Whirty: Louis Armstrong’s ‘Secret 9’: a name behind a face
From SABR member Ryan Whirty at Home Plate Don’t Move on December 18, 2019:
For the last year-plus, I’ve been gradually working, with much-appreciated assistance from several folks, to identify and discover more about the famous photo of the Secret 9 semipro baseball team owned by Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong, in the early 1930s in New Orleans.
That photo, shown above, has been a source of both great pride and great mystery here in NOLA, because so far, none of the players had been identified, the source of the photo remains an enigma, and the nature of the team’s possible connection to the famed Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club has been been nearly impossible to define.
I’ve written about the Secret 9 in several publications, including here and here.
But over the past year, there’s been several breakthroughs in the slog to unearth facts and put to rest fiction surrounding the Secret 9! One of those epiphanies has been the identification of one of the players in the photo, and here’s a multi-part tale of that discovery and the talented, influential athlete at the center of the find.
Read the full article here: https://homeplatedontmove.wordpress.com/2019/12/18/satchmos-secret-9-a-name-behind-a-face/
Originally published: December 19, 2019. Last Updated: December 19, 2019.