Archie Ware

“Couldn’t seem to hit, but could field as sweet as you ever saw.” – Connie Johnson, remembering Archie Ware in 19971

Archie Virgil Ware was born on June 19, 1918, in Greenville, Florida. His father was Virgil Ware, and his mother was Sally Emma Simmons. He attended Elder Jordan Elementary School,2 and his formal education ended after one year at Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg.3

The first evidence of Ware’s playing competitively was in semipro ball with the West Indies Royals in 1940. Although the team was based in Port Antonio, Jamaica, it began its season in Florida in April and traveled extensively through the Midwest. The players were as much known for their clowning as for their ballplaying. Their appearances featured a pregame pepper-ball routine, and between innings King Tut, later to gain fame with the Indianapolis Clowns, entertained the fans. And they won most of their games.

The Royals came out on the short end of a 12-2 decision in Des Moines on June 16. Ware homered in the seventh inning. He also doubled in the game.4 On June 26 they played at Holdredge, Nebraska. Batting leadoff, Ware went 2-for-5 with a pair of triples, scored three runs, and had an RBI as the Royals lost 11-10.5

The team did not conclude its season until November, when it returned to Florida for games in West Palm Beach.

In 1941 Ware went to spring training with the Chicago American Giants and then joined the Kansas City Monarchs second squad. The team was managed by Newt Joseph and barnstormed throughout the Western states. Some players from this team, including infielders Herb Souell and Bonnie Serrell and pitcher Booker McDaniel, went on to later play with the Monarchs in the Negro American League. Ware’s fielding was highly regarded; in one account, he was called the “Negro Hal Chase.”6

On July 25, 1941, in Oroville, California, the  Monarchs’ second team defeated the overmatched Oroville Olives. Ware went 3-for-5 with a double as his team won, 15-5.7 Earlier that month, on a swing through Oregon, the Monarchs defeated the Eugene Athletics, 14-0, and the Hills Creek Hillbillies, 9-4. In the latter game, on July 23, Ware had three hits and two RBIs.8 On August 11 the Monarchs went to Washington state and lost to the Bellingham Bells, 5-4, with Ware getting a single and a double.9

Ware’s full statistics for 1941 are unknown because team stats for the season were not maintained. But toward the end of the season, he was acquired by the Chicago American Giants and played with them on September 3 against the NAL Monarchs. He went 1-for-5 in a 7-5 loss.10

In 1942, the 5-foot-9, 160-pound first baseman joined the Buckeyes, who that season split their time between Cincinnati and Cleveland, and it was with the Buckeyes that the left-handed-throwing and batting player would gain fame.

“Archie Ware, than whom there is none than-whomer at the initial sack” – Cleveland Call and Post, May 30, 194211

The Buckeyes were a new entrant in the league, and in June Ware had a key role in several games. He had three hits and a pair of stolen bases, and handled 18 chances flawlessly at first base  in a 5-3 win over Jacksonville at Idora Park in Youngstown, Ohio, on June 2.12 The next evening, in a game played in Erie, Pennsylvania, he doubled in three runs in the first inning and tripled in a pair in the second inning as the Buckeyes routed Jacksonville, 10-3.13 On June 14, at Cleveland’s League Park, Ware faced Satchel Paige for the first time and had a first-inning single as the Buckeyes won 2-1 in the first game of a doubleheader against the Monarchs. (Cold weather kept the crowd size down to 2,600.)14

The Buckeyes played a key series against the Birmingham Black Barons later in June. They won four of the five games, including the last three. In the three games for which there is detailed information, Ware went 6-for-11 including a home run in the series finale at Canton, Ohio, on June 24, won by the Buckeyes, 7-4.15 By taking this series, the Buckeyes had moved from fifth place to second place, just ahead of the Black Barons, and trailed only the Kansas City Monarchs in the standings. The Buckeyes finished the season in second place.

On August 3 the Buckeyes played against the Newark Eagles in Hartford, Connecticut. Newark’s leadoff batter was a player named Walker, who went 1-for-5 with a bunt single during a third-inning three-run rally. Walker is better known these days as Larry Doby. The Eagles beat the Buckeyes, 5-2. Ware went 1-for-3 with a seventh-inning single.16 Doby was playing under an alias to protect his amateur status. He had completed high school that spring and would enter college that fall.

At 3:30 A.M. on Labor Day, as the team was traveling from Buffalo, New York, to Akron, Ohio, one of the cars in the team caravan was involved in a major collision in Geneva, Ohio. Ware was in another car. Catcher Joe “Buster” Brown and pitcher Raymond “Smoky” Owens were killed, Pitchers Eugene Bremer, Herman “Lefty” Watts, and Alonzo Boone were injured, as was team business manager Wilbur Hayes.17

The Buckeyes went 50-27-2 in their inaugural season in the NAL, finishing second to the Kansas City Monarchs. Ware batted .270 with 3 home runs and 41 RBIs.18

In 1943, the Buckeyes called Cleveland home for the entire season. They won nine of their first 11 games, and Ware got off to a good start. On May 17, he contributed three hits as the Buckeyes defeated Memphis, 13-6.19 On May 21, in a game played at Little Rock, he went 6-for-6 in another win against Memphis, this time by a 12-6 margin. At Buffalo on June 2, the Buckeyes defeated the Indianapolis Clowns, 11-0, with Ware adding another three hits to his season’s total.20 In a showdown with the Kansas City Monarchs, Ware’s double was the key hit in a three-run ninth-inning rally as the Buckeyes came from behind to win, 6-5.21 Despite this great early showing, the Buckeyes were caught by the Birmingham Black Barons down the stretch and Birmingham won the first-half championship.

Ware served as team captain during the season, and he filled in as manager when Parnell Woods was not available. In the balloting for the annual East-West Game, Ware was so well regarded by the fans that he finished second to Buck O’Neil.

In the second half of the 1943 season, Ware was managing on August 1 when the Buckeyes swept a doubleheader from the Memphis Red Sox. In the opener, Ware had two doubles as the Buckeyes won, 7-1.22 However, the remainder of the season was a disappointment, and Cleveland was not in the running as Chicago won the second-half championship. For the season, Ware batted .276 and had 6 doubles.23

In 1944, Ware was named to the West team for the annual East-West Game that matched the best players in the Negro American League with their counterparts in the Negro National League. The game took place on August 13, and the West prevailed, 7-4, in front of an estimated 50,000 fans. Five runs in the fifth inning proved decisive. Ware doubled in the inning, scoring Bonnie Serrell with the team’s fifth run of the game. Ware scored on a homer by Ted “Double-Duty” Radcliffe. The Buckeyes finished each half of the season in third place and their record was just above .500 (59-56-1 per Seamheads). Ware’s offensive numbers were down from the prior season.24

In 1945, Ware and the Buckeyes climbed the heights and won the Negro League World Series. Ware batted .280 (according to Seamheads) in 19 games for which they have information. Per contemporary sources, he batted .296, and was among the league leaders in RBIs, posting 39 in 56 games.25 Ware was not known for his power (he had less than 10 documented Negro League home runs), and extra-base hits were a rarity for him. A timely single drove in the winning run in the 10th inning on May 30 in the second game of a doubleheader at Cleveland’s League Park against Memphis.26

Ware once again played in the East-West Game, on July 29 in front of 31,714 fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago. He went 2-for-4 with three RBIs. In the second inning, his two-run single put the West in front, 2-0. In the third, as the West broke the game open, Ware drove in Alex Radcliff with a single and then scored his team’s seventh run on a single by Jesse Williams. After building up a 9-0 lead, the West hung on to win, 9-6. With two outs in the ninth inning and Willie Wells on second base, Rogelio Linares hit a groundball to shortstop Jackie Robinson, who fielded the ball and threw to Ware for the game’s final out.

Cleveland won the NAL championship in each half of the season and went to the Negro World Series without having to win a playoff. Media attention was significant for the Negro World Series as the Buckeyes faced the Homestead Grays, the perennial Negro National League champions, who had won the prior two Series. Like Cleveland, Homestead had topped its league in each half of the 1945 season.

The first three games went to the Buckeyes, with Ware contributing a single during an eighth-inning rally that propelled Cleveland to a 2-1 win in Game One.27 On September 20, the Buckeyes defeated the Grays, 5-0, to clinch the championship in four straight games. Ware walked and scored in the first inning and singled and was left stranded in the third inning. His fielding was flawless. He had 18 putouts in the game.28

Although they had won the Series, the Buckeyes were not finished with the Grays as they played an exhibition doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on September 23. The Grays got a measure of revenge, sweeping Cleveland by identical scores of 7-1.29

After the season, Ware participated in the North-South game on October 7, playing for the South team. He went 0-for-4 as the South lost 7-1.

Ware returned to the Buckeyes in 1946 and batted .282.30 Once again an All-Star, he appeared in the two East-West games played in 1946, going hitless in six at-bats as teams split the two games, one in Washington and the other in Chicago.

The Buckeyes did not fare as well as they had done in the prior season. They finished third with a league record of 37-35-3. In an interleague matchup against the Philadelphia Stars on September 5, Ware had his best game of the season, going 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles in a 10-8 Buckeyes win in the second game of a doubleheader at Shibe Park.

The 1947 season was Ware’s best so far at the plate. According to the Howe News Bureau, he batted .349 in 73 games and led the league with 99 hits. The Buckeyes won the NAL pennant and faced the New York Cubans in the Negro League World Series. In an exhibition on August 31, before the Series, Ware’s hitting played a role as the Buckeyes defeated the Cubans, 9-7, at the Polo Grounds. He singled home a pair of runs in the fourth inning, and his sixth-inning solo homer capped a four-run rally.31 The homer was his third of the season.

The Cubans won the Negro League World Series in six games. The first game was played on September 19 at the Polo Grounds. The game was tied after six innings, and Ware, with Al Smith on first base, came to bat with two out in the top of the seventh. He hit a grounder that went between the legs of shortstop Silvio Garcia. Smith raced around the bases, and the Buckeyes had a 6-5 lead. Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, the rains came, the umpires stopped the game, the score reverted to 5-5, and the game was ruled a tie.32

On September 21, at Yankee Stadium, Ware had two hits as the Buckeyes won. He also laid down a sacrifice bunt. With the score tied 7-7 in the ninth inning, he led off with an infield hit. The Buckeyes loaded the bases, but Ware was forced at home. Another out followed, and Al Smith came up with the bases loaded. Smith’s single scored two runners, and the Buckeyes added one more to win, 10-7.33

On September 23 in Cleveland, the Cubans won, 6-0, and on September 24, in Game Four at Shibe Park, Ware went 1-for-4 with a run scored and two RBIs in a 9-4 Buckeyes loss. Wins in the remaining two games, at Chicago and Cleveland, gave the Cubans the championship. For the Series, Ware batted .263 (5-for-19) with 4 RBIs.

After the Series Ware played winter ball for the first time, for Magallanes in the 1947-48 Caracas Winter League.34

In 1948, the Buckeyes finished in third place and Ware again had a good season at the plate. He duplicated his .349 batting average from the prior season, this time with 107 hits in 77 games. He tied for the league lead with 23 doubles. It was a season of streaks for the Buckeyes. They got off to a terrible start and by the end of May had won only five games while losing 17. From May 16 through May 26, they did not win a game, losing 10 and tying one.

Then they turned things around. Ware had several multihit games. Against the Monarchs in Youngstown, Ohio, on June 14, he was 2-for-4 with a double and drove in a pair of runs as the Buckeyes won, 9-5 with Eugene Smith getting the win. It was the Buckeyes’ 17th win in 18 games. On June 27 against the Monarchs in the first game of a doubleheader, Ware sacrificed in the first, reached base on an error and stole a base in the second, walked in the third, and singled home two runs in the fourth as the Buckeyes won, 14-7 behind Sam Jones. But the early season losses had put the team in too big a hole.

Ware’s stats fell off in 1949 as the Buckeyes, in the reconstructed 10-team Negro American League, split the season between Louisville, where they began the season, and Cleveland, to which they returned in early July. Prior to the season, the Louisville Courier-Journal referred to Ware as “Mr. First.”35 His batting average slipped to .223 in 78 games. Coverage in the media was scant in 1949. In late August, the Buckeyes played the American Giants in Winona, Minnesota. Ware went 2-for-5 with a stolen base and handled 15 chances flawlessly at first base, but the Buckeyes lost, 11-10 in 11 innings.36

The regular season ended on Labor Day, September 5, but play continued for the Negro League teams in exhibition series. In one series, between Kansas City and Indianapolis, Ware played with the Indianapolis Clowns. His previously dormant bat came alive shortly after he joined the Clowns. On September 11, in a doubleheader against the Monarchs, he went 3-for-6. The Clowns won the opener but lost the second game.37 In the offseason, Ware was officially traded to the Clowns for Leonard Pigg, who had led the league in batting in 1949.38 Ware replaced part-time player and full-time clown Reece “Goose” Tatum, who missed several games at the end of the 1949 season and left baseball to play full-time with the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.

In October 1949 Ware barnstormed with Satchel Paige and members of the Kansas City Royals. On October 30 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, against Bob Lemon’s All-Stars, Ware’s seventh-inning single was the only hit off Lemon as the Royals lost, 1-0. Mike Garcia finished on the mound for Lemon’s team, replacing Lemon in the eighth inning. Pitching for the Royals was National League Rookie of the Year Don Newcombe, who matched Lemon for the game’s first seven innings. Gentry Jessup, pitching in relief of Newcombe, yielded an eighth-inning home run to Vern Stephens for the game’s only run.39

During the winter after the 1949 season, Ware played in the Panama Professional League.40 He was with the Spur Cola Colonites and was batting .310 (second best in the league) through 31 games.41 He got off to a great start, getting the team’s first hit and scoring their first run on  November 15 in a 2-1 win over Chesterfield.42 After the conclusion of the Panama League season, Ware was named to an all-star team that played a series of games against all-stars from the Canal Zone League.43

Ware batted .277 with the 1950 Clowns, who finished the season in first place in the NAL’s Eastern Division. Although there was no formal postseason series, the Clowns and the Western Division champion Kansas City Monarchs barnstormed in the weeks after the season ended the day after Labor Day, and Archie Ware played his last Negro League games. In his last official game, he went 1-for-6 and scored a run as the Clowns defeated the Monarchs, 6-2 in 12 innings, at Jefferson City, Missouri, on September 5.44 Kansas City won most of the games during the postseason barnstorming trip.

Ware once again wintered with the Spur Cola Colonites. Before the 1951 season, his contract was sold to Farnham of the Class-C Provincial League. In his first year of Organized Baseball, he batted .257 with a career-high 6 home runs in 122 games. Farnham was managed by Sam Bankhead, and its lineup included many former Negro League players. The team went 52-71, finishing in seventh place.

Ware returned to Panama once again, but he was batting only .204 for a team that went winless in his first 11 games, and he was sent home.45 He was 33 years old and played only one more season. In 1952, with Lewiston of the Class-A Western International League, he played in 15 games and batted .286.

Ware’s first marriage was to Rebecca Canty on March 24, 1937. He married Fannie L. Lane on March 14, 1949. They had two children, Belinda, born in 1962, and Archie, Jr., born in 1966.

When he completed a questionnaire for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, Ware noted that he had crossed paths and learned much from great Black players such as Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, and Satchel Paige, each of whom was enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Toward the end of his time in baseball, he saw budding stars like Buckeyes teammates Sam Jethroe, Sam Jones, and Al Smith, as well as Birmingham’s Willie Mays, Kansas City’s Ernie Banks and Jackie Robinson, and Newark’s Larry Doby.

Appearing at an old-timers event in Kansas City in 1984, Ware remembered the early days of integration: “After Jackie (Robinson) left for the majors, we all thought about getting in. Everybody could have played in the majors, there was no secret about that.”46 Unfortunately for Ware and most of the other Negro League players, they did not get the richly deserved opportunity to display their talents to the larger audiences.

After his baseball career, Ware worked as a material surface inspector for North American Rockwell Corporation.

He died on December 13, 1990, in Los Angeles and is buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, Seamheads.com, Retrosheet.org, and the Center for Negro Leagues Baseball Research website.

Seamheads uses statistics only from games for which it has box scores. Howe used more games, but not all of the scorecards and/or box scores it used were from newspaper accounts.

Howe started doing NAL stats in 1944. It stopped doing the stats in 1960 and went out of business not long thereafter. Nobody has been able to track down its records. Its year-end totals for each season (as published in the Black weeklies) are on Leyton Revel’s website (Center for Negro League Baseball Research).

Photo credit: Archie Ware, Muncie Star-Press, 1945.

Notes

1 Matthew Schofield, “Holding on to History,” Kansas City Star, May 29, 1997: S-3.   

2 Gwendolyn Reese, “I AM: Black Education in Early St. Pete,” Weekly Challenge (St. Petersburg, Florida), March 22, 2018. Jordan Elementary School had opened in 1925, and Ware was likely one of the first students at the school.

3 Archie Ware’s personal information is included in a questionnaire on file at the National Baseball Museum and Research Center in Cooperstown, New York.

4 “Demons Trip Royals, 12-2,” Des Moines Register, June 17, 1940: 7.

5 “Holdredge Stops Winning Streak of Colored Boys,” Holdredge (Nebraska) Progress, June 28, 1940: 1.

6 “Fliers on Road: Whiskerinos Play Negro Monarchs Mon.,” Stockton (California) Record, August 2, 1941: 12.

7 “Champ Negro Nine Wallops Locals 15-5,” Oroville (California) Mercury Register, July 26, 1941: 6.

8 “‘Billies Lose to Monarchs,” Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guard, July 24, 1941: 2.

9 “Bells Hit Homers to Defeat Negroes,” Bellingham (Washington) Herald, August 12, 1941: 9.

10 “Satchel Paige and Monarchs Defeat Chicago Giants, 7-5,” Illinois State Journal (Springfield, Illinois), September 4, 1941: 15.

11 G. Porter, “Bucks Trounce Red Caps 13-5, 3-0: Open Here Sunday,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 30, 1942: 10.

12 “Buckeyes Win, 5-3, in American Loop,” Erie (Pennsylvania) Daily Times, June 3, 1942: 16.

13 Joe Williams, “Buckeyes Cop 10 to 3 Over Jacksonville,” Erie Daily Times, June 4, 1942: 24.

14 “Only 2600 See Bremer Beat ‘Satchel,’: Gives Four Hits,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 20, 1942: 10.

15 “Cincinnati Buckeyes Take Series from Birmingham,” Jackson (Mississippi) Advocate, July 11, 1942: 6.

16 “Newark Eagle Beat Buckeyes by 5-3 Margin,” Hartford Courant, August 4, 1942: 15.

17 “Buckeyes Players Die in Crash,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 12, 1942: 1.

18 Batting average per Seamheads. Retrosheet figures, adjusted for Seamheads game log information used for home runs and RBIs.

19 “Buckeyes Win Another,” St. Louis Argus, May 21, 1943: 10.

20 “Buckeyes’ Smith Shuts out Clowns with One Hit, 11-0,” Buffalo News, June 3, 1943: 26.

21 “Buckeyes’ Rally Defeats Negro Champions, 6-5,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, June 9, 1943: 21.

22 “Cleveland in N.A.L. Second Half Title Race,” St. Louis Argus, August 6, 1943: 10.

23 Statistics from Seamheads. Seamheads had box scores for only 38 games in which Ware played in 1943. The Buckeyes played approximately 95 League games that season. There are no other statistics available for 1943.

24 Negro League statistics are, 80 years after the fact, still in a state of flux. The accepted contemporary source was the Howe News Bureau, which started providing Negro American League statistics in 1943. According to Howe, Ware batted .267 in 71 games with 7 doubles and 4 triples. Seamheads, which uses statistics only from games for which there are box scores, has Ware with a batting average of.174 in 24 games and is thus incomplete. According to Retrosheet, Ware’s only homer in 1944 came at Buffalo on July 12 in an 8-1 win over Memphis.

25 Howe News Bureau.

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

27 “Buckeyes Threaten Rout of Long-Time Champions,” Washington Afro-American, September 22, 1945: 30.

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

29 “Grays Snatch 2 Games from Clevelanders,” New York Amsterdam News, September 29, 1945: 22.

30 According to Howe News Bureau statistics in the Philadelphia Tribune, September 3, 1946: 11.

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

32 “Cubans’ Rally Ties Buckeyes,” Chicago Defender, September 27, 1947: 20.

33 “Bucks Stage 3-Run Rally,” Chicago Defender, September 27, 1947: 20.

34 “Rogovin Beats Jail Rap, Also Rivals,” The Sporting News, December 3, 1947: 22.

35 “Buckeyes Open Season Today at Parkway,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 1, 1949: 2-5.

36 “Giants Nose Buckeyes, 11 to 10,” Winona (Minnesota) Republican-Journal, September 1, 1949: 17.

37 “Goose Again Fails to Show,” Omaha Evening World-Herald, September 12, 1949: 19.

38 John E. Fuster, “Cleveland Buckeyes Trade Veteran Archie Ware for Batting Champion,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 25, 1950: 3-B.

39 “Lemon Halts Royal Nine on One Hit, 1-0,” Los Angeles Times, October 31, 1949: IV-3.

40 “Archie Ware Leads Clowns to NAL First Half Pennant,” Atlanta Daily World, July 7, 1950: 7.

41 “Panama League Has New Leader,” The Sporting News, January 25, 1950: 24.

42 L.J. Eberenz, “Overflow Crowd of 13,452 Witnesses Panama Opener,” The Sporting News, November 23, 1949: 18.

43 “Panama,” The Sporting News, February 22, 1950: 30.

44 “Four-Run Rally Hands 6-3 Win to Indianapolis,” Jefferson City (Missouri) Post-Tribune, September 6, 1950: 9.

45 Eberenz, “Spur Cola Finds Range After 11 Losses in Row,” The Sporting News, January 16, 1952: 21.

46 Milton Edwards, “Monarchs Old-Timers Play Ball in Exhibition Game at Paige Stadium,” Kansas City (Missouri) Call, September 14, 1984: 13-14.