September 24, 1947: Noble’s slam gives Cubans 2-1 series lead

After a regular season in which the Negro American League’s Cleveland Buckeyes and Negro National League’s New York Cubans dominated their respective competition, they met in a Negro League World Series that proved to be the next to last postseason series in league history. When former Negro League star Jackie Robinson made his groundbreaking major-league debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, it portended the end of the Negro Leagues. Robinson had spent only one season in the NAL, playing shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 and batting .384 with 23 runs batted in 26 games.1

After an impressive 1946 season with Montreal of the Triple-A International League, Robinson made the Dodgers’ 1947 Opening Day roster and never looked back.2 Others soon followed. Center fielder Larry Doby debuted for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947; infielder-outfielder Hank Thompson suited up for the St. Louis Browns less than two weeks later; outfielder Willard Brown started in center field for the Browns on July 19; and pitcher Dan Bank-head joined Robinson in Brooklyn in late August.

When catcher Roy Campanella earned a permanent spot on Brooklyn’s roster in the summer of 1948, and legendary pitcher Satchel Paige made his first major-league appearance with the Indians on July 9, two days after his 42nd birthday, the writing was on the wall.

Before the 1947 Negro League World Series started, Joe Bostic of the New York Amsterdam News gave the Buckeyes a slight edge over the Cubans.3 The Buckeyes went 42-12 in the NAL and finished five games ahead of the Monarchs; the Cubans went 43-19 in the NNL and finished six games ahead of the Newark Eagles.4

They were evenly matched – the Cubans averaged 6.1 runs a game, while allowing 4.0; the Buckeyes averaged 5.8 runs a game, while also allowing 4.0 – but Bostic opined that speedy outfielder Sam Jethroe would be the difference.5 It made sense. Jethroe was one of the best players in the league and went on to be named the National League’s top rookie when he scored 100 runs and paced the NL in stolen bases with 35 for the Boston Braves in 1950.

Cleveland boasted four players who later appeared in the major leagues – Jethroe, catcher-manager Quincy Trouppe, shortstop Al Smith, and pitcher Sam Jones, the first African-American to throw a no-hitter in the big leagues.6 New York, however, also had major-league talent in third baseman Minnie Miñoso and catcher Ray Noble, who began their major-league careers with the Indians in 1949 and New York Giants in 1951, respectively.

Others of note included shortstop Silvio Garcia, right fielder Claro Duany, and pitcher Luis Tiant, a Cuban and Negro League legend whose son Luis enjoyed a successful major-league career during which he became a Boston icon. Tiant, who turned 41 on August 27, 1947, won all nine of his decisions for the Cubans, pitched to a 2.91 ERA, and led the NNL in strikeout-to-walk ratio at 3.18.7

Garcia led the Cubans with 32 RBIs and 9 stolen bases and Dodgers President and general manager Branch Rickey considered him a candidate to break the major leagues’ color barrier until Garcia admitted he wouldn’t be able to turn the other cheek when subjected to racial insults.8 Legend has it that Rickey asked Garcia, “What would you do if a white American slapped your face?” García was quick to answer. “I kill him,” he replied.9

Duany, who at 6-feet-2 and 215 pounds was affectionately nicknamed “El Gigante,” had segregationists question whether black and white players could coexist when he collided with former Dodgers catcher Mickey Owen at the Mexican League All-Star game on July 25, 1946. Duany attempted to steal home and when Owen blocked the plate and tagged Duany in the face, El Gigante took offense and decked Owen with one punch, causing the benches to clear and irate fans to climb fences in an effort to join the fray.10

Few things could have illuminated how even the Buckeyes and Cubans were than a 5-5 tie in a six-inning rain-shortened game at the Polo Grounds in New York that kicked off the Series on September 19. Game Two was played in front of 9,000 fans at Yankee Stadium on September 21 and once again, the teams were tied, this time at 7-7 through eight innings, before Cleveland scored three in the top of the ninth off starter Lino Donoso on a walk and four hits. Buckeyes third baseman Leon Kellman had four of Cleveland’s 17 hits, including two doubles.

Prior to the third game, to be played at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, Bostic doubled down on his opinion of the Buckeyes. “Now as it turns out, the American League kingpins have an edge in the brains department,” he wrote. “Quincy Troups [sic] shapes up as definitely the superior in the matter of strategy and playing the percentages.”11

He also felt the loss of Cubans center fielder Pedro Pagés would hurt New York and that moving left fielder Cleveland Clark to center would leave a gap in left field “much larger than anyone had ever anticipated.” He wasn’t high on Rufino Diaz and about Mario Ariosa he wrote, “Ariosa was something less than a ball of fire out there in the pasture.”12

Cleveland’s Game Two win proved to be its only victory in the series. For Game Three, the Buckeyes turned to right-hander Eugene “Flash” Bremer, a New Orleans native who was in his 11th of 12 seasons. Bremer finished his career in 1948 with a 3.13 ERA but posted a career-worst 5.28 ERA in 1947.13 New York manager José María Fernández countered with 33-year-old North Carolinian Dave Barnhill, a righty in his seventh season who finished his Negro Leagues career in 1948 with a career ERA of 3.08.14

The Cubans plated a run in the third to take a 1-0 lead. Barnhill kept the Cleveland offense at bay and the teams went to the bottom of the fifth with the Cubans still holding a slim advantage, but that all changed when Noble hit a bases-loaded bomb that landed on the left-field roof and New York extended its lead to 7-0 with a six-run inning. New York touched Bremer for another run in the bottom of the seventh to go up 8-0 before the Buckeyes showed some life with a four-run eighth.

Cleveland parlayed three singles and two walks to cut New York’s lead in half, but the Cubans added insult to injury with a run in the bottom of the eighth and Barnhill shut the Buckeyes down in the top of the ninth to secure a 9-4 win. Noble led the Cubans with three hits and five RBIs, Garcia went 2-for-4 and scored twice, Diaz contributed two hits and a run as did first baseman Lorenzo Cabrera, and Clark scored twice despite going hitless. Jethroe, Bremer, and left fielder Jesse Williams had two hits each for Cleveland, the former two scoring half of the team’s runs.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and SABR.org.

NOTES

1 Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database, seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerlD=robin01jac; Baseball-Reference.com lists Robinson as hitting .414 for Kansas City in 58 at-bats, but the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues database has him at .384 in 99 at-bats.

2 Robinson slashed .349/.468/.462 for Montreal in 1946, scored 113 runs, and stole 40 bases in 124 games.

3 Joe Bostic, “Sports Extra,” New York Amsterdam News, September 27, 1947: 13. Although the article was published after the World Series had already started and the series was tied at a game apiece, Bostic hadn’t changed his mind.

4 The Buckeyes and Cubans won-lost records were against teams in their own league. Counting wins and losses vs. all Negro League teams, the Cubans went 46-23-1 while the Buckeyes went 44-25-1.

5 Bostic, “Sports Extra.”

6 Pitching for the Chicago Cubs, Jones threw his no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 12, 1955, at Wrigley Field in Chicago. As of 2020 he is the last pitcher to throw a no-hitter in a season in which he lost 20 games.

7 Statistics courtesy of the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database.

8 Interview with Negro Leagues expert Gary Ashwill. Statistics courtesy of the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database.

9 Joseph Gerard, “Silvio Garcia,” sabr.org/bioproj/person/silvio-garcia/.

10 Interview with Negro Leagues expert Gary Ashwill; Gary Joseph Cieradkowski, “Claro Duany: The Giant,” studiogaryc.com/2018/04/02/claro-duany-the-giant/, April 2, 2018.

11 Bostic, “Sports Extra.”

12 Bostic, “Sports Extra.” Bostic referred to Pagés as “Page” and Clark as “Clarke.”

13 Statistics courtesy of the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database.

14 Statistics courtesy of the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database. Barnhill signed with the New York Giants in 1949 and spent three seasons with the Minneapolis Millers of the Triple-A American Association (1949-1951). He finished his career in the Class B Florida International League, pitching for Miami Beach in 1952 and Fort Lauderdale in 1953.