Whirty: What happened to Negro Leaguer Edward ‘Ace’ Stone?
From SABR member Ryan Whirty at Delaware Today on March 30, 2015:
Delaware has always been proud of its most decorated Negro Leaguer, Hall of Fame third baseman Judy Johnson. There’s even a commemorative plaque and statue at Wilmington’s Frawley Stadium, which Blue Rocks fans will be able to see when the minor-league team plays its home opener at Judy Johnson Field on April 16. But not every local Negro Leaguer receives such recognition. For instance, whatever happened to Edward “Ace” Stone, a Wilmington native who was an outfielder in the ’30s and ’40s? Stone enjoyed a fairly solid career in the Negro Leagues, as well as with several integrated teams in Latin America.
But when he died, possibly in the early ’80s, his remains seemingly vanished, his burial location left unknown to legions of modern Negro Leagues scholars and enthusiasts. While Stone did make a name for himself in the Negro Leagues, beginning in the early 1930s with the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, he can’t be considered an all-time great, says Neil Lanctot, a historian and expert on black baseball in the Mid-Atlantic states. “I don’t know much about Stone,” he says. “He was not a star in the Negro Leagues, but he was obviously a solid ballplayer—he was recruited to play in Mexico, which was basically AAA-level baseball.” In May 1946, for example, famed African-American sports scribe W. Rollo Wilson lamented Stone’s decision to leave the Philadelphia Stars for a team in Mexico, praising the outfielder’s abilities. “Stone, one of the real sluggers of the [Stars],” Wilson wrote, “and whose long hits have kept many a rally going in past years, has already left for south of the border, where he will be assigned to one of the power-packed clubs of so-called ‘outlaws.’”
Read the full article here: http://www.delawaretoday.com/Delaware-Today/April-2015/What-Happened-to-Baseball-Player-Edward-Ace-Stone/
Originally published: March 30, 2015. Last Updated: March 30, 2015.