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Jim “Zipper” Zapp played a big role in getting the Birmingham Black Barons to the 1948 World Series against the Homestead Grays. It was a season that had seen a young rookie named Willie Mays spell him in the second game of a doubleheader. Zapp was a big right-handed outfielder, standing 6-feet-2 or -3 and […]

There is a kind of Holy Trinity of obsessions all serious baseball fans believe in. First, they fixate on statistics perhaps more than fans of any other major sport in America. Even the most casual fan at a game is bombarded with a barrage of facts and figures from attendance tallies to numbers quantifying a […]

Hank Thompson, a New York Giants mainstay from 1949 to 1956, is the answer to a host of trivia questions about black players. He was the first acknowledged black player to play for the Giants. He was also the first acknowledged black player to take the field for the St. Louis Browns, having received a […]

The greatest shortstops in Negro League history were John Henry Lloyd (first), Willie Wells (second), and Dick Lundy (third), according to a 1952 Pittsburgh Courier poll of Negro baseball experts. Today Lundy is less well known than Lloyd and Wells, who are in the Hall of Fame, but during his career, everyone following Negro League […]

Robert B. Ward didn’t get involved with professional baseball to make money. Ward, a successful businessman who owned the largest baking company in the United States, got involved with the Federal League after listening to a sales pitch from James Gilmore, the president of the league. “I never expected to make any fortune in baseball,” […]

For Johnny Mitchell, it was a long slog making it through the minor leagues and up to the bigs – but he made it and broke in with the New York Yankees in 1921. He’d paid his dues along the way and seemed to have a penchant for playing on pennant-winning teams, despite never being […]

Bill Harvey was a left-handed pitcher and outfielder who played parts of up to 21 years in the Negro Leagues, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Though unimposing both physically (5-feet-8, 175 pounds) and statistically (31-52, 5.68 ERA in 140 official Negro League games), Harvey had a long and colorful career that was not without its share […]

Of the players officially expelled from Organized Baseball in the early 1920s, Gene Dale was among the least notorious. A lanky right-handed pitcher, Dale had won 18 games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1915 but was no longer a major leaguer at the time of his banishment. Rather, his disgrace emanated from suspected involvement in […]

Joseph Patton Evans was born on May 15, 1895, in Meridian, Mississippi, the fourth of nine children born to Albert and Ida Evans. Albert supported his family by working as an engineer on a locomotive.1 Eventually a 5’9”, 146-pound man, Joe Evans was given the name “Little Joe” by his classmates much earlier. In truth, […]

Leon “Boogie Wolf” Childress is one of many obscure “ghost players” of the Negro Leagues, a player skilled enough to make it onto the rosters and even into group photographs of some very good teams, but never earning regular playing time or appearing in any statistical record. Leon was born on June 23, 1910, in […]

On the morning of May 28, 1916, a lean, lefthanded pitcher took the mound in Oakland for the hometown Oaks. Jimmy Claxton’s debut in the Pacific Coast League was with a team desperate for pitching. The Oaks had already slipped into the basement, where they would remain for the rest of the season, finishing 72-136. […]

“He was a beautiful person. Yes he was. Cool Papa Bell. He was a lovable person. And still is. And always has been. I love him. My goodness, that’s one beautiful man.” – Dave Barnhill (hard-throwing ace pitcher and all-star of the New York Cubans)1 “He had time for everybody. Never hurried. Signed autographs, talked […]

Baseball has yet to take firm hold in the island of Jamaica, even though it is surrounded by other nations with a strong tradition in the sport. As the 2018 season ended, four men of Jamaican birth have made it to the majors, all of whom learned the game in the United States. The first […]

Hall of Famer and Negro League legend Judy Johnson called Sam Bankhead “one of the greatest outfielders we had.”1 Wilmer “Red” Fields, ace pitcher and 1948 World Series-winning Homestead Grays teammate, said, “He was the greatest team player I ever saw.”2 Blessed with a cannon for an arm, a penchant for clutch hitting, and the […]

June 15, 1977 is a black day in the history of the New York Mets. On that date, in what came to be known as The Midnight Massacre, M. Donald Grant, the team’s chairman of the board, traded away Tom Seaver, a/k/a “The Franchise,” to the Cincinnati Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Dan Norman, […]

On April 16, 1945, after fierce lobbying by Pittsburgh Courier columnist Wendell Smith,1 the Boston Red Sox held a tryout at Fenway Park for three African American players: Jackie Robinson, Sam Jethroe, and 25-year-old Marvin Williams.2 The trio took infield practice and hit against Red Sox pitchers, but not one player was signed. Manager Joe […]

A superior defensive catcher, the well-traveled Leon Ruffin was a member of the 1946 Newark Eagles and a Negro League all-star that same year. Ruffin’s defensive skills were legendary. He was noted for his ability to handle pitching staffs and to detect a batter’s weakness. He had a strong throwing arm that was considered one […]

Tampa Bay Devil Rays Opening Day program from March 31, 1998. (Courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays) Nestled along Florida’s Gulf Coast, St. Petersburg exudes a charm that has captivated both residents and visitors for decades. However, beneath its sun-soaked exterior lies a history enriched by the sport that has captured the hearts of many: […]

When the Negro National League opened play in 1920, its membership included the Chicago Giants, piloted by Black baseball veteran Joe Green and federated in Rube Foster’s organization after many years as an independent club. The Giants won only five league games in their debut season but were two outs from starting 1921 with back-to-back […]

The East-West All-Star Game was the highlight of the Negro Leagues’ season, bigger even than the Negro World Series. Begun in 1933 at the Chicago White Sox’ Comiskey Park, in the same year as the All-Star Game in the then-segregated White major leagues, the Black game regularly outdrew its counterpart during World War II, when […]

The Boston Red Sox had the opportunity to sign Jackie Robinson at a supposed tryout at Fenway Park in April 1945.1 Instead, it was more than 14 years later – after every one of the other 15 teams in the American and National leagues had integrated, and after Robinson himself had been retired for nearly […]

Although the misconception has long been debunked by baseball historians, many still believe that Jackie Robinson in 1947 became the first black man to play major-league baseball. Others contend that the recent discovery that former slave and mulatto William Edward White had a one-game major-league career in 1879 means he should be acclaimed as the […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project. Federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was hired as baseball’s first commissioner in November 1920. He served in that role for nearly a quarter-century until his death in 1944. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   Only in the face of extreme […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (2019), edited by Don Zminda.   As a franchise, the Chicago White Sox have had a colorful history. With all the organization has endured over the years, some may consider them the most literary of professional baseball teams. Great 20th century writers […]