Miyamoto: Mayor Lionel Wilson’s life and times before the Oakland Larks
From SABR member Musashi Miyamoto at Shadow Ball Express on February 19, 2015:
I just finished reading a post called “Looking Back: California’s Negro League“, by Ralph Pearce, written for the San José Public Library.
It was nice, informative, and mentioned in passing, Lionel “Lefty” Wilson, former Mayor of Oakland, California. Lionel was one of the Oakland Larks pitching staff, along with Marion “Sugar” Cain, Wade James, “Wee Willie” Jones, and Charles “Specks” Roberts. Not many people know that Lionel “Lefty” Wilson was part of the Oakland Larks pitching staff, but they know even less about how many years he played the game of baseball as a formidable semi-professional pitcher on multiple teams in the Berkeley Colored League, and other East Bay Area teams in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I’ve always wanted to do a post about Mayor Wilson’s abilities as a baseball wunderkind, utilizing the sporting skills he amassed, which served him well during his three terms in office as Oakland’s first African American mayor, that lasted from 1977 to 1991. Lionel Wilson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the eldest son of Jules and Louise Wilson, when Lionel’s family moved to Oakland in 1918, and Lionel was just under four years of age. He and his two young brothers, Kermit and Julius, along with Jules’ mother, Mary Wilson, left the South to forge ahead and seek new opportunities in California during the period of the Great Migration. As a boy, he spent a good deal of his time playing sports and delivering newspapers throughout the Oakland and Berkeley proper–on foot.
Read the full article here: https://shadowballexpress.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/negro-league-baseball-mayor-lionel-wilsons-life-and-times-before-the-oakland-larks/
Originally published: February 23, 2015. Last Updated: February 23, 2015.