September 11, 1948: Willie Mays singles home the Game 1 winner for Black Barons in extra innings

A teenage Willie Mays with the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays’ father did not allow him to join the Black Barons full-time in 1948 until school was over at the end of May. (Courtesy of Memphis Public Library)

On Saturday, September 11, 1948, Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, hosted Game One of the Negro American League Championship Series between the Birmingham Black Barons and the Kansas City Monarchs. The series featured a matchup between first-year managers and was expected to be a hotly contested because both teams had “plenty of hitting, power, pitching and fielding.”1

Birmingham was managed by player-manager Piper Davis. The Black Barons had won the championship of the first half of the NAL and finished with a league-best record of 63-28-2 (.692).2

The Black Barons’ powerful offense included shortstop Artie Wilson, who won the league batting title with a sizzling .433 average; Davis, who primarily played second base and batted .393; and right fielder Ed Steele, who hit .357 with 3 home runs. Rookie Willie Mays, who was just 17 years old, became the team’s center fielder after regular starter Norman Robinson broke his ankle, and hit .262.3 The club also had a solid pitching staff led by Jimmie Newberry (14-5, 2.18 ERA), Bill Powell (11-3, 3.30), Bill Greason (6-4, 3.30), and Alonzo Perry (10-2, 4.73).4

Their counterparts from Kansas City had won the second-half championship of the NAL and finished with a record of 67-34-3 (.663). The Monarchs were managed by player-manager Buck O’Neil and had an intimidating lineup of their own with perhaps the best-hitting outfield in the NAL. The Monarchs were led by center fielder Willard Brown, who hit .408 and crushed 7 home runs; Hank Thompson in right field, who hit .337 with 5 homers and 12 steals; and left fielder Johnie Scott, who batted .300. Another outfielder, 19-year-old rookie Elston Howard, would later gain fame as a catcher with the New York Yankees.

The Monarchs’ pitching staff was every bit as good as Birmingham’s. It was led by Jim LaMarque (15-5, 1.96 ERA), Ford Smith (10-5, 2.64), Gene Collins (9-3, 2.23), and Gene Richardson (5-6, 4.40).5

Future Hall of Fame pitcher Hilton Smith was 41 years old. Depending on the source, he may have had a terrible season or an above-average one. According to the Howe News Bureau, Smith posted a 1-2 record in the NAL with an ERA of 8.02 in 46 innings pitched. Though Seamheads seems to contradict Howe, showing Smith with a 4-2 record and a 3.96 ERA in 62⅔ innings, baseball historian Gary Ashwill explains that the Seamheads numbers include seven regular-season games against NAL teams (in which Smith went 2-2 with a 5.92 ERA in 38 IP), along with four appearances in interleague games against NNL teams, in which he was 2-0 with a 2.10 ERA in 25⅔ IP).

According to Ashwill: “It looks like he had some good performances in interleague games that didn’t count in the official NAL stats, plus a few bad innings against NAL opponents that were counted in official league stats, but that are not represented in our statistics because no box scores were published.” If the interleague games with box scores included in Smith’s Seamheads totals are added to Howe’s official NAL statistics, Smith finished either 3-2 or 4-2 with a 5.90 ERA in 71⅔ IP against major Negro League teams in the 1948 regular season.”6

In Game One, Davis handed the ball to his reliable right-hander, Powell, while O’Neil countered with left-hander LaMarque, who had a reputation as a soft-tosser with pinpoint control.7 A reported crowd of 5,300 passed through the turnstiles to see the Saturday night game.8 After four innings, the game was scoreless but hardly a pitchers’ duel as the teams had already combined to strand 12 baserunners.

The Monarchs squandered their best early opportunity to score when shortstop Gene Baker led off the game with a walk and Herb Souell singled. Facing an early deficit and with their run-producers, Thompson, Brown, and Howard, coming up, Powell settled down and recorded three straight outs, although the details of how he escaped the inning are lost to history.

Birmingham’s hitters were even more frustrated early in the game as LaMarque proved easy to hit but difficult to score against. The Black Barons stranded two baserunners in each of the first four innings. In the bottom of the fifth, they finally broke through.

Davis and Mays opened the inning with singles. Steele reached on an error by pitcher LaMarque to load the bases. The pitcher began to struggle with his control. He walked left fielder Jim Zapp and then hit catcher Pepper Bassett with a pitch. With the Black Barons now leading, 2-0, with no outs and the bases still loaded, first baseman Joe Scott hit into a force, and Steele was thrown out at home. LaMarque was able to record the second out of the inning against the next batter, Powell. However, leadoff hitter Wilson got a base hit, scoring Zapp. The Monarchs then got out of the inning but trailed, 3-0.

Kansas City immediately stormed back, scoring three runs in the top of the sixth to tie the score.9 Thompson opened the frame with a walk. Needing to give his team a spark, he stole second. With one out, Howard singled, moving Thompson to third. After Monarchs’ first baseman Tom Cooper made an out, second baseman Curtis Roberts singled, scoring Thompson and moving Howard to third. Roberts made a heads-up play by hustling into second as the ball was thrown to third. Catcher Earl Taborn followed with a single to score Howard and Roberts and tie the game, 3-3. Powell got LaMarque for the final out, but the damage was done.

The Black Barons threatened again in the sixth and seventh innings but again stranded runners and the game remained tied. But in the top of the eighth, the Monarchs’ Brown hit a leadoff single and ratcheted up the pressure on the Black Barons’ defense by stealing second. Howard’s single moved him to third. After an out, Roberts singled again, driving in Thompson to give the Monarchs a 4-3 advantage. But with two on and only one out, the Monarchs failed to add to their lead as Powell induced back-to-back outs from Taborn and LaMarque.

Birmingham failed to score in the bottom of the eighth, and Powell recorded three straight outs in the top of the ninth. Birmingham’s Bassett opened the bottom of the ninth with a double. Manager Davis replaced his slow-footed 37-year-old catcher with a pinch-runner, second baseman Wiley Griggs. The move paid off when Greason, pinch-hitting for Powell, singled and drove home Griggs to tie the game, 4-4. However, the Black Barons’ threat soon ended and the game went into extra innings.

Griggs remained in the game at second in place of the versatile Davis, who moved behind the plate with Bassett out of the game. Greason stayed in the game to pitch and breezed through the Monarchs’ order in the 10th. The Black Barons also couldn’t score in the frame and the game remained tied.

In the 11th, Newberry relieved Greason. Roberts reached on an error but the crafty left-hander picked him off and the threat soon ended. In the bottom of the inning, O’Neil removed LaMarque and brought Richardson into the game. Scott led off with a single. After Newberry popped out, Wilson walked. Richardson then uncorked a wild pitch and both runners moved up. Richardson then walked John Britton to fill the bases with one out. The next batter, Davis, popped up to second.

With two outs and the bases loaded, Mays came to the plate. The Black Barons had already stranded a whopping 20 or 21 runners to just 8 for Kansas City.10 Mays was unfazed and ended the game with a sharp single to second, which scored Scott. Author John Klima described the moment in Willie’s Boys:

“It didn’t matter how you pitched to Mays because he didn’t care. He hit like he was trying to hurt someone. This time, Mays hit a full-count pitch hard behind second base. Roberts was extraordinarily fast, so he was able to scramble to his right to knock down the drive as he slid on the seat of his pants. He stopped the ball but could not control it. When he saw Mays dashing down the first base line with the hat flying off his head, he knew he had no chance to stop Scott, who charged home with the winning run in Birmingham’s dramatic 5-4 victory.

“The Black Barons streamed from their dugout and surrounded Mays on the infield grass, celebrating the child, who basked in the moment.”11

Davis led the Black Barons with four hits, while Wilson had three. Four other players (Mays, Bassett, Powell, and Scott) contributed two hits each. Powell struck out eight over his nine innings pitched and Newberry was credited with the win.

Howard led the Monarchs with three hits, while Brown and Cooper added two hits each. LaMarque struck out 8 in 10 innings pitched and Richardson got the loss.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the box score and play-by-play of the game presented by Retrosheet. This piece mostly uses official NAL pitching statistics compiled by the Howe News Bureau, as they cover more games than Seamheads, which includes only games for which box scores could be found.12

https://retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1948/B09110BIR1948.htm

NOTES

1  “Kansas City Ready for Black Barons Play-Off,” Birmingham Weekly Review, September 11, 1948: 7.

2  William J. Plott, Black Baseball’s Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons, 1919-1962 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2019), 180.

3  https://seamheads.com/NegroLgs/team.php?yearID=1948&teamID=BBB&LGOrd=3. Except as noted, most of the statistics in this biography are from Seamheads or Retrosheet.org.

4  Official Negro American League Statistics for 1948, compiled by the Howe News Bureau (Chicago).

5  Official Negro American League Statistics for 1948, compiled by the Howe News Bureau.

6  Email from Gary Ashwill, February 14, 2023.

7  John Klima, Willie’s Boys (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009), 154.

8  “Birmingham Grabs First 2 Games in Playoff Series,” Chicago Defender, September 18, 1948: 11; “Repeats Over Monarchs,” Kansas City Times, September 13, 1948: 15.

9  “Birmingham Grabs First 2 Games in Playoff Series.”

10 “Birmingham Grabs First 2 Games in Playoff Series.” The newspaper reported 20 runners; Retrosheet shows 21.

11 Klima, 158.

12 According to Gary Ashwill, “Seamheads statistics and the official Howe News data are not directly comparable, as Seamheads is based only on games for which box scores were published at the time (roughly half of Negro league games in the 1940s), and Seamheads regular season statistics include official NAL games as well as two categories of games that were not counted in the official numbers: unofficial games against NAL opponents, and interleague games against NNL teams. The Howe News Bureau statistics, by contrast, cover only official NAL regular season games, though they are more complete than Seamheads numbers in that category, as they include many games for which box scores were not published at the time.” Email from Gary Ashwill, February 14, 2023.