Armour was born on April 27, 1915, in Madison, Mississippi. The historical record of his youth has yet to be found. The family moved to Carbondale, Illinois, at some point before 1930, as that year’s census shows him living there in the household of his grandparents, Alfred and Fannie. Alfred was a laborer at a tire factory, and Fannie was a laundress for a private family.2 Armour’s biological father, the son of his grandfather and also named Alfred, died in 1932, when Buddy was 17.3

The earliest mention of Alfred in the local press was in 1929, for his eighth-grade graduation from Crispus Attucks High School,4>/sup> an African American school organized in 1920, which operated independently until its students were integrated into Carbondale Community High School in 1964.5

Attucks offered basketball and track and field as sports. The possibility of baseball is mentioned on the Illinois High School “Glory Days” website, but there is “no record of trophies or plaques won by Attucks in baseball or any other extracurricular activity at the state tournament level.”6 The record of past individual accomplishments fails to mention Armour.

In 1933 Armour appeared professionally as a reserve third baseman for the Indianapolis ABCs/Detroit Stars. His performance as an 18-year-old is modest: He played in nine games and went 4-for-25 (.160). However, he is not listed on a professional roster again until 1938, apparently toiling on semipro teams.

From 1934 to 1935, the trail of Armour’s playing career goes cold. If he was a member of a professional organization, it’s barely documented. More likely, he played for a barnstorming or semipro team, which wasn’t uncommon for the time.

Two sources list Armour as reaching the Negro Leagues in 1936. All Mississippi Baseball, a blog self-described as highlighting Mississippi-connected players from preps to pros, past and present, notes that “Alfred Allen Armour reached the ‘big leagues’ of Black baseball in 1936, when he signed with the St. Louis Stars.7

A “bullpen” post on Baseball Reference asserts that “Armour got his start with the 1936 St. Louis Stars. After a couple years on the bench, he was the starting shortstop for the 1938 Indianapolis ABC’s.”8

Independent confirmation of this was elusive, as there is no statistical mention of Armour on either Baseball Reference or Retrosheet for the 1936 and 1937 seasons. But he appears in a photograph of the Mounds (Illinois) Blues, participants in the 1937 Illinois Semipro Baseball Championships in Elgin.9

Later, that team is mentioned as the predecessor to the Indianapolis ABC’s, which became the Stars in 1939.10

Eliminated from play by the Elgin West Ends after winning two earlier contests,11 the Blues returned to the St. Louis area and competed against area teams throughout the remainder of 1937. Whenever a box score accompanies a summary of the game, Armour is generally listed at shortstop and batting second in the lineup.

Finally, in 1938, Armour secured a starting position, this one with the Indianapolis ABC’s of the Negro American League. In the preview of an early series with the Atlanta Crackers, he is characterized as follows:

“Alfred Armour, short stop, throws right, hits life [left], is very fast, and a good hitter. He is rated by Manager Big George] Mitchell to go to first base in 3 seconds.”12

Indianapolis finished sixth with a 17-21 record with Armour mostly batting leadoff and again playing shortstop. Accounts differ regarding his offensive production, but Seamheads lists Armour as a .250 hitter in 17 games played. A Retrosheet download indicates 24 hits in 72 at-bats (.333 average). The discrepancy could be partially explained by the inclusion of three exhibition games.

With the franchise moving to St. Louis in 1939, the now St. Louis Stars fared no better than the ABC’s, finishing sixth again in the Negro American League, but Armour, then 24, was hitting his stride as a player. Again, statistical sources differ slightly, but the Retrosheet log reports 29 hits in 94 at-bats for a .309 batting average. Generally batting in the middle of the order, he had 16 RBIs.

That season was also the first time Armour was referred to by his nickname. Early-season coverage of the Stars’ 14-11 win over the Indianapolis ABC’s stated that “‘Buddy’ Armour who was spiked Sunday night was still out of the lineup, [Marshall Riddle] playing short and Dan Wilson holding down second base.”13 No further explanation of the moniker was noted.

With ongoing financial difficulties, the club split its home games between St. Louis and New Orleans in 1940 and 1941, becoming the St. Louis-New Orleans Stars. Armour’s emerging stardom was evident in an early-season preview of a series with the Atlanta All-Stars, in which he was characterized as a “shortstop who is exceptionally fast and a good fielder who carries the power of a 200-pounder although he weighs only 150.”14

Armour put up impressive numbers in 1940, now as an outfielder, with John Lyles becoming the staple at shortstop. Armour’s average was third among regular players with the Stars, .327 in 29 games, trailing only first baseman Ed Mayweather and second baseman Riddle in that category.

The Stars finished fourth in the Negro American League, well behind the Kansas City Monarchs, a team that included such greats as Buck O’Neil, Satchel Paige, and an aging Turkey Stearnes. But Armour’s performance was garnering notice.

Back with the Stars in 1941, Armour’s production waned, and he had yet to play for a first-division team in his professional career. The Stars were 21-27-3, with the Monarchs again winning the league. But despite the lack of team successes, 1941 saw Armour being selected as a reserve for the West team in the annual East-West All Star Game at Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

In that game, Armour replaced Neil Robinson in center field in the fifth inning and singled in his first at-bat in the sixth but was stranded at second base. He struck out in the eighth, but a dropped third strike by East catcher Roy Campanellaput him on first, and he ultimately scored the second run for the West in an 8-3 loss.

With ongoing financial struggles and a developing interest in the New York Black Yankees, Allen Johnson, a nightclub owner in Mounds, Illinois, and the Stars’ financial backer, dissolved the Stars and attempted to move 10 players to the Black Yankees, then of the Negro National League. The other owners objected, but former Stars manager George Mitchell, serving as business manager for Johnson, cited a previous ruling by the league that “any owner could quit one league and join the other league taking at least 10 players with him.”15 The Black Yankees did field a team in 1941, and a comparison of rosters shows eight of the 1941 St. Louis-New Orleans Stars as members of the 1942 Black Yankees.

Professionally, 1942 was lost for Armour, as he was not among them.

The 1943 season was only marginally better. A member of the Negro National League II operating as the Harrisburg-St. Louis Stars with home games played on the Island Park diamond in Harrisburg, had a roster made up of former members of the St. Louis Stars, and “players recruited from the disbanded American circuit.”16 For Armour, that meant limited opportunity, as he wasn’t part of the featured nine. The collective record of both teams was 12-32, again a second-class team performance that seemed to plague Armour’s career.

The chronicling of his personal successes is hard to define, because many of his games were exhibitions or not formally reported. His official stats for 1943 show participation in 14 games, split between Harrisburg and the Black Yankees. But other new entries, including one in June 1944, note that “[the cleanup] hitter for Cleveland, Buddy Armour, plays left field and slugged the horsehide at a .330 clip in 1943.”17

Armour’s career break occurred when he joined the Cleveland Buckeyes early in the 1944 season. He was 29 years old. An early-season match with the New York Cubans introduced him:

“The Cleveland Buckeyes are confident that they have overcome the faults of their first week’s practice, and with the addition of Alfred ‘Buddy’ Armour, former New Orleans-St. Louis Stars centerfielder, they believe they possess the punch and pitching to halt the Cubans.”18

Finally playing for a contender, Armour was again selected to the East-West All Star Game. As a starter, he batted cleanup and got a hit, stole a base and scored two runs in the West All Stars’ 7-4 victory.

The Buckeyes finished second behind the Birmingham Black Barons, 15½ games back. For Armour, his season results showed a .296 batting average in 20 games, with 15 RBIs. Although considered by many as a left-handed power hitter, he failed to tally a home run.

On the cusp of greatness, Cleveland entered the 1945 season with a similar lineup and high expectations. Armour was again a fixture in the outfield, and the Buckeyes dominated the first and second halves of the season to win the Negro American League championship by a wide margin over the Kansas City Monarchs. At the end of league play, the Buckeyes lost only 17 times in 80 outings, qualifying them for a shot at the Homestead Grays, a Negro League dynasty and winners of the previous two World Series. Like the Buckeyes, the Grays had won both halves of their season.

Armour was positioned seventh in the batting order for the Series. His 3-for-3 performance in Game Three was a key element in the Buckeyes’ 5-0 victory. The Buckeyes swept the Grays in four games, and after laboring with subpar teams for most of his career, Armour was a champion.

Armour returned to Cleveland in 1946. A new manager and multiple player changes to the core group found the Buckeyes less competitive, and they finished third behind Kansas City and Birmingham. But Armour regained his form, again batting over .300. (Seamheads lists his batting average as .333.) He was invited to and played for the North-South All Stars in a late-season clash against the Homestead Grays. But despite his production, Buckeyes general manager Wilbur Hayes traded him to the Chicago Giants for 24-year-old Clyde Nelson.19

Again saddled with a losing franchise (Chicago finished last in the 1947 Negro American League standings), Armour was still proficient on the field and was selected to the first 1947 East-West All-Star Game for the third time. (In 1946, 1947, and 1948, the Negro Leagues held two All-Star games a few days apart, one in Chicago and the other in New York or Washington.) As the starting right fielder in Chicago, he was 2-for-4 with two doubles and scored a run for the winning West team. He also played in the second game, starting in right field and going 0-for-1 before being replaced.

Armour stayed with the Giants in 1948 and again hit .300. But the team was once again a bottom-dweller, and with baseball being integrated and the Negro Leagues ultimately a casualty of that decision, his days in the spotlight were essentially over.

Reports of Armour playing in the Negro Southern League and the Canadian League are sporadically reported, but he did join the Homestead Grays, now an independent club, with a nod to his earlier accomplishments, in 1950.

“The signing of Buddy Armour was pleasing news to Manager Sam Bankhead, who immediately installed the former Cleveland Buckeye star in centerfield,” wrote the Washington Afro American. “Armour, a capable defensive player, also will add to the Grays already power-laden batting attack. He was batting king in the Canadian League last year.”20

It was the final year of the Grays, and the final year of Armour’s baseball career.

When his baseball career ended, Armour settled back in Carbondale and worked as a custodian for the city. He was married with a daughter, according to the 1950 census.

After his career ended, occasional mentions in the local newspaper listed him as an instructor for the Carbondale Junior Baseball League.21

Armour died on April 15, 1974, after a two-year illness. He is buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Carbondale.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and Seamheads.com.

Notes

1 Hayward Jackson, “Windy City All Agog Over Big Classic; Expect 40,000, Atlanta Daily World, July 15, 1941: 5.

2 1930 Census, Ancestry.com.

3 US, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947, Ancestry.com.

4 “Colored Pupils to Get Diplomas Tonight,” Carbondale (Illinois) Free Press, May 29, 1929: 3.

5 Brad Pace, “The Spirit of Attucks Schools,” https://carbondalespiritofattucks.weebly.com/the-spirit-of-attucks-schools.html.

6 https://illinoishighschoolglorydays.com/2022/03/01/carbondale-crispus-attucks-hs-bluebirds/.

7 www.allmississippibaseball.net/spotlight-on-4/ February 15, 2011, entry.

8 https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Buddy_Armour

9 “The Mounds Blues, With St. Louis Boys, Near the Illinois State Championship,” St. Louis Argus, August 6, 1937: 6.

10 “Card Twin Bill,” Indianapolis Star, July 23, 1938: 13. In 1937 a team from Mounds, Illinois (Blues) competed in the Illinois Semi Pro Tournament held in Elgin. A photograph of that team, with players identified, includes at least seven players who were on the roster of the Indianapolis ABCs of the Negro American League in 1938, including Armour. The ABCs moved to St. Louis in 1939 and became the St. Louis Stars.

11 “Elgin Defeats Colored Blues Last Night,” Dixon (Illinois) Evening Telegraph, August 11, 1937: 6.

12 “Indianapolis ABC’s Coming to Atlanta for Big Series,” Atlanta Daily World, June 5, 1938: 5.

13 “Stars Show Power in Hot 19-10 Victory,” St. Louis Argus, May 19, 1939: 11.

14 “Lucius ‘Melancholy’ Jones,” “St. Louis Stars Play Atlanta Nine at Harper Field This Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, April 3, 1940: 5.

15 “Lucius ‘Melancholy” Jones”, “Sports Slants,” Atlanta Daily World, March 11, 1942: 5.

16 “Enter Negro Nine in League Here,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Evening News, May 6, 1943: 21.

17 “Buckeyes Invade Twin City for Giant Twilight Game,” Hammond (Indiana) Times, June 16, 1944: 21.

18 Hayward Jackson, “Bremmer’s Pitching May Halt Cubans’ Power in New Orleans,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 22, 1944: 14.

19 “Buckeyes Get Nelson of Chicago in Trade for Armour,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 31, 1946: 22.

20 “Grays Sign Buddy Armour,” Washington Afro American, May 13, 1950: 30.

21 “Carbondale Boys Get More Lessons,” Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale), May 23, 1958: 9.

Earl Randolph Ashby Powbett led a fascinating baseball life. He was a backup catcher for the 1945 Negro champion Cleveland Buckeyes. He was given a chance to replace Josh Gibson as Homestead Grays catcher in 1947. He played in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States and perhaps other lands as well. 

But he also never stayed in one place for very long. Ashby had a temper and a habit of finding trouble. He never seemed to produce as much as he was expected to. Little is known of Ashby’s life outside of baseball. We do not even know when he died. What follows includes some speculation as Ashby played under multiple names throughout his career.

As the Negro Leagues disintegrated and Ashby and dozens of other players were left to find jobs playing baseball across North America, Ashby put together a career longer than a decade as a catcher, first baseman, and outfielder.

Very little is known of Ashby’s early life, past his birthday of May 16, 1921, in Havana, Cuba. He was close to his 24th birthday when he first came to the United States to play for the Cleveland Buckeyes. Prior to a tilt against the then first-place Memphis Red Sox on May 26, 1945, sportswriter Bob Williams said, “Two Cuban stars, Avelino Cañizares and Earl Ashby, will be seen at shortstop, or possibly catch or outfield, for the first time in the Buckeyes Lineup.”1 The pair were “Aces in the Hole” for Cleveland and Ashby “stars as an extra catcher when he isn’t strutting his stuff in and out field.”2

Ashby did not play much for Cleveland, who had star catcher-manager Quincy Trouppe taking most of the time behind the plate as well as Jesse Williams. For this reason, Ashby became an option in the outfield but was not considered a starter there either. For the season he hit .269/.345/.346, a 101 OPS+. Ashby mostly played during exhibitions, though he did have one highlight. In the second game of a doubleheader on July 1, Ashby hit a late double and scored a run as part of a late comeback in a 5-3 win over the Kansas City Monarchs to give the Buckeyes a sweep.3

Ashby’s and Jesse Williams’s roles were celebrated by the Cleveland Call and Post, the city’s African American newspaper: “[T]hese two boys have proven their worth both in the catching and hitting, and are to be given credit for aiding greatly in bringing the Buckeyes their new title.”4 In addition to winning the Negro American League pennant, the 1945 Buckeyes swept the Homestead Grays in four games in the Negro World Series. Ashby had a successful first season in the United States, even though he did not factor into the World Series victory.5

Ashby was not back with Cleveland after the 1945 season. It appears that he followed many other US-based players to Mexico in 1946, as Jorge Pasquel tried to build up the Mexican League. While there is no Earl Ashby listed in the records, there is an Edward Ashby who played with three teams: Mexico City, Veracruz, and Puebla.6

Ashby was back in the United States for the 1947 season. He began the year with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League but soon had the opportunity to replace the great Josh Gibson, who had died in January. Ashby had Gibson’s imposing size and strong arm, so it was probably a chance worth taking. He had some moments with Homestead with multihit games against the New York Black Yankees, Philadelphia Stars, and New York Cubans.7 Overall, Ashby hit .262 in 15 games for the Grays. Retrosheet shows 16 games, but none in which he appeared after July 20.8

That winter, a catcher named E. Randolph (who was likely Ashby though there is no definitive proof) played with Marianao of the Cuban Winter League, getting into one game and going 0-for-4.9 Ashby came back to the United States for the 1948 season with the Newark Eagles. He made an early impression with a two-hit game and a home run in separate exhibitions against the Atlanta Black Crackers.10 Reports were that Newark was excited to have Ashby as the starting catcher. One paper claimed, “Much is expected of Earl Ashby, who showed promise with the Grays last year”11 and another reporting that Eagles manager William Bell was impressed12 with the “hard working Cuban catcher.”13 

Ashby began the year as the starting catcher but played his last game for the Eagles on May 31. He would catch on with the defending champion New York Cubans, who had beaten the Buckeyes in the 1947 World Series, but according to Retrosheet he is known to have played in only one game for them, in August. For the season, Ashby hit .059 in 34 at-bats. His final line in the Negro major leagues was .196/.293/.284, a 61 OPS+.

From there, Ashby became one of numerous African American and Afro-Latino players who were baseball vagabonds. He spent 1949 playing for the Fulda (Minnesota) Giants of the semipro Centennial League.14 Ashby joined a Giants squad with future Hall of Famer Hilton Smith, then 42. The locals deemed that Ashby “was the character of the two.”15 It is here that we begin to see evidence of Ashby’s temper, which may explain his itinerant jumping around in the Negro leagues. Teammate Delly Koopman recalled, “Ashby could hit and he was a good catcher, but he had a temper. I stayed away from him. Sometimes, he would get mad at the pitcher, and he would take off the catcher’s gear and say he was going to pitch.”16 During a game in Iona, the away fans were taunting Ashby and he responded with an obscene gesture that led to his arrest.17 However, he had success in Fulda, with one source reporting that he hit .425.18

In 1978 columnist Patrick Reusse told the story of how Ashby caused a stir during a visit in Kinbrae, a hunting town near Fulda, when he showed up “dressed to the teeth.” As one resident said, “We haven’t seen a fellow that dressed up, before or since.”19 That a well-dressed Black man was remembered in that town three decades later is a window into how hard it was for Black players (to fit in) in the early years after integration. It also provides some context for Ashby’s disciplinary issues.

Ashby’s baseball journey continued in 1950 with Drummondville of the Class-C Provincial League. Ashby was celebrated as a three-time Negro League champion who had hit .312 for the famed Homestead Grays. This was all untrue. Ashby’s old manager and teammate Quincy Trouppe played for Drummondville the year before. Whether Trouppe recommended Ashby to Drummondville (or vice versa) is unclear but it appears that Drummondville thought they were getting Trouppe’s protégé when Ashby arrived. Ashby acquitted himself well, hitting .292 with 3 doubles and 2 home runs in 22 games. However, he was sent on a trial to the Bridgeport Bees of the Class-C Colonial League in June, probably due to his temper. There is a May 17 report of his being thrown out of a game for yelling at an umpire.20

He did not impress with Bridgeport,21 and Drummondville was forced to trade him to St. Jean for a player, Al Pajones, who did not play in the Provincial League that year. No statistics of his time in St. Jean have been found but there is a July 1 report that he was released after attacking teammate Rubén Gómez in a dispute that started over “unimportant stuff.”22

After he left St. Jean, Ashby becomes hard to follow. It appears that he caught on with the Paris Lakers of the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League using the name Earl “Chico” Randolph.23 However, he was suspended and released on August 3 for throwing his glove at an umpire in a disagreement on a catcher-interference call.24 This was apparently not his first infraction with an umpire while playing with Paris. He also had a collision with Mount Vernon first baseman Pete Milinkov while running out a grounder.25 It is unclear if the collision was anything out of the ordinary but given that he cannot have joined Paris until July, it was part of a pattern of ill-discipline and violence on the field.

Then on August 11, eight days after being released by Paris, Ashby was arrested and fined $15 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for participating in a brawl and taking a swing at a police officer.26 He was described as 27 years old (he was 29 at the time) and a suspended member of the Homestead Grays. It does not appear he was on the Homestead roster at the time, though it is also unclear why he was in Fort Wayne. Homestead was a nonleague barnstorming club by 1950 and it is possible, though unlikely, that Ashby did catch on with them again.

Ashby is listed as having played with the Duluth of the Northern League in June of 1951.27 There is a report that he was assigned, on trial, to Mexican club Aguiles in 1952.28 No statistics have been found for his time there. In 1953, it appears, he was back in Illinois. A Jimmy R. Powell played with Hannibal of the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League, hitting .382 in nine games. However, the manager of the Paris team, Tom Sunkel, protested a game that Paris played against Hannibal, claiming that Powell was in fact the suspended Chico Randolph.29 Powell was released shortly after. This makes it possible that Randolph/Ashby’s suspension was a permanent one. There is also a report of Powell spiking Mount Vernon first baseman Roger Werner, though it is unclear if this is the same incident reported above.

In 1954 Ashby appears to have played in Mexico (though it is unclear what team he played with), hitting a reported 19 home runs.30 He was back in the United States in 1955, starting the season with the Port Arthur (Texas) Seahawks of the Big State League as a first baseman and utilityman. One report from this time said that he called New Orleans his home.31

However, his time in Port Arthur was short as The Sporting News reports that he was picked up by the Rochester Red Wings, the Triple-A club of the St. Louis Cardinals.32 He was signed on an emergency contract as a backup catcher in case of an injury to catcher Bob Rand following an injury to catcher Charlie White. He was apparently signed in Toronto but not put on the roster.33 Whether he was a free agent after his time in Port Arthur went sour or left directly from Port Arthur is unclear. It is also unclear why he was on the radar of the Rochester Red Wings, given his on-field demeanor.

Eventually Ashby was released on June 20 for disciplinary reasons. It appears that on the night of June 19, he was seen having drinks with a woman named Ive James. That night, James’s boyfriend, Tom R. Blythers, was found stabbed to death. James was arrested on a charge of murder and Ashby was brought in as a material witness and held for 12 days. He had left town for New York after the incident and was found and brought back to Rochester by two detectives. However, it appears that Ashby was never a suspect, and he was paid $36 for his inconvenience. He also got medical attention during his time in Rochester after he claimed that James bit him on the finger the night of the incident. It turns out that the DA failed to indict James and Blythers’ murder remains unsolved.34

After his release from Rochester, it was reported that Ashby’s friend Sandy Amorós, a few months before making a World Series-saving catch for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ only World Series title, got him a job playing in the Dominican League. The problem was that Ashby was still needed in Rochester so DA Harry L. Rosenthal called and vouched for him.35 That said, there is no statistical record of Ashby playing in the Dominican Republic, which had switched to a winter league that season.36 It is possible that if he did go down to the Dominican, he just did not get into any games. He was 34 at the time and was not playing in high-profile leagues.

This is where the trail on Earl Randolph Ashby Powbett runs cold. It is unclear what happened to him after he was released by the Rochester police. We do not even know when he may have died.

So what to think of Earl Ashby? First, he was a player with impressive physical traits who despite never putting it together as a star player kept getting chances based on those skills. Second, Ashby played at a time when many Black American and Latino players were given little choice but to be baseball nomads. The Negro leagues collapsed in the early 1950s and there were few opportunities in Organized Baseball as integration was slow and many teams, fearful of being “too Black,” had unofficial quotas for the number of Black players they would employ and play at any one time. In fact, in many of his stops, like Fulda in 1949, Ashby appears to have been viewed as much as a sideshow as a baseball player. Ashby’s ability to promote himself, use connections, and embellish his own credentials in the low-information environment of the times served him well. But it was still a challenging and entirely unnecessary situation.

This leads to the third story. Ashby had a temper and often found himself in trouble with umpires, players, and the authorities. It is nearly impossible to untangle this from the abuse he probably faced because of being a Black man in America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This is no excuse for Ashby’s actions but an explanation. So Ashby, a Negro League champion who reportedly hit .300 a few times, had a very unusual career in the context of baseball history, though perhaps not unusual for a Black man in his era.

Sources

All Negro League statistics are from Seamheads.com as of the close of 2024. All game-level data is from Retrosheet.org unless otherwise noted. The author would like to thank Adam Darowski, Bill Nowlin, Gary Ashwill, Gary Fink, Christian Trudeau, Ruben Sanchez, and Sean Lahman for their help with this research.

Notes

1 Bob Williams, “Vastly Improved Buckeyes Strong in Every Field, May Bring Out Fans 10,000 Strong,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 26, 1945: 7B.

2 “Aces in Hole Are Bucks’ Cuban Stars,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 2, 1945: 6B.

3 Retrosheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1945/B07012KCM1945.htm).

4 “Here Is Buckeyes’ Pitching Staff, Rated Peerless,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 9, 1945: 7B.

5 RetroSheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/1945PS.html).

6 Baseball Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=ashby-000edw. Negro League researcher Gary Ashwill told the author in an email exchange that he thinks Edward Ashby was Earl Ashby.

7 Retrosheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1947/Bashbe1011947.htm).

8 That may be because no box scores have turned up. There is no record of his playing elsewhere that season.

9 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History: 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 2003). Ashby’s first two names were Earl Randolph and he was a Cuban catcher of the right age to be playing here. Ashby, as we will see later, had a habit of changing his name when it suited him as well.

10 Joel W. Smith, “Newark Eagles Sink Black Crackers By 19-2 Margin,” Atlanta Daily World, April 22, 1948: 5; Joel W. Smith, “Newark Eagles Squeeze Out 8-5 Victory Over Atlanta Black Crax,” Atlanta Daily World, April 27, 1948: 5.

11 “NNL Teams Begin Exhibition Contests,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 3, 1948: 8.

12 “Newark Eagles Sign Max Manning, Ace Hurler, to Contract,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 13, 1948: 10.

13 Joel W. Smith, “Newark Eagles, Black Crackers Clash Here Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, April 23, 1948: 5.

14 Armand Peterson and Tom Thomashek, Townball: The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball (Duluth: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 50-1.

15 Patrick Reusse, “Once Upon a Time in Fulda, Folks Were Tuned Into Baseball,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 4, 1993: 1C, 7C.

16 Reusse, 1993.

17 Reusse, 1993.

18 “Les Cubs Auront un Bon Receveur en Earl Ashby,” La Tribune (Sherbrooke, Quebec), May 6, 1950: 18. Translated by Christian Trudeau. The source, a report from an interview with Ashby also claims that Ashby went 11-1 as a pitcher and led the team to the championship. However, it contains a lot of inaccuracies and may be an example of Ashby taking advantage of a low-information environment to embellish his résumé.

19 Patrick Reusse, “Reusse at Random: Frogs Destined to ‘Croak,’” St. Paul Dispatch, August 24, 1978: 59.

20 “Les sportifs de Drummondville demandent la tête de Murphy,” La Tribune, May 17, 1950: 20. Translated by Christian Trudeau.

21 “Bees Take Twin Bill From Kingston Colonial,” Bridgeport Post, June 5, 1950: 26; “Bees Triumph Over Kingston Club 9-6,” Bridgeport Telegram, June 7, 1950: 25.

22 Gerard Hebert, “Le Saint-Jean a perdu un excellent joueur avec R. Ste-Marie blessé,” Le Front Ouvrier (Montreal), July 1, 1950: 14. Translated by Christian Trudeau.

23 Earl Randolph, The Sporting News Baseball Player Contract Cards, maintained by the LA84 Foundation and SABR.  

24 “Paris Player Hits Ump,” Mt. Vernon (Illinois) Register-News, August 2, 1950: 8; “Paris Lakers Release Fiery Cuban Catcher,” Terre Haute Tribune, August 3, 1950: 20.

25 Email conversation between Gary Fink and Christian Trudeau handed to the author (and verified by both men) by Gary Ashwill. In the exchange Mr. Fink sources this from a Mount Vernon newspaper from July 24.

26 “Fined for Brawl,” Fort Worth Telegram, August 11, 1950: Second Section.

27 Earl Ashby, The Sporting News Baseball Player Contract Cards, maintained by the LA84 Foundation and SABR.  

28 “League Distributes Players of Pasquels’ Two Teams,” The Sporting News, March 12, 1952: 32.

29 Howard V. Millard, headline undecipherable, Decatur (Illinois) Daily Review, June 3, 1953:12.

30 “Les Cubs Auront un Bon Receveur en Earl Ashby.” Ashby had a track record of polishing his credentials and never showed that type of power before.

31 “Hawks Brave Wind to Hold Workout,” Beaumont Enterprise, March 28, 1955: 8.

32 “Deals of the Week,” The Sporting News, June 22, 1955: 24.

33 “Dugout Diggins,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 20, 1955: 19.

34 “Two Women Indicted on Murder Charges,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 27, 1950: 22.

35 “DA Goes to Bat for Catcher,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 6, 1955: 15.

36 Dominican League statistics can be found at: https://www.winterballdata.com/en.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

All statistics, unless otherwise noted, are from:

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

Notes

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

2 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

3 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

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

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

6 Lester, 1.

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

8 Lester, 88.

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

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

11 Bankes, 110.

12 Bankes, 110.

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

14 Revel and Munoz, 23.

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

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

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

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

19 Lester, 89.

20 Lester, 109-110.

21 Holway, Josh and Satch, 151-155.

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

23 Virtue, 12.

24 Virtue, 85.

25 Revel and Munoz, 11.

26 Revel and Munoz, 11.

27 Revel and Munoz, 12.

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

29 Revel and Munoz, 12.

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

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

32 Game Two ended in a tie.

33 Holway, Josh and Satch, 171.

34 Revel and Munoz,19.

35 Revel and Munoz,19.

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

37 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

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

39 Holway, Black Giants, 97.

40 Holway, Black Giants, 97.

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

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

43 Holway, Black Giants, 99.

44 Holway, Black Giants, 101.

Bremer’s 90 starts included eight shutouts, but the highlight of his 12-year career was winning the Negro League World Series in 1945 as a mainstay of the staff for the Cleveland Buckeyes. Bremer’s path to being a star was not always smooth, but he stuck it out and became a fan favorite in Cleveland, where he spent seven seasons of his career, and lived after his playing days were done.1

A right-hander who was listed at 5-feet-9 and 176 pounds, Bremer began his Negro Leagues pitching career in 1936 with the Cincinnati Tigers after pitching for the New Orleans Crescent Stars from 1932 to 1934 and the Shreveport Giants in 1935. After a second season with the Tigers, Bremer joined the Kansas City Monarchs and Memphis Red Sox in 1938 playing partial seasons with both clubs. After a second season with the Red Sox, Bremer spent 1940 bouncing around from team to team including a late summer stint with the Carta Blanca team in Mexico. He landed back in Cincinnati with the Buckeyes in 1942 as the team split its time between Cincinnati and Cleveland. He remained with the Cincinnati-Cleveland Buckeyes until he retired after the 1949 season when the Buckeyes moved out of Cleveland to Louisville. Bremer then remained in Cleveland until his death in 1971.2

One of Bremer’s earliest shutouts came on July 11, 1937, for the Cincinnati Tigers against the Atlanta Black Crackers. The Tigers won 15-0 while Bremer gave up six hits and two walks. Bremer helped his own cause with one hit, one walk, and two runs scored. Four days later, Bremer pitched a 5-0 shutout over the Jacksonville Red Caps. A third shutout came that season on August 29, 7-0 against the Memphis Red Sox. Bremer was best known for his no-windup delivery, which often confused opposing batters and earned him the nickname Flash. Bremer also led the league that year with a 1.47 ERA. This impressive early work set a pattern for his Negro League career.

Bremer showed early on that he was not just a strong pitcher but also could be dangerous with the bat, hitting .279 in 233 at-bats in his career. In describing his performance in a 1942 game against the Birmingham Black Barons, a reporter wrote, “Eugene Bremmer [sic], pitcher who beat Satchell [sic] has been playing and pitching like a champion. In a recent game against the Barons he was at bat three times and hit three doubles.”3 Bremer had previously bested Satchel Paige and the Monarchs 2-1 on a five-hit complete game.4

Described by a reporter in 1944 as “one of the steadiest and most efficient hurlers in the game,” Bremer made four appearances in the East-West Classic beginning in 1940 with additional appearances in the North-South Classic in 1944, 1945, and 1946.5 The North -South classic was started because of the economic success of the East-West Classic and was planned to take place in early or late September each year. In his first appearance, in 1940, Bremer gave up two consecutive hits in his first inning of pitching. For the 1944 game Bremer was joined by five other Cleveland Buckeyes, giving them the largest contingent from a single team voted to play in the game.6 In preparing the fans for the North-South Classic in September 1945, reporters talked about the “amazing Buckeyes” and the stars playing in the game. Bremer was described as “New Orleans’ own sensational pitcher.”7

As the push grew to integrate the White major leagues, a number of supposed tryouts were proposed for Negro League players in the early 1940s. One of them involved Bremer in 1942. Alva Bradley, owner of the Cleveland Indians at the time, had stated that he was open to the possibility of Black players playing with the Indians if they measured up. The sports editor of the Cleveland Call and Post proposed three players for Bradley to consider: Parnell Woods, Sam Jethroe, and Eugene Bremer. The tryout never actually took place. Bradley said the players did not measure up to the skill level he was looking for.8 While a disappointment for all the players involved, this did not prevent Bremer from continuing to pitch successfully with the Buckeyes.

Bremer’s career nearly ended in 1942 when he was involved in a car accident in September. The team’s bus had broken down and so the players were traveling in multiple cars to get to their games. On September 7 Bremer suffered a concussion and fractured skull while two of his teammates, pitcher Joe Brown and catcher Smoky Owens, were killed near Geneva, Ohio.  Alonzo Boone and Herman Watts were also injured in the accident. Bremer’s career suffered a setback and he did not play again until the 1943 season. He later became a mainstay on the team that shut out the Homestead Grays in the 1945 Negro League World Series.9

Bremer came back in 1943 and won more games than all the Buckeyes pitchers except Theolic Smith who won five games to Bremer’s four. The Buckeyes finished in second place behind the Kansas City Monarchs, who were the best overall team that season. Bremer’s return to form shone in an 8-0 shutout over the Memphis Red Sox in July and another complete-game victory against the Cincinnati Clowns, winning 3-2 over Preacher Henry. In August, Bremer set a record with three straight shutouts over the Memphis Red Sox, 8-0, 4-0, and 4-0 in both league and exhibition contests.10

The 1944 season saw the Buckeyes again finish second, this time behind the Birmingham Black Barons. Bremer was able to return after being turned down by his draft board for military service because of the effects of the car accident. Bremer compiled a 4-2 record with a 2.63 ERA, second to teammate George Jefferson with a 1.78 ERA. The season got off to high expectations, resting on the prowess of the Buckeyes’ highly touted “curveball artist” Eugene Bremer.11

The Buckeyes were the surprise in the 1945 World Series, being a young team still recovering from their 1942 tragedy. They had won the first and second halves of the Negro American League split season, but faced a dynasty in the two-time defending World Series champion Homestead Grays. The Grays were a veteran team, featuring five future Hall of Famers including catcher Josh Gibson. On paper the Grays looked like the odds-on favorite to win the series. Instead, the Buckeyes beat the Grays in four straight, including two shutouts. Newspapers wrote about the dominance of the “Big Four” on the mound and they proved to be the difference in the series.12 Willie Jefferson pitched the Buckeyes to a 2-1 victory in Game One while winning pitcher Bremer provided a bases-loaded walk-off double in Game Two for a 4-2 victory. Bremer gave up seven hits in nine innings while walking two and striking out five. He also committed a balk with Cool Papa Bell on third base, allowing him to score the tying run and setting the stage for Bremer’s eventual game-winning hit. George Jefferson shut out the Grays 4-0 in Game Three and Frank Carswell pitched a 5-0 shutout in the deciding game.13 The victory was largely credited to the “brilliant pitching” of the Buckeyes’ “three aces” and the surprise outing by Carswell.14

Early in the 1946 season, manager Quincy Trouppe described his pitching staff as one of the best in baseball, led by the four who won the 1945 World Series. There were high expectations for the Buckeyes, but the club finished the season in third place behind the Kansas City Monarchs and the Birmingham Black Barons. The pitching staff did not live up to the hype and a few key hitters, like Sam Jethroe, saw their numbers drop from 1945. Bremer pitched only 33 2/3 innings, compiling a 3-0 record.15

Bremer had another chance to pitch in the World Series when the Buckeyes took on the New York Cubans in 1947. Bremer pitched in only 34 2/3 innings, mostly in relief, during the season, compiling a 2-2 record. A good example of his contributions came in a 8-6 win over Birmingham in June with Bremer pitching the final three innings for the win. After beating out the Monarchs for the league championship, the Buckeyes went on to lose the World Series 4-1-1 to the Cubans, who featured future Hall of Famer Minnie Miñoso. The Buckeyes tied the first game, 5-5, and won their only contest, 10-7, in the second game. Bremer lost the only game he pitched, starting Game Four against Dave Barnhill. Bremer gave up 12 hits in a complete-game loss, 9-4. As usual he did contribute at the plate, with two hits and one run scored.16

Bremer finished out his last full season with the Buckeyes in 1948 and left the team in early 1949 after the club moved to Louisville.17 He appeared later in the year on the roster for the New Orleans Creoles, a team famous for its female second baseman, Toni Stone. Stone was 0-for-1 in an 11-9 loss to the Winona Chiefs where Bremer came on in relief.18

After his playing career was over, Bremer remained in Cleveland with his wife, Elizabeth, and their eight children. (He and Elizabeth Randolph had married in December 1937.) Bremer worked in the maintenance department for Hershaw Chemical Company in Cleveland. He died at the age of 54 in Cleveland on June 19, 1971.

Bremer’s athletic legacy continued with his grandson J.R. Bremer, who played basketball with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, and Golden State Warriors in the NBA from 2002 to 2004. The younger Bremer also played for many years in Europe before retiring and taking on the head coaching job at Cleveland Heights High School in 2019.19

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, and relied on Seamheads.com for all statistical information.

Notes 

1 Amanda Rumer, 1920 census, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/records/57129539?tid=&pid=&queryId=cc76bc1e-18f8-4f3e-beac-edd62e8355f8&_phsrc=vkO32&_phstart=successSource; Joseph Rumer, 1920 census, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/records/57129538?tid=&pid=&queryId=0e42a547-e6e2-4387-b6e3-7b33d87693b5&_phsrc=vkO30&_phstart=successSource.

2 “Mexico’s Pros Clash Friday in Local Park,” Brownsville (Texas) Herald, August 24, 1939: 22; https://agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/2009/08/eugene-bremer.html.

3 “Am. Giants Vs. Buckeyes on Sunday,” Chicago Defender, July 4, 1942: 19.

4 “Buckeyes in Split with Kansas City,” Chicago Defender, June 20, 1942: 19.

5 “Negro Nines End Season Saturday,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Evening News, September 13, 1944: 13.

6 “Fans Warming up to Negro Classic,” Munster (Indiana) Times, August 28. 1944: 9.

7 “Interest Soars in North-South Classic,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 29, 1945: 12; “Ninth Inning Single Decides,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 12, 1940: 18.

8 “Cleveland Indians to Tryout Three,” Norfolk (Virginia) New Journal and Guide, September 12, 1942: A15; “Buckeye Player Profile – Eugene Bremer,” http://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/Bremer.html.

9 First String Battery of Negro League Team Killed,” Bowling Green (Ohio) Daily-Sentinel Tribune, September 8, 1942: 3.

10 Eddie P. Jennings, “Say Forgotten Man of Buckeyes Is Bremmer,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 11, 1944: 9B; “Buckeyes Split with Red Sox,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 31, 1943: 11A; “Buckeyes’ Jinx Lingers,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 11, 1943: 11A; “Buckeyes Lead League,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 14, 1943: 11A.

11 “Buckeyes of Baseball All Set,” Cleveland Call and Post, January 22, 1944; “Bremer’s Pitching May Halt Cubans’ Power,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 22, 1944.

12 “Negro Kings Play at Alcyon Tonight,” Camden (New Jersey) Courier-Post, August 2, 1946: 21.

13 Dave O’Karma, “The Forgotten Championship,” https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/sports/articles/the-forgotten-championship; “Battling Bucks win 2-1, 4-2 in World Series,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 22, 1945: 12. 

14 “Win Four in Row to Dethrone Homestead,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 29, 1945: 12.

15 “Negro Champs Boast Classy Pitching Staff,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, June 4, 1946: 20.

16 “Buckeyes and Birmingham Split Two,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 14, 1947: 15.

17 “Eugene Bremer, Vet Buckeye Hurler,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 27, 1949: 6B.

18 “7 in 7th Give Chiefs 11-9 Win,” Winona (Minnesota) Republican Herald, August 1, 1949: 12.

19 Bremer obituary, Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 22, 1971; Telephone conversation with Julius Bremer, January 7, 2025; “J.R. Bremer,” https://www.nba.com/stats/player/2452/career.

The only image of John Brown we could find is this cartoon from the July 10, 1942 St. Louis Argus.

John Wesley Brown came by his nicknames of “Lean Man” and “Slim Man” quite honestly. He stood 6-feet-1-inch tall and tipped the scales at less than 160 pounds. He was a right-handed pitcher who, despite missing part of the third finger on his pitching hand, posted an impressive 2.29 ERA over five seasons with the Cleveland Buckeyes. His career in the Negro American League began with Cleveland in 1944 and ended in 1949 with the Houston Eagles. Along the way, he had brief stints with the Chicago American Giants and the Louisville Buckeyes.

John Brown was born on October 23, 1918, in Hamburg, Arkansas, the Ashley County seat. Hamburg was also the birthplace of another pitcher, Harry Kane, who played for the St. Louis Browns, Detroit Tigers, and Philadelphia Phillies between 1902 and 1906; and of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Scottie Pippen. Hamburg is located amid the pine forests of the Delta region of southeastern Arkansas, on the border with Louisiana, and not far from the Mississippi River. Brown’s father, Henry Robson Brown, was born in Bastrop, Louisiana, but moved to Arkansas as a boy to live with his maternal aunt and uncle on a farm in Ashley County. John Brown’s mother, Matilda Bethune Brown, who was also born in Ashley County, married Henry Robson Brown, who was 29 years her senior, in 1916. They had at least four children, John Wesley Brown being the second eldest. His father was a “decorator” who worked as a paperhanger. Both of his parents were literate, and they owned their home in Hamburg. Many of their neighbors were employed in the area’s lumber yards and sawmills. By 1930, Henry Robson Brown moved his family about 15 miles southwest to Crossett, Arkansas, where John Brown and most of his family lived until his father’s death in 1946.

Brown’s athletic prowess was evident during his high-school years in Crossett. In 1936 he competed in a combined prep school-college track meet where he broke the Arkansas state record for the high jump, clearing the bar at a height of 5-feet-11½ inches.1 After high school, Brown attended Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College (AAM&N) in Pine Bluff, known today as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, the only historically Black college or university (HBCU) in the state. It is unknown if he played baseball for AAM&N. Brown did, however, play baseball during his summer breaks away from Pine Bluff. He was on the 1938 roster for the Greenville Black Bucks, a semipro team in Greenville, Mississippi.2 On May 16 Brown and the Bucks defeated the Memphis African Clowns 10-5 in a twin-bill opener thanks to his “snaky slant[s]” and the fact that Memphis “clowned their way through both games.”3 The following year, the Greenville nine had a new skipper, “Prof. G.W. Brown,” described as formerly with the Cuban Stars.4 In April 1939 the Black Bucks, with “Manager Brown” at the helm, traveled to Crossett to tangle with the Crossett Stars.5 Who was Professor Brown? Given that John W. Brown attended college, is it possible that “Prof. G.W. Brown” was in fact, “J.W. Brown”? Perhaps “G.W.” was a typo? No one named “G.W. Brown” was found on the 1938 roster for the Cuban Stars. Professor Brown’s identity is a mystery, but it is possible that he was John W. Brown, especially since, according to the Negro Southern League Museum, Brown did not play during the 1939 season.6

In April 1940, when the US Census was enumerated in Crossett, Arkansas, John Brown was working alongside his older brother Clarence Brown at a local sawmill. Both he and Clarence had one year of college to their credit, but neither was currently enrolled. Could John Brown’s tenure at the sawmill account for the missing tip from one of his fingers, the injury he reported on his World War II draft card, dated October 16, 1940? When he registered for the draft, he was employed by the Crossett Lumber Company. The circumstances of losing the top of his “third finger” that was cut off at the “first joint” are unknown, but it did not prevent him from serving in the military during World War II or from pursuing a career in professional baseball.

Brown’s baseball activities between 1940 and 1942 are difficult to document. Although at least one source claims he played for the Oklahoma Black Indians in 1940, the Bastrop (Louisiana) Blues in 1941, and the St. Louis Giants in 1942, the first published accounts of his professional baseball career appeared in 1942 when he played for teams in a St. Louis semipro industrial league.7 The claim that he played for the “St. Louis Giants” is likely incorrect. The confusion is understandable. The St. Louis Giants aggregation played one season in 1924. Brown played for the “Curtiss-Wright Giants” of St. Louis in the 1940s.

Brown began his baseball career in earnest in 1942 in the competitive St. Louis segregated Colored Industrial League.8 He saw action in the infield before migrating to the mound. Playing second base for the league-leading Scullin Steel Mules,9 Brown was the team’s “slugger” and by midseason was hitting a blistering .421.10 He was a local fan favorite, worthy of being featured in cartoon form in the St. Louis Argus, the city’s African American newspaper, as an overly tall baseball bat, with a glove as his head.11 Brown was one of the best in the league and was selected to play for the “West” in the annual St. Louis East-West game.12 But his baseball career was thrown a curveball with the onset of World War II. He enlisted in the US Army and served as a private in Company F, 4th Quartermaster Regiment, at Fort Francis E. Warren in Cheyenne, Wyoming.13 In March 1943 he wrote a letter to Argus sports columnist and Negro League historian Normal “Tweed” Webb, with this message for the fans back home.14

Dear Tweed,

How’s all the old gang in St. Louis? Tell them all hello and to keep ’em flying. This will be the first time in my career that I will miss training with the boys and will miss them! But tell them, for me that I will be in there pitching for a bigger and better cause. So they can continue to keep the ball rolling. Tell the youngsters to go out and take advantage of the greatest game in life –‘BASEBALL.’ Tell ’em for me that they can’t go wrong. Print my address so I can hear from some of the fellows. I will enjoy hearing from you and them. Write me all the news, Tweed. I will be here for about five weeks.

Your Buddy in sports,

John Brown 

Webb responded:

Well John, old top and all of my many friends in the armed service, we folks back home are praying for you all to return safely home soon. Oh yes – we had our second Blackout test last week. Since I am talking about war and what not, I wish the white papers and photo sections would play up our fighting race soldiers more. I hear they are raising sand.

Your Hot Stover.”15

After his discharge from the Army, Brown returned to St. Louis and resumed his baseball career. In June 1943, Webb named Brown and few other players in the city’s Municipal League as having “big league timber,” and described Brown as a “human pinwheel when it comes to pitching baseball.”16 Webb also noted that William Brisker, a former sports reporter for the Argus, was now the business manager of the Cleveland Buckeyes and was in St. Louis fishing in the local talent pool.17 At the time, Brown was pitching for the semipro Emerson Electrics of the Colored Industrial circuit, but Brisker didn’t bite on Brown.18 By August 1943, Brown left the Electrics and signed with the Curtiss-Wright Giants, joining a roster that included Luke Easter.19 He pitched for the Giants in the Colored Industrial League playoffs with mixed results.20 After he and the Giants were battered for three runs in the second inning by the Scullin Steel Mules, Brown was exiled to right field, where he made “two great running catches … and tripled to score the Giants’ first run.”21 The Giants eventually kicked the Mules, 7-4, for the upset win.22 It was his last season in the Colored Industrial League. Brisker and the Buckeyes finally decided that he was a keeper.

Brown signed with the Cleveland Buckeyes in the spring of 1944. In March he was one of eight St. Louis area players who were expected to board a bus headed for Clarksdale, Mississippi, to start spring training.23 Two of the recruits had other plans. Theolic Smith opted to play in Mexico and Norman Young signed with the Kansas City Monarchs. Five others, Luke Easter, Charlie Hinson, Carl Whitney, Bob Palm, and Herman Purcell, did not play with any Negro League clubs in 1944. Of those from St. Louis who boarded the bus for Clarksdale, Brown was the only prospect to make Cleveland’s 1944 roster.24 Right out of the gate, on March 26, he proved his worth by leading the Bucks to a 4-3 preseason win over the Memphis Red Sox.25 In July, with his “sinker ball working,” he bested the Birmingham Black Barons, 6-2.26 But Brown did not have a stellar rookie year in the NAL. In August he led the Bucks to a 12-2 victory over a local nine in Richmond, Indiana, but did little to help Cleveland’s pennant hopes.27 The Buckeyes finished the season a distant second behind the Black Barons. By the end of the 1944 season, Brown had a hefty 6.52 ERA in two official appearances in just 9 2/3 innings pitched.

The Buckeyes’ 1945 championship season began with spring training in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and with a new manager, Quincy Trouppe. Despite a sketchy rookie performance in 1944, Trouppe retained “lanky John Brown” on Cleveland’s pitching staff.28 Brown’s previous year with the Buckeyes was so forgettable that some newspaper stories identified him as one of Cleveland’s “newcomers,” or simply as a pitcher formerly with a St. Louis club.”29 In 1945 he earned $450 a month plus travel expenses for his services.30 He was primarily relegated to the bullpen but was not particularly effective as a reliever.31 Brown enjoyed some success as a starter, especially against nonleague opponents, including his 7-3 win over the Twin Cities Independents.32 On September 14, as the season was nearing its conclusion, he went the distance in a losing effort to the Homestead Grays, 3-1, in Dayton, Ohio.33

On September 20, with Frank Carswell on the mound, the Buckeyes clinched the Negro World Series for Cleveland by blanking the Homestead Grays, 5-0.34 There was a pitcher named Brown on the mound during the series at Shibe Park, but it was Ray Brown of the Grays.35 John Brown was not handed the ball in any of the Bucks’ four World Series games thanks to all the starters going the distance. He did pitch for the Buckeyes after they claimed the crown, however, in a throwaway game against the Philadelphia Stars. He tallied a tidy 4-1 win to put a cherry on top of Cleveland’s championship evening.36 Three days after capturing the title, the Buckeyes faced off with the Grays for a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, and this time the outcomes were quite different. The Grays exacted their revenge by sweeping the Buckeyes by the same score in each game – 7-1.37 Brown was the losing pitcher in the nightcap before a crowd of 8,000.38 According to official records, Brown finished the 1945 season with a 1-2 record and a stingy 1.73 ERA. In an interview in 1995, he recalled some different numbers and stated that his overall record for that championship year with the Bucks was 6-2 with a 3.46 ERA.39

Brown was with Cleveland when the Buckeyes headed to Birmingham in March 1946 to begin spring training.40 With the 1945 World Series honors in hand, the Buckeyes had high hopes for a repeat. This was also the first year that Brown’s nickname, “Lean Man,” was seen in print on the sports pages.41 His other sobriquet, “Slim Man,” did not appear until 1949, and only after the Buckeyes temporarily relocated to Louisville.42 No matter his name, the skinny on Brown in 1946 was that both he and Cleveland were headed for disappointment. In early June Brown was on the “sick list for several weeks” and was kept out of the rotation.43 He made one appearance in an NAL game with the Bucks but lasted only four innings in a no-decision outing. By July, he was traded to the Chicago American Giants for Chet Brewer.44

Brown’s impact on the Giants was minimal. Although he was on Chicago’s roster, he does not appear to have been used in any official league games. In mid-August he did manage to bag a 4-3 victory for the Giants in an exhibition game against the Belleville Stags.45 But Brown’s lack of control was nearly his downfall against the local nine. All three of the Stags’ runs resulted from the six walks issued by Brown.46 In the end, the Buckeyes finished the 1946 season in third place in the NAL, while Brown and his Giants were the League’s cellar dwellers. Some records indicate that John Brown appeared in the 1946 East-West All-Star Game in Washington, DC, but he did not pitch.47 He did have one at-bat as a pinch-hitter for the West All-Stars but did not make it to first base.

Brown’s brief tenure with the American Giants came to end in 1946. In the spring of 1947, he was back on the mound for the Buckeyes for a swing through Florida.48 He was one of three Cleveland hurlers used in an early April 6-2 win over the Jacksonville Eagles.49 But it does not appear that he made an impact on the outcome of the Buckeyes’ 1947 campaign. As the regular season was in full swing, newspaper coverage of Cleveland’s results, and NAL games in general, became less frequent and with fewer details. Box scores and/or line scores were scarce, making it difficult to assess individual performances. Although Brown was touted as “the fastest pitcher in Negro baseball” and was “said to have developed an even faster delivery” after returning from Chicago to Cleveland, his name was nearly absent from published accounts of the Buckeyes’ season.50 When news of coming games was published, he was not mentioned among Cleveland’s top hurlers.51 Those honors were usually reserved for Alonzo Boone, Eugene Bremer, Chet Brewer, and Sammy Woods.52 In 1947 the Atlanta Tribune was one of the few newspapers to publish NAL statistics. In early August, their list of the league’s seven top pitchers did not include Brown.53 The pitcher with the fewest games played and fewest wins on the list was the Indianapolis Clowns’ Johnny Williams, with one win in six games.54 Based on the Tribune’s accounting, as the 1947 season headed into its final lap, Brown played in less than six NAL games and had yet to notch a win. Brown’s contributions to the Buckeyes’ 1947 season were nearly invisible. According to official records, he made one appearance, tossed for three innings, and won one game. Brown did not spend much time on the mound that year, but at least his team enjoyed some success. Cleveland captured the NAL flag again, but lost the World Series crown to the New York Cubans.

In March 1948 Brown returned to the Buckeyes for spring training in Panama City, Florida.55 The team had a new manager. Alonzo Boone replaced Trouppe, who was shifted to the Chicago American Giants.56 Brown made his 1948 debut in the season opener against the Black Barons in Cleveland.57 It was not pretty. He was one of three Buckeyes pitchers who collectively gave up 18 hits and ultimately a 15-2 loss in the first game of a doubleheader.58 Chet Brewer, 38 years old, saved the day for Cleveland by capturing an eight-hit victory in the second game, 3-2.59 The opener was a metaphor for the Buckeyes’ mediocre season. They won just under half of their games and finished third out of six teams in the NAL. And although official records show Brown posting no wins or loses in NAL play in 1948, one published report credited him with an overall record of four wins against one loss.60 Although little changed in his baseball fortunes, Brown did make one big move off the field. In 1948, he and his family relocated from Crossett to Detroit, where he lived for the remainder of his life.61

There were many changes in John Brown’s baseball and personal life in 1949. As the NAL fortunes began to sag, his longtime employer, the Cleveland Buckeyes, morphed into the short-lived Louisville Buckeyes before reclaiming their Cleveland affiliation by the end of the season.62 Brown continued to wear a Buckeyes uniform no matter which city claimed the team. He started the year by working as a reliever during a spring-training stop in Panama City, Florida.63 In preseason play, Brown was touted as the “curve ball artist from the Ozarks.”64 By mid-April, “‘Slim Man’ Johnny Brown” had chalked up three wins.65 By July, the Cleveland club, “who masqueraded for [a while] as the Louisville Buckeyes,” were “reported broke and hope[d] to limp home until the finish of the season.”66 But before the geographically challenged Bucks began their summer campaign, Brown flew the coop for another nomadic nine, the Houston Eagles, formerly of Newark.67 He saw action as a reliever for Houston and notched at least one win as a starter.68 Records for the 1949 season are incomplete and Brown’s accomplishments for the year are uncertain. But what is known is that after 1949, his Negro League baseball career was over. By the end of the season, his name no longer appeared in Houston’s game reports. He retired from baseball in 1949 after what Brown described as a “bad bout of pneumonia.”69 After leaving the Houston Eagles and his baseball life behind, Brown returned to Detroit and started a new career as an appliance repairman for Detroit Edison, and later as a hardware distributor.70

John Brown’s baseball life spanned over 13 years, the final six of which were in the NAL. He was a member of the Buckeyes’ 1945 World Series championship team, and helped Cleveland claim the NAL flag in 1947. One of Brown’s fondest memories of his baseball career was pitching to the Black Barons’ rookie sensation, Willie Mays, during Mays’ debut season with Birmingham in 1948.71 Another was witnessing the greatness of Josh Gibson.72 During a 1995 interview with a reporter for the Detroit News, he lamented the discrimination and barriers faced by African American ballplayers prior to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.73 He was circumspect and at peace upon reflecting on his six seasons in the NAL. Brown simply said, “I was just born too soon.”74

John Wesley Brown died in Detroit on March 3, 1999, at the age of 80. He was survived by his wife, Naomi McCormick Brown. He was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Woodhaven, Michigan.

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated, all Negro League statistics and records were sourced from Seamheads.com, baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org. Ancestry.com was used to access census, birth, death, marriage, military, immigration, and other genealogical and public records.

Notes

1 Lynn Henning, “Negro League Player Has His Books, Memories,” Detroit News, February 16, 1995: 65.

2 “Black Bucks Takes [sic] 1st. [sic] Tie 2nd,” Greenville (Mississippi) Delta Star, May 17, 1938: 6.

3 “Black Bucks Takes [sic] 1st. [sic] Tie 2nd.”

4 “Greenville, Miss.,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 25, 1939: 22.

5 “Bucks Pry Lid Saturday,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 15, 1939: 17.

6 “John W. Brown.”

7 “John W. Brown.”

8 Normal Webb, “Curtis-Wrights Almost Upset the Scullin Steel Co. 8-7,” St. Louis Argus, May 15, 1942: 10, 11.

9 Normal Webb, “Curtis-Wrights Almost Upset the Scullin Steel Co. 8-7.”

10 Normal Webb, “Hot Stove League,” St. Louis Argus, July 3, 1942: 10; “Tandy Dope,” St. Louis Argus, July 3, 1942: 10.

11 “Muny Music, St. Louis Argus, July 10, 1942: 11.

12 “East-West Game Sunday at Tandy Park,” St. Louis Argus, August 7, 1942: 10.

13 Normal Webb, “Hot Stove League,” St. Louis Argus, March 5, 1943: 10, 11.

14 Lorraine Kee, “‘Tweed’ Webb Helped Make Negro Leagues Fashionable,” St. Louis Dispatch, April 29, 1995: 31.

15 Normal Webb, “Hot Stove League,” St. Louis Argus, March 5, 1943: 10, 11.

16 Normal Webb, “Hot Stove League,” St. Louis Argus, June 18, 1943: 10.

17 Normal Webb, “Hot Stove League,” June 18, 1943: 10; “Kinloch Grays Get Top Rank Publicist,” St. Louis Argus, April 9, 1948: 17.

18 Normal Webb, “Muny 1st Half to be Decided Next Sunday,” St. Louis Argus, July 16, 1943: 10.

19 Normal Webb, “Giants Beat Scullins in Ninth with Bunt,” St. Louis Argus, August 20, 1943: 10.

20 Normal Webb, “Giants Beat Scullins in Ninth with Bunt.”

21 Normal Webb, “Giants Beat Scullins in Ninth with Bunt.”

22 Normal Webb, “Giants Beat Scullins in Ninth with Bunt.”

23 “Locals to Join Spring Training with Buckeyes,” St. Louis Argus, March17, 1944: 10.

24 “Four St. Louis Boys Making Grade with Cleveland Club,” St. Louis Argus, April 14, 1944: 10.

25 “Four St. Louis Boys Making Grade with Cleveland Club.”

26 “Cleveland Plays Chicago American Giants,” St. Louis Argus, July 14, 1944: 10.

27 “Buckeyes Trounce Richmond, 12-2, in Twilight Contest,” Richmond (Indiana) Palladium Item and Sun-Telegram, August 3, 1944: 8.

28 “Mgr. Troupe [sic] Will Begin New Job with Buckeyes in Spring Drill Mar. 24,” St. Louis Argus, March 9, 1945: 10.

29 “Mgr. Troupe [sic] Will Begin New Job with Buckeyes in Spring Drill Mar. 24”; “Bucks Boast Veteran Club,” Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman, April 13, 1945: 18; Bob Overaker, “Beers and Buckeyes Clash Here Tonight,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, May 18, 1945: 25.

30 Lynn Henning, “Negro League Player Has His Books, Memories.”

31 “Clowns Split with Buckeyes,” Cincinnati Post, May 21, 1945: 13; Gordon Graham, “Double Steal Gives Red Sox Thrilling Win Over Cleveland Buckeyes, 5-4,” Lafayette (Indiana) Journal and Courier, September 6, 1945: 20.

32 “East Chicago Here Sunday, Memphis Red Sox Thursday,” Saint Joseph (Michigan) Herald-Press, July 21, 1945: 7.

33 “Grays Top Buckeyes,” Dayton Journal, September 15, 1945: 11.

34 “Buckeyes Blank Grays, Win Title,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 21, 1945: 24.

35 “Buckeyes Blank Grays, Win Title.”

36 “Buckeyes Blank Grays, Win Title.”

37 “Grays Win Two, but Too Late,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 29, 1945: 12.

38 “Grays Win Two, but Too Late.”

39 Lynn Henning, “Negro League Player Has His Books, Memories.”

40 “Bucks to Train in Birmingham,” Chicago Defender, March 16, 1946: 9.

41 “Negro Baseball Stars Will Be Seen in Game at Offerman [sic] Stadium,” Kenmore (New York) Press, May 23, 1946: 4.

42 “Louisville and Memphis Split,” St. Louis Argus, April 22, 1949: 20.

43 “Negro Champs Boast Classy Pitching Staff,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 10, 1946: 20.

44 “Traded,” Chicago Defender, July 13, 1946: 11.

45 “American Giants Defeat Stags, 4-3,” Belleville (Illinois) Daily Advocate, August 14, 1946: 7.

46 “American Giants Defeat Stags, 4-3.”

47 “Expect 30,000 to See East’s Baseball Classic,” Chicago Defender, August 10, 1946: 10.

48 “Start Training March 5,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 13, 1947: 16.

49 “Atkins Helps Ohioans Defeat Jacksonville,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 5, 1947: 14.

50 “Cleveland Buckeyes Play S.I. Oilers Under the Lights,” Staten Island (New York) Advance, July 15, 1947: 12.

51 “Negro League Play to Open Here Tuesday,” Dayton Herald, May 2, 1947.

52 “Negro League Play to Open Here Tuesday”; “Buckeyes Play Chicago Giants,” Dayton Herald, May 28, 1947: 18.

53 “Negro American League,” Alabama Tribune (Montgomery), August 8, 1947: 6.

54 “Negro American League.”

55 Jimmie N. Jones, “Buckeyes Undergo Changes,” Ohio Daily-Express (Dayton), February 26, 1948: 1, 4.

56 Jimmie N. Jones, “Buckeyes Undergo Changes.”

57 “38-Year-Old Chet Brewer Is Still Hill Ace,” St. Louis Argus, May 21, 1948: 17.

58 “38-Year-Old Chet Brewer Is Still Hill Ace.”

59 “38-Year-Old Chet Brewer Is Still Hill Ace.”

60 “Cleveland to Meet Creoles in Abbeville,” Lafayette (Louisiana) Daily Advertiser, September 10, 1948: 17.

61 Lynn Henning.

62 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994), 495.

63 “Louisville Buckeye [sic] Win Spirited Game,” St. Louis Argus, April 1, 1949: 16.

64 “Negro Nines Open a 2-Game Series Tonight,” Muskogee (Oklahoma) Times-Democrat, April 12, 1949: 13.

65 “Louisville and Memphis Split,” St. Louis Argus, April 22, 1949: 20.

66 Marion E. Jackson, “Sports of the World,” Atlanta Daily World, July 20, 1949: 5.

67 “Houston Eagles Boast Highly Regarded Team,” Wichita Falls (Texas) Record News, May 18, 1949: 11.

68 “Red Sox Lose, 7-5,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 9, 1950: 20; “One Game for Monarchs,” Kansas City (Missouri) Times, May 16, 1949: 15; “Collins Twirls No-Hitter as Kansas City Wins 14-0,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 28, 1949: 24.

69 Lynn Henning.

70 Lynn Henning.

71 Lynn Henning.

72 Lynn Henning.

73 Lynn Henning.

74 Lynn Henning.

But then, in a flash, the “Cuban Wonder” was gone.

Avelino Cañizares Martínez was born on November 10, 1919, in Havana. Most of his biographical records are either lost or have not yet been found. His slight build (5-feet-7, 145 pounds), agility, sure hands, and speed made him the prototype shortstop in 1940s Cuba. He began his career with the Almendares Alacranes (Scorpions) in 1942-1943, though he was hitless in nine at-bats. He turned 24 years old during the 1943-1944 season and hit a robust .284.1

Since the Cuban season ran during the winter, Cañizares sought baseball opportunities outside the island during the summer months. He first played in Mexico in 1944 with the Tampico Alijadores (.305 average, 13 doubles and 4 triples in 73 games).2

Back in Cuba with, he tied for the league lead in runs scored in 1944-1945 (29) with Santos Amaro, Héctor Rodríguez, and Conrado Pérez, and was selected to the circuit’s all-star game.3 He hit .233 but  provided stellar defense.4

Cañizares was coveted by Buckeyes manager Quincy Trouppe, who had scouted the infielder in the Mexican League when they played on opposing teams. According to James Riley, Trouppe’s high opinion was warranted. Cañizares “studied hitters, positioned himself accordingly, and served as the ‘glue’ for the infield. That season he was compared to the Monarchs’ Jackie Robinson and Birmingham’s Artie Wilson.”5 The veteran Trouppe, himself an all-star catcher in the Negro Leagues, understood the value of defense. Contemporary records note that Cañizares was “known for his sensational fielding and solid hitting” and his “spark-plug play.”6 Cañizares duly signed with Cleveland and played in the Buckeyes’ spring-training contests against the New York Cubans on April 8.7

Cañizares entrusted his bat and glove to do the talking from the club’s home opener doubleheader: “The park resounded still louder when [Avelino Canizares, (sic)] a classy Cuban who can’t even speak English, ripped around the bases for a home run within the park.”8 The press called him “the first player to capture the fans’ attention without the aid of ballyhoo.”9 The 10,000 fans in attendance cheered their Buckeyes as they swept the Memphis Red Sox, 3-1 and 6-2, on May 27.

By the end of May, the Buckeyes’ .818 winning percentage led the league and Cañizares was hitting .400, third-best in the league.10 His inside-the-park home run was still a newspaper topic a week later, with an article saying he had “sped around the bases at an unbelievable clip – so fast that fans didn’t know he was making a home run of what looked like a double until he coasted over the plate.”11

Local scribe Bob Williams noted that Cañizares had “crashed into the hearts of Cleveland fans for good with his stellar playing at shortstop, his pinch hitting, and that agile clip around the bases,” as Cañizares tied the game with a two-out, two-run hit against the Memphis Red Sox.12

On the eve of a homestand, Williams noted, “Buckeye fans will come to League Park Sunday with special eyes for little Avelino Canizares, [the] flashy Cuban shortstop who has starred in all Cleveland appearances. While Cleveland leads the league in team standing the little Cuban-speaking [sic] shortstop leads the league in home runs, having clouted out four circuit breakers this season while batting an average of .362.”13

The hyperbole proved to be insufficient for the theatrics of June 17. Cañizares scored the winning run in the bottom of the 13th inning in the first game of a doubleheader against the Chicago American Giants. As the runner on third with the bases loaded and nobody out, he dashed for home on an infield groundball to shortstop. Although Cañizares appeared to be out, umpire Harry Walker “called him safe. … After the call, three Chicago players grabbed and were about to strike the umpire when Cleveland’s finest were able to intervene. It took a while but eventually peace was restored, and the second game was played.”14 Walker argued that “the catcher Dukes had his foot off the plate as Canizares arrived, otherwise he would have been out.”15

Cañizares hit .344 in the first half (52-for-151), fourth best among the powerful Buckeyes batters.16 Wendell Smith, Pittsburgh Courier reporter and doyen of Negro League baseball, considered Cañizares, Robinson, and Wilson to be “three young shortstops in Negro baseball who certainly should be given a chance to play in the major leagues.”17

The July 16 contest against the Black Barons featured its own fireworks. Cañizares was again in the middle though he played no part in the hostilities. He beat out a throw to first base, but the Barons felt differently. After an argument with the umpire James “Jimmy” Thompson, “suddenly, without warning, (Piper) Davis uncorked a lightning-like swing from the waist, shoving his full weight directly into the little umpire’s unguarded face.”18 The Buckeyes won the game, 6-1.

The Buckeyes swept a doubleheader against the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns on July 22, though Cañizares is mentioned only as having advanced a runner with a sacrifice.19

Smith went further in his praise: “Probably at no time in the history of organized Negro baseball has there been three shortstops who were so near equal.”20 Newspapers debated the merits of worthy candidates and published the suggested batting orders for the East-West Game. The Kansas City Call advocated for its hometown hero: “Although three fine shortstops are running neck and neck for that position in the All-Star game Jackie Robinson of the Monarchs will probably win out since he is one of the most colorful players. … The two other shortstops standing a good chance in the league are Canizares of Cleveland and Wilson of Birmingham.”21

The July 26 Chicago Defender reported that Cañizares would start the game and Robinson would be on the bench. The weekly noted the embarrassment of riches for the Western’s team middle infield in an article on the game’s eve: “Avelino Canizares, Cuban shortstop with the Cleveland Buckeyes, wearing number 22 on his uniform, will start the game at shortstop. Considered one of the best in either league, Canizares gets the nod of Manager Welsh over Jackie Robinson, the UCLA all-around athlete who may see services before the game is over.”22

The Pittsburgh Courier, in its July 28 edition, projected Cañizares to start at shortstop and Wilson at second base, but its non-alphabetic roster listed Wilson, Cañizares, and Robinson (as infielders) atop the potent West squad.23

The Baltimore Afro-American’s July 28 edition, however, named Robinson in the starting lineup but failed to mention Cañizares on the roster, even though other substitutes were listed.24

Cañizares did not play in the July 29 East-West Game; Robinson manned the position instead.25 Other prospective starters, such as Josh Gibson and Art Wilson, did not see action either. 26 Though Robinson went 0-for-5 at the plate, he made a dazzling play in the field in the ninth inning to extinguish a West rally.

Cañizares made a costly error against the Newark Eagles in the first game of an August 18 doubleheader, a 4-0 Buckeyes loss, but atoned in the second game by scoring the tying run and driving in the winning tally in a hard-fought 4-3 contest.27 The Buckeyes swept another doubleheader against Chicago on September 2, 1945. Cañizares belted an inside-the-park home run in the first game, a 6-2 victory.28 His efforts were lauded by reporter Jimmy Jones, who noted, “Canizares was the shining light on the Buckeyes squad, displaying his stellar talents at bat and in the field, continuously, to earn the plaudits of the crowd.”29

The 1945 Buckeyes are credited with 62 wins, 17 losses, and 1 tie in league competition (and 76-31-3 against Major League Black Teams).30 Substantiated records credit Cañizares with 16 runs scored, 30 hits, 7 doubles, and a .375 average (30-for-80). On the field, he committed five errors in 164 innings for a .955 fielding average, 30 points above the league average. Modern metrics credit him with a 1.4 WAR, second-best in the team behind staff ace Eugene Bremer’s 2.3.31

The Buckeyes and the Homestead Grays, winners of both season halves for their respective leagues, met in the Negro World Series. Cleveland was sanguine about its team prospects, though it warned caution against “the formidable array of batting and pitching talent [that] represents part of the championship Buckeye squad which has attained unprecedented honor within the brief span of four years.”32 The Cleveland Call and Post noted that the “Buckeyes have more than an even chance to win the series from the Grays who have been steadily declining in the power and flash which highlighted some of their earlier title triumphs.” It described Cañizares as “the flashy … Cuban sensation who played shortstop and is a good clutch hitter.”33

Cañizares went 3-for-15 in the championship series against the favored Grays. In the September 13 opener, Cleveland nipped the Grays 2-1, and Cañizares (0-for-3) was one of four Buckeyes held hitless by hard-luck loser Roy Welmaker.34 However, Cañizares’ defense was instrumental in preserving the victory in the ninth inning. After the Grays scored a run, they still threatened with runners on the corners, but Cañizares started a textbook 6-4-3 double play to quell the rally.35

Three days later, his two safeties helped Cleveland win another narrow game, 3-2.36 He went 0-for-4 on September 18 in Giffith Stadium, Cleveland’s third victory,37 and collected one hit and one run in four plate appearances on September 20 as the Buckeyes won the title at Shibe Park, a neutral site.38

Despite his modest .200 average in the four-game sweep, he “gained uncontested right to the title ‘Player of the year.’ Canizares more than once caught the fancy and admiration of fans who marveled at his speed and perfection, and clutch hitting.”39

Back in Cuba, Cañizares improved to .273 in 1945-1946 with a league-leading six stolen bases..The Buckeyes front office expected the shortstop to return in 1946, but he opted to play in the Mexican League. The contract was rumored to be less lucrative than Cleveland’s offer, but a $3,000 bonus persuaded Cañizares to remain south of the border.40 The Buckeyes turned to Billy Horne as their new shortstop while Cañizares was superb in 1946 with the Torreón Algodoneros de Unión Laguna (Cottonpickers). Under the tutelage of “el inmortal” Martín Dihigo, Cañizares produced a .298 batting average, stole 18 bases, and scored 72 runs in 90 games.41 He was selected to the July 9 All-Star Game as the starting shortstop for the North team, led by another Cuban legend, Armando Marsans.42

Commissioner Happy Chandler and the major-league owners sought to persuade the Cuban League officials to bar players who had jumped to the Mexican League. While some light-skinned players were indeed under professional contracts with “Organized Baseball,” the move smacked of hypocrisy as many dark-skinned Cubans were barred from the major and minor leagues. As the 1946 season neared, Cañizares and scores of others who had proven their mettle in the Negro Leagues returned to the Cuban clubs .43

Cañizares scored 46 runs in  1946-1947, and he was routinely among the top basestealers although his average dipped to .260.44 On October 26, 1946, he was the first batter in the inaugural game of the Gran Estadio del Cerro (now known as “El Estadio Latinoamericano”) in Havana, attended by 31,000 fans.45 He led off for Almendares and was retired in the first inning, thus marking the first out of the stadium’s history.46 He nevertheless had a fine game (3-for-5) as his club defeated Cienfuegos, 9-1.47 During offdays, he was among the many professional stars to make cameo paid appearances for the sugar-mill amateur teams, typically in the rural central provinces.48

The Buckeyes held hope that Cañizares would return in 1947, despite the Negro League’s decree banning so-called deserters for five years.49 However, Cañizares signed a reported $12,000 contract (a base figure of $8,400 and a hefty bonus) to play in Mexico in 1947, a figure thought to be twice his 1945 Buckeyes pay. The local press was sympathetic to his choice, noting that the “contract calls for three days regular play per week, and $12,000 salary for the season. That is a first class pay in any man’s baseball league.”50

Cañizares played for the Tuneros (Tuna Fishermen) of San Luis Potosí in 1947 and appeared in a career-high 113 games as an offensive force: .281 average, 93 runs, 16 doubles, 6 triples, 24 stolen bases, and 72 walks. Among the contests was the first night game in Mexican League history; San Luis bested the Diablos Rojos (Red Devils), 10-7.51

Cañizares’ best Cuban season was 1947-1948: a .310 batting average with a league-leading 114 hits and 53 runs.52 He was again selected to the All-Star Game. However, he was not officially a member of Almendares but rather a doppelganger, the Alacranes. Cuban players formed the “independent league” to protest their working conditions. The circuit only lasted a year before the parties resolved their differences.

He split 1948 between San Luis and the Monterrey Sultanes (Sultans). His 14 stolen bases and .272 average helped the Sultanes to their second consecutive title.53

He was a key cog in the 1948-1949 Almendares team that won the first Caribbean Series, held in Havana. After hitting .251 in the regular season, he contributed four hits in 24 plate appearances as the hosts dominated the competition, winning all six of their games. However, the emergence of future big-leaguer Willy Miranda cut into his playing time. In a Lou Gehrig/Wally Pipp twist, Miranda cracked the lineup after “the Cuban star, Avelino Canizarez [sic] was sidelined with a Charley horse.”54 Despite playing with the club until 1952, he was no longer a regular and saw sporadic action, though he returned to the second Caribbean Series (this time held in San Juan, Puerto Rico).55

Cañizares finished his Cuban playing career with Cienfuegos  in 1953-1954 and hit a mediocre .255. He batted .251 for his Cuban career (344-for-1371), scored 203 runs, and drove in 111.5657 Although he was featured in many baseball cards during his time, the backs were mostly used for advertising and thus lack any statistics or biographical tidbits.58

The fall of the color barrier opened doors in North America. In 1950 Cañizares played with the Sherbrooke Athletics of the Class-C Provincial League (98 games, .294 average, with 18 doubles). The team finished in second place (57-51) and lost the league title to the St. Jean Braves. Sherbrooke featured four other Cubans in its multi-ethnic roster: Silvio García, Armando Roche, (Andrés) Lauro Pascual, and Félix Zulueta.59 In 1952 Cañizares played with the Keokuk Kernels of the Class-B Illinois/Indiana/Iowa League (.222 average in 65 games).

Cañizares split 1954 between the Diablos Rojos and Veracruz (.244 average, 10 stolen bases in 74 games).60 He played two years in the Central Mexican League with Saltillo (1955) and Durango (98 games, .302 average in 1956).61 He moved to the Méxicali Águilas (Eagles) of the Arizona-Mexico League in 1957 (.302/.384/.430 with 120 runs scored, 26 doubles, 8 triples, and 8 home runs in 123 games at 37 years of age) and 1958 (.359/.428/.454 27 doubles, 4 triples, 3 home runs). Both these circuits were Class C.62

In 1957, a dozen years after the Buckeyes’ title, Cleveland media still regarded Cañizares highly enough to include him a list of great Negro players, alongside legends Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Oscar Charleston.63 While still active, he managed the Saltillo club of the Class-A Mexico Central League in 1964 but hit a meek .198 in 41 games.64 He remained in the sport as both coach and pilot of other teams.

Cañizares married a Mexican woman and remained in Mexico after his playing career.65 He died on December 13, 1993, in Mexico City at the age of 74. The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame elected Cañizares to its ranks in 1997.66 His Negro League Baseball Players Association profile is sadly barren: “Avelino played for the Cleveland Buckeyes in 1945. He spent most of his career playing in the Mexican Leagues and Cuba.”67

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and seamheads.com.

Notes

1 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961, McFarland and Company, 2003), 131-132.

2 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos (Baseball-holics), April 5, 2009, https://www.beisbolicos.com/beisbolicos.nsf/489cfd4139951594862570b20015c24f/12097eec908e62698625758f0081e8b9?opendocument (archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20200202071654/https://www.beisbolicos.com/beisbolicos.nsf/489cfd4139951594862570b20015c24f/12097eec908e62698625758f0081e8b9?opendocument. Unless otherwise specified, All Mexican, US, and Canadian minor-league statistics mentioned in this biography stem from Rubio’s insightful work. 

3 “Carreras Anotadas,” (Runs Scored Leaders), Desde Mi Palco de Fanático: Memorias y Reflexiones del Baseball Cubano, https://desdemipalcodefanatico.wordpress.com/archivo/carreras-anotadas/.

4 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961.

5 James Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994), 150.

6 Dave O’Karma, “The Forgotten Championship,” Cleveland Magazine, https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/sports/articles/the-forgotten-championship.

7 Cleveland Buckeyes Website, sponsored by Wayne Pearsall. https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/1945SPRINGTRAINING.htm

8 Dave O’Karma, “The Forgotten Championship.” Most newspaper articles dropped the tilde (~) in Cañizares; occasionally spelled his last name as Canizarez; and sometimes misspelled his first name as “Avalino.”

9 Stephanie M. Liscio, Integrating Cleveland Baseball: Media Activism, the Integration of the Indians and the Demise of the Cleveland Buckeyes (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2014), 92.

10 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/1945openingDAY.html.

11 “Aces in Hole Are Bucks’ Cuban Stars,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 2, 1945: 6B.

12 Bob Williams, “Sports Rumbler,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 9, 1945: 6B.

13 Bob Williams, “Buckeyes Leading League; Play Chicago American Giants Here Sunday,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 16, 1945: 6B.

14 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/summer_in_the_city.htm.

15 “Disputed Umpire’s Decision Almost Disrupts Buckeyes-Giant Series,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 23, 1945: 18.

16 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/halfwaymark.html.

17 Wendell Smith, “The Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 14, 1945: 12.

18 Cleveland Buckeyes Website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/SUMMER_IN_THE_CITY2.html.

19 “Buckeyes Take 2 Games From Clowns, Gird for Pennant,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 28, 1945: 6B.

20 Gaylon H. White, Singles and Smiles: How Artie Wilson Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 30.

21 Willie Bea Harmon, “Sportorial,” Kansas City Call, July 20, 1945: 6.

22 Fay Young, “Mathis to Start for West Against East on Sunday: Lefthander Will Make Bid to Halt East’s Bats,” Chicago Defender, July 20, 1945: 7.

23 “Expect 40,000 to Witness ‘Dream Game’ in Chicago,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 28, 1945: 12.

24 “Afro Favors West Team in Annual All-Star Tilt,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 28, 1945: 18.

25 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/AllStar.html.

26 “Mathis to Start for West Against East on Sunday,” Chicago Defender, July 28, 1945: 7. The game’s box score is available on Retrosheet: https://retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1945/B07290ASW1945.htm.

27 Jimmy Jones, “Buckeyes, Eagles Split Double-Header at Newark, 4-0, 4-3 in Thrillers; W. Jefferson Is Loser,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 18, 1945: 6B.

28 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/September1945.html.

29 Jimmy Jones, “Buckeyes Gain Undisputed Title as League Champions,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 8, 1945: 6B.

30 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes, Seamheads, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1945&teamID=CBE&LGOrd=2&tab=metrics.

31 WAR as measured by Seamheads, https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1945&teamID=CBE&LGOrd=2&tab=bypos. Baseball Reference credits Cañizares with a 1.3 WAR and Bremer with a 2.6 WAR, https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NAL/1945-other-leaders.shtml.

32 “Meet the Champs – Can They Dethrone Grays?” Cleveland Call and Post, September 15, 1945: 7B.

33 Jimmy Jones, “Buckeyes Aim, to Dethrone Homestead Grays, Czars of All Baseball for Six Years, “ Cleveland Call and Post, September 15, 1945: 7B.

34 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/Game1.htm.

35 “Buckeyes Capture Three Straight From Wobbly Grays,” Michigan Chronicle (Detroit), September 22, 1945: 15. A reconstructed play-by-play account of the game is available on Retrosheet: https://retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1945/B09130CVB1945.htm.

36 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/Game2.html.

37 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/Game3.html.

38 Cleveland Buckeyes website, https://www.clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com/Game4WS.html.

39 “Key Personalities Who Sparked Amazing Championship of ‘Cinderella’ Team,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 29, 1945: 6B.

40 Cleveland Jackson, “Mexican Baseball League Raids American Negro Teams,” Cleveland Call and Post, February 23, 1946: 9B.

41 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

42 “Gardella Emulates Ted, Hits Pair in Mex Classic,” The Sporting News, July 17, 1946: 30.

43 “Cubans Name Ineligibles on Winter League Roster,” The Sporting News, September 25, 1946: 24.

44 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961.

45 Julio Pérez, “El estadio del Cerro, hoy Latinoamericano, cumple 70 años de existencia,” Radio Habana Cuba, October 26, 2016, https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/deportes/109959-el-estadio-del-cerro-hoy-latinoamericano-cumple-70-anos-de-existencia.

46 Roberto González Echevarría, The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 31.

47 Almendares-Cienfuegos box score, October 26, 1946, as reproduced in Angel Torres, La Historia del Béisbol Cubano, 1878-1976, self-published book.

48 Arquímedes Romo Pérez, “El béisbol en Morón III,” March 23, 2023, https://www.radiomoron.icrt.cu/2023/03/23/el-beisbol-en-moron-iii/.

49 Stephanie M. Liscio, Integrating Cleveland Baseball: Media Activism, the Integration of the Indians and the Demise of the Cleveland Buckeyes, 105.

50 Cleveland Jackson, “Avelino Canizares Signs $8,400 Mexican Contract. Night Games Planned for League Park,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 1, 1947: 8B.

51 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

52 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961.

53 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

54 Pedro Galiana, “Miranda Sparks Almendares to 6 Wins,” The Sporting News, January 26, 1949: 24.

55 William Pérez Villalba, “Gloria del Beisbol Cubano,” July 29, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/groups/222151257802610/permalink/3226464174037955/?paipv=0&eav=AfaLgISvyKH54FFO62guwMkjBRsTWOGSAqF3X0RLW-7ovD7HtueybQ1umOfFQMsNWco&_rdr.

56 Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961,

57 Other sources credit him with an additional run scored and run batted in, most notably Peter Bjarkman, Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2010), 189. Bjarkman credits Béisbol Cubano, Récords y Estadísticas, 1878-1955, as the original source.

58 Cañizares was featured in the 1945-1946 Caramelo Deportivo (considered the most important Cuban baseball card set) and the 1949-1950 Alerta Premium, a set of 8×11 black-and-white pictures of Cuban baseball players promoting “Antonio” (Antonio Prío Socarrás) for mayor of La Habana. Prío Socarrás was the brother of Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarrás, ousted by Fulgencio Batista in 1952.

59 Sherbrooke Athlétiques Team Photo, Histoire de la ligue provinciale de baseball (History of the Provincial Baseball League), https://www.lesfantomesdustade.ca/1950-1952/1950-sherbrooke-athl%C3%A9tiques.

60 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

61 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

62 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

63 “Negro Baseball Contributed Plenty Players of Yesteryears Had Big Time Potential,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 9, 1957: 4C.

64 Jesús Alberto Rubio, “Avelino Cañizares,” Beisbólicos.

65 Roberto González Echevarría, 22.

66 The original Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame suspended inductions in 1961 after Castro’s Revolution and restarted in 2015. The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in Miami elected players from 1962 to 1986 and sporadically since then. For more information, consult Rogerio Manzano, “Salón de la Fama del Béisbol Cubano,” Desde mi palco de fanático, https://desdemipalcodefanatico.wordpress.com/archivo/salon-de-la-fama-del-beisbol-cubano/.

67 “Canizares, Avelino,” Negro League Baseball Players Association (NLBPA) website, http://www.nlbpa.com/the-athletes/canizares-avelino.

Carswell was born in Jeffersonville, Georgia, near Macon in the central part of the state, on August 9, 1917. The identity of his father is uncertain. His mother died in 1930 when he was 13 years old, leaving him and his three siblings to live with relatives. Carswell left school after the eighth grade and went to work as a “chalk loader” in the kaolin mines in nearby McIntyre, Georgia. When he registered for the draft in 1940, he was working for the Edgar Brothers Company, at the time the owner of the largest kaolin mine in the United States.1 Although Edgar Brothers sponsored a baseball team in the 1930s that competed against teams from area mills and mines, it appears that the league was for White players only.2 Carswell’s draft card in 1940 described him as 23 years old, standing 6-feet-2-inches tall, and weighing 175 pounds. The only identifying mark on his body was a scar on the inside of his left wrist. Carswell signed his draft card with an “X,” indicating that he was unable to sign his own name. With both of his parents deceased by 1940, Carswell named his aunt, Katherine Carswell of Jeffersonville, as his personal contact.

While Carswell was working at the kaolin mines, several members of his family left Georgia for Albion, Michigan, including his brother, Eugene Carswell and a paternal uncle, Otha Carswell. Both were employed as laborers at the Albion Malleable Iron Company, which actively recruited African Americans from the South to move to Michigan to work in the foundry as early as 1916.3 While his brother and uncle answered Albion’s call, it appears that Carswell did not.4 He remained in Georgia, working in the mines until the early 1940s, when he moved to Buffalo, New York, the city he called home until his death in 1978.

It is curious that no record of Carswell in baseball has yet to be found prior to 1944, when he joined the Dan Montgomerys in Buffalo. At that time, he was 27 years old. It seems unlikely that he would pick up the game and develop into a talented hurler at that relatively advanced baseball age without any prior experience. If Carswell had any starts prior to 1944, they must have been under the radar, perhaps in leagues that received little or no attention from the predominantly White press in Georgia. But his arrival in Buffalo put him on the baseball map. Carswell’s discovery as a pitching prospect was credited to Ralph “Square” Moore, who played for a variety of Negro League teams during the 1920s.5 Moore arrived in Buffalo in the 1920s and pitched for the local Pete Hill’s Colored All-Stars as well as for the Kansas City Monarchs and Cleveland Elites.6 Moore continued to dabble in baseball into the early 1930s. In 1932 Moore picked up some broken pieces from the East-West Negro League and reconstituted them as the short-lived Buffalo Stars.7

The first published record of Carswell’s baseball career came in the spring of 1944, when he pitched for the Dan Montgomerys of the AA Municipal League in Buffalo.8 The team was named for a well-known local hotel, supper club, and Prohibition-era speakeasy owner, Dan Montgomery.9 The Montgomerys were the only African American team in the “Muny” League and had some quality players. At least two of Carswell’s teammates had prior experience in the Negro Leagues: Elton Gladney, who had a brief stint at shortstop with the Indianapolis ABCs of the Negro Southern League in 1932; and Pete McQueen,who in the 1930s had a few cups of coffee with the Little Rock Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Memphis Red Sox.

Despite Square Moore’s faith in his pitching protégé, Carswell was off to a rough first season. In one of his early starts for the Montgomerys, he and his fellow hurlers were tagged for 19 hits in a 15-5 loss to the league-leading Black Rock Howells.10 Carswell and his relievers were “unable to throw anything that the Howells couldn’t hit.”11 Carswell didn’t have much of a chance to get to know his fellow Montgomerys. In the summer of 1944, the Buckeyes were scouting for some new pitching talent. They gave George Provens of Canton, Ohio, a shot, but waited until 1945 to sign him.12 In early July, Carswell inked his first contract with the Buckeyes.

Carswell made his debut as a starting pitcher with the Buckeyes on July 11, 1944, against the Memphis Red Sox in Hamilton, Ontario.13 It was not pretty. Carswell was roughed up for five hits, three walks, and four runs in five innings in a 10-9 loss.14 To his credit, Carswell struck out three, had one hit, stole a base, and scored a run, but it was not enough to make his first appearance as a Buckeye one for the books.15

Carswell redeemed himself a few days later when the Buckeyes defeated the Red Sox 6-3 in Dayton, Ohio.16 The Bucks’ errors helped give the Red Sox an early lead, but Carswell was not to blame. He was replaced on the mound by Lovell Harden, who benefited from a late Cleveland rally that sealed the come-from-behind victory. Carswell did not get much credit for the victory in the Dayton Journal Herald’s coverage of the game. The newspaper misspelled his name as “Caldwell” in the line score.17 This was not a one-off error. Carswell’s surname sometimes appeared as “Cardwell” and his first name was mistakenly given as “William.”18

The lowlight of Carswell’s 1944 season was possibly the contest between the Buckeyes and the Simon Pures of Hamilton, Ontario, also known as the “Krustomen” for their manager, Matt Krusto.19 Prior to the game, Cleveland’s owner, Ernest Wright, commented that he “did not plan to start any second-rater,” and that the Buckeyes “cannot afford a setback by an amateur club.”20 Wright was wrong about Carswell’s abilities that day, but right about the potential embarrassment of losing to the amateurs, as discussed by a Hamilton journalist:

“Well, 1,733 of the faithful turned up for what the majority expected would be a landslide by the professionals. But such was not the case. Hamilton won 12 to 7, and don’t let your best friend tell you that the Bucks pulled their punches. They tried from the drop of the hat, but it must be admitted that they did treat the Simon Pures cheaply at the outset by starting Carswell, a utility player, on the mound. Before Carswell reached the showers, and after only two men had been disposed of, the Krustomen had bounced his offerings off every fence in the park.”21

Another account of the game noted that “the amateurs outhit the invaders by 15 to 13 and piled up a four-run lead in the initial stanza, when they drove Cardwell [sic], starting hurler for Cleveland, from the mound, to secure a lead they never relinquished.”22 Carswell lasted just two-thirds of an inning.23

Carswell’s disastrous outing in Hamilton left him with nowhere to go but up. As the 1944 season entered its final lap, he redeemed himself with a 12-2 win over the Chicago American Giants.24 “Tiny” Carswell, as he was described, struck out six, walked two, and limited Chicago to six hits.25 He also “punctured three, his loss of control being in the early frames.”26 But a few weeks later, as the season drew to a close, Carswell was on the losing side of a 13-3 drubbing by the Baltimore Elite Giants, a game that drew just 700 spectators.27

The 1944 season ended with the Buckeyes a distant second place in the NAL behind the Birmingham Black Barons. Carswell finished the year with an abysmal 14.21 ERA. Only one other Cleveland pitcher had worse stats in that department – Willie McMeans, who ran up a catastrophic 27.00 ERA and did not return to the Buckeyes in 1945.

In the spring of 1945, Carswell was back as a member of the Buckeyes’ pitching staff along with Eugene Bremer, Willie Jefferson, Lovell Harden, and John Brown.28 And although Carswell played for Cleveland the previous season, he was sometimes described as a newcomer.29 If his rookie year was largely forgotten by sportswriters and his name was often misreported, it may have been for the best because in 1945 Carswell was off to a good start. Even though his name appeared in the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune as “Jimmy Carswell,” he was credited with having “breezed along in fine fettle,” giving up six hits in a 9-4 victory over the local Hoosier Beers.30 Carswell continued to find his groove at the end of May, when the Buckeyes battered the Memphis Red Sox, 16-7.31

In mid-June he was the “individual star of the game” and “chucked a beautiful ball” as Cleveland trounced the Chicago American Giants, 9-0.32 In July Carswell downed another round of Hoosier Beers, defeating the South Bend nine, 7-3.33 By early August, Carswell’s record was 4-1.34 He was not as fortunate a few weeks later when his teammates’ errors contributed to his 8-4 loss to the Black Barons.35 On the eve of the Negro League World Series, Carswell saved the day in the ninth inning when he came in with the bases loaded and sealed a 4-3 victory for the Buckeyes over the Glenwood All-Stars.36 Carswell’s regular season ended on an up-and-down note. In one of his last starts, he pitched a two-hit shutout gem to lead Cleveland to a 10-0 blowout over the American Giants.37 But at Red Bird Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, he was under a cloud when a fog rolled in resulting in a 9-8 loss to the Homestead Grays.38 Even with that gloomy outcome, Carswell’s 1945 season was head and shoulders above his 1944 performance. But his biggest test was yet to come, when the NAL champion Buckeyes faced the Grays for something of greater consequence – the 1945 championship.

The first game of the 1945 Negro World Series, at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, resulted in a 2-1 squeaker in favor of the Buckeyes, with Willie Jefferson on the mound.39 The Buckeyes continued their winning ways by copping the next two games, 4-2 and 4-0.40 Carswell kept the bench warm during the first three games but got the call for the Series finale on September 18. He sealed the deal for the Buckeyes with a sparkling four-hit, 5-0 shutout of the Grays at Shibe Park in Philadelphia to claim the Negro League crown.41

The Buckeyes didn’t have much time to savor their championship victory and went right back to work against the Grays and others in a series of exhibition games. In Dayton, Ohio, Cleveland faced an all-White squad of major leaguers including Babe Dahlgren, Eddie Miller, and George Kell, among others.42 The racial context of the tilt was noted by the Dayton Herald, which commented that the “argument as to the class of Negro ball was waged for years and this game tonight will give the Bucks a chance to prove it belongs with the elite.”43 This was not the first mention of race and equality after the season. When the Buckeyes and Grays faced off at Yankee Stadium, a mayoral candidate, Judge Jonah Goldstein, tossed out the first ball, upon which he had written, “Discrimination – swat it.”44 Despite Carswell’s clutch performance that clinched the championship title, it does not appear that he pitched in any of Cleveland’s post-Series tilts. Carswell was mentioned as a possible starter for the game in Dayton on October 1, but the contest was rained out and not rescheduled.45

In March 1946, when the Buckeyes announced their spring-training plans for Birmingham, Alabama, Carswell was among the pitchers who returned to the fold.46 His spring flinging, however, did not get off to a great start. He was tagged with a 6-1 loss in a twin bill with the Barons.47 On April 21 Carswell was the fourth hurler used by Cleveland in a 10-9 squeaker over Birmingham.48 In early May, manager Quincy Trouppe trusted Carswell for their season opener in Dayton, a rematch against the Grays, with the assumption that Carswell held a “sign” over the Homestead nine.49 But Dayton’s weather gods were against him, just as they were the previous October, and the game was scrubbed.50

Carswell had to wait until May 5 for his 1946 debut, but the outcome in Cleveland was as grim as the weather in Dayton. He and the Buckeyes were felled by the Barons, 7-2, in a seven-inning ending to a doubleheader at League Park.51 A week later, Carswell was the second of three hurlers employed by the Buckeyes in another loss to the Barons, this time at Rickwood Field in Birmingham.52 On May 19 he gave up six hits in a 3-0 surrender to the Clowns at Victory Field in Indianapolis.53 On Memorial Day Cleveland split a doubleheader with the Chicago American Giants at Comiskey Park and Carswell’s efforts in relief of Curtis “Lefty” Jones did nothing for the cause as the Giants clocked him for six runs to seal Chicago’s 8-3 win.54 His mood may have lightened on June 6 when he had his finest outing of the season, posting a 10-1 drubbing of the Atlanta Black Crackers of the Negro Southern League at Red Wing Stadium in Rochester, New York.55 Carswell went the distance, fanned eight Black Crackers, issued two walks, and allowed just three hits.56 Despite these few flashes of brilliance, Carswell was mainly used in relief. Such was the case on June 16 when he was the second of three hurlers used by Cleveland in a 9-6 loss to the Kansas City Monarchs, an error-strewn performance by the Buckeyes.57 It was rinse and repeat for Carswell through most of summer of 1946. His only consistency was his inconsistency. He gave up at least four runs as a closer in a come-from-behind 7-6 loss to the Memphis Red Sox.58

At the end of July, Carswell broke his dry spell as a starter when he notched a “W” as the Bucks swept the Black Barons during a swing through New York.59 He was the “hometown” hero when he vanquished Birmingham 8-6 at his old stamping grounds at Offermann Stadium in Buffalo, where he played with the Dan Montgomerys.60 But as the summer dragged on, so did Carswell. On August 5, before a crowd of over 12,000, the Buckeyes and the Philadelphia Stars posted a curfew-induced 10-10 stalemate at Shibe Park.61 The Buckeyes and Stars were part of a special twin bill with the Grays and Kansas City Monarchs. After the Grays copped the win, 3-2, in the opening game, the Buckeyes and Stars took the field.62 Carswell pitched the final three innings in relief of Hosea Allen, and in the process gave up three runs that sealed the tie.63 Three days later Carswell took the mound in a tilt against Memphis as part of a “three-team, two-night bargain bill” at Griffith Stadium in Washington that also featured the Grays.64 Identified in game reports as “Bob Carswell,” he was pummeled by the Red Sox’ five hits and four runs in the fifth inning as the Buckeyes fell, 5-1.65 At the end of August, he was dinged with a 5-2 loss to the Black Barons when he gave up four runs in the eighth and donated a comeback victory to Birmingham.66 Carswell dropped another game for Cleveland on September 22 as a starter in a 7-2 defeat to the Red Sox at Russwood Park.67 Casey Jones’s two-out homer with two men on in the fourth sealed Carswell’s fate.68

The 1946 Cleveland Buckeyes did not enjoy the same successes as they did in 1945, finishing a distant third to the Kansas City Monarchs. The 1946 season was one to forget for Carswell. His ERA ballooned to 10.00, echoing his dreadful rookie year in 1944 when he chalked up a ghastly 14.21 ERA. During his whole career with the Buckeyes, Carswell accumulated a 7.30 ERA. His last appearance in 1946 was likely in the North-South game in which Cleveland, in a bizarre twist of geographical logic, participated as a member of the South’s squad. The game was slated for October 6 at Pelican Field in New Orleans and Carswell was mentioned among the stable of tossers for the South.69 The South won, 1-0, but lacking a box score, it is unknown if Carswell pitched in the contest.70 A second North-South game was slated to be played at Rickwood Field on October 13 and once again Carswell was listed as a possible starter.71 But without further documentation, it is impossible to determine if he ever took the field.

In February 1947 the Cleveland Buckeyes were making plans for spring training in Florida, and Carswell’s name was on the roster.72 They were set to cross bats in Bradenton with the Dayton Royals, described as Cleveland’s farm club.73 Throughout the spring of 1947, newspaper coverage of the Buckeyes continued to name Carswell as a member of their pitching staff. It does not appear, however, that he saw much action, and when he did get the call, the outcome was rarely positive. On May 15 he was hammered by the Grays at Redbird Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, 10-3.74 And then, on June 10, it was announced that Carswell was pegged to face the Black Barons in Buffalo.75 How did he fare in front of his hometown crowd? That question remains unanswered due to the lack of published coverage of the game. What is known is that less than a month later, Carswell was no longer wearing a Buckeyes uniform. In early July he signed with the Buffalo Harlem Giants.76 The Giants were a barnstorming team whose opponents were primarily local semipro outfits from western New York and Ontario. The Harlem Giants were known for recruiting former Negro League players and for their clowning and entertaining fans with their “amusing antics.”77

What prompted Carswell to abandon the Buckeyes for the Buffalo Harlem Giants? Several reasons come to mind. First and foremost, it may not have been his decision. His pitching stats were not in his favor and the parting may have been at the behest of the Buckeyes’ management. Another possibility is that he may have been recruited to join the Giants by a former Cleveland bullpen mate, Jeff Shelton, who had a brief stint with the Buckeyes in 1946. And finally, his move to the Harlem Giants may have been more for personal than professional reasons. His only son, Rudy Carswell, was born in Buffalo in 1947.

Carswell was slated to make his debut with the Harlem Giants on July 9 in Waterloo, Ontario.78 Newspaper coverage of the Giants’ games was sparse and the outcome of his first game with Buffalo is uncertain. That summer he did enjoy some success with his new mates. In mid-August, he held the Brantford (Ontario) Seniors to five hits in a 7-2 victory.79 On August 20 he helped lead his new team to victory by shutting out the Koch-Wallace nine of Dunkirk, New York, 7-0.80 Carswell gave up just two hits and was described as a pitcher “who also toils on the mound for the Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro American league.”81 Carswell toiled for the Buckeyes earlier in the year but was no longer with the team, and it doesn’t appear that he was on both rosters at the same time. After he signed with Buffalo, there are no records of Carswell playing for Cleveland for the remainder of the 1947 season. Fortunately for Carswell, he did not burn his bridges with the Bucks. He was back in a Cleveland uniform by the spring of 1948.

Carswell kicked off spring training in April with Cleveland with a 10-4 win over the Memphis Red Sox in a doubleheader that drew 3,900 fans at Martin Stadium.82 In early May Carswell demonstrated some “clever hurling” in a 15-3 drubbing of the Black Barons.83 A week later, in Springfield, Ohio, Birmingham exacted its revenge by crushing Carswell and his team, 11-6.84 The Buckeyes struggled throughout the summer to add games to the win column and keep their best players from being poached by White major-league teams. In July a teammate, outfielder Al Smith, was signed by the Cleveland Indians.85 Carswell never got the call to “The Show.” He remained with the Buckeyes through early June. The last mention of Carswell as a possible starter was a game between Cleveland and Memphis on June 8 in Dayton, Ohio.86 That summer, he disappeared from the Buckeyes’ roster and was not picked up by another Negro League team. In his final year with Cleveland, Carswell was credited with appearing in three games, had a 0-2 record, and rang up a 7.11 ERA. After the 1948 season ended, the NAL was in a financial and logistical tailspin. The league folded and Cleveland found itself as one of 10 teams in a new NAL.87

In the spring of 1949, Carswell discovered that he could go home again – back to the “Harlem Colored Giants,” later repackaged as Abe Saperstein’s Harlem Globetrotters.88 In the spring of 1949, he found himself in familiar territory, barnstorming in the United States and Canada. He was named as one of the “fancy flingers” for the Trotters and started his season on a hot streak.89 In late May, a “crafty” Carswell pitched a no-hitter for seven innings en route to a 6-0 win against the Studebakers in South Bend, Indiana.90 That performance sparked rumors of interest from the Cleveland Indians and Saperstein was purported to have offered Carswell’s services to a scout for an eye-popping $100,000.91 The story made for good copy but one has to wonder how much of the report was serious journalism and how much was pure hucksterism by Saperstein. After all, the same columnist who wrote the story referred to Frank Carswell as “pitching sensation” “Lloyd Cardswell,” a misspelling that appeared in various forms in the Trotters’ press releases for the remainder of the season.92

Carswell’s 1949 season with the Globetrotters was possibly one of his best. Although detailed newspaper accounts of the outcomes of the Trotters’ games were far outnumbered by articles promoting coming games, when results were published, Carswell’s wins outpaced reports of his losses – a definite improvement over his record with the Buckeyes. As Saperstein’s nine traversed North America, Carswell’s pitching prowess led his team to impressive wins in Canada, California, Oregon, Nebraska, and Montana, before the team headed back east.93

In 1950 Carswell left his home in Buffalo and hit the road once more with the Globetrotters. With 100 wins and just 19 losses to their credit during the 1949 season, the Trotters were on a roll. Carswell’s name still occasionally appeared in newspapers as “Lloyd Cardswell,” especially early in the season, including some of their first games with the Brooklyn Cuban Giants in Kentucky.94 It is difficult to determine his record for the 1950 season. Only a handful of his appearances were mentioned in newspapers and included wins over the Cuban Giants in Davenport, Iowa, in June, and Decatur, Illinois, in September.95 Carswell’s tenure with the Globetrotters ended with the 1950 season.

By the spring of 1951, Carswell, now nearly 34, reported to the Chicago American Giants’ spring training in Meridian, Mississippi.96 He was counted among the “eight pitching prospects to make the Giants a contender in the Negro American League pennant.”97 But he didn’t have much of a chance to dirty his Giants uniform. By June he had been sold to Syd Pollock’s Indianapolis-Buffalo Clowns for the reported hefty price of $7,500.98 Carswell quickly proved his worth with a five-hit win over the Philadelphia Stars.99 But the summer of 1951 wasn’t all fun and games for the Clowns. In July, their bullpen was decimated when two pitchers, Harry Butts and Pedro Naranjo, were “bribed” to defect to the “Canadian Manitoba-Dakota Circuit” (presumably the Mandak League), and a third hurler, Whit Graves, was induced to jump to the Dominican Republic’s summer leagues.100 Other players, including outfielder Nat Peeples and Honey Lott, were sold to the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox respectively.101 Pollock was apoplectic. From his perspective, the players received fair salaries, the turnstiles were humming, and their chances of making it to the majors were high if they remained with the team.102 Pollock was quoted as saying that the jumpers “cut their noses off to spite their faces.” But Carswell did not take the leap, remaining with the Clowns for the remainder of the season. It was another up-and-down year for Carswell. In early July he dropped a game to the Monarchs in front of his hometown crowd in Buffalo, 9-4.103 And then, on July 20, he pitched a two-hit shutout against the Baltimore Elite Giants at Sulphur Dell in Nashville to win 2-0.104 He finished the season with a 4-4 record.105

In September 1951 the Clowns and the Monarchs staged a “month-long series, which has been branded as the World Series of the Negro American League.”106 That series morphed into a barnstorming tour with Jackie Robinson’s All-Stars that continued through the end of October. During that time, the Clowns were repackaged as the “New York All-Stars,” and “Negro American League All-Stars” as fodder for Robinson’s traveling nine. Carswell was on the roster for all three iterations. His postseason record is uncertain, but based on published accounts of the contests, he enjoyed no success on the mound against Robinson’s team, although the crowds loved it. In Knoxville, Tennessee, 7,500 enthusiastic fans roared as Robinson rocketed one of Carswell’s offerings over the left-field fence.107 On October 22, over 3,000 turned out to see Carswell defeated by Robinson’s All-Stars in Asheville, North Carolina, 6-3.108 It was noted that the Asheville crowd was composed of roughly 1,000 White fans and the “remainder were Negroes, turning out to watch members of their race perform who have made good in the higher brackets of baseball.”109 The last report of Carswell starting for his squad against Robinson’s All-Stars was on October 29 in New Orleans, when he was on the losing end, falling 10-6 before a crowd of 4,000.110

In the early 1950s Carswell crossed paths with two of the greatest baseball players of all time –Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron. In the 1951 postseason, he barnstormed with the teams that faced Robinson’s All-Stars. In 1952 he was Aaron’s teammate on the Indianapolis Clowns. Carswell reupped with the Clowns in April 1952 and wore number 38.111 He was primarily used in relief in the spring, but by midseason he notched a pair of good wins as a starter against the Philadelphia Stars and the Chicago American Giants.112 As the season drew to a close, Carswell, aided by Aaron’s “brilliant fielding and hefty slugging,” battled the Black Barons for a 16-10 win in Knoxville.113 That partnership worked well in the postseason when the Clowns captured the Negro League World Series by winning seven of 12 games from the Black Barons.114 Carswell “led the Clowns’ hurlers in the series with two wins and no losses,” while Aaron blasted five homers and hit .402 during the championship run.115 It was one of the better seasons of Carswell’s career. The Clowns toured in style in a “$30,000 motor coach” and on at least one occasion drew over 22,000 fans, no doubt thanks to their teenage rookie, Hank Aaron.116 Over the thousands of miles racked up that summer, Carswell got to know Aaron. He observed his daily habits, including one in particular that earned the youngster his nickname, Pork Chop.117 According to Carswell, “The man ate pork chops three meals a day, two for breakfast, two for lunch, three for dinner, and a spare [from] time to time for a snack.”118 Carswell continued, “We all called him Pork Chop,” and added that thanks to Aaron, other players started “thinking about strict pork chop diets so’s they could hit like he could.”119

The 1953 season was Carswell’s final year in baseball. He returned to Pollock’s Indianapolis Clowns, but Aaron did not; he signed with the Boston Braves and was on his way to a Hall of Fame career. But in April the Clowns added a new player to the roster, Toni Stone, a female second baseman who was sure to capture headlines and bring curious fans through the turnstiles.120 The Clowns were managed by Albert “Buster” Haywood in his final year with the team. Haywood used Carswell primarily as a reliever in the spring and as a starter later in the season, just as he had the previous year.121 In late May Carswell pulled out a 9-4 win over the Monarchs before a sparse crowd of less than 2,000 at Muny Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska.122 In mid-July he had a bad night against the Black Barons in Asheville, giving up nine hits and losing 3-0.123 The Barons roughed him up again during the last week in July, this time at Sulphur Dell by a score of 14-1.124

Carswell’s summer continued on a downhill slide when he and the Clowns were dethroned by the Monarchs in mid-August in Kansas City, 4-1. The regular season ended with a thud for Carswell, but he had one last role to play before ending his career. In the 1953 postseason, the Clowns barnstormed against the “Negro Western All-Stars,” essentially a junior-varsity squad formed by a subset of Indianapolis players.125 Haywood was in charge of the Clowns’ “A Team,” while Carswell was tapped to wrangle the “All-Stars.”126 In late October, Carswell took over the reins for the Clowns when they played a two-game series against Robinson’s All-Stars at Pelican Stadium in New Orleans.127 Robinson’s squad included the Cleveland Indians’ Luke Easter and the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Gil Hodges.128 Nine thousand fans filled the stands to watch Robinson’s nine capture the first game, 4-3.129 Carswell’s final game likely came in an exhibition on November 5 in Miami against Robinson’s All-Stars – a 15-5 loss to end his career.130 Carswell’s career as a manager was brief but he made a positive impression on his team. According to Clowns infielder Gordon Hopkins, “Carswell was a good manager. I liked him. He was one of the Clowns’ old pitchers and he was taking care of managerial things for the All-Stars. He was a wonderful manager; he wasn’t too hard on the guys. He gave us a lot of flexibility, but he just wanted to see what everybody could do.”131

After the 1953 Clowns’ season ended, Carswell hung up his uniform for good and headed back home to Buffalo, where he took a job at the Chevrolet metal-casting plant in Tonawanda, a suburb on the north side of Buffalo.132 He retired from Chevrolet in 1972 “due to illness.”133 At the age of 61, Frank Carswell, known to his family as “Spark,” died in Buffalo on October 23, 1978, and was buried in Ridge Lawn Cemetery in Cheektowaga, New York.134 He was survived by his wife, Carrie Hunley Carswell, and his son, Rudy Carswell.

Sources

Unless otherwise indicated, all Negro League statistics and records were sourced from Seamheads.com and baseball-reference.com. Ancestry.com was used to access census, birth, death, marriage, military, immigration, and other genealogical and public records.

Notes

1 John W. Hammond, “Around the Circle,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, March 25, 1934: 10. Kaolin is a soft white mineral widely used in manufacturing.

2 “Industrial League May Be Organized, Macon Telegraph, April 17, 1935: 2.

3 Isaac D. Kremer, “Albion Interactive History,” Website, Isaac D. Kremer, Main Street America, http://isaackremer.com/albion/business/b_albion_malleable/.

4 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994), 155. Riley incorrectly identified Atlanta as Carswell’s birthplace and erroneously placed his boyhood years in Albion, Michigan.

5 Riley, 155, 565.

6 “Hill’s Stars Win Over Silver Creek,” Buffalo Times, August 13, 1926: 17; Riley, 565.

7 “Buffalo Stars Organize,” Buffalo Times, August 9, 1932: 6.

8 “Rock Howells Go Big Time, Set for Stadium Party,” International Gazette (Buffalo), June 10, 1944: 1.

9 David Montgomery, “Legends of the Lost City,” Buffalo News, August 5, 1990: E1, E2.

10 “Black Rocks Trounce Montgomerys, 15-5, Retain Muny Lead,” Buffalo Courier-Express, June 5, 1944: 13.

11 “Rock Howells Go Big Time, Set for Stadium Party.”

12 “Buckeyes to Give Proven a Tryout,” New Philadelphia (Ohio) Daily Times, June 22, 1944: 9.

13 “Buckeyes Unable to Retain Lead,” Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, July 11, 1944: 18.

14 “Buckeyes Unable to Retain Lead.”

15 “Buckeyes Unable to Retain Lead.”

16 “Series Taken by Cleveland,” Dayton (Ohio) Journal Herald, July 14, 1944: 6.

17 “Series Taken by Cleveland.”

18 “Simon Pures Provide Upset Exhibition with Pros,” Hamilton Spectator, August 11, 1944: 24; “Negro Nines End Season Saturday,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Evening News, September 13, 1944: 13.

19 Tommy Moore, “Krustomen Get Two Tests from Now Until Weekend,” Hamilton Spectator, August 10, 1944: 21.

20 “Krustomen Get Two Tests from Now Until Weekend.”

21 Tommy Moore, “Navy May Not Have Team to Start O.R.F.U. Race,” Hamilton Spectator, August 11, 1944: 25.

22 “Simon Pures Provide Upset Exhibition with Pros,” Hamilton Spectator, August 11, 1944: 24.

23 Tommy Moore, “Navy May Not Have Team to Start O.R.F.U. Race.”

24 “Buckeyes Beat League Foe, 12-2,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, August 26, 1944: 8.

25 “Buckeyes Beat League Foe, 12-2.”

26 “Buckeyes Beat League Foe, 12-2.”

27 “Baltimore Routs Buckeyes, 13-3,” Harrisburg Evening News, September 18, 1944: 11.

28 “American Giants Meet Buckeyes on Saturday Evening,” Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald, April 15, 1945: 8.

29 Bob Overaker, “Beers and Buckeyes Clash Here Tonight,” South Bend Tribune, May 18, 1945: 25.

30 “Hoosier Beer Defeated, 9-4, by Buckeyes, South Bend Tribune, May 19, 1945: 8.

31 “Buckeyes Win Third Straight,” Dayton Daily News, May 29, 1945: 12.

32 “Buckeyes Rout Giants 9 to 0,” Dayton Daily News, June 19, 1945: 16.

33 Bob Overaker, “Beers Shine Afield, but Buckeyes Win, 7-3,” South Bend Tribune, July 20, 1945: 21.

34 “Two Games on Island Field,” Harrisburg Patriot, August 1, 1945: 11.

35 “Black Barons Defeat Cleveland Club,” Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser, August 21, 1945: 6.

36 “Peg Parsons, “Armour’s Homer Paces Buckeyes to 4-3 Victory Over All-Stars,” Erie (Pennsylvania) Daily Times, September 12, 1945: 12.

37 “Buckeyes Make It a Banner ‘Hayes Day,’” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 3, 1945: 31.

38 “Grays Edge Buckeyes in Abbreviated Battle,” Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, September 13, 1945: 16.

39 “Buckeyes Win,” Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, September 14, 1945: 28; John Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001), 426.

40 Holway, 426.

41 “Cleveland Buckeyes Hold Negro Baseball World’s Championship,” Monongahela (Pennsylvania) Daily Republican, September 21, 1945: 2.

42 “Major All-Stars Here Tonight,” Dayton Herald, October 1, 1945: 9.

43 “Major All-Stars Here Tonight.”

44 “The Sports Note Pad,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 29, 1945: 30.

45 “Major All-Stars Here Tonight”; “Game Called,” Dayton Daily News, October 2, 1945: 20.

46 Jimmie N. Jones, “Cleveland Buckeyes, World Champions to Open Spring Training at Birmingham, Ala.,” Atlanta Daily World, March 20, 1946: 5.

47 “Buckeyes, Barons Split,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 30, 1946: 26.

48 “Cleveland Buckeyes Shade B’ham Black Barons, 10-9,” Atlanta Daily World, April 23, 1946: 5.

49 “Rains Blocking Negro Opener,” Dayton Herald, May 2, 1946: 22.

50 “Buckeyes and Barons Clash Here Tuesday, Dayton Daily News, May 5, 1946: 21.

51 “Buckeyes Divide Pair with Barons,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 6, 1946: 18.

52 “Black Barons Break Even,” Birmingham Post, May 13, 1946: 11.

53 “Clowns Blank Cleveland on Garcia’s Two-Hitter,” Indianapolis Star, May 20, 1946: 18.

54 “Bucks, Chicago Divide Holiday Doubleheader,” Chicago Defender, June 8, 1946: 11.

55 “Cleveland Nine Routs Atlanta, 10-1,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June8, 1946: 19; William J. Plott, The Negro Southern League: A Baseball History, 1920-1951 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2015), 157.

56 “Cleveland Nine Routs Atlanta, 10-1.”

57 “Monarchs Take Two from Cleveland,” Chicago Defender, June 22, 1946: 11.

58 “Memphis and Bucks Divide,” Chicago Defender, July 13, 1946: 11.

59 “Buckeyes Win Three from Barons,” Chicago Defender, August 3, 1946: 11.

60 “Buckeyes Triumph, 8-6,” Buffalo Courier-Express, July 28, 1946: 16.

61 William J. Scheffer, “12,435 Watch as Grays Win; Stars Tied,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 6, 1946: 25.

62 “12,435 Watch as Grays Win; Stars Tied.”

63 “12,435 Watch as Grays Win; Stars Tied.”

64 “Red Sox Trip Bucks, 5-1; Then Bow to Grays, 4-2,” Atlanta Daily World, August 9, 1946: 5.

65 “Red Sox Trip Bucks, 5-1; Then Bow to Grays, 4-2”; “Homestead Grays Tops in Capital 3-Team Bill,” Dayton Daily Bulletin, August 9, 1946: 4.

66 “Birmingham Swipes Pair,” Chicago Defender, August 31, 1946: 11.

67 “Red Sox in Victory,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 23, 1946: 13.

68 “Red Sox in Victory.”

69 “North-South Game Sunday,” Chicago Defender, October 5, 1946: 11.

70 “Negro Leagues Stage Single Game Today,” Birmingham News, October 13, 1946: 37.

71 “Negro Leagues Stage Single Game Today.”

72 “New Shortstop for Cleveland,” Chicago Defender, February 8, 1947: 20.

73 “New Shortstop for Cleveland.”

74 “Homestead Grays in Win Over Cleveland,” Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, May 16. 1947: 25.

75 “Buffalo’s Carswell to Hurl Negro Game Opener,” Buffalo News, June 10, 1947: 29.

76 “Carswell with Harlem Giants,” Buffalo News, July 9, 1947: 5.

77 “Clarence Center Fire Co. Ball Team to Play Harlem,” Amherst Bee (Williamsville, New York), June 20, 1946: 6.

78 “Harlem Giants Nine Plays at Clarence Tonight,” Buffalo News, July 9, 1947: 5.

79 “Buffalo Giants Win,” Buffalo Courier-Express, August 18, 1947: 14.

80 “2,000 Watch Koch-Wallace Nine Lose, 7-0, to Giants,” Dunkirk (New York) Evening Observer, August 21, 1947: 18.

81 “2,000 Watch Koch-Wallace Nine Lose, 7-0, to Giants.”

82 “Red Sox Gain Split,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 12, 1948: 18.

83 “Cleveland Buckeyes Defeat Black Barons,” Atlanta Daily World, May 7, 1948: 8.

84 “Birmingham Barons Outslug Cleveland Buckeyes, 11-6,” Springfield (Ohio) Daily News, May 11, 1948: 13.

85 “Indians Sign Alonzo Smith,” Atlanta Daily World, July 15, 1948: 5.

86 “Memphis Lineup Revamped for Game Tonight,” Dayton Herald, June 8, 1948: 22.

87 “Grays Quit League; New Circuit Formed,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 11, 1948: 7.

88 “New Tigers to Be Seen at Home Game Tomorrow,” Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario) Record, May 6, 1949: 23.

89 “New Tigers to Be Seen at Home Game Tomorrow.”

90 Bob Towner, “Globetrotters Defeat Studebaker Baseball Team,” 6-0,” South Bend Tribune, May 24, 1949: 17.

91 Ken McConnell, “Before and After,” Daily Province (Vancouver, British Columbia), May 21, 1949: 7.

92 Ken McConnell, “Before and After”; “Globetrotters Defeat Local All-Star Team,” Eugene (Oregon) Guard, July 24, 1949: 14; “Trotters Boast Negro Ball Stars for Game Wednesday at Hudson,” Albany (Oregon) Democrat-Herald, July 25, 1949: 7; “Stars Fill Globetrotters Ranks,” Chadron (Nebraska) Record, August 12, 1949: 8.

93 “Airlifters Bow to Trotters in Thrill-Packed Cambell Benefit Game,” Great Falls (Montana) Tribune, July 4, 1949: 9; “Harlem Nine Sweeps Pair From Davids,” Oakland Post-Inquirer, July 18, 1949: 14;  “Globetrotters Defeat Local All-Star Team”; “Trotters Boast Negro Ball Stars for Game Wednesday at Hudson”; “Stars Fill Globetrotters Ranks”; “Globetrotters Tag 11 to 2 Loss on Miles City Club,” Miles City (Montana) Star, August 17, 1949: 7.

94 “Negro Nines Play Twin-Bill Next Sunday,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 14, 1950: 32; “Globetrotters Meet Cubans at Hoptown,” Madisonville (Kentucky) Messenger, May 17, 1950: 14.

95 Jerry Jurgens, “Trotters Sock 22 Hits; Slam Cubans, 13-5,” Davenport (Iowa) Daily Times, June 10, 1950: 6; “Globetrotters Top Brooklyn Cubans, 9 to 1,” Decatur (Illinois) Herald and Review, September 4, 1950: 13.

96 “Ame. Giants Open Spring Training,” St. Louis Argus, March 2, 1951: 20.

97 “Ame. Giants Open Spring Training.”

98 “Clowns’ Manager Purchases Player,” Macon (Georgia) News, June 7, 1951: 21.

99 Les Matthews, “Sports Train,” New York Age, June 9, 1951: 14.

100 “Indianapolis Clowns Baseball News,” Macon News, July 3, 1951: 13.

101 “Indianapolis Clowns Baseball News”; Alan J. Pollock, Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams (James A. Riley, ed.), (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 222.

102 “Indianapolis Clowns Baseball News.”

103 “Clowns, Monarchs Divide Twin Bill,” Buffalo Courier-Express, July 9, 1951: 14.

104 “Carswell Shuts Out Giants in Dell Tilt,” Nashville Tennessean, July 21, 1951: 10.

105 “Veteran Ball Stars Return Signed Contracts to Clowns,” Alabama Tribune (Montgomery), April 4, 1952: 7.

106 “Clowns Engaged in Month Long Series,” Macon News, September 12, 1951: 25.

107 Frank Weirich, “Jackie Robinson Mobbed as Stars Win Game, 9-6,” Knoxville (Tennessee) News-Sentinel, October 17, 1951: 16.

108 “Robinson’s All-Stars Defeat AL Nine, 6 to 3,” Asheville (North Carolina) Times, October 23, 1951: 15.

109 “Robinson’s All-Stars Defeat AL Nine, 6 to 3.”

110 “Robinson’s All-Stars Win,” Washington Evening Star, October 30, 1951: 16.

111 “Clowns Ink 4 Including Sub for King Tut,” Chicago Defender, April 5, 1952: 17; “Negro Teams Meet Today,” Baltimore Sun, May 18, 1952: 7D.

112 “Clowns Capture Round Robin in Negro Loop Ball,” Buffalo Evening News, July 21, 1952; “Clowns Overcome Giants in ‘Straight’ Ball Game,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, August 1, 1952: 12.

113 “Rookie Leads Clown Victory,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, September 20, 1952: 6.

114 “Clowns Baseball Champions,” Macon Telegraph, October 13, 1952: 2.

115 “Clowns Defeat Barons to Win NAL Playoff, 7-5,” Chicago Defender, October 18, 1952: 18.

116 “Hall Drug Battles Famed Indianapolis Clowns Tuesday Night,” Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer, August 10, 1952: 16; “First in Sports, Buffalo Courier-Express, August 13, 1952: 18.

117 Pollock, 228.

118 Pollock, 228.

119 Pollock, 228.

120 “Clowns and Baseball Notes,” Macon Telegraph, April 2, 1953: 26.

121 “Birmingham Nine Blanks Clowns Before 3,563,” Asheville Citizen, July 14, 1953: 15.

122 “Game Won by Clowns,” Omaha Morning World-Herald, May 27, 1953: 28.

123 “Birmingham Nine Blanks Clowns Before 3,563.”

124 “Black Barons Rout Indianapolis, 14-1,” Nashville Tennessean, July 25, 1953: 11.

125 “Clowns, Western All-Stars Schedule Game Here Sept. 13,” Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal, September 6, 1953: 20; Brent Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations with 66 More Baseball Heroes (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2010), 291.

126 “Clowns, Western All-Stars Schedule Game Here Sept. 13.”

127 “9,000 See Big Leaguers; 2nd Game Tonight,” New Orleans Item, October 26, 1953: 20.

128 “Robinson’s All-Stars Win at Little Rock,” Shreveport Journal, October 23, 1953: 29.

129 “9,000 See Big Leaguers; 2nd Game Tonight.”

130 “All-Stars Beat Clowns 15-5,” Miami Times, November 7, 1953: 1.

131 Kelley, 294.

132 “Frank Carswell, Ex-Pitcher,” Buffalo News, October 27, 1978: 36.

133 “Frank Carswell, Ex-Pitcher.”

134 “In Memoriam,” Buffalo News, October 27, 1978: 36.

Cleveland Municipal Stadium (1931-1996) housed millions of sports fans (boxing, baseball, football), music lovers (the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen), a Shriners convention, the Cleveland Orchestra, religious events, and circuses. 

Known by Clevelanders as simply “the Stadium,” the steel and concrete behemoth enthused and impaled attendees for parts of seven decades. Its initial sporting event, on July 3, 1931, was a heavyweight championship match between defending champ Max Schmeling of Germany against William “Young” Stribling. The contender stayed on his feet until 14 seconds remained in the 15th round. The Schmeling-Stribling bout mirrored what would become the stadium’s history. If the champ was Cleveland’s weather, it threw punches at the contender (the Stadium) before reducing it to rubble.

Anyone who went to see the Stadium during the 1970s-1990s saw the wear and tear of standing alongside the windy, icy Lake Erie. Peeling paint, crumbling concrete, inoperable escalators and elevators, uncomfortable seats, flooded restrooms, misnamed luxury boxes, and obstructed views were a recipe for destruction. Thus it wasn’t a surprise, after the “original” Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore following the 1995 NFL season, that the Stadium had outlived its use.

Open Sesame

At the first baseball game, a July 31, 1932, Sunday showdown against the Philadelphia Athletics attended by baseball royalty and 80,284 fans, baseball’s first commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, commented, “This stadium is perfect. It is the only baseball park I know where the spectator can see clearly from any seat. Look at those people out there (he said pointing to the crowded center-field bleachers); they can watch every play.”1

Landis turned around in his box seat near the Indians dugout and swept the grandstands with his hand. “Not a barrier to block anyone’s view. Comfortable chairs. This is perfection.” Obviously, the Commish never saw a game from beyond the Fat Cats box seats.

John Heydler, the National League’s president, said, “Marvelous. It is the last word in baseball parks. A great thing for baseball. And one should not forget to give (Indians President) Mr. (Alva) Bradley credit, either.”2

And this from Thomas S. Shibe, Athletics president: “This was built for baseball. I wish we had this in Philadelphia for the last three World Series.”3 

Before the beginning

According to the October 1985 Inventory Nomination form for a listing on the National Register of Historic Places, “Cleveland Municipal Stadium was designed by the progressive city administration as a multipurpose structure to accommodate the great surge in attendance at baseball and football games and other public spectacles that occurred with the rise of the automobile.”4

The nomination form goes on to read, “Since then, in addition to baseball and football, the range of activities at the stadium has included religious convocations, the Metropolitan Opera, the Beatles, circuses, rodeos, big bands, tractor pulls, and polka festivals.”5

If you build it … who will come?

Constructed on a landfill that stretched the lakefront 200 feet farther into Lake Erie, the facility was completed in 370 days at a cost to taxpayers of $3,035,245. Although 21 percent over budget, the cost overruns were attributed to the addition of a scoreboard, sound system, and infrastructure around the facility, including bridges, railroads, and road work.

After their July 31, 1932 “opener” at the Stadium, the Indians played by Lake Erie for the remainder of 1932 and all of the 1933 season. But after attendance dipped in 1933 to 387,936 – nearly 100,000 less than the 483,027 they attracted in 1931 at their last full season at League Park, team owner Alva Bradley moved his club back to the significantly smaller League Park for all but one game during the 1934-36 seasons.

Under pressure from city leaders, unhappy at their 80,000-seat stadium standing vacant, Bradley agreed to play most doubleheaders and other games expected to draw larger crowds at the Stadium. The Tribe did not move downtown full time until 1947, after Bill Veeck purchased the club.

On July 16, 1945, the Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro American League played their first regular-season game at the Stadium, defeating the Birmingham Black Barons, 6-2, in front of 12,733 fans. The Buckeyes won five regular-season games at the Stadium in 1945 and opened the 1945 Negro World Series against the Negro National League’s Homestead Grays on September 13. Cleveland’s 2-1 victory ignited a four-game championship sweep. The second game was at League Park and the final two contests were on the road (Washington and Philadelphia).

The Buckeyes’ only loss when playing at Cleveland Stadium in 1945 was a 2-0 postseason exhibition loss to the Homestead Grays on October 7.

Cleveland Buckeyes contests at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, 1945

• July 16: Cleveland Buckeyes 6, Birmingham Black Barons 2
• July 24: Cleveland Buckeyes 3, Kansas City Monarchs 2
• August 3: Cleveland Buckeyes 4, Chicago American Giants 1
• August 30: Cleveland Buckeyes 1, Memphis Red Sox 0 (first game of doubleheader)
• August 30: Cleveland Buckeyes 2, Memphis Red Sox 0 (second game of doubleheader)
• September 13: Cleveland Buckeyes 2, Homestead Grays 1 (Negro World Series Game One)
• October 13: Homestead Grays 2, Cleveland Buckeyes 0 (exhibition game)6

The Buckeyes played occasional other games there as well, in 1945, 1946, and 1947.

NF Hell

The National Football League in the 1930s was not the same league as in the twenty-first century. Major-league baseball was America’s national pastime while NFL was an afterthought. It was into this quagmire that the Cleveland Rams were born in 1936. They were initially a member of the American Football League in 1936, and joined the National Football League in 1937. Their first game drew 20,000 fans to Cleveland Stadium on September 10, 1937, a 28-0 loss to the Detroit Lions, Because the Stadium “was too big and the rent too high,” the Rams played their home games through 1945 at League Park.7 With a regular-season record of 9-1, the Rams advanced to the 1945 NFL championship game, hosting the Washington Redskins (8-2). The Rams held the championship game at Cleveland Stadium in anticipation of a larger crowd than League Park could accommodate.

According to Rams public relations director Nate Wallack, “Our season-ticket sale was nothing (in) those days. Maybe 200 at the most. We put the (1945) championship seats on sale and immediately we sold 30,000 and we had another week to go before the game. The weather was beautiful. It looked as though we’d sell out the Stadium. Then a blizzard. I mean an awful one. It ended our sales. Now Bill Johns, our business manager, was worried about the field. He wanted to keep it from freezing. He got in his car and set out toward Sandusky, stopping at every farm to buy hay. He wanted to cover the field with it. He bought over 1,000 bales.

“The day of the game the temperature dropped to zero. I sat in the press box and the windows got so steamed we couldn’t see. All the writers had to get out into the stands and freeze. Me too. A water pipe broke in the upper deck and cascading water turned to ice immediately – a frozen waterfall. The fans burned the hay and even the wooden bleacher seats to keep warm. One fan froze his feet and didn’t realize it until he started to walk home after the game. An ambulance had to be called. The game was so exciting, though, the fans stayed to the end. We sold about 35,000 tickets and 29,000 showed.”8

The Rams’ 15-14 victory over the Washington Redskins was the team’s last game in Cleveland. Mickey McBride, a Cleveland taxicab magnate, purchased a franchise for the new All-America Football Conference, to be named after its head coach, former Massillon and Ohio State head man Paul Brown. McBride signed a long-term lease to play home games at the Stadium. Typical of the doom that would frequent Cleveland professional sports teams, the Rams moved to Los Angeles after winning a league championship.

Home Sweet Home

The Stadium entered an unprecedented period of success after the Browns and Indians became its chief tenants beginning in 1946 and 1947 respectively. The Browns won every championship during the four-year history of the All America Football Conference, with three of those wins taking place on the Stadium’s turf. The Indians set a baseball attendance record in 1948, drawing 2,620,627 fans as they won Cleveland’s second – and as of 2024, last – World Series. The Tribe captured Games Three and Four at the Stadium before wrapping up the title at Braves Field in Boston. Noteworthy in the Game Five home loss was a then-World Series-record crowd of 86,288 who had hoped to see the Clevelanders wrap the Series at home.

While the ’50s remained kind to the Browns, the Indians began a slow descent that concluded with a remarkable tumble down the American League standings during the latter decades of the twentieth century. Despite posting a then American League best 111-43 record in 1954, the Indians were swept in the World Series by the New York Giants. The last World Series game played at Cleveland Stadium, on October 2, 1954, was witnessed by 78,102 disappointed fans. The final: New York Giants 7, Cleveland 4.

The Browns entered the NFL in 1950 and promptly captured that season’s title with a 30-28 Christmas Eve victory over the … Rams, who returned to the Stadium for the first time since leaving for Los Angeles five years before. Cleveland appeared in six of the next seven NFL title tilts (going 2-4), including a 1955 championship at the Stadium. The Browns’ 27-0 shutout over the Baltimore Colts at the Stadium on December 27, 1964, remains the last professional championship captured by the Cleveland Browns.

Cleveland Stadium spectacles

Whether it was sports or other events, the Stadium provided a backdrop for a multitude of memorable moments. Ted Williams hit his 500th home run there on June 17, 1960. The Indians’ Len Barker pitched the 10th perfect game in major-league history against the Toronto Blue Jays on May 15, 1981. Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak ended there on July 17, 1941. Bob Feller whiffed a then-record 18 Detroit Tigers on October 2, 1938, from the Stadium’s mound. The first Monday Night Football game ever played pitted the Browns against Joe Namath’s Jets on September 21, 1970, from the Stadium. Four All-Star Games were played at the Stadium.

Cleveland Stadium was also home to 10-Cent Beer Night in 1974 and “The Drive” engineered by John Elway in 1987. During the 1986 AFC Championship game, the Browns had a 20-13 lead over the Denver Broncos with 5:32 left in the contest. Broncos quarterback John Elway drove Denver 98 yards in 15 plays, tying the game with 0:39 remaining. Cleveland lost in overtime on a Denver field goal kick that led the Broncos into the Super Bowl. “The Drive” was born. The Browns again ended up on the wrong end of another playoff game against the Oakland Raiders on January 4, 1981, after quarterback Brian Sipe had a pass intercepted at the east (open) end of the Stadium when a field goal would have won the game. That led to a joke: What do a Billy Graham Crusade and a Cleveland Browns game have in common? Answer: 80,000 fans leaving the Stadium murmuring “Jesus Christ!”

The End

Stadiums are public gathering places, usually for sporting events. What transpires within their walls brings fans together, be it in victory or defeat. Some fans have fond memories of the Cleveland Municipal Stadium. It represents their youth, possibly the site of their first concert, major league, or NFL game.

Over time, the Cleveland Municipal Stadium became known as the “Mistake by the Lake.” After its demolition, the old Stadium’s reinforced concrete was dumped in Lake Erie and used as a barrier reef for fishermen. Like Luca Brasi from The Godfather, it sleeps with the fishes.

Sources

Box scores for all the Cleveland Buckeyes games in 1945 are available on Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Al Silverman, “Landis Lauds Stadium as Perfect for Baseball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 1, 1932: 17.

2 Silverman.

3 Silverman.

4 National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form, October 1985, Accessed from the Cleveland Stadium Clip File at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

5 Nomination Form.

6 “Defeat Bucks in Last Game, 2-0,” Cleveland Call and Post, October 13, 1945.

7 Hal Lebovitz, “Hal Asks: Remember the Cleveland Rams?” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 20, 1980: 3-8.

8 Lebovitz.

From his Stockham Valves and Fittings industrial league team in Birmingham, Johnnie Cowan moved in 1940 to the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Southern League. Later, in the midst of World War II, he earned a shot in 1944 with the Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro American League. Cowan made the most of his opportunity, starting at second base a year later when the Buckeyes won the 1945 Negro World Series.

Cowan and the Buckeyes returned to the championship two years later, losing this time to the New York Cubans. After stints with the Memphis Red Sox and again with the Black Barons, Cowan returned to Stockham, eventually becoming their manager in the 1950s, before finally receiving recognition, well after retiring, as a Negro Living Legend.

Johnnie Wart Cowan was born on May 31, 1913, in Pleasant Hill, Alabama, about 110 miles south of Birmingham. He was the fourth of eight children born to Henry Cowan, a farmer, and Lena (Butler) Cowan.

Not much information has been unearthed about Cowan’s younger years, or how he and his family migrated north to Birmingham. However, by 1932, the 19-year-old Cowan had begun a long history of playing ball (and working) for Stockham Valves and Fittings, which played in the Negro Industrial League run by the YMCA. The next year, 1933, Cowan played for an airport semipro team in the newly formed New Deal League in Birmingham. In one May tilt, the right-hander “hit well for the losing team” and even relieved on the mound.2

In early 1934 Cowan (at times cited as Johnny Cowans) tried out for the Black Barons (also sometimes referred to that year as the Black Giants) of the Negro Southern League, a team organized by Frank Purdue and Ludie Keys.3 The rookie Cowan was usually penciled in by manager Bill Perkins (a Pittsburgh Crawfords catcher who was holding out) playing third base and batting in the eighth spot.4 Cowan’s three-run home run helped Birmingham sweep the Atlanta Black Crackers on June 3.5

It’s unclear what became of Cowan in 1935, but he returned to the Black Barons for 1936 and became the “new Black Baron second sacker.”6 Cowan collected four hits, including a triple and double, in a doubleheader sweep of the Montgomery Gray Sox on June 14,7 which ran Birmingham’s record to 25-6.8 Cowan would later reminisce about playing at Rickwood Field, saying “I loved playing at Rickwood. The field was so beautiful and it was a regulation field. They kept it up, unlike many black ballfields.”9

Johnnie married Daisy Sands, a South Carolina-born schoolteacher, in April 1937. They would have a son, Charles, and a daughter, Evelyn. Cowan returned to play for his work squad at Stockham. His extra-inning double in August gave Stockham a win against its archrivals, the American Cast Iron Pipe Co.(“Acipco”).10 It seems Cowan spent 1938 and 1939 in Birmingham playing in various local leagues.

Cowan did play in three games with the Black Barons in 1940, going 1-for-11 at the plate. His October 1940 draft registration listed him as married, brown-eyed, 5-feet-10 and 160 pounds, working as a chucker and machine operator at Stockham. Cowan was invited to play for a Birmingham all-star squad in September against Satchel Paige’s All Stars while second baseman Tommy Sampson was recovering from being hit by a bat.11

Back with Stockham in 1941, Cowan, playing second base, “showed the fans some sensational fielding” in a July game against Acipco.12 He earned a tryout with the revamped Black Barons and manager Winfield Welch in September 1941, along with other stars of the local industrial league including first baseman Jim Canada, outfielders Piper Davis and Ed Sickle, and catcher Bill Perkins.13 Apparently, in Cowan’s case, it did not pan out, as in October, Cowan, playing for Stockham, was with the City Negro Industrial League All-Stars in a five-game series against the Black Barons.

Playing in a benefit game in August 1942 for Stockham and manager Joe Borden, Cowan “executed the fielding gem of the game” in a loss to undefeated Acipco, which had Piper Davis and, later, Sam Hairston.14 The next day, Cowan, possibly pressed into service, debuted with the Cleveland Buckeyes, going 2-for-5 while playing third base, then second, on August 21 in a doubleheader defeat at the hands of the Black Barons in Birmingham.15 Less than a week later, Cowan “led the explosives for Stockham” in a 13-1 drubbing of US Pipe of Bessemer, Alabama.16 He returned to play for Stockham in 1943. He also played second base with a Birmingham all-star team managed by Ed Steele in a series against the Atlanta Black Crackers in August 1943.17

In April 1944 Cowan signed with the Buckeyes and reported to spring training in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Buckeyes manager-third baseman Parnell Woods had been summoned by his draft board for a pre-induction examination. Cowan competed with Herman Purcell (who eventually became a pitcher) for the Buckeyes infielder opening.18 He was described by a sportswriter as “a fast baserunner and a good hitter.”19 After Cowan won a job, one newspaper report held that “Johnnie Cown [sic], a 31-year-old veteran from Pleasant Hill, Alabama, is doing a remarkably good job at the hot corner”;20 another that “Johnny Cowan of Birmingham … will make you sit up and take notice.”21 However, Woods was rejected by the draft board and quickly returned, although two other Buckeyes infielders, second baseman Marshall Riddle and shortstop Billy Horne, reportedly were drafted.22 So Norman Young moved to shortstop, and Cowan to second base, although Horne returned from the Army by mid-May and Young was traded to the Kansas City Monarchs.23 Cowan was soon labeled “the season’s find of the rookie crop,” and part of a Cleveland infield quartet “judged to be the best all-around inner defense in Negro baseball.”24

The Buckeyes split with the Indianapolis Clowns in Cleveland on May 14 with Cowan batting second. He belted a three-run home run in a win on July 7 over the Memphis Red Sox.25 By August, Cowan was labeled a “brilliant performer in his first year” with Cleveland.26 He went 4-for-5 with a double and triple in a 12-6 victory over the Outwin (Wisconsin) Zephyrs on August 17.27 The new Buckeye just over a week later had two triples, two singles, and a walk for a perfect night in a 12-2 drubbing of the Chicago American Giants.28 The Buckeyes finished just behind the Birmingham Black Barons for the NAL pennant. Seamheads shows Cowan hit .237 over 17 league games. He also led NAL second basemen in fielding percentage (.947)29 Cowan earned the nickname “J-Hands” for his large and deft hands around the infield.

Returning to the Buckeyes for the 1945 campaign, and under their new manager, catcher Quincy Trouppe, Cowan knocked in the go-ahead run with a double in a 9-8 win over the Chicago American Giants of Chicago at Katy Field in Waco, Texas, on April 26. By late May, Cowan had replaced second baseman Billy Horne, who was now in the Navy.30 Cowan was “playing great ball,” a sportswriter commented.31 The Buckeyes won the first half in the Negro American League.

Before a July 29 doubleheader loss to the Cuban Stars in front of 6,000 at the Polo Grounds (the same day as East-West Game attended by Buckeyes Lloyd Davenport, Archie Ware, Trouppe, and Eugene Bremer), Cowan was labeled a “midway guardian and double play artist” alongside shortstop Avelino Cañizares.32 Cowan led off, going 0-for-5, in a 4-3 loss again to the Cubans on July 30 at Dexter Park in Brooklyn. On August 10 Cowan “started the prettiest double play ever seen here,” with a “remarkable stop and throw” in a win over the Lloyd (Pennsylvania) Athletic Club.33

The Buckeyes won both halves of the NAL season, and thus faced the Homestead Grays in the 1945 Negro World Series. Cowan notched the first hit and RBI of the Series.34 His sacrifice fly scored manager Trouppe (who had tripled) with Cleveland’s first run on September 13 at Cleveland Stadium in Game One, which the Buckeyes won, 2-1. The Buckeyes won three days later, 4-2, at League Park to take a 2-0 Series lead.35 Cowan was identified as part of an “airtight” Cleveland infield, which included Woods at third, Cañizares at shortstop, and Ware (also from Birmingham) at first.36

The Buckeyes defeated the Grays 4-0 on September 18 at Griffith Stadium in Washington to go up three games to none. Cowan’s defensive prowess caught the attention of many a spectator. He made an incredible snag of a mid-game liner of the bat of the Grays’ Buck Leonard. A reporter overheard US Sen. Albert “Happy” Chandler, in attendance and just over a month away from becoming the new commissioner of baseball, state, “That was the best play I’ve ever seen in my life.”37 Later accounts claim Chandler hailed Cowan as “the best infielder I’ve ever seen.”38 Cowan’s son Charles, after his father had died, relayed the quote as “Johnny Cowan is one of the best groundball men I’ve ever seen.”39 After another Cowan defensive gem, The Cleveland Call and Post reported, “The Washington fans almost jumped out of their seats when Cowan threw a ball on one knee to retire the side.”40 Regardless of the superlatives, Cowan’s heroics greatly impressed the attendees.

Capping the historic run, Cleveland beat the Grays 5-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia on September 20 to win the Series.41 Cowan, Trouppe, and Cañizares were singled out for their “brilliant playing and strategy.” Cowan, it was said, “really found his place in the sun as he fielded strategic balls which spelled the difference between win and lose for the opposing Grays.”42

Statistics from Seamheads show Cowan as a light hitter, not accumulating a single extra-base hit in over 100 plate appearances in 1945. He ended the year on the diamond by going 1-for-4 as the starting second baseman for the South All-Stars (with five Buckeyes as starters) on October 7 in New Orleans as they fell to the North All-Stars, 7-1.43

Cowan experienced his best offensive season for the Buckeyes in 1946, hitting .313 over 17 official contests. A newspaper called him a “timely-hitting second sacker.”44 Another proclaimed him as “just about as fine a ballplayer as you’ll find any place. … He really covers territory.”45 The “fleet” Cowan was nonetheless rated “a shade” slower than Indianapolis Clowns second sacker Ray Neil in August 1946, although the Erie fans “marveled at (Cowan’s) play.”46 Cowan was also described as “one of the best defensive second basemen.”47

Cowan returned in 1947 for his last of four seasons with the Buckeyes. He was in the running at second base for the West squad at the Negro League All-Star Game, along with Birmingham’s Piper Davis (who was selected) and the Clowns’ Ray Neil. Cowan belted a two-run homer off Martin Crue in a 9-7 defeat of the New York Cubans on August 31 at the Polo Grounds.48 Still under manager Trouppe, the Buckeyes won the Negro American League pennant but fell in the Negro World Series to the New York Cubans, four games to one (with one tie). Cowan hit a three-run homer in the Game One opener, which ended 5-5.49 The Buckeyes were described as a little long in the tooth with manager-catcher Trouppe, pitcher Chet Brewer, outfielder Sammy Jethroe, and Cowan all in their 30s or older.50

After the 1947 season, the Buckeyes made wholesale changes. Alonzo Boone replaced Trouppe as manager, with Trouppe being sold to the Chicago American Giants, where he became the manager. They traded Clyde “Lefty” Williams to the Indianapolis Clowns for catcher Buster Haywood.51 Sam Jethroe and Al Smith went to play in Puerto Rico, Archie Ware went to Venezuela. Chet Brewer went to Mexico for $600 per month.52 In February 1948 Cowan was sold to the Memphis Red Sox (at the same time Ed Steele was traded to Memphis for Red Longley,53) with Leon Kellman replacing Cowan at second for Cleveland. Memphis appointed catcher Larry Brown as the new manager.54 Before shipping off for Memphis, Cowan manned third base for former Black Barons manager Tommy Sampson’s Birmingham All-Stars in Atlanta against the Black Crackers.55 Cowan would form a solid double-play combo with player-coach Willie Wells Jr., formerly of the New York Black Yankees. Cowan hit only .175 in 11 league games (40 at-bats). Memphis finished fourth in the NAL in 1948. In mid-October, after the regular season, Memphis, with Cowan, as the “flashy fielding second baseman,” faced an all-star team coordinated by Jackie Robinson and Roy Campenella at least twice.56

Cowan returned to Memphis for 1949, playing for new manager Goose Curry.57 Cowan homered on April 10 in a 6-5 win against the league’s new entry, the Houston Eagles.58 However, by September, Cowan was back with Birmingham in a three-game series against the Buckeyes. He was placed on Memphis’s reserve list at the end of the season.

Back with Birmingham in April 1950, Cowan “clouted a 360-foot homer for the Black Barons” in their opener.59 He and young center fielder Willie Mays were a part of manager Vic Harris’s lineup through April and May. However, by June, Cowan had moved to the Elmwood (Winnipeg, Manitoba) Giants of the independent Manitoba-Dakota (Mandak) League. Ray Finch pitched for them and Cowan Hyde, a 1948 Memphis teammate of Cowan’s, also was a teammate. Fellow Birminghamian Lyman Bostock Sr. competed for the crosstown Winnipeg Buffaloes and played in the Mandak for four seasons. Cowan tallied two doubles in a mid-July contest against the Minot (North Dakota) Mallards.60 Cowan hit .249 in 45 games. Elmwood finished in last place. By the end of September, Cowan was seen once again patrolling second base for the Birmingham Black Barons against one of his former teams, the Memphis Red Sox.61

With the Black Barons and new manager Ed Steele committing to a youth movement for 1951, Cowan was not retained, so he returned to his Stockham Valves and Fittings team, which he represented in an August Negro YMCA Industrial League all-star game at Rickwood Field.

Not done playing competitive ball just yet, Cowan suited up in the summer of 1952 for a “Canadian Stars” team of players previously from the Negro American and Negro National Leagues who migrated to play in Canada and who were embarked on a US tour.62 It was managed by Freddie Shepard, formerly of the Black Barons, and also included catcher Harry Barnes. They played the Havana Cuban Red Sox on July 18 at Legion Field in Montgomery, then the Zulu Giants from Louisville in a doubleheader on July 27 at Rickwood.

Cowan began managing the Stockham squad in 1953. His son Charles played with him, then later against him in the industrial league for rival Acipco. After his active playing days were over, Cowan got heavily involved with the 45th Street Baptist Church. He was a co-chairman of a Men’s Day event at the church.63 He also was as an usher, deacon, and singer.

In April 1987 the retired Johnnie and Daisy celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with their two children (Charles and Evelyn), eight grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.64 They lived in the East Lake community. In 1989 Cowan was invited to a three-day celebration of the Negro Leagues in Atlanta.65 In August 1991 Cowan attended a Black Legends of Baseball reunion in Cooperstown, New York, with fellow Alabamians Bostock, Piper Davis, and others.66 In July 1993 he was invited to the major leagues’ All-Star Game in Baltimore and recognized as one of 25 Negro League Living Legends. He was quoted as saying, “We need more managers and higher-ups now. Baseball is such a business now, if you don’t get some kind of accountability, you don’t know where (minority hiring) is going to go.”67 During this time, his son, Charles, was member of the Friends of Rickwood, a group tasked with the old Birmingham field’s restoration.

Johnnie Cowan died on October 24, 1993, at the age of 80 in Birmingham and is buried at Shadow Lawn Memorial Gardens in Birmingham. He was survived by his wife; Daisy; his son, Charles; his daughter, Evelyn; his brother, James; a niece, Harriette Williams; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren, all of Birmingham.68

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author consulted Johnny Cowans’ Baseball Hall of Fame file, Seamheads.com, Baseball-Reference.com, and MyHeritage.com.

Wayne Pearsall, Cleveland Buckeyes Baseball website, accessed December 26, 2024: https://clevelandbuckeyesbaseball.com.

Photo credit: Johnnie Cowan, Cleveland History Museum.

Notes

1 Dave O’Karma, “The Forgotten Championship,” Cleveland Magazine, April 28, 2006. Accessed online December 26, 2024. (https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/sports/articles/the-forgotten-championship).

2 “Gross Drug Takes Airport Team, 17-2,” Birmingham Post-Herald, May 22, 1933: 8.

3 Wilson L. Driver, “Birmingham to Show They Do Come Back in Baseball,” Chicago Defender, March 24, 1934: A5.

4 Cowan’s last name was occasionally misspelled as “Cowans” or even “Cowas” during this time.

5 “Black Giants Annex Couple Over Atlanta,” Birmingham Post-Herald, June 4, 1934: 8.

6 “Black Barons Play Gray Sox in Night Game,” Birmingham News, June 15, 1936: 12.

7 “Gray Sox Beaten in Double-Header by Black Barons,” Birmingham Post-Herald, June 15, 1936: 10.

8 “Bruton Brothers Get Mound Posts for Sunday Tilts,” Birmingham News, June 12, 1936: 14.

9 Anne Ruisl, “Rickwood Remains More Than Field of Dreams for Black Barons,” Birmingham News, July 14, 1993: 102.

10 “Stockham Wins 2nd Straight Victory from Acipco; Fist Fight Figures in Seventh,” Atlanta Daily World, August 20, 1937: 5.

11 “‘Satchel’ Paige Comes to Town with Stars to Play Black Barons,” Birmingham News, September 27, 1940: 16.

12 “Acipco Ends Stockham’s Clean Slate,” Atlanta Daily World, July 29, 1941: 5.

13 “Black Barons Play Black Yanks Double Header Sunday 2 PM,” Birmingham Weekly Review, September 26, 1941: 7.

14 Jimmy Couey, “Acipco Beats Stockham in Benefit Game,” Birmingham News, August 21, 1942: 44.

15 “Black Barons Win Twin Bill from the Buckeyes, 5-2 and 3-0,” Birmingham Weekly Review, August 22, 1942: 7.

16 “Stockham Blasts U.S. Pipe 13-1; Near Title,” Atlanta Daily World, August 26, 1941: 5.

17 “Birmingham All-Stars Rout Black Crax, 6-4, in ‘Rubber Game’ of Heated Series,” Atlanta Daily World, August 10, 1943: 5.

18 “Four St. Louis Boys Make Grade with Cleveland Club,” St. Louis Argus, April 14, 1944: 10.

19 “Cleveland Buckeyes Lose Parnell Woods,” Chicago Defender, April 8, 1944: 9.

20 Russ J. Cowans, “Buckeyes Face Loss of Pilot to the Army,” Michigan Chronicle (Detroit), April 15, 1944: 16.

21 “Ware Acting Manager as Bucks Lose Woods to U.S.” Cleveland Call and Post, April 15, 1944: 10B.

22 “Buckeyes Open Arc Season at Ducks Tuesday,” Journal Herald, April 29, 1944: 8.

23 “Buckeyes are Strengthened for Game Here Tomorrow,” Buffalo Evening News, May 17, 1944: 15.

24 “Black Barons Will Meet Buckeyes Here Friday,” Dayton Journal Herald, May 21, 1944: 14.

25 “Buckeyes Pound Ball and Win,” Dayton Herald, July 8, 1944: 5.

26 “Leading Sluggers of Negro League Will Accompany Cleveland Buckeyes Thursday,” Muskegon (Michigan) Chronicle, August 16, 1944: 12.

27 “Great Lakes Colored Team Next for Outwin Zephyrs,” Muskegon Chronicle, August 18, 1944: 14.

28 “Buckeyes Beat League Foe, 12-2,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, August 26, 1944: 8.

29 “Bucks Lead in Batting, Fielding; Jethroe Is League Champ,” Cleveland Call and Post, October 14, 1944: 6B.

30 “Buckeyes, Memphis in League Game Here,” Dayton Daily Bulletin, May 24, 1945: 3.

31 Wendell Smith, “The Sports Beat,” New Pittsburgh Courier, June 2, 1945: 12.

32 “Cleveland Buckeyes Here for Twin Bill With Cubans,” People’s Voice (New York City), July 28, 1945: 29.

33 “Buckeyes Beat Lloyd; Negro GI ‘9’ Here Monday,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), August 11, 1945: 10.

34 Jimmy Jones, “Buckeyes Beat Grays First Two Games of Series, 2-1, 3-2,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 22, 1945: 6B.

35 Wendell Smith, “Battling Bucks Win 2 to 1, 4 to 2 in World Series,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 22, 1945: 12.

36 Wendell Smith, “The Sports Beat,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 22, 1945: 12.

37 Dave O’Karma, “The Forgotten Championship,” Cleveland Magazine, April 28, 2006. Accessed online December 26, 2024. (https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/sports/articles/the-forgotten-championship).

38 American Loop Negro Teams Clash Here Tomorrow Night,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 26, 1946: 11.

39 Jimmy Bryan, “Glove Man Johnnie Cowan Remembered Fondly by Peers,” Birmingham News, October 28, 1993: 21.

40 Harry Walker, “World Series – Dots and Dashes,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 29, 1945: 6B.

41 William J. Scheffer, “Buckeyes Blank Grays, Win Title,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 21, 1945: 24.

42 “Key Personalities Who Sparked Amazing Championship of ‘Cinderella’ Team,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 29, 1945: 6B.

43 Retrosheet.org. (Retrosheet Boxscore: North All Stars(N) (NAS) 7 South All Stars(S) (SAS) 1).

44 “Buckeyes Face Ex-Manager Here,” Flint (Michigan) Journal, August 2, 1945: 28.

45 Peg Parsons, “Realm of Sports,” Erie Daily Times, July 4, 1946: 15.

46 “Indianapolis Clowns Play Crescents Here Tonight,” Erie Daily Times, August 20, 1946: 15.

47 “Cleveland Nine to Play G.E. Club Here Tonight,” Fort Wayne (Indiana) News-Sentinel, September 21, 1946: 24.

48 Haskell Cole, Cleveland Homers Beat Cubans, 9-7,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 6, 1947: 13.

49 “Buckeyes Take 1st World Series Tilt,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 27, 1947: 14.

50 Russ J. Cowans, “Sports Chatter,” Michigan Chronicle, September 27, 1947: 14.

51 Jimmie N. Jones, “Buckeyes Undergo Changes,” Ohio Daily Express (Dayton), February 26, 1948: 2.

52 Jimmie N. Jones, “Along the Sports Trail,” Ohio Daily Express, February 27, 1948: 2.

53 “Memphis Strengthens Lineup; Gets Ed Steele,” Chicago Defender, February 28, 1948: 11.

54 “Brown to Pilot Memphis Red Sox,” New Pittsburgh Courier, February 21, 1948: 17.

55 Joel W. Smith, “Ellison, Barnes to Share Spotlight Here Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, April 9, 1948: 5.

56 “Top Negro Stars in Game With Robinson Here Monday Night,” Houston Post, October 14, 1948: 29.

57 Sam Brown, “Memphis Red Sox Gunning for 1949 Pennant; Team Looks Good,” Kansas City (Kansas) Plain Dealer, April 29, 1949: 6.

58 “Red Sox Trip Eagles, 6-5,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 11, 1949: 17.

59 “Black Barons Win Two from Clowns, 6-4, 4-0,” Birmingham Herald, April 17, 1950: 12.

60 “Danielson Hurls Mallards to Win,” Regina (Saskatchewan) Leader-Post, July 17, 1950: 14. Was called Joe Cowan.

61 “Fine Crowd Sees First Game at GHA Park,” Hattiesburg (Mississippi) American, October 2, 1950: 9.

62 “Visitors Sub for Black Barons Here Sunday,” Birmingham News, July 27, 1952: 41.

63 “Church to Hold Men’s Day Observance,” Birmingham News, June 15, 1952: 26.

64 “Golden Weddings,” Birmingham News, April 12, 1987: 23E. The obituary incorrectly identified niece Harriette Williams as a third child of the Cowans.

65 Malcolm Moran, “Former Negro League Stars Take Sentimental Journey,” Wilmington (North Carolina) Morning Star, June 7, 1989: 12.

66 Ron Ingram, “Baseball Opens Its Doors,” Birmingham News, August 18, 1991: 37.

67 Lisa Farbstein, “Negro League Stars Back Jesse Jackson,” Carroll County Times (Westminster, Maryland), July 11, 1993: 13.

68 “Cowan, Johnnie,” Birmingham Post-Herald, October 27, 1993: 41.

Davenport, known variously as Ducky or Bear Man, proved to be a special talent. He was one of the faster outfielders of his time and was selected for five East-West All-Star Games over his career. He was considered by some “to be almost as heavy a hitter as the peerless Jud Wilson.”1 One of the stars for the 1938 Negro American League champion Memphis Red Sox, he was part of a second championship team – albeit in a reserve role – with the 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes. At 5-feet-6 in height, and weighing 155 pounds, Davenport displayed as much “pop for the pound” as any player in the game’s history.2

Lloyd Benjamon Davenport was born in New Orleans on October 28, 1911, to Walter (a janitor) and Rody Davenport. What follows is speculative, as precise records do not exist (or have not yet been discovered), yet reasonable. One of the larger slave-holding families in western Mississippi, the Davenport family, occupied much of Claiborne County.3 After the Civil War and Emancipation, many of the former Davenport enslaved people remained in the area out of sheer familiarity with the land, at least through the early years of Reconstruction.4 Lloyd’s paternal grandfather, George W. Davenport, born in 1855 in Mississippi, had married Lloyd’s grandmother in Vicksburg, Mississippi, less than 10 miles from the Davenport grounds. It is quite possible that this was the origin of the Lloyd Davenport surname. The entire clan migrated to New Orleans in the latter years of the nineteenth century, and it was there that Walter and Rodd [notably, there are two different spellings among various records] started their family.

The youngest of three boys in the family, Lloyd lived a relatively anonymous life until 1934, when he signed to play with a local Negro team, the independent New Orleans Crescent Stars. His speed and overall ability were obviously enough to earn him a contract offer from the Philadelphia Stars, and Davenport grabbed the opportunity.5

The fairy-tale beginning quickly turned into near-tragedy. In the first inning of a season-opening May doubleheader against the Grays, Davenport fractured an ankle while trying to beat out an infield hit.6 He was out of action for two months. But he made his way back to the action by the Fourth of July. The hype resumed, with one local writer noting, “Lloyd ‘Bearman’ Davenport, of whom great things are expected, is back in uniform and in a few weeks the fans may look for him in the regular lineup. … Davenport is said to be up with the leaders.”7 Still, Davenport failed to live up to the billing in Philadelphia. He played in only 34 league games over the 1935 and 1936 campaigns, getting only 120 plate appearances and batting .176. Not surprisingly, when an opportunity arose with the Cincinnati Tigers for the 1937 season, a team led by the colorful Ted “Double-Duty” Radcliffe, Davenport made the move. 

This decision proved to be a good one. Davenport was batting over .300 in early May, and his bat stayed hot for the first half of the season.8 The 1937 season marked the first time Davenport was selected to play in the East-West All Star Game. Starting in the outfield for the West squad, he doubled and scored a run in four at-bats in the loss to the East.9 For the season, he slashed .382/.463/.844, and his OPS+ of 139 would eventually prove the second-highest mark in his career. His wagon appears to have been tied to that of manager Radcliffe, and when the latter left Cincinnati for the Memphis Red Sox, Davenport followed.

If 1937 had been a good choice for the outfielder as a player, 1938 brought him his first Negro American League championship. Davenport’s OPS+ of 138 was ninth in the league, and in large part contributed to Memphis’s Negro American League title. However, following a drastic falloff in his batting the next season, Davenport and former Tiger teammate Jesse Houston, among others, answered the call “South of the Border,” and relocated to Mexico to both work and play baseball in a much more racially permissive setting.

Working for the Fleishman Company, owner of the largest Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mexico, Davenport revived his baseball career with the Aliajadores [Lightermen] de Tampico, batting .356, delivering a slash line of .356/.405/.493. He returned to the United States with the Birmingham Black Barons as well as the Red Sox for the 1941 season. As reported in May 1942, “TH Hayes, Jr., owner of the Birmingham Black Barons baseball club of the Negro American League has been fined $25 by Dr. J.B. Martin, president of the league, for allowing Lloyd Davenport to participate in the opening game, Sunday, May 10, at Birmingham, when Birmingham was host to the Jacksonville Red Caps on the ground that Davenport is the property of the Memphis Red Sox who protested the game.”10 This was the first genuine harbinger of possible future issues with Davenport, who – in addition to displaying tremendous baseball skills – had a penchant for taking the path most advantageous to him. Coming out of the Great Depression and in the midst of a world war, it is tough to fault Davenport for simply doing his best to survive. Still, in the eyes of some of the baseball writers, he was displaying little loyalty to teams that had previously signed him.

Despite the occasional controversy, Davenport played often and well. In 1943 he was traded to the Chicago American Giants for James “Cool Papa” Bell,11 and that summer was again selected to the West squad in the East-West All Star Game. Davenport went hitless in that game, but the West still prevailed 2-1 on a ninth-inning homer by Buck Leonard. For the year, the now-31-year-old logged an OPS+ of 141, the highest in his career. The American Giants finished fourth in the league, albeit with a winning record (37-33-1 in the NAL and 45-38-1 overall), and may have marked one of the best managerial efforts of Ted Radcliffe’s career.

Bingo DeMoss replaced Radcliffe as manager for the 1944 campaign, but the American Giants’ managerial slot proved to be more a carousel than a podium. In July DeMoss was sacked after an argument with a team executive and was replaced by Lloyd Davenport. DeMoss, who had been in the game since 1905, had played for Rube Foster and teamed with the great Pete Hill back in the 1920s, and had a strong sense of his own version of right and wrong in baseball. He did not care about ruffling figurative feathers among club secretaries and writers, and accepted the termination without a squeak. He was back at the helm of another club, the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, the next year.12

In 1944 Davenport played well the first half of the season and genuinely used his entire range of baseball skill, from manager to pitcher to outfielder to slugger. The American Giants owned “a pitcher who is leading the league,” a newspaper exclaimed. “His name is Lloyd ‘Ducky’ Davenport, regular centerfielder for the Giants and manager for the team. Davenport, who went in to relieve Gerd McKinnis when the Giants met the Memphis Red Sox here on July 2, has won three and lost none. In the 21 innings Davenport has pitched he has yielded 19 hits, 13 runs, six bases on balls, struck out six and hit two batsmen.13 He has appeared in seven games. … Furthermore this same Davenport is staggering around under a batting average of .328, 17 points higher than Serrell, leading hitter for the Monarchs.”14 Given his successes that year, Davenport was again selected to play in the East-West Game in 1944. He also continued to attract more than his fair share of attention, both positive and negative, and both on and off the diamond. In mid-1944, Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee conducted an economic raid on Chicago and its talented roster. Greenlee signed four of their players.15

As player-manager, Ducky Davenport lasted only a month before being shown the door as well after covertly trying to negotiate a better deal with Gus Greenlee and his attempted resuscitation of the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Davenport was not alone in that foray, as Pennington and all-star pitcher Gready McKinnis were also looking for bigger slices of the money pie. Giants owner J.B. Martin acted quickly to quell the rebellion. He traded Davenport to the Cleveland Buckeyes, replaced him as manager with John Bissant, and suspended the other two conspirators. 

In early September, the Pittsburgh Courier noted, “The Chicago American Giants announced Sunday that Manager Lloyd (Ducky) Davenport, brilliant centerfielder, had been sold to the Cleveland Buckeyes. Although the purchase price was not announced, it was reliably reported that Owner Ernie Wright of Cleveland paid $4,000 for the ex-Chicago star, one of the largest sums ever paid for a player in Negro baseball. Meantime, trouble loomed over the deal. Davenport has been playing with Gus Greenlee’s Pittsburgh Crawfords, now touring the Northwest. It is not known whether Cleveland will be able to lure the speedy outfielder away from the Crawfords. Wright said he has ordered Davenport to report.”16

The series of moves, by both Davenport and several team owners, ultimately irritated at least one prominent member of the press. Russ Cowans, at one time known in Michigan at the “Black Dean of Sportswriters,”17 scalded Davenport in one specific 1945 column:

“Lloyd (Ducky) Davenport is another bright example of the type of ball player who needs to be barred from baseball. While under contract with the Chicago American Giants in 1944, Davenport accepted $600 from Gus Greenlee to join the Pittsburgh Crawfords. He was already indebted in advance money to the Chicago team up and above $300. He didn’t report in [sic] the Crawfords, neither did he return the money Greenlee had advanced him. Before that Davenport was one of the principal factors in organizing a clique to dispose of Elwood (Bingo) DeMoss as manager of the Chicago team. Davenport was later named manager of the team, but repaid Owner Martin by refusing to repay the advanced money. Traded to Cleveland last year, Davenport jumped to Mexico two weeks ago, carrying with him some of Owner Ernest Wright’s Money. It’s an even bet that he was advanced some money by the Mexican owners. It’s also an even bet that he’ll be back before the season is over. Yep Davenport is a bad egg and shouldn’t be placed in any owner’s basket.”18

Such direct criticism was rare, even at that time, but Cowans was convinced that Davenport had played fast and loose with baseball’s organization. Davenport did join several other Negro American League stars in jumping to the Mexican Leagues. The promises of more money and more freedom were simply too great a temptation. By this time he was married, and was likely looking for any and all baseball opportunities to increase his net income.19 

Still, his 1945 campaign – or, at least, the first half of the season – was another terrific showcase for Davenport. With Cleveland, he was again selected to play in the East-West Game, hit a double in four at-bats, and scored a run. It proved to be his final contribution to the Buckeyes’ championship season. At the end of August, Davenport joined with several other Negro American League players, including Art “Superman” Pennington and Gready McKinnis, teammates from his Chicago American Giants days, in moving south, to Mexico.

The summer of 1945 quickly morphed into a figurative springtime in America. World War II was concluding and, along with the attendant attenuation of the economic depression of the 1930s, provided the United States with an unfamiliar sense of security. But there was still discrimination in the game, and the disparity of pay between players in the two Negro Leagues and players in White baseball was stark. Players with Davenport’s ability in the segregated American and National Leagues were making almost $20,000 per year, a staggering disparity.

Into this breach marched Bernardo and Jorge Pasquel, Mexican millionaires who owned a team in the Mexican League and who shared a vision of that league reaching parity with, perhaps even superiority to, professional baseball in the United States. Jorge served as president of their league, and the brothers began raiding talent, both White and Black, from throughout their Northern neighbor. The Pasquels were not timid, offering baseball commissioner A.B. “Happy” Chandler a five-year contract that included $50,000 in annual salary, plus an expense stipend, to move to Mexico and become commissioner of their league.20 They tried to seduce Boston slugger – and World War II Marine Corps pilot – Ted Williams with a three-year contract that would have paid the star $500,000,21 and were looking to make a similar offer to pitcher Bob Feller.22 The Pasquels ultimately persuaded 26 players to jump the border, most notably Mickey Owen, Max Lanier, and Sal Maglie.23

Their efforts were not limited to the White leagues. The Pasquels were just as interested in Negro League players, especially since they could obtain the Black players for much less money than the White counterparts. It was a full-on, albeit legal, grift. The Black players saw $5,000 per season as a fortune, but they were still making only about 20 cents on the dollar in comparison to the White players. Still, $5,000 was $5,000.

Davenport hit .352 in 30 games with Nuevo Laredo in 1945, and .293 with the same team in 1946.24 He remained in Mexico, with the Azules de Vera Cruz, in 1947 and 1948, but age was beginning to take its toll, and his average slipped to .265 in his final season. While playing with Almendares in Cuba in the winter of 1946, along with Buck O’Neil and Gentry Jessup among others,25 he had again been selected for an all-star team to tour the United States. This time, however, this was a barnstorming squad playing a series against a Bob Feller-led team of major leaguers.26

By 1949, with the color barrier finally broken in baseball, Davenport returned to the United States and tried to catch on with the American Giants, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and even the [now] Louisville Buckeyes, but to no avail. He wintered in Venezuela with the Navegantes del Magallanes, but he and Margie again returned to the United States in early 1950 and he took a job as a janitor with the city of Chicago.27

In 1951 Davenport reportedly signed with the Chicago American Giants, but there are no available statistical records to confirm this. He did, however, head north to join the ManDak League, signing with the Elmwood Giants for the ’51 season.28 In what was his most productive game of the year, playing with fellow Negro Leaguers Cowan Hyde, Jesse Douglas, and the ageless Double Duty Radcliffe,29 Davenport went 4-for-4 in a 12-3 Elmwood win over the Winnipeg Buffalos on July 31.30

Out of Organized Baseball in 1952, Davenport returned to the game, this time in a desegregated minor league, with the Danville Dans of the Class-D Mississippi-Ohio Valley League. Baseball-reference.com reports that he appeared in two games, but there are few details about his performance. Notably, Davenport’s final documented game came on May 27, 1953. Playing in right field, he went 0-1 in a 6-5 loss to the Mt. Vernon Kings.

There is little available about Davenport’s post-baseball life. In September 1985 he died and was buried in the Holt Cemetery in his hometown of New Orleans. Unlike the quasi-mythical careers of Negro stars like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, Lloyd Davenport’s life was highlighted by two decades of moving from team to team, winning championships and enduring the unforgiving failures that only baseball can impose, of playing baseball throughout the Western Hemisphere and then falling back into professional anonymity as a Black man in pre-Civil Rights Act America. His life, in many ways, illustrates the real life of most baseball players who were born too soon to reap the benefit and reward of athletic celebrity, the kind of life explored by August Wilson in his play Fences. Lloyd Davenport was not Troy Maxson, but his life was, and is, a tile of the American mosaic, and one worth knowing.

Sources

This biography was constructed using a number of sources. All statistical information referred to in the text was derived from the Negro League database available at www.seamheads.com.

Photo credit: Lloyd Davenport, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 “Philadelphia Stars Lose Lloyd Davenport Account Injuries” Norfolk (Virginia) New Journal and Guide, May 18, 1935: 14.

2 Height and weight information taken from the Seamheads Negro League Database (online). There are other reports and documents listing slightly different height/weight combinations, but the Seamheads data is the closest to a true average.

3 Tom Blake, Claiborne County, Mississippi Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules, Online: https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~ajac/genealogy/msclaiborne.htm.

4 Emilye Crosby, A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 3.

5 “Philadelphia Stars Open Against Grays, May 4th>,” New Journal and Guide, April 13, 1935: 14.

6 “Philadelphia Stars Lose Lloyd Davenport Account Injuries.”

7 “Stars Acquire New Catcher in Shake-up,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 4, 1935: 12.

8 “Cincinnati 9 Is Host To Detroit: Probable Lineup,” Chicago Defender, May 8, 1937: 13.

9 “Baseball Classic Goes to Eastern All-Stars,” Kansas City (Missouri) Call, August 13, 1937: 7.

10 R.S. Simmons, In general remarks in the Atlanta Daily World, May 19, 1942: 5.

11 “Notes,” Kansas City Call, April 2, 1943: B16.

12 http://www.nlbemuseum.com/history/players/demoss.html.

13 The Seamheads website has calculated Davenport’s statistics and corrected various inaccuracies that have been reported in newspaper articles over the years.

14 “American Giants Have Strong Pitching Staff,” Michigan Chronicle (Detroit), July 29, 1944: 15.

15 “McKinnis, Chi Hurler, and Davenport Among Quartet with Craws,” New York Amsterdam News, August 26, 1944: 6B.

16 “Cleveland Buys Chicago Manager,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 2, 1944: 12.

17 Terry Cabell, “Friends Remember Russ … and the Way It Was,” Michigan Chronicle, October 21, 1978: A1, A4.

18 Russ Cowans, “Russ Cowans’ Sport Chatter,” Michigan Chronicle, August 18, 1945: 15.

19 There are several passenger lists noting that Lloyd and Margie Davenport sailed to and from Cuba in 1945.  Margie was only 22 at the time, and the formal record of their marriage is unlocated, but a later picture in the news, including Margie with some of the other wives, show a young, happy Mrs. Davenport acting quite at home with the lifestyle.

20 Associated Press, “Chandler Is Offered Mexican Job,” Boston Globe April 7, 1946: 34.

21 Roger Birtwell, “Cronin Tries to Stall Mexican’s $500,000 Pitch to Ted Williams,” Boston Globe, March 9, 1946:  1.

22 Associated Press, “Pasquel to Raid Every Major League Club Except Cards,” Boston Globe, September 10, 1946: 9.

23 “Mexican League Banned Players,” Baseball Almanac. Online: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/Mexican_League.shtml. Accessed February 24, 2019. This was based on various reports including the 1950 Reach Baseball Guide and Record Book, as well as editions of the New York Times from August 7, 1946, and March 7-June 6, 1940.

24 Statistics taken from Pedro Treto Cisneros’ The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics 1937-2001 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2011), 123.

25 Online: Almendares (Liga Profesional Cubana 1946-47) | Desde Mi Palco De Fanático (wordpress.com), located at https://desdemipalcodefanatico.wordpress.com/numeros/almendares-liga-profesional-cubana-1946-47/.

26 “Davenport Slated for All-Star Nine Duty,” Afro-American, July 20, 1946: 16. ???? Baltimore? Washington?

27 1950 US Federal Census, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/227012936:62308.

28 Western Canada Baseball 1951 ManDak League Game reports. Online: https://attheplate.com/wcbl/1951_20i.html.

29 Barry Swanton, The ManDak League: Haven for Former Negro League Ballplayers, 1950-1957 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2006), 22.

30 https://attheplate.com/wcbl/1951_20i.html.