Alston, the first African-American player for the St. Louis Cardinals, spent most of his life in torment and poverty. He never escaped the grip of mental illness that ended his baseball career.

Besides the pressure to make it in the majors and to be “a credit to his race,” Alston faced the added burden of being the most expensive black player ever. The Cardinals paid the Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres more than $100,000, plus four players, for his contract.

His debut in 1954 came seven years after Jackie Robinson’s. That year, for the first time, a majority of the 16 major league teams had black players, although those players made up less than 6 percent of the rosters. They were no longer an experiment, but not yet commonplace.

The Cardinals were latecomers to integration. Front-office executive Bing Devine said the owner from 1947 to 1953, Fred Saigh, refused to sign black players. There was a widespread belief that St. Louis was, in many ways, a Southern city. In the mid-1950s many of its stores and restaurants refused to serve black customers. The Cardinals, with baseball’s largest radio network blanketing the Midwest and South, had cultivated white Southern fans. Their ballpark was the last in the majors to abolish segregated seating.

When Anheuser-Busch bought the franchise in 1953, August A. Busch Jr. noticed the absence of black faces and ordered his baseball staff to find some. Busch was no civil rights crusader; he was an equal opportunity capitalist who wanted to sell his beer to everyone regardless of race, creed, or color. The Cardinals hired Negro League veteran Quincy Trouppe as a scout and signed more than a dozen African-Americans in the first year of the Busch regime. The talent search eventually led to Alston.

Thomas Edison Alston was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on January 31, 1926, one of five sons and two daughters of Shube and Anna Alston. His mother, a maid, brought home newspapers from the houses she cleaned, and young Tom became an avid reader of the sports pages. He had a paper route delivering a black newspaper that taught him about Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and other stars of the Negro Leagues.

Growing up in the black community of Goshen, he first played with a broomstick bat and a tennis ball. The segregated Dudley High School had no baseball team. After high school Alston joined the Navy in 1944, where he played on his first organized teams. He returned home to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, and began playing for a black traveling team known as the Goshen (later Greensboro) Red Wings.

Alston joined another barnstorming team, the Jacksonville, Florida, Eagles, managed by former Negro Leagues pitching star Chet Brewer. In 1951 Alston received his Bachelor of Science degree and went with Brewer and several other Eagles to play in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. The Indian Head Rockets dominated western Canada’s baseball leagues and won several Canadian tournaments.

Brewer took Alston with him to organized professional baseball in 1952, with the Porterville, California, club in the Class C Southwestern International League. Alston hit .353 and slammed 12 home runs in 54 games, but the franchise and the league were limping toward collapse. San Diego bought his contract for $100.

In his Pacific Coast League debut in June, Alston chased a foul ball and fell headfirst into the dugout, knocking himself cold. At 6-foot-5 and around 200 pounds, he appeared to be all arms and legs and huge feet, but he showed outstanding speed and a slick glove at first base. Hitting was another matter; PCL pitchers held the gangling left-handed batter to a .244 average.

The next spring Alston became the personal project of Lefty O’Doul, the Padres manager and a celebrated hitting guru. “I really believe Tom has a chance of hitting 50 homers this year,” O’Doul gushed. “He has improved so much I can hardly believe it.” O’Doul said Alston was already a big league-quality fielder and the fastest man on the team.1 The Padres thought they had a valuable prospect, but their phenom was 27 years old. No, you’re not, the club told him. You’re 22. At that age he would be more attractive to major league buyers.

O’Doul looked like a prophet early in the 1953 season. Alston hit 13 home runs in his first 50 games and was batting close to .300. The San Diego Union’s Jack Murphy hailed him as a $200,000 prospect, while describing him in stereotypical terms as “a happy-hearted Negro with the build of a basketball goon and a getalong borrowed from Stepin Fetchit.”2

Veteran pitchers soon learned that they could get Alston out with high fastballs, and he didn’t hit left-handers at all. After a midsummer slump, Alston made adjustments and began to hit again, though without his early power. He managed only 10 more homers in the final two-thirds of the season. He finished at .297/.353/.446 with 101 RBIs in 180 games.

Alston was exhausted at the end of the long PCL season, but he joined a teammate in winter ball in Mexico. Called back to San Diego in January 1954, he learned that the Cardinals had bought his contract. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Me on the same team with Stan Musial?”3

Many followers of the Coast League couldn’t believe the six-figure price tag. In only his second professional season, Alston had had a good, but not great, year; scaling his 180-game totals back to a 154-game major league schedule puts him at 20 homers and 87 RBIs. The consensus was that St. Louis had been fleeced.

The Cardinals made their acquisition of Alston a media event. The team rented a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Hollywood, and Busch himself came out to sign the contract. Sportswriters sipped Budweiser with caviar on the side. “The only blacks in the room were me and the valet who served the beer,” Alston recalled.4

“We took the viewpoint from the very beginning that we wanted the very best players we could get,” Busch said, “that there would be no barriers in terms of race, religion or anything of that sort.”5 He said the Cardinals had scouted the young player extensively and conducted a background check on his personal habits. “Our scouts, manager Eddie Stanky, and everyone on our staff are high on him. Now that I have met Alston in person and visited with him today, I’m more satisfied than ever that the Cardinals and all St. Louis will be proud of him.”6

Alston returned home a hero. His alma mater, North Carolina A&T, honored him at an assembly, and a sportswriter drove him to Roxboro to meet the Cardinals’ veteran star Enos Slaughter. Slaughter greeted his new teammate with a smile and a handshake, advising him to leave the game on the field and not worry too much.

When spring training began, manager Stanky said he planned to platoon Alston with the incumbent first baseman, Steve Bilko. A ponderous right-handed hitter, Bilko had slugged 21 home runs in 1953, but led the majors with 125 strikeouts while batting .251.

Although the $100,000 man was obviously getting special handling, Alston didn’t remember any open resentment. “The Cardinals had the rap of being bigoted,” he said decades later. “I didn’t experience anything real bad. None of the players were friendly to me, but they weren’t rude.”7 He recognized where he stood: “I thought I had a fair spring, but I think they were giving me a chance because I was Mr. Busch’s pet project.”8

Alston was in the Opening Day lineup even though the Cubs started left-hander Paul Minner. The rookie went 0-for-4 and dropped a popup. The next day Bilko stepped in against Braves lefty Warren Spahn and also went 0-for-4. The rest of Alston’s first week could hardly have gone better. His first two hits were home runs on consecutive days, one a three-run pinch-hit clout that gave the Cardinals their first victory of the season.

He began playing every day. By the end of April he was batting only .211, but the fix was in. The Cardinals sold Bilko to the Cubs. With his replacement no longer lurking in the dugout, Alston went on a tear. He hit .442 in the next 11 games after Bilko left.

Then National League pitchers discovered his weakness for high inside fastballs. Alston batted .181 in June with no home runs. “I’d wake up some nights and hear him praying,” said Brooks Lawrence, a rookie pitcher who was his roommate. “He’d be saying, ‘I can hit. I know I can hit.’ And he’d go out the next day and he wouldn’t hit anything.”9 At the end of the month the Cardinals sent Alston down to their Triple-A Rochester club and brought up Joe Cunningham, who was hitting .328 at Rochester.

Alston later said he began hearing voices during his first year in St. Louis, although he told no one. “I don’t remember what they said, but it scared me to death.”10 He also complained of a sore arm and back, and said he was constantly tired. Still, he put up strong numbers at Rochester: .297/.352/.455 in 79 games. After the season a doctor treated him for a thyroid ailment that was thought to be causing his fatigue.

For the next two springs Alston got token tryouts, only because Busch demanded it. Eight plate appearances in 1955, two in 1956. With left-handed batters Cunningham and the aging Musial manning first base, the club had no need for Alston. He turned in an outstanding year at Triple-A Omaha in ’56, batting .306 with 21 homers. But during the offseason the voices returned.

As Alston remembered it, a woman’s voice told him, “It’s time to meet your maker.” He drove out in the country from Greensboro and slit his wrist with a razor blade, causing only a minor wound. A deputy sheriff found him and sent him home.11 It’s not clear whether the Cardinals knew of the suicide attempt.

The next spring manager Fred Hutchinson decided Alston would never hit big league pitching and wanted to dump him. When Busch’s executives insisted that he be kept on the Opening Day roster, Hutchinson said, “If I wanted to play a clown, I’d hire Emmett Kelly.”12

Alston appeared in four games in the first weeks of the 1957 season, but his behavior had become too erratic to ignore. “I felt people were looking at me funny,” he said later.13 He had lost 15 pounds, down to about 175. Musial said, “The poor guy is so weak the bat seems to be swinging him.” The club sent him to a doctor, who put him in a hospital for treatment of what was described as “a nervous condition.”14

The first time he saw a psychiatrist in the hospital, Alston recalled, “He didn’t ask no questions or nothing, just administered shock treatment.”15 He rejoined the team in September and went 4-for-13 in five games.

The Cardinals wanted him to stay in St. Louis for additional treatment, but he went home to live with his father. He never returned to baseball. In early 1958 he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and served 30 days on a chain gang before the balance of his sentence was suspended.

After midnight on a September night, Alston went to the New Goshen Methodist Church, splashed kerosene around the sanctuary, and burned it to the ground. He gave several explanations over the years. Once he said the voices told him to burn the church because the congregation needed a new building. Another time he said he had argued with one of his sisters and torched her church out of spite.

When daylight came, police arrested Alston and a judge ordered a psychiatric exam. He was found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Dr. John W. Turner testified that the defendant was schizophrenic and was dangerous during his “paranoiac phase.”16

Alston spent the next eight years in a state psychiatric institution. His discharge in 1967 turned out to be premature; two months later he set fire to his apartment and was committed again. Released in 1969, he continued taking medication and making regular visits to a mental health clinic for the rest of his life. In interviews in his later years, Alston was sometimes lucid, sometimes rambling and barely coherent. He never married or held a steady job, subsisting on Social Security disability benefits.

North Carolina A&T inducted Alston into its sports hall of fame in 1972. He occasionally showed up on campus to give batting tips to varsity players. By 1990 the 64-year-old was living in a nursing home when former Cardinal Joe Garagiola heard of his hardships. “When I called Tom Alston, he could hardly believe it,” Garagiola said. “He was so lonely.”17 Garagiola was one of the founders of the Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.), which provides financial aid to needy players and their families. With B.A.T.’s help, Alston was able to move into an apartment of his own.

As a result of Garagiola’s outreach, the Cardinals invited Alston to throw out the first ball at a game in June, recognizing his place in their history. Fans welcomed him with a warm ovation. The club also arranged for him to earn some money at an autograph show. “I had more fun that visit than I ever had when I was playing,” he said.18

Alston contracted prostate cancer and spent his final months in hospice care. He died at 67 on December 30, 1993.

Sportswriters and some of Alston’s teammates believed the pressure of being a pioneer and a $100,000 man caused his mental illness. “[B]ecause the Cards had paid so much money for him, he thought he had to live up to the price,” former roommate Brooks Lawrence said. “When he couldn’t, it broke him.”19

The explanation is more complicated, according to Dr. Jeffrey Swanson, professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. “It’s certainly true that stress and pressure can exacerbate psychotic episodes,” Swanson said in an interview. “But you’d have a hard time arguing that stress and pressure can produce psychosis.”20 The National Institute of Mental Health says scientists think genetics, chemical imbalances in the brain, and environmental factors all may play a role in the development of schizophrenia.21

Alston never said publicly that he had been mistreated in baseball. His tombstone celebrates his time in the game; it is decorated with two birds on a bat, the Cardinals logo.

Additional Sources

Alston, Tom. Interview by Brent Kelley, June 17, 1992. SABR Oral History Collection.

Armour, Mark, and Dan Levitt. “Baseball Demographics, 1947-2016.” SABR Baseball Biography Project.

Reid, Kevin. “Tom Alston: The Baseball Pioneer Who Paid the Price.” Piedmont Ballpark News, undated clipping in Alston’s file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame library, Cooperstown, New York.

Revel, Dr. Layton, and Luis Munoz. “Forgotten Heroes: Chet Brewer.” Carrollton, Texas: Center for Negro League Baseball Research, 2014. http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/Hero/Chet-Brewer.pdf, accessed December 3, 2016.

Notes

These dots were widely scattered – as with many Black ballplayers in his day, Bankhead’s career was multinational. He starred in Puerto Rico, made detours to the Dominican Republic and Canada, and then knocked around Mexico well into his 40s. Always a respectable hitter, Bankhead played the field abroad in addition to pitching. Outside the US, he was also a coach and manager.

Though Bankhead was clearly talented – he drew Bob Feller comparisons – he was hindered by control problems and an old injury. Authors Larry Moffi and Jonathan Kronstadt also pinpointed a crucial problem: “Like many of baseball’s first Black players, he was thrown into white baseball with the physical tools to succeed but little or no emotional support.”1 Jackie Robinson was Bankhead’s roommate when the pitcher first joined the Dodgers, four months after Robinson broke the color barrier. In his biography of Robinson, Arnold Rampersad said it bluntly: “Some observers, including Blacks, thought that [Bankhead] choked in facing white hitters.”2

Negro Leagues star and raconteur Buck O’Neil offered a more nuanced view. Author Joe Posnanski was there for a conversation between Buck and Satchel Paige’s son Robert:

“See, here’s what I always heard. Dan was scared to death that he was going to hit a white boy with a pitch. He thought there might be some sort of riot if he did it. Dan was from Alabama just like your father. But Satchel became a man of the world. Dan was always from Alabama, you know what I mean? He heard all those people calling him names, making those threats, and he was scared. He’d seen Black men get lynched.”3

Also, while Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber described Bankhead as “a quiet, pleasant man,”4 there were other sides of his personality. Sometimes he simply did not act in his own best interest – he lost two jobs abroad under a cloud. His brothers Sam and Garnett Bankhead both died by gunshot following quarrels (aged 70 and 63, no less); Dan too had a temper, which a weakness for women allegedly provoked. His family life was at times tumultuous. Yet as he battled illness and lived hand to mouth in his final years, this man attained peace.

Daniel Robert Bankhead was born on May 3, 1920, in Empire, Alabama. His parents, Garnett Bankhead Sr. and Arie (née Armstrong), had five boys and two girls who lived to adulthood. His given name appears as simply Dan in his military records, in the Social Security system, and on his gravestone. His son William F. Bankhead believed that his father shortened it at some point.

The town of Empire is a little more than 30 miles northwest of Alabama’s largest city, Birmingham. It is in the coal country that fueled Birmingham’s steel industry. Garnett Sr., who had worked for a lumber company around the time of World War I, labored in coal. The 1920 census shows him on the crew of a coal tipple (or loading facility); the 1930 census lists him as a miner. The sawmills, lumber yards, and mines were all hard and dangerous jobs – but they offered steady pay and a step up from sharecropping for many African Americans. The shadow of Jim Crow then loomed over the Deep South.

Garnett also played baseball. Although the source of the anecdote is not clear, Moffi and Kronstadt wrote that “he was a star first baseman in the Cotton Belt League until the day he saw a man die after being hit by a flying bat.”5

Dan was the third of the five ballplaying Bankhead brothers. The eldest, Sam, was a top-notch Negro Leaguer: a speedy, versatile, good-hitting infielder-outfielder from 1930 through 1950. A hardnosed leader on the field, Sam became a manager late in his career. While still playing shortstop, he was skipper of the Vargas Sabios (Wise Men), champion of the Venezuelan winter league in 1946-47. Sam then led the Homestead Grays during their last two years as an independent club (1949-50). He also managed Farnham in Canada’s Provincial League in 1951 and is recognized as the first Black skipper of a predominantly white team. Negro Leagues author John Holway contended that Sam inspired Troy Maxson, the lead character in August Wilson’s award-winning play Fences.

The second brother, Fred, was an infielder from 1936 through 1948. Joe and Garnett Jr. were both pitchers. Joe was with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948, while Garnett pitched briefly with the Memphis Red Sox in 1947 and spent some time with the Homestead Grays in 1948 and 1949. (Another brother, James, born roughly two years before Dan, apparently died young. He appeared in the 1920 census but not in 1930.)

Bankhead attended public schools in Birmingham. In 1940, he became a pro ballplayer with the Black Barons. In a talk with author Brent Kelley, William “Jimmy” Barnes, another young local player who went to the Negro Leagues, recalled how it happened (though his memory was slightly off on the year and the team that signed Bankhead). “I just tried out for a little city league team. Dan Bankhead and I were trying out for third base and we were throwing the ball across the infield so hard.”6

Kelley also heard from another of Bankhead’s contemporaries, Barons infielder Ulysses Redd. “We went to spring training and had a bunch of guys out there – a bunch of shortstops anyway. . . .even Dan Bankhead wanted to be a shortstop at that time, but he was throwin’ so hard they said they would make a pitcher outta him. They did the right thing.”7 Seamheads.com shows a pitching record of 4-1 for Bankhead in 1940 and 7-1 the next year. He pitched two scoreless innings in the East-West All-Star Game, on July 27, 1941.

In the winter of 1941-42, Bankhead went to play ball in Puerto Rico for the first time. The Puerto Rican Winter League was in its fourth season, and a host of great Negro Leaguers were there, most notably Josh Gibson (Santurce) and Willard Brown (Humacao-Arecibo). Sam Bankhead was with Ponce, but Dan was a member of the Mayagüez Indios, who also featured Willie Wells and Buster Clarkson. He won 7 and lost 8.

Returning to the Black Barons in 1942, Bankhead posted a known record of 2-1. After that, though, the young man decided to serve his nation amid World War II. On April 22, 1943, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in Macon, Georgia. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The Montford Point Marines, as they were also known, were not a combat unit. Even so, the all-Black troops became historically significant as an important step toward the integration of American military forces. Bankhead was part of the Montford Point baseball team, which remained in the States for the duration of the war and toured as a “morale raiser.” In addition to pitching, he played shortstop and the outfield.8

The Marine got occasional leave to pitch for the Black Barons, appearing at least once in 1943 and twice in 1944. On June 5, 1944, the New York Times reported that Bankhead struck out 17 New York Black Yankees as he fired a three-hit shutout in the nightcap of a doubleheader. In the opener, the Barons blanked the Philadelphia Stars 9-0. The twin bill took place at Yankee Stadium before an estimated crowd of 12,000.9

Bankhead, who had gained sergeant’s rank, was released from the service on June 7, 1946. He re-entered baseball with the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. He once again made the roster for the East-West All-Star Game – in fact, a pair of them were held that year. He started the first game, on August 15, allowing two earned runs in three innings with no decision. Three days later, he got the win for the West with three scoreless innings.

According to The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, Bankhead finished the year with a 7-3 record, far outshining his 24-36 team. His 42 strikeouts led the league, though this seemingly low number, like his won-lost records, likely reflects patchy data (Seamheads shows even lower totals).

Sometime in the mid-1940s (the exact date remains under investigation), Bankhead got married to Linda Marquette, who had gone to school in Kansas City and also attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music. According to his son William, they met while she was performing as a jazz singer. The couple had a daughter named Waillulliah, or Lulu for short. The young girl’s name was patterned after famous actress Tallulah Bankhead – a member of a prominent Alabama family. Tallulah may have been linked to the Black Bankheads, because her great-grandfather owned slaves in Lamar County, about 80 miles west of Empire.

William Bankhead came to believe that Lulu was actually a foster child, and there is reason to believe him. A 1947 article in the Richmond Afro-American noted that the young girl was nine years old and that her parents had been married for 10 years.10 But that means Dan and Linda would have been about 17 and 15, respectively, upon their wedding. This is at odds with the evidence and suggests a vague effort at propriety in the article.

With Linda and Lulu in tow11, Bankhead returned to Puerto Rico in the winter of 1946-47. Pitching for the Caguas Criollos, he went 12-8 and led the league with 179 strikeouts. He also showed his speed on the basepaths with 12 steals.

Back with Memphis in 1947, Bankhead had the pleasure of playing with his brother Fred. That year was the first time that any of the Bankhead men were teammates; Garnett also appeared briefly with the Red Sox in ’47, possibly after Dan left. On July 27, Dan again got the win in the East-West All-Star Game, allowing one run in three innings at Comiskey Park. The West won, 5-2, before a crowd of 48,112.

Dodgers scouts George Sisler and Wid Matthews were aware, and they alerted their boss, Branch Rickey. Brooklyn was short on pitching – ironically, they had unloaded starter Kirby Higbe because he refused to play with Jackie Robinson – so Rickey again turned to the Negro Leagues. On August 22, as Rickey biographer Lee Lowenfish wrote, “he and Sisler then traveled to Memphis to observe Dan Bankhead. . . . After the game [in which he struck out 11 and lifted his record to 11-512], Bankhead and his wife fed the visitors dinner, and soon thereafter Rickey announced that the pitcher had been purchased from Blue Sox [sic] owner J.B. Martin for $15,000.”13

The Richmond Afro-American carried a picture of Dr. Martin’s brother B.B. (a co-owner and also a dentist) shaking hands with Linda Bankhead after the deal was announced. The slender, graceful woman (who was not African American) was noted as a former featured singer with jazz great Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra. She and Lulu – along with a dog named Tackie and a pet chicken named Fannie Chee-Chee – would join Bankhead in Brooklyn in early September. Linda said she was only a baseball fan when her husband was pitching.14

Lowenfish continued, “Rickey was happy that Dan Bankhead’s color did not attract overwhelming press attention when the pitcher arrived in Brooklyn. The executive always hoped for the day when merit, and not color of skin, determined a person’s chance for success.”15 However, author Jules Tygiel differed, writing that “[Bankhead] received a terrific workout from photographers and newshounds.”16

Rickey would have preferred to test his new pitcher in the minors first, but he needed a live arm more. The 27-year-old’s NL debut came at Ebbets Field on August 26. One news story estimated that Black fans made up roughly a third of that day’s crowd of 24,069.17. A very nervous Bankhead entered in the second inning in relief of Hal Gregg.

The new Dodger allowed eight runs (all earned) on 10 hits in his 3⅓ innings of work that day. In one of his well-honed turns of phrase, sportswriter Red Smith wrote, “(T)he Pirates launched Bankhead by breaking a Louisville Slugger over his prow.”18 However, the hurler displayed his all-around ability by homering off Pittsburgh’s Fritz Ostermueller in his first NL at-bat.

After the game, Bankhead told pioneer Black sportswriter Sam Lacy, “I think I’ll be okay as soon as this newness wears off. Today it seemed like I was wearing a new glove, new shoes, new hat, everything seemed tight.”19

Dodgers manager Burt Shotton mixed praise (“speed, a good curve, and control”) and criticism (“the boys were calling all his pitches”) in his post-game remarks. He said he “wanted another look before I form an opinion one way or another.”20 Bankhead pitched just three times more over the remainder of the season, though, with no decisions and a 7.20 ERA in 10 innings overall. Nonetheless, he remained on the Dodgers roster for the World Series. He made one appearance as a pinch-runner in Game Six. Bobby Bragan had doubled off the Yankees’ Joe Page to score Carl Furillo and put the Dodgers up 6-5. The future big-league manager recalled what happened next:

“Bankhead would have scored from second a few pitches later when Eddie Stanky singled to right but Dan fell down rounding third and just scrambled back to the bag in time. When Pee Wee Reese singled to center both Dan and Eddie scored to ice the game.”21 (Not quite – it took Al Gionfriddo’s famous catch off Joe DiMaggio to hold the lead.)

In the spring of 1948, the Dodgers trained in the Dominican Republic. It marked the first time that Black and white ballplayers stayed at the same hotel. This was a refreshing experience for Jackie Robinson and Bankhead, not only because of the good treatment at the classy Hotel Jaragua but also thanks to the fans. Robinson said, “They show it every time Dan Bankhead or I walk on the field by cheering and clapping as enthusiastically as if we were one of their native players.”22

News service stories from what was then Ciudad Trujillo stated that Bankhead “was converted into a gardener [outfielder] because of his batting power and speed afoot.”23 The experiment was abandoned, though – the Dodgers assigned Bankhead to their Class B affiliate in Nashua, New Hampshire, and he concentrated on pitching. On July 25, he fired a seven-inning no-hitter against the Springfield Cubs. He blazed his way to a 20-6, 2.35 record with a league-leading 243 strikeouts. His wins also led the New England League, and he barely missed the Triple Crown of pitching, with his ERA behind only Harry Schaeffer’s 2.33.

On August 22, newspapers reported Bankhead’s promotion to St. Paul, the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in the American Association. Two days later, Lula Garrett of the Baltimore Afro-American wrote, “Satchel Paige opines that Dan Bankhead, youngest [sic] member of the Bankhead Baseball Brothers, throws a faster ball than Cleveland’s Bobby Feller.”24 He finished the season in good form, going 4-0 for the Saints with a 3.60 ERA.

Bankhead rejoined Caguas that winter, posting a 9-8 record. In 1949, he was assigned to Brooklyn’s other Triple-A team, the Montreal Royals. Again he won 20 and lost just six, while leading the league in strikeouts (176). Bankhead also led in walks with 170, though, earning the label “Wild Man of the International League.” The bases on balls were no doubt what pumped his ERA up to 3.76. In addition, he batted .323 with a homer and 26 RBIs.

The third-place Royals swept Rochester in the first round of the playoffs and then took four of five from Buffalo to become IL champs. Bankhead won the opener against the Red Wings and the clincher against the Bisons. Despite a sore arm, he added another win in the Little World Series, which the American Association champ, Indianapolis, won, four games to two.

In the winter of 1949-50, after barnstorming in the Southwest with a group of Black players led by Luke Easter, Bankhead was back in Puerto Rico again. He led the Puerto Rican Winter League in strikeouts for the second time, with 131. In addition to his 10-8 record, he hit seven homers. Caguas won the league championship and thus represented Puerto Rico in the second Caribbean Series, which was played in February at Sixto Escobar Stadium in San Juan.

In the second game of the four-team round robin, Bankhead faced ageless veteran Conrado Marrero, the ace of heavily favored Cuba’s staff. Puerto Rico gave Bankhead one run in the second inning, but that was all he needed as he threw a shutout. However, he lost two games to the eventual champion, Panama, including the tiebreaker.

Before the 1950 season opened, Bankhead was the subject of an uncomplimentary story quoting Branch Rickey. Allegedly the Mahatma turned down “a flattering offer from the Braves for the big right-hander. He confidentially told [Boston co-owner] Lou Perini that Bankhead wouldn’t help the Boston club.”25 The Bankhead-to-Boston rumor had been swirling since the prior fall; Rickey had also offered to deal the pitcher that winter to the White Sox.

Still, Bankhead won a job with Brooklyn that spring. He proceeded to get all nine of his NL wins with the Dodgers. His first came in relief of Don Newcombe at the Polo Grounds on April 28. Bankhead took his first four decisions, going all the way versus the Cubs at Ebbets Field on May 24. On June 18, he shut out the Cardinals on six hits at home.

Just when Bankhead looked to be settling in as an important member of the rotation, though, arm problems worsened. On July 8, the New York Times reported, “Dan Bankhead’s trouble is serious and may call for surgery. The Negro has considerable calcification in his shoulder.”26 The shoulder had pained him earlier that season too. He had complained of soreness in his first start on May 4. The root cause was apparently a dislocation suffered at the age of 17.27

Bankhead’s last start that year came on July 31, but he continued to work frequently out of the bullpen. He finished the year with a record of 9-4, 5.50, starting 12 times in 41 appearances. Control was a problem, as he walked 88 in 129⅓ innings.

In the winter of 1950-51, the Bankheads were in the Dominican Republic, where they welcomed son William that March. William stated that Bankhead was playing with the Escogido Leones, one of the four long-running Dominican clubs, a year before professional ball resumed in the country.

Bankhead’s arm really ailed him in 1951. He pitched a total of just 14 innings in seven games for the Dodgers (0-1, 15.43). In his last two appearances, he was shelled for 14 runs and 16 hits in seven innings. On July 24, Brooklyn announced that it had sold his contract to Montreal and brought up Clem Labine from St. Paul to replace him. Bankhead never made it back to the majors. Perhaps his most lasting big-league moment came amid a clubhouse debate, as he imparted a piece of down-home wisdom to his one-time roommate. “Not only are you wrong, Robinson,” said Bankhead, “You are loud wrong.”28

The pitcher offered another reason for his performance in Brooklyn – “financial pressure brought on by an inability to find an apartment that would accept children. He and his family stayed at an expensive hotel suite, which ate up most of his salary. ‘Nobody with an apartment would let me bring in my kids,’ he said. ‘Nobody wanted them. But I did.’”29

Things were not a whole lot better with the Royals. It took Bankhead over a month to pick up his first win in the International League, and he finished at 2-6, 3.91, mainly in relief. He saw some action out of the pen in the playoffs – Montreal again won the pennant – plus two more brief outings as the Milwaukee Brewers took the Little World Series in six games.

Bankhead resumed his Puerto Rican career in 1951-52 with a new club, the Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers). His record was 7-1, with a 3.71 ERA – although he had just 40 strikeouts in 70 innings, showing that he was no longer getting batters out with heat. Still, he was “unbeatable down the stretch” as the Crabbers won 16 of their last 20 games to make the playoffs before losing the finals to San Juan.30

Bankhead returned to Montreal for the 1952 season. However, the Dodgers organization released him in July, with a record of 0-1, 6.92. “Plagued with arm trouble, he worked only 13 innings in five games this season.”31 Bankhead then went back to Escogido – the Dominican baseball season was held in the summer from 1951 through 1954 – but he did not last long there.

In August, he had been named the club’s manager, replacing Félix “Fellé” Delgado, who had gone to the US to scout talent. Against the Estrellas Elefantes, Bankhead was trying for his first win against three losses when an aggressive baserunning play backfired. The third baseman had thrown a live ball to the ground arguing with the umpire, who had called Bankhead safe at third. Bankhead broke for the plate, slid in hard, but was out.

“[Catcher Zoilo] Rosario, fuming . . . immediately fired the ball at the Negro pitcher as he headed towards the Lions’ bench, but his aim was inaccurate and he missed. However, Bankhead quickly whirled around, picked up the catcher’s mask and hit Rosario over the head with it, opening a gash that required three stitches. In the free-for-all that followed, Bankhead was knocked out cold. After peace was restored, Rosario and Bankhead were fined and jailed.”32

Later that month, Bankhead was fired for “breaking training, fraternizing with players of another team and failing to show up for practice,” according to club president Paco Martínez Alba (Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo’s brother-in-law). Perhaps a more telling factor was that “the club had been having financial squabbles” with Bankhead.33 This man was always known as a tough negotiator, going back to his Negro League days.

In 1953, Bankhead played for Drummondville in the Canadian Provincial League. Quite a few Black ballplayers were in this league, including (though briefly) Bankhead’s younger brother Garnett. A few big-leaguers were there too, including player-manager Al Gionfriddo, Bankhead’s teammate on the ’47 Dodgers and with Montreal in ’49 and ‘’51. (Gionfriddo’s distinct memory of Bankhead was the way he used to “stamp the hell out of the rubber when he pitched.”34) With the last-place Royals, Bankhead’s batting line was .275-3-28; he pitched a handful of games at most (0-0, 0.00).

Late that July, Drummondville dumped veterans whose salaries were too high for the team’s modest budget.35 Bankhead went to Mexico, where he would spend nearly all of his remaining 13 years in the game. He served mainly in the field for the Monterrey Sultanes (.281-3-12) in 1953, though he also went 1-0, 2.90 in two games as a pitcher, including a complete game.

In the winter of 1953-54, Bankhead played in Mexico’s Liga de la Costa del Pacífico, which was entering its ninth season. His team was the Jalisco Charros, also known by the state’s capital, Guadalajara. Bankhead batted .335 as the first baseman and went 7-5 on the mound. He was named to the All-Star team for the league’s Southern division; that game took place on January 13, 1954. Joining him was Charros catcher Sam Hairston, patriarch of a three-generation big-league family.36

Bankhead stayed in Monterrey for the 1954 season (.273-7-33/2-2, 5.56 in seven pitching appearances). In 1955, the Mexican League entered Organized Baseball at the Double-A level. Bankhead split the season between the Sultanes and Veracruz Águila (combined totals: .316-9-46/0-1, 9.00). In 1956, he again played with two teams, Veracruz and the Mexico City Tigres (combined totals: .288-4-28/1-0, 3.00 in just 6 innings pitched).

In 1957, Bankhead took a step down to the Class C Central Mexican League. With the Aguascalientes Tigres, whose roster also included future Duke University athletic director Tom Butters, he batted .361 with 4 homers and 52 RBIs. He also went 2-2, 6.30 on the mound; Estadio Alberto Romo Chávez was and is a hitter’s ballpark. Butters recalled that the air was thin – Aguascalientes is 6,184 feet above sea level.

There was a gap in Bankhead’s summer career in 1958. William Bankhead remembered seeing his father arrested in Brooklyn that year after a stormy domestic dispute. To the best of William’s knowledge, though, Bankhead and Linda (who died in 2007) never got divorced. Throughout the years in Mexico, “he used to come home and make pit stops.”

Bankhead resumed play that winter with the Puebla Pericos (Parrots) in Mexico’s Veracruz League. He turned up in assorted stories in The Sporting News; little head shots showed he was still a “name.” The Parrots were the league champion, with Bankhead playing first base and pitching. In the spring of 1959, he returned to Veracruz as a player-coach, which likely explains his limited action (.244-0-6/0-0, 0.00).

A relatively stable period of four summers in Puebla then followed; the Parrots franchise was by then in the Mexican League. Bankhead was largely a reserve and pinch-hitter as he entered his 40s. During this time, he appeared in 225 games but amassed only 358 at-bats, with a grand total of one homer and 34 RBIs. His average was .293, driven largely by his .378 mark in 1960 (31-for-82). As a pitcher, his composite record was 24-15, 4.60 – mainly in relief, as he started just six times and pitched just 272 innings across 133 appearances.

In 1960 and 1961, Bankhead’s name occasionally popped up in the American papers, especially in San Antonio. During these two years, the Mexican League teams faced Texas League opponents regularly – 36 games and 24 games for each Mexican League club. The combined leagues were known as the Pan American Association. In August 1961, Bankhead won three games in two days in relief. That fall saw him with Saltillo in the little-known Northern Autumn League, which apparently lasted only one season despite drawing decent crowds thanks to pitchers like Luis Tiant.

Bankhead then wintered with another obscure Mexican circuit, the Bajío (Lowlands) League. He managed the Acámbaro Trains, a club in the state of Guanajuato. Bankhead must have inspired a following, for 100 fans traveled 500 miles to Puebla in August 1962 to cheer for him on Dan Bankhead Day in Puebla. The veteran pitched a complete game and won 13-1, as Alonzo Perry (another ex-Negro Leaguer, then 39) scored Monterrey’s only run on a wild pitch.37

To start the 1962 winter season, Bankhead was manager of Martínez de la Torre in the Veracruz League – but he was fired on November 14. The club was 6-4; there was only a cryptic report saying, “The Sugar Canes’ officials . . . took the action ‘for the good of the club.’”38 So then, after 10 seasons away, he resurfaced in Puerto Rico as a player-coach. He was 3-0 pitching for Caguas, winning both ends of a doubleheader in relief on December 2. A week later, Bankhead was named the club’s interim manager after Preston Gómez resigned on December 9.39 Within three days, though, the Criollos released him and made Jim Rivera manager. Bankhead then joined the Ponce Leones.40

William Bankhead went to the island that winter too. He had fond memories of how his father provided him with a white horse to ride. “I used to ride up into the hills there and shoot at iguanas with a Daisy BB gun,” he said. William recalled that Bankhead left the club after another domestic dispute with Linda. A Criollos teammate, pitcher Julio Navarro, said, “I can’t say whether it did or didn’t happen – I don’t remember anything like that. But he did a hell of a job pitching for an older guy. You tell me he was 42, I thought he was in his 50s.

“He was a good person, but I think he didn’t have much experience managing. Also, our team didn’t look like it had a chance to make the playoffs that year. Just before Christmas, some guys who aren’t from Puerto Rico want to go home, so teams will release them if they’re not winning. It’s also the last date to give them a chance to sign with somebody else.” However, the post-Bankhead Criollos won 24 of their last 32 games, surged from fifth place to second (out of six teams), and made it to the playoff finals.

After his last season with Puebla – he brought along a couple of Puerto Ricans he’d scouted41 – Bankhead moved to the Mexican Central League (Class A) in 1964. With the León Broncos, he put up a remarkable average of .441 with 4 homers and 41 RBIs, while still pitching capably (4-1, 4.20). He was listed as manager for part of that year, along with Cuban Santos Amaro, father of Rubén Amaro and grandfather of Ruben Amaro Jr.

In 1965, Bankhead remained as nonplaying manager of the León ballclub, which then became known as the Diablos Verdes (Green Devils). He led them to a second-place finish. At age 46 in 1966, Bankhead then enjoyed his last hurrah as a player with Reynosa. On June 2, the Broncos hired him away – as manager – from Aguascalientes in the Central League. In 11 games, he went 6-for-14, also posting his last pitching win on July 17. He was 1-0, 4.73 in 19 innings across six relief outings.

Bankhead’s time in baseball then came to an end. Like many men in this position, he really didn’t have another good career option – the game was his life. Much insight on the ensuing period came from Cornelius “Doc” Settles, whose mother, Martha Ann, and aunts Charlene and Essie grew up with Bankhead in Alabama. These good neighbors offered a helping hand.

“It would have been in the mid to late ’60s,” said Settles. “From what I understand, everything started to implode for Dan in Mexico.” William Bankhead stated, “He was pitching more than balls, you know what I mean? Too many kids, too many intimacies. There are several kids down in Mexico that I know of. And you can’t live in a foreign country without money.”

“The nearest oasis was Houston,” Settles continued. “My mom and her sisters weren’t looking for anything. This was just somebody close from home – there was a connection by marriage in there too.

“Dan was facing inner turmoil when he first came to Houston. He was trying to get back on his feet. But he stepped in right when I needed somebody in my life. He was so humble, and he had a down-home sensibility that grounded him. I was just a teenager, and he was always willing to share a few moments with me and my brothers tossing baseballs and playing games. I will never forget Dan Bankhead burning up my hand while trying to catch one of his pitches. Even in his final days Dan could still toss a mean fast ball.

“There’s a photo in Rachel Robinson’s book called An Intimate Portrait on page 92. Jackie is playing cards with Don Newcombe, Campy [Roy Campanella], and Dan. I remember firsthand that Dan also loved playing cards and checkers. He wouldn’t take any prisoners! He would beat us kids in games and laugh afterwards with that sparkle in his eyes and big smile.

“I only wish that I could have grasped who we were hanging out with. I would have done a better job of absorbing every little tidbit. Back then I was too naïve to understand. He would talk about Mexico and the league, how hot it was. He was so fluent in Spanish – he looked Hispanic. His pigmentation was light, and as he got older, he got even lighter. [Note: Garnett Bankhead was listed as a mulatto, as were his sons, in the 1920 census.

“There was a woman living in Mexico too. I just remember vaguely, I don’t remember her name or their child’s, but I met them. She was beautiful. Dan never went into detail about it, though.

“Dan spent his final years working for a small service company delivering food goods and supplies to small businesses and restaurants across Houston. I remember driving over and picking up Dan from his tiny rented apartment that was located upstairs over a garage in Kashmere Gardens, just 10 minutes from our house. He’d have a glove and ball, and he’d be smoking a Camel.”

At some point in the 1970s, Bankhead was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he was in and out of the Veterans Administration hospital in Houston. “His little smoking habit finally caught up with him,” said Doc Settles. “I always thought he’d go back to Mexico, but then he got sicker. You could see him erode. He’d have his ups and downs, but he knew. He just got more and more humble. He was resolved to make peace. Dan’s final days living in Houston were filled with reflection, days of happiness.” Eventually, he succumbed on May 2, 1976 – a day short of his 56th birthday.42

Thanks to the VA, the old Marine was buried under a modest bronze marker in Houston National Cemetery. “I don’t remember if any of his old teammates came to the funeral,” Settles said. “It was a small and quiet event. I don’t think he was in touch with them. It was in the past and he didn’t dwell on it.”

Bankhead’s name surfaced in 2006 in a dispute between his sons William and Dan Herbert Bankhead (born in 1949, later known as Dan Al-Mateen) over the pitcher’s memorabilia. William alleged that the items came into the possession of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum by improper means. A legal battle ensued.43

The less said of this episode, however, the better. It’s best to remember Dan Bankhead as a talented player, a pioneer, and for the goodness in him. William Bankhead remembered once coming to blows with his father, on the street in front of Linda’s residence in Brooklyn Heights. Yet later, before the younger man went to serve in Vietnam in 1971, Dan said “I am sorry,” giving his son a kiss. He bequeathed William the Smith & Wesson pistol he got upon enlisting in the Marines. William also remembered how his father taught him to love and respect animals, birds, and other children.

Doc Settles summed it up nicely too. “He had a personality you wanted to be around. He left you with positive things. I was able to enjoy his laughter and his jokes and his smiles. I just wish we knew more about what he went through as an African American baseball trailblazer.”

Acknowledgments

This biography was originally published in 2009. An abridged version was published in The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America: The 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers (University of Nebraska Press, 2012). This updated version was published in 2024.

Special thanks for their memories to Doc Settles (e-mail exchanges and phone discussions starting in June 2008) and William F. Bankhead (e-mail exchanges and phone discussions starting in September 2008).

Continued thanks also to Julio Navarro (telephone interview, 2008) and SABR member Jorge Colón Delgado (additional Puerto Rican statistics).

Image credits

Dodgers headshot: courtesy of walteromalley.com

Marines headshot: courtesy of www.mpma28.com

Watercolor: courtesy of Doc Settles, Artist

Sources

Obituary: “Dan Bankhead, 54 [sic], Ex-Dodger, Is Dead.” New York Times, May 7, 1976: 95. Note that The Sporting News sometimes presented Bankhead’s year of birth as 1921.

Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff. The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America, Inc., 1997).

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

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

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

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

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

Professional Baseball Player Database V6.0

www.paperofrecord.com (various small pieces of information from The Sporting News and El Informador)

www.ancestry.com (census information on Garnett Bankhead)

www.findagrave.com

Social Security Death Index

Notes

1 Larry Moffi and Jonathan Kronstadt, Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers 1947-1959 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994), 13.

2 Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography (New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1997), 184.

3 Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 144.

4 Red Barber, 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1982), 280.

5 Moffi and Kronstadt, 11.

6 Brent Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2000), 89.

7 Kelley, 118.

8 From the online history of the Montford Point Marines, webmaster James Stewart Jr.: http://www.mpma28.com/newsletters/newsletter/2854121/44177.htm

9 “Barons Win by 9-0, 13-0; Triumph Over the Philadelphia Stars and Black Yankees,” New York Times, June 5, 1944: 12.

10 “Wife, Daughter, Dog, Chicken Root for Dan,” Richmond Afro-American, September 6, 1947: 1.

11 Leslie Heaphy, The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2002), 173. See also note 10.

12 Dave Bloom, “Beale Street’s Dancing Over Its Boy, Dan,” The Sporting News, September 3, 1947: 7. Seamheads shows a record of 2-1.

13 Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 433. Two notes: the won-lost record cited here and in The Sporting News conflicts with the 4-4 mark shown in The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues. Also, Bankhead’s wife is referred to as “Charlotte.”

14 “Wife, Daughter, Dog, Chicken Root for Dan.”

15 Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 433.

16 Jules Tygiel, in Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America, editors Patrick Miller and David Wiggins (New York: Routledge, 2004), 184.

17 “Bucs Win; Bankhead Homers,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, August 27, 1947: 24.

18 Red Smith, “Views of Sport,” New York Herald-Tribune; date uncertain. Reprinted in Baltimore Afro-American, September 6, 1947: 13.

19 Sam Lacy, “Bankhead Knocked Out in First Dodger Game,” Richmond Afro-American, August 30, 1947: 14.

20 Joe Reichler (Associated Press), “Negro Hurler to Get New Chance,” August 27, 1947.

21 Bobby Bragan, “Bragan Recalls Series Hit,” Evening Standard (Uniontown, Pennsylvania), July 10, 1965: 7.

22 Michael E. Lomax, in Race and Sport: The Struggle for Equality On and Off the Field, ed. Charles K. Ross (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 66. Originally in New Jersey Afro American and Pittsburgh Courier, March 13, 1948.

23 Leo H. Petersen, “Youth, Speed and Fight To Mark 1948 Dodger Team,” Lima (Ohio) News, March 29, 1948: 11.

24 Bill James and Rob Neyer, The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (New York: Fireside, 2004), 125.

25 “Branch Rickey May Be Forced to Eat Words.” Syracuse Herald-American, March 19, 1950: D1.

26 Roscoe McGowen, “Simmons Checks Brooklyn, 7-2, Behind 4-Run Onslaught in Sixth,” New York Times, July 8, 1950.

27 Moffi and Kronstadt, 12.

28 Dave Anderson, “Nice Wrong Isn’t Really So Terrible,” New York Times, February 27, 1998.

29 Anderson, “Nice Wrong Isn’t Really So Terrible.”

30 Thomas E. Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1999, 38.

31 Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette, July 20, 1952: 29.

32 Alejandro Martínez, “Dan Bankhead Fined, Jailed in Dominican Republic Riot,” The Sporting News, August 13, 1952: 30.

33 Alejandro Martínez, “Bankhead Fired as Manager in Dominican Loop,” The Sporting News, September 3, 1952: 32.

34 Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, 2000 edition), 157.

35 Scott Baillie, “Happy Once Again: Al Gionfriddo Now Playing for Ventura,” Daily Review (Hayward, California), May 20, 1954: 10.

36 Manuel de Jesús Sortillón Valenzuela, www.historiadehermosillo.com/BASEBALL/Menuff.htm (online history of Mexico’s Liga de la Costa del Pacífico). One may also find pictures of and stories about Bankhead and Sam Hairston in the Guadalajara newspaper El Informador.

37 “Bankhead Stars on Big Day,” The Sporting News, August 18, 1962: 39.

38 Roberto Hernández, “Bankhead Fired as Manager; Pinkston Fractures Arm,” The Sporting News, December 1, 1962: 41.

39 Miguel Frau, “Orsino Steps High as Candidate for Triple-Title King,” The Sporting News, December 22, 1962: 29.

40 Miguel Frau, “New Skipper Rivera Spurs Caguas to Winning Splurge,” The Sporting News, December 29, 1962: 33.

41 Roberto Hernández, “Season Opens First in Mexico; Sultans Favored to Repeat,” The Sporting News, April 13, 1963: 48.

42 “Bankhead Dies,” Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail, May 7, 1976: 29. Of interest in this story is a reference to a wife coming up from Mexico.

43 Charles Emerick, “Negro Leagues museum brought into family feud, lawsuit over memorabilia,” Daily Record (St. Louis, Missouri), October 3, 2006.

When the curtain rang down on the 1969 season, Ernie Banks was just three home runs shy of 500. But the Chicago Cubs first baseman was not one to dwell on personal achievements. He was probably preoccupied with the disappointing year enjoyed by his team; 1969 was the closest he or many of his teammates had come to a post-season. But Banks was a glass-half-full type of person. Blue skies and better days were ahead.

As the 1970 season commenced, Banks was assigned an unfamiliar role — serving as a backup to Jim Hickman at first base. His at-bats would be less frequent, and accordingly so were his home runs. Banks’ daughter Jan asked him to please “get it over with.” On May 12, 1970, Banks was only too happy to oblige. Facing Atlanta’s Pat Jarvis in the second inning, he deposited the 1–1 offering into the left field bleachers. Because of dark clouds and threatening skies, the crowd was sparse at Wrigley Field. But the 5,264 in attendance cheered loudly, demanding a curtain call from Mr. Cub. They knew full well the significance of the clout; Ernie Banks was the ninth player in major league history to reach 500 home runs.

“The pitch was inside and up,” Banks said. “They’ve been pitching me inside lately, because I haven’t been getting around on the ball.”2 As Banks rounded the bases, and doffed his cap at home plate in acknowledgment of the cheering fans, many thoughts went through his head. “I was thinking about my mother and dad, about all the people in the Cubs’ organization that helped me and about the wonderful Chicago fans who have come out all these years to cheer us on,” Banks said. “You know, I felt it was the fans last Saturday who helped me hit that number 499 homer and today my number 500. They’ve been a great inspiration to me.”3

The Cubs won the game 4–3 on a single by Ron Santo in the bottom of the eleventh. The win kept Chicago atop the National League’s Eastern Division. Billy Williams, who also homered in the game, later said that there was no way the Cubs were going to lose and spoil Banks’ day. As the celebration carried on in the clubhouse, Banks leapt onto a chair and said “The riches of the game are in the thrills, not in the money.”4 For many, a statement like that might come across as lip service. But coming from Ernie Banks, those words rang truer then the Bell Tower at the Merchandise Mart.

Ernest Banks was born on January 31, 1931, in Dallas, Texas. He was the second oldest of Eddie and Essie Banks’ 12 children. Following World War I, Eddie Banks joined the Dallas Black Giants. The Black Giants were a traveling team, and for eight seasons, Eddie played catcher. Their schedule took them to Kansas City, Shreveport, Oklahoma City, and many other cities across the country. When his playing days were over, Eddie worked as a chain store warehouse porter for 25 years.

When Ernie was eight, Eddie presented him with his first glove and ball. Eddie would come home from work, wanting to play catch with his son. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with them,” said Ernie. “So dad gave me 10 cents to play catch with him. From then on, whenever he wanted to play catch, he’d bribe me with nickels and dimes.”5

“The bat came later, and that almost wrecked everything,” says Eddie Banks. “Drives off Ernie’s bat broke so many windows in the neighborhood that we were always in trouble. He smashed so many windows that I was almost broke trying to pay for them.”6

Ernie Banks attended Booker T. Washington High school. He excelled in football and basketball, but the school did not offer baseball as an extra-curricular activity. As a substitute, Ernie played softball. Like many children finding their way, he was introverted and shy. “I thought talking to human beings was just something that could make things complicated and unpleasant. So I didn’t talk much. I just watched people.”7 

Bill Blair, a graduate of Washington High School, spotted Banks’ ability on the softball field. In Blair’s opinion, if Banks could excel at softball, it was not that big of a big leap to do just as well in baseball. Although Banks was only a sophomore, Blair appealed to his parents to allow their son to try out for a traveling team based in Amarillo, Texas. Johnny Carter, owner of the misleadingly-named Detroit Colts — a feeder for professional Negro Leagues teams — visited the Banks household, promising that Ernie would return for his junior year of high school.

The year was 1947, and Jackie Robinson had just broken into the major leagues a couple of months earlier. But the realization of others joining him any time soon was just a dream. “I didn’t understand anything about playing baseball,” said Banks. “I started playing and it was enjoyable. Most of my life I played with older people on my team, in my league. I learned a lot about life. Every day in my life I learned something new from somebody.”8 Many of the players he faced were in their thirties, or even forties, and had much more experience in baseball — and life. 

The Colts traveled through Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. For a teenager, such an adventure certainly beat getting up early with his father to pick cotton, shine shoes, or do any of the other menial jobs Banks had held back in Dallas. His performance on the field was superb, and he won the shortstop job after just a few days of training. The youngster who was skeptical about playing baseball homered in his third at-bat of his first game.

Banks returned to the Colts following his junior year of high school. Playing against the Kansas City Stars, Banks impressed Stars manager “Cool Papa” Bell both with his unruffled behavior off the field and his ability on the diamond. “His conduct was almost as outstanding as his ability,” said Bell.9

Bell promised Banks a spot with the Kansas City Monarchs if he completed his senior year of high school. Bell had already recommended Banks to Buck O’Neil, the Monarchs skipper, who was already happy with his current shortstop, Gene Baker. But on March 8, 1950, the Chicago Cubs signed Baker to be their first black player. Even though Baker was good enough to play in the majors, his talent did not approach Ernie’s.

The Monarchs offered Banks $300 a month, and Eddie and Essie Banks gave their assent. For Ernie Banks, a new life opened up. He was fortunate to join an organization with a history of success in the Negro Leagues. Kansas City was a pillar of black baseball. “‘Cool Papa’ Bell was the first one who impressed me. Buck O’Neil helped me in many ways. He installed a positive influence,” Banks later noted.10

In 1950, Banks’ first season with the Monarchs, he played shortstop and hit a reported .255. “Playing for the Kansas City Monarchs was like my school, my learning, my world,” said Banks. “It was my whole life.”11 As great as an education he may have received as a member of the Monarchs, his greatest thrill to date was just ahead. He was offered the opportunity to barnstorm with the “Jackie Robinson All-Stars,” which also included Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Larry Doby, who were touring with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League. Banks made $400 for the tour and, more importantly, received lessons from Robinson on turning the double play.

Banks was then drafted into the United States Army, reporting to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. His battalion reported to New Orleans in early 1952 and traveled by boat to Germany, where Banks served the rest of his two-year hitch. He was discharged in January 1953.

Although Brooklyn and Cleveland contacted Banks to attend tryouts, the young shortstop made a beeline back to Kansas City. By this time, many blacks had turned their attention away from the Negro Leagues and toward the majors. As more black players left the Negro Leagues, interest waned and attendance dropped. Buck O’Neil knew it was only a matter of time before his prized player would also leave.

In September 1953, the Chicago Cubs offered the Kansas City Monarchs $20,000 for the rights to Banks and pitcher Bill Dickey. Banks, who signed a contract for $800 a month,12 debuted in the majors on September 17, 1953. Gene Baker, called up from Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League, played his first game three days later. “They knew we were going to bring Baker to the Cubs, and they knew he’d need a roommate,” said Lennie Merullo, a former Cubs infielder then working as the club’s chief scout. “One reason they signed Banks was so that Baker would have a roommate. That’s true. You couldn’t isolate a guy.”13

The Cubs were not paying $20,000 just for a roommate. Ernie did not spend a day in the minors, reporting directly to Cubs manager Phil Cavarretta. Banks played the last 10 games of the 1953 season and didn’t sit again until August 11, 1956, by which time he had played 424 straight games. In 1955, Banks’ second full season in Chicago, he stepped in the national spotlight. He was ranked third in home runs (44) and fourth in RBI (117) and hit .295. Banks also led all shortstops with a .972 fielding percentage.

He appeared in his first All-Star Game in 1955, the first of 14 midsummer classic berths for Banks. That season, he set a major league record with five grand slam home runs. The last one came in St. Louis on September 19. “Naturally, I knew I needed another one to break the record, but I never dreamed it would happen to me,” said Banks. “Then the kid [St. Louis pitcher Lindy McDaniel] gave me a fastball that was a bit outside, and I knew it was gone as soon as I hit it. It was one of the best pitches I‘ve hit all season, but it’s still hard to believe.”14

“Of course, Ernie Banks was a good hitter, even at the beginning,” said Ralph Kiner, a pretty fair hitter in his own right. “I liked watching him. He would lightly rap his fingers on the bat; he looked like he was playing the flute.”15 Banks played a full-blown symphony in both 1958 and 1959, when he was twice honored by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) as the National League’s MVP. The Sporting News also named Banks its N.L. Player of the Year for both seasons. In 1958, he topped the NL in home runs, RBIs, and slugging percentage, and the following year topped the league in RBIs and ranked second in homers. He also led all shortstops with a .985 fielding percentage and committed only 12 errors. Both of these statistics set major league records for shortstops.16

“Ernie Banks was a super guy. My kids loved him. Could he ever hit! He had just had back-to back MVP seasons despite playing for a bad ballclub. He had his fourth straight year with over 40 homers and way over 100 RBIs,” said his 1960s teammate Frank Thomas.17

“I don’t try to hit home runs. I just try to meet the ball and get base hits,” Mr. Cub noted. “I’m swingin’ at better pitches than I did in previous years. I’m not letting those strikes get by. I try to stay ready to hit the fastball. If I’m fooled by the pitch, I take it. I protect myself when the ball is outside and concentrate on hitting strikes.”18 Phillies pitcher Robin Roberts noted, however, that Banks was never the most patient hitter: “He doesn’t take many bad pitches; he swings at them.”19

In 1960, Banks again paced the NL in home runs with 41. He also knocked in 117 and led the league again in fielding percentage, winning his only Gold Glove. Ron Santo joined the club in mid-year and added some power and offense to the lineup. The following season, Billy Williams won Rookie of the Year honors from both The Sporting News and the BBWAA, forming with Santo and Banks a three-headed monster. “My second year I hit behind Banks, and he hit 29 home runs, and I spent about 29 times in the dirt,” said Santo. “I used to say to him, ‘You’re hitting the home runs. Why am I spending time in the dirt?’ He just laughed. That’s the way it was then. You accepted it. You didn’t think twice about it. This was all respect.”20

For 1961, Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley designed a plan under which the Cubs would operate without a manager “as that position is generally understood.” An eight-man staff, augmented by other coaches from the organization, would take turns directing the major-league team and rotating through the minor-league system. This unique and radical idea was called the “College of Coaches.” This approach, which Wrigley called “business efficiency applied to baseball,” was questioned by most and ridiculed by many.

Early in 1961, then-head coach Vedie Himsl asked Banks if he would mind moving to the outfield. Banks had never played the outfield, but he always put the good of the team first, and agreed so that the Cubs could promote Jerry Kindall, a bonus baby signing from 1956.

Banks was a fish out of water in left field, but Chicago center fielder Richie Ashburn helped give him direction. Banks made 23 starts in left field from May 23 through June 14 and also put in a few games at first base before returning to shortstop. His consecutive game streak of 717 ended on June 23 because of his ailing knee; he had banged his left knee on the brick wall at Candlestick Park and was moved back to shortstop. The knee, originally injured in the Army, continued to give him trouble.

Ernie returned to first base in 1962. Kindall was traded to Cleveland and André Rodgers was inserted as the starter at shortstop. “This presents many problems,” said Banks. “Not the least of them is what to do with my feet. Sometimes I seem to have too many and sometimes not enough. I took a whirl at first base last year and I knew even less about it than I do now.”21

On May 25, 1962, Cincinnati’s Moe Drabowsky — a former teammate — plunked Banks in the head with a pitch. Although he did not lose consciousness, Banks was dazed and was sent to the hospital for observation for a couple of days. Two days later after being released, Banks hit three consecutive home runs against Milwaukee at Wrigley Field.

Banks’ offense began to suffer, as he hit 37 home runs and drove in 104 runs in 1962 but slumped in other categories. Although Buck O’Neil, who was scouting for the Cubs, soon joined the staff and was the first black coach in the majors, Wrigley’s “College of Coaches” concept was otherwise a failure. Bob Kennedy, a former major league outfielder, was named the lone head coach in 1963, but over the next three years, he had to deal with a dozen or so revolving coaches.

Banks slumped badly in 1963. He suffered most of the season from sub-clinical mumps, in which the disease remains in the blood without breaking out, and was sidelined for the last three weeks. He also missed games because of a sore right knee and a heel bruise. He did set a major league record with 22 putouts at first base on May 9, 1963, as Dick Ellsworth topped Pittsburgh 3–1 on two hits.

The Cubs improved some in that season, but promising second baseman Ken Hubbs — the 1962 Rookie of the Year — died February 15, 1964, when he crashed a small plane into an ice-covered section of Utah Lake. He was 22 years old.

To make things worse, on June 15, 1964, the Cubs shipped outfielder Lou Brock to St. Louis in a six-player deal. In sixth place but only 5½ games off the pace, the Cubs were trying to bolster their pitching corps, but Ernie Broglio, the centerpiece of the deal, had a bad arm and was out of baseball two years later. The Cardinals used Brock differently than had the Cubs, utilizing his speed. He became the all-time leader in stolen bases, running all the way to Cooperstown.

The Chicago front office hired Leo Durocher to take the helm for 1966. “The Lip” had piloted three other clubs to pennants and captured a world championship in 1954 with the New York Giants. His clubs finished either second or third nine other times. Most felt that Durocher’s rough-and-ready style was just what the Cubs needed.

In his fourteenth season, Banks was sick of losing. Even for a player with a sunny disposition, losing can take a toll. “I am happy Leo is here. I am delighted. I think Durocher — “Leo the Lip” as they say — will shake things up. He will be able to do things that some of the others could not do. If Leo gets the Cubs going, I will be happy to play a part even if I am not here when we eventually win a pennant. Just winning and being in the first division would be great incentive for the fellows around here,” said Banks.22

Although Banks was in a good frame of mind, others painted a different picture. “He [Durocher] disliked Ernie from the go,” wrote broadcaster Jack Brickhouse. “It was just that Ernie was too big a name in Chicago to suit Durocher.”23

“I can remember Ernie and Leo were constantly feuding,” recalled Ferguson Jenkins. “Leo was always giving Ernie Banks’ job away. Every spring he’d give it away to John Boccabella or George Altman or [Willie] Smith or Lee Thomas, and Ernie would win it back again. Ernie knew that Leo did not like him. There was no ‘Come over for tea and crumpets’ with Ernie for Leo…Ernie was always going to spring training, and someone always had his job, and Ernie would always win it back.”24

Curiously, Banks was named as a “player-coach” during spring training 1967. All of the right comments were made and speculation about Banks’ playing time diminishing was dismissed. “I’m very happy about it,” said Banks. “I’m looking forward to working with the younger players. It’s all very gratifying.”25

Despite the clash between the Cubs star and the skipper, Chicago finished in third place in 1967 and 1968. Although they were a distant third behind St. Louis and San Francisco both times, this was unfamiliar terrain. Glenn Beckert at second base and Don Kessinger at short were as solid as any DP combo in the league. Randy Hundley came over from San Francisco and was a solid catcher for several seasons. The pitching staff, led by Ferguson Jenkins who would win 20 games six years in a row, was taking shape. Banks’ batting average was on the decline, but he slugged 32 homers in 1968.

The National and American Leagues split into divisions for the first time in 1969, creating a playoff system. Both leagues had an East and West Division, each with six teams. The Cubs were placed in the N.L. East. All signs pointed to Chicago ending its post-season drought in 1969 and for their fans, there was no better way to spend the summer than at Wrigley Field. Jenkins and Bill Hands both won 20 games, while Santo, Banks, and Williams combined to smack 73 round trippers and drive in 324 runs. It was also in July 1969 that the phrase “Let’s Play Two” was attributed to Banks. The Cubs were to play a game in 100-degree heat and Banks, looking to inspire his teammates, uttered the phrase. Sportswriter Jimmy Enright reported it and credited Ernie.26

At the end of August, the Cubs held a 4½-game lead over second-place New York. A two-game series at Shea Stadium in early September featured Jenkins and Hands against the Mets’ best hurlers, Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman. The Mets took both games to slice their deficit to a half-game. Chicago never recovered, going 8–12 the rest of the season. Conversely, the Mets went 18–5 and cruised to the division title by a margin of eight games. “I admit we played horseshit in the last few weeks,” said Durocher. “We’ve played some of the worst baseball I’ve seen in years. But that doesn’t discount the fact that the Mets played like hell. They got in a streak and couldn’t lose.”27

The Cubs made a strong bid again for the playoffs in 1970, trailing Pittsburgh by 1½ on September 19. But a 4–7 record to close the year made them bridesmaids again. For the first time, Banks was used primarily as a reserve. Even when he got the chance to play, Banks was disrespected by Durocher. Once the manager sent Jim Hickman, like Banks a right-handed batter, to pinch-hit for him against a southpaw. “Hickman told me later it was one of the toughest things he ever had to do,” said Brickhouse.28

Ernie Banks retired from major league baseball at the conclusion of the 1971 season. He was 40 years old. Over his 19-year career he hit .274, made 2,583 hits, pounded out 512 home runs and 407 doubles, and drove in 1,636 runs. He was enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, his first year of eligibility. He, Cal Ripken Jr., and Honus Wagner were the shortstops on Major League Baseball’s All-Century Team in 1999.

Banks was the Cubs’ first-base coach in 1973 and 1974, remained in the Cubs organization on a personal services contract for most of the next two decades. He was named to the Cubs Board of Directors in 1978.

Banks also had his own sports marketing firm and was employed by World Van Lines for more than 20 years. He also worked for the Bank of Ravenswood in Chicago. Even when he was still playing baseball, Banks bought in to a Ford automobile dealership in 1967, becoming the second African American in the U.S. to own one. He also served on the board of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) in 1969.

In 1982, the Cubs retired his #14. On Opening Day in 2008, the team unveiled a statue of Banks outside of Wrigley Field.

In 2013, Banks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House. It is the highest honor a United States civilian can receive. “That’s Mr. Cub — the man who came up through the Negro Leagues, making $7 a day, and became the first black player to suit up for the Cubs and one of the greatest hitters of all time,” said President Barack Obama. “In the process, Ernie became known as much for his 512 home runs as for his cheer and optimism, and his eternal faith that someday the Cubs would go all the way. That is something that even a White Sox fan like me can respect. He is just a wonderful man and a great icon of my hometown.”29

Banks, and his wife Liz, spent his later years in Southern California. He played golf regularly with his twin sons, Joey and Jerry, and tasted the creations of his daughter Jan, a local chef. He planned for the future and lived comfortably; during the 1960s, Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley offered Ernie the chance to invest in a trust fund. Banks put aside half his salary and at age 55 cashed in more than $4 million. He was the only player to take Wrigley’s advice.

On January 23, 2015, in Chicago, Ernie Banks died at age 83, setting off a round of mourning fitting one of the city’s most beloved citizens.

Notes

1 Phil Rogers, Ernie Banks: Mr. Cub and the Summer of ’69, Chicago: Triumph Books, 2011, 5.

2 The Sporting News, May 30, 1970, 5.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Rogers, 29.

6 The Sporting News, February 17, 1960, 3.

7 Lew Freedman, Game of My Life: Chicago Cubs; Memorable Stories of Cubs Baseball, Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, 2007, 104.

8 Rogers, 58.

9 Rogers, 59.

10 Freedman, 106.

11 MLB.com, February 1, 2012.

12 Peter Golenbock, Wrigleyville, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996, 349.

13 Goldenbock, 347.

14 Chicago American News, September 20, 1955, 23.

15 Danny Peary, We Played the Game, New York: Hyperion, 249.

16 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 17, 1959.

17 Peary, 464.

18 Chicago Daily News, August 29, 1959.

19 Ibid.

20 Golenbock, 380.

21 The New York Times, May 18, 1962.

22 Newsday, March 3, 1966.

23 David Claerbaut, The Greatest Team That Didn’t Win: Durocher’s Cubs, Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 2000, 26.

24 Golenbock, 399.

25 The Sporting News, March 18, 1967, 19.

26 Gerald C. Wood and Andrew Hazucha, Northsiders: Essays on the History, and the Culture of the Chicago Cubs, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2008, 101.

27 Rogers, 227.

28 Claerbaut, 26.

29 MLB.com, November 11, 2013.

30 Wood and Hazucha, 101.

Carlos Bernier Rodriguez was born in Juana Diaz, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, a few miles east of Ponce. At the time of Bernier’s birth, the area produced rum from locally grown sugar cane. During Bernier’s childhood, however, the Puerto Rican sugar cane industry suffered a sharp decline. Juana Diaz became known as La Ciudad del Mabi, in honor of a fermented beverage made from the bark of the mabi tree.

Little is known of Carlos’s childhood. There is no record of his having played high-school baseball. He probably learned the game on the sandlots of his native area. Early in his professional career he played in the Manitoba-Dakota League. He claimed to be a teenager when his pro career started. Like so many players of his era, he lied about his age, thinking his chances of making it in the pros were greater if he appeared younger than his real age. He told baseball scouts that he was born in 1929, not 1927. As an independent circuit, the Mandak League was not recognized by Organized Baseball. Standard baseball references carry very little data on its teams or players.

The Sporting News did not cover the Mandak League. The first mention of Bernier in the self-proclaimed “Baseball Bible” came in a report of the 1948 Puerto Rico League championship series.2 With the score tied in the 10th inning of the seventh and deciding game, Mayaguez left fielder Bernier committed an error that led to his team’s defeat. Bernier played 19 years in Puerto Rico, mostly for Mayaguez in the winter league after spending the summers playing minor-league baseball in the United States

In 1948, 21-year-old Bernier got his start in Organized Baseball with the Port Chester (New York) Clippers in the Class-B Colonial League. Although the Clippers were affiliated with the St. Louis Browns, Bernier was the property of the local club rather than the parent organization.3 According to Joe Guzzardi, in 1948 Bernier was, along with Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Hank Thompson, one of Organized Baseball’s four black players.4 Evidently, Guzzardi overlooked Dan Bankhead and Roy Campanella, both of whom played in O.B. in 1948. (Willard Brown had played in the majors in 1947, but he was back in the Negro Leagues in 1948.)

Bernier did not have an outstanding season with Port Chester. A switch-hitter, he hit for neither average nor power, but he walked 54 times and stole 24 bases, enabling him to score 72 runs in only 104 games. Far more important than his statistics was an incident that occurred that season: He was struck by a pitch, which fractured his skull and caused him to suffer from chronic headaches the rest of his life.5 The headaches were sometimes blamed for the quick temper that kept him in hot water much of the time. It was not just headaches that got him in trouble. Jackie Robinson was able to endure the slurs and indignities that came with being a racial pioneer. Bernier was different. He was not one to take racial taunts lying down, whether from opponents, teammates, fans, or umpires. He was competitive and aggressive on the ballfield, and was suspended many times throughout his career. 

Ron Samford, a longtime teammate of Bernier’s, both in Puerto Rico and the Pacific Coast League, was quoted as saying, “Bernier had the ability to be a ten-to-fifteen-year major league career. His temper got the best of him.”6 Sportswriter John Schulian wrote, “Carlos Bernier had a temper as big as his chaw of tobacco.”7

Bernier’s son, Dr. N. Bernier-Collazo, explained his father’s behavior:

He lived in an era when it was fashionable to discriminate; in fact, many states upheld laws that discriminated against people of color. My father’s only shortfall was that he did not handle the injustices of society with the same grace as a Jackie Robinson or a Roberto Clemente. He was quite angry at the injustices and faced them head on, even if it meant challenging a white minor league umpire who made a racial slur. I have often wondered how different life would have been for him with all his talents if he had played now (2004), instead of then. His career would have been spent primarily in the majors, rather than in the minors. … Despite his extremely competitive demeanor on the field, he was a gentle soul off the field with the greatest qualities; kindness, compassionate, generous, responsible, and loving. … Many people don’t know what a wonderful person he was because they only witnessed his exploits and his aggressive style of play on the field.8

During Bernier’s first season in the Colonial League, he drew his first suspension. League President John A. Scalzi meted out a six-day suspension and fined Bernier $25 for his part in a rhubarb with an umpire.9 Many more suspensions were to follow during Bernier’s career. Port Chester won the 1948 regular-season title in 1948 and followed up by taking the final playoff series. One highlight of the playoffs was an inside-the-park home run by Bernier at Poughkeepsie on September 19. He then returned to his native land to play for Mayaguez in the Puerto Rico League. He made his presence known, hitting two home runs in a game against Aguadilla on November 4. Mayaguez won the league championship, giving Bernier the distinction of having played for championship clubs in both the summer of 1948 and the winter of 1948-49.

After the 1948 season, the Port Chester Clippers disbanded, but Bernier remained in the Colonial League, the property of the Bristol (Connecticut) Owls. At the beginning of the 1949 season, the Owls sent him to Indianapolis of the Triple-A American Association. He didn’t stay in Indiana long. After two pinch-running appearances, the Indians returned him to Bristol. Bernier gave up on switch-hitting and infield play and became a full-time right-handed batter and outfielder. He had a terrific season, leading Bristol to the pennant, hitting .336, leading the league with 136 runs scored and setting a league record for stolen bases with 89. But not all was sweetness and light. On July 25 Bristol manager Al Barillari fined Bernier $50 for what he called “two stupid plays that cost us the game with Bridgeport.”10 According to the manager, Bernier missed a bunt sign in the previous night’s game and then was thrown out attempting to steal. In the winter Bernier again played for Mayaguez in the Puerto Rico League and tied the circuit’s record for stolen bases in one season with 33.

In 1950 Bernier was back with Bristol and got off to a great start. On May 4 he established a league record by stealing six bases in one game. He stole second base four times and third twice, but was foiled in his attempt for seven thefts when he was thrown out trying to steal home in the ninth inning of the game against Bridgeport.11 In 52 games for Bristol Bernier stole 53 bases and scored 67 runs. On July 14 the financially struggling Colonial League disbanded. Before the league collapsed, however, the Owls sold Bernier to St. Jean (Quebec) of the Class-C Provincial League. At the time of the sale, Bernier was leading the Colonial League in both stolen bases and home runs. He found the Canadian league to his liking. In 64 games for St. Jean he hit .335 with 15 home runs, scored 69 runs, and stole 41 bases, giving him a total of 94 steals for the two clubs.

In 1951 Bernier played for the independent Tampa Smokers in the Class-B Florida International League. He led the league in steals, triples, and runs scored. As frequently happened wherever he played, Bernier led his club to the pennant. His performance in Florida earned Bernier a big promotion. In 1952 he leaped all the way up to the top of the minor-league hierarchy with the Hollywood Stars of the Open Classification Pacific Coast League. Already known as “The Comet” for his speed on the basepaths, Bernier lit up the Southern California landscape. He hit .301 (third best in the league) and led the PCL in runs scored with 105 and stolen bases with 65. Once again he led his team to the league championship. He was named the PCL’s rookie of the year.

Pittsburgh promoted Bernier to the majors in 1953. He became the first black player to join the Pirates. (Some sources credit Curt Roberts with being Pittsburgh’s first black player, classifying Bernier as neither black nor white, but as Puerto Rican, as though Puerto Ricans were a separate race. Of course, biologically nobody really is black or white. Race is a sociological concept, not a biological one. Bernier considered himself black and deserves the distinction of being designated Pittsburgh’s first black player.)

Bernier made his major-league debut at Forbes Field on April 22, 1953, at the age of 26. He entered the game in the eighth inning as a pinch-hitter for pitcher Paul La Palme, with the Pirates trailing Jim Hearn and the New York Giants 4-0. In his first at-bat he was hit by a pitch, advanced to third base on two consecutive singles, and scored the Pirates’ first run of the game on an outfield lineout by Ralph Kiner. Bernier made his first major-league hit three days later at Connie Mack Stadium. In the seventh inning he hit a single off Curt Simmons in Pittsburgh’s 7-6 loss to the Phillies.

On May 2 Bernier made headlines in the sports pages by hitting three triples in one game, tying a major-league record that has been frequently tied but never broken. In the game against the Cincinnati Reds at Forbes Field, Bernier hit a triple off Bud Podbielan in the fourth inning, followed by triples off Herm Wehmeier in the sixth and seventh. His line for the game read 4-for-5, with three runs scored and three runs batted in. Of course, he couldn’t keep up that pace and slipped badly, losing his starting position later in the season. His final major-league appearance came at Ebbets Field on September 22, 1953. With the Pirates trailing the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4 in the ninth inning, he entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Dick Smith. Brooklyn pitcher Clem Labine retired him on a grounder to shortstop. Bernier’s major-league career was over at the age of 26. He finished with a batting average of only .213. Although he stole 15 bases, he was caught stealing 14 times.

During the winter of 1953-54, The Sporting News asked baseball writers to rate players on various characteristics. The scribes named Carlos Bernier Pittsburgh’s most temperamental player.12 Events of 1954 served to strengthen that impression.

Bernier was on the Pirates’ spring-training roster in 1954, but was optioned conditionally to Hollywood shortly before Opening Day. He hadn’t been long on the Coast before his temper flared. On April 30 he “staged a stormy scene at San Francisco after being picked off second base and was banished by umpire Cece Carlucci.”13 A more serious incident occurred on June 13 in a game between the Stars and the Los Angeles Angels. While trying to steal second base, Bernier was tagged out by shortstop Bud Hardin, who claimed that Bernier deliberately kicked him in the shins. Bernier accused Hardin of tagging him with more force than necessary. Players from both clubs rushed to the aid of their teammates. With the help of police, the umpires restored order. However, when Bernier returned to the dugout he said something that caused the Angels first baseman to charge him. The melee threatened to escalate until cooler heads prevailed. Numerous fights broke out in the grandstand with participants being ejected. After hearing a report from the umpires, PCL President Pants Rowland fined Bernier $50 and suspended him indefinitely.14

In the first day after his suspension was lifted, Bernier stole three bases. He was back to his own fiery self again. On August 11 in the eighth inning of a game against San Diego, Bernier was called out on strikes by umpire Chris Valenti. Bernier’s temper flared. He bumped the umpire, who ordered him off the field. Bernier then slapped Valenti in the face with his left hand. The arbiter did not retaliate. Jack Phillips rushed over from the on-deck circle and restrained his angry teammate. After the game Bernier sought out Valenti, and with tears streaming down his face apologized for his actions. The two men shook hands.15

The next day Rowland suspended Bernier for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs. Hollywood president Rob Cobb expressed his disappointment over Bernier’s conduct: “I hope Bernier, whom all of us in the front office have repeatedly urged to control his temper, realizes the seriousness of the suspension and that he profits by his mistake. A player of his ability will be mighty hard to replace.”16

A few weeks later it was reported that Bernier had signed a contract to play with the Licey club in the Dominican Republic League, a circuit not affiliated with Organized Baseball. George M. Trautman, president of the National Association, the governing body of the minor leagues, reportedly wired Bernier that he would be placed on the disqualified list, barring him from winter league ball, unless he quit the Licey team immediately.17

Despite Trautman’s warning, Bernier played for Licey. He participated in all five games of the league playoffs. He was tossed out of Game Four after a dispute over a decision by the second-base umpire.18 Bernier appealed to Trautman to lift the ban so he might play ball in his native Puerto Rico this winter. He assured the president that he would behave himself and never again get into arguments with umpires.19 The ban was lifted. In a nonbaseball note, on October 2 Bernier remarried his ex-wife, Emma Betances.

Bernier played winter ball in Puerto Rico, went to spring training with the Pirates, and became a member of perhaps the first black, all-Caribbean outfield on a major-league club when he joined Román Mejías and Roberto Clemente in the Pittsburgh outer garden for a game against the Phillies at Clearwater on March 13, 1955.

Bernier was back in Hollywood for the opening of the 1955 season. In early June Carlos’s mother, 65-year-old Rosario Bernier, came to California from Puerto Rico for a visit with her son. It was her first trip to the United States mainland. Inexplicably, The Sporting News account of her visit focused on Ms. Bernier’s smoking habits rather than on any of the other aspects of her visit that would seem more pertinent.20 Carlos claimed to have turned over a new leaf. He said, “I learn my lesson. I’m a good boy now. I cause nobody no trouble no more.”21 He kept his promise during the 1955 PCL season and led the league in stolen bases. However, he got involved in fisticuffs in a game between Mayaguez and Caguas in Puerto Rico that winter. In a play at the plate Bernier was nearly hit in the head by a throw from Caguas first baseman Vic Power. Bernier claimed Power had deliberately thrown at him. The two got into a fist fight, which escalated into a brawl involving most players from both clubs, as well as many fans, who swarmed the field to join in the melee. Puerto Rico League President Ernesto Juan Fonfrias fined Bernier $100 for his part in the scuffle.22

The 1955 Puerto Rico League All-Star game was played in San Juan’s Estadio Sixto Escobar on December 12. Proceeds from the annual game go to a special fund to buy toys for the poor children of the island. A series of track and field events preceded the 1955 game. Not surprisingly, Carlos Bernier won the 100-meter dash.

Bernier continued to star in the Pacific Coast League for several years, but never made it back to the majors. Perhaps his reputation as a troublemaker deterred the big-league clubs from taking a chance on him. Bernier led the PCL in batting average in 1961, in on-base percentage in 1961 and 1963, in runs scored in 1958, in triples in 1956 and 1958, in walks in 1959 and 1963, in hits in 1958, and in stolen bases in 1955 and 1956. Some of these accomplishments occurred while he was playing for Hollywood, but most came after the club moved to Salt Lake City in 1958. He got off to the best start of his career that first season in Utah, hitting over .400 throughout the spring. He had a streak of hitting safely in 35 consecutive games in April and May. Bernier was selected to play in the Pacific Coast League All-Star game. After the season, the National Association of Baseball Writers named him to their all-Triple-A All-Star team.

Bernier’s numbers declined slightly in 1959, so he was demoted to the Columbus Jets, Pittsburgh’s affiliate in the Triple-A International League. After 35 games in Ohio he was acquired by the Indianapolis Indians, a Philadelphia Phillies affiliate in the same circuit. In May 1961 he was sold to Hawaii, and he was back in the Pacific Coast League. Bernier still couldn’t keep out of trouble. He was fined $100 for threatening and abusive language directed toward umpire Cece Carlucci in a game at Portland on July 3. Otherwise he had a terrific season. He won the PCL batting championship by hitting .351 for the Islanders, the highest batting average of his career. He was selected by National Association of Baseball Writers to the 1961 Class-AAA All-Star team. He followed this up with three more good seasons in the islands, hitting .313, .300, and .294 in 1962, 1963, and 1964, respectively.

In 1965 Bernier plied his trade south of the border, playing for the Reynosa Broncs in the Class-AA Mexican League. In his final season he hit .281 in 87games. He then retired at the age of 38, having played 17 years in the minors, one year in the majors, and probably 19 seasons of winter ball in his native Puerto Rico.

After Bernier retired, he was plagued by financial insecurity and medical and emotional problems.23 He was homeless near the end, and hanged himself in a garage in his hometown of Juana Diaz on April 6, 1989.

Carlos Bernier has not been forgotten. In 2004 he was inducted into the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame. In 2012 the Orlando Cepeda Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research commemorated Bernier’s 85th anniversary with a celebration of his life at Los Autenticos Club in Juana Diaz. More than 130 people attended the event, which featured an exhibition of Bernier memorabilia and photos.24

This biography appeared in “Puerto Rico and Baseball: 60 Biographies” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández.

Notes

1 Steve Treder, “Carlos Bernier,” hardballtimes.com/carlos/bernier, August 25, 2004.

2 Santiago Llorens, “Puerto Rican Playoffs Won by Caguas Club,” The Sporting News, March 17, 1948.

3 Treder.

4 Joe Guzzardi, “Carlos Bernier, More Than a Footnote,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 14, 2013.

5 “Obituaries: Carlos Bernier,” The Sporting News, May 29, 1989.

6 baseball-reference/bullpen/Carlos_Bernier.

7 Ibid.

8 Treder.

9 “First Colonial Suspension,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1948.

10 The Sporting News, August 10, 1949

11 The Sporting News, May 17, 1950.

12 C.C. Johnson Spink, “The Low Down on Majors’ Big Shots,” The Sporting News, January 6, 1954.

13 The Sporting News, May 12, 1954.

14 The Sporting News, June 23, 1954.

15 John B. Old, “Bernier Slaps Ump, Banned for Rest of ’64,” The Sporting News, August 18, 1954.

16 Ibid.

17 “Suspended Bernier Warned Not to Play in Dominican,” The Sporting News, September 1, 1954.

18 Albert Mlagon, “Bernier in New Ump Clash; Heaved in Dominican Game,” The Sporting News, September 8, 1954.

19 Santiago Llorens, “Bernier Asks Lift of Ban; Seeks to Play Winter Ball,” The Sporting News, October 13, 1954.

20 Jeane Hoffman, “Hollywood’s Fiery Bernier Had Cigar-Smoking Mamma,” The Sporting News, June 15, 1955.

21 “Bernier Back as Good Boy,” The Sporting News, April 6, 1955.

22 “Power, Bernier Fined $100 After Puerto Rican Scrap,” The Sporting News, November 23, 1955.

23 Guzzardi

24 Edwin Fernandez-Cruz, “SABR Day 2012 — Puerto Rico,” sabr.org/sabrday/2012/puertorico.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acknowledgments

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

Sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

6 Marshall-Brown interview.

7 Bruce: 26.

8 Riley.

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

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

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

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

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

14 Virtue: 94.

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

16 Riley.

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

18 Lieb.

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

20 Bruce: 115.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

28 Lieb.

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

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

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

32 Lester and Miller: 52.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

42 El Informador, April 11, 1951: 1.

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

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

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

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

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

48 Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: 134.

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

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

51 James.

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

Lawrence Eugene Doby was born on December 13, 1923, in Camden, South Carolina. Larry’s father, David, met his future wife, Etta, while playing baseball on the street in front of her home.3 Biographer Joseph Thomas Moore wrote that the Dobys were “one of the most prosperous Black families in Camden.”4

David Doby was a stable hand, grooming the horses of many wealthy New Jersey families. The marriage, however, was strained because of David’s frequent travel and Etta’s strong attachment to her own mother, leaving young Larry often in the care of his grandmother, Augusta Moore. She recounted how Doby said that Augusta “made me go to church with her all the time. I liked what I heard in the Twenty-Third Psalm and the Ten Commandments. Somehow I got the feeling that the church helped Black people to be themselves. I liked that feeling.”5

When Larry was eight years old, his father died in a tragic accident.6 David had gone fishing on a day off, and he drowned after falling from a boat while fishing on Lake Mohansic, in upstate New York.7 His death began a tumultuous time for Larry, during which he moved frequently and was cared for by his aunt and uncle.8 Four years after his father’s death, Larry and his mother left South Carolina and moved to Paterson, New Jersey.9

It wasn’t easy for Doby in Paterson. “I was lonely living alone,” he said. “But I just kept trying to be me.”10 In Paterson, Doby began following in the footsteps of his father, who had been a semipro ballplayer. He developed his skills playing sandlot baseball close to home, at the Newman Playground and on Twelfth Avenue. Doby lettered in baseball at Paterson Eastside High School, where he was one of about 25 Black students in the school. He won letters in three other sports, a total of 11 in all. Initially, Doby had thoughts of finishing high school and then becoming a physical education teacher or perhaps a coach.11

Doby was more introspective than demonstrative, and his personality could confuse his teammates. As recounted by biographer Moore, high-school teammate Al Kachuadurian never felt he could slap Doby on the back, and thought Doby kept his teammates at a distance.12 “I remember distinctly that if things didn’t go just right, he’d sulk. Deep down, he’s a warm-hearted guy. But you didn’t know if he was sulking at you personally, or whether he was sulking inwardly at himself.”13 Doby, however, later countered that he wasn’t sulking at all but had gotten accustomed to being alone based upon the circumstances in his life.14 In some sense, Doby’s self-reliance may have been mistaken for aloofness.

Even before graduating from high school, Doby began playing second base under the assumed name of Larry Walker in the Negro Leagues for the Newark Eagles.15 He was an immediate star, and team owners offered him $300 to play between high school and college.16 Although statistics from his first season are inexact, Doby believed he had batted around .400 during that summer.17

Doby enrolled at Long Island University. Part of his motivation was to play for renowned basketball coach Clair Bee. Another reason was to be able to visit Helyn Curvy, whom Doby had begun dating at Eastside High School when he was a sophomore.18 Curvy’s father had died, however, and responsibilities for taking care of her siblings prevented Curvy from attending any of Doby’s high-school baseball games.19 “But when I had a game,” Doby recalled, “I’d take her brother George to the game with me, then I’d bring him back to her house.”20

At the time, Doby had concern about being drafted into the military during World War II.21 He made the difficult decision to transfer from Long Island University to Virginia Union College, where he would play basketball for coach Henry Hucles.22 Doby believed he could transfer into an ROTC program there.23 Yet he was drafted into the Navy at the conclusion of the basketball season. The mandated racial segregation of the military at the time left a deep impression on him.24 He was assigned to Camp Robert Smalls, the Black division of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, outside Chicago.25

Due in large part to his outstanding physical condition, Doby was able to become a physical education instructor there.26 He kept his baseball and basketball skills sharp by playing in the afternoons. Doby got to know future NFL Hall of Famer Marion Motley while on his tour of duty.27 Later, while stationed in the Pacific, Doby began what became a lifelong friendship with Washington Senators star Mickey Vernon.28 Vernon wrote to Senators owner Clark Griffith, touting Doby’s playing abilities. After their military service was done, “[Vernon] sent me a gift of some bats when I started the 1946 season with the [Newark] Eagles,” Doby recalled.29 “It was a gift I’ll never forget.”30

In 1945, general manager Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson to a contract to play baseball in Montreal. The move made Doby reconsider his options, as playing baseball in the major leagues now seemed a possibility. “My main thing was to become a teacher and coach,” Doby said. “But when I heard about Jackie, I decided to concentrate on baseball. I forgot about going back to college.”31

Doby was honorably discharged from the military in January 1946. After playing two months of winter ball with the San Juan Senators for $500 a month at the invitation of Monte Irvin, a prewar teammate on the Newark Eagles, Doby subsequently rejoined the Eagles. Being close to home also allowed him to date Helyn again. “She told me if we didn’t get married that year, 1946, to forget it,” Doby said.32 “We got married on August 10, 1946, in Paterson.”33 The night of their wedding, the couple drove to Trenton, where Doby was scheduled to play.34 The game was rained out.35 A few days later, Doby played in a Negro Leagues All-Star game against a team including Josh Gibson.

The Eagles went on to win the Negro Leagues World Series in 1946. Doby batted .272 with one home run in that series against the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. He tagged a runner out at second base for the second out of the ninth inning of the seventh game, and he caught a popup for the final out of the series. “To play the Monarchs in the World Series!” Doby later exclaimed. “They had Satchel Paige and all those guys. That was a great team. To beat those guys, you were in the upper echelon of baseball.”36

With Doby’s notoriety high after the 1946 championship season, Bill Veeck, the owner of the Cleveland Indians, took notice. Veeck, who had long been eager to racially integrate the American League, hatched a plan for Doby to join Cleveland right after the 1947 All-Star break. Doby had played the first half of the season with the Eagles, and he had hit a home run in his final Newark at-bat. The Cleveland team quietly purchased Doby’s contract and brought him to Cleveland. A scoop by local writer Bob Whiting forced the team to move up Doby’s first game from July 10, which was the original intention, to July 5.37

Teammates, however, did not immediately welcome Doby, averting their eyes and not speaking to him as he made his entry to the clubhouse at Comiskey Park to meet with player-manager Lou Boudreau.38 “Shrug it off,” Boudreau reportedly said.39 Still, Doby in 2002 recalled, “I knew it was segregated times, but I had never seen anything like that in athletics. I was embarrassed. It was tough.” As Bill White later noted, Doby had to go to the Chicago clubhouse to get a first baseman’s glove since none of his Cleveland teammates offered him one.40

Pinch-hitting for Bryan Stephens against Earl Harrist of the White Sox, Doby struck out in his first American League at-bat. On July 6, in the second game of that day’s doubleheader, Doby made his only start of the season at first base. He got his first AL hit, a single off Orval Grove in the third inning that also gave him his first RBI.41 During that difficult first season, Doby batted only .156 in 29 games with two RBIs. “It was 11 weeks between the time Jackie Robinson and I came into the majors. I can’t see how things were any different for me than they were for him,” Doby said.42

He had to wait until the start of the 1948 season to win a starting job in Cleveland’s outfield. During his first full season, Doby hit 14 home runs and had 66 RBIs. That fall, Doby became the first Black player to hit a home run in the World Series when he connected off the Boston Braves’ Johnny Sain in Game Four. His blast helped lead Cleveland to a 2-1 win and a lead of three games to one in the Series. A photo taken after the game showing Doby embracing Cleveland pitcher Steve Gromek has become one of the most famous in baseball history, symbolizing an erosion of racial divisions and Doby’s acceptance as a member of his new team.

The 1948 season was the first of 10 consecutive years in which Doby hit at least 14 home runs and drove in at least 50 runs. He was selected to the All-Star team in every year between 1949 and 1955 and finished in the top 10 in the American League MVP voting in 1950 and 1954. Doby’s finest statistical season was 1952, when he led the American League in slugging percentage (.541), home runs (32), and runs scored (104). He hit for the cycle that year against Boston on June 4 at Fenway Park. The last time an American Leaguer accomplished that feat until Mickey Mantle did it in 1957.43

In 1954, Doby was Cleveland’s most dominant offensive player, leading the American League in home runs (32) and runs batted in (126). He also played a stellar center field, committing only two errors in 153 games while finishing second in the league in putouts. Doby’s regular season success that year, like that of many of his teammates, did not extend into the World Series, as he was able to manage only two singles in the four games against the New York Giants. Still, for his regular-season efforts, Doby finished second in the 1954 American League Most Valuable Player award voting to Yogi Berra.

After the 1955 season, during which Doby battled a wrist injury, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for Jim Busby and Chico Carrasquel. At the time, Chicago manager Marty Marion said that Doby’s arrival was “the end of the search for a No. 4 hitter.”44 Marion later said, “This guy used to murder us when we played Cleveland. Last year, I definitely felt that, when we could get him out, we could handle the Indians. But we couldn’t — and the record shows that they had a season break on us, 12-10.”45

Doby immediately delivered with Chicago, hitting 24 home runs and knocking in 102 runs. During a nine-game winning streak in June 1956, Doby hit five home runs, leading White Sox owner Charles Comiskey to remark, “Larry Doby, he’s our guy. You know, when we dealt for Doby, we weren’t worried about Larry. We knew he’d come through.”46

Doby was involved in one of the bigger melees of the 1957 season. In a game on June 12, Art Ditmar of the Yankees threw a pitch inside, causing Doby to fall to his knees. Both benches emptied, and Doby knocked Ditmar down with a punch to his jaw. Doby also got into an on-field fight with Billy Martin after the umpires had restored order. Doby, teammate Walt Dropo, and the Yankees’ Enos Slaughter and Martin were all thrown out of the game. The Yankees, feeling that penalties against their players by the league were unjustified, paid all fines of their players assessed after the incident.47

After his power numbers faded a bit during the 1957 season, Doby was traded to Baltimore that December with Jack Harshman, Russ Heman, and Jim Marshall in return for Tito Francona, Ray Moore, and Billy Goodman. Manager Al Lopez explained the deal, saying, “We wouldn’t start another season with Doby because the fans are down on him.”48 A contemporary article noted that the fans often booed Doby at Comiskey Park, leading to resentment on Doby’s part.49 Doby never played with the Orioles, being traded again before the season began on April 1. This time he went back to the Cleveland Indians along with Don Ferrarese for Dick Williams, Gene Woodling, and Bud Daley.

By then, however, injuries had taken their toll, and Doby was a part-time player. In 1958, he hit 13 home runs and batted in 45 runs in only 89 games. Just before the 1959 season, Doby was traded to the Detroit Tigers for Tito Francona. Finally, on May 13, 1959, he was purchased from Detroit by the Chicago White Sox for $30,000.

Chicago was Doby’s last major-league stop as a player. By then 35 years old, he played in only 21 games, batting .241 with no home runs and only nine runs batted in. His final game in the major leagues was on July 26. Sent down to the White Sox’ San Diego farm team in the Pacific Coast League, Doby fractured an ankle sliding into third base on a triple on August 23.50 Doby finished his American League career with a .283 batting average, 243 doubles, 253 home runs, and 970 RBIs.

In 1960, Doby signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, but because of the lingering effects of his ankle injury, he was released in May without getting into a game. In 1962 he played for the Nagoya Dragons in Japan. He went on to coach with Montreal, Cleveland, and the White Sox.51 He also owned a lounge and a liquor store in Newark, and he worked in the Essex County prosecutor’s office in New Jersey for three years.52

During that time, Doby wrote letters to major-league teams seeking the opportunity to be a major-league manager.53 In 1971, when he was a batting coach for the Montreal Expos, Doby spoke of the possibility of managing in the major leagues in an interview: “The Expos know what I want to do,” he said. “But they want me to work my way up. …They want me to wait. I don’t mind waiting because right now I’m learning. But I can’t wait for the rest of my life.”54  Doby remarked that he enjoyed working with kids in part because he had good training — he had five children of his own.

Doby received the chance to manage in 1978, becoming the second Black manager in major-league history when he took over the White Sox. He succeeded Bob Lemon, who was fired, but took over the Yankees and led them to the pennant. Doby’s time managing was filled with frustration, however, as he had a record of only 37-50 during the portion of the one season in which he managed during his career. Doby cited injuries for the team’s failures, saying, “When you have to use people you hope can play, rather than those you know can play, you are in a bad situation.”55

He also maintained strong feelings about why he had to wait until the age of 53 to receive the Chicago managerial job: “Why did it take this long? You tell me. I don’t mean to sound prejudiced, but you can look at the system and see that, until I was named (to replace Lemon on June 30), there was no Black manager in the major leagues.”56

After the 1978 season, Doby was fired as the team’s manager. “I can’t truly say what kind of manager I was or could’ve been because I didn’t have enough time,” he said.57 “I thought I could have been successful. I thought I had those intangibles.”58

After his managerial career was over, Doby remained active with baseball. He was an administrator for the Former Players Licensing Branch of Major League Baseball, helping to license people or companies that wanted to use players or their trademarks for card shows or speaking engagements.59 In 1995, Doby was named special assistant to American League president Gene Budig, who said at the time, “Few have done more for Major League Baseball than Larry Doby, and we are excited about having him associated with us.”60 Doby later was also named to the Baseball World board.61

In 1997, the Indians retired Doby’s number 14 on the 50th anniversary of his American League debut.62 He became the fifth Cleveland player to be so honored, joining Bob Feller, Earl Averill, Mel Harder, and Lou Boudreau.63 A banner was displayed in left field on July 5, 1997, at Jacobs Field, showing Doby and Jackie Robinson, saying “50 years: 1947-1997.”64 At the ceremony, Hank Aaron said to Doby, “I want to thank you for all that you went through, because if it had not been for you, I wouldn’t have been able to have the career that I had.”65 In 1998, Doby was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.66

Doby’s health plagued him in retirement. He battled a cancerous tumor in 1997 and had to have a kidney removed.67 Helyn, his wife of 55 years, died in 2001 after a six-month battle with cancer.68 Larry Doby died of cancer in Montclair, New Jersey, on June 18, 2003. More than 300 mourners attended his funeral at Trinity Presbyterian Church.69 He is buried in Montclair. He was honored posthumously by appearing on a U.S. postage stamp released in July 2012.70

An updated version of this biography is included in the book “The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions” (SABR, 2019), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin. It also appears in SABR’s “Pitching to the Pennant: The 1954 Cleveland Indians” (University of Nebraska Press, 2014) and “Go-Go To Glory — The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (ACTA, 2009).

Notes

The franchise, one of the National League’s founding clubs, has a complicated record on racial matters. Despite being very early to appreciate the quality of white Cuban players — Armando Marsans, Rafael Almeida, Mike González, and Dolf Luque, all debuted for the club in the 1910s. The team still had not yet fielded a dark-skinned man seven years after Jackie Robinson’s debut. The city’s proximity to the “Border States” — not part of the Confederacy but nevertheless less progressive in racial tolerance — likely played a role. The sport’s laborious march toward integration finally reached the team in 1954, with two Black players on the Opening Day roster.

On April 17, in their third game of the season, the Reds — then known as the Redlegs — officially joined their peers by using Nino Escalera and Chuck Harmon as consecutive pinch-hitters in the seventh inning.1 It was a humble beginning for a franchise that would ultimately feature Hall of Famers Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, and Barry Larkin among its all-time greats.

For Escalera, whose last name translates to “ladder” in Spanish, it was a fitting zenith, given his lengthy voyage through various minor-league levels. The first baseman-outfielder spent just that one season in the majors but played on in Triple-A through 1962. During that time, he became a manager in winter ball in his homeland, Puerto Rico. He then went on to be a noteworthy coach and scout.

Saturnino Escalera was born on November 29, 1929, in Santurce, a section of San Juan, Puerto Rico.2 His father, Antonio Escalera, worked as a master plumber while his mother, Berta Cuadrado, was a homemaker. Saturnino, known affectionally as “Nino,” had nine siblings. One of them, José, also played professional baseball on the island. José and Nino were seldom found without a bat in their hands, though it was rarely a store-bought model — more commonly a broomstick. They played ball with their neighbors on Aponte Street. Nino was his grandfather Florentino’s favorite grandson, so his family also called the youngster “Flor.” He began turning heads in the “Future Stars” league for 12-to-15 year old boys, displaying his talent at first base. He fashioned his fielding after Negro League star Buck Leonard, who played with the Mayagüez Indios (Indians) in 1940-1941, leading the league with a .390 average. The left-handed first basemen also shared a kind demeanor on and off the field.

In 1945, when he was not yet 16 years old, Escalera played for the San José of Río Piedras club of the then-amateur Liga de Béisbol Superior Doble A. His strong performance earned him a spot on the island’s team for the World Amateur Baseball Tournament, held in 1947 in Cartagena, Colombia. Although he had signed a contract with the professional San Juan team, “there was a rule then that you could play amateur ball for two weeks after signing.”3 He was selected as the competition’s most valuable player. Fresh off his graduation from Santurce’s Central High School, Escalera joined the Senadores days shy of his 18th birthday and hit an impressive .337 over 95 at-bats. As an adult, Escalera was 5’10” and weighed 165 pounds, a trim build he kept well into old age.

His performance was noticed by the New York Yankees. They signed Escalera and assigned him to the Class B Bristol Owls of the Colonial League on July 4, 1949. Despite being one of the circuit’s youngest players, the lefty-hitting Escalera dominated the competition with a .368 average, .517 slugging percentage, and ten triples over 129 games across two seasons. He also spent half a year with the Class C Amsterdam Rugmakers, blistering opposing hurlers with a .337 average. He returned to Puerto Rico in the off-season, playing in both the winter league and in exhibition games (“partidos amistosos”). The legendary Francisco “Pancho” Coímbre chose him for a series against the Antillean Brewing (“Cervecería Antillana”) Company squad in the Dominican Republic. With great pride he recalled, “Pancho went to my family’s house and asked my dad for permission … my dad said yes.”4

In early 1951, he reported to the Class A Central League Muskegon Reds, with whom he clubbed 16 home runs and batted .374 (both career bests), before struggling with Class AAA Syracuse of the International League (batting only .236 in 20 games).

Nevertheless, with three strong seasons, things were looking up for Escalera. He was assigned to the Kansas City Blues, the Yankees’ Triple-A team in the American Association. That December, The Sporting News reported that Cincinnati GM Gabe Paul was interested in obtaining both Chuck Harmon and Escalera to be the organization’s first Black players.5 However, in January 1952, Kansas City sold Escalera’s contract to Toledo, a Chicago White Sox affiliate, also in the American Association.

The AA itself faced multiple team relocations in the early ’50s. The Toledo club would move to Charleston, West Virginia, during the 1952 season (the Milwaukee Brewers, displaced by the incoming National League Boston Braves, shifted to Toledo, as did the Sox the following year). While the musical chairs were happening, the Mud Hens sold Escalera’s contract to the Reds on June 16, with an agreement to retain him for the remainder of the season. Escalera slumped to .249/.329/.336 despite playing 148 games.

After the season, he returned to Puerto Rico to prepare for winter ball. He also married his first wife on September 27, Nellie Latorre, with whom he had four children: Adrián Saturnino (known as Nino Jr.), Nereida, Gerardo, and Edgardo.6 The family would typically move to wherever Escalera was playing until the children started school. The companionship helped reduce the loneliness and alleviate the sting of many racially charged incidents. Escalera and his dark-skinned teammates were often denied service at restaurants.

Escalera spent nearly all of the 1953 season in the Double-A Texas League. (He played briefly on option with Indianapolis, a Cleveland Indians farm club, in April.7) He appeared in 133 games with the Tulsa Oilers, producing a .305 batting average and showing a discerning eye at the plate. His 35 strikeouts were dwarfed by his 72 walks. More than 700 miles away, the Cincinnati front office noticed its prospect’s performance and made other plans for the upcoming season.

The Cincinnati franchise was mired in mediocrity. The team’s last winning season had come in 1944, and despite the prowess of sluggers Gus Bell and Ted Kluszewski, its outlook wasn’t bright. As the 1954 season began, excitement grew over Harmon and Escalera. Both had impressed the front office during spring training enough to merit their inclusion on the big-league roster. Escalera closed camp with aplomb on April 11, clubbing a three-run home run against the Detroit Tigers in one of the last exhibition games, to provide the margin of victory in an 8-5 Reds win.8

Eager to prove his worth, Escalera sat on the bench during the team’s first two games, awaiting his chance. His April 17 debut was modest. Down by four runs, the Redlegs sent a trio of pinch-hitters to the plate in the top of the seventh inning, giving all three their season debuts. More than half a century later, the Cincinnati Enquirer would rank the game as the 17th most important in the franchise’s history, yet contemporary reporting stated only “Escalera batted for [Andy] Seminick and singled. Harmon went up for [Corky] Valentine. He popped to Joe] Adcock.”9

Escalera’s subsequent appearances proved sporadic. Blocked by slugger Kluszewski at first and productive outfielders Jim Greengrass and Bell, Escalera sat on the bench for long stretches. His first five appearances — three singles, one walk, one groundout — were all as a pinch hitter. On April 28, starting in right field, he went hitless in three at-bats but managed a sacrifice fly to register his first run batted in. He also reached on an error and stole second base, though he was unable to score. His average had dipped to .190 by May 22, when his name entered the record books in a peculiar, unexpected way.

Modern fans have grown accustomed to defensive shifts dictated by the abundance of advanced analytics. In an earlier era, shifts were typically employed only against big stars like Ted Williams and Stan Musial. Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts, nursing a two-run lead but with the Cardinals’ Red Schoendienst on first and Musial at the plate, lifted starting shortstop Roy McMillan for Escalera. No left-hander had played shortstop in the major leagues since 1905, when Hal Chase took that field position for two games with the American League Highlanders. In the subsequent 66 years, no one has repeated Escalera’s feat.10 Other players have been listed as shortstops in lineups, only to be removed after a plate appearance before taking the field.11

The box score, however, obscures the details behind the move. Escalera’s cleats did not touch the infield dirt. He was stationed not in the traditional shortstop location, but rather as a fourth outfielder, between center fielder Bell and right fielder Wally Post. The peculiar gambit paid off. Musial, perhaps distracted by the defensive alignment, promptly struck out. According to The Sporting News, “umpire Dusty Boggess, working first base, called a halt, thinking the Reds had too many players on the field” before acknowledging that only nine men were present.12 Tebbetts explained that if Musial “should single through our unprotected shortstop position that would be all right,” rather than give the Cardinal great the opportunity to hit for extra bases.13

While Escalera’s career may not have granted him admission into Cooperstown, he played on Doubleday Field on August 9, 1954 as the Reds battled the Yankees in the 13th “Hall of Fame Game.” He doubled in the third inning, advancing Harmon to third base, before they both scored during Cincinnati’s five-run outburst. The Bombers eventually took a 10-9 lead in the final frame; Escalera came to bat with the bases loaded and two outs but struck out to end the game.14 Nevertheless, it was a remarkable achievement. He was the first Puerto Rican to play in the annual exhibition.15

Escalera’s year-end totals of 73 games, 77 plate appearances, 15 runs, 11 hits with a .159 batting average were disappointing. He seldom played in consecutive games and was frustrated by his lack of opportunities. If not on the field, he believed, he should be honing other skills and thus became vocal about suggesting in-game moves. The Reds saw a match for Escalera with Bobby Maduro’s newly relocated Havana Sugar Kings. Maduro dreamed of a possible major league team in Cuba and saw Triple-A success as a preliminary step. Upon purchasing the International League’s Springfield franchise, he moved the club to Havana. Its affiliation with the Washington Senators ended, giving Cincinnati a path to renew its old Cuban connection.

Under the tutelage of Reggie Otero (1955) and Nap Reyes (1956-1958), Escalera played consistently, splitting time between first base and the outfield. He relished the atmosphere — tropical, baseball-mad — and racially integrated, a stark difference from his years in the lower minor leagues.16 Cuba and Puerto Rico were similar environments. His first season, punctuated by a .297 average and 29 doubles, proved to be Escalera’s best, but he was nevertheless a regular for his four campaigns and was an IL All-Star in 1958. His teammates included aging Cuban stars Connie Marrero and Sandy Consuegra (also major-league veterans) and promising youngsters Mike Cuellar and Tony González, who would eventually reach the big show. Escalera mingled with Cuban society, becoming a regular at the landmark “Alí Bar” with singer and owner Benny Moré.

On December 3, 1958, the Reds traded Nino to the Pittsburgh Pirates for fellow Puerto Rican Luis Arroyo. The lefty reliever had spent the year in the minor leagues after playing a few seasons with the parent club. Escalera delivered three solid campaigns for the Columbus Jets of the International League, patrolling the outfield and occasionally manning first base. Off the field, the family rented the second floor of a large house; Díomedes “Guayubín” Olivo occupied another floor. At the conclusion of the 1961 season, Escalera was released by Pittsburgh but received a contract from the Baltimore Orioles. His 1962 year was his last in the minor leagues. A .239 average in 83 games prompted the Rochester Red Wings to move in a different direction after the season ended.

Escalera continued to play winter baseball in Puerto Rico. While active, he also managed San Juan in 1959-1960, leading the club to its best record in two decades and to the championship series. His elevation to skipper was well-received by the fans. They cherished his play for the capital’s long-suffering franchise. Before the season began, a tongue-in-cheek article stated, “I don’t know whether to congratulate you or to offer my condolences for what is in store … the odds are stacked against you, but you can win. And the least we can do is to help you, to return a little bit of what you have given us.”17 After 16 seasons with San Juan from 1947-48 to 1962-63, he spent a final one with Caguas, a club he would later pilot to the league title in the 1967-1968 tournament.

He developed a deep friendship with Roberto Clemente, who had joined the Senadores for the 1959-1960 season, a bond that would last until the “Great One’s” death. His son Adrián reminisced. “Roberto would just drop by and just talk about baseball on the front porch. Once people realized that, there were big traffic jams on the street from people wanting to get a glimpse. They would stay at the stadium after games, going over the plays … whenever Clemente managed in Puerto Rico, he would ask my dad to be one of his coaches.”18 In fact, Clemente accepted the San Juan managerial job for the 1970-1971 season conditionally upon Escalera joining the coaching staff. The latter recalled, “Clemente told me I was the ideal person, given our friendship, to help him. He asked me, as a favor, to help him manage. Although I had already managed San Juan and Caguas, at that time I was distanced from baseball in Puerto Rico. And due to our friendship, I helped him.”19

Escalera currently ranks third in the PRWL’s all-time rankings in hits (1,071) and runs scored (646), seventh in total bases (1,409), fourth in doubles (155, tied with Víctor Pellot, a/k/a Vic Power), and second in triples (66, tied with Luis “Canena” Márquez).20 Beloved by fans, he was honored in a ceremony at Parque Sixto Escobar for his service with the team. A fan-led donation drive paid off his home mortgage. Playing for the franchise, he enjoyed two league titles, 1951-1952 and 1960-1961.

Known as “el caballero de la inicial” (the gentleman of first base) for his even keel and kind temperament, Escalera long believed to have been ejected from only one game in his long career. On January 23, 1962, San Juan was playing Arecibo in a one-game tiebreaker for the final playoff spot. With the score tied 3-3, Clemente hit a grounder up the middle destined for a close play at first. According to Escalera, umpire Mel Steiner signaled an out before the ball reached the base.21

The umpire, engaged in a heated discussion with Senadores skipper Reyes, allegedly told the manager to “go back to Cuba.”22 Ever mindful of racial and ethnic discrimination and unwilling to accept it on his native land, Escalera joined Reyes in pummeling the arbiter, who suffered an injury to his left arm.23 Reyes was fined $100 and suspended for three weeks of the next season while Escalera was punished less harshly. He received a $50 fine and a 10-game suspension. The contest would be the last held in Parque Sixto Escobar before San Juan and Santurce both moved to Hiram Bithorn Stadium, after its construction in 1962.

However, SABR member Tom Van Hyning discovered a prior instance a year earlier. On December 28, 1960, after rounding second after a pinch-hit double, Escalera was thrown out by Frank Howard. Escalera felt he was safe, vehemently arguing his point to umpire Bob Burns, who tossed both the player and third-base coach Félix “Fellé” Delgado.24

Escalera was one of the founding members of Asociación de Peloteros Profesionales de Puerto Rico, the players’ union, much to the chagrin of the team owners. Much like its major-league counterpart, the uneasiness between the two factions led to some participants, including Escalera, being blackballed and passed over for hard-earned opportunities. His son recalls, “My dad lost his job; I had to be pulled from my private school. He purchased a truck and began working at the docks before working up to be a supervisor with Refrescos Fría, a local soft-drink company. He returned to baseball when the owner of the Cataño Double A franchise, Joaquín Martínez Rousset, hired him as the team manager in 1964.”25 He moved to the Guerrilleros (Warriors) of Río Grande in 1965 and piloted the Puerto Rican national team in various amateur competitions.

Al Jackson, who spent several years with the New York Mets, was instrumental in connecting Escalera to the organization. The former Columbus teammates had remained close and Jackson was aware of Escalera’s baseball acumen. Escalera became a scout for the New York Mets organization (1967-1981) and the San Francisco Giants (1981-1983), covering the Caribbean region. He signed Mario Ramírez, Benny Ayala, Ed Figueroa, Jerry Morales, Juan Berenguer, Teodoro (Ted) Martínez, Alex Treviño, José Oquendo, and Al Pedrique.

After his playing career, Escalera divorced Nellie and married Carmen Ivia. Meanwhile, the family continued to produce baseball players. His nephews Rubén Escalera and Alfredo Escalera played across the minor and Caribbean leagues but did not reach the majors. Rubén also managed the Arizona Fall League’s affiliate of the Oakland Athletics and served as a Caribbean scout for the organization.

Although he did not appear on a baseball card, Escalera was part of a limited-edition issue of coins commemorating the first 20 Puerto Rican-born major league players. The set was produced in 2010 to celebrate the Mets-Marlins regular season games at Hiram Bithorn Stadium.

On November 13, 2013, Escalera was recognized as one of the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League’s best 75 players. Eight journalists and the league’s historian, SABR member Jorge Colón Delgado, selected the players to commemorate the circuit’s 75th year.26 Escalera was one of 11 honorees to be in attendance. Previously he was enshrined in the Puerto Rico Baseball Hall of Fame (1992), Río Piedras Sports Hall of Fame (1997), Puerto Rico Sports Hall of Fame (1983) and Santurce Sports Hall of Fame.27

SABR member and Puerto Rican historian Néstor Duprey, who serves as an unofficial historian for the San Juan Senadores, regards Escalera as a “key member of the 1950s club which brought the second title to San Juan … he was the most important native player for the franchise before Clemente arrived in 1960. As a manager, he led the rebuilding Caguas team to the 1968 championship. The club was led by the fourth generation of Puerto Ricans in the big leagues … Eliseo Rodríguez, Guillermo (Willie) Montáñez, Félix Millán, Eduardo Figueroa. Nino was able to draw the best out of this young talent; to me, this was his peak as a professional manager. He was always a gentleman, a smart baseball man with a lot of baseball maturity as both a manager and a player.”28 Among Puerto Rican baseball fans, he is regarded as one of the three best first basemen produced by the island, along with Orlando Cepeda and Power, who enjoyed greater Stateside glory.

On July 3, 2021, Nino Escalera passed away in an assisted living facility. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living major-league baseball player from Puerto Rico.29 Juan Flores Galarza, PRWL President, stated, “We greatly lament the passing of one of the best players our league has ever had. He was good both on and off the field.”30

Acknowledgments

• Luis Rodriguez Mayoral for connecting the author with the Escalera family.
• Diana Escalera for providing information about her brother Nino Escalera.
• José Escalera for providing information about his uncle Nino Escalera.
• Adrián Nino Escalera for providing information about his father Nino Escalera.
• Jossie Alvarado for connecting the author to Néstor Duprey.
• Néstor Duprey and Raúl Ramos for providing information about Nino Escalera.
• Ángel Colón for providing the 2011 SABR Puerto Rico-Orlando Cepeda Chapter publication “Nino Escalera: El Caballero de la Inicial.”
• SABR members Joey Beretta, Bill Deane, William Hickman, and Andrew Milner for providing information on the 1943 and 1951 Hall of Fame games.
• National Baseball Hall of Fame researchers Bruce Markusen and Craig Muder for providing information on the 1951 Hall of Fame game.
• SABR member J.G. Preston for his in-depth article on left-handed third basemen, second basemen, and shortstops.

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello, Bruce Harris, and Jonathan Greenberg and checked for accuracy by SABR’s fact-checking team.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied extensively on Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 “Black Famous Baseball Firsts,” Baseball Almanac, http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first8.shtml.

2 The Sporting News player contract card cites November 29, a fact Escalera confirmed during an interview with Frank Otto on February 1, 1993. However, Escalera noted that the official register shows December 1 owing to a delay in the official registration. 

3 Thomas Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2004), 125.

4 Raúl Ramos, Los Bates Grandes Se Respetan (Self-published book, 2019), 73.

5 “Reds May Take On First Negro Farmhands in ’52,” The Sporting News, December 12, 1951: 18.

6 The Sporting News Player Contract Card.

7 “Inactivity Hurts Tribe Slab Corps,” Indianapolis Star, April 18, 1953: 18.

8 “Exhibition Games: Tigers-Reds Series,” The Sporting News, April 21, 1954: 36.

9 Mark Schmetzer, “Top games in Cincinnati Reds history: No. 17: Nino Escalera and Chuck Harmon integrate team,” Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug 22, 2019, http://cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/reds/2019/08/22/reds-150th-anniversary-nino-escalera-chuck-harmon-debut-dolf-luque-birdie-tebbetts-ted-kluszewski/2087071001/.

10 J.G. Preston, “Left-handed throwing second basemen, shortstops, and third basemen,” The J.G. Preston Experience, June 22, 2013, http://prestonjg.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/left-handed-throwing-second-basemen-shortstops-and-third-basemen/.

11 http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/10835.html.

12 Tom Swope, “Birdie Tries Novel Shift Against Stan—Four Outfielders,” The Sporting News, June 2, 1954: 9.

13 Tom Swope.

14 “1954 Hall of Fame Game,” The National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, http://www.baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/hall-of-fame-game/1954.

15 Although Luis Rodríguez Olmo (1943) played for the Brooklyn Dodgers when the franchise appeared in the Hall of Fame Game, he did not see action in the contest, according to the box score from the July 22, 1943 edition of The Sporting News.

16 John Harris and John Burdbridge, “The Short but Exciting Life of the Havana Sugar Kings,” The National Pastime: Baseball in the Sunshine State, 201, http://www.sabr.org/journal/article/the-short-but-exciting-life-of-the-havana-sugar-kings/.

17 Rafel Pont Flores, “El Deporte en Broma y en Serio: Carta a Nino,” Periódico El Mundo, August 24, 1959: 18. Reprinted in “Nino Escalera: el Caballero de la Inicial,” by the SABR Puerto Rico-Orlando Cepeda Chapter, 2011.

18 Author’s personal telephone interview with Adrián Escalera, December 6, 2020.

19 Néstor R. Duprey Salgado, Clemente: En la víspera de a gloria (Self-published book, 2017), 32.

20 Saturnino “Nino” Escalera statistics and profile, Béisbol101, http://beisbol101.com/saturnino-nino-escalera/.

21 Van Hyning, 64.

22 Van Hyning, 64.

23 “Steiner Tiene Una Lesión en el Hombro,” Periódico El Mundo, January 24, 1962, http://www.facebook.com/groups/ccprsf/permalink/2597585513624740/.

24 Thomas Van Hyning, “Nino Escalera ejected twice (not once) in the Puerto Rico Professional Baseball League,” July 6, 2021, Béisbol101.com, https://www.beisbol101.com/nino-escalera-ejected-twice-not-once-in-the-puerto-rico-professional-baseball-league/.

25 Author’s personal telephone interview with Adrián Escalera.

26 Edna García, “LBPR escoge a los 75 jugadores más destacados,” November 14, 2013, http://www.ligapr.com/lbprc-escoge-a-los-75-jugadores-mas-destacados/.

27 Salón de la Fama del Deporte Riopedrense, http://www.famadeportesrp.org/exaltados/perfiles/1997/saturnino.html, Pabellón de la Fama del Deporte Puertorriqueño, http://www.pabellondelafamadeldeportepr.org/directorio_de_imortales.html.

28 Author’s personal telephone interview with Néstor Duprey, April 7, 2021.

29 Emilio “Millito” Navarro, who died April 30, 2011, at age 105, was the oldest former professional baseball player and last surviving player from the American Negro League, but he did not play Major League Baseball.

30 “La liga invernal de beísbol lamenta muerte de Nino Escalera, primer pelotero negro en jugar con los Reds de Cincinnati,” El Nuevo Día, July 3, 2021, https://www.elnuevodia.com/deportes/beisbol/notas/la-liga-invernal-de-beisbol-lamenta-muerte-de-nino-escalera-primer-pelotero-negro-en-jugar-con-los-reds-de-cincinnati/.

Playing for the Detroit Tigers, he showed that special flair in the second game of a July 4, 1961 doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees and Tigers were locked in a mid-summer battle for first place in the American League. With the bases loaded and two out in the ninth inning of a 2-2 tie, Tiger slugger Rocky Colavito came up. Fernández was on base. “When I was on second,” Chico later said, “I noticed [Yankee right-hander Rollie Sheldon] wasn’t watching the baserunners. So I thought I might have a chance to steal home if I got to third.”1 Chico took off for home as Sheldon delivered. Colavito ducked out of the way as Fernández dove across the plate safely. Chico’s right hand extended toward the plate as catcher John Blanchard made a futile attempt to apply the tag. The Tigers went on to win the game, 4-3 in 10 innings.

While it could be debated whether the strategy was a wise one, all agreed the play was pure Chico. As Fernández himself said after the game, “It’s a good thing I was safe because if I was out, I would probably be back in the minor leagues.”2

Humberto Fernández Perez was born in Havana, Cuba, on March 2, 1932. He lived with his parents and older brother, Sergio, in one room of a house that the family shared with eight other families. There was one bathroom. Humberto’s father was a bricklayer by profession, who had played amateur baseball. At school Fernández became a star shortstop emulating his idol, Negro League star, Silvio Garcia.3

In 1951, at age 19, Fernández was signed by Dodger scout Andy High and assigned to the Class C Billings (Montana) Mustangs in the Pioneer League. In Billings, he got a crash course in cold weather, English, and living on his own. He also acquired a new name, “Chico,” which the Dodgers brass told him would be easier for Americans to pronounce. “Chico” was a common nickname given to Latin players at the time and it is no stretch to see some racism attached to the moniker. “Chico” means “boy,” an offensive slur used against Black men. In fact, during the time Humberto “Chico” Fernández played professionally, there were several other Chico’s in the professional ranks: Chico Carrasquel, Chico Salmon, Chico Ruiz, and even another Chico Fernández, whose real name was Lorenzo.4 As Fernández put it many years later, “They took away my first name and I was afraid they were going to take away my whole name and I wouldn’t know who the hell I was.”5

Whatever the challenges, the young Fernández performed well at Billings, hitting .284 and showing dazzling defensive skills at shortstop. In 1952, Fernández was promoted to the Class B Florida-International circuit where he was the only person of color on a Miami Sun Sox team that won 104 games. Playing in every Sun Sox game, Fernández hit .261, and showed off his base running prowess with 25 stolen bases. He continued to show that he had major league defensive tools, thrilling the fans with “brilliant” plays at shortstop.6 Because of the hardships Fernández faced as the only person of color on this deep South team (he was often forced to eat in the kitchen and room away from his teammates in segregated sections of the town), the Dodgers changed their policy. At season’s end, they ensured that every one of their minor league affiliates had at least two Black players on the roster.7

In 1953, the 21-one-year-old Fernández was promoted to the Dodgers top minor league affiliate, the Montreal Royals of the AAA International League. He was the youngest player on the team. In Montreal, he was paired with fellow Cuban Sandy Amoros. The two became roommates and friends. Whether it was the language barrier or some other cause, Fernández and Amoros apparently had problems with lateness, missing the team’s train and showing up late on a few occasions. Eventually they were fined by manager Walter Alston.8 This was the beginning of ongoing issues Fernández had with most of his managers. As the Royals regular shortstop, Fernández hit .247, while continuing to display excellent defensive skills.

Back in Montreal in 1954, Fernández showed the Dodgers that he was ready for the major leagues. He hit a solid .282 with 44 doubles, while making all the plays at shortstop. He was named to the International League All-Star team. Over the winter, while Fernández played for the Cienfuegos team in Cuba, as he had done every winter since beginning his professional career, the talk around Brooklyn was that Fernández was poised to replace the 36-year-old Dodger captain, shortstop Pee Wee Reese. Several Brooklyn scouts went down to Cuba to see him play. Fernández put on a show with his speed, defense, and bat.9 He was named the number one player on his Cienfuegos team. By January 1955, he had been added to the Dodger roster and invited to spring training.

At the Dodger spring training venue in Miami in 1955, one of the chief topics of conversation was the competition for the shortstop position. Don Zimmer had been the heir apparent for years, but Fernández came into camp with a reputation as a defensive wizard with the potential to win the starting job if he could hit enough. Over the winter, the Dodgers had shown how much they valued Fernández as a prospect. They asked Cleveland general manager Hank Greenberg, who was seeking a trade for the young shortstop, for $200,000 dollars or hot pitching prospect, Herb Score, in exchange. Greenberg turned them down.10 Fernández stayed with the big club through spring training and made the trip north. Unfortunately, he came down with a 100+ degree fever and was put on bed rest. By the time he recovered, he had been optioned on 24-hour recall to Montreal. He remained in the minors for the entire 1955 season.11 Reese remained the Dodger shortstop and Zimmer made the big club as a utility man.

Fernández responded to the demotion by having his finest minor league season to date, batting .301, with 34 doubles in 140 games. He continued to shine at shortstop. But three sterling seasons at Montreal were still not enough to propel Fernández to the Brooklyn roster. In the spring of 1956, his wizardry at shortstop, speed on the bases, and improved hitting were all on display, but he was still unable to dislodge the now 37-year-old Reese from his starting position or win the utility post. A clue to manager Alston’s reluctance to hand the job over to Fernández appeared in the New York Daily News. Sportswriter Dick Young quoted Alston as saying, “If only Fernández had a little of Zimmer’s desire to play ball.”12 This may have been true. It may also have been true that the Dodgers were already carrying six Black players, and even though Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in 1947, major league teams still had an unofficial quota system in place, believing that too many players of color would be bad for business. The demotion so angered Fernández that he threatened to quit and return home to Cuba. According to Chico, “I told (Dodger general manager) Buzzie Bavasi I was going to quit, but he sent Jackie Robinson to talk me out of it. Jackie said, ‘Look Chico, don’t be stupid because Pee Wee has maybe one more year.’”13

Finally, on July 13, 1956, Chico Fernández was called-up to the major leagues. Reese was nursing a sore hamstring and hard luck Don Zimmer had suffered a second beaning and was out indefinitely. Zimmer was first beaned in the minors at St. Paul in 1953; a beaning that had left him semiconscious for 13 days. This second beaning, at the hands of Cincinnati’s Hal Jeffcoat, resulted in a broken cheek. Having Fernández fill in at shortstop allowed Reese to shift to third base, replacing Randy Jackson, while Reese’s hamstring healed. Beyond that Fernández provided infield insurance while Zimmer recovered.

Fernández made his major league debut on July 14, going 0-4 with a walk, in a 3-2 loss at Milwaukee. The next day, Fernández had three singles and scored two runs in the Dodgers 10-8 win over the Cubs in Chicago. His first hit was a second inning infield single to shortstop off right-hander Jim Brosnan. His first stolen base came on July 18 at Cincinnati in a 6-3 win over the Reds. Fernández’s first RBI came one day later when he drove in his former Montreal roommate Amoros during a 7-2 loss to the Reds. On July 22, in the second game of a doubleheader, Fernández demonstrated his excellent bunting skills, successfully executing a suicide squeeze with Amoros scoring from third in a 4-3 Dodger victory over the Cardinals in St. Louis.

After Chico’s brief run of starting activity, Reese returned to shortstop, Jackson returned to third base, and Fernández was relegated to use as a defensive replacement and pinch-runner. He hit his first major league home run, a grand slam off Don Liddle of the Cardinals, at Ebbets Field on August 4 in a 12-4 Dodger win. However, the rest of the Dodger pennant-winning season was pretty quiet for the rookie. Fernández did not appear in the World Series, won by the Yankees in seven games.

Trade rumors swirled around Fernández all through the spring of 1957, but Alston was reluctant to part with the young shortstop unless he could find immediate help for his team. Reese was another year older. While the Dodgers seemed to prefer Zimmer to Fernández as a second option, Zimmer’s health, after two beanings, was in question. On April 5, the Dodgers and Phillies agreed to a trade. The Phils got Fernández, and the Dodgers got reserve outfielder Elmer Valo, $75,000, and four players with little or no major league experience. Phillies manager Mayo Smith proclaimed Fernández his starting shortstop. On Opening Day 1957, Fernández became the first person of color to play for the Phillies, a full 10 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Ironically, Chico took the place of another Black player vying for the shortstop job, John Kennedy. Kennedy became the second player of color to play for the Phillies when he appeared as a pinch-runner six days later.

Fernández began his career in Philadelphia well enough, hitting .262 and solidifying the Phillies infield with consistent and sometimes spectacular defensive play. He did commit a ninth inning error that set up the winning run as the Giants defeated the Phillies, 2-1 in the first game of a doubleheader on April 21. He was also prone to occasional base-running gaffes, but all-in-all it was a successful campaign for the first-time major-league regular. Offensive highlights included: A four-hit game with three RBIs against the Cardinals in St. Louis on June 26, a game-winning three-run double that beat his old Brooklyn Dodger mates 5-3 in the first game of a doubleheader on July 7, three stolen bases versus the Cubs in a 1-0 Phillies win in the opener on July 11, and triples to beat the Dodgers in back-to-back games on September 2 and September 3.

One play early in the season, however, probably did the most to endear Fernández to the Philadelphia faithful. The game was played at Connie Mack Stadium on May 25. It was a Saturday afternoon, before a crowd of 22,414 (6,445 paid) Ladies Day and Knothole Gang fans,14 one of the largest of the season. In the bottom of the fourth inning, with the Pittsburgh Pirates leading 4-3, the Phillies rallied. Right fielder Bob Bowman led off with a single and Fernández, batting eighth, also singled with Bowman going to third. That brought up Phillies pitcher Harvey Haddix and also brought out Pirates manager Bobby Bragan to make a pitching change. Left-hander Bob Smith was brought in to face the lefty-swinging Haddix. Haddix struck out, but Richie Ashburn then singled on a hit-and-run to drive in Bowman, tie the score, and send Fernández flying around to third.

With the feisty Fernández dancing off third, Granny Hamner took a called third strike. Fernández, however, saw that the lefty Smith was paying close attention to the speedy Ashburn at first, but not checking on him at third. Phils slugger Stan Lopata stepped in and as Smith came set, Fernández took off for the plate. The flustered Smith hesitated and threw late to catcher Dick Rand, who could only trap the low pitch and watch as Fernández slid across the plate with the go-ahead run. Home plate umpire Bill Baker flashed the safe sign. Fernández rose, dusted himself off and ran smiling to the home dugout to the waiting congratulations of his teammates and the delighted cheers of the crowd. The unnerved Smith. Lopata slammed one over the left field fence for a two-run homer and the Phillies waltzed to an 8-6 victory. Phillies fans, not used to this exciting brand of play, warmed to their daring new shortstop on the spot and whenever he got on base the stands would fill with the rhythmic chant, “Go, Chico, Go”15

Fernández opened the 1958 season as the unquestioned starter at shortstop for a Phillies team that had exceeded expectations in 1957. They contended for the pennant (they were 12 games over .500 on July 30 and only 3 games behind the league leading Cardinals, before fading in August) and finishing with a .500 record 77-77. But 1958 did not go well for the Phillies or for their flashy shortstop. Fernández slumped at the plate and was hitting only .191 by the All-Star break. His play in the field suffered also, as the Phillies finished last in the league in double plays, much of that laid at Fernández’s feet because of his weak throws to second on the front end of would-be double plays. A managerial change did not help Fernández, either. In July, Eddie Sawyer, former Whiz Kid manager, came out of retirement to replace Mayo Smith, but the team did not improve, finishing 69-85 and last in the eight-team league.

At spring training in 1959. Fernández was still considered the leading contender to be the starting shortstop, even though the Phillies acquired shortstop Joe Koppe from Milwaukee on March 31. Fernández did indeed begin the season as the starting shortstop, but by the end of May with Fernández experiencing fielding problems, Koppe had taken over the position. “The manager didn’t like me,” Fernández later said. “He was prejudiced and so I was benched.”16 As early as May 12, Fernández asked to be traded.17 For his part, Sawyer thought that Chico was playing lackadaisically and earned the benching. Whatever the reason, Fernández virtually disappeared during the latter half of the 1959 season. He did not appear at the plate after June 7 and had only four game appearances (two as a pinch-runner) after June 22. Fans began to ask if he was still on the team. Clearly, the Phillies, or at least Sawyer, had soured on the shortstop. Sawyer said, “He has never shown me he wants to play.”18

Whatever Sawyer’s feelings, there were no shortage of bidders for Fernández’s services. He was finally traded to the Detroit Tigers in December 1959. Cleveland Indian general manager Frank Lane, who was in on the bidding war for Fernández said, “Detroit has made a darn good deal for itself.”19 Detroit manager Jimmy Dykes played down concerns about Fernández’s attitude and said he expected Chico to be his starting shortstop for the 1960 season.20 Perhaps in celebration of his escape from Philadelphia, and perhaps as a harbinger of things to come, Fernández stole home in a December 23 game to bring Almendares a 1-0 win in a Cuban Winter league game.

True to Dykes’ expectations, Fernández did indeed become the starting shortstop for the Tigers for the next three years. As in Philadelphia, he was the first Latin regular position player on the Tigers (Ozzie Virgil had been with the Tigers in 1958 but had only started 47 games at third base). While he started slowly with the bat, Dykes’ patience and confidence in Fernández seemed to have the desired effect. The defensive specialist was often described as a “moody Latin” or “controversial.” But after a few weeks he won over the fans and the newspaper scribes as well, by providing the “best shortstopping they’ve had in years.”21 In May, the Tigers acquired Amoros from the Dodgers to provide Fernández with a roommate and fellow native Spanish speaker. At about the same time, Fernández’s hitting took off. By June, The Sporting News, noting his great crowd appeal, declared Fernández to be “Detroit’s most exciting player.”22 For his part Fernández simply said, “The people in Detroit are nice to me; that is why I hit so well.”23

The era of good feelings did not last long, however. On August 3, the Tigers and Cleveland Indians pulled off one of the more unusual trades in baseball history, swapping managers. Tigers manager Dykes was sent to Cleveland for their manager, Joe Gordon. When Dykes left, Fernández lost his biggest advocate in the Tiger organization. Chico’s hitting fell off in the latter half of the season and eventually he was benched by Gordon. Reports around the Tigers indicated that Fernández was a “disgruntled” player, but Gordon shrugged them off telling reporters that Fernández was “tired” from playing both summer and winter baseball.24 For the season, Fernández hit .241 with 13 stolen bases.

Prior to the 1961 season, Fernández got a break when Gordon quit as Tigers manager, saying the team was “as bad as it is.”25 New manager Bob Scheffing addressed the Fernández controversy by stating he was looking forward to working with Chico, “There’s no reason we shouldn’t get along well,” Scheffing said, noting that he was familiar with Fernández’s talent from his time in the National League.26 The relationship got off to a bumpy start when Fernández was benched for “lackadaisical” play during spring training.27 Then Chico made an error leading to three unearned runs in the Tigers’ Opening Day loss to the Indians. Fernández righted himself, however, with a four-hit game on April 26, which included three RBIs and a double. The hit went off Whitey Ford’s kneecap. Fernández held his starting position on a Detroit team that was exceeding all expectations, their run at the pennant and the mighty Yankees punctuated by Fernández’s daring steal of home on July 4. Eventually the Tigers fell short, finishing second, eight games behind the Yankees, but not until they put up 101 victories, their most wins since 1934. For his part, Fernández hit .248, stole eight bases, and made 11 fewer errors at shortstop.

In late September 1961, the Detroit Free Press reported that the Tigers had had it with Fernández and were seeking a blockbuster trade for Chicago Cubs All-Star shortstop Ernie Banks.28 Despite the rumors and reported lack of confidence, Fernández was the regular shortstop when the Tigers reported to spring training in 1962. Fernández had a terrific spring that had reporters lauding his attitude and fielding prowess. When the regular season started, Chico showed off a side to his game that no one had seen before.

In six seasons in the big leagues, Fernández had never hit more than six home runs in a season and had a grand total of 19 home runs for his career. For some reason he found his power stroke in 1962, slamming homer after homer into the left field stands. The display was so impressive that after he stroked his fourth of the season, a solo shot off Early Wynn of the White Sox, Detroit Free Press reporter Joe Falls started calling him “George Herman Fernández.” Chico joked that he was “just trying to keep up with Rocky,” referring to Colavito, the Tigers vaunted slugger who hit his fourth on the same day.29 By season’s end Chico had more than equaled his prior career total, slugging 20 home runs. He also had 59 RBIs and 10 stolen bases to go with a .249 average. It was Fernández’s finest season in the majors, but the Tigers fell to 85-76 in fourth place.

In the fall of 1962, Fernández accompanied his Tiger teammates on a six-week, 21-game barnstorming trip to Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. Fernández played well in Japan and was the Opening Day shortstop for the Tigers in 1963. He got off to a slow start offensively, however, and the Tigers decided to go with a youth movement, replacing Fernández at short with rising star Dick McAuliffe. On May 9, the other shoe dropped, and Chico was dealt to the New York Mets in a three-way deal with Milwaukee. The headline in the Detroit Free Press read, “Tigers Get Rid of Chico.”30 Fernández had a few starts with the Mets, and hit well, but he had slowed in the field and never established himself in New York. In late July, he was optioned to Seattle in the Pacific Coast League. A September call-up by the Mets would mark the last major league action of Fernández’s career.

Fernández started the 1964 season at the Mets AAA affiliate in Syracuse before being traded to the Chicago White Sox. The Sox assigned him to their AAA team in Indianapolis. Fernández played the 1965 season in Japan, but performed poorly, getting into only 52 games before being released for not hitting. The 1966 season was a marked improvement, as he played in Mexico for the Reynosa Broncos, hitting .326 with 11 home runs. By this time, Fernández was making his year-round home in Detroit. He dropped into the locker room at Tiger Stadium to see his old teammates and brag that in the Mexican League he was batting fourth in the order. He concluded his professional career with two years as a utility infielder at Tacoma, the Chicago Cubs affiliate in the Pacific Coast League.

At home in Detroit, Fernández became a salesman for Metropolitan Life. In 1970 he was also able to reunite with his parents and his brother who had been trapped in Castro’s Cuba. They all moved in with him in a house on Michigan Avenue about a mile from Tiger Stadium. Active in the Latin American Community, Fernández joined the Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development where he supported the development of youth programs. In 1994, he married Lynn Roxbury and moved to Florida. He died there at the age of 84 on May 19, 2016.

Humberto Fernández was a trailblazer as the first player of color on the Philadelphia Phillies. He was also the first Latin regular position player on the Tigers. He recalled his first year in Detroit. He was required to eat in the kitchen of restaurants or live in an old, converted Army barracks outside of Tigertown in Lakeland, Florida. He often was required to room alone on road trips if there were an odd number of players of color on the team. He was justifiably proud of his contributions to opening opportunities for Latin players. He said, “I can tell you I went through some hell, but I just loved baseball.”31

Fernández’s flair and exuberance made him a fan favorite in Philadelphia and Detroit, but he often found himself in the doghouse with management for what they viewed as “moodiness” or lack of desire, or competitiveness. The racism that Fernández faced as a barrier breaker may have spilled over into his managers’ judgment of his attitude.

Whatever his problems with managers, his friend with the Tigers, Rocky Colavito, had a different opinion. “Chico was a damn good player and a good guy,” Colavito told the Detroit Free Press’ Bill Dow. “Who the hell would expect a guy to steal home with the bases loaded, two outs, and the clean-up batter up [at the plate]? He did the unexpected and Chico was no dummy.”32

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Andrew Sharp and Bruce Harris and fact-checked by Alan Cohen.

Notes

1 Joe Trimble, “74,246 See Yankees, Tigers Divide,” New York Daily News, July 5, 1961: 74.

2 Bill Dow, “As First Starting Latino for Tigers, He Blazed Trail,” Detroit Free Press, June 13, 2016: B5.

3 Bill Dow, “Fernandez Paved Way as Tigers’ First Latin Position Player, Detroit Free Press. August 1, 2015, https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2015/08/01/detroit-tigers-chico-fernandez-first-latino-player/31009435/.

4 Anthony Salazar (sabrlatino), SABR Baseball Card Research Committee. “‘Chico’ means little boy, not ballplayer,” February 2, 2017, https://sabrbaseballcards.blog/2017/02/06/chico-means-little-boy-not-ballplayer/.

5 Dow, “As First…”

6 Jimmy Burns, “Negro Players Well-Received in Fla.-Int.” The Sporting News, May 21,1952: 34.

7 “Havana’s F-I Cubans Shift to Key West,” The Sporting News, April 15, 1953: 33.

8 The Sporting News, July 29, 1953: 28.

9 Pedro Galiana, “Fernandez Leading Man in Cuba Show Before Brook Bosses,” The Sporting News, November 10, 1954: 23.

10 Oscar Rule, “From the Rule Book,” The Sporting News, April 27, 1955: 15.

11 Dick Young, “Diamond Dust — Lennon Farmed by Giants,” New York Daily News, April 14, 1955: 194.

12 Dick Young. “Showing of Newcomers May Force Out Shuba,” New York Daily News, March 21, 1956: 25

13 Dow, “Fernandez Paved Way…”

14 Allen Lewis, “Lopata Homers as Phils Beat Pirates, 8-6,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 28, 1957: 61.

15 Dow. “Fernandez Paved Way…”

16 Dow. “Fernandez Paved Way…”

17 Allen Lewis, “Unhappy Chico Asks to Be Traded,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 12, 1959: 34.

18 “Chico Stays in Shape for Winter Ball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 1959: 53.

19 “Phillies Swap Chico to Tigers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 6, 1959: 1

20 ”Phillies Swap…”.

21 Watson Spoelstra, “Dykes Sweet Talk Turns Tigers into Slashing Maulers,” The Sporting News, May 4, 1960: 4.

22 “‘Everybody Nice to Me,’ Chirps Chico Explaining Batting Binge,” The Sporting News, June 29, 1960: 18.

23 “Everybody Nice…”

24 Watson Spoelstra, “Hill Aces, Farm Phenoms Brighten Bengals Future,” The Sporting News, September 14, 1960: 11.

25 Watson Spoelstra, “Heat on DeWitt After Gordon Quits Bengals,” The Sporting News, October 2, 1960: 7.

26 “Restoring ‘Pride of Performance’ Scheffing’s First Tiger Target,” The Sporting News, November 30, 1960: 34.

27 Joe Falls, “Chico Benched as Tigers Win,” Detroit Free Press, March 29, 1961: 29.

28 “Big Off-Season Trade for Shortstop is Brewing,” Detroit Free Press, September 22, 1961: 59.

29 “Bruton giving that Something Extra,” Detroit Free Press, May 23, 1962: 39.

30 “Tigers Get Rid of Chico,” Detroit Free Press, May 10, 1963: 41.

31 Dow, “Fernandez Paved Way…”

32 Dow, “Fernandez Paved Way…”

He’s been termed a “reluctant pioneer.” All Pumpsie Green wanted to do was play professional baseball. He didn’t even aspire to the major leagues at first, and would have been content playing for his hometown Oakland Oaks in the Pacific Coast League. That said, Pumpsie Green took pride in the fact that he helped accomplish the integration of the Boston Red Sox, the last team in the majors to field an African American ballplayer.1

Green did play 13 years of professional baseball, including four seasons in the American League (with the Red Sox) and one in the National League (with the New York Mets). A family man, he lived the rest of his life quietly in El Cerrito, California, not far from where he grew up in Richmond. “We were just an average family living in an apartment,” he said.2

He was born on October 27, 1933, as Elijah Jerry Green Jr. All the standard reference books listed his place of birth as Oakland, but he himself said, “I wasn’t born in Oakland. I was born in Boley, Oklahoma. We was all born in Oklahoma.”3

The elder Elijah Green was reportedly a pretty good athlete, but had a family to care for during the Depression and work took precedence. “He was a farmer,” Green said in a 2009 interview, “We came out here to California when I was eight or nine years old. He worked at the Oakland Army Base.” After the war, Mr. Green worked for the city of Richmond, in the public works department. “He was a garbageman,” Pumpsie explained. Elijah Green’s wife, Gladys, worked mostly as a homemaker before World War II, and during the war as a welder on the docks in Oakland. As the children grew older, she became a nurse in a convalescent home.

The Greens raised five boys, and in 2009, Gladys was still going strong, in very good health at the age of 95. Pumpsie was the oldest, but Cornell Green was the biggest athletic name in the family, as cornerback-safety for the NFL Dallas Cowboys from 1962 to 1974 and a regular Pro Bowler. Credell Green was a running back, an 18th-round Green Bay Packers draft pick in 1957, but never advanced to the big time. Two other brothers, Travis and Eddie Joe, completed the family.

Pumpsie played baseball from grade school on up and became a switch-hitter at an early age. He was 13 when Jackie Robinson broke into the major leagues in 1947, but Brooklyn was a long way from California. The Pacific Coast League integrated in 1948, and, to top it off, the barnstorming Jackie Robinson All-Stars came to Oakland after the ’48 season was over. Pumpsie said, “I scraped up every nickel and dime together I could find. And I was there. I had to see that game…I still remember how exciting it was.” Green was a big Oaks fan, getting to the Emeryville ballpark as often as he could, and listening on the radio when he couldn’t: “I followed a whole bunch of people on that team. It was almost a daily ritual. ….When I got old enough to wish, I wished I could play for the Oakland Oaks.”4 Pumpsie began to model his play after Artie Wilson, the left-handed-hitting shortstop who in 1949 became the first Black player on the Oaks, and led the league both in hitting and stolen bases.

Pumpsie caught and played first base at El Cerrito High under coach Gene Corr.

He was offered a college scholarship but Corr had begun coaching at Contra Costa Junior College and asked Pumpsie to come play shortstop. Pumpsie and his future wife, Marie Presley, met at college, introduced by a friend of Marie’s. She didn’t know he was a ballplayer, didn’t know a thing about him, but a lifelong marriage ensued.

By college, Pumpsie’s favorite player was Lorenzo “Piper” Davis, an outfielder/infielder for the Oaks (1951-55). Davis had himself been the first Black prospect signed by the Boston Red Sox, back in 1950, but been let go without reaching the major leagues, just before the Sox would have had to pay the second part of his bonus.

Pumpsie Green was signed by the Oaks upon graduation in 1953, at the age of 19, but never played for Oakland. There was no bonus, just a salary on the order of $300 or $400 a month. His first assignment was to travel to Washington state, to play for Oakland’s Single-A affiliate, the Wenatchee Chiefs (Western International League). “It was a small town, the apple capital of the world,” he told Herb Crehan with a chuckle. Green got into 88 games and hit .244, playing third base, where he committed an unfortunate 13 errors for a disappointing fielding percentage of .921. Switched to shortstop for 1954, Green batted .297 in a full 135-game season, with a .407 slugging average.

Green played in 1955 for Stockton (Class C, California League), down the ladder for a player who seemed to be on the way up. Green batted .319, with 12 homers, and the Ports made it to the playoffs, losing to Fresno. By this time, he was property of the Boston Red Sox, receiving word in midyear that Boston had purchased his contract and that he was to join the Montgomery Rebels (South Atlantic League). Green is officially listed as signed by scout Charlie Wallgren and farm director Johnny Murphy.

There wouldn’t be too many Black men in 1955 who’d want to go to Alabama and join a team named the Rebels. Pumpsie understood that, perhaps as much as anything, the Red Sox wanted their pitcher there, Earl Wilson, to have a roommate with the same color skin. Pumpsie preferred to stay put. The Ports were in first place, and Pumpsie managed to finish the season with Stockton rather than head to Montgomery. He was the shortstop on that year’s All-Star team and was named the California League’s Most Valuable Player, after which, Green later told Danny Peary, the Red Sox gave him a signing bonus of $3,000 to $4,000 and maintained the $300 to $400-a-month salary, fairly standard for the day.

In 1956 Pumpsie went to Boston’s minor-league camp in Deland, Florida, for spring training, and was placed with the Red Sox Single-A affiliate Albany (New York) Senators for the season, playing in the Eastern League under Warren “Sheriff” Robinson.

He hit .274 with Albany and Red Sox general manager Joe Cronin later said that Sox farm director Johnny Murphy “was very high on Pumpsie and urged his advance in the Boston farm system.”5

In the spring of 1957, Green and young Black pitcher Earl Wilson both trained with the San Francisco Seals, and in a series of three exhibition games in San Francisco between the Red Sox and the Seals, the Boston honchos had a chance to watch them play. Pumpsie was 0-for-7 with an error, hitting into two double plays. Cronin was not impressed with him as a major-league prospect. He spent most of the season playing under “The Sheriff,” now managing the Double-A Oklahoma City Indians (Texas League).

Playing in the Texas League was not without its problems. Texas and Oklahoma weren’t as bad, but one of the league teams was the Shreveport (Louisiana) Sports. “When the team went to Shreveport,” Pumpsie said, “I didn’t go, because they didn’t allow blacks to play in Louisiana. So I had a three- or four-day vacation.”6 Green amassed 519 at-bats in 1957, hitting for a .258 average. Starting on September 9, he was promoted to San Francisco, but appeared in only nine games (and never faced his hometown Oaks). Green was 11-for-33 in PCL play.

His 1957 work was sufficient to help him move up to the new top team in Boston’s minor-league system, the Minneapolis Millers. As of June 1958, every other major-league team had integrated. Green emphasized that he really felt little pressure as he moved up through the Red Sox system. “I was confident because I didn’t skip two or three minor-league levels at a time, but moved up gradually. I always was comfortable because I kept seeing the same players on the way up.”7

Don Buddin’s shortstop play was being mocked in Boston, but most baseball people thought Green remained a year or two away. The Millers played a June 16 exhibition game and beat the Red Sox with Green leading off and going 3-for-5 with a double, a bases-clearing triple in the fifth inning, and—batting left-handed—a single to left field. The Red Sox hadn’t had an “every day” switch-hitter since Jack Rothrock in the early 1930s.

Green hit .253 for the 1958 Millers – essentially the same average as the prior year but at the higher level of play. He showed versatility in playing several positions, infield and outfield, but he still had by no means convinced the Red Sox that he was ready for the majors. Pumpsie batted 5-for-12 to help win the American Association playoffs, with three runs batted in and four runs scored. On September 21, the day after the playoffs, Pumpsie Green was added to the Red Sox’ 40-man roster – a move the Sox were compelled to take rather than risk losing him (he’d now been in their system for four years) in the coming player draft.

That fall, Pumpsie went to Panama to play winter ball with the Azucareros Sugar Kings and the “flashy young Negro shortstop” reeled off a 19-game hitting streak.8 The Azucareros won the league flag, with Pumpsie hitting .356. He led the team in the Caribbean Series, batting .306.

Pumpsie Green signed his 1959 contract in Scottsdale on February 25, suited up in a Red Sox uniform, and immediately took part in his first workout. Roger Birtwell’s Boston Globe story began, “The Boston Red Sox – in spring training, at least – today broke the color line.”9 After the workout, however, Green had to travel alone to the Frontier Motel, in Phoenix, some 17 miles out of town. He’d been turned away at the team hotel, the Safari. “Negroes are not permitted to live in Scottsdale,” Birtwell explained.10

The Red Sox began to dissemble. Publicity director Jack Malaney denied that the reason was racism, trying to convince disbelieving writers that the Safari had simply run out of rooms what with all the tourists in town.

Green lived an isolated existence, separated from his teammates. It was a pathetic situation. Boston Globe writer Milton Gross depicted the imposed isolation: “From night to morning, the first Negro player to be brought to spring training by the Boston Red Sox ceases to be a member of the team he hopes to make as a shortstop.” Segregation, wrote Gross, “comes in a man’s heart, residing there like a burrowing worm. It comes when a man wakes alone, eats alone, goes to the movies every night alone because there’s nothing more for him to do and then, in Pumpsie Green’s own words, ‘I get a sandwich and a glass of milk and a book and I read myself to sleep.’”11

The Giants, integrated since 1949, had their entire team housed in the Adams Hotel in Phoenix, and Pumpsie eventually took a room at the Giants’ hotel. Some of the Boston press came down pretty hard on the Red Sox. Green was becoming a symbol, cast in a role he would never have chosen for himself. As Howard Bryant later observed, “Pumpsie Green was not by nature a trailblazer.”12

Green blazed through early spring training, though his hitting tailed off after the first couple of weeks. He was considered the top rookie in camp, both in a poll of 11 Boston sportswriters and as selected by The Sporting News.13

Manager Mike Higgins’ attitude was unclear. For public consumption, he would tell sportswriter Bob Holbrook that Green was “a fine young ballplayer. He can help us.”14 Columnist Al Hirshberg wrote that Higgins showed no sign of prejudice during spring training in 1959. But this was the same Higgins who, a little earlier in the 1950s, had supposedly told the same Hirshberg, “There’ll be no niggers on this ballclub as long as I have anything to say about it.”15 There was a growing presumption that Pumpsie had made the team. As the spring season evolved, Green’s hitting tailed off and some shortcomings on defense cropped up.

Pumpsie broke camp with the team and played four exhibition dates against the Chicago Cubs in Texas as both teams headed for their respective openers. Green traveled separately. The Cubs had selected hotels that were integrated; the Red Sox had failed to do so – Green’s luggage was transferred to the Cubs plane and he had a Cubs roommate throughout the games – in effect, living with the opposition.

When he was around the Boston ballclub, though, Bill Cunningham wrote, “There is definitely no feeling against Green among the Red Sox. He is not ignored. The other players kid pleasantly with him and he kids back. Furthermore, you need to hear the Green philosophy to realize how foolish any issue making attempts are. …‘I’m no martyr, no flag carrier. I’m just trying to make the ballclub, that’s all. I’m not trying to prove anything but that.’”16

On the date of the final exhibition game, April 7 at Victoria, Texas, to the surprise of many, Pumpsie was optioned to Minneapolis. This action prompted a front-page story in the Boston Globe.

The Red Sox said he needed further seasoning, Higgins declaring that he wasn’t ready for the majors yet. Better that he have a chance to play than sit on the Boston bench. Green agreed with this view, then and later. But the decision to send him back to the minors seemed sudden and unexpected, almost a rude shock to fans back in Boston. Even with his late slump, he still held the fifth highest average on the team during the spring, batting .327 (18-for-55) with four home runs and 10 RBIs.

Harold Kaese kicked off his Globe column the day after the demotion by writing, “The Red Sox won no prizes this spring for the way they treated Pumpsie Green. From a strict baseball point of view they may have been doing the wise thing when they optioned their first Negro player to the Minneapolis farm club yesterday. From every other point of view, they undoubtedly have pulled a colossal boner.”17

The Boston chapter of the NAACP asked the Massachusetts Commission against Discrimination (MCAD) to look into the team’s overall hiring practices. (A spokesman for the ballclub who wisely wished to remain anonymous said that “no Negroes had applied for jobs as groundskeepers or maintenance workers in several years.”)18

Green downplayed the charges of discrimination. Speaking from Minneapolis, he candidly declared, “I want to be judged like any other ballplayer. I don’t want to be a crusader. I just want to play ball.” He added that he was sure the Red Sox would give him another shot.19

The Red Sox tried to defend themselves before the MCAD and in the press, but clumsily. It was a PR nightmare, prompted because of their segregated status. Business manager Dick O’Connell realistically admitted that the team would be accused of racism “until we have a Negro on our roster.”20

On June 12, the MCAD reported that it had unanimously voted to accept a pledge from general manager Bucky Harris that a Red Sox executive would visit Scottsdale to get guarantees of integrated housing for 1960, and that the club would “continue to scout Negro players as in the past,” making scouting records available to the MCAD, and would not discriminate in hiring at Fenway Park. It was a tepid report, but an action that resulted in misleading headlines such as “Red Sox Cleared of Bias Charges.”

After 98 games with the Millers, Green was batting .320 with seven homers and again elected a league All-Star. On July 4, apparently suffering in his personal struggle with alcoholism, Mike Higgins was replaced as Boston’s manager, with Billy Jurges taking over.

Green was finally recalled by the Red Sox and debuted in Chicago on July 21. He came in as a pinch-runner and stayed in the game at shortstop. Boston lost the game (Buddin’s homer was their only run). It was an uneventful debut but press coverage was extremely positive. Several Boston newspapers ran an AP photograph showing Red Sox icon Ted Williams giving Green some pointers on hitting. The Herald ran it on the front page, under a banner eight-column headline: “Green Joins Red Sox in Chicago.” The Globe ran four stories on Green, and one on the game. The paper radiated excitement. One story was headlined “Everyone Pleased Pumpsie Returning.”21

There was a touch of restrained euphoria to the coverage. American League president Joe Cronin, who had been the Red Sox GM just seven months earlier, commented, “I’m happy over Green’s elevation. I hope his play has improved sufficiently so that he can stay up here for a long time. His advance has been part of a long-range program in the Red Sox organization. Through it all, Pumpsie has conducted himself as a very fine young man.”22

After the game, Green was able to stay in the same Chicago hotel as the rest of the team. Sportswriter Bob Holbrook reported that in the lobby, “Players chatted and joked with him and by the time the team boarded a chartered airliner for Kansas City, he was thinking one team is just like another. He had a gin rummy game with Mike Fornieles and cracked a joke now and then.”23 The Red Sox showed some thoughtfulness and made arrangements to fly Marie Green to Boston to join her husband when the team returned home 10 days later. However awkwardly the Red Sox had handled the situation in the spring, here they went the extra mile.

Pumpsie’s first base hit came off Jim Perry in the second game of a July 28 doubleheader in Cleveland. He singled to left field (batting left-handed) and scored his first run, coming home on Pete Runnels’ home run. The day’s first game had seen the debut of Boston’s second Black ballplayer, pitcher Earl Wilson, who threw one inning in relief, retiring all three batters he faced on six pitches.

It could not have been easy being Pumpsie Green in 1959. Lee D. Jenkins, writing in the Chicago Defender after Green’s call-up, lamented the inevitable pressure: “It’s one thing to make a major-league team by sheer talent but to find yourself in a position where you are almost thrust down an unwilling throat makes for a most uncomfortable state. Green was a sensation with the Red Sox during their early spring training but as the season neared the pressure began to tell in his fielding and hitting.”24

On the last day of July, Green had a 3-for-4 day, with a triple, and scored three runs. Usually in the leadoff position, he’d also walked seven times in the seven games in which he’d appeared, and held an on-base percentage of .522 after his first week on the job to go with his .313 average. He’d also laid down two successful sacrifice bunts. Green didn’t commit an error until his 16th game.

After the 13-game road trip, it was time for the Red Sox to return home. “Pumpsie Here Tuesday” blared the full-page headline in the Boston Record. “Green does not consider himself a crusader,” the Globe’s Clif Keane allowed, “merely a ballplayer. He does not sound as if he expected any red carpets rolled out for him. He came here to play ball. And from what he and Wilson have shown since they joined the team they can play baseball.”25

Boston Celtics basketball star Bill Russell was there to greet Pumpsie when he arrived. They’d known each other since high school. Green also took a call in the Red Sox clubhouse from Jackie Robinson.

“Green Stars As Sox Divide” headlined the Herald sports section. Leading off in the bottom of the first, he was “given a nice hand when he first came to bat.”26 He later told Scott Ostler, “On my way up to home plate, the whole stands, blacks and whites, they stand up and gave me a standing ovation. A standing ovation, my first time up! And the umpire said, ‘Good luck, Pumpsie,’ something like that.”27 Pumpsie promptly tripled off the left-field wall, pouring on speed rather than pulling up at second base. He scored on Runnels’ grounder to first. In the seventh, he sacrificed to advance two runners; both scored on Runnels’ single. The Sox never lost the lead and won the first game, 4-1. The Sox lost the second game, 8-6, but Green reached base four times – a single, two walks, and on an error.

Minneapolis manager Gene Mauch predicted great things, saying that Green was “the number one ball player in the American Association, when the Red Sox called him up in July. … He could beat you so many ways … A cinch to make the grade, without any trouble – make it big, too.”28 Green appreciated Mauch, calling him (in 2009) “the best manager I ever played for.”

He said he felt welcomed by the Sox players. “There were a bunch of good guys on the Red Sox,” he said. “Ted Williams – he would talk to you and give you advice on any matter, even things not about baseball. The whole team was one unit when we walked out on the field. They were supportive of me whenever we played a game.”29 In the background, though, pitcher Frank Sullivan said, “There were a lot of teammates that had to give up calling Larry Doby rotten names. That also included some coaches.”30

Bill Monbouquette remembered an incident with coach Del Baker well. “He used the ‘n’ word, and Mike Higgins used the ‘n’ word, and I told them, ‘I don’t want to hear that,’ and then (Baker) started to give me a bunch of crap, and I said, ‘I’m going to tell you something. I’ll knock you right on your ass. I don’t care if you’re the coach or not.’ I said, ‘You don’t do things like that!’”31

Had there ever been a team meeting – perhaps in spring training – where the players were told the team was going to be integrated, and how to handle oneself, perhaps how to handle any newspaper inquiries? Not even close, said Ted Lepcio, “No, just cold turkey.”32

Actions can speak louder than words, and Ted Williams stood head and shoulders above the rest of the ballclub in star power. He set the tone from the beginning, not speaking out but clearly signaling his acceptance of Pumpsie, who became his throwing partner before games. “He asked me to warm up with him the first day I came here, and I’ve been warming up with him ever since.”33 He told Herb Crehan, “He didn’t say anything beyond the invitation to play catch, and it surprised me a little bit. But I understood and appreciated the gesture.”34

Green got into an even 50 games, accumulating 172 at-bats, and hit for a .233 average, which his 29 walks boosted to a .350 on-base percentage. His one home run came off Bob Turley in a rout of the Yankees on September 7. He’d already impressed Casey Stengel, going 4-for-5 in a game back on August 10. His average declined over the months, though, from .313 after he arrived in July, to .250 in August, and just .194 in September. Green ended the season going hitless in his final 24 at-bats.

After the season Pumpsie Green was named second baseman on the 1959 Major League Rookie All-Star team, chosen in balloting by 1.7 million Topps gum customers nationally. “Green’s play fell off during the last two or three weeks of the season because he was a tired player,” Jurges said. “I figured he played 260 games last year, counting the winter league, the American Association, and the big leagues. That’s too much ball for a kid.”35

In 1960, Green played 69 games at second base and 41 games at shortstop. After June 2, he never surpassed .250 at the plate, finishing at .242. He hit three homers and drove in 21 runs, in 260 at-bats spread over 133 games – 110 of which saw him in the field. Mike Higgins returned as manager that July, and made Green the starting shortstop for the last five weeks of the season. He seemed to be improving on defense. After the season, Pumpsie barnstormed with what was meant to be an “all-star troupe” made up of two teams of Negro American and National League ballplayers on a 33-game swing across the South.

Once again, in 1961, Green hit well in spring training, leading the club in hitting with a spectacular .478 average, earning the starting shortstop role at the start of the season. Pumpsie struggled at the plate, failing to get a hit his first 10 times up. Finally, he had a 2-for-5 game on April 22; his second hit was the game-winning homer in the top of the 11th, beating the White Sox, 7-6. His average hovered around .200 almost the entire season, until a 3-for-3 game on August 20 seemed to kick-start things. He wound up getting into 88 games, closing out the 1961 campaign at .260, with six home runs and 27 RBIs.

The biggest headlines Green earned in 1962 were when he and Gene Conley went AWOL, walking off the team bus as it was stuck in heavy New York traffic. It was July 26, and the team had just lost to the Yankees, 13-3, and the players were hot. They thought they might get a drink, and seem to have “done the town in style.” Conley apparently also tried to talk Pumpsie into going to Bethlehem with him “to be nearer to God.” Pumpsie preferred rejoining the team in Washington and turned up a little more than 24 hours later. Conley returned on the 29th.36 Pumpsie appeared in 56 games (fielding in only 23 of them), hitting .231 in 91 at-bats. He drove in 11 runs.

On December 11, 1962, the Red Sox traded Pumpsie and pitcher Tracy Stallard to the New York Mets for infielder Felix Mantilla. The Mets had just completed their first season, finishing in 10th place, 60½ games behind the San Francisco Giants. Unfortunately, Pumpsie didn’t make the Mets in the springtime. Green “reported overweight … a roly-poly 205 … and never could get going.”37 He hit .308 for Buffalo, with 17 homers, before being called up at the tail end of the season. He hit what proved to be his final home run, a two-run job off Ray Culp of the Philadelphia Phillies at the Polo Grounds on September 17. He hit. 278 in just 54 at-bats; the home run was his 13th major-league four-bagger.

In 1964, Pumpsie had “reported trim and ready.” Manager Stengel gave him a shot at third base, but Green had to contend with a lingering hip problem and, in the end, didn’t sufficiently impress. He was again shuffled off to Buffalo before the major-league season began, and this year he dipped to .281 with eight homers. After the season he played winter ball again, with Cinco Estrellas in Nicaragua.

Green hurt his left hip in 1965 spring training and saw only limited action at Buffalo as a pinch-hitter, batting .259 in the season before being released on July 16. Though he signed on with the Syracuse Chiefs, his combined average for the year was .247 and he added only two more RBIs with the Chiefs before leaving the game for good.

After baseball, Green earned a physical-education degree from San Francisco State University and then accepted a position with the Berkeley Unified School District, where he ran the baseball program, coached baseball for 25 years, served as dean of boys for a while, taught mathematics, and did some security work at the school. He finally retired in 1997. Players who came through Berkeley and made it to the majors include Glenn Burke, Ruppert Jones, and Claudell Washington.

After retirement, he took to working out at his local YMCA and doting on his granddaughter, Brittany. Pumpsie and Marie had two children: Jerry, a mechanical engineer for A.C. Transit, and Heidi Keisha, a schoolteacher and principal.

Looking back, Pumpsie was frank about Boston and his time in the major leagues. It was a bit of a mixed blessing of sorts, he told Jon Goode: “Sometimes it would get on my nerves. Sometimes I wonder if I would have even made it to the major leagues if it had not been for this Boston thing. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off it was not for the Boston thing. Things like that you can never answer.”38

Green told Danny Peary, “When I was playing, being the first black on the Red Sox wasn’t nearly as big a source of pride as it would be once I was out of the game. At the time I never put much stock in it, or thought about it. Later I understood my place in history. I don’t know if I would have been better in another organization with more black players. But as it turned out, I became increasingly proud to have been with the Red Sox as their first black.”39

While he acknowledged becoming more comfortable over time with the role he played, Pumpsie told Harvey Frommer several years after speaking to Peary, “There’s really nothing that interesting about me. I am just an everyday person happy with what I did,” adding, “I take a lot of pride in having played for the Red Sox.” He summed up, in his self-effacing fashion, “I would like to be remembered in Red Sox history as just another ballplayer.”40 That was what it was really all about, from the beginning.

His last visit to the Red Sox was in April 2012, when he attended the Fenway Park’s 100th anniversary celebrations. Two days later, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Red Sox game on Jackie Robinson Day.

Pumpsie Green died at San Leandro (California) Hospital on July 17, 2019, at the age of 85. He was survived by his wife of 62 years, Marie, their daughter Heidi, three brothers, and several grandchildren, nieces, nephews. He was preceded in death by his son, Jerry, who passed away in February 2018.

Notes

1 A much more extensive biography of Pumpsie Green, from which this is excerpted, is Bill Nowlin, “Pumpsie Green,” in Bill Nowlin, ed., Pumpsie and Progress – The Red Sox, Race, and Redemption (Burlington, Massachusetts; Rounder Books, 2010), 1-53.

2 Harvey Frommer and Frederick J. Frommer, Growing Up Baseball, an Oral History, quoted on www.redsoxnation.net

3 Pumpsie Green, telephone interview, March 27, 2009. Mayor Joan Matthews of Boley confirmed this on April 16, 2009, and said that one of Green’s uncles still lives in town.

4 Herb Crehan, Red Sox Heroes of Yesteryear (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2005), 121.

5 Hy Hurwitz, “Pumpsie Move Delights Cronin,” Boston Globe, July 23, 1959: 29. The retrospective 1956 Red Sox promotional film The Pride of New England, designed to drum up business for the 1957 season, included some early spring footage of the 1957 San Francisco Seals working out. Pumpsie played part of 1957 with the Seals, though he was known to narrator Curt Gowdy as Jerry Green. Gowdy said in the film, “A bright prospect is Jerry Green, the Eastern League All-Star shortstop for 1956.” There was no mention whatsoever of his race; he was treated in the film as a prospect who hoped to make the big-league team in another year or two.

6 William R. Herzog III, “The Coming of Elijah” in Hodge and Herzog, The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 197. “In other places, I had to live in the Negro area. … After a game I’d walk down the street with the other players and I couldn’t go into a restaurant with them for a cup of coffee and I couldn’t go into the drugstore with them for a soda.” [Arthur Siegel, “Green Walks Lonely Road to Stardom,” Boston Traveler, March 3, 1959] Green continued, “You know what gave me the strength to keep going? The squad. The players. I was just another guy in uniform and they called me Pumpsie or Jerry or they’d kid me and call me Lijah.”

7 Danny Peary, ed., They Played the Game (New York, Hyperion, 1994), 414.

8 Leo J. Eberenz, “Imports Flow at Brisk Rate from States,” The Sporting News, October 29, 1958: 23.

9 Roger Birtwell, “Green Joins Sox,” Boston Globe, February 26, 1959: 23.

10 Birtwell, “Green Joins Sox.”

11 Milton Gross, “Green Now Used to Loneliness,” Boston Globe, March 13, 1959: 14.

12 Howard Bryant, Shut Out (New York: Routledge, 2002), 9.

13 Bob Holbrook, “Pumpsie Swinging Sizzling Stick, Bids for BoSox SS Post,” The Sporting News, April 1, 1959: 23.

14 Bob Holbrook, “Pumpsie’s Chances Good of Staying Up with Sox,” Boston Globe, April 8, 1959: 25.

15 Al Hirshberg, What’s the Matter With the Red Sox? (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973), 143.

16 Bill Cunningham, “Nixon Asks Red Sox for His Release,” Boston Herald, April 4, 1959: 9.

17 Harold Kaese, “Did Sox Give Pumpsie Green Shabby Deal?,” Boston Globe, April 8, 1959: 1.

18 UPI, “Red Sox Release of Green Causes Employment Query,” Chicago Daily Defender, April 13, 1959: 24.

19 Shirley Povich, “This Morning…,” Washington Post, April 16, 1959: D1.

20 UPI, “Red Sox Deny NAACP Charges,” Chicago Daily Defender, April 22, 1959: 23. Green even began to suffer some criticism from Boston’s Black community, finding himself in the middle of a conflict he never wanted: “Green actually has lost a lot of favor with colored fans. After the Red Sox stated Green himself would keep out of the case, the club then had Jerry making all sorts of ‘Uncle Tom’ statements from the South. Green is a young man but he has got to live with his people and share our hurts all his life. He should never oppose the NAACP or any organizations which seek to make his load lighter. A job with the Red Sox is not worth it, Jerry!” [Boston Chronicle, May 2, 1959].

21 Robert A. McLean, “Everyone Pleased Pumpsie Returning,” Boston Globe, July 22, 1929: 25.

22 Hurwitz, “Pumpsie Move Delights Cronin.”

23 Bob Holbrook, “Green Wasn’t Nervous, ‘I Was Just Plain Scared,’,” Boston Globe, July 24, 1959: 23.

24 Lee D. Jenkins, “Controversy Puts Heavy Burden on Pumpsie Green,” Chicago Daily Defender, August 1, 1959: 23.

25 Harold Kaese, “Pumpsie Makes Home Bow Tonight,” Boston Evening Globe, August 4, 1959: 35.

26 Henry A. McKenna, “Green Stars As Sox Divide,” Boston Herald, August 5, 1959: 27, 28.

27 Scott Ostler, “Green looks back on breaking barrier 50 years ago,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 2009. https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Green-looks-back-on-breaking-barrier-50-years-ago-3224458.php. Accessed December 7, 2021.

28 Ed Rumill, “Pumpsie Due for Long Stay With Boston, Says Mauch” Christian Science Monitor, August 18, 1959: 10.

29 Jennifer Latchford and Rod Oreste, Red Sox Legends (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), 78.

30 E-mail correspondence with Frank Sullivan, December 6, 2008.

31 Interview with Bill Monbouquette, April 17, 2009.

32 Interview with Ted Lepcio, April 17, 2009.

33 Ed Linn, Hitter (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 337.

34 Crehan, 125.

35 Bob Addie, “Pilot’s Job ‘Dream Come True’ for Jurges,” The Sporting News, December 16, 1959: 8.

36 For a good summary of the incident, see Hy Hurwitz, “Bosox Bad Boys Pay Plenty for AWOL Spree,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1962: 14.

37 Barney Kremenko, “Hickman Flubs Far-Turn Test; Casey Stymied,” The Sporting News, March 14, 1964: 25.

38 Jon Goode, interview, www.boston.com, October 9, 2004.

39 Peary, 446.

40 Frommer and Frommer.

Young Harmon excelled first in basketball. He helped lead the Washington High School Hatchets to back-to-back Indiana state basketball championships in 1941 and 1942, scoring nine points in the 1941 title game and nine points in the 1942 semifinal game.

Harmon’s basketball skills earned him a scholarship to the University of Toledo, where he was an All-American player. In 1943 Harmon scored six points in the Rockets’ 48-27 loss to St. John’s in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) Finals at Madison Square Garden. Perhaps more significantly, before the title game, Harmon met Babe Ruth and shook the hand of the Sultan of Swat.

But by the end of his freshman year, men of all ages were expected to serve their country, and Harmon left school to serve in the Navy during World War II. Assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago, Harmon joined the black baseball team. He roomed with Larry Doby, who would later be the second African-American to play major-league baseball in the modern era and the first in the American League, signing with the Cleveland Indians in 1947.

Harmon spent the war stateside, and after a three-year hitch, he returned to the University of Toledo to play basketball and baseball.

In the summer of 1947, Harmon needed money to meet college and living expenses. But he also wanted to maintain his NCAA eligibility, so he signed with the Indianapolis Clowns to play baseball under the name “Charlie Fine.” Harmon had grown up watching the Clowns and idolized the team.

“Four games, four days on a bus,” Harmon said about his short stint in the Negro Leagues. “Goose [Tatum, who played with the Harlem Globetrotters] took me under his wing. He liked me because he knew I played basketball. Goose is the one who gave me the (alias) Charlie Fine. That’s the name I played under. Goose didn’t want my college eligibility to be affected.”2

Arriving home from the weekend road trip, Harmon had a telegram from the Toledo athletic director, who had found him a summer job on campus. His Negro League career was over practically before it began. But within a month he was signed to a minor-league contract by the St. Louis Browns (today’s Baltimore Orioles). Assigned to the Browns’ Gloversville-Johnstown team in upstate New York in 1947, he played 54 games in the outfield and batted .270.

Even more important to Harmon than the day he began playing pro ball was the day he met Daurel Pearl Woodley, a student at nearby Syracuse University. On December 29, 1947, they married in Gloversville. “Marrying her,” Harmon said, “was my greatest accomplishment.”3

The couple had three children — Charlene, Chuck Jr., and Cheryl. They were married for 62 years until Pearl passed away from cancer in 2009.

Back in Toledo, Harmon co-captained the university’s basketball team and was the second-leading scorer in the 1947-48 and 1948-49 seasons. Prior to his signing with the Browns, which ended his collegiate baseball eligibility, he also earned three varsity letters in baseball.

In 1948 Harmon played baseball with the independent General Electric team out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, then returned to Gloversville in 1949. Later that summer the Browns sent him to the Olean, New York, team in the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League, where he batted .351 in 31 games. It was the first of five consecutive seasons in the minors that Harmon batted .300-plus. He remained with Olean for the next two seasons. In 1951, he hit .375 while leading the league with 143 RBIs, as the team won the pennant.

Despite his hot hitting, Harmon was not getting the call to the majors, so he also pursued a career in professional basketball. He was one of the final players cut by first-year coach Red Auerbach from the 1951 Boston Celtics. Had he made that team, he would have been one of the first African-Americans in the NBA. He did, however, become the first African-American to coach in integrated professional basketball, leading the Eastern League’s Utica, New York, team as a player/coach.

Harmon returned his focus to baseball in 1952, when he was acquired by the Cincinnati Reds. He spent two more years in the minors, including the 1952 season with the Burlington (Iowa) Flints of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League, batting .319 in 124 games. In 1953, he was promoted to the AA Tulsa Oilers, becoming the first African-American player in the history of the Texas League’s Tulsa franchise, and batted .311 with 83 RBIs, 14 home runs, and 25 stolen bases in 143 games.

That winter, the Reds sent Harmon to Puerto Rico for winter ball, where Harmon was second in the league in hitting, beating out future home-run king Hank Aaron.

This performance was enough to be invited to Cincinnati’s spring training in 1954, and in April Harmon made the Reds’ roster. On April 17, 1954, at Milwaukee’s County Stadium in the top of the seventh inning, manager Birdie Tebbetts needed a pinch-hitter for pitcher Corky Valentine, and Harmon got the call. His first major-league at-bat ended in a popout, but began an era for the Cincinnati Reds. Harmon was the first African-American to play for the Reds. “It was another day at the beach, I guess,” Harmon said. “People ask me the same old thing, ‘Did you think you would make history?’ I tell them when you’re born, you’re history. You don’t realize when you’re actually making history.”4

But he was not the only player to make history for the team that day. Batting just before Harmon in the same game, Nino Escalera, a Puerto Rican of African descent, became the first black player for Cincinnati. When asked who deserved credit for being the first player of color, Harmon said, “I was the first African-American; Nino was the first black. I don’t know what difference it makes, but for history’s sake, they might as well get it right.”5

Also for history’s sake, Harmon followed the advice and example of those who had come before him. Manager Tebbetts counseled him to remain calm if he heard insults from the fans or opposing players: “Walk away; fold your arms. If not, you’ll get beat up and blamed for starting it.”6

On April 25, 1954, two days after his 30th birthday, Harmon got his first hit, a single in the first inning off the Cubs’ Howie Pollet, back home at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. Later in that game he doubled, scored on an error, and walked. For the season, Harmon played three games at first base and 67 games at third base, while batting .238 in 94 games.

His major-league numbers weren’t as good as in the Texas League, but were good enough to return to Cincinnati in 1955. That year he was a true utility player, spending time at first base, third base, and in the outfield. He earned his nickname “The Glove” because he could play any position, and had a special glove for each one.

On July 23, 1955, at the Polo Grounds, Giants pitcher Jim Hearn was two outs away from a no-hitter when Harmon came up to bat in the ninth inning. His single broke up the no-hitter, and Harmon received a death threat in the form of a letter from a New York fan. Nothing came of it, but the incident was indicative of the continuing issues players of color faced. “If you worried about how you were being treated or going to be treated, you don’t need to be there,” Harmon said. “You have to play the game and do all the little extra things. You don’t have time to wonder if someone will look at you cross-eyed or say something to you. It was enough to worry about that baseball coming at you, or someone sliding into you. There were too many other things to worry about.”7

This attitude served him, and other players, well during that time. “If you had put some of the other guys in there, blacks would have never made it to the majors,” said Harmon. “That’s why they took Jackie [Robinson]. Jackie was an officer in the military. He was an All-American at UCLA. That’s why I was picked. I served in the military. I went to college. Playing for Toledo in the NIT, which at the time was the biggest basketball tournament in the country, people knew my name.” He added, “You had people in the stands hollering things at you, but I didn’t pay it any attention. All I wanted to do was hit the ball further. I’d take it out on the ball.”8

And take it out on the ball he did, batting .253 in 1955 with five home runs and 28 RBIs in 96 games.

Harmon began the 1956 season in Cincinnati, but after four unproductive at-bats in 13 games, he was traded to the Cardinals in May. He didn’t fare much better in St. Louis, and after going hitless in 20 games, finished the season in AAA Omaha.

The 1957 season found Harmon again in a Cardinals uniform, but he was traded in May, this time to the Philadelphia Phillies. There he roved the infield and outfield, finishing the year with a .258 batting average. On September 15, 1957, he played his final major-league game at the site of his first, appearing as a pinch-runner at County Stadium and scoring his final run on a double play. When in 1958 he was assigned to the Phillies’ AAA team, the Miami Marlins, his major-league career was finished after four years, 289 games, and a .238 average. Harmon spent the next four years with the Marlins, St. Paul Saints, Charleston Senators, Salt Lake City Bees, and Hawaii Islanders, before retiring from the game in 1961 at the age of 37.

Harmon remained in baseball for a time, working as a scout for the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians, as well as for basketball’s Indiana Pacers. He later worked in sales for MacGregor Sporting Goods, before spending 24 years as the deputy clerk/administrative assistant of the Hamilton County, Ohio, First District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

In 1977, the first of many honors were bestowed upon Harmon when he was inducted into the inaugural class of the University of Toledo Athletic Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995. In 1997, a suburban Cincinnati street was renamed “Chuck Harmon Way.” On March 28, 2003, Harmon threw out the first pitch ever at the new Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. The next year, in honor of the 50th anniversary of his debut with Cincinnati, the Reds held “Chuck Harmon Recognition Night,” where they unveiled a historic plaque in tribute to his achievement. In 2014, he was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Powel Crosley Jr. Award. And in 2015, just before Cincinnati hosted the All-Star Game, a statue of Harmon was installed at the Reds’ urban youth baseball academy in Roselawn, Ohio.

With the passing of Monte Irvin in January 2016, Harmon became the oldest living African-American to play in the major leagues. He was a beloved member of the Cincinnati Reds family and he still attended their games when he could.

“I just wanted to play baseball,” Harmon said. “If the way I conducted myself on the field benefited others who came after me, then it was all worth it.”9

Harmon died at the age of 94 on March 19, 2019.

Sources

Besides the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted the following:

Cava, Pete. “Charles Harmon,” The Encyclopedia of Indiana-Born Major League Baseball Players, http://www.indbaseballhalloffame.org/inductees/inductee-charles-harmon/, accessed February 20, 2017.

“Chuck Harmon,” http://library.cincymuseum.org/aag/bio/harmon.html, accessed February 20, 2017.

Clark, Dave. “Chuck Harmon to Receive Powel Crosley, Jr. Award,” Cincinnati.com, http://www.cincinnati.com/story/redsblog/2014/04/13/chuck-harmon-to-receive-powel-crosley-award/7667759/, accessed February 20, 2017.

Hsu, Spencer S. “Over Generations, Breaking Baseball Barriers,” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/over-generations-breaking-baseball-barriers/2011/06/04/AGK8s6IH_story.html, accessed February 20, 2017.

“IHSAA Boys Basketball State Champions,” Indiana High School Athletic Association, http://www.ihsaa.org/Sports/Boys/Basketball/StateChampions/tabid/124/Default.aspx, accessed February 20, 2017.

“Chuck Harmon’s Lasting Legacy,” Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame & Museum, http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/cin/hof/article.jsp?ymd=20120217&content_id=26729278&fext=.jsp&c_id=cin, accessed February 20, 2017.

“Chuck Harmon,” Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, http://coe.k-state.edu/annex/nlbemuseum/history/players/harmon.html, accessed February 20, 2017.

“Indiana Boys Basketball: Year-by-Year Capsules (1940-49),” Northwest Indiana Times, http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/high-school/indiana/indiana-boys-basketball-year-by-year-capsules/article_f28b5704-03c3-5d4f-b02c-770b15b73da4.html, accessed February 20, 2017.

Petracco, Ben. “Chuck Harmon Statue to be Unveiled at Urban Youth Baseball Academy,” wlwt.com, http://www.wlwt.com/article/chuck-harmon-statue-to-be-unveiled-at-urban-youth-baseball-academy/3555127, accessed February 20, 2017.

Swaine, Rick. Black Stars Who Made Baseball Whole: The Jackie Robinson Generation in the Major Leagues (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2005), 244-245.

Wheeler, Lonnie and Baskin, John. “In the Shadows: Cincinnati’s Black Baseball Players,” Queen City Heritage, Vol. 46, No. 2, Summer 1988.

Notes