Lloyd Davenport

In many ways, the baseball career of Lloyd Davenport was quite similar to those of many of his fellow Negro League players. Rising from athletic obscurity in New Orleans, he eventually played for and managed an array of Negro National and American League squads, spent seasons in Mexico, and occasionally wintered in Cuba and Venezuela. He ended his career in the never-segregated Manitoba-Dakota (ManDak) League, and is credited with two games on the roster of the 1953 Danville [Illinois] Dans in the previously segregated Mississippi-Ohio Valley League.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

Photo credit: Lloyd Davenport, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

6 “Philadelphia Stars Lose Lloyd Davenport Account Injuries.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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