Bill Evans

“Up on the bank, back to the fence, and then almost to the infield sprinted the cyclonic human to capture torrid drives.”1 – from Dayton Herald, June 29, 1926, in a story of the fielding exploits of “‘Hawk’ Evans, One of Robin Hood’s distant kin.”

This is the story of a man whose agility and glove set him apart from other Negro League players.

William Demont Evans II grew up in Louisville, Kentucky where he was born on March 30, 1899. His lineage traces back to March 1838 when his paternal grandfather Addison Evans, a janitor, was born. His paternal grandmother Sarah Frances Hampton Evans, a housekeeper, was born in 1852 and they were married on November 17, 1870. They had four children: Minnie, William, Lewis, and Ernest. Addison died on May 19, 1912, and Sarah died on July 22, 1932, when her grandson, after his glory years with the Homestead Grays, was playing with the Washington Pilots.

Bill Evans’ maternal grandmother, Rachael Ann Hicks, was also born in 1838, as a slave in Culpeper, Virginia. She was freed in 1857, at which time she and her husband moved to Louisville.

Bill Evans’ parents were William Demont Evans (born on September 12, 1873), who, for a time, worked in a jewelry shop, and Lizzie B. Hicks (born in April 1877), a music teacher. His parents were married on August 17, 1895, and also had a daughter J. Gladys, who was born in 1905. William and Lizzie separated when Bill, Jr. was a child, and Lizzie married Basil L. Pierce on November 10, 1915. Bill Sr. went into show business as a dancer and partnered with blues singer Lillyn Brown in vaudeville. Bill and Lillyn married, and Lillyn became stepmother to Bill’s two children.

Bill Evans, the ballplayer, attended Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina where he pitched in 1917 and 1918, and, during the summer of 1917, pitched for the Salisbury semipro team to help pay for tuition.

In the summer of 1918, he went to Atlantic City, New Jersey to play ball and work. On the ballfield, he got to play against the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, featuring Dick Lundy at shortstop. When he registered for the draft on September 12, 1918, towards the end of World War I, he was working as a laborer for the Bethlehem Loading Company in Atlantic City.

His next experience in baseball was with the Louisville White Sox, a team that he had seen play when he was a schoolboy, as his father had been friendly with the manager, Ed Lancaster. Evans played for Louisville in 1919 and 1920 and it was during this time he first encountered Oscar Charleston, who was then playing with the Indianapolis ABC’s. They became lifelong friends.

There is not much documentation of his time in 1920. It appears Evans began the season with Louisville but may have joined the Robert Gilkerson’s Union Giants during that summer. A player named Evans first was shown to have appeared for the Union Giants on July 2, 1920. The center fielder threw in the ball with two outs and the score tied in the bottom of the ninth inning. Shortly thereafter, he fell ill. The game could not continue, and the Union Giants lost by forfeit.2 Although this account is incomplete and inconclusive, perhaps this reference was to Bill Evans.

He was a member of Gilkerson’s Union Giants, a team based in Spring Valley, Illinois, from 1921 to 1923. The team was not in a league and spent its time barnstorming the mid-west. His full name first appeared in print on May 21, 1921, as part of the next day’s starting lineup for the Union Giants against the Ottawa (Illinois) Cubs.3 In that game on May 22, Evans went 1-for-4 in an 8-5 Union Giants win.4

The team, with Evans, was pictured in the July 16, 1921, Winona Republic-Herald.5 Later that season, in a box score that appeared in the La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, a double was attributed to “Happy” Evans, one of many nicknames for the versatile player who was also known as the Gray Ghost. That day, Evans also drove in the tying run in the ninth inning with a fly-ball out.6

Evans’ best showing with Gilkerson’s squad came on September 18, 1921, against the Peerless Chains. In a game won by the Union Giants, 3-1, Evans had three hits, including a double and a game-winning home run.7

By 1922, he had gained a bit of notoriety for his throwing ability. On May 18, in Freeport, Illinois, it was noted that, “Evans is said to have the best arm in baseball. The Giants management states that they have never met a man who could throw a baseball as far and with as much accuracy as Evans. Last year, Evans took on all comers in throwing contests and was never beaten. He will give an exhibition before the games both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Evans has been dubbed the ‘Ty Cobb’ of the colored players because of his unusual speed.”8

There was a detailed story of a couple of games in Lancaster, Wisconsin between Gilkerson’s Union Giants and the local team in July 1922. In one game, Evans had a key sacrifice bunt and flashed his glove in a 4-3 win. In the next game, Evans had a double and drove in a run with a fly-ball out. In the field, he gunned down a runner at home plate, as the Union Giants won, 3-1.9

Years later, in 1978, a story appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the days of the Union Giants. Evans was mentioned in a quote from an old-timer named Tubby Davidson:

“There was a guy name ‘Cap’ Evans who always wore his cap brim turned up. Anyways, Cap Evans would always go out between innings to deep center field in Melby Park. And he’d be carrying a chair. He’d sit in that damned chair and pitch strike balls across home plate. I’m here to tell you that the ball came like a bullet and was never more than three and a half feet off the ground.”10

The 6’ 0”, 160-pound switch-hitter was the Opening Day left fielder for the Chicago American Giants on May 3, 1924. The American Giants lost four games to the Kansas City Monarchs to start the season11 but came back to win their first game against Cleveland on May 11, with Evans going 2-for-5.12 On May 18 against the Cuban Stars West, he went 2-for-3 including an eighth-inning infield single. After his single, he stole second base and came on to score his team’s 15th run. The run was very much needed as the Cubans scored a couple of runs in the last inning to bring the final score to 15-14. In the sixth inning, Evans had also made a circus catch to prevent a run from scoring.13

He was gone from the American Giants by the end of May having batted only .208 with five hits in eight games.

After he left the American Giants, he rejoined Gilkerson’s Union Giants and, on June 3, was in the lineup against the Twin City Red Sox at Sauk City, Wisconsin. He went 1-for-4 as the Union Giants lost the game, 7-2. “Happy” Felsch, one of eight former Chicago White Sox players banned after the betting scandal involving the 1919 World Series, played for the Twin City Squad and homered in the game.14 Not long thereafter Evans was on the field with another of the Black Sox players, Swede Risberg, in a game in Rochester, Minnesota. The Rochester team won, 10-4. Evans and Risberg each doubled in the game.15

As early as 1921, the Union Giants faced members of the Black Sox. In an interview with John Holway in 1972, Evans noted that he learned much about playing baseball from the Black Sox players, especially Felsch and Buck Weaver.16 On his Hall-of-Fame questionnaire, he also mentioned Joe Jackson. Evans noted on the questionnaire that he, for years, he had “tried to get them (Major League Baseball) to forgive them. Many things could have been explained.”17 It was from Weaver and Felsch that Evans also learned that “you don’t hit the ball, you ‘catch’ it with your bat.”18

To Holway, Evans related this about the Black Sox: “If anybody is deserving of the Hall of Fame, I think they should put in Risberg and all of these people (the Black Sox) who have paid every penalty that a man could pay. Put them in first.”19

Evans next appeared on a Negro League roster in 1926 when he joined the Indianapolis ABCs. He moved to the Dayton Marcos on May 10. He had his first Negro League home run for Dayton. It came on May 12 in a 12-5 loss to the ABCs at Dayton’s Westwood Field.20 His next homer for Dayton was not in a Negro League game. It came on June 6 against the Cincinnati All-Americans of the K.I.O. League.21 Dayton was not particularly competitive, posting a record of 6-36 for the season, and Evans batted only .230. Dayton dropped out of the league in July, and Evans rejoined Indianapolis. In his two stints with Indianapolis, he played in 29 games, batting .291.

In 1927, Bill Evans was with the Cleveland Hornets, a last place team in the Negro National League. Per Seamheads.com, the switch-hitter batted .144 in 28 games. He shared playing time with Bobo Leonard, who posted a .371 batting average in 13 games.

After the season he headed to Florida and the Florida Hotel (Coconut) League to play for the Poinciana team in Palm Beach. Some of the players also waited tables at the Breakers Hotel which also sponsored a team. He wintered there for three seasons, until the Depression impacted tourism to Florida.

Evans joined the Brooklyn Royal Giants in 1928 as their shortstop. The Royal Giants were largely a barnstorming team and played few games against Negro League competition. On one of their barnstorming trips, they played in Manchester, Connecticut against the local Manchester club and won, 7-4.22 The top player for the team was legendary pitcher Dick “Cannonball” Redding. On August 11, 1929, the Royal Giants went to Burlington, Vermont to face the Cuban All-Stars. In the second game, Evans tripled to drive in a run as Redding pitched the Royal Giants to a 6-1 win.23 They went 4-6 against the top clubs with Evans batting .229 in nine games. He returned to the Royal Giants in 1929. In five games against teams considered to be major, he batted .278.

During these years the team also competed against Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in barnstorming games. Evans, when speaking with John Holway, particularly remembered one game in West New York, New Jersey when Ruth hit a long home run. Evans “was in center field, and I caught myself just walking and looking up with my mouth open. He thrilled you. He really thrilled you.”24

The Depression hit Negro baseball severely. Going into the 1930 season, the Negro National League was essentially a western operation running on fumes and in the east, the top teams were not organized in a league at all. Of the teams playing independently, the foremost was the Homestead Grays who recruited Evans at the beginning of the 1930 season, where he would become valuable as both an outfielder and an infielder.

Evans had a great spring training with the Grays in 1930. In his first appearance, on April 19, he singled in his first at-bat to drive home a run as the Grays defeated the St. Louis Stars in St. Louis, 4-1.25 Three days later, Evans doubled, but his hit was hardly the highlight of the game. Oscar Owens hurled a no-hitter as the Grays defeated the Canton Terriers of the Central League, 3-0.26 Two other games against Central League opponents followed. On April 23, the Grays defeated the Springfield Blue Sox, 13-3 with Evans going 3-for-5 with a pair of RBI doubles.27 The following day, Evans got two hits and a pair of stolen bases, and the Grays defeated Springfield, 4-0.28 Four days later, against Clarksburg, West Virginia of the Middle Atlantic League, the Grays prevailed, 22-2, and Evans went 3-for-6 with a home run.29

The Homestead Grays faced off against the Kansas City Monarchs in a series that began on July 16 in Cleveland and continued through August 3 in Kansas City. The Grays won 15 of the 17 games for which there are documented results. One of those games, at Pittsburgh on July 18, was the first-ever night game at Forbes Field.30 Evans went 0-for-3, though he had garnered two hits in the Grays’ initial night game, against the Monarchs at Akron on July 12.

He excelled in the series against the Lincoln Giants at the end of the season. In the second game, which the Grays won, 17-16, Evans had a pair of hits. In the fourth game of the series, he went 2-for-4 with a double as the Grays won to take a 3-1 lead in the series. Then, in a one-sided game at Philadelphia’s Bigler field, he added a double as the Grays won, 11-3.

The Homestead Grays barnstormed regularly and rarely took a day off. During a break in the series with the Lincoln Giants, they played the Sheraden Traders at Langley Field in Pittsburgh, where Evans played shortstop and contributed a couple of hits as the Grays won, 7-2.31

The last four games of the series were played on September 27-28 at Yankee Stadium. In the second game of the September 28 doubleheader, the versatile Evans was positioned at second base, where he had six assists and a key single as the Grays scored four runs in the final inning to win the game, 5-2 and win the Series, six games to four.

When the series was completed, W. Rollo Wilson of the Pittsburgh Courier reported that, “Bill Evans has an uncanny knack of hitting when hits are vital. He looks like a weakling afield and at bat, but he does everything required of him. He completely overshadowed his right field rival, Charlie Smith, in the series.”32

After the season, Evans headed west and played in the California Winter League with the Nashville Royal Giants. The season began on Sunday, October 9, 1930, in Los Angeles, and the top player on the team was Turkey Stearnes. Then, on February 22, 1931, during a series of games in San Diego, first baseman Willie Bobo died. The cause of death was undetermined, but Evans and others attributed it to the effects of a bad batch of wood alcohol that Bobo had consumed across the border in Tijuana.

In 1931, the Grays were again mostly barnstorming, but they posted a record of 34-21-1 against the top Black teams. Evans batted .273 in 44 games against the top-flight competition, playing mostly at shortstop in place of the injured Jake Stephens and, when George Scales was injured, he filled in at second base. His best game of the season was on July 13 when he had four hits as the Grays defeated the Bacharach Giants, 23-7. The contest was highlighted by two homers each from Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston.33

In late August of 1931, the Grays faced the Kansas City Monarchs in a series featuring two of the dominate Independent Black teams. On Sunday August 30, at the new Cleveland Stadium, the crowd of 5,000 saw Evans “make several sensational stops at short,” and, in the sixth inning of the first game, Evans was the last in a trio of players (after George Scales and Vic Harris) to hit successive triples as the Grays broke the game open en route to a 9-1 win. Evans’ performance included three hits, two of which were triples. The win enabled Homestead to take a 3-1 lead in the nine-game series.34 The first six games of the series were played between August 29 and September 1 and last three games were played September 12-13. The Grays won six of these nine games. On a questionnaire Evans completed for the Hall of Fame, he noted that his career highlight was playing in those games between the Homestead Grays and Kansas City Monarchs.

It was a season in which a minimum of five teams laid claim to the mythical championship among the top Black teams. There were the Grays, Hilldale in Philadelphia, the Monarchs and the St. Louis Stars in the Midwest, and the Baltimore Black Sox. That said, the Homestead Grays prevailed in series after series against the opposition.

After the first part of the Kansas City series, the Grays went to St. Louis where hitting had been in abundance since Stars Park opened on July 4, 1922. Six games were played between the two teams, with the Homestead Grays winning four. The total number of runs scored in the six games by the two teams was 107, with St. Louis winning the opener, 19-2 and the Grays winning the fifth game, 24-12. Unfortunately, details are elusive for the last two games of the series.

At the end of the season, the Grays squared off against the Baltimore Black Sox. The teams began their barnstorming tour on September 19 at Cleveland Stadium, and they played nine games with Homestead winning six, Baltimore winning two, and one tie.

Statistics for 1931 are still in a state of flux. The most current accumulation is that of Seamheads, showing that Evans batted .273. John Holway’s research, published in 2010, showed Evans with a .297 average in 30 games. Contemporary statistics are not available for Bill Evans in 1931.

After the 1931 season, Evans and the Grays played in Cleveland on October 4 against the Steve O’Neill All-Stars. O’Neill’s team included White players – mostly retired major leaguers and active minor leaguers. The best player on the team was Shanty Hogan who, in 123 games, posted a .301 batting average in 1931 with the New York Giants. The starting pitcher for O’Neill’s squad was George Uhle, who was with the Tigers in 1931. During his major league career (1919-1936), he won 200 games. The game was a one-sided affair. Evans went 2-for-6 as the Grays won, 18-0. The game was highlighted by two Josh Gibson home runs. The first, off Uhle, was the first homer ever hit at Cleveland Stadium.

In 1932, there was a new league. The Homestead Grays joined the East-West League, which was founded by team owner Cumberland Posey. On Opening Day, May 7, Evans contributed two hits as the Grays defeated Cleveland 21-3.35 On Memorial Day, the Grays played a triple-header against the Crawfords, and Evans played in each of the three games. He had a combined eight putouts and two assists, without an error.36 On June 1, Evans played in the first-ever night game at Island Park in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Grays played against the House of David. Evans tripled in the game and came around to score the tying run in the seventh inning, but the Grays lost, 4-3.37

The merger of the Homestead Grays and Detroit Wolves on June 7 temporarily ended Evans’ time with the Grays. Homestead acquired outfielders Vic Harris and Cool Papa Bell.38 Evans was released by the Grays but signed with the Washington Pilots on June 8.39 In his time with the Grays in 1932, he batted .298 in 28 games. After joining Washington, he batted .336, his career high, in 31 games. Against the Pittsburgh Crawfords on July 25, he went 2-for-4 with a stolen base, but the Pilots lost, 5-1. On July 30, Evans went 5-for-5, all singles, in a 13-8 loss to Homestead in a game played in Washington.40 Washington finished the season in sixth place, with an overall record of 24-4. The Grays finished in second place.

In 1933, with the departure of Cool Papa Bell to the Crawfords, Evans returned to the Homestead Grays. In a pre-season encounter with the Springfield Chicks of the Class-C Middle Atlantic League, Evans scored two runs and had two hits, including a double, in a 2-0 Grays win.41 On Opening Day at Columbus, Evans scored a couple of runs and had a double as the Grays won 5-2 on April 30.42 Although the team began the season in the reincarnated Negro National League, they were suspended on June 23 as the first half of the season was ending.43 They spent most of the season barnstorming. In 14 league games, Evans batted .239.

In 1934, Evans joined the Cincinnati Tigers as an outfielder. One of his better days was on June 10, when the Tigers swept the Birmingham Black Barons in a doubleheader at Crosley Field. In the opener, Evans went 1-for-4, and in the nightcap he went 2-for-4 with a double.44 The Tigers joined the semipro Indiana-Ohio League in June, and in July, Evans took over from Dizzy Dismukes as the team manager. The Tigers mostly played an independent schedule, and there are no records of the team’s performance or of that of Evans as a player for that season.

He played with the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1937. He was only with the team for three games and had three hits in 10 at-bats in his final appearances. His last game was on June 1, 1937, in Wilmington, Delaware.

By then, Evans had moved back to Louisville where he served as a playground director and director of recreation. He also wrote for the Louisville News, a local Black newspaper. Unfortunately, he lost much of his memorabilia in the historic flood that began on January 20, 1937, and continued through the first week of February.

He returned to the playing field, one last time, at the behest of Oscar Charleston. He suited up when the Crawfords played against the Ethiopian Clowns in Louisville on June 25, 1939. He played in the second game of the doubleheader, won by the Crawfords, 8-2.45

In 1942, when he enrolled for the draft, he was living in Chattanooga, Tennessee and working for the Southern Railway Department of E. L. Clop.

After World War II, Bill and his wife Lillie moved to Los Angeles, where, at first, they worked as domestic servants. But, as the years went by, they used their education to great advantage. Bill took a position as an inspector for North American Aviation in the aerospace industry, also coaching his employer’s baseball team for a couple of years. Lillie, in 1953, went back to school and became a realtor, blazing a remarkable trail. She became the first Black woman member of the Los Angeles Realty Board in 1962, and, in 1971, she was named the first black director of the same organization.46

Evans had once married previously. He married Julia Holt, on April 28, 1921. Her parents were John Winlock Holt and Flossie Colvin. The marriage lasted 17 years. They had one son, William D. Evans III, who was born September 17, 1921. His second marriage, to Lillie Ragland, was on April 28, 1941, and they remained together until his death.

In 1976, Evans was in the audience along with two other former Negro Leaguers, Chet Brewer and Buster Haywood, for a screening of The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, a fictionalized film that depicted the barnstorming days of the Negro Leagues. He looked back on his days on the bus in the Negro Leagues when with the Homestead Grays when “we were pitted against the bus. It was the tires, or the transmission, or the engine. When our engine wouldn’t start one time, our owner got so mad that he pulled out a gun and shot the bus in the radiator.”47

Bill Evans died on August 23, 1986, in Los Angeles and was buried at Paradise Memorial Park Cemetery in Santa Fe Springs, California. At the time of his death, he had five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.48 His son William died on October 23, 1997, and Lillie died in 2004.

In 2018, Bill Evans was once again in the news. Lillie’s great-great niece, Meghan Markle, married into the British Royal Family, and articles surfaced about Bill Evans and his days in the Negro Leagues.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the notes, the author used Seamheads.com, Retrosheet.org, and US Census and other government records accessed via Ancestry.com at the West Hartford Public Library.

The author also used the Bill Evans file with the player questionnaire completed by Evans, maintained at the Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York. The author is indebted to Cassidy Lent at the Giamatti Research Center for her assistance in accessing the file.

The author is also indebted to Jacob Pomrenke for his assistance in tracking down sources for games during Evans’ time with Gilkerson’s Union Giants.

Other sources include:

Cieradkowski, Gary. “Happy Evans: Indispensable Spar Part,” StudioGaryC.com, February 23, 2023. https://studiogaryc.com/2023/02/23/happy-evans/

Daniel, Hugo. “Exclusive: How Meghan Markle’s ancestor was One of the greatest Ever Black Baseball Players Winning Equivalent of the World Series for the Negro League when the Game was Segregated,” DailyMail.com., May 18, 2018. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5737593/Meghan-Markles-ancestor-one-black-baseballs-greatests.html

Dixon, Phil S. Phil Dixon’s American Baseball Chronicles: Great Teams: The 1931 Homestead Grays (xlibrus, 2009)

Johnston, Harriet. “The Other Lillie: Meghan Markle’s daughter shares name of her Great-Great Aunt who married professional baseball player and worked (as) Bette Davis’ housekeeper – and left her home to Doria Ragland,” DailyMail.com, June 8, 2021. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/lifestyle/article-9663981/The-Lillie-Meghan-Markle-Prince-Harrys-newborn-daughter-shares-great-great-aunt.html

Mearns, Andrew. “Baseball Has Royal Connection to New Duchess Meghan Markle in her great-great uncle, Happy Evans,” Cut 4 by MLB.com, May 20, 2018. https://www.mlb.com/cut4/meghan-markle-s-great-uncle-played-in-negro-leagues-c277549258

Pomrenke, Jacob. “Baseball Diamonds at the Royal Wedding,” SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee Newsletter, June 2018: 6.

Riley, James A. “William Demont Evans II,” in The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York, Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2002), 271.

Notes

1 “Dayton Marcos Cop Over Cleveland Nine,” Dayton Herald, June 29, 1926: 10.

2 “Webster City 9, Union Giants 0,” Des Moines Register, July 3, 1920: 6.

3 “Jimmy and Team Mates Expect to Cop Fourth in Row,” Ottawa (Illinois) Free Trader-Journal, May 21, 1921: 4.

4 “Jimmy and Mates Have Their Off Day Against Black Boys, “Ottawa Free Trader–Journal, May 23, 1921: 4.

5 “Gilkerson Union Giants Baseball Team,” Winona (Minnesota) Republican-Herald, July 16, 1921: 12.

6 “Union Giants All But Suffer Defeat Here on Tuesday,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune and Leader-Press: August 31, 1921: 7

7 “Chains Lose Hard Battle to Negro Team: Achenbach Holds Gilkersons to Five Hits but Evans’ Homer Proves Deciding factor and Visitors Win, 3-1 – Big Crowd Sees Game,” Winona Republican-Herald, September 19, 1921: 10.

8 “Union Giants to Play in Freeport Saturday, Sunday,” Freeport (Illinois) Journal-Standard, May 18, 1922: 8.

9 “Baseball,” Grant County (Wisconsin) Herald, July 19, 1922: 6.

10 Dave Wood, “When Black Giants Played Whitehall,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 25, 1978: 13.

11 Fay Young, “Kansas City Swipes Series from American Giants when They Hit and Field Well,” Chicago Defender, May 10, 1924: 9

12 Fay Young, “American Giants Win Four Straight from Cleveland,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1924: 13.

13 Fay Young, “Montalvo Hits Three Homers Over Fence, Torrienti (sic) One, as American Giants Beat Cubans,” Chicago Defender, May 24, 1924: 12

14 “Felsch hits Sauk City’s Longest Homer; Twins Trim Union Giants, 7-2,” Wisconsin State Journal, June 4, 1924: 15.

15 “Chicago Giants Touch Up Lefty Hiers, Defeat Aces; Score 10-4,” Rochester Daily Bulletin, June 12, 1924: 8.

16 John B, Holway interview with Bill Evans in Bill Evans file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

17 Player questionnaire in Bill Evans file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

18 Interview with John Holway in Bill Evans file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

19 Interview with John Holway in Bill Evans file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

20 “Marcos Defeated by Indianapolis Team,” Dayton Herald, May 13, 1926: 35.

21 “Dayton Marcos Score Victory at Westwood,” Dayton Herald, June 7, 1926: 18.

22 “Brooklyn Team Beats Manchester Club, 7-4,” Hartford Courant, September 6, 1928: 15.

23 “Giants and Stars Divide Twin Bill,” Burlington Free Press, August 12, 1929: 13.

24 Interview with John Holway in Bill Evans file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

25 “Poseymen Win from Stars, 4-1,” Pittsburgh Press, April 20, 1930: 45

26 “Canton Ghout Out 2 to 0 by grays at local Park,” Richmond (Indiana) Palladium and Sun-Telegram, April 23, 1930: 11.

27 “Homestead Grays Trounce Blue Sox by 13-3 Score in First Game of Series,” Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, April 24, 1930: 15.

28 “Homestead Grays Blank Blue Sox Nine 4 to 0, Sweep Two-game series,” Springfield (OH) News-Sun, April 25, 1930: 26.

29 “Clarksburg is Taken Across by Homestead,” Cumberland (Maryland) Evening Times, April 28, 1930: 10.

30 Paul A. R. Kurtz, “Grays Cop Thriller, 5-4,” and Ralph Davis, “After Dark Sport Idea Practical,” Pittsburgh Press, July 19, 1930: 9,

31 “Grays Defeat Sheraden,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 23, 1930: 15.

32 W. Rollo Wilson, “Lots of Ideas,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 11, 1930: 14.

33 “Grays Swamp Bacharach,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 14, 1931: 14.

34 “Grays Take Series From Kansas City Monarchs,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 5, 1931: 2:4.

35 “Homestead Grays Wallop Foes, 21-3,” Pittsburgh Press, May 8, 1932: 19.

36 “Grays Loss Two and Win One,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 31, 1932: 16.

37 “First Night Game Here Played on Island,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Patriot, June 2, 1932: 12.

38 “Homestead Grays, Detroit Club Merged,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 8, 1932: 15.

39 “Six Foot, Two, 202-Pounder Joins Washington Pilots,” Washington Times, June 9, 1932: 23.

40 “Grays Get Edge in D.C. Tilts,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 6, 1932: 15.

41 “Homestead Grays Defeat Chicks in Opening Game as ‘Tuffy’ Burke Stars,” Springfield (Ohio) Daily News, April 24, 1933: 9.

42 “Homestead Grays Use Their Bats Better; Beat Columbus,” Chicago Defender, May 6, 1933: 8.

43 “Grays Dropped from Negro League,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 24, 1933: 10.

44 “Cincinnati Tigers Capture Twin Bill,” Cincinnati Post, June 11, 1934: 12.

45 Victor K. Perry, “Bill Evans Plays Again,” and “6,500 See Jesse Owens Perform,” Louisville Courier Journal, June 26, 1939: 12.

46 Jean Murphy, “String of Firsts for Realtor,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1971: 2:4, 2:15.

47 Melvin Durslag, “Tumultuous Times of Negro Baseball Depicted in Movie,” Omaha World Herald, April 13, 1976: 18.

48 “William D. Evans ll Obituary,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 28, 1986: 19.