October 20, 1924: José Méndez, Kansas City Monarchs shut out Hilldale Club to win first Negro League World Series

As the 1924 season progressed, fans of the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League began wondering why the two leagues didn’t have an end-of-season playoff, or as the press referred to it, a “Negro World Series.” (The Black press alternated between calling the proposed competition a Negro World Series and a Colored World Series.1) Ed Bolden, head of the ECL, who also operated the Hilldale Club,2 told reporters that now, more than ever before, there was a “clamor” from the fans, who were eager to see it happen.3 Sportswriter Ollie Womack agreed; he wrote that fans of the NNL’s Kansas City Monarchs too were “demanding … a championship series at the end of the season with the champions of the Eastern League.”4

But before that could occur, Bolden and NNL founder Rube Foster had to work out their differences. Not only were the two men in rival leagues, but they had an acrimonious relationship. Bolden’s team had been an associate member of the NNL in its first three seasons (1920-22), but when he decided to withdraw from the league, Foster refused to refund the $1,000 deposit Bolden had paid to join. Bolden then formed the ECL in 1923 and raided the rosters of NNL teams to strengthen his league and make Hilldale a more dominant club.5

Fortunately for the fans, Bolden and Foster agreed to meet in New York in September 1924 and have a discussion. After a six-hour meeting, they were able to work out their differences, which allowed the Negro World Series to proceed.6  

That first Negro World Series featured two outstanding teams. Hilldale, the ECL champions, had star players who included veteran catcher Louis Santop, a .354 hitter in 1924; he was frequently praised for his work ethic and knowledge of the game, as well as for his ability to “hit the ball farther than anybody.”7 Third baseman Judy Johnson, who was well on the way to becoming “one of the legends of black baseball, for his fielding excellence and superior hitting,”8 had a .336 batting average; the versatile Biz Mackey, who could play three positions, had hit .330; and left fielder Clint Thomas, a skilled defensive player and clutch hitter, praised by veteran pitcher Dizzy Dismukes at the end of the season as “the most improved ballplayer I ever saw.”9

Hilldale’s player-manager, Frank Warfield, who was considered by many Black sportswriters to be the best second baseman anywhere,10 also had a great year at the plate, with a .309 batting average. Among Hilldale’s pitchers, Nip Winters was regarded as “the finest southpaw in baseball today … [and] one of the most consistent pitchers in the league.”11 In 1924 he had a record of 20-5.    

Hilldale’s opponents, the Kansas City Monarchs, were equally talented. The NNL pennant-winners had many star players, including outfielder Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, a .366 hitter that year; Newt Joseph, whose .375 batting average led the Monarchs, and whom even his competitors praised as “the greatest third baseman in the game today”;12 shortstop Dobie Moore, known for being a tough hitter to get out,13 who had a .355 average; and right fielder Hurley McNair, nicknamed the “toy cannon” for his ability to “launch a ball with his bat on any pitch.”14

Catcher Frank Duncan was praised as one of the NNL’s best, with a great throwing arm,15 and the ace of the pitching staff, Bullet Joe Rogan, the “greatest [all-around] baseball player in the game,” who was not only an outstanding pitcher and a capable hitter, but someone who could “play every position on the team.”16 And the Monarchs’ 39-year-old player-manager, José Méndez, was known not only as a no-nonsense manager but also one of the most overpowering pitchers in the game.17

Ollie Womack (erroneously bylined as “Ollie Mack” in several publications) compared the teams. He concluded that while each had slight advantages – the Monarchs had a stronger infield, while Hilldale had a better outfield – the two teams were “as evenly matched as could be expected.” He predicted the fans would see “real baseball entertainment” during the series.18

That turned out to be an understatement. It was supposed to be a best-of-nine series, but neither team was able to dominate the other. At the end of the ninth game, each team had won four. (One game had ended in a 13-inning tie, called because of darkness.)

And so, on Monday, October 20, Hilldale and Kansas City played a 10th game, to determine the series winner. They met at Schorling Park in Chicago, where Games Eight and Nine had been played. It was a cloudy and windy day, with temperatures only in the low 50s. Fans who attended wore overcoats and gloves and tried to keep warm; even the players wore sweaters while taking batting practice.19 The breezy conditions remained a factor during the game, making for some uncertainty when trying to catch popups and fly balls. 

Hilldale sent Script Lee to the mound, while the Monarchs, in a surprise move, went with Méndez, who hadn’t started a game since July 26, and who had pitched a scoreless inning in relief in the previous day’s game. Fans were probably unaware that the Cuban-born pitcher was ill with a viral infection, and had been advised by a doctor not to play;20 but he was so determined to bring the Monarchs the victory that he took the mound.

For the first seven innings, Game 10 was a pitching duel. Lee was overpowering – his submarine delivery was nearly unhittable and he held the Monarchs to just one single, by Duncan in the third. And despite having a fever, Méndez too was almost impossible to hit; through seven innings, he scattered three singles, and no Hilldale runner got to second base.  

But then in the eighth inning, in a decision that mystified baseball writer Frank “Fay” Young, who called it a “mistake,” Lee suddenly changed from his submarine pitches to an overhand delivery.21 The results were disastrous. The Monarchs’ offense came alive, scoring five runs on five hits. It began with a single to right-center by Dobie Moore, followed by a sacrifice from right fielder Hurley McNair.

Heavy Johnson then broke the scoreless tie, hitting a double that brought home Moore, much to the delight of the crowd. Duncan walked and Méndez helped his own cause with a single, but a coach held Johnson at third. Second baseman Newt Allen singled to right, and both Johnson and Duncan scored, making it 3-0. Allen went to second after the throw to the plate, and center fielder Dink Mothel’s single brought him and Méndez home, making the score 5-0.

And that is how it stayed. Méndez, who “pitched one of the best games of his career,”22 gave up a ninth-inning walk to Frank Warfield, providing Hilldale with a glimmer of hope. Throughout the series, Hilldale had consistently been able to score runs in the ninth inning.23 In Game Nine, a leadoff double by Judy Johnson in the top of the ninth, plus some sloppy fielding by the Monarchs, scored two, and led to a 5-3 Hilldale win, tying the series.24

But this time, Hilldale was unable to mount a comeback. Biz Mackey made the final out, and Méndez had pitched an impressive three-hit complete-game shutout, dominating Hilldale and making the many Kansas City fans in the crowd happy – some had driven 600 miles to see their team play.25 After 10 hard-fought games, the Monarchs were the first Negro world champions. Their Kansas City friends held a celebratory party for the team at Chicago’s Sunset Inn;26 the Hilldale players, undoubtedly disappointed, went back to their hotel, and then took the train home.27                    

When the final attendance figures came in, they showed that a total of 45,857 had seen the series; some games drew crowds as small as 584 fans (a game in Baltimore), while others drew more than 8,800 (a game in Kansas City). The final game of the series drew only 1,549.28

In the end, the losing Hilldale players received $193 each (about $3,400 in 2024); members of the winning Monarchs earned $308 each ($5,400 in 2024).29 Both Bolden and Foster were encouraged and expected larger crowds the next year. The Black sportswriters who covered the series were encouraged too; they noted that many of the White publications that generally ignored colored baseball sent reporters to cover the Negro World Series. A column in the Kansas City Call expressed gratification that for a change the White publications were writing something positive about Black people. “The series has shown that a Negro can get attention for a good deed well done, and that publicity is no longer the exclusive mark of our criminals.”30

Fay Young summed it up best: “All in all, it was a great series, a forerunner of something that is to become an institution in our midst each year, and the best thing that has ever happened for colored baseball.”31

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author is grateful to John Fredland, Gary Belleville, and Kurt Blumenau for their helpful suggestions. She would also like to thank the reference librarians at the Kansas City Public Library for their assistance.

Photo credit: José Méndez, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources in the Notes, the author consulted Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank.com, Proquest Historical Black Newspapers, Seamheads.com, Baseball-Reference.com, and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information.

https://retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1924/B10200KCM1924.htm

Notes

1 See for example, “Eastern and Western Officials Agree to Stage Negro World Series,” Washington Tribune, September 13, 1924: 4, or “Colored World Series to Begin October Third,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 12, 1924: 10.

2 While some sources said the club’s name was the Hilldale Giants, very few Black publications in 1924 called them that. They were most commonly referred to as “the Hilldale Club.” See for example, “Speed Is Big Factor in Keeping Hilldale Club on Top,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 25, 1942: 14.

3 “East Awaits Formal Challenge from West for Negro World Series,” Washington Tribune, September 6, 1924: 5.

4 “Western Man Says, ‘Let’s Have Negro World Series,’” Pittsburgh Courier, August 16, 1924: 7.

5 David George Surdam and Michael J. Haupert, The Age of Ruth and Landis: The Economics of Baseball During the Roaring Twenties (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 270-271.

6 “Colored World Series Is Arranged Between Clubs of East and West,” New York Age, September 13, 1924: 6.

7 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series: The 1924 Meeting of the Hilldale Giants and Kansas City Monarchs (McFarland, 2011), 93-94. Louis Santop was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, along with teammate Biz Mackey.

8 Neil Lanctot, Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and the Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994): 52. Johnson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1975.

9 Dizzy Dismukes, “Dismukes’ Diamond Dope,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 27, 1924: 13.

10 Lloyd P. Thompson, “Speed Is Big Factor in Keeping Hilldale Club to Fore in Eastern Race,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 26, 1924: 7.

11 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 102.

12 William Ross, “Why I Pick Hilldale to Win the Negro World Series,” Washington Tribune, September 27, 1924: 5.

13 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2016): 48.

14 Young, 48.

15 “Kansas City Has Babe Ruth of Its Own in Johnson,” Baltimore Evening Sun, October 2, 1924: 37.

16 “Sweatt Only Monarch Not Reported Will Arrive Soon,” Kansas City Sun, April 19,1924: 3. In 1924 Rogan won 16 games for the Monarchs. In 1998 he was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.    

17 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series: 79-80.

18 Ollie Mack, “Negro World Series Players Compared,” Kansas City Call, October 10, 1924: 7.

19 “Kansas City Crowned World Champions,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 25, 1924: 6.

20 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 175.

21 Frank A. “Fay” Young, “Kansas City Wins Championship,” Chicago Defender, October 25, 1924: 1, 9.

22 “Monarchs Defeat Hilldale 5 to 0 and Cop Negro World Series Title,” Kansas City Journal, October 21, 1924: 6.

23 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 176.

24 “Monarchs Drop 5-3 to Philadelphia Club; Play for Title Today,” Kansas City Journal, October 20, 1924: 5.

25 “Kansas City Wins the Colored World Series,” St. Louis Argus, October 24, 1924: 7.

26 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs, 53.

27 Frank A. “Fay” Young, “Kansas City Wins Championship”: 9.

28 Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, 178.

29 David George Surdam and Michael J. Haupert, The Age of Ruth and Landis, 271. By comparison, in the 1924 World Series between the American and National League champions, members of the winning Washington Nationals received $5,959.64 and losing New York Giants received $3,820.29. “World Series Gate Receipts,” Baseball-Almanac.com, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/wsshares.shtml. Accessed September 2024.

30 William A. Young, J.L. Wilkinson and the Kansas City Monarchs, 53.

31 Frank A. “Fay” Young, “Kansas City Wins Championship”: 9. The Negro World Series was played from 1924 to 1927 and from 1942 to 1948.