Bullet Joe and The Monarchs: Will Cooperstown Let Them In?

Little Bullet Joe Rogan may have been the greatest ballplayers ever to wear a Kansas City uniform. And that includes Satchel Paige. If Casey Stengel had had his way, the Bullet would have been in Cooperstown decades ago.

At 5-foot-8, Rogan barely reached Babe Ruth’s shoulders. But he deserves to stand beside Babe as one of the two greatest double-threat men, at bat and on the mound, in the history of the game. And not even Ruth could lead the league in both home runs and ERA in the same year — or bat .400 while topping all pitchers in wins, as Bullet did.

Joe was the best, but certainly not the only, superstar to come out of the Monarchs.

Because the early Hall of Fame selections were made by and eastern group, almost no Negro League stars have been enshrined. The team whose talent had been most overlooked is the Kansas City Monarchs.

If Negro Leaguers were held to the same standards that white Hall of Famers were, then at least four of the old Monarchs would be looking down from the walls of Cooperstown.

FRANK DUNCAN
Catcher

Duncan was not a super slugger like Josh Gibson or Johnny Bench – his lifetime average was just .246. But he was a top receiver and handler of pitchers, a man who could catch with Rick Ferrell and manage with Al Lopez, two white contemporaries who are in the Hall of Fame.

Dizzy Dean, who knew “Dunc” well, compared him to Gabby Hartnett of the Cubs.

Duncan was also Jackie Robinson’s first pro manager and skippered the Monarchs to two world championships, 1942 and 1946.

A Kansas City native, Duncan became a Monarch in 1922 at the age of 21, joining the older, grizzled army veterans such as Rogan, Dobey Moore, Heavy Johnson, and others. He proved as tough as they were.

In fact, he started perhaps the wildest free-for-all fight in blackball history, when he leaped at catcher Johnny Hines of their bitter rivals, the Chicago American Giants. In an instant both teams were pummeling each other, and Chicago fans were leaping over the railing to join in. As a catcher himself and an easy target for retaliation, it took nerve to do what Dune did.

And he was a good clutch hitter, says center fielder Willard Brown. “He could hit better with men on base, because he’d choke up and be right on that plate.”

In 1924, in the first modern black World Series, Duncan got one of the most famous hits in blackball history. Bases loaded, seventh game, top of the ninth, Monarchs losing 2-1, Philadelphia Hilldale catcher Louis Santop muffed Dunc’s easy pop foul — the blackball equivalent of the Fred Snodgrass muff of 1912. Duncan then drilled the next pitch through third baseman Biz Mackey’s legs to score the tying and winning runs.

In Oklahoma City in 1934, Dizzy Dean went down to the pool hall and got Duncan to catch a game for him. Naturally, city officials protested, but Dean told them, “Now if you all want me to pitch, if I’m good enough to pitch, he’s good enough to catch me, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.” The city fathers gave in.

Diz chuckled: “Duncan has a glove that makes that ball pop, and he makes my pitches sound like a rifle shot, and he tells them hitters, ‘Boy, don’t get near that plate, don’t let that ball hit your or it kills you.”

HILTON SMITH
Pitcher

If Smith had said funny things like “Never look back,” many believe he, and not Satchel Paige, might be in Cooperstown today.

Smith toiled in the glare of that blinding star known as Satchel Paige, but who was in reality a hyphenated pitcher named Paige-Smith.

For sheer pitching skills, many a black hitter admitted he would much rather face Satch than Hilton. Paige had only a fastball, they say, but Smith — you never knew what you were going to see.

Hilton had been the ace of the Monarch staff until Satchel joined them. Thereafter Smith often worked out of the bullpen, while Satchel started in order to draw a crowd. After two or three innings, Smith came in to complete the victory.

“Next day,” he sighed, “I’d read in the paper:

“SATCHEL AND MONARCHS WIN AGAIN.”

Smith’s lifetime won-lost was 69-33 for 13 years in the shortened Negro League schedule. (Most of the season they barnstormed against semipro teams.) But as a reliever, Hilton ranks alongside those two White Hall of Fame firemen, Hoyt Wilhelm and Rollie Fingers.

In 1941, Paige-Smith played Bob Feller and Ken Heintzelman of the Phils. Wrote Bob Burnes, sports editor of the St-Louis Globe Democrat, “Smith showed the best speed and sharpest curve of the quartet.” The big leaguers also boasted Stan Musial, Johnny Mizze, Johnny Hopp, Walker Cooper, and others. In five innings Smith gave one hit and struck out six.

In three games on the tour, Smith pitched 18 scoreless innings. “Mize didn’t get a hit off me the whole series,” Hilton said. “I guess I had a curve ball as good as anybody’s in baseball at that time. My fastball ran, it just jumped. I just kept it on the outside, the curve ball would break in, and the umpire would call it. He would hit the ball weakly back to me. He never was able to pull it.”

In postseason Negro League play, Smith had a perfect 3-0 record, including one win in the ’46 World Series against Newark’s Larry Doby and Monte Irvin. “Doby didn’t look too good,” Smith grinned. “Three straight times I struck him out, and he started jawing with the umpire.”

After the Series, Roy Campanella approached Smith to say the Dodgers wanted to talk to him. But Hilton was already 34 years old and didn’t want to take a $400 a month pay cut to join a minor league team. “Had there been other teams beside the Dodgers, I might have taken a chance.”

In October Smith joined Paige’s team against Feller’s All Stars — Mickey Vernon, Stan Musial, Phil Rizzuto, Charlie Keller, Jeff Heath, Ken Keltner, and others. Smith broke even, losing 6-3 and beating Feller 3-2.

In March ’47 he faced the Yankees. “For the first five innings,” John Drebinger of the New York Times wrote, “the Bombers ran into quite a Tartar in Hilton Smith, a right-hander who gave up only one hit, a single to Phil Rizzuto.”

JAMES LESLIE WILKINSON
Owner

The short, derby-hatted, genial Wilkie gave Satchel Paige his second chance in the big time and Jackie Robinson his first. He built two different Monarch dynasties, the champs of 1923-24-25 and the champs of 1937, ’39, ’42 and ’46.

Wilkinson was white. But he is being cited here, not as a great Negro, but as a great Negro Leaguer.

His greatest claim to fame was as a pioneer of night baseball. In 1930 in Enid, Oklahoma, his portable lighting system lit the darkness two weeks before Des Moines and the same night as Independence Kansas, the first two in Organized Baseball to play at night.

Wilkie took his lights to big league stadia in St. Louis, Detroit, and Pittsburgh five years before the Cincinnati Reds played the first official major league night game. And he spread the gospel of lights to minor league teams far and wide. Wilkinson’s gutsy investment in the teeth of the worst depression in history, saved the Negro Leagues and probably dozens of minor league teams as well.

As a semipro pitcher for Brooklyn, Iowa (“Why, I pitched for Brooklyn!”), in 1912 Wilkinson formed the All Nations team, made up of blacks, whites, Latins, Orientals, and one girl. The beat Rube Foster’s American Giants and the Indianapolis ABCs with Oscar Charleston, and the Sporting Life said they “could give any major league club a nip-and-tuck battle.”

In 1920 Wilkinson formed the Monarchs from his All Nations, plus a bevy of doughboy athletes Casey Stengel had found in Arizona. Four years later they won the first modern black World Series.

In 1935 Wilkie gave a job to a sore-armed pitcher just released by the Pittsburgh Crawfords — and Satchel Paige began a whole new career. Ten years later, Wilkinson signed a college football star and discharged Army lieutenant, Jackie Robinson.

He would lose both of them to the major leagues, along with 24 other players — Ernie Banks, Lou Brock, Elston Howard, Willard Brown, Hank Thompson, Connie Johnson, Gene Baker, etc. He received not a penny for Robinson and little or nothing for the others. but he never raised a voice in protest. He insisted that, “I wouldn’t stand in the way of a man who has a chance to better himself.”

But when the big league doors finally opened, without Wilkinson there might not have been a Robinson to go through them — or even a Negro League to give him the chance.

WILLARD BROWN
Center field, shortstop

For a decade, 1936-46, Willard Brown and Josh Gibson waged a battle to decide which was the most powerful black hitter in the world. Many a pitcher winced that Brown was.

Hilton Smith insisted that Brown was better than Jackie Robinson: “He was a better hitter, he was faster — Jackie was smart and studied how to run, but he wasn’t that fast. And Jackie had a poor arm, Willard had a real good arm. And power! Oh man, I’ve seen that guy hit one of the longest home runs I’ve ever seen right out here at this ball park (Muehlebach) against Satchel Paige in 1937. Brown hit the ball clear over everything, almost down to 18th Street. Man, that ball just sailed over the fence. At that time it was around 440 feet to center field.”

Willard hit with high average too. His .350 lifetime average is one of the highest in Negro League annals. Against big league barnstormers he batted .373.

And it is very possible that, had Brown been in the Major Leagues, he could have broken Babe Ruth’s home run record.

In 1946 Brown clubbed 13 home runs in only 62 at bats. Assuming 550 ABs is an average big league season, that would come to 115 homers. Of course he couldn’t maintain that for 154 games, but 61 home runs? Why not? Brown was a much better hitter than Hank Greenberg (58 homers) or Roger Maris (61).

The next year, aged 34, Brown hit the first black home run in the American League, an inside-the-parker off Hal Newhouser. He batted only .179 in 21 games, however, and the St. Louis Browns let him and Hank Thompson go rather than pay Wilkinson a bonus. Thompson got a second shot, with the New York Giants. Brown never got another chance.

But in Puerto Rico that winter, he slugged 27 homers in 155 at bats to smash Josh Gibson’s old mark of 13. (Rain washed out a 28th home run.) It’s still the all-time Puerto Rican record; closest to him is Reggie Jackson with 20. Brown’s total, incidentally, came to 129 per 550 at bats! Latin fans called him simply, “Esse Hombre” — “that man.”

Brown had four excellent seasons in the Texas League, where he dodged beanballs as the league’s first black position player. His best year, 1954, he hit .314 with 35 home runs. His teammate, Ken Boyer (.319, 21 homers) was promoted. Not Willard.

But “Willard Brown is my first choice for the Hall of Fame,” says pitcher Wilmer Fields, Josh Gibson’s teammate on the Homestead Grays. “There were no fences too far for him. i know, because he hit a couple off me. You generally remember those who hurt you. God knows how good he could have been.”

BULLET JOE ROGAN
Pitcher, center fielder, second base

Everyone who saw both Rogan and Satchel Paige agrees: Bullet Joe was the better pitcher — and Joe hit cleanup on the Monarch powerhouse as well.

“Old Rogan,” chuckled Dizzy Dean, “he was a showboat boy, a Pepper Martin ballplayer. He was one of those cute guys, never wanted to give you a ball to hit. Should be in the Hall of Fame.”

Casey Stengel, who discovered Rogan toiling for the Army on the Mexican border, also tried to get Cooperstown to open its doors to him. Dodger outfielder Bab Herman and Hall of Fame ump Jocko Conlan were others. Conlan saw Rogan beat Red Faber of the White Sox. “He had an easy deliver,” Conlan recalled, “and fast — much faster than Paige.”

Rogan didn’t even reach the Negro Leagues until he was 30 years old, but only four men won more games than he did:

Pitcher	W-L	Pct.
Bill Foster	137-62	.688
Satchel Paige	128-80	.608
Andy Cooper	118-57	.674
Bill Byrd	116-78	.598
Bullet Rogan	113-45	.715

Others:

Pitcher	W-L	Pct.
Joe Williams	80-48	.624
Hilton Smith	69-33	.676
Leon Day	66-29	.698

At bat Joe batted .343 lifetime. Says former Monarch Buck O’Neill, “You saw Ernie Banks hit in his prime — that was Rogan.” Could Rogan hit white big leaguers? In 16 games against white Major League players, from Buster Mails in 1920 to Bob Feller in 1937, Joe batted .389.

In the Negro Leagues he dominated both batters and hitters in one glorious four-year span. Because Negro league season were short, about 60 games a year, I relate home runs to a 154-game major league season, with the stat, HR/550 at bats. In pitching, earned runs were not tabulated, so I use TRA, or Total Run Average per nine innings.

 

	BA	HR/550	W-L	TRA	Awards**
1922	0.351	35*	13-6	3.55*	MVP
1923	0.416	43	11-7	N/A
1924	0.412	18	16*-5	4.35	MVP, Cy Young
1925	0.366	10	15*-2	2.17*	CY Young

* led league
** my choices

 

Satchel Paige never dominated the league in any one year, thus won no mythical Cy Youngs..

By 1929 Joe was no longer pitching in the Negro League. But he did take the mound that October against a major league all star team of Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Bob Meusel, and others. Joe got two hits in winning 10-3, and although Foxx hit him hard, Simmons (.365 that year) couldn’t touch him. Four times in a row Rogan struck him out. In the ninth, Al batted out of turn to try to get a hit — and whiffed again.

Simmons is in the Hall of Fame. Will Rogan and the other Monarchs be allowed to join him?