McCormick: SABR member Ted Knorr preserves memories of Negro Leaguer Rap Dixon
From M. Diane McCormick at PennLive.com on April 8, 2015, on SABR member Ted Knorr, founder of SABR’s Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference:
“Are you sitting down?” Ted Knorr asked. “You’re gonna think I’m making this up.”
Sure, I was sitting down. Sometimes I think sitting down is what I do for a living. Knorr then hit me with a few facts about Herbert “Rap” Dixon, the Steelton native and Negro Leagues ballplayer.
Member of the 1924 Harrisburg Giants as part of the “greatest outfield in the Negro Leagues ever.” Touring Japan eight years before Babe Ruth. Getting 14 consecutive hits in 1929, two more than the Major League Baseball record.
And there’s this. Rap Dixon was the first African-American to hit a home run in Yankee Stadium, followed by another two in the second game of that day’s doubleheader.
Good thing Knorr made sure I was sitting down. Knorr, of Harrisburg and Swatara Twp., studies all things Rap Dixon, but I had never heard of him a couple of weeks ago. That’s when Susquehanna Twp. Public Safety Director Rob Martin led me to Midland Cemetery in Oberlin to see Dixon’s grave, kind of our way of celebrating the start of baseball season.
Read the full article here: http://www.pennlive.com/east-shore/index.ssf/2015/04/rap_dixon_negro_league.html
Originally published: April 8, 2015. Last Updated: April 8, 2015.