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Twenty-five-year-old rookie Bert Brenner took the hill in the first game of a September 21, 1912, scheduled doubleheader (game 2 was rained out) in New York. The Cleveland Naps had purchased his contract from Racine and wanted to see what the youngster could do. Using mostly his fastball and working the corners, especially the inside […]

Billy Horne was a Negro League second baseman and shortstop who played for several clubs in his 15-season career, from 1935 to 1949. He was a left-handed hitter, threw right-handed, stood 5-feet-5 and weighed 152 pounds. Nicknamed Little Grumbler and Aussa, Horne was regarded as a fine defender and appeared in several all-star games.1 William […]

Negro league fans called him “the black Lou Gehrig,” putting Buck Leonard in pretty lofty company. It didn’t hurt Buck that he followed Josh Gibson, “the black Babe Ruth,” in the Homestead Grays’ lineup. Was Buck Leonard the equal of Gehrig as a first baseman and hitter? He probably was a better first baseman than the […]

The mere mention of Edgar “Blue” Washington evokes thought and a curious smile, as he is undoubtedly one of the rarest of all Negro League treasures. During the early part of the twentieth century, Edgar flaunted his athleticism as a gallant young prizefighter in open-air boxing arenas in Southern California and on weekend afternoons could […]

Of all those who proudly wore the uniform of the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, Monte Irvin was one of the last surviving players. He went on to a Hall of Fame career as a pioneering African American player in the major leagues. Montford Merrill Irvin was born in Haleburg, Alabama, on February […]

Del Pratt was arguably the second-best second baseman of the second decade of the 20th century. And his argumentative nature led The New York Times’ John Kieran to call him “the greatest clubhouse lawyer baseball ever knew.” Pratt was born into a well-off family on January 10, 1888, in Walhalla, South Carolina, near the Georgia-North […]

Right-hander Walter Ball was one of the top pitchers in early black baseball, often being favorably compared with a contemporary, Hall of Famer Rube Foster. In the prime of his career, the Indianapolis Freeman remarked, “everyone knows that Walter Ball and ‘Steel Arm’ Johnny Taylor are the most sensational pitchers of the race.”1 Lacking great […]

While the North’s Civil War victory and the 13th Amendment ended slavery in 1865, ensuring political and civil rights for blacks remained an unsettled question. During the war, a new generation of black leaders emerged to succeed old abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Among them was Octavius Catto, a Renaissance man who […]

Red Barber described how Graham McNamee helped break the ground for him and other great baseball voices, starting in the early 1920s. “There was no lamp of experience for the pioneer broadcasters. They had no past by which to judge the future. This is what made McNamee and the others so great. Nobody had ever […]

Imagine a sudden official statement that George Washington was not, in fact, elected the first President of the United States. For followers of Puerto Rican baseball, such was the magnitude of the announcement that José “El Gacho” Torres, not Hiram Bithorn, was the first man born on the island to play in baseball’s “major leagues.” […]

“[Joe] Taylor has such a vile reputation that I guess I couldn’t have the remotest interest in him, but he impressed me very much as a player.” – Branch Rickey1 “When Taylor is ‘right’ he is definitely a Major League hitter. He has great reflexes, terrific wrist action and tremendously quick hands. He has as much […]

Dave Magadan was an artist with the bat. He lacked power. He lacked speed. He wasn’t known for his glove at either first or third base. But his deft spray hitting and patience at the plate — .390 lifetime on-base percentage — kept him in the majors from September 1986 through 2001. This skill also […]

A onetime budding prospect in the Milwaukee Braves’ organization, Al Spangler drew favorable comparisons to Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn for his speed and pesky hitting throughout much of his early career. Seemingly in spite of the table-setting success of an Ashburn-like talent, Spangler often found himself on teams in search of a power-hitting slugger, […]

It’s not unusual for a player who has a cup of coffee in the majors to be unknown to fans; not every player can gain the notoriety of Moonlight Graham. Malachi Hogan could certainly claim to be more obscure than any of the others. He played a single game in August 1901, but his true […]

In 1908 John Donaldson was a tall, slender young man from small-town America with a strong left arm and the hand/eye coordination required to squarely hit a round ball with a round bat, yet there was no place for him in Organized Baseball. Because he was a black man. But using his talent and personality, […]

Lefty Glover was one of the players who followed the Elite Giants when they relocated from Washington to Baltimore in 1938. Though he pitched for the Elites for over seven seasons, until recently Glover’s background and even his real name were clouded in mystery. However, the discovery of his death certificate in 2020 uncovered his […]

The Brattleboro, Vermont, newspaper read, “The death of Dr. O’Connor removes a capable physician…a man whose warm personality made friends of all his acquaintances, a husband who manifested a strong affection for his wife.”1 Dr. F. H. O’Connor had played briefly in the major leagues, making the comments reminiscent of Minnesota doctor Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, […]

“Dressen first saw this boy in Boston in 1944 when a group of boys came to Braves Field for a tryout. Charlie liked him then and the club (Brooklyn) signed him.” – Brooklyn scout John “Red” Corriden, speaking about Clem Labine, October 2, 19511   He would ultimately become known as the man with the […]

In June of 1964, the College World Series was rocked by the unexpected arrival of a fearless, giant-killing pack of Black Bears.1 Making their first appearance at the national college championship tournament,2 the University of Maine Black Bears arrived in memorable fashion. The newcomers, ranked 19th in the country, beat seventh-ranked Seton Hall University, second-ranked […]

“Of all the skills wrapped up in the complex game of big league baseball, none is practiced with more ingenuity and less publicity than the fine art of diamond larceny.” – Martin Abramson1 A wiring system sending signals to an in-ground junction box and a vibrating device or maybe a telescopic sight from a World […]

If you were a fan of semipro baseball in New England in the late 1920s, you knew who Will “Cannonball” Jackman was, and you couldn’t wait for the Philadelphia Colored Giants to come to town, so that you could watch him pitch. Jackman’s semipro career began in 1921 with the Houston Black Buffaloes.1 He joined […]

In September 1922, the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro Southern League played a nine-game “Dixie Series” with the Dallas Black Giants of the Texas Colored League to determine the Negro champion of the South. It was patterned after the white Dixie Series, which pitted the pennant winners of the Southern Association and Texas League. […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords” (2020), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   As the 1935 baseball season approached, Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee had every reason to be optimistic about his team’s chances to win the Negro National League championship. Although the 1934 squad had […]

This article appears in SABR’s “The Base Ball Palace of the World: Comiskey Park” (2019), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.   Comiskey Park opened during the summer of 1910,1 and the Chicago White Sox broke in their new home with a 2-0 loss to the St. Louis Browns. After hosting decades of American League baseball […]