Wild Bill Wright

A towering 6-foot-4, 220-pound switch-hitter who slashed for average and slugged with power, he bunted effectively, ran like the wind, fielded gracefully, and wielded a strong right arm from the outfield.

“Wright could circle the bases in 13.2 seconds,” Negro League biographer James A. Riley wrote of the hulking but fleet fly chaser. “He was adept at pushing a bunt down the third-base line, and was a superior drag bunter, employing both in conjunction with his speed to avoid a prolonged batting slump by getting a leg hit when he needed one.”1

His teammate and friend Roy Campanella called Wright “the biggest, strongest, fastest man that I’ve ever seen.”2

Denied access to the segregated major leagues, Wright excelled with the Elite Giants during the heyday of the Negro Leagues, won a batting title, and helped lead Baltimore to the 1939 Negro National League (NNL2) championship.

He was a fixture in the East-West All-Star Game, the Negro Leagues’ summer showcase, starting nine of the 10 times he was selected and batting .361. He also played in four North-South All-Star Games and five Negro National League vs. Negro American League showdowns. Wright’s unique combination of size, strength, and speed drew comparison to the best all-around major-league players, and he was dubbed “the Black DiMaggio.” “Yeah, except that I could run rings around him,” Wright would laughingly recall.3

In 1939 the Baltimore Afro-American wrote, “Besides being the fastest man in the league, Bill Wright, the sensational outfielder of the Baltimore Elite Giants, is also the best hitter.”4

By the time the next season started, Wright had moved to Mexico and joined several other Negro League stars who found greater opportunity – and bigger paychecks – south of the border. He returned to the United States twice over the next six years to enjoy successful Negro League seasons, and in between the two homecomings, won the 1943 Mexican League Triple Crown.

According to the Seamheads.com Negro League database, Wild Bill hit .326 over 10 Negro Leagues seasons. And according to the Outsiders.com database, he batted better than .300 in nine of 10 seasons in major-league Mexican League play.5 But the Negro and Mexican League seasons were just a part of the story. Like most Black players of his time, Wright played nearly every day that weather allowed, and often more than one game in a day. He played hundreds of tournament, exhibition, and all-star games each year against Black players, starred for several seasons in the integrated California Winter League – winning 10 titles6 – and in Winter League games in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and excelled in a number of games against White and mixed-race teams.

“Wright hit well against major-league pitchers, both in Mexico and in the California winter league, batting. 371 in competition against major leaguers including Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean, Ewell Blackwell, Max Lanier, and Bobo Newsom,” Riley wrote.7

Burnis Wright was born on June 6, 1914, near Milan (pronounced “My-lunn), a small farming town in Gibson County in western Tennessee, located between Memphis (100 miles away) and Nashville (140 miles to the East).

He grew up in the home of his grandparents, Will and Mary Wright. At the time of the 1920 US census, there were 17 family members living in their farmhouse, including their son Theoda, daughter-in-law Ola and 6-year-old Burnis.8

“We made our own balls with rags, rosin and that good thread the shoe repair man gave us,” Wright recalled at the age of 79. “Then we’d add the tongue from a pair of women’s high-top leather shoes and make a pretty nice ball.”9

He played for the Gibson County Training School in 1929.10 By the time of the 1930 Census, the Great Depression was setting in, and the family had moved into a house in town. Grandfather Will was the only member of the household who was employed and was working on a farm; Burnis at 16 was no longer in school and not employed,11 but he was playing baseball.

He started out as a pitcher and was saddled with the “Wild Bill” moniker when he struggled to throw strikes. According to legend, Wright injured his arm trying to throw hard in cold weather and was moved to the outfield.12

Wright made his professional debut in 1931 with his hometown Milan Buffaloes and before the 1932 season, earned a tryout with the Negro Southern League’s Nashville Elite Giants as a 17-year-old. The NSL was designated as one of two Negro major leagues for 1932. Playing their home games at Wilson Park, named for team owner Tom Wilson, Nashville posted a 24-23 record for manager Joe Hewitt. The Elite Giants finished fourth overall but won the league’s second-half title and met the first-half and pennant-winning Chicago American Giants in the league’s championship playoff. Turkey Stearnes led the Second City team to a four-games-to-three victory.13

Wright turned 18 during the season and batted .256 in 26 NSL games, stroking a pair of doubles and a triple, along with 17 singles in 78 at-bats. The rookie right fielder stole three bases.14 After the season, he quarterbacked the Nashville Elite Giants to the “mythical professional championship.”15

Wilson moved his Elite Giants franchise into the resurrected Negro National League (NNL2) in 1933. In his sophomore season, the 19-year-old Wright batted .321 in 36 games, scoring 18 runs and driving in 18.

Nashville finished fourth for manager Felton Stratton with a 19-22-1 record, 11½ games behind Gus Greenlee’s Pittsburgh Crawfords, who fielded a lineup that included Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, Cool Papa Bell, Ted Page, and Satchel Paige for player-manager Oscar Charleston.

After the season, Wright joined Paige’s Philadelphia Royal Giants for a set of barnstorming exhibitions against a team of White major leaguers, then finished third behind teammates Bell and Wells in the integrated California Winter League batting race16 as the Royal Giants posted a 34-8 record to win the loop’s title.17

Wright struggled at the plate in 1934 as a 20-year-old, when he batted .252 for the Elite Giants, who finished fifth of eight NNL teams at 18-28-1 for manager Candy Jim Taylor. He was again superb in the California Winter League, batting a league-leading .481 over 17 games for league champion Nashville18 and is said to have appeared in a classic 13-inning matchup of Paige and Dean at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles.19

In 1935 Wilson moved his franchise to Columbus, Ohio, where the Elite Giants posted a 29-24-2 mark to finish third behind the Crawfords and Martin Dihigo’s New York Cubans. That season, the 21-year-old Wright moved from right field to center and emerged as a star. He batted .311 in 32 NNL games, clubbed 13 extra-base hits and stole 5 bases in league games.

He made his first appearance in the Negro League’s showcase exhibition, the East-West All Star Game, in August at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Playing alongside Charleston, Gibson, Bell, and Buck Leonard for the West in a game that included more than a dozen players who would be inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, the youthful Wright flied out as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning in his only at-bat.20 He made his first North-South All-Star Game appearance in September in Memphis, collecting a hit, scoring a run, and driving in a run in a 6-4 North win. He also joined Paige against Dean in a Halloween exhibition,21 batted a lofty .426, and slugged .639 for the California Winter League champion Royal Giants.22

Wilson moved the Elite Giants again in 1936, this time to share Washington’s Griffith Stadium with the American League’s Senators. The Elite Giants finished sixth among seven teams in the NNL standings with a 29-34-1 record but won the league’s second-half championship. They swept the Philadelphia Stars in a two-game series in the first round of the playoffs but lost two of three to the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the NNL championship series.

The 22-year-old Wright batted .348 in 37 NNL games, with 15 extra-base hits and 37 runs scored.23 Playing for the victorious East squad in the East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park, Wright replaced Bell in center field and went hitless in two at-bats.24

In August Wild Bill joined Paige, Gibson, Bell, Leonard, and Ray Brown on Greenlee’s Colored Stars team that swept seven games to win the prestigious Denver Post Tournament. Facing the flame-throwing Paige, the Borger, Texas, team was believed to be the first team to wear protective plastic helmets. Paige struck out 18 of them in the title game and won his third game of the tourney.25

In October, at Davenport, Iowa, on a barnstorming tour of Iowa and Colorado with Paige’s team, he stroked a hit in four at-bats in an exhibition game against a team that included major-league stars Rogers Hornsby and Johnny Mize, and faced Feller, reaching base when he was hit by a pitch.26

Wright also starred in a two-games-to-one NNL All-Stars series win over Satchel Paige’s Outlaws.27 And he picked up four hits in 17 at-bats in a five-game series against a team of American and National League players and starred for the Elite Giants in the California Winter League.

Still just 23 years old, Wild Bill continued to develop into one of baseball’s best players in 1937. He batted .381 (56-for-147), third best in the league, with an NNL-leading 11 triples, and slugged .728, third best in the league behind Gibson and Leonard. He started the East-West All Star Game for the first time, playing center field for Biz Mackey’s East Squad. He collected two singles and a double in five trips, stole a base,28 and “turned in the most dazzling catch of the day” on a game-saving snag of Newt Allen’s line drive.29

He also collected a hit and a walk against Paige for the NNL All Stars in a 2-0 win over the Santo Domingo All Stars at the Polo Grounds in September. One week later, Paige set him down four times down in a 9-4 Santo Domingo win at Yankee Stadium.

Wright journeyed west with the Philadelphia Royal Giants in October and starred in an exhibition series against White Kings Soap,30 a team anchored by American and National Leaguers including Brooklyn’s Babe Herman. He then batted .378 for the Royal Giants during the California Winter League season.

Washington had finished fifth of six NNL teams in 1937 and Wilson was on the move again for the 1938 season. This time he found a home offering more financial stability, moving the Elite Giants to Baltimore, where they would play in the Negro Leagues until they ceased operations after the 1950 season.

Playing at Bugle Field for new manager George Scales, the Elite Giants climbed to third place, though Wright, at age 24, played in only about half of the team’s league games, batting .300. Before the season ended, he played in a number of all-star games. He started for the East against the West in Chicago in August and was hitless in four at-bats.31 He also led off and played left field against the Negro American League, collected three hits including a pair of doubles in six at-bats, scored four runs and drove in three in a 14-3 NNL win at Parkside Park in Philadelphia on September 24. A day later, he led off, played right field, and collected three hits including a double against the NAL at the Polo Grounds in a 5-4 NNL All Stars win. He started the North-South All-Star Game in October in Memphis, leading off and playing center field for the North. He was 1-for-3 with a walk and scored the only run for the North in a 3-1 loss. He also played again for the Philadelphia Royal Giants in the 1938-39 CWL.32

Wright enjoyed a spectacular 1939 season with the Elite Giants. He batted .365 in 25 league games, scored 23 runs, and drove in 24 runs. The Elite Giants played at Oriole Park (also known as Terrapin Park) and finished fourth in the NNL at 21-23, 9½ games behind the Homestead Grays. In a four-team competition, Baltimore dropped its first playoff game at Newark but battled back to win three straight against the Bears, the last two at home. Wright collected six hits in 16 trips to the plate, (.375) with a double, four runs scored, and two RBIs.

Wright, 17-year-old rookie catcher Roy Campanella, and first baseman Bill Hoskins led the Elite Giants into the finals against the Grays. Baltimore won three games against one loss and a tie, with the final win secured at Yankee Stadium, 2-0, when Wright started a two-run rally with a seventh-inning double.33 Hoskins collected 9 hits, Wright 7, and Campanella 6. The trio drove in 13 and scored 12 of Baltimore’s 21 runs in the series. Wright batted .412 over the five games, doubled three times, walked three times, and scored four runs as Baltimore captured the Jacob Ruppert Cup.34 

Wild Bill appeared in both East-West games that year. After boxing champion Joe Louis threw out the first pitch, Wild Bill led off for the East and collected a single and a double in four at-bats at the traditional game at Comiskey Park, a 4-2 East win.35 Three weeks later, Wright smacked a “smoking single” and a double in the East’s 10-2 victory at Yankee Stadium in the summer’s second East-West Game.36 He batted third and collected two hits in five trips, scored a run and drove in one in North All-Stars’ 10-1 victory over the South at Pelican Stadium in New Orleans on October 1, 1939. He starred in a postseason exhibition series with a 3-for-8 performance including a double off Feller in Los Angeles played in the California Winter League again for the champion Philadelphia Royal Giants.37

Before the 1940 season, Wright joined a number of high-profile Negro League stars who moved to Mexico to play in the Mexican League.38 Negro League historians Dr. Layton Revel and Lewis Munoz wrote, “Mexico proved to be very desirable to Negro League players because they made higher salaries, traveling conditions were better, there were very few long road trips, teams generally only played games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and there was significantly less racism.”39

Baseball historian Lawrence D. Hogan wrote that it was a big step after Wright’s successful Negro League career, “[y]et once this seven-time all-star saw that Mexicans adored him, he spent the rest of his career, from 1940 to 1951 in the country, and with a career .335 average and fistfuls of extra-base hits, it’s not hard to see why. In Mexico, he was treated like the king of the diamonds he was.”40

Wild Bill started the 1940 season with Gallos de Santa Rosa, then moved to Mexico City to join Los Diablos Rojos (Red Devils). In 87 Mexican League games, the 26-year-old Wright batted .360 with 126 hits, tied Wells for most doubles with 30, and stroked 10 triples and 8 home runs. He swiped 29 bases, second most in the league to Sammy Bankhead’s 32. Playing at Parque Delta in Mexico City, Los Diablos Rojos went 50-30 to finish second behind Dihigo’s Azules de Veracruz, led by Bell.

After the season, Wright rejoined the Elite Giants for California Winter League play. Wright batted .429 in limited action and teamed with Goose Curry, Sammy Hughes, Felton Snow, and Biz Mackey as Baltimore won the league title with an unofficial record of 9-4. On November 8, 1940, Wright registered for the military draft in Los Angeles, listed his address as 1200 East 49th Street, his next of kin as his wife, JT Wright, his birthdate as June 6, 1912, and his employer as Mexico City.41

Playing in 100 games in 1941, Wright posted a .390 batting average to win the Mexican League batting title ahead of Gibson (.374) and Ray Dandridge (.367). He tied for fourth in the league with 151 hits, tied for seventh with 25 doubles and tied for eighth with 9 triples. He was third in home runs with 17 (his career high) to Gibson’s 33, tied for fifth with 85 RBIs, led the league with 26 stolen bases, with a .487 OBP edged Gibson’s .484, and walked 72 times. Mexico City finished second again, this time at 52-47, 13½ games behind Azules. He served as player-manager for Senadores de San Juan in the Puerto Rican Winter League and batted .280 and hit a home run in game one of a two-game all-star series.

The United States entered World War II before the end of the year, and the African American players in Mexico were required to return to the States in case they were called up for service. Wright rejoined the Elite Giants at age 28 and collected 59 hits in 186 at-bats in 1942, a .317 mark. He also smacked 17 extra-base hits.

Baltimore posted a 45-33-1 record and finished fifth in the NNL with a 38-27-1 record. Wright tied Campanella for the team lead in RBIs with 34 and finished fourth in the league with 8 doubles.

In August Wright he reclaimed a spot in the East-West Game, started in right field and collected a pair of hits in five trips including a ninth-inning two-run single off Paige in a 5-2 East win at Comiskey Park.42 Two days later, he started in right field again, collected two more hits in five at-bats, stroked a double, drove in a run, and scored one in a 9-2 East win at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. After the season, he headed west for another campaign with the Royal Giants in the California Winter League.

Negro Leagues players were able to return to Mexico in 1943 and several did, though none played better than Wright in the Mexican League. The 29-year-old thrasher won the Triple Crown despite competition from some of the greatest players in the game.

Wright narrowly won the batting title over Dandridge (.366 to .354). He slugged 13 home runs, one more than Campanella and three others. And he drove in 70 runs, the same number as Dandridge and Alejandro Crespo. He finished first in the league in slugging percentage at .577 (his OPS was 1.002 and his OPS+ was 174, both tops in the league) and was second in the league in hits with 129 and in steals. He was named to the All-Mexican League team.43

Despite Wright’s efforts, Diablos Rojos finished last among the six Mexican League teams with a 38-51 record, 14½ games behind Campanella’s pennant-winning Industriales de Monterrey. After the season, Wright returned to the California Winter League, this time with the Kansas City Royals.

Wright enjoyed another great Liga del Mexico season in 1944 at age 30, posting a .335 average and earning All-Mexican League honors once more, but Los Diablos Rojos finished in the cellar again, 24½ games behind Azules de Vera Cruz. Wild Bill played 87 games in right field and ranked among the league leaders in batting average, hits, doubles, home runs, RBIs, and stolen bases.44 After the season, Wright spent another season in California with Paige’s Kansas City Royals.45

In 1945 Wright and other African American players returned to the States, where Wright rejoined his old team to lead the Giants to the NNL regular-season title in 1945 as a 31-year-old. He was superb again, hitting .362, and finished behind only Campanella and Frank Austin in the batting race. He finished in a six-way tie for second with five home runs (Gibson smashed eight) and finished second with 17 doubles, one behind Campanella. In 54 games and 213 at-bats, he collected 77 hits (second most in the league), 26 extra-base hits, 39 runs batted in (fourth in league), and 45 runs scored (second behind Campanella’s 51). He stole 6 bases (fourth in league).

On July 29 in Chicago, Wright made his final appearance in the East-West All Star Game. He started in right field, went 0-for-2 and lost a pair of balls in right field. “The goat of the game was Bill Wright, veteran outfielder of Baltimore, who misjudged two drives that might have been caught if he had used his sunglasses,” the Pittsburgh Courier reported. “Right field in Comiskey Park is one of the sunniest in the majors.”46

After the season, Wright barnstormed with Satchel Paige’s All-Stars and played center field for Paige’s Kansas City Royals, starting for a California Winter League pennant-winner for the 10th time.47

Wright found himself at a crossroads in 1946. While integration of the national pastime was approaching slowly, it was evident that the doors to Organized Baseball would not be open for aging Black veterans like him. At the age of 31, Wright returned to Mexico, where he would spend the remainder of his career. 

When Wright returned to Mexico, he found a changing landscape. Jorge Pasquel, a Mexican cigar-making entrepreneur and team owner, had become president of the Mexican League in 1943. He and his four brothers recruited a number of Black players and in 1946 set their sights on White major leaguers. They signed 18 players from Organized Baseball, including Sal Maglie and Max Lanier, despite threat of a lifetime ban from Organized Baseball. Black players from the United States and the Caribbean found themselves competing with emerging Mexican players like Bobby Avila and Bobby Estalella.

Though threatened with a five-year suspension by the NNL, Wright chose to return to Mexico and never returned to the Negro Leagues.

Negro League historian Gary Cieradkowski wrote, “In interviews he gave after his retirement, Wright stated that he preferred the absence of racial animosity in Mexico. South of the border he was an acknowledged star, while in his own country, no matter how good he was, he was only a marginal figure, known only by those who followed segregated baseball. Besides, life was easy for a ballplayer in Mexico. Unlike the Negro Leagues, where playing two games in different towns on the same day was not unheard of, the Liga Mexicana played only on Friday, Saturday, and Sundays. The travel was by train or airplane, a world apart from the bone-rattling bus rides that were the normal mode of transport in the Negro Leagues.”48

Continued Cieradkowski: “Age also had something to do with Wright’s decision to stay in Mexico. When Jackie Robinson integrated Organized Baseball in 1946, Wright was 32, too old to be seriously considered for a shot at the majors. This, combined with the quick collapse of the Negro Leagues after 1946, kept Wild Bill Wright in Mexico. The Mexican League had one last great season, 1946, when not only Negro League players, but also White big-leaguers, ventured south. In what can be called his last hurrah, Wild Bill outhit all the White major-league imports.”49

Wright batted .301 in 85 games as a 32-year-old in 1946 for Los Diablos Rojos.50 During the offseason, he played winter ball for Mazatlán in the Mexican Pacific Coast League. He hit .305 in 79 games for the Mexico City team in 1947 and earned All-Mexican League honors for the third time.51 He spent the 1948 season with a new Mexican League team, Los Industriales de Monterrey, where he was a teammate of Cuban star Luis Tiant Sr. He hit .333 at age 34 but had no home runs and walked just 18 times in 66 games. In 1949 at age 35, Wright hit a combined .276 in 73 games for Los Diablos Rojos and Los Algodoneros de Union Laguna in the Mexican League.

In 1950 Wright rebounded and hit .302 in 63 games during his last full season with Los Diablos Rojos. “Sometimes called a dirty ballplayer,” Riley wrote, “Wright could be temperamental and occasionally showed flashes of a mean streak, but in a game in Mexico in 1950 these attributes probably saved the life of his teammate Rufus Lewis.”52 Revel and Munoz explained that “Wright was involved in one of the most controversial plays in Mexican League history. With former Negro League pitcher Rufus Lewis on the mound and Lorenzo ‘Chiquitin’ Cabrera [a former New York Cuban player] batting, Lewis hit Cabrera with a fastball. Cabrera, who was known for his hot head and quick temper, took exception to the play, rushed the mound with bat in hand and hit Lewis with the bat, rendering him unconscious. Even though Lewis was unconscious and lying on the ground, Cabrera raised his bat to hit the fallen player again, but before he could do so, Wright ran out of the dugout with a bat of his own and hit Cabrera, knocking him unconscious. Accounts from spectators to the incident agree that Wright probably saved the life of Rufus Lewis; however, Wright remained under a dark cloud that most likely delayed his induction into the Mexican League baseball Hall of Fame.”53

Wright’s time in the Mexican League came to an end in 1951. He split time with Los Diablos Rojos (he is listed as one of the team’s four managers in 1951) and Los Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo. He hit .365 at the age of 37, the oldest player on either team.54

Wright played for Orizaba in the Vera Cruz Winter League after the 1952 season and compiled a .333 average. After the 1953 season, he played for the Jalapa Chileros in the Veracruz Winter League.

Wright batted .300 in 68 games in 1955 with Los Rieleros de Aguascalientes (Railroaders of Aguascalientes) in the Class-C Liga Central of Mexico, managed by Martin Dihigo. In 1956, at the age of 42, he collected 102 hits in 332 at-bats. He played in 77 of 79 games and finished second on the team in stolen bases. He remained in the game and served as one of four managers of Rojos de Fresnillo in the Mexico Central League Class-C circuit in 1956 and 1957.

Rather than return to the United States, Wright chose to move his permanent residence from California to Mexico in 1953. He retired from baseball to his home in Aguascalientes, where he opened a hamburger restaurant, Bill Wright’s Dugout.55 He made only infrequent visits to the United States during the remainder of his life.

In October 1958, months after Campanella was paralyzed in an automobile accident, the former catcher was featured on a televised episode of This Is Your Life. Wright, who had been his roommate when the 15-year-old Campanella made his NNL debut in 1937,56 appeared as one of several surprise guests.57 After that, Wright did not return to the United States for 32 years.

Wright was elected to the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. In 1986 Monte Irvin, a special assistant to Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and a former Negro Leagues and National League player, named Wright to the outfield for his all-time Negro League team. In an interview with historian Timothy Gay, “Irvin compared Wild Bill’s hulking physique and playing style to that of Dave Parker, the 1970s-1980s star of the Pirates and Reds.58

Wright made his first journey to the United States in three decades to attend a 1990 reunion of Negro Leagues players.

In 1996 Negro Leagues legend Buck O’Neil named Wright to his all-time team, describing him as “a marvelous hitter.”59

In March 1992 Sports Illustrated’s Shelley Smith reported that “Seventy-seven-year-old Bill Wright lives in a tiny, crumbling house in Aguascalientes, Mexico, barely able to walk because his feet are twisted with arthritis and he’s unable to afford surgery. Things were different a half century ago, when he was a strapping young outfielder and gifted hitter for the Elite Giants of the Negro Leagues. In the 1930’s, he dazzled the thousands of fans who crammed into parks to see him and teammates like Roy Campanella and hundreds of other black players.

“The fact is, Wright, and many like him, had almost as much to do with the integration of baseball as did (Jackie) Robinson. Yet Wright now lives in poverty and obscurity, as do so many other former Negro league ballplayers.”60

Wright died on August 3, 1996, at age 82 in Aguascalientes. At the time, Paige, Gibson, Leonard, Irvin, Bell, Johnson, Charleston, Dihigo, Dandridge, Stearnes, and several other of his contemporaries had been elected to Cooperstown. In 2005 Wild Bill was one of 39 Negro League players considered for induction by the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues and the pre-Negro Leagues. Although 17 of the 39 were named to the Hall in 2006, Wright was not one of them. O’Neil and nineteenth-century standout Bud Fowler, both selected by the Veterans Committee in 2022, are the only Negro Leagues players inducted since.

In 2017 a restored bronze bust honoring Wright was unveiled in Aguascalientes at the site of Estadio Alberto Romo Chavez.

Wright was named to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. Family members and supporters attended the ceremony in 2017, including his niece Mary Lillian Wright Allen of Ferguson, Missouri, and his adopted grandson, Burnis Bill Wright of Indianapolis.61 His family also set up a Facebook tribute page with artwork and photos in Wild Bill’s honor.62

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, the Center for Negro League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, and Seamheads.com.

Photo credit: Wild Bill Wright, courtesy of Temple University’s Mosley Collection.

Notes

1 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994), 880-882.

2 “Burnis ‘Wild Bill’ Wright,” Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, https://tshf.net/halloffame/burnis-wild-bill-wright.

3 https://www.facebook.com/BillWrightTribute. The quote is referenced several times on the tribute pages.

4 “Wright Gains NNL Batting Crown,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 30, 1939: 21.

5 Darowski.com/outsider/wrighwi01.html.

6 Dr. Layton Revel and Luis Munoz, “Forgotten Heroes: Burnis ‘Wild Bill’ Wright,” Center for Negro League Baseball Research, 2008, 17.

7 Riley, 880-882.

8 Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920 – Population.   

9 Steve Short, “Yesterday in Milan: Wild Bill Wright, Big League Baseball Great,” undated article from Milan (Tennessee) Mirror-Exchange from circa 1993.

10 Short.

11 Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. The Census misspelled Wright’s first name as “Bernice.”

12 Riley, 880-882.

13 Seamheads.com.

14 Wild Bill Wright page on Seamheads.com: (https://seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=wrigh01bil). Wright’s page at Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wrighwi01.shtml) suggests that Wright actually batted .300 in league games. That the databases disagree is no surprise. Statistics for Negro League players are often inaccurate and almost always incomplete. Negro League players played nearly every day when the weather allowed, often played more than one game in a day, and many games were not documented or have been lost to history. They played against other African American teams, against White teams, and on occasion, against mixed-race teams. They played against amateur, semipro, and professional teams, and sometimes, against White major-league players. The surviving record primarily includes most Negro League games, notable all-star games and exhibition games that received media coverage. Both may be true, though drawn from a different set of records. The surviving record primarily includes most Negro League games, notable all-star games and exhibition games that received media coverage. Negro League season statistics for Wild Bill Wright are generally based on the Seamheads.com database. Mexican League and W/inter League statistics are generally based on the Outsider.com database. Single-game statistics are generally based on the Retrosheet.org database.

15 “Nashville Elite Giants Claim National Pro Football Title,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 24, 1932: 15. Wild Bill also played fullback for the Elite Giants football squad in 1933 and 1934. “Nashville Elites Swamp Bulldogs,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 10, 1934: 4.

16 Timothy Gay, Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 142-145; Darowski.com/outsider/wrighwi01.html.               

17 Revel and Munoz, 1.

18 Revel and Munoz, 1

19 Gay, 105-107. Gay wrote that there were no contemporary media reports about the game, though it is very possible that local writers conspired to keep silent about the game in order to keep Dean from getting suspended for violating major-league barnstorming rules. “If the November ’34 L.A. game was just an urban myth, then why were Dean, Paige, (Wally) Berger, (Bill) Veeck, and others not only adamant that the game was played, but in essential agreement over its details.”

20 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West National Showcase, 1933-1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 63-79

21 Gay, 132-134.

22 Gay, 147-148. According to Gay, before one CWL game, “the speedy Wright competed against entertainer Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in a race in which Wright circled the bases and Robinson ran a shorter distance backward, a talent for which he held ‘a world record.’”

23 According to Baseball-Reference, he hit .356 and led the league with 7 triples.

24 Lester, 80-63.

25 Mark Ribowsky, Josh Gibson, The Power and the Darkness (New York: First Illinois paperback, 2004), 152.

26 Gay, 160-165.

27 Lester, 100-101.

28 Several contemporary newspapers including the Pittsburgh Courier, Philadelphia Tribune, Chicago Defender, and Kansas City Call, credited Wright with a stolen base in the fourth inning. However, Retrosheet records: H(ilton) Smith replaced E(d) Mayweather (pitching); W. Wright singled to left field; B(uck) Leonard walked while W. Wright advanced to third on a wild pitch.” Retrosheet charged Smith with a wild pitch.

29 Lester, 103-104. The Pittsburgh Courier missed on Wright’s first name, referring to him as Ben. “Another stellar performer for the East was Ben Wright of Tom Wilson’s Washington Elites. Wright led the Orient in batting, getting three hits, one of them a double and turned in the most dazzling catch of the day in snaring Allen’s Texas league into short center field. Ben came bounding in like an antelope until he saw that his only chance of catching the ball would be to plunge for it. Then he went into a swan dive, which would be a beautiful sight to behold. With his two hands stretch out far in front, he skidded along the grass … just far enough for his fingers to meet the fast-dropping horsehide. Then he squeezed it robbing (Newt) Allen of what looked like a sure hit on anybody’s ball field. When big Ben came back to the dugout, the fans gave him a rousing round of applause.”

30 The team was sponsored by White Kings Soap.

31 Lester, 107-119; https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1938/B08210ASW1938.htm.

32 Gay, 178.

33 Ribowsky, 207-209.

34 The Jacob Ruppert Trophy was the namesake of the New York Yankees owner. Ribowsky, 209.

35 Lester, 120-132; Fay Young, “Gibson, Suttles and Leonard Held Hitless: Wilson’s Homer Gives West Win Over East in Classic, 40,000 See Thriller, Robinson Starts Rally & West Wins 4 to 2,” Chicago Defender, August 12, 1939, reprinted in Lester, 125-128.

36 Harry B. Webber, “East Swamps West in Revenge Game: Josh Gibson’s Triple Scores Three Ahead,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 2, 1939: 22; Lester, 133-139; Dan Burley, “NNL Power Crushes West 10-2: 17000 See Eastern Club Revenge East-West Defeat,” New York Amsterdam News, September 2, 1939.

37 Gay, 178. Feller was pitching for the Pirrone All Stars.

38 Gay, 218: “This was the first step in Jorge Pasquel’s master plan to bring major league baseball to Mexico. He believed if he attracted the best Negro League players with huge salaries, major leaguers would eventually follow, which would force the big leagues to sue for peace on terms that might give Mexico a big league franchise.”

39 Revel and Munoz 4.

40 Lawrence D. Hogan, Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball (Washington: National Geographic, 2006), 310-311.

41 U.S. World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-47 for Burnis Wright. J.T. The 1940 census, taken earlier in the year, listed J.T. Wright, a native of Texas, as married and living at the same address, in the household of her parents, Fred and Bertha Monroe. Wild Bill wasn’t listed in the 1940 Census, likely because he was playing baseball outside of the country. Notably, he listed his birthday as two years prior to the commonly accepted date and despite the fact that the 1920 Census listed his age as 6 years old and the 1930 Census listed his age as 16.

42 Lester, 172-206; Frank A, Young, “48,000 See East All-Stars Beat Paige and West; West Held to Four Hits as National Leaguers Triumph by 5-2 Score,” Chicago Defender, August 22, 1942, reprinted in Lester, 194-195, and Ribowsky, 242.

43 Revel and Munoz, 17.

44. Rogers Hornsby managed Azules for 10 games before leaving the team in the hands of Ramón Bragaña.

45 Larry Tye, Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend (New York: Random House, 2009), 303; Darowski.com/outsider/wrighwi01.html.

46 Lester, 239-256; Wendell Smith, “The Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 4, 1945, reprinted in Lester, 251-252; Wendell Smith “Americans Too Good for Spiritless East: 31,714 See Classic; Davis, Robinson, Radcliffe and Ware Star as West Pours It on East in Annual All-Star Game,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 4, 1945, reprinted in Lester, 248-251. Veteran sportswriter Smith pulled no punches: “Wright Blinded by Sun. The roof fell in on the East in the second inning when Neil Robinson of Memphis started off by beating out an infield hit. He promptly scampered to third when the veteran Alex Radcliff powered a drive to right field. Big Bill Wright, ace Baltimore outfielder, failed to get a line on the ball, and was unable to track it down because he was blinded by the sun. Had he started soon enough he could have caught the drive, but for some strange reason he did not have his sunglasses on and the ball got away from him, and rolled into deep right field. Archie Ware, colorful Cleveland first baseman, then drove the first two runs of the game in with a lazy slash over second base. Williams took a strike across the outside corner and then on the next pitch blasted a drive into right … in the direction of Bill Wright, the man without glasses. Again blinded by the sun, Wright was unable to judge the hit and it went for a rousing triple. Two more runs came in and the West held a commanding four-run lead. That was really the ball game.”

47 The Kansas City Royals were also called (KC Chet) Brewer’s Royals. Gay, 207.

48 Gary Cieradkowski, “Wild Bill Wright: The Neglected Negro League Star,” https://sabr.org/latest/cieradkowski-wild-bill-wright-the-neglected-negro-leagues-star/.

49 Cieradkowski.

50 Revel and Munoz, 6. Eight players – Wright, Ray Brown, Ray Dandridge, Tom Glover, Bert Hunter, Terris McDuffie, Ed Stone, and Johnny Taylor – were suspended for five years by the NNL.

51 Revel and Munoz, 17.

52 Riley, 880-882.

53 Revel and Munoz, 7.

54 Riley, 880-882.

55 Wright knew his way around a restaurant. “Shangri-La Dining Room Under New Management,” Los Angeles Sentinel, November 20, 1947: 5. Commented, “While resting on his laurels of being one of the country’s finest athletes, Wright also possess a knowledge of the cuisine likened to an expert.”   

56 Neil Lanctot, Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 42.

57 Lanctot, 385.

58 Gay, 145-147, said that “[Monte] Irvin compared Wild Bill’s hulking physique and playing style to that of Dave Parker, the 1970s-80s star of the Pirates and Reds.”

59 Buck O’Neil, with Steve Wulf and David Conrads, I Was Right on Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 152.

60 Shelley Smith, “Baseball’s Forgotten Pioneers: Former Negro League Players Gave Too Much to the Game to Be Left in Obscurity,” Sports Illustrated, March 30, 1992.

61 Steve Short, “Milan Native Bill Wright Inducted into Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame,” Milan (Tennessee) Mirror-Exchange, June 6, 2017: 1B.

62 https://www.facebook.com/BillWrightTribute.