Oscar Levis

Oscar Joseph Levy—known throughout the baseball world as Oscar Levis and “Oscal”, and before that as Chick Levy on the diamonds of Panama—was one of the finest pitchers in Black baseball. For more than a decade beginning in 1921, he was the Cuban Stars’ most trusted arm, a year-round competitor who traveled between New York and Havana, with barely a pause between seasons. He threw the first no-hitter in Cuban baseball history. Rollo Wilson, the Pittsburgh Courier‘s celebrated baseball columnist, cited Levis’ standard of excellence alongside the greatest players in the game.1 And he never pitched a single inning in the White major leagues—not for any deficiency of talent, but because the color line barred him.

This man was also Jewish, an identity he carried quietly through his entire career. He was born in Jamaica, the son of Amos DaCosta Levy and Theodosia Elizabeth Foreman.  Records confirm that Levis was born on August 7, 1898, in Oracabessa, in St. Mary Parish.2 His father was a prominent figure in Jamaican public life—an elected member of the Legislative Council for St. Mary Parish, a prosperous merchant, and a leading Freemason whose Sepha Jewish roots traced back through the Caribbean to Portugal.3 His mother was a native Jamaican woman who worked as a dressmaker. Unions between Jewish men and Black Caribbean women were not uncommon in the plantation societies of the region, and the children of such relationships occupied an ambiguous position in Jewish community life—present but marginalized, what historian Aviva Ben-Ur has described as “peripheral inclusion.”4 Oscar, bearing his father’s name and lineage, was understood within Jamaica’s Jewish world as ethnically Jewish. His family has confirmed that he was both aware of and proud of that heritage.5

The family eventually relocated to Panama, and it was there that Oscar, who worked as a laborer on the canal, developed into a talented baseball player.6 The Canal Zone in the early 20th century was a study in the color line that would follow him to the United States: the American-administered “gold roll” and “silver roll” system consigned Black laborers from Jamaica, Barbados, and the broader British Caribbean to lower wages, inferior housing, and segregated facilities, while White American workers enjoyed superior pay and conditions at every turn.7 Oscar—known locally as Chick Levy—emerged from those surroundings as the island’s premier pitcher, the standout hurler for the Panama Reds and the Pelicans and a figure the local press celebrated as “a popular figure in the baseball world on the Isthmus.”8 His reputation in Panama endured long after he left; local newspapers often tracked his performances abroad to keep readers on the Isthmus apprised of his career.9 In 1923, already famous from his work with the Cuban Stars, he returned to Balboa Stadium to pitch for a combined Panama–West Indian All-Star team before massive crowds.10 In 1925, the Panamanian government awarded him a medal for his contributions to the country’s sport.11

Oscar arrived in the United States in 1918, working first for the Submarine Boat Corporation at the Newark Bay Shipyard and later as a chauffeur.12 He also studied in New York City—some accounts place him at City College, others at Columbia University; the question has not been resolved.13 By 1921, his arm had found a more consequential audience. Alex Pómpez—Cuban American entrepreneur, numbers banker, and owner of the Cuban Stars—recruited Levis to join his team, making the Jamaican hurler one of the first non-Cuban international players to compete in the Negro Leagues.14

Levis was a right-handed pitcher who batted from the left side. He was listed as 5-foot-7 and weighing 175 pounds.

Levis pitched for Pómpez’s Cuban Stars across both the Eastern Colored League and the Negro National League from 1921 through 1932—with two additional seasons, 1930 and 1931, for Ed Bolden’s Hilldale Athletic Club, known as the Daisies, of Darby, Pennsylvania. From his first seasons in New York, he was among the most commanding pitchers in Black baseball. He was a sidearm hurler with a sweeping delivery, described in the press as “unhittable” and “a terror to all bat carriers who faced him.” Accounts sometimes labeled him a “fast ball artist,” but his most effective weapons were a “clever and cunning curve” and a devastating spitball.15 Rollo Wilson put the matter plainly in 1929: “There are few better or smarter right-handers in baseball.”16 The well-known semiprofessional catcher Paddy Smith, who played Levis many times when his club faced the Cuban Stars, offered an equally unequivocal assessment to the Brooklyn Eagle in 1928: “Oscal is as good a pitcher as you’ll find anywhere. He has everything—speed to burn, curves, and perfect control. I wouldn’t rate any pitcher I ever saw above him.”17

His most celebrated single achievement came in Cuba. On October 11, 1924, pitching for the Habana Reds against his former team, the Almendares Blues, Levis threw the first no-hitter in Cuban baseball history.18 That performance stood as a landmark in the Cuban game long after his retirement. Back in the United States, he led the Eastern Colored League in shutouts in 1927, and fans voted him to the All-Eastern Team in 1925.19 His most consistent display of dominance was against the Brooklyn Bushwicks, the powerful White semiprofessional team owned by Max Rosner: over five consecutive seasons, Levis did not lose a single game to Rosner’s club.20

The official Negro League schedule of the 1920s ran only 20 to 60 games per season, a fraction of the White major-league calendar. To fill the gap, Levis played virtually year-round. In the Cuban Winter League he pitched for Almendares (1922–23), the Habana Reds across multiple seasons between 1923 and 1932, and the Marianao Grey Monks (1926–27), winning multiple President’s Cup titles and being called upon regularly for the most important games of the season.21 He also appeared for at least two New York independent clubs that drew heavily on Cuban Stars talent: the Panama Giants, described in the Black press as “one of the leading colored attractions in the East,”22 and the Panama Red Sox, “one of the strongest colored teams in the city.”23 Cuban sports editor José Massaguer, tallying the full scope of Levis’s work, estimated that he had pitched in more than 500 games across his career and held numerous Cuban pitching records that stood for decades after his retirement.24 In the 1927–28 Cuban League season alone, Levis went 7–2 for the champion Habana club and finished second in strikeouts behind future Hall of Famer Willie Foster.25

When Major League Baseball formally recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues in 2020 and incorporated their statistics into the official record in 2024, Levis’s numbers entered the permanent ledger. According to Baseball Reference, he pitched in 95 major-league games, starting 73 of them, and compiled a record of 41–36 with an ERA of 4.21 over 641 innings, striking out 311 batters and posting a WHIP of 1.381. A capable hitter and versatile fielder, he also played first base and the outfield, batting .243 with six home runs and 45 RBIs. His career WAR of 12.9 ranked eighth all-time among Jewish pitchers through the 2025 season—making him, by any measure, the most accomplished Jewish player of the 1920s.26 Gary Ashwill, co-creator of the Seamheads Negro Leagues database and the foremost authority on Negro League statistics, assessed Levis as a pitcher of sufficient ability to have had a successful career in the White major leagues.27

Rollo Wilson—who had called Levis one of the smartest right-handers in baseball in 1929—returned to his subject in a 1943 column, pushing back against the habit of measuring Black players only against White stars. Black baseball had its own tradition of greatness, Wilson argued, and Oscar Levis was part of it:

“I have always opposed and have never used such terms as ‘the black Babe Ruth’ and I have nothing but admiration for the great Babe Ruth. But we have enough tradition in our own baseball to refer to someone as ‘a second [Bruce] Petway,’ ‘another Rube Foster,’ and ‘Oscar Charleston in the making.’ To be considered the equal of Oscar Levis, George Johnson, Dick Lundy, Pop Lloyd, George Shively, Jud Johnson, Jake Stevens, Joe Williams, or Dick Redding would be glory enough for a young star of this era.”28

Levis’s long career was sustained in part by the relationships he cultivated in the business world of Black baseball. His bond with Alex Pómpez extended well beyond the professional: the two men traveled regularly to Cuba together, Levis worked in Pómpez’s numbers operation alongside his baseball duties, and when Pómpez was arrested on federal racketeering charges in 1938, Levis remained loyal to him.29 Also central were Max Rosner and Nat Strong. Rosner, a Jewish immigrant, owned the Brooklyn Bushwicks and served as a booking agent for Cuban Stars games. Strong was the dominant booking agent for Black and White semiprofessional baseball across the Northeast. In 1926, both men signed Levis’s naturalization papers.30 

Like most Black Jews in America during this era, Levis kept his Jewish identity largely private. Their heritage was frequently met with skepticism by both Black and White Jewish communities, and discretion was prudent. Yet Oscar’s Jewishness did not stay entirely hidden. In 1926, apparently in connection with Rosner’s signing of the naturalization papers, a Brooklyn newspaper ran the headline “Oscar, Cuban Pitcher, Is a Spanish Jew”—the first known public identification of his heritage.31 The following year, sportswriter Aloysious Palma drew a pointed comparison to Andy Cohen, the Jewish infielder John McGraw had signed specifically to attract Jewish fans to the Polo Grounds. Palma wrote that Oscar Levis had the talent and ability to pitch for the New York Giants and should have been McGraw’s Jewish star—but was denied that opportunity solely because of his race. He had the right arm. He had the right religion. He was the wrong color.32 A third article, published during Levis’s managerial tenure in the 1930s, again publicly noted his Jewish background.33 Taken together, these three references suggest that his Jewishness was something of an open secret in at least some corners of New York’s baseball press. Levis’s Jewish identity satisfies both the standards of liberal denominations recognizing patrilineal descent and the broader dynamics of Caribbean Jewish and converso identity.34

Levis’s playing career wound down in the early 1930s, but he remained in baseball. From 1933 through 1937, he managed a revived Cuban Stars team operating in the New York semiprofessional circuit, and was frequently identified in the Black press as the team’s owner as well.35 As a manager he was praised consistently: “a wily manager,” “a smart judge of baseball ivory,” and “a shrewd baseball man.”36 With most of his players coming from Latin American countries, he was indispensable as one of only two members of the team fluent in both English and Spanish, and he made regular trips to Cuba to recruit young talent. He continued pitching for the team at least through the 1935 season.37

Beginning in the late 1930s, Levis—by then resuming his birth name, Oscar Levy—made his life in Harlem, New York. In 1936, he and his wife Lovana, whom friends called “Love,” opened Chick’s Bar and Grill on Seventh Avenue, a short walk from the Apollo Theater.38 The bar became a neighborhood institution, and Oscar’s civic involvement extended far beyond it. He served as Chairman of the Harlem Riverside Tavern Owners Association, raising funds for Sydenham Hospital, the YMCA, the Police Athletic League, the Boy Scouts, and the Riverdale Home.39 He organized weekly amateur and interracial boxing events at the Golden Gate Arena to keep neighborhood youth off the streets, was active in the Harlem branch of the NAACP, and belonged to both the Busy Men’s Health Club and the Grand Street Boys.40

Like his father before him, Levis was a devoted Freemason. He rose to become a 33rd Degree Prince Hall Mason—the highest rank of the Scottish Rite—and served as Deputy of the Valley of New York, following in a tradition his father had carried from Jamaica.41 His tombstone bears the Masonic symbol.42

Levis never truly left baseball. Friends and journalists noted that he loved to “stick his finger in the baseball pie whenever he got a chance,” and he returned to Cuba in his later years simply to sit in the stands and watch the game day and night.43 When Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues in 1947, Levis—more than most—understood what the moment meant. Levis served as Chairman of the Jackie Robinson Day Committee, personally presenting Robinson with gifts from fans across the country.44 A reporter who interviewed him afterward wrote: “He claims that one of his biggest thrills was on Jackie Robinson Day—when he had the chance to see how the public took to Jackie. He, as a former ball player, knew the hardships and obstacles which Jackie had to overcome to reach the top. To him, Jackie Robinson’s Day was what every colored ball player dreams about—so much so that it was like a dream come true.”45

Oscar Levy died on May 24, 1983, at a home for the aged in Norfolk, Virginia. He was predeceased by Lovana (they had no children).46 They rest alongside each other at Calvary Cemetery in that city.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the family of Oscar Levy as well as Rebecca Alpert for their contributions to this biography, which was reviewed by Bill Nowlin and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Timothy Herlich.

Photo credit: Oscar Levis, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used com Baseball-Reference.com and Seamheads.com.

Notes

1 Rollo Wilson, “Thru the Eyes,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 2, 1943: 12.

2 Jamaica Births Registration, Oracabessa, St. Mary Parish, August 7, 1898, FamilySearch.org, cited in Gary Ashwill, “A Negro Leaguer from Jamaica,” Agate Type (blog), October 3, 2018, https://agatetype.blog/2018/10/03/a-negro-leaguer-from-jamaica/.

3 Arthur E. Burt, “Joseph Chamberlain and The Constitutional Crisis in Jamaica 1899,” The Hampton Review 14:1 (1988): 3; Register of Marriages in the Ashkenazi Jewish Congregation Kingston, Jamaica 1788–1897.

4 Stanley Mirvis, “Jews and Free People of Color in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Case Study in Experiential and Ethnic Entanglement,” in Jewish Entanglements in the Atlantic World, ed. Aviva Ben-Ur and Wim Klooster (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020), 136–155; Email from S. Mirvis to Z. Kranc, August 25, 2025.

5 M. Levy, Facebook message to Z. Kranc, April 1, 2025; J. Stringer, comment on Gary Ashwill, “A Negro Leaguer from Jamaica,” Agate Type (blog), October 3, 2018, https://agatetype.blog/2018/10/03/a-negro-leaguer-from-jamaica/.

6 “Notas y noticias” Diario de Panamá, April 10, 1916, 5.

7 Stanley Meisler, “The Blacks of Panama,” June 22, 1974, https://www.stanleymeisler.com/article/the-blacks-of-panama; Marixa Lasso, “Race and Ethnicity in the Formation of Panamanian National Identity: Panamanian Discrimination Against Chinese and West Indians in the Thirties,” Revista Panameña de Política, No. 4 (July–December 2007), 62–89.

8 Rollo Wilson, “Rollo’s Sport Shots,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 6, 1931: 5.

9 “Chick Makes Fine Record Against Strong Team,” The Panama American, July 1, 1926: 9; “Chick Levy Writes” The Panama American, May 27, 1926: 7.

10 Wilson; Brooklyn Times Union, December 22, 1934: 12.

11 George Palmer, “Tavern Topics,” New York Amsterdam News, December 13, 1947: 26.

12 Gary Ashwill.

13 “Oscal Levis, leader of the Cuban invaders, formerly studied baseball and science at Columbia University,” Long Island Daily Press, May 10, 1935; “Cuban Stars of Havana to Play Black Yankees Here,” Morning Call, May 9, 1935: 24.

14 Adrian Burgos Jr., Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Adrian Burgos Jr., Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011).

15 “Oscar Levis, the pitching ace of the Cuban Stars,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 19, 1926: 15; “Oscal, ace of the Havana team’s hurling staff,” New York Amsterdam News, July 18, 1928: 10;  “‘Peerless’ Oscal,” Brooklyn Citizen, September 23, 1928: 13; “Oscal the king of colored hurlers,” Brooklyn Daily Times, July 8, 1928: 19; “Black Sox and Cuban Stars to Open in Norfolk,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, April 27, 1929: 4; “Bushwicks Finally Win a Game from Oscal,” Brooklyn Citizen, May 14, 1928, 8.

16 Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shorts,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 16, 1929: 7.

17 Thomas Holmes, “Oscal, a Negro, Gets Smith’s Vote,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 16, 1928:4A, cited in Ashwill,

18 “Habana y Alendares,” La Discusión, November 3, 1924: 9.

19 “Fans of Country Select Mythical All Eastern Team,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 3, 1925: 14; “Cuban Stars To Have Strong Team,” New York Age, April 9, 1927: 6.

20 Irwin Rosee, “Tossing Arm Gone,” Brooklyn Times Union, June 8, 1934; Thomas Barthel, Baseball’s Fearless Semipros: The Brooklyn Bushwicks of Dexter Park (Haworth, New Jersey: St. Johann Press, 2009).

21 Seamheads Negro Leagues Database. “Oscar Levis,” https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=levis01osc. See also “Watching the Scoreboard,” Chicago Defender, December 6, 1924: 25, and Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shorts,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 16, 1929: 7.

22 “Howards Start Sunday,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 7, 1922: 4; “Howards Will Start Against Colored Team,” Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1922: 23.

23 “Astoria Wins from Panama Red Sox,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 12, 1921: 5; “Panama Sox at Queens,” Brooklyn Daily Times, May 4, 1922: 14.

24 “Watching the Scoreboard,” Chicago Defender, December 6, 1924: 25.

25 Gary Ashwill; Jorge S. J. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878–1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003), 399.

26  “Oscar Levis,” https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/levisos01.shtml.

27 Gary Ashwill.

28 Rollo Wilson, “Thru the Eyes,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 2, 1943: 12.

29 “Fireworks to Come With New Witnesses,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 20, 1938, 3; Adrian Burgos Jr., Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), chap. 5.

30 Oscar Joseph Levy, Affidavits of Petitioner and Witnesses, circa 1926.

31 “Oscal, Cuban Pitcher, Is a Spanish Jew,” Brooklyn Citizen, June 7, 1926: 8.

32 “Oscal Levis: Hebrew Hurler,” Brooklyn Standard Union, August 5, 1927; Peter Levine, “‘Hero of the Day’: The Short Career of Andy Cohen,” in Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American, ed. Joshua Perelman (Philadelphia: National Museum of American Jewish History, 2014), 54–58.

33 “Oscal Levis, pitcher and manager of the Cuban Stars, is of Spanish-Jewish extraction,” Brooklyn Times Union, June 2, 1934, 12.

34 Tyson Herberger, “Understanding Debates Over Who is Jewish: Boundaries Prompted by the Czollek-Biller Debate,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 60:2 (Spring 2025): 207–235; Email from S. Mirvis to Z. Kranc, August 25, 2025.

35 “Posey’s Points,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 20, 1940: 17; “Cuban Stars on Bushwick Slate: Brooklyn to Get View of Levis’ New Club,” New York Amsterdam News, May 23, 1936: 15.

36 “Oscal Replaces Worn-Out Cuban Parts with Youth,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 30, 1934: 10.

37 “Cuban Stars and Black Yanks in Two Games,” Brooklyn Citizen, July 3, 1935; Irwin Rosse, “Nashville Star Seeks Two Wins,” Brooklyn Times Union, July 19, 1935: 11.

38 “Oscar Levis,” New York Amsterdam News, June 8, 1935: 15; George Palmer, “Tavern Topics,” New York Amsterdam News, December 13, 1947: 26.

39 “Harlem Tavern Owners Unsung Humanitarians,” New York Amsterdam News, January 5, 1957.

40 New York Amsterdam Star News, January 19, 1946: 21.

41 “Oscar J. Levy Feted,” New York Amsterdam News, October 28, 1967: 24.

42 FindAGrave.com, “Oscar Levy,” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102597392/oscar-levy.

43 George Palmer, “Tavern Topics,” New York Amsterdam News, December 13, 1947: 26.

44 New York Amsterdam Star News, February 22, 1947: 22.

45 George Palmer, “Tavern Topics,” New York Amsterdam News, December 13, 1947: 26.

46 “Oscar J. Levy, owned restaurant and softball team,” The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), May 27: 1983.