Johnny Jones

Negro League baseball in the early twentieth century was full of tremendous talent, mostly toiling in relative anonymity to the majority of baseball fans due to both financial and racial segregation barriers. Despite the relative “stepchild” status of Black baseball, history has shown that incredible players patrolled baseball diamonds with talents equal to their White counterparts.

A sign of the times were the colorful nicknames adorning many players. While laboring on the same ballfield as teammates known as Bingo, Turkey or Double Duty, among others, it’s not surprising that a player with a common name like John Jones is somewhat hidden in history.

Despite that reality, Johnny Jones, as he was commonly known, performed for the Detroit Stars and Indianapolis ABCs before experiencing greatness as a member of the 1931 World Champion Homestead Grays. Jones was not part of the 1931 opening day roster, but “outfielders John L. Jones and Oscar Owens made sequential contributions after joining Pittsburgh [Homestead] late in the campaign.”1

The historical record of Jones’ life is opaque at best. He was born on February 9, 1896, in Elgin, Texas, located approximately 25 miles to the east of downtown Austin. Today Elgin is referred to as both “The Sausage Capital of Texas” and “Brick Capital of the Southwest,” monikers earned from the town’s economic success in both industries.2

As was typical of the time, opportunities for African American athletes in the rural, segregated environment of early twentieth-century Texas subjected Black ballplayers to semipro, sandlot, and informally organized teams prior to organized Negro baseball leagues. As a result, evidence of athletic exploits in Jones’ youth remains unknown.

Documentation showing his enlistment in the United States Army indicates he was a private, enlisting on July 30, 1918, when he was 22 years of age. His tenure was brief as he was discharged on March 12, 1919, months after the armistice that ended World War I in November 1918.3

The first printed record of his baseball exploits occurs that summer as a member of the 1919 San Antonio Black Aces. Jones primarily played as an outfielder during his career, but for the Aces, as a teammate of future Negro League players Robert “Highpockets” Hudspeth and Hall of Famer James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, he was listed as shortstop in the available box scores. Further research shows Jones even won a game on the mound against the Aces’ arch-rival Dallas Black Marines, a team San Antonio defeated 7-5 in the final game of the 1919 season to win the Texas Colored League Championship.4

At 23 years of age and fresh from a stint in the United States Army, Johnny Jones batted cleanup and had one hit in the Aces final in his first known stint in organized baseball.

The Black Aces fielded a team again in 1920, and Jones joined many of his former teammates on the roster, but the Aces failed to repeat as league champions. The team disbanded later in 1920.

The following season is a blank canvas as far as Jones is concerned. His presence on an organized team is not noted in any historical baseball website and searches of available newspaper archives spawn results of Johnny Jones of Arcadia, Louisiana, who was White and had a brief career with the New York Giants (1919) and Boston Braves (1920).  

The 1922 season is a different story. The Detroit Stars, in their third season in the Negro National League, added Jones as an outfielder to a team that finished the prior year’s campaign in fourth place. As was true of the time, not all teams played an equal number of games, but first year manager Bruce Petway led the team to 49 wins in 86 contests. The Stars were listed as finishing four games back in the final standings, with the Chicago American Giants declared the champions based on winning percentage.

For Jones, his rookie season established him as a regular and integral in the Stars’ future plans after batting .283 with four homers and 29 RBIs in 218 plate appearances.

Detroit fielded another strong unit in 1923, again finishing fourth in their circuit with a 39-28 record (41-30 overall), just six games behind the Kansas City Monarchs.

Jones, although already 27 years old, was receiving notice as evidenced in the following preview in the Port Huron (Michigan) Times Herald, chronicling the Stars’ upcoming matchup with the local Merchants team:

“Outside of Detroit, the Stars have made a name for themselves as real ball players and were it not for the color distinction, many of them would be lined up with some of the big-league teams. Wesley, the first baseman, is called the “colored [George] Sisler” and Jones, left fielder, is rated “Ty Cobb” of this association.”5

Listed as both a second baseman and an outfielder in available box scores, Jones again posted respectable numbers, batting .276 and an improved 41 RBIs.

The next two seasons show comparable performances for Jones as he became a fixture in the outfield for the Stars. In 1924, he regularly patrolled left field and appeared in 56 games, posting a solid .301 batting average with 22 RBIs. He followed up that campaign in 1925 with a .272 average and 25 RBIs in 80 games. In neither case did the Stars finish within 10 games of the league winning Kansas City Monarchs.

For reasons unknown, Detroit started the 1926 season with Johnie Watson in left field, an import from the Brooklyn Royal Giants of the Eastern Colored League. Jones sported the uniform of Negro National League rivals Indianapolis ABCs to open play and performed well with a .302 batting average in 41 games. He matriculated back to Detroit to conclude the year, finishing the season in left field and sporting a .333 batting average over 20 games.

Collectively, he registered a stat line of .312 batting average with two home runs and 30 RBIs. Additionally, analysis posted in the Seamheads blog listed the top Negro National League leaders for Runs Saved Above Average, with Jones listed as the top performer among left fielders.6

The move back to Detroit was fortuitous for Jones in another way; after Jones returned to Detroit, Indianapolis ceased operations at the conclusion of the 1926 playing season.7

Back in Detroit in 1927, early box scores regularly show Jones batting leadoff and playing left field with offensive production topping any prior season with the Stars. But, by mid-July, he no longer appeared in the available box scores, with left field manned by teammates Harry Kenyon and a young Halley Harding. At 31 years of age, he batted .323 with 18 RBIs in 32 games of a shortened season, and whether it was due to injury or some other affliction, Jones was absent from the team and league for the entire 1928 season as well.

With no evidence found to date detailing his whereabouts the preceding season, 1929 again showed Jones in the leadoff spot for the Stars and now a fixture in right field. Now 33, he recorded his greatest offensive season in his career, belting 10 home runs and driving in 50 runs. His .319 batting average was third among the regulars, behind only Wade Johnstonand the future Hall of Famer Turkey Stearnes, and the trio was considered among the best outfield combinations in the negro leagues.

Detroit again finished well back of the league-winning Monarchs, and Jones played his last game in a Stars uniform in 1929 after 384 games, 1,654 plate appearances, and a serviceable .296 batting average over seven seasons. His best season to date resulted in no roster spot on a Negro League team in 1930, potentially spelling the end of his career at the higher levels.

And just like that, Jones, now an elderly 35, was added to the independent Homestead Grays and started his first game June 29 in a 11-7 loss to Hilldale at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. Batting leadoff and playing center field, Jones scored two runs and had two hits in the defeat, but his return to highly competitive baseball was, individually, a successful one.8

The Grays were stacked with six eventual Hall of Fame members: Manager Cumberland Posey, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson,  Smokey Joe Williams, Jud Wilson and Satchell Paige, who played a single game for the Grays. Jones, despite lacking the notoriety of many of his teammates, “participated in 62 games, scored 42 runs and collected 76 hits”9 for the Grays’ in 1931. As a part-time contributor, Jones didn’t appear in a game for the Grays after September 1, but as his career was winding down, he had once again finally participated and contributed to a team historically considered a champion10 after his Texas Colored Baseball-League winning San Antonio Black Aces in 1919.

Despite the Grays’ success, much of the star power was gone in 1932, with Gibson and Charleston moving across town to the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Jones was another defector and started the season with the Washington Pilots of the East-West Colored League.

Batting leadoff and playing left field, the 36-year-old Jones was an early bright spot for the Pilots. A statistical recap of league games in late May showed Jones batting a respectful .333 in 33 at-bat and tied for league lead in stolen bases with five and alone at the top with two home runs.11

Jones received early-season notice by Pittsburgh Courier columnist W. Rollo Wilson, who summarized some early play during the 1932 season in this way:

“One is not greatly surprised that Jud Wilson of the Homestead Grays leads in hits with 15 which includes games through Wednesday [May 25, 1932]. The former Baltimore star is rated as one of baseball’s hardest hitters. With Johnson and Jones of the Washington Pilots he is tied for the lead in stolen bases, with 5. This Jones is the lad who came East last year with Charlie Henry’s Detroit club, later joined the Bacharachs and then went to the Grays.”12

But Jones couldn’t sustain the success, and after a 1-7 performance in a 13-inning loss to Baltimore lowered his average below the .300 mark,13 his days as a Pilot were numbered.

Turmoil in the East-West League, mostly a byproduct of financial constraints, saw team consolidation and excess talent as a result. On June 16, the following outlines a shift in direction for the Pilots:

“The Washington Pilots are showing virtually a new team to the fans of the District of Columbia and at least Manager Frank Warfield is under the impression that the Pilots are slated to go places and do things. With the merging of the Detroit Wolves and Homestead Grays, Owners John Dykes and Roy McCoy set out to improve their Washington team from the talent thrown on the market. To plug up the gap at shortstop the Pilot owners secured Jake Dunn from the Pacific Coast and from showing to date it appears as though Jake is the man for the job. Infielders Sparky Creacy and Mule Suttles from the Detroit Wolves and outfielder Bill Evans and catcher Mack Eggleston from the Homestead Grays, give the Pilots a strong outfit.”14

Although the record doesn’t specifically attribute Evans addition as a replacement for Jones, his name stopped appearing in box scores. With fading skills (he batted .263 collectively in 1932), no record exists of him playing in 1933.

A short stint (six games later in the season with the Baltimore Black Sox in 1934) resulted in eight hits in 20 at-bats, and Jones’ career was over. Like many players of his time, he faded into obscurity, only to resurface in a 1938 Delaware County Daily Times article:

“John Leonard Jones, former well-known Negro baseball player pleaded guilty before Judge Broomall to selling marijuana cigarettes in the Bethel Court section. He will be sentenced on Friday.

Jones, who played with the Bacharach Giants, Baltimore Black Sox and other teams of Negro ball players for several years, was arrested in a house on East Mary Street with Goldie M. Green, at which place several cigarettes made of marijuana were found. Previously, an informer for a federal narcotic agent had purchased several cigarettes from Jones.”15

Jones resided in the Chester Township area of Pennsylvania in his later decades. Other than the crime, no notable post-career achievements in baseball-related fields are documented in available historical databases.

 At some point (date unknown), he married Alice Matthews of Delaware. She died in 1969 in Chester, Pennsylvania at the age of 49 (cause unknown).

The couple had a son, Audley, who completed the Record of Burial Place of Veteran form as well as a death marker to be installed at Johnny Jones’ final resting place in Green Lawn Cemetery in Chester, Pennsylvania, an 8.5-acre cemetery founded by a former enslaved person, Lawrence Murray, Sr., in 1907, to serve African-Americans who were not allowed to be buried within the Chester City limits.16

Jones died on October 11, 1972. He was 76 years old.

Sources

In addition to items in the Notes, the author consulted Ancestry.com, Baseball-Reference.com and Seamheads.com.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Seamheads.com.

Notes

1 Phil S. Dixon, Phil Dixon’s American Baseball Chronicles, Great Teams: 1931 Homestead Grays, Volume I (Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris, 2009), 39.

2 Elgin, Texas: Perfectly Situated, https://www.elginedc.com, accessed June 26, 2025.

3 Ancestry.com: A search of records for a John Leonard Jones found many entries, but the correct birth and death date on a military Application for Headstone or Marker form completed by Audley Jones listed both the enlistment and discharge dates.

4 “Mistah Steelarm Davis Raps Out Double Which Wins Negro Ball File,” San Antonio Evening News, September 29, 1919: 9.

5 “Colored Players Here Sunday, Are Fast Combination,” Port Huron (Michigan) Times-Herald, June 13, 1923: 13.

6 https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/index.php.

7 The Indianapolis ABCs (1907-1942), https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-indianapolis-abcs-1907-1942/.

8 “Hilldale Takes Odd Game,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, June 30, 1931: 17.

9 Dixon, 285.

10 Charles Fouche, “The 1931 Homestead Grays: The Greatest Baseball Team of All Time,” National Pastime: Steel City Stories (SABR, 2018). https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-1931-homestead-grays-the-greatest-baseball-team-of-all-time/.

11 “East-West Baseball League Official Statistics,” St. Louis Argus, May 27, 1932: 7.

12 Wilson, W. Rollo, “Some Figgers Before You Lie,” New Pittsburgh Courier, May 28, 1932:15.

13 “East-West League,” The Call (Kansas City), June 3, 1932: 15.

14 “Pilots Add Evans, Suttles, Egglestone; Balto Going Strong,” New Pittsburgh Courier, June 18, 1932:15.

15 “Reefer Peddlers Guilty,” Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), October 5, 1938, page 18.

16 www.blackcemeterynetwork.org/bcnsites/green-lawn-cemeterypa, accessed January 11, 2026.

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