge,” Kokomo (Indiana) Tribune, August 5, 1952: 9.

102 “Joe Black Pitched His Team to 5 To 3 Victory Over Barons,” Alabama Tribune (Montgomery), October 24, 1952: 7.

103 Al Warden, “The Sports Highway,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, February 10, 1964: 6.

104 “Memphis Clips Barons in 10th,” Shawnee (Oklahoma) News-Star, June 19, 1959: 11; “Raleigh Tigers Split Twinbill,” Raleigh News and Observer, June 29, 1959: 14; “Tigers Win, 7-2,” News and Observer, June 30, 1959: 14; “Black Barons’ Lead Still Intact,” Birmingham News, July 20, 1959: 23.

105 Plott, Black Baseball’s Last Team Standing, 284. On page 125, Plott concluded that Hardy’s “career with Birmingham spanned three decades.”

106 Prentice Mills, “The Baron of Birmingham, an Interview with Lorenzo ‘Piper’ Davis,” Black Ball News, Vol 1. No. 5, 1993: 12.

107 Mills.

108 “Obituaries,” Paul Hardy, Chicago Tribune, August 30, 1979: 49.

109 Warden, “The Sports Highway”: 6.

110 “Obituaries”: 49.

111  “Obituaries”: 49.

The 1941 City Directory for Kansas City already listed Harmon as an employee of the Call, but there is little evidence that she worked full time  for the newspaper until late in 1942. On the other hand, she had been hanging around the Call’s newsroom since she was in high school. As she told sportswriter Dan Burley in a 1944 interview, she first became interested in working there when a guest speaker, Frank “Fay” Young, the “Dean of the Black Sportswriters,” came to talk to her newswriting  class at Lincoln High School. While Young was best known for his work with the Chicago Defender, he spent several years working as the managing editor of the Call, and young Willie Bea was so inspired by him that she decided she wanted a job.3 She began as a “gofer,” but gradually she was given a chance to do some copyediting and then some occasional reporting. After high school, she went off to college to study journalism, and once she graduated, she went to work for the Argus until the Call had an opening. But it wasn’t for a news reporter – the Call needed an entertainment writer. By December 1942, she was writing a bylined column called the “Gossipel Truth.”

She was also experimenting with her name, alternately writing as Bea Harmon, W. Bea Harmon or Willie Bea Harmon. It seems to have been Dan Burley who began referring to her as Willa Bea Harmon, circa 1944; gradually, she started using “Willa” in her byline. As for her entertainment column, it was a blend of movie and concert reviews, as well as the latest information about local and national artists coming to town. It often ventured into social commentary, as she lamented how nearly every venue in Kansas City was segregated or remarked upon how White businesses were happy to take the money of Black patrons yet felt no obligation to treat those Black patrons with respect.

During 1942, Harmon was not covering sports at the Argus, nor did that seem to be a goal for her. She had been trained as a news reporter, and her focus was on current issues. Of course, given that her entire family was from Kansas City, she was undoubtedly aware of how well the Monarchs were doing; in addition, the Argus had a sports page, and the Monarchs were frequently covered, along with some of the other Negro League teams.4 When Harmon returned to Kansas City sometime in late 1942, she did get an opportunity to cover some hard news: Her duties included reporting on the courts and the police, in addition to working as the entertainment columnist.

Within a short time, everything changed. Throughout 1942 and 1943, a growing number of men were getting drafted and sent overseas to fight in World War II. Other men supported the war effort by working in the defense industry, and that is what Sam McKibben decided to do. He left the Call to work at a defense plant, and he didn’t return; in fact, he subsequently left journalism to dedicate his life to being a Baptist minister.5 Suddenly, in early 1943, there was an opening for a sports editor, and Harmon offered to give it a try.

She had always enjoyed participating in sports – mainly swimming and tennis – but by her own admission she was not very knowledgeable about professional baseball, and covering the Monarchs was a large part of being the sports editor. Fortunately, she had two excellent mentors, who taught her what she needed to know:  the Monarchs’ business manager (and former pitching star), Dizzy Dismukes, and the team’s co-owner, Tom Baird.6 She learned quickly, and by the start of the 1943 season, she was covering the Monarchs as well as reporting on college track and field, boxing, and other local sports. By April, she was bylined as the Call’s sports editor.7 (Harmon was not the first Black female sports editor. Nell Dodson, later Nell Dodson Russell, held that position at the Baltimore Afro-American in the late 1930s. By most accounts, these two women were unique for their era. When Harmon left the Call in late 1945, she was described by reporters as “the only woman sports editor in the country.”8)    

In early 1943, a controversy arose that affected the Negro Leagues: the US Office of Defense Transportation, whose mission was to encourage Americans to conserve transportation resources (including gasoline and tires) by reducing unnecessary travel,9 decided to ban the use of privately owned buses by the 12 Negro Leagues teams that relied upon them.10 The Call noted that the owners had pleaded with ODT Director Joseph B. Eastman to reconsider, but Eastman refused to make an exception, thus putting Negro Leagues players in a nearly impossible situation.11 Harmon wrote about this issue on several occasions. For example, in her April 2, 1943, sports column, she took Eastman to task, accusing him of being willfully ignorant of the unique problems Black athletes faced in a segregated country. She dismissed his suggestion that the trains would be an acceptable alternative, and she invited him to see for himself why traveling through the Deep South by train would work much better for him and other White people than it would for Black people. She also criticized the Negro Leagues owners for having no real plan of their own and simply hoping for a miracle (which thus far had not arrived).12 Meanwhile, in her entertainment columns, she continued to speak out about racism, chastising Hollywood for stereotyping Black actors and actresses,13 and criticizing Kansas City theater and club owners for their patronizing treatment of Black customers – including her. Even though she was the theater critic for a widely-read newspaper, most White-owned venues refused to let her use the same door as the White reporters.14      

Throughout the 1943 season, Harmon kept the Call’s readers informed about the latest Monarchs news. For someone who had never been a baseball reporter, she proved to have good instincts, and adapted well to her new duties. Known for being a talented writer, she was able to put those skills to use when reporting on the Monarchs’ games. One good example was her report from the East-West “Dream Classic” in Chicago. It was a game witnessed by more than 50,000 fans and featured a masterful performance by Satchel Paige.15 She not only noted the exciting plays; her thorough descriptions made readers feel as if they were there. Harmon also gained a reputation for truthfulness. She had learned from “Fay” Young that, even when covering the hometown team, it was important to be fair and factual. That year, due to a combination of injuries and the loss of key players to the military, the Monarchs did not get to the World Series. Harmon was sympathetic, but she was also accurate when describing how the team played throughout the season. When they played well, she praised them; but when they didn’t, she avoided making excuses. In addition, she offered readers deeper insights into what the players were like as people. For example, when Monarchs first baseman Buck O’Neil joined the Navy, she explained that he was more than just another skillful athlete. O’Neil, she said, was the kind of person who kept his teammates motivated, win or lose, and who played hard every game and never gave up. Of course, such a man was a major asset to the armed forces but, unfortunately for the Monarchs, it was a big loss for the team.16    

From early 1943 until late 1945, Willa Bea Harmon earned the respect of her peers for her work on the baseball beat. When she decided to pursue a master’s degree in journalism, many of her colleagues, and many of her readers, expressed their disappointment that she was leaving. They all hoped she would return to the Call one day, but she never did. After getting her degree, she wrote for the Associated Negro Press and for Black magazines like Ebony, before marrying and moving to the West Coast. It is unfortunate that, thus far, the newspapers for which she wrote have not been digitized, limiting the number of people who can read her work. Whether writing about the entertainment industry or covering the world of sports, Harmon was unique – in a country that was segregated, and where women’s opportunities in journalism were often limited, she did not let anything stop her. She was a true pioneer in sports reporting.

Notes

1 Sam McKibben, “Negroes Would Name Leaders if Given Protection,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1942: 3.

2 Bea Harmon, “My Trip to Sikeston,” St. Louis Argus, February 6, 1942: 1.

3 Dan Burley, “Confidentially Yours,” Amsterdam News, November 25, 1944: 6B.

4 See for example, “Cincy Beats Paige and K.C. Monarchs,” St. Louis Argus, June 19, 1942: 11, or “Satchel to Pitch Against Clowns,” St. Louis Argus, August 21, 1942: 10.

5 “Marion Jackson’s Sports News Reel,” Alabama Tribune (Montgomery), December 19, 1947: 4.

6 Dan Burley, “Confidentially Yours,” Amsterdam News, November 25, 1944: 6B.

7 W. Bea Harmon, “Sportorial … by the Call’s Sports Editor,” Kansas City Call, April 9, 1943: 11.

8 “Swan Song,” Kansas City (Kansas) Plaindealer, September 14, 1945: 8.

9 Bradley Flamm, “Putting the Brakes on ‘Non-Essential’ Travel: 1940s Wartime Mobility, Prosperity, and the US Office of Defense,” The Journal of Transport History (vol. 27: 2006), 72-73.

10 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2016), 129-130.

11 “Start Fight for Negro Baseball,” Kansas City Call, April 2, 1943: 1.

12 W. Bea Harmon, “Sportorial … by the Call’s Sports Editor,” Kansas City Call, April 9, 1943: 11.

13 Willie Bea Harmon, “The Gossipel Truth,” Kansas City Call, May 7, 1943: 15.

14 W. Bea Harmon, “The Gossipel Truth,” Kansas City Call, August 27, 1943: 10.

15 Willie Bea Harmon, “West Topples East 2-1,” Kansas City Call, August 6, 1943: 10.

16 Willie Bea Harmon, “Sportorial,” Kansas City Call, August 20, 1943: 10.